BOT's Top 50 Historical Fiction Films - The Countdown

[CoolioD1]

one of the most amazing things about Harakiri IMO is that Tatsuya Nakadai, my personal favourite Japanese actor, is playing a grandfather and was only 29 when it was made. they don't go crazy with make-up to make him seem older but he totally pulls it off the way he carries himself. compare it to him playing the villain in Yojimbo only a year before where he's got a ton of youthful energy. He's just the best. his reputation should definitely be on the same level as Mifune's IMO. maybe less movie star energy but a better actor by far.

Edited May 6, 2020 by CoolioD1

[4815162342]

32 minutes ago, CoolioD1 said:

one of the most amazing things about Harakiri IMO is that Tatsuya Nakadai, my personal favourite Japanese actor, is playing a grandfather and was only 29 when it was made. they don't go crazy with make-up to make him seem older but he totally pulls it off the way he carries himself. compare it to him playing the villain in Yojimbo only a year before where he's got a ton of youthful energy. He's just the best. his reputation should definitely be on the same level as Mifune's IMO. maybe less movie star energy but a better actor by far.

 

Nakadai's work in the Kurosawa films I have seen has been really impressive. All the way to him as Hidetora in Ran. His role as the lead detective in High & Low is where I really first took notice of him.

[CoolioD1]

oh yeah he rules in high and low and those later Kurosawas. RAN another movie where he's playing older, i think the first movie i saw him in and i just assumed he was 75 or something but he's only early 50s there. was a real surprise to me when i found out he's still working. 

[The Panda]

Here is the next batch of honorable mentions before I do a some more full writes ups for the top 50 in an hour or so.

 

 

91.    The Godfather Part II
92.    Persepolis 
93.    A Man for All Seasons 
94.    Blood Diamond 
95.    Becket
96.    Barry Lyndon
97.    First Man
98.    Ugetsu 
99.    The Searchers 
100.    Cinema Paradiso 
 

[The Panda]

 

 

"You'll be wanking again in no time!"

 

Historical Setting: World War 1, The Western Front (France)

 

Source from the Period

 

"The last time I wrote I think I told you we had lost our comfortable job on railheads. We have been shifted from General Headquarters and are at the most godforsaken hole there can possibly be in France. We had a rotten journey raining all the time. Reveille* was at 4am and we eventually left the station about 10am. The accommodation consisted of the old cattle trucks, and rations of bully and biscuits. It was a very cold and uncomfortable journey. We arrived at our destination about 4.30pm and after standing in the rain for 2½ hours with full pack on, we set out on a ten mile march. It’s the worst march I’ve ever done. The majority of us at the finish were absolutely knocked up and were only too glad to crawl into the billets before going to bed, which was about 12pm. They gave us a mug of tea (the first we had since six in the morning) and best of all a ration of rum. The up to date soldier kit to carry about from place to place consists of 150 rounds of ammunition, inside the pack; overcoat, fur coat, two pairs socks, one pants, one shirt, ground sheet, iron rations [emergency food supply].

 

Outside pack; Mackintosh and mess tin, in haversack; cleaning kit, hold all, 24lbs rations, soap and towel, and on top of that extras such as handkerchiefs, plate, mug, tobacco, etc, two smoke helmets* in a satchel slung over the shoulder, a respirator in the left flap of a tunic and field dressing on the right, and of course the rifle, in all it’s no light weight on a long march, it takes all one’s strength and staying power to keep going. We are billeted in a barn and have a sea of mud to get through. We have no boards, so sleep on the ground, fires are not allowed in the billet and at night time it’s devilish cold. In the village there is a little general shop (now nearly sold out), one pub where they sell something they charge 2½d for and call beer, there are no shops of any description and of course no amusements.

 

Rations are not so good now (today’s dinner, Sunday, bully beef, stew and two potatoes between 35 men. We have a loaf and a bit (small loaf) and two tins of jam between seven men, the short bread issue being augmented by the world famous army biscuits. Our captain is a perfect gentleman and about the most popular man in the regiment, the junior captain (an absolute sport) and the platoon officers are all very decent sort of fellows. We appear to be much better off in this respect than before, and certainly think that D. Co. has got as good a selection of officers as any other company in the battalion. One of our fellows ran across a number of Audit R.E.s and they enquired after Maggs and myself.

 

Freddy or What’s left of him after some very stiff marching"

- Frederick G. Woodhams, 16 February 1916, Killed in Action on 16 August 1917 having been struck by Shrapnel; prior to this he had been wonded twice

Letters from World War I, 1916-18

 

Historical Context

 

"The experience of being exposed to blast force, or being “blown-up,” in the phrase of the time, is evoked powerfully and often in the medical case notes, memoirs and letters of this era. “There was a sound like the roar of an express train, coming nearer at tremendous speed with a loud singing, wailing noise,” recalled a young American Red Cross volunteer in 1916, describing an incoming artillery round. “It kept coming and coming and I wondered when it would ever burst. Then when it seemed right on top of us, it did, with a shattering crash that made the earth tremble. It was terrible. The concussion felt like a blow in the face, the stomach and all over; it was like being struck unexpectedly by a huge wave in the ocean.” Exploding at a distant 200 yards, the shell had gouged a hole in the earth “as big as a small room.”

 

By 1917, medical officers were instructed to avoid the term “shell shock,” and to designate probable cases as “Not Yet Diagnosed (Nervous).” Processed to a psychiatric unit, the soldier was assessed by a specialist as either “shell shock (wound)” or “shell shock (sick),” the latter diagnosis being given if the soldier had not been close to an explosion. Transferred to a treatment center in Britain or France, the invalided soldier was placed under the care of neurology specialists and recuperated until discharged or returned to the front. Officers might enjoy a final period of convalescence before being disgorged back into the maw of the war or the working world, gaining strength at some smaller, often privately funded treatment center—some quiet, remote place such as Lennel House, in Coldstream, in the Scottish Borders country."

- Smithsonian Magazine

 

Historical Accuracy

 

"When runners were deployed, the risk of death by German sniper fire was so high that they were sent out in pairs. If something happened to one of them, then the other could finish the job. “In some places, No Man’s Land was as close as 15 yards, in others it was a mile away,” says Doran Cart, Senior Curator at the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City. The muddy terrain was littered with dead animals, dead humans, barbed wires and wreckage from exploding shells—scarcely any grass or trees in sight. “By 1917, you didn’t get out of your trench and go across No Man’s Land. Fire from artillery, machine guns and poison gas was too heavy; no one individual was going to get up and run across No Man’s Land and try to take the enemy.”

