lampadatriste's top films
Given my limited and very peculiar viewing experience, these are the 250 (plus some) films I like the most. Sometimes for the most obscure reasons.
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- DirectorDavid LynchStarsKarolina GruszkaKrzysztof MajchrzakGrace ZabriskieAs an actress begins to adopt the persona of her character in a film, her world becomes nightmarish and surreal.
- DirectorPeter GreenawayStarsPeter WestleyAad WirtzMichael Murray92 BBC documentary-style shorts that record the lives of 92 victims of the VUE (Violent Unexplained Event), each with last names beginning with "Fall."
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsWerner HerzogThis film surveys the disaster of the Kuwaiti oil fields in flames, with little narration and scarcely any interviews. Hell on Earth is presented in such transcendent visions and music that one can only be fascinated by it.
- DirectorAndrei TarkovskyStarsNatalya BondarchukDonatas BanionisJüri JärvetA psychologist is sent to a station orbiting a distant planet in order to discover what has caused the crew to go insane.
- DirectorFernando LopesStarsLaura SoveralJoão GuedesZita DuarteA married couple of rich and depressed noblemen destroy the lives of their servants out of spite.
- DirectorPaulo RochaStarsRui GomesIsabel RuthRuy Furtado19-year-old Julio has just left the provinces to settle down in the outskirts of Lisbon. He lives in a poor area with his uncle Afonso and starts working as an apprentice shoemaker. At the shop he gets to know Ilda, a young housemaid and regular customer. Ilda is pretty, joyful, and modern, and Julio falls for her. The two young people, although very different from each other, embark on an idyll.
- DirectorAlberto Seixas SantosStarsLuís SantosDalila RochaIsabel de CastroA portrait of the everyday life of a typical middle-class family in parallel with the fall of the "Estado Novo", the 48-year dictatorship led by Salazar. The daughters' conflicts and frustrations with their parents, their grandmother and their maid find an obvious echo in the country's collective events. The Carnation Revolution is about to explode.
- DirectorDziga VertovStarsMikhail KaufmanElizaveta SvilovaA man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.
- DirectorPatrick KeillerStarsVanessa RedgraveA tour around England featuring images of nature and various industrialized and militarized settings.
- DirectorPedro CostaStarsVenturaVanda DuarteBeatriz DuarteWith the destruction of Fontainhas nearly complete, the old man Ventura wanders around a bleak housing project and the ruins of the slums, meeting with his kids and old friends.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsWalter SteinerWerner HerzogA study of the psychology of a champion ski-jumper, whose full-time occupation is carpentry.
- DirectorAndrei TarkovskyStarsAlisa FreyndlikhAleksandr KaydanovskiyAnatoliy SolonitsynA guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.
- DirectorStanley KubrickStarsJack NicholsonShelley DuvallDanny LloydA family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.
- DirectorFritz LangStarsRudolf Klein-RoggeOtto WernickeThomy BourdelleA criminal mastermind uses hypnosis to rule the rackets after death.
- DirectorThomas HarlanJacques d'ArthuysAnna DevotoStarsThomas HarlanMaria VitóriaJosé Neves PaivaThe rise and fall of a revolutionary cooperative movement established in a large private farm in Ribatejo, Portugal, from March to December 1975 (most part of the land occupations occurred in Alentejo, promoted by the communist party). In direct speech, sometimes to the camera, sometimes among themselves, the uneducated rural workers expose their misery, their suffering, their hopes, and ultimately their despair - when a socialist government orders the restitution of the land to their primitive owners, and these transform the land into a hunting reserve.
- DirectorStanley KubrickStarsKeir DulleaGary LockwoodWilliam SylvesterAfter uncovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar surface, a spacecraft is sent to Jupiter to find its origins: a spacecraft manned by two men and the supercomputer HAL 9000.
- DirectorCharles LaughtonStarsRobert MitchumShelley WintersLillian GishA self-proclaimed preacher marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real dad hid the $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.
