Right from the start, the directors kind of ruled the world of film. They were paid well and by the 1930s they were getting “film by” credit and before too long that credit was before the title (in fact, mandated that way by agreement with the DGA). They formed one of the powerful early guilds and their guild was one of the first two to begin giving out their own awards. Writer-directors started to rise in the 1940s (lead by Preston Sturges and John Huston) and that would become the standard for most of the great foreign directors. In the 1960s the auteur theory would come along and propel a number of directors to the top of the film world when it came to critical appreciation of the medium. Today we are still in an era of truly great film directors, from those who came up through the medium in the 70s (Spielberg, Scorsese) to those 70s type independent minded directors who missed that era and came right after (Coen Brothers, Almodovar) to the great directors who made their mark in the 90s and later (Tarantino, Nolan, P.T. Anderson). Following not too long after this post will come finally my 3.0 version of the Top 100 Directors of All-Time.
10 April, 2022
A Century of Film: The Top 1000 Films (#150-101)
Posted by nighthawk4486 under Erik, film | Tags: almodovar, bergman, branagh, capra, christopher nolan, coppola, david lean, dickens, disney, eisenstein, film, hamlet, hitchcock, howard hawks, john ford, kurosawa, miyazaki, pixar, polanski, preston sturges, scorsese, shakespeare, spielberg, The Beatles, Top 1000, truffaut, von Stroheim |1 Comment
12 March, 2022
A Century of Film: The Top 1000 Films (#200-151)
Posted by nighthawk4486 under Erik, film, lists | Tags: academy awards, ang lee, bergman, bunuel, cameron crowe, Chaplin, coen brothers, david lynch, disney, dracula, F.W. Murnau, film, hitchcock, kurosawa, olivier, paul thomas anderson, renoir, ridley scott, shakespeare, sidney lumet, spielberg, star wars, tarantino, Top 1000, truffaut |1 Comment
Getting close to the (initial) end of the Top 1000 list. The introduction is here and the rest of the list can be found by going here. Films through Inglourious Basterds (#174) are a 95 which is high ****. The rest are a 96. A 96 is, to me, worthy of a Best Picture win. That means any Oscar winners from that point on, even if they don’t win the Nighthawk, earn no complaints from me. Ironically, one of those films doesn’t even earn a Nighthawk nomination (The Hours) because 2002 is just that tough. There are also a few films that come 5th in their years while the only actual Nighthawk winners in this post are all 95 films. Things are so even across genres and major studios that only one film in this group of 50 is in the Top 5 all-time for its genre or major studio. (more…)