 

Human messengers like Blake and Schofield were only deployed in desperate situations, according to Cart. Messenger pigeons, signal lamps and flags, made up most of the battlefield communications. There was also a trench telephone for communications.

 

“Most people understand that World War I is about trench warfare, but they don’t know that there was more than one trench,” says Cart. “There was the front-line trench, where front-line troops would attack from or defend from; then behind that, kind of a holding line where they brought supplies up, troops waiting to go to to the front-line trench.” The “bathroom” was in the latrine trench.

There were about 35,000 miles of trenches on the Western Front, all zigzagging, and the Western Front itself was 430 miles long, extending from the English Channel in the North to the Swiss Alps in the South."

- Olivia B. Waxman, TIME Magazine

 

 

The Film Itself

 

The Story

 

"April 6, 1917. On a battlefield in Northern France, Lance Corporal Tom Blake with the British Army is asked to choose one of his battalion colleagues to join him on an assignment, he choosing his best friend, Lance Corporal Will Schofield. It isn't until Blake chooses Schofield that they learn of the dangerous nature of the mission: to hand deliver a message to Colonel MacKenzie leading another nearby battalion, they having to cross no man's land to what they have been told are now the abandoned German trenches to get to MacKenzie just past the nearby town of Écoust. The message, which must reach its destination by dawn tomorrow, is for MacKenzie to abort his troop's attack then on the supposedly retreating Germans who are in reality lying in wait, the Germans having planned this deception for months. The lives of MacKenzie and his 1,600 men are at risk if the message does not make it through in time, one of those men being Blake's brother, Lt. Joseph Blake. Blake and Schofield's stories as it pertains to them as soldiers in the bigger picture of the war, as soldiers trying to stay alive, as friends, and as human beings who have their own motivations are told for as long as they are able to survive on this mission."

 

Critic Opinion

 

"Mendes shows us what these soldiers see and sometimes wheels the camera around so we can see them seeing it: a gruelling odyssey whose trench scenes are perhaps intended to recall Kubrick’s Paths of Glory – and later our stricken hero enunciates a panicky line in the midst of his terrified comrades that reminded me of something similar from Apocalypse Now: “Where’s your commanding officer?” (The single-take horror also reminded me of the TV director in that film, frantically telling the numbed grunts not to look at the camera. I wonder if this might have inspired Mendes?)

 

The situation is that Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George MacKay) are lance corporals – and messengers. These men, like the rest of their company, have been lulled into a false sense of security by what appears to have been a German retreat, and an imminent “big push” from the Allied forces to clinch victory." - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

 

BOT User Opinion

 

"Sam Mendes takes some big creative risks with his World War I drama 1917, and these risks pay off handsomely in an intense war film that succeeds in creating an exceptionally immersive experience for viewers. Unfolding as one unbroken shot in which the camera follows its leads through mundane and treacherous scenarios alike, 1917 keeps the tension running high throughout its running time and uses its visual gimmick to excellent effect. Though it is easy to occasionally slip into working to spot the hidden edits, the style enhances the urgency of the narrative and the intimacy the audience shares with the protagonists; as such, the sudden jolts in action carry greater weight and a more pronounced sense of dread because we – like Lance Corporals Blake and Schofield – have just a limited view of the action and peril that lie ahead. From a technical perspective, the film is a tremendous accomplishment: Roger Deakins’s cinematography is gorgeous as usual and moves carefully and precisely enough to sell the illusion of continuous movement much more often than not; the sound design is crisp and puts the directional capabilities of an Atmos sound mix to great use; and Mendes directs each element of each scene confidently and with a clear sense of each detail’s purpose, whether practical or profound. If there’s a knock to be made on the film, it’s that the story is a bit too simple to sustain the full two-hour running time, but Dean-Charles Chapman and George McKay carry the film with equal parts strength and grace. Chapman and McKay are both terrific in everyman parts, and they are each solid in smaller, affecting scenes that remind viewers of the humanity at the center of the conflict. As a survival tale set against the backdrop of a World War, 1917 does admittedly stand in Dunkirk’s shadow to some degree, but there’s so much mightily impressive dramatic material and technical mastery on display that it’s hard not to get swept up in the world and scenarios Mendes creates onscreen." - @Webslinger

 

Factoids

 

1917 was directed by Sam Mendes and received 33 points and 8 votes

 

 

 

Countries Represented: England (1), France (1), Japan (1), Spain (1), United States (2)

 

Time Periods Represented: Middle Ages (1),  17th Century (1), 19th Century (1), World War 1/1910s (1), World War 2/1940s (2)

 

Cross Section of Times and Countries: 19th Century - United States (1), Middle Ages - England (1), Tokugawa Shogunate - Japan (1), World War 1 - France (1), World War 2/1940s - Spain (1), World War 2 - United States (1)

 

Directors Represented: Anthoney Harvey (1), Masaki Kobayashi (1), Penny Marshall (1), Sam Mendes (1) Steven Spielberg (1), Guillermo Del Torro (1)

 

Decades Represented: 60s (2), 90s (1), 00s (1), 10s (2)

 

 

[CoolioD1]

Quote

45.    1917

91.    The Godfather Part II
96.    Barry Lyndon
98.    Ugetsu 

delete this thread. let's never speak of this list again.

[The Panda]

3 minutes ago, CoolioD1 said:

delete this thread. let's never speak of this list again.

Forget it Coolio, it’s BOT.

[Jake Gittes]

I regret ranking Harakiri #2 rather than #1.

[Plain Old Tele]

12 minutes ago, Jake Gittes said:

I regret ranking Harakiri #2 rather than #1.

I regret not having seen it. 

[Jake Gittes]

3 minutes ago, Plain Old Tele said:

I regret not having seen it. 

Do it. It'll own your ass

[The Panda]

 

 

"You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole."