- DirectorHollis FramptonStarsRosemarie CastoroGinger MichelsMarcia SteinbrecherA rhythmically edited alphabet composed of street and shop signs shot in New York City and other elements is gradually replaced by repeated seemingly abstract shots in this influential structuralist film.
- DirectorDavid CronenbergStarsJames SpaderHolly HunterElias KoteasAfter getting into a serious car accident, a TV director discovers an underground sub-culture of scarred, omnisexual car-crash victims who use car accidents and the raw sexual energy they produce to try to rejuvenate his sex life with his wife.
- DirectorJohn CassavetesStarsBen CarruthersLelia GoldoniHugh HurdCassavetes' jazz-scored improvisational film explores interracial friendships and relationships in Beat-Era (1950s) New York City.
- DirectorChris MarkerStarsAmilcar CabralFlorence DelayArielle DombasleA woman narrates the contemplative writings of a seasoned world traveler, focusing on contemporary Japan.
- DirectorAkira KurosawaIshirô HondaStarsAkira TeraoMitsuko BaishôToshie NegishiA collection of tales based upon eight of director Akira Kurosawa's recurring dreams.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsKlaus KinskiRuy GuerraHelena RojoIn the 16th century, the ruthless and insane Don Lope de Aguirre leads a Spanish expedition in search of El Dorado.
- DirectorJacques TatiStarsJacques TatiBarbara DennekRita MaidenMonsieur Hulot curiously wanders around a high-tech Paris, paralleling a trip with a group of American tourists. Meanwhile, a nightclub/restaurant prepares its opening night, but it's still under construction.
- DirectorSamuel BeckettAlan SchneiderStarsBuster KeatonNell HarrisonJames KarenA twenty-minute, almost totally silent film (no dialogue or music, save one 'shhh!') in which Buster Keaton attempts to evade observation by an all-seeing eye. But, as the film is based around Bishop Berkeley's principle 'esse est percipi' (to be is to be perceived), Keaton's very existence conspires against his efforts
- DirectorAntónio de MacedoStarsIsabel de CastroRuy de CarvalhoIsabel RuthReflections on life and death through the eyes of a medicine doctor, researcher on blood deseases, under the anguish of consulting a terminally ill young woman.
- DirectorAndrei TarkovskyStarsMargarita TerekhovaFilipp YankovskiyIgnat DaniltsevA dying man in his forties remembers his past. His childhood, his mother, the war, personal moments and things that tell of the recent history of all the Russian nation.
- DirectorManoel de OliveiraStarsLuís Miguel CintraDiogo DóriaMiguel GuilhermeEpisodes from entire military history of Portugal are told through flashbacks as a professorish soldier recounts them while marching through a Portuguese African colony in 1973. He easily draws his comrades into philosophical musings, and the little contingent suffers badly at the hands of the local military opposition.
- DirectorTeresa VillaverdeStarsAna MoreiraAlexandre PintoNelson VarelaThree homeless teenagers rejects struggle to survive together. Of them, Andreia is pregnant, while Pedro and Ricardo hustle, steal and are exploited by a pornographer.
- DirectorFrederick WisemanDocumentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman takes us inside the Massachusetts Correctional Institution Bridgewater where people stay trapped in their madness.
- DirectorCharles ChaplinStarsCharles ChaplinPaulette GoddardHenry BergmanThe Tramp struggles to live in modern industrial society with the help of a young homeless woman.
- DirectorGraham HeidWilfred JacksonStarsElvia AllmanMarie ArbuckleBarbara BrewsterAs a thunderstorm approaches, birds, mice and other creatures try to stay safe and dry in an old mill.
- DirectorRoberto RosselliniStarsEdmund MoeschkeErnst PittschauIngetraud HinzeA young German boy faces the problems of the tough life in the immediate post-WWII Berlin.
- DirectorEdgar MorinJean RouchStarsAngeloNadine BallotCatherineA documentary about the everyday lives of ordinary Parisians, done in the style of cinéma vérité.
