A Century of Film: The Top 1000 Films (#150-101)

Three parts left in the first 1000 (before the updates).  The introduction can be found here.  The preceding parts of the list can be found here.

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A Century of Film: The Top 1000 Films (#450-401)

This is the 12th part of the countdown of the Top 1000 Films of the first Century of Film (1912-2011).  The introduction can be found here.  Just click here to find the other parts.

Films 450 through 428 are a 92.  The rest are a 93.  Both are mid ****.

 

The Year in Film: 2020

For the first time in over 70 years, Dickens is great on film again.

My Top 20

1. The Personal History of David Copperfield
2. The Trial of the Chicago 7
3. Promising Young Woman
4. One Night in Miami…
5. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
6. Judas and the Black Messiah
7. Soul
8. Minari
9. The Father
10. Tenet
11. News of the World
12. Sound of Metal
13. Emma.
14. Dear Comrades!
15. A Whisker Away
16. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
17. The Painted Bird
18. Onward
19. Wolfwalkers
20. The Dig

They are **** films through #13.  After that they are high ***.5.  A reminder that Quo Vadis, Aida? was not Oscar submitted for 2020 and didn’t get released in the States until March so it’s actually a 2021 film for my purposes.  If it was a 2020 film it would be at #10.

 

A Century of Film: The Top 1000 Films (#700-651)

The ongoing countdown of my Top 1000 films through 2011, covering the first century of film.  The film listed below are all 89 (low ****) until The Gunfighter after which they are 90 (low ****).  The TSPDT rankings starting with this post are from the 2021 list.  The introduction can be found here.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 1988

VALMONT: Why not? To seduce a woman famous for strict morals, religious ferver and the happiness of her marriage: what could possibly be more prestigious? (Scene 1)

My Top 10

1. Dangerous Liaisons
2. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
3. The Unbearable Lightness of Being
4. The Accidental Tourist
5. Little Dorrit
6. Babette’s Feast
7. Eight Men Out
8. A Cry in the Dark
9. Dead Ringers
10. A Handful of Dust

note:  Overall, a strong winner, but not a great Top 5 or Top 10.  The Top 5 won’t be this weak again until 1995.  Of course, as is often the case, balanced out by a phenomenal group of original scripts, the second best to-date (A Fish Called Wanda, Running on Empty, Bull Durham, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Wings of Desire).

note:  I checked 1987 and there were 10 films on the list at the bottom with a number in the title; in this year, it’s 14.  From here on, sequels will really become a massive part of this project, ironic in that the #1 film at the box office in this year (Rain Man) is original and has never had a sequel, something only Titanic and Avatar (so far) can say since then.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 1952

“But the moment my eyes locked onto hers in that dark grove, I knew I couldn’t leave there until I had killed him.”

My Top 10:

1. Rashomon
2. The Bad and the Beautiful
3. Miss Julie
4. The Man in the White Suit
5. The Quiet Man
6. A Christmas Carol
7. The Card
8. Sudden Fear
9. Moulin Rouge
10. Carrie

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 1951

STANLEY [with heaven-splitting violence]: STELL-LAHHHHH!  (p 60)

My Top 10:

1. A Streetcar Named Desire
2. Detective Story
3. A Place in the Sun
4. The African Queen
5. Strangers on a Train
6. Oliver Twist
7. La Ronde
8. Death of a Salesman
9. He Ran All the Way
10. Alice in Wonderland

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: 1947

“But, I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes.” (p. 50 – Norton Critical Edition)

My Top 10:

1. Great Expectations
2. La belle et la Bête
3. Crossfire
4. Out of the Past
5. Gentleman’s Agreement
6. This Happy Breed
7. Boomerang!
8. Brighton Rock
9. Ride the Pink Horse
10. Green for Danger

note:  After only having seven in the great year of 1946, I have a full list of 10 and a couple more besides (see below).

 

The Nighthawk Awards: 1947

Romance and fantasy come to life in Cocteau’s fairy tale.

You can read more about this year in film here.  The Best Picture race is discussed here, with reviews of all the nominees.  First there are the categories, followed by all the films with their nominations, then the Globes, where I split the major awards by Drama and Comedy, followed by a few lists at the very end.  If there’s a film you expected to see and didn’t, check the very bottom – it might be eligible in a different year.  Films in red won the Oscar in that category.  Films in blue were nominated.

This is the second year of the reduced number of nominees in the tech categories at the Oscars – Sound and Art Direction (the name finally changed from Interior Decoration) would have three nominees each with Cinematography and Special Effects only having two each.  It’s the fifth year for the Golden Globes, but there are still no nominees and no distinction between Drama and Comedy – the films marked in red in my Globes section won the Globe.

Nighthawk Awards:

• Best Picture

1. La Belle et la bête
2. Great Expectations
3. Stairway to Heaven  (A Matter of Life and Death)
4. Ivan the Terrible Part I
5. Crossfire

Analysis: A big drop-off from 1946, of course.  But an even bigger one if you want to factor in that the top four films aren’t actually from this year.  This was the year that the films from foreign markets finally started flooding in.  Eleven of my Top 20 films weren’t originally released in this year; nor is that fully reflected in the number of foreign language films, as five of my top 14 are British films released in Britain in earlier years.  And, again, there aren’t a great crop of Comedies (my Best Picture – Comedy winner is my #19 film of the year), so here are the films that follow, in order: Out of the Past, Gentleman’s Agreement, Miracle on 34th Street, L’Atalante, I See a Dark Stranger, Brute Force, I Know Where I’m Going, Brighton Rock, This Happy Breed, Boomerang, Torment, Shoeshine and The Devil’s Envoys.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay: the pre-Oscar years (1912-1926)

I grabbed this banner from altscreen.com. They deserve credit, because it’s awesome.

My Top 10 Adapted Screenplays:

1. Greed  (1925)
2. The Phantom of the Opera  (1925)
3. The Hunchback of Notre Dame  (1923)
4. Faust  (1926)
5. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse  (1921)
6. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde  (1920)
7. Ingeborg Holm  (1913)
8. Oliver Twist  (1922)
9. The Birth of a Nation  (1915)
10. The Avenging Conscience  (1914)