 

Historical Setting: Early 2000s, United States

 

Source from the Period

 

"So there’s definitely fun thinking about this but we always thought this could be a great business as well. It’s actually Harvard Connection that was rebranded to connect to you but the idea was to help students connect more easily on campuses.  We went to Harvard for undergraduate but in — in Boston alone there’s at least 50 schools. There’s so many different students but by junior year legal we hadn’t really met many people from outside of your walk of life.

 

You — you know your own sports team, you do — you have your major and you don’t really like connect outside of your bubbles. Like life’s too busy and geography constraints, whatever.

So we sort of said like let’s let our fingers do the walking. And let’s put real life social networks online and let’s use email addresses to filter people into networks within networks.  So if you go to Harvard, you have a Harvard.edu email address. You can’t get that unless you’re actually a student. The Registar gives you one and they don’t issue you more than one. So you can’t just give one — and extra one to a friend.

 

So — and the same thing if you go and you work at company — let’s say you go to work at Goldman Sachs, you get a Goldman Sachs, you know, email address. I can’t get one because I don’t work there.

And so all the sudden you can start building some order online. You know the predecessors to connect (inaudible) were MySpace Friendster but they were just one network, a whole morass of people.

You couldn’t really find people based on their schools or where they were and that was really the breakthrough that we — that we had that later was, you know, pushed into — into Facebook." - Interview of Winklevoss Twins

 

Historical Context

 

"Social media have had profound impacts on the modern world. Facebook, which remains by far
the largest social media company, has 2.3 billion monthly active users worldwide (Facebook 2018).
As of 2016, the average user was spending 50 minutes per day on Facebook and its sister platforms
Instagram and Messenger (Facebook 2016). There may be no technology since television that has
so dramatically reshaped the way people get information and spend their time.

Speculation about social media's welfare impact has followed a familiar trajectory, with early
optimism about potential benets giving way to widespread concern about possible harms. At a
basic level, social media dramatically reduce the cost of connecting, communicating, and sharing
information with others. Given that interpersonal connections are among the most important
drivers of happiness and well-being (Myers 2000; Reis, Collins, and Berscheid 2000; Argyle 2001;
Chopik 2017), this could be expected to bring widespread improvements to individual welfare.
Many have also pointed to wider social benets, from facilitating protest and resistance in autocratic
countries, to encouraging activism and political participation in established democracies (Howard
et al. 2011; Kirkpatrick 2011).

More recent discussion has focused on an array of possible negative impacts. At the individual
level, many have pointed to negative correlations between intensive social media use and both
subjective well-being and mental health.1 Adverse outcomes such as suicide and depression appear
to have risen sharply over the same period that the use of smartphones and social media has
expanded.2 Alter (2018) and Newport (2019), along with other academics and prominent Silicon
Valley executives in the \time well-spent" movement, argue that digital media devices and social
media apps are harmful and addictive. At the broader social level, concern has focused particularly
on a range of negative political externalities. Social media may create ideological \echo chambers"
among like-minded friend groups, thereby increasing political polarization (Sunstein 2001, 2017;
Settle 2018). Furthermore, social media are the primary channel through which misinformation
spreads online (Allcott and Gentzkow 2017), and there is concern that coordinated disinformation
campaigns can affect elections in the US and abroad."

- The Welfare Effects of Social Media, Hunt Allcott, Luca Braghieri, Sarah Eichmeyer and Matthew Gentzkow (2019)

 

Historical Accuracy

 

"In contrast to the real Zuckerberg, it’s hard to imagine Eisenberg’s version, care of Aaron Sorkin, squirm in front of Congress, be wishy-washy about Holocaust deniers or Alex Jones, or act flummoxed about trolls using the site to harass or interfere in elections. Michael Cera is the actor who comes to mind for that depiction, not the man who would become Lex Luthor.  The complexity of the film version of Zuckerberg adds immeasurably to the The Social Network’s impact and power, but a change of this magnitude can’t help but strike a dangerous note with the hindsight of the past eight years. When The A.V. Club reviewed Zero Dark Thirty, another film whose accuracy was fretted over, the critic wrote that it “stands to become the dominant narrative about this important historical event, no matter its distortions, composite, or other slippery feints of storytelling. In that, it wields a dangerous power.” There’s a similar issue at play with The Social Network. The film defines Zuckerberg for many people, and given his centrality to today’s world, who knows what impact that’s had? Like the company that is its subject, The Social Network is a huge platform for its message, and it’s a problem when that message is less about the truth and more about emotional manipulation.

 

Of course, the real Zuckerberg must have some of the attributes the film depicts—he did create the most influential company of modern times and squeeze allies out of it, both of which require a certain amount of cold-bloodedness—which makes comparing the film’s depiction to the real person tricky. However, there’s no denying that other parts of The Social Network, just as central to its thesis about who Zuckerberg is, were more or less invented. Sorkin said the film is “absolutely nonfiction,” albeit “nonfiction about facts that are in dispute.” He also said, “I don’t want my fidelity to be to the truth; I want it to be to storytelling.”

 

Still, if the film isn’t accurate to Zuckerberg’s history, it is prescient about the personality type that would become dominant online in the subsequent years. The character’s coiled anger and nonstop sarcasm are very trollish, just as his FaceMash revenge campaign, waged from the safe distance of cyberspace, is reminiscent of the Gamergate harassment that would occur four years after the film’s release. Both elevate male victimhood, specifically the pain and humiliation that come from female rejection, into the kind of all-consuming fury for which every possible response counts as a proportional. Ultimately, this is why the film made such an impact, and why it continues to be discussed. It isn’t accurate, but it is true, ecstatically so." - Ryan Vlastelica, The AV Club

 

 

The Film Itself

 

The Story

 

"Every age has its visionaries who leave, in the wake of their genius, a changed world--but rarely without a battle over exactly what happened and who was there at the moment of creation. "The Social Network" explores the moment at which Facebook was invented--through the warring perspectives of the super-smart young men who each claimed to be there at its inception. The movie moves from the halls of Harvard to the cubicles of Palo Alto to capture the heady early days of a culture-changing phenomenon in the making--and the way it both pulled a group of young revolutionaries together and then split them apart. In the midst of the chaos are Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), the brilliant Harvard student who conceived a Web site; Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), once Zuckerberg's close friend, who provided the seed money for the fledgling company; Napster founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), who brought Facebook to Silicon Valley's venture capitalists; and the Winklevoss twins (Armie Hammer and Josh Pence), the Harvard classmates who asserted that Zuckerberg stole their idea and then sued him for ownership of it. Each has his own narrative, his own version of the Facebook story in this multi-level portrait of 21st Century success--both the youthful fantasy of it and its finite realities as well."