- DirectorPatrick KeillerStarsPaul ScofieldJohn MajorNorma MajorAn inspiring tale through London by pictures narrated by Paul Scofield.
- DirectorTerrence MalickStarsMartin SheenSissy SpacekWarren OatesAn impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town, and her older greaser boyfriend, embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota Badlands.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsKlaus KinskiClaudia CardinaleJosé LewgoyThe story of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an extremely determined man who intends to build an opera house in the middle of a jungle.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsMireille DarcJean YanneJean-Pierre KalfonA surreal tale of a married couple going on a road trip to visit the wife's parents with the intention of killing them for the inheritance.
- DirectorAlfred HitchcockStarsCary GrantEva Marie SaintJames MasonA New York City advertising executive goes on the run after being mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and falls for a woman whose loyalties he begins to doubt.
- DirectorTerrence MalickStarsRichard GereBrooke AdamsSam ShepardA hot-tempered farm laborer convinces the woman he loves to marry their rich but dying boss so that they can have a claim to his fortune.
- DirectorJoris IvensStarsJoris IvensHenxiang HanZhuang LiuAn elderly, asthmatic filmmaker travels to China, hoping to film the wind.
- DirectorPeter BogdanovichStarsTim O'KellyBoris KarloffNancy HsuehAn aging horror star questions his place in modern Hollywood, while a disturbed young man goes on a killing spree.
- DirectorSidney LumetStarsFaye DunawayWilliam HoldenPeter FinchA television network cynically exploits a deranged former anchor's ravings and revelations about the news media for its own profit, but finds that his message may be difficult to control.
- DirectorAlain ResnaisStarsDelphine SeyrigGiorgio AlbertazziSacha PitoëffIn a strange and isolated chateau, a man becomes acquainted with a woman and insists that they have met before.
- DirectorCristi PuiuStarsDoru AnaMonica BarladeanuAlina BerzunteanuMr. Lãzãrescu, a dying old man, is shuttled from hospital to hospital by a loyal paramedic as doctors refuse to operate and no one can agree on a diagnosis.
- DirectorMargarida CordeiroAntónio ReisStarsAna Maria Martins GuerraManuel Ramalho EanesOctávio Lixa FilgueirasIt is a sincere and naive film that combines the themes of nature-man, modernism-man in Rilke's poets with a local narrative.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsMax von SydowLiv UllmannGertrud FridhWhile vacationing on a remote German island with his younger pregnant wife, an artist has an emotional breakdown while confronting his repressed desires.
- DirectorMannus FrankenJoris IvensRegen is an experimental documentary film directed by Joris Ivens in 1929. It can be defined as a cinematic-poem. In 2021 Breve Storia Del Cinema restored the film with a new score composed by Nikolas Labrinakos.
- DirectorIngmar BergmanStarsBibi AnderssonLiv UllmannMargaretha KrookA nurse is put in charge of a mute actress and finds that their personae are melding together.
- DirectorPatrick KeillerStarsPaul ScofieldRobinson is commissioned to investigate the unspecified "problem of England." The narrator describes his seven excursions, with the unseen Robinson, around the country. They mainly concentrate on ports, power stations, prisons, and manufacturing plants, but they also bring in various literary connections, as well as a few conventional landscapes.
- DirectorFritz LangStarsPeter LorreEllen WidmannInge LandgutWhen the police in a German city are unable to catch a child-murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt.
- DirectorWim WendersStarsHarry Dean StantonNastassja KinskiDean StockwellTravis Henderson, an aimless drifter who has been missing for four years, wanders out of the desert and must reconnect with society, himself, his life, and his family.
- DirectorAleksandr SokurovStarsGalina VishnevskayaVasily ShevtsovRaisa GichaevaAn elderly woman takes a train trip to visit her grandson at his army camp inside Chechnya.
