The July/August 2009 issue of Film Comment polled several critics on the best films to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Taxi Driver placed first, ahead of films such as Il Gattopardo, Viridiana, Blowup, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, La Dolce Vita, and Pulp Fiction. Votes were cast by Melissa Anderson, Geoff Andrew, Richard Brody, Michael Chaiken, Chris Chang, Chris Darke, Scott Foundas, J. Hoberman, Alexander Horwath, Kent Jones, Laura Kern, Nathan Lee, Elisabeth Lequeret, Adrian Martin, Olaf Möller, James Quandt, Jonathan Romney, Gavin Smith, Chuck Stephens, and Amy Taubin.
1. Taxi Driver Martin Scorsese, 1976
2. The Leopard Luchino Visconti, 1963
3. Viridiana Luis Buñuel, 1961
4. The Conversation Francis Ford Coppola, 1979
5. The Third Man Carol Reed, 1949
6. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Jacques Demy, 1964
7. Rosetta Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 1999
8. Blow-Up Michelangelo Antonioni, 1967
9. Apocalypse Now Francis Ford Coppola, 1979
10. The Wages of Fear Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953
11. La Dolce Vita Federico Fellini, 1960
12. Othello Orson Welles, 1952
13. Under the Sun of Satan Maurice Pialat, 1987
14. Taste of Cherry Abbas Kiarostami, 1997
15. If… Lindsay Anderson 1969
16. The Tree of Wooden Clogs Ermanno Olmi, 1978
17. The Cranes are Flying Mikhail Kalatozov, 1958
18. Kagemusha Akira Kurosawa, 1980
19. Padre Padrone Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, 1977
20. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days Cristian Mungiu, 2007
21. The Ballad of Narayama Shohei Imamura, 1983
22. Brief Encounter David Lean, 1946
23. The Working Class Goes to Heaven Elio Petri, 1972
24. The Go-Between Joseph Losey, 1971
25. The Eel Shohei Imamura, 1997
26. Pulp Fiction Quentin Tarantino, 1994
27. The Tin Drum Volker Schlöndorff, 1979
28. Wild at Heart David Lynch, 1990
29. Underground Emir Kusturica, 1995
30. L’Enfant Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2005
Film Comment Magazine March April 2019
Film Comment Digital Anthology – Rainer Werner Fassbinder (kindle)
Film Comment Volume 7 Number 1 Spring 1971
Leading on from the critical acclaim of Mean Streets, Martin Scorsese continued further into the darker side of New York City with a film set soon after the Vietnam War. Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) is a lonely and depressed young man and former Marine living in Manhattan who becomes a night time taxi driver in order to cope with his chronic insomnia. Bickle becomes attracted to a young woman (Cybill Shepherd), shows concern for a child prostitute (a disturbingly precocious turn from Jodie Foster), and becomes progressively more troubled over what he sees as the city’s filth and human scum. His compressed anger finally erupts into a rage focused simultaneously on Foster’s pimp and Shepherd’s boss, a political candidate. Brilliant and controversially violent, the film features an alarming psychological atmosphere (enhanced by a jazzy and eerie music score by Bernard Hermann), a remarkable central performance from De Niro and established Scorsese as one of the great talents of the New Hollywood era.
Buy or Rent (watch online) Sundance Now (free trial followed by subscription)
In 2010, the Toronto International Film Festival released its “Essential 100” list of films, which merged one list of the 100 greatest films of all time as determined by an expert panel of TIFF curators with another list determined by TIFF stakeholders. The list reads like a definitive guide to the best of world cinema.
Michael Kenneth Mann is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer of film and television who is best known for his distinctive brand of stylised crime drama. For his work, he has received nominations from international organisations and juries, including those at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Cannes and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His most acclaimed works are the crime film Heat (1995) and the docudrama The Insider (1999). Total Film ranked Mann No. 28 on its list of the 100 Greatest Directors Ever, Sight and Sound ranked him No. 5 on their list of the 10 Best Directors of the Last 25 Years, and Entertainment Weekly ranked Mann No. 8 on their 25 Greatest Active Film Directors list. Below are his top 10 choices for 
Heat (BFI Modern Classics) Paperback
Tarr Bela: I Used to Be A Filmmaker (Buy or Rent, watch online)
Walter Salles 8 Inch x10 Inch PHOTOGRAPH Dark Water (2005) Giving Direction to Bill Mechanic & Ashley Kramer kn
Tsai Ming-liang and a Cinema of Slowness (Hardcover)
The Atom Egoyan Collection (7 Disc Set) [DVD]
(DVD)
Manoel de Oliveira 100 years 22-DVD Anniversary Box Set [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import – Portugal ] [DVD]
Manoel De Oliveira (Contemporary Film Directors)
(book)
Dreyer’s last silent film, The Passion of Joan of Arc was shot in France with massive technical and financial resources and in conditions of great creative freedom. Having spent over a year researching Joan of Arc (played here by stage actress Renée Jeanne Falconetti, in her only major film role), Dreyer forgoes medieval pageantry or Joan’s military exploits, instead using the records of the Rouen trial to focus on the spiritual and political conflicts of her last day as a captive of England. Instantly acclaimed by critics as a masterpiece (although it was a commercial failure), the film is probably most notable for the symbolic progression of close-up faces that reaches an apotheosis in the long sustained sequence of Joan’s interrogation against a menacing architectural backdrop. Despite French nationalists’ scepticism about whether a Danish person could be in charge of a film that centred on one of France’s most revered historical icons, it’s Dreyer’s brilliant direction, particularly the unconventional emphasis on the actors’ facial features, that along with Falconetti’s unforgettable performance, gives the film its immense emotional power.
Buy or Rent (watch online)