 

Critic Opinion

 

"There was a lot of pre-release hype for THE SOCIAL NETWORK -- and for once, the buzz is well-deserved. This is truly an enthralling film; all of the pieces -- writing, plot, direction, acting, soundtrack -- create a memorable, timely movie that couldn't be more relevant to the current zeitgeist. If a story about a business' Ivy League founders or Harvard social intrigue or young billionaires in the making doesn't sound compelling, this movie will surprise you. And the credit must go to director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin, who've taken what sounds like a very boring premise -- boy genius possibly steals an idea to create one of the dominating media forces of the decade -- and turned it into an award-worthy film that even Facebook objectors will enjoy.

 

Eisenberg plays Zuckerberg as a socially awkward computer genius who isn't an adorable geek (like many of Eisenberg's previous roles). He's a huge jerk -- or, as his date tells him in the first scene, a first-class "a--hole" -- obsessed with status and, later, getting back at said date for rejecting him. How many multibillion dollar ideas started out as a way to show up someone who rejected the innovator? And how many business are built on the backs of broken friendships? As Saverin, British import Garfield is pitch perfect. He exudes the confidence that comes with wealthy, but unlike Zuckerberg or the Winklevoss twins, he's not condescending. In many ways, he's the heart of the movie, because his character is so much more likable than Zuckerberg -- so much so that you want him to win his lawsuit against Facebook. The movie's biggest scene-stealers are Timberlake -- who's all slimy and paranoid charm as Parker -- and the Winklevoss brothers, who are played by Hammer so well that you'd swear it was twin actors. Each twin is patrician perfection personified, and the fact that their social networking idea is the seed that Zuckerberg turns into Facebook serves as a slap in the face to their entitlement. What's true and what isn't doesn't quite matter for the purposes of this film; in the end Facebook's "status" is bigger than all its players." - Sandie Angulo Chen

 

BOT User Opinion

 

"One of the greatest films of all time. An intoxicatingly entertaining movie with some of the snappiest and most intelligent dialogue I've ever heard, amazing performances (especially from the mesmerizing Jesse Eisenberg who deserved an Oscar), great cinematography, slick editing, a fucking fantastic score, a goosebump inducing final scene and overall masterful directing from David Fincher.The Social Network is about as close as you can get to cinematic perfection. It will go down as the best movie of its time." - @Jack Nevada

 

Factoids

 

The Social Network was directed by David Fincher.  It received a total of 34 points and 6 votes

 

 

Countries Represented: England (1), France (1), Japan (1), Spain (1), United States (3)

 

Time Periods Represented: 17th Century (1), 19th Century (1), 21st Century (1), Middle Ages (1), World War 1/1910s (1), World War 2/1940s (2)

 

Cross Section of Times and Countries: 19th Century - United States (1), 21st Century - United States (1), Middle Ages - England (1), Tokugawa Shogunate - Japan (1), World War 1 - France (1), World War 2/1940s - Spain (1), World War 2 - United States (1)

 

Directors Represented: David Fincher (1), Anthoney Harvey (1), Masaki Kobayashi (1), Penny Marshall (1), Sam Mendes (1) Steven Spielberg (1), Guillermo Del Torro (1)

 

Decades Represented: 60s (2), 90s (1), 00s (1), 10s (3)

 

 

[Plain Old Tele]

2010s over-representing so far.

[Cap]

7 minutes ago, Plain Old Tele said:

2010s over-representing so far.

What’s that phrase you boys like? “y’all are a bunch of casuals.”

 

[The Panda]

 

 

"In a mad world only the mad are sane."

 

The Historical Setting: Sengoku Period (circa 16th Century), Japan

 

Source from that Period

 

" Yorimasa summoned Watanabe Chûjitsu Tonau and ordered: "Strike off my head." Tonau could not bring himself to do this while his master was still alive. He wept bitterly.

 

"How can I do that, my lord?" he replied. "I can do so only after you have committed suicide."

 

"I understand," said Yorimasa. He turned to the west, joined his palms, and chanted "Hail Amidha Buddha" ten times in a loud voice. Then he composed this poem:

 

Like a fossil tree
Which has borne not one blossom
Sad has been my life
Sadder still to end my days
Leaving no fruit behind me.

 

Having spoken these lines, he thrust the point of his sword into his belly, bowed his face to the ground as the blade pierce him through, and died. ... Tonau took up his master's head and, weeping, fastened it to a stone. Then, evading the enemy, he made his way to the river and sank it in a deep place." - The Tale of the Heiki

 

Historical Context

 

"By the mid-12th century (A.D.) Japan’s imperial government in the Heian capital was clearly losing its grip on the country. The provinces were in disorder with warrior bands fighting among themselves, regional chieftains challenging the central government, the provincial-governor system failing, private estates being carved out of the public land system, taxes due to the state diverted into the coffers of nobles, temples, and local warriors. And at the center, most emperors were child-pawns in the hands of Fujiwara regents or, if they did reach maturity, had to abdicate in order to exercise some degree of power. The capital itself was subject to depredation by armed bands. And from the mid-twelfth century the Taira warrior family, led by Taira Kiyomori forced itself into the capital and into power over the court. This effectively marked the beginning of what has been described as warrior dominance, or warrior rule, in Japan. The Taira, like the Fujiwara before them, chose to rule by manipulating the court from within the capital. When, however, the Taira were crushed by their warrior rivals, the Minamoto in 1185, power moved to the eastern provinces and warrior domination was more clearly expressed in the formation of a garrison government, bakufu, headed by shoguns. The Kamakura regime was overthrown in 1333, replaced briefly by a restored imperial government headed by Emperor Go-Daigo, who was, in his turn, removed by the Ashikaga warrior leaders who had brought him to power. Ashikaga Takauji established his bakufu in the Muromachi district of Kyoto in 1336. The Muromachi bakufu, vigorous in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, proved unable to prevent a descent into civil war in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Japan’s age of warring provinces, sengoku jidai .