- DirectorLuis BuñuelStarsGaston ModotLya LysCaridad de LaberdesqueA surrealist tale of a man and a woman who are passionately in love with each other, but their attempts to consummate that passion are constantly thwarted by their families, the Church, and bourgeois society.
- DirectorPedro CostaStarsPedro HestnesNuno FerreiraInês de MedeirosVicente, seventeen, lives with brother Nino, ten-years-old, and his ailing father in a derelict house on the outskirts of the capital. They don't seem to remember their mother, and are very much attached to their father, despite his temper, and his frequent absences from home. One day, the father leaves for good, and Vicente and Nino swear to cover it up. It's their secret. Clara, the primary school assistant, is fascinatingly beautiful, and secretive, and (may be) she knows it aswel. There are other secrets, though: the origin of the money that appears at Vicente's house; the relationship between Vicente's well-to-do uncle and his girlfriend; the relationship between the four people who once played the cards together, and now can't stand each other.
- DirectorLuis BuñuelStarsSilvia PinalJacqueline AndereEnrique RambalThe guests at an upper-class dinner party find themselves unable to leave.
- DirectorMiguel GomesStarsSónia BandeiraFábio OliveiraJoaquim CarvalhoDocu-drama about Portuguese social life in the countryside during the busy month of August
- DirectorMichael PowellEmeric PressburgerStarsDavid NivenKim HunterRobert CooteA British wartime aviator who cheats death must argue for his life before a celestial court, hoping to prolong his fledgling romance with an American girl.
- DirectorZhangke JiaStarsTao ZhaoZhou LanSanming HanA town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.
- DirectorAbbas KiarostamiStarsMohamad Ali KeshavarzFarhad KheradmandZarifeh ShivaA depiction of the off-screen relationship between the actors who play the newlyweds in the film And Life Goes On (1992).
- DirectorJoris IvensAn industrial film which shows the operations inside the Philips Radio plant: In a mêlée of activity, glassblowers make delicate glass bulbs. Machinery assists the bulb manufacture. A virtuoso glassblower begins a more complex tube used in radio broadcasting; it is then turned, fired, and sculpted. Conveyors carry partially completed units. Workers perform their various specific assembly-line tasks. Cases are manufactured and machined, wire harnesses are assembled, loudspeakers are produced. As radios near completion, they are run through a series of tests. Engineers and draughtsmen define future developments. In a closing stop-motion sequence, in a style reminiscent of Norman McLaren, a group of loudspeakers performs a playful dance. The film overall is a poetic depiction of an industrial process.
- DirectorRobert J. FlahertyStarsAllakariallakAlice NevalingaCunayouIn this silent predecessor to the modern documentary, film-maker Robert J. Flaherty spends one year following the lives of Nanook and his family, Inuits living in the Arctic Circle.
- DirectorLes BlankStarsWerner HerzogKlaus KinskiClaudia CardinaleA documentary following German auteur Werner Herzog as he deals with difficult actors, bad weather and getting a boat over a mountain, all in an effort to make his film Fitzcarraldo (1982).
- DirectorManoel de OliveiraA documentary that looks at the people working in the river Douro, around the city of Porto.
- DirectorPeter GreenawayDocumentary film by Peter Greenaway made for Thames Television, in which people who have survived being struck by lightning relate their experiences against a typically Greenaway backdrop of lists, black humour, 'collated statistics', bizarre camera angles and Michael Nyman music.
- DirectorJacques TatiStarsJacques TatiJean-Pierre ZolaAdrienne ServantieMonsieur Hulot visits the technology-driven world of his sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, but he can't quite fit into the surroundings.
- DirectorAlain ResnaisStarsMichel BouquetReinhard HeydrichHeinrich HimmlerThe history of Nazi Germany's death camps of the Final Solution and the hellish world of dehumanization and death contained inside.
- DirectorLuis BuñuelStarsClaudio BrookSilvia PinalEnrique Álvarez FélixSimon, a deeply religious man living in the 4th century, wants to be nearer to God so he climbs a column. The Devil wants him to come down to Earth and is trying to seduce him.