 

The long, war-torn, four hundred-year period, from the mid-twelfth century through the Kamakura (1185-1333) and Muromachi (1336-1573), to the mid-sixteenth periods is often described as Japan’s medieval age, chûsei . Recently, some scholars have suggested that the Kamakura period should be seen as a continuation of the Heian period and that Japan’s medieval age only really develops in the fourteenth century." - Japan's Medieval Age: The Kamakura & Muromachi Periods, Martin Colcutt

 

Historical Accuracy

 

"Kurosawa's world overlays this tradition on the Shinto-Buddhist traditions of Japanese culture. His film is created to play on the screens of the world, visually one language, in sub-titles many. The images are of life; the characters, their emotions, their blood, all vivid, real. Yet there is a sense of distance not present in the Shakespearean experience. It is as if we are viewing these people and their world from an emotional distance. The camera and the stylized acting contribute to this distance. But so also does the Buddhistic outlook. In the tragic conclusion, the Fool will question, "Are there no god...no Buddha?" He will shake his fist at the heavens and say, "If you exist, hear me! You are...cruel...Is it such fun to see a man weep?" And the faithful, wise Tango will reply, "It is the gods who weep...Don't cry. It's how the world is made. Men prefer sorrow over joy, suffering over peace." One of the final images will be of a scroll image of the Amida Buddha. This is tragedy viewed from a Buddhist perspective, one in which the emotions of man are a result of his continued attachment to the illusions of this world. We are not meant to purge ourselves with tears and return to the every day drama of life. Rather we are asked to reflect on the condition of man and the meaning of his life. The tears of Ran are inner tears of awareness and compassion." - Alan G. Chalk, Guide to Japanese Films

 

 

The Film Itself

 

The Story

 

"Japanese warlord Hidetori Ichimonji decides the time has come to retire and divide his fiefdom among his three sons. His eldest and middle sons - Taro and Jiro - agree with his decision and promise to support him for his remaining days. The youngest son Saburo disagrees with all of them arguing that there is little likelihood the three brothers will remain united. Insulted by his son's brashness, the warlord banishes Saburo. As the warlord begins his retirement, he quickly realizes that his two eldest sons selfish and have no intention of keeping their promises. It leads to war and only banished Saburo can possibly save him."

 

Critic Opinion

 

“Man is born crying. When he has cried enough, he dies,” observes Kyoami, the fool. Like his Shakespearean counterpart, he remains by his king’s side and has all the best lines. A kind of distressed nihilism runs through the film. Walking through a landscape of ash and smoke, Kyoami’s master Hidetora, old and stricken, turns to him and says, “I am lost”. “Such is the human condition,” comes Kyoami’s reply. It’s a serious line but also one of the film’s few jokes.

 

These observations sit perfectly within the epic framework of the film. With a budget of $12 million, Ran was Kurosawa’s most expensive film and was, at the time, the most expensive Japanese movie ever made. Every aspect of the film is grand: the ideas, the emotions, the aesthetic and even the movement of the actors, which is pronounced and deliberate, indicative of some overriding trait possessed by the character they are playing.  It is also a film unafraid to deal with the kinds of questions historic writers since Homer have grappled with, particularly humanity’s seemingly endless capacity for self-destruction. This could easily have led to a ponderous, pompous or simply flat piece of work. Modern day blockbusters, many of which owe so much to Ran, so often fall into this trap. They have all the visual grandeur without the intellectual weight.

 

Ran has Shakespeare at its source and is driven not just by the staggering beauty of its images but by the all-encompassing tragedy of its story. There is no easy get-out for the viewer either, no reassuring salvation. The amorality of the film reflects the amorality of life. We don’t leave the cinema feeling like we’ve been given a nice comforting shot of cultural opium, but instead staring into the dark heart of humanity.  By the mid-’80s, Kurosawa was practically blind. A painter before he turned filmmaker, the Japanese auteur drew and painted thousands of images to show his team what he wanted Ran to look like. This process transfers to the experience of watching the film, which at times feels closer to perusing traditional Japanese painting or European impressionists and expressionists in the ever-moving halls of a gallery. This experience recalls, in its more pastoral, European moments, Kubrick’s compositions in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. In the battle scenes, the colour, smoke, scale and weaponry are reminiscent of director Sergei Bondarchuk’s Waterloo." - Oscar Rickett, Little White Lies

 

BOT User Opinion

 

"it's amazing how much more thought goes into these lesser-known war movies than the most mainstream epics. and how much more depressing they are." - @luna

 

Factoids

 

Ran was directed by Akira Kyrosawa.  It received 35 points and 4 votes.

 

 

Countries Represented: England (1), France (1), Japan (2), Spain (1), United States (3)

 

Time Periods Represented: 16th Century (1), 17th Century (1), 19th Century (1), 21st Century (1), Middle Ages (1), World War 1/1910s (1), World War 2/1940s (2)

 

Cross Section of Times and Countries: 19th Century - United States (1), 21st Century - United States (1), Middle Ages - England (1), Sengoku Period - Japan (1), Tokugawa Shogunate - Japan (1), World War 1 - France (1), World War 2/1940s - Spain (1), World War 2 - United States (1)

 

Directors Represented: David Fincher (1), Anthoney Harvey (1), Masaki Kobayashi (1), Akira Kurosawa (1), Penny Marshall (1), Sam Mendes (1) Steven Spielberg (1), Guillermo Del Torro (1)

 

Decades Represented: 60s (2), 80s (1), 90s (1), 00s (1), 10s (3)

 

 

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by The Panda

[The Panda]

Last one for today, I’ll probably get another one and some honorable mentions up early tomorrow morning.
 

 

 

"I think it was "Blessed are the cheesemakers"."

 

Historical Setting: 1st Century, Roman Occupied Jerusalem

 

Source from the Period

 

"1. (409) Now, when Titus was come into this [upper] city, he admired not only some other places of strength in it, but particularly those strong towers which the tyrants, in their mad conduct, had relinquished; (410) for when he saw their solid altitude, and the largeness of their several stones. and the exactness of their joints, as also how great was their breadth, and how extensive their length, he expressed himself after the manner following:-(411) "We have certainly had God for our assistant in this war, and it was no other than God who ejected the Jews out of these fortifications; for what could the hands of men, or any machines, do towards overthrowing these towers!" (412) At which time he had many such discourses to his friends; he also let such go free as had been bound by the tyrants, and were left in the prisons. (413) To conclude, when he entirely demolished the rest of the city, and overthrew its wars, he left these towers as a monument of his good fortune, which had proved his auxiliaries, and enabled him to take what could not otherwise have been taken by him.

 

2. (414) And now, since his soldiers were already quite tired with killing men, and yet there appeared to be a vast multitude still remaining alive, Caesar gave orders that they should kill none but those that were in arms, and opposed them, but should take the rest alive. (415) But, together with those whom they had orders to slay, they slew the aged and the infirm; but for those that were in their flourishing age, and who might be useful to them, they drove them together into the temple, and shut them up within the walls of the court of the women; (416) over which Caesar set one of his freed men, as also Fronto, one of his own friends; which last was to determine every one's fate, according to his merits. (417) So this Fronto slew all those that had been seditious and robbers, who were impeached one by another; but of the young men he chose out the tallest and most beautiful, and reserved them for the triumph; (418) and as for the rest of the multitude that were above seventeen years old, he put them into bonds, and sent them to the Egyptian mines. Titus also sent a great number into the provinces, as a present to them, that they might be destroyed upon their theaters, by the sword and by the wild beasts; but those that were under seventeen years of age were sold for slaves. (419) Now during the days wherein Fronto was distinguishing these men, there perished, for want of food, eleven thousand; some of whom did not taste any food, through the hatred their guards bore to them; and others would not take in any when it was given them. The multitude also was so very great, that they were in want even of corn for their sustenance.

 

3. (420) Now the number of those that were carried captive during this whole war was collected to be ninety-seven thousand, as was the number of those that perished during the whole siege eleven hundred thousand, (421) the greater part of whom were indeed of the same nation [with the citizens of Jerusalem], but not belonging to the city itself; for they were come up from all the country to the feast of unleavened bread, and were on a sudden shut up by an army, which, at the very first, occasioned so great a traitness among them that there came a pestilential destruction upon them, and soon afterward such a famine, as destroyed them more suddenly." - Josephus Describes the Roman's Sack of Jerusalem

 

Historical Context

 

"Throughout the first century, there were quite a few figures who were messiahs or healers or prophets, people with similarities to Jesus; all kinds of different people. Some of them arose at times of conflict and they would be a military leader who would shake off Rome. Others were more prophetic figures, perhaps healers too. Some people took their followers out into the wilderness and they would promise them some kind of sign by God that would signal the end of time.  And of course, there’s John the Baptist who was shortly before the time of Jesus, who was taking people out into the wilderness and baptizing them as a sign of being part of a new community.

 

So they’re all very different, they’re all very different from one another and they’re all very different from Jesus himself. So, I don’t think there’s a clear blueprint of what a messiah figure is going to be like. There’s just lots and lots of people who are acclaimed or hailed by people as being some kind of a leader, some kind of liberator, somebody who perhaps, is going to shake off Rome and inaugurate a great golden age.  I think what made Jesus distinctive from the others is that his prophecies came true or at least that there was something that happened. The others, the others were killed, I mean, routinely. Most of the messianic leaders, most of the prophets within this period suffered some kind of fate; most of the time the Romans came and killed them. That happened to Jesus too, but of course, what made his story distinctive was that it had an aftermath. That wasn’t the end; Christian followers of Jesus claimed that he’d been risen from the dead; and so they started to say that the death wasn’t the end of it and that the prophecies hadn’t just come to an end with Jesus’ death, but they were about to be realized by, first of all, the resurrection and then by the hope of a return from Jesus at some unspecified time in the future. So, all of this great fervor and energy that was with Jesus during his lifetime was now channeled into this hope, an expectation that he was going to come back soon. So, I think Jesus’ movement was very different from the others for that main reason that the proclamation of the resurrection meant that he could move past the being executed and his movement then gained momentum." - Helen K Bond, Professor of Christian Origins at University of Edinburgh

 

Historical Accuracy

 

"In recognition of his passing, here is why Terry Jones bequeathed the world what is still one of its best Jesus movies.

 

1. Diversity of expressions of Judaism

Life of Brian writers knew ancient Jewish authors like Philo and Josephus. When Brian stumbles into a speakers’ corner which includes the “really boring prophet,” Jones is noting first-century messiah figures but also underlining the diversity of expressions of Judaism in the turbulent decades before the destruction of the Jewish Temple in the year 70.

While mocking British politics of the day, the scene where members of the People’s Front of Judea take umbrage at being mistaken for the Judean People’s Front simultaneously parodies very real ancient intra-ethnic tensions preceding the disastrous Jewish war against Rome.

 

2. Doesn’t project later Christianity onto the first century

Life of Brian is a rare Jesus biopic that doesn’t look at Jesus the first-century Jew through the lens of later Christian theology. Unlike Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, it doesn’t import explicit conceptions of church, positive or negative, into its narrative.

 

3. Explores ambiguity

The famous scene “What have the Romans ever done for us?” parallels a later rabbinic discussion about the benefits of Roman rule. The writers display the ambiguities experienced by a conquered people. Despite the harsh realities, not all reacted to Rome in the same way.

 

...

 

6. Crucifixion depiction

Precisely because it is so absurd, Life of Brian’s depiction of those alongside Jesus singing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” while hanging from crosses mocks portrayals in other Jesus biopics: the 1961 King of Kings, directed by Nicholas Ray, and Jesus of Nazareth, Franco Zeffirelli’s 1979 film, show Jesus dying a relatively serene and beatific death. Jones and the Python actors share with their audience the tacit understanding that crucifixion is a most horrific form of state execution.

 

7. Resists casting Jews as villains

Life of Brian doesn’t take New Testament polemics against Jews, or against the Jerusalem leadership, at face value. Unlike some Jesus biopics, it resists casting Jews as villains or opponents of a (Jewish) prophet, teacher and, for Christians, Messiah. Instead, it places the responsibility for crucifixions like Jesus’s squarely where they historically belonged: with the Roman state.Terry Jones and the other Pythons have left the world a legacy of laughter. With Monty Python’s Life of Brian, we remember how Jones also left us biting satire about the dangers of “group-think” along with a considered portrayal of the Roman Mediterranean context of Jesus, the first-century Jew revered by more than two billion people today." - Matthew Robert Anderson, Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola College

 

 

The Film Itself

 

The Story

 

"The story of Brian of Nazareth (Graham Chapman), born on the same day as Jesus of Nazareth, who takes a different path in life that leads to the same conclusion. Brian joins a political resistance movement aiming to get the Romans out of Judea. Brian scores a victory of sorts when he manages to paint political slogans on an entire wall in the city of Jerusalem. The movement is not very effective but somehow Brian becomes a prophet and gathers his own following. His fate is sealed however and he lives a very short life."