- DirectorAntónio ReisStarsEvangelina Gil DelgadoJaime FernandesA documentary about a deceased psychiatric patient, Jaime Fernandes.
- DirectorAbbas KiarostamiStarsMahnaz AfsharPegah AhangaraniTaraneh AlidoostiWomen's expressions are captured as they watch Khosrow and Shirin, a 12th-century Persian play staged by Kiarostami, revealing their reactions to the unseen narrative.
- DirectorJosé Álvaro MoraisStarsFernando HeitorPaula GuedesLuís LucasSet four years after the Portuguese revolution and the simultaneous loss of the Portuguese empire in Africa, the story concerns a director who sells guns to finance his play.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsLotte EisnerWolfgang BüttnerManfred EigendorfFootage shot in and around the Sahara Desert, accompanied only by a spoken creation myth and the songs of Leonard Cohen.
- DirectorJean RouchStarsOumarou GandaGambiPetit Touré"I, a Negro" depicts young Nigerien immigrants who left their country to find work in the Ivory Coast, in the Treichville quarter of Abidjan, the capital. These immigrants live in squalor in Treichville, envious of the bordering quarters of The Plateau (the business and industrial district) and the old African quarter of Adjame. The film traces a week in these immigrants' lives, blurring the line between their characters' routines and their own. Every morning, Tarzan, Eddy Constantine and Edward G. Robinson seek work in Treichville in hopes of getting the 20 francs that a bowl of soup costs them. They perform menial jobs as dockers carrying sacks and handy labor shipping supplies to Europe. At night, they drink away their sorrows in bars while dreaming about their idealized lives as their "movie" alter-egos, alternatively as an FBI Agent, a womanizing bachelor, a successful boxer, and even able to stand up to the white colonialists that seduce away their women. These dream-like sequences are shot in a poetic mode. Each day is introduced by an interstitial voice of god omniscient narration from Jean Rouch, providing a universal thematic distance to the movie's events. The film is book-ended by a narration directed at both Petit Jules and the audience from Edward G. Robinson fondly looking back on his childhood in Niger and concluding that his life is worthy of his dreams.
- DirectorMichelangelo AntonioniStarsDavid HemmingsVanessa RedgraveSarah MilesA fashion photographer unknowingly captures a death on film after following two lovers in a park.
- DirectorBruce ConnerThe 1945 atomic-bomb explosion at Bikini Atoll becomes a thing of terrible beauty and haunting visual poetry when shown in extreme slow motion, shown from 27 different angles, and accompanied by avant-garde Western classical music composed for electric organ by Terry Riley.
- DirectorDavid LynchStarsIsabella RosselliniKyle MacLachlanDennis HopperThe discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of psychopathic criminals who have kidnapped her child.
- DirectorFritz LangStarsBrigitte HelmAlfred AbelGustav FröhlichIn a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working-class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.
- DirectorAlfred HitchcockStarsSylvia SidneyOscar HomolkaDesmond TesterA Scotland Yard undercover detective is on the trail of a saboteur who is part of a plot to set off a bomb in London. But when the detective's cover is blown, the plot begins to unravel.
- DirectorPeter GreenawayStarsColin CantlieJean WilliamsAn anonymous narrator outlines a bizarre journey taken through "H", aided by a series of extraordinary maps, and his previous dealings with the mysterious Tulse Luper and the keeper of the bird house at the Amsterdam Zoo.
- DirectorFernando LopesStarsBelarmino FragosoJean Pierre GeblerMaria Teresa de NoronhaInterview with a has-been boxing champion «who could have been great», probing, and soul revealing.
- DirectorJúlio BressaneStarsMárcia RodriguesRenata SorrahAntero de OliveiraThere are many concurrent plots in this film. The main one being the one in which a desperate guy kills his parents with an open razor and then goes to the movies. At the same time, other violent events happen when two girls realize they are in love with each other.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsJean-Pierre LéaudChantal GoyaMarlène JobertA romance between young Parisians, shown through a series of vignettes.