 

Critic Opinion

 

"As in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," civilization is what happens between endless bouts of bickering: For every step forward, mankind takes eight steps back. Parts of "Life of Brian" show their age -- the political splinter-group comedy feels very late-'70s, while the casual nudity is a jolt in these conservative times -- but the basic calculus still stings: How can people expect to agree on matters of faith when they can't agree on lunch?  The classic Python burlesques hold up as well: a centurion (John Cleese) giving Brian a Latin grammar graffiti lesson (truly painful if you've ever been forced to decline a noun); the stoning sequence, featuring Python men dressed as women dressed as men and rocks flying at anyone foolish enough to say "Jehovah"; all the scenes involving Michael Palin as an airily lisping Pontius Pilate ("Stwike him woughly"); Palin again as a boring messiah-wannabe in the Alley of Prophets, muttering, "At that time, a friend shall lose his friend's hammer, and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about 8 o'clock . . ."

 

Grand mockery, all of it, but the scene that goes in the Movie Metaphysics highlight reel is when the reluctant Brian finally addresses his followers. "You don't need to follow me!," he pleads in exasperation. "You don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves! You're all different!"

The crowd responds, "Yes! We're all different!"

And one tiny voice pipes up, "I'm not."

You couldn't monkeywrench group-think better if you tried." - Ty Burr, The Globe

 

BOT User Opinion

 

"A classic satire, and a comedy masterpiece. Monty Python's finest hour." - @Jack Nevada

 

Factoids

 

Life of Brian was directed by Terry Jones.  It received 35 points and 8 votes

 

 

Countries Represented: England (1), France (1), Israel (1), Japan (2), Spain (1), United States (3)

 

Time Periods Represented: 16th Century (1), 17th Century (1), 19th Century (1), 21st Century (1), Classical Period (1), Middle Ages (1), World War 1/1910s (1), World War 2/1940s (2)

 

Cross Section of Times and Countries: 19th Century - United States (1), 21st Century - United States (1), Classical Period - Israel (1), Middle Ages - England (1), Sengoku Period - Japan (1), Tokugawa Shogunate - Japan (1), World War 1 - France (1), World War 2/1940s - Spain (1), World War 2 - United States (1)

 

Directors Represented: David Fincher (1), Anthoney Harvey (1), Terry Jones (1), Masaki Kobayashi (1), Akira Kurosawa (1), Penny Marshall (1), Sam Mendes (1) Steven Spielberg (1), Guillermo Del Torro (1)

 

Decades Represented: 60s (2), 70s (1), 80s (1), 90s (1), 00s (1), 10s (3)

 

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by The Panda

[Cap]

There’s something super satisfying about Life of Brian being number 42

[RealLyre]

1917 and Ugetsu felt kind of similar to me, 2 strong films technically but the story is whatever, although the latter was more enjoyable so ill be more inclined to revisit it at some point 

 

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by RealLyre
Word

[The Panda]

 

 

"Only grown-up men are scared of women."

 

Historical Setting: 1938 Salzburg, Austria

 

Source from the Period

 

"The excitement of the first Sunday in Advent had hardly died down when the sixth of December came around, one of the most momentous days for all houses where little children lived. On the vigil of this day Saint Nikolaus comes down to earth to visit all the little ones. Saint Nikolaus was a saintly bishop of the fourth century, and being always very kind and helpful to children and young people, God granted that every year on his feastday he might come down to the children. He comes dressed in his Bishop’s vestments, with a mitre on his head and his Bishop’s staff in his hand. He is followed, however, by the Krampus, an ugly, black little devil with a long, red tongue, a pair of horns, and a long tail. When Saint Nikolaus enters a house, he finds the whole family assembled, waiting for him, and the parents greet him devoutly. Then he asks the children questions from their catechism. He has them repeat a prayer or sing a song. He seems to know everything, all the dark spots of the past year, as you can see from his admonishing words. All the good children are given a sack with apples and nuts, prunes and figs, and the most delicious, heavenly sweets. Bad children, however, must promise very hard to change their life. Otherwise, the Krampus will take them along, and he is grunting already and rattling his heavy chain. But the Holy Bishop won’t ever let him touch a child. He believes the tearful eyes and stammered promises, but it may happen that, instead of a sweet bag, you get a switch. That will be put up in a conspicuous place and will look very symbolic of a child’s behavior.”

- Maria Augusta von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers

 

Historical Context

 

"In July 1934, Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss was assassinated by Austrian Nazis, as part of a failed coup. The Christian Social party came out of the civil war victorious, and the place of Dollfuss was taken by Kurt Schuschnigg, who abolished other parties and imposed a semi-fascist regime on the country.

The question of union with Germany remained alive, however, and the Nazis maintained a constant campaign of terror against the Christian Social regime. In 1936, Schuschnigg agreed to end the ban of the Nazi party in Austria and accepted Nazis into his cabinet.

 

This did not satisfy Adolf Hitler, who upped his demands for incorporation of Austria into the Reich – part of a general foreign policy of Heims in Reich, literally, “home into the Reich,”, which called for bringing ethnic Germans living beyond the country’s borders under German sovereignty. In practice, this would include annexation of Austria, western Poland and Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.

 

This was the prelude to the Anschluss, which was greeted by vocal protests from the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the Vatican, but not much more. On March 12, when German forces crossed the border into Austria, they faced no resistance, and were greeted with flowers. That same afternoon, Hitler arrived, crossing into the country at Braunau, his birthplace. Over the next few days, he toured the country, with the climax of his visit taking place in Vienna on March 15, where he appeared at a rally before some 200,000 people at the Heldenplatz.  A month later, a plebiscite on incorporation was held, and 99.7 percent of the population voted to approve. (By that time, some 70,000 potential dissenters had been rounded up and imprisoned.)" - David B. Green, Haaretz

 

Historical Accuracy

 

"While The Sound of Music was generally based on the first section of Maria's book The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (published in 1949), there were many alterations and omissions.  Maria came to the von Trapp family in 1926 as a tutor for one of the children, Maria, who was recovering from scarlet fever, not as governess to all the children.  Maria and Georg married in 1927, 11 years before the family left Austria, not right before the Nazi takeover of Austria.
 