- DirectorAlfred HitchcockStarsRod TaylorTippi HedrenJessica TandyA wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people.
- DirectorMatthew BarneyStarsRichard SerraMatthew BarneyAimee MullinsThe third film of a five-part art-installation epic -- it's part-zombie movie, part-gangster film.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsWoody AllenFreddy BuacheLeos CaraxA descendant of Shakespeare tries to restore his plays in a world rebuilding itself after the Chernobyl catastrophe obliterates most of human civilization.
- DirectorDavid LynchStarsBill PullmanPatricia ArquetteJohn RoseliusAnonymous videotapes presage a musician's murder conviction, and a gangster's girlfriend leads a mechanic astray.
- DirectorDavid CronenbergStarsJames WoodsDebbie HarrySonja SmitsA programmer at a Toronto TV station that specializes in adult entertainment searches for the producers of a dangerous and bizarre broadcast.
- DirectorDavid CronenbergStarsPeter WellerJudy DavisIan HolmAfter developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally kills his wife and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in a port town in North Africa.
- DirectorMichael PowellStarsKarlheinz BöhmAnna MasseyMoira ShearerA young man murders women, using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror.
- DirectorMichael SnowExperimental short in which sentences are formed by displaying one word at a time and at alternating speeds.
- DirectorMargarida CordeiroAntónio ReisStarsAlbino S. PedroCarlos MargaridoMariana MargaridoIt's a docudrama with a poetic writing and non-linear narrative. Specifically, it's an "etnofiction": portraits the typical characters of Terra Fria, the North-east of Portugal, showing secular habits, in a majestic rural ambient. It's one of the works that represents the New Cinema (Novo Cinema) portuguese movement, and one of the first portuguese docudrama.
- DirectorVictor SjöströmStarsVictor SjöströmAugust FalckEdith ErastoffTerje Vigen, a sailor, suffers the loss of his family through the cruelty of another man. Years later, when his enemy's family finds itself dependent on Terje's beneficence, Terje must decide whether to avenge himself.
- DirectorRobert KramerPhilip J. SpinelliStarsPhilip J. SpinelliCombining newsreel footage, still photographs, interviews, and analytical narration, this documentary focuses on the antifascist, anti-imperialist efforts of labor groups, peasants, and working-class soldiers to liberate Portugal from the control of the government of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.
- DirectorRaúl RuizStarsJean RougeulChantal PaleyJean RaynaudTwo narrators, one seen and one unseen, discuss possible connections between a series of paintings. The on-screen narrator walks through three-dimensional reproductions of each painting, featuring real people, sometimes moving, in an effort to explain the series' significance.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsKlaus KinskiKing AmpawJosé LewgoyDuring the 1800s, paroled Brazilian bandit Cobra Verde is sent to West Africa with a few troops to man an old Portuguese fort and to convince the local African ruler to resume the slave trade with Brazil.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsWerner HerzogJörg Schmidt-ReitweinEdward LachmanHerzog takes a film crew to the island of Guadeloupe when he hears that the volcano on the island is going to erupt. Everyone has left, except for one old man who refuses to leave. Herzog catches the eeriness of an abandoned city, with stop lights cycling over an empty intersection.
- DirectorAlfred HitchcockStarsFarley GrangerRobert WalkerRuth RomanA psychopathic man tries to forcibly persuade a tennis star to agree to his theory that two strangers can get away with murder by submitting to his plan to kill the other's most-hated person.
- DirectorDavid CronenbergStarsRonald MlodzikJon LidoltTania ZoltyIn a dystopic world where a plague is killing off pubescent human females, an esoteric researcher seeks his missing mentor while trying to retain morality in the sex-obsessed society he lives in.
- DirectorTerrence MalickStarsBrad PittSean PennJessica ChastainThe story of a family in Waco, Texas in 1956. The eldest son witnesses the loss of innocence and struggles with his parents' conflicting teachings.