Maria did not marry Georg von Trapp because she was in love with him. As she said in her autobiography Maria, she fell in love with the children at first sight, not their father. When he asked her to marry him, she was not sure if she should abandon her religious calling but was advised by the nuns to do God's will and marry Georg. "I really and truly was not in love. I liked him but didn't love him. However, I loved the children, so in a way I really married the children.
 

There were 10, not 7 von Trapp children.  The names, ages, and sexes of the children were changed.  The family was musically inclined before Maria arrived, but she did teach them to sing madrigals.  Georg, far from being the detached, cold-blooded patriarch of the family who disapproved of music, as portrayed in the first half of The Sound of Music, was actually a gentle, warmhearted parent who enjoyed musical activities with his family. While this change in his character might have made for a better story in emphasizing Maria's healing effect on the von Trapps, it distressed his family greatly.
 
The family did not secretly escape over the Alps to freedom in Switzerland, carrying their suitcases and musical instruments. As daughter Maria said in a 2003 interview printed in Opera News, "We did tell people that we were going to America to sing. And we did not climb over mountains with all our heavy suitcases and instruments. We left by train, pretending nothing."  The von Trapps traveled to Italy, not Switzerland. Georg was born in Zadar (now in Croatia), which at that time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Zadar became part of Italy in 1920, and Georg was thus an Italian citizen, and his wife and children as well. The family had a contract with an American booking agent when they left Austria. They contacted the agent from Italy and requested fare to America." - US National Archives

 

 

The Film Itself

 

The Story

 

"Maria (Dame Julie Andrews) had longed to be a nun since she was a young girl, yet when she became old enough discovered that it wasn't at all what she thought. Often in trouble and doing the wrong things, Maria is sent to the house of retired Naval Captain Georg Von Trapp (Christopher Plummer), to care for his children. Von Trapp was widowed several years before and was left to care for seven "rowdy" children. The children have run off countless governesses. Maria soon learns that all these children need is a little love to change their attitudes. Maria teaches the children to sing, and through her, music is brought back into the hearts and home of the Von Trapp family. Unknowingly, Maria and Captain Von Trapp are falling helplessly in love, except there are two problems, the Captain is engaged, and Maria is a postulant."

 

Critic Opinion

 

"For the story of the Von Trapp family singers, of the events leading up to their becoming a top concert attraction just prior to World War II and their fleeing Nazi Austria, Wise went to the actual locale, Salzburg, and spent 11 weeks limning his action amidst the pageantry of the Bavarian Alps. Ted McCord catches the beauty and fascination of the terrain with his facile cameras, combining the splendor of towering mountains and quiet lakes with the Old World grace of the historic City of Music, a stunning complement to interiors shot in Hollywood. Against such background the tale of the postulant at Nonnberg Abbey in Salzburg who becomes governess to widower Captain Von Trapp and his seven children, who brings music into a household that had, until then, been run on a strict naval office regimen, with no frivolity permitted, takes on fresh meaning.

 

Richard Rodgers composed two new songs for the picture, for which he also wrote the lyrics, as he did with added numbers to the remake of “State Fair.” Pair, “I Have Confidence In Me,” sung by Miss Andrews, and “Something Good,” an Andrews-Plummer duet, replace three songs from the original stage show which didn’t blend well into changes made by Lehman in the libretto. While neither is as catchy, perhaps. As certain of the other songs. Both are made into interesting numbers.

 

Of particular interest is the sequence simulating part of the famous Salzburg Festival and actually shot in the spectacular Felsenreitschule, or Rocky Riding School. The stage of the vast amphitheatre is backgrounded by scores of arched tunnels carved out of the rocky mountain that surrounds the city and it forms an impressive backdrop for the climactic scenes of the film, which show the Von Trapp family making their escape after an appearance onstage while storm troopers are waiting for them in the audience." - Whitney Williams, Variety

 

BOT User Opinion

 

"Emotional, gripping and having something to say would be qualities that I seek in movies and Sound of Music final 40 minutes has that in spades." - @Goffe

 

Factoids

 

The Sound of Music was directed by Robert Wise.  It received 36 points and 6 votes

 

 

Countries Represented: Austria (1), England (1), France (1), Israel (1), Japan (2), Spain (1), United States (3)

 

Time Periods Represented: 16th Century (1), 17th Century (1), 19th Century (1), 21st Century (1), Classical Period (1), Middle Ages (1), World War 1/1910s (1), World War 2/1940s (3)

 

Cross Section of Times and Countries: 19th Century - United States (1), 21st Century - United States (1), Classical Period - Israel (1), Middle Ages - England (1), Sengoku Period - Japan (1), Tokugawa Shogunate - Japan (1), World War 1 - France (1), World War 2/1940s - Spain (1), World War 2 - Austria (1), World War 2 - United States (1)

 

Directors Represented: David Fincher (1), Anthoney Harvey (1), Terry Jones (1), Masaki Kobayashi (1), Akira Kurosawa (1), Penny Marshall (1), Sam Mendes (1) Steven Spielberg (1), Guillermo Del Torro (1), Robert Wise (1)

 

Decades Represented: 60s (3), 70s (1), 80s (1), 90s (1), 00s (1), 10s (3)

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by The Panda

[Plain Old Tele]

Never figured Goffe would have a SOUND OF MUSIC rave.

[The Panda]

And another batch of honorable mentions, will maybe have time to post another one sometime after noon.

 

 

86.    Aguirre, The Wrath of God
87.    Spotlight
88.    (Tie for 88) Platoon, 
88.   (Tie for 88) L.A. Confidential
90.    1776 
91.    The Godfather 2 
92.    Persepolis
93.    A Man for All Seasons
94.    Blood Diamond 
95.    Becket
96.    Barry Lyndon
97.    First Man
98.    Ugetsu 
99.    The Searchers 
100.    Cinema Paradiso