My Top 50 (September 3rd 2024)
A snapshot of the films I love right now, and the worries that come with it
Back in the summer of 2019, right as my cinephilia was cresting new levels of obsession, I was faced with a daunting fact: I was about to watch my 1,000th film. That number seems a little paltry now, but in the moment it was a major milestone for how much I had fully thrown myself into watching films with more intention, and more of a critical eye.
To mark the occasion, I did two things. The first was to watch Don’t Look Now, a film I’d long wanted to watch and deserving of such an event. The second was to archive a snapshot of what my top 50 favourite films looked like at that very moment, setting out to do the same every time I watched another 500 movies. And now, about to watch my 4,500th film, I find myself facing an all too familiar struggle.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise given how I structure much of my movie watching that I contain some obsessive tendencies. At this point in 2019, I was compulsively revising and re-uploading my list of favourite films near-daily, agonizing over whether or not a film should be moved up or down a spot, removed or added. It was becoming too much, increasingly distracting from the actual enjoyment of watching and considering media I loved. The advent of a 1,000th film watched presented the perfect opportunity to shift away from these hourly list adjustments and towards more acceptance of those changes as time went on.
Now that worry of what films I choose to “represent” me only comes about once a year, depending on my viewing habits. I still find myself struggling with this task, all the anxieties of whether or not I have enough foreign films, if I have enough Canadian films, if I have enough films from early Hollywood, women directors, or if I have too many titles that start with “S.” One also never wants to appear too “film bro-y,” whatever that title even represents nowadays.
It’s a daunting project to distill much of what I devote my free time and energy to into just 50 titles, especially when I feel a little stale myself. I tirelessly search for the next film I’m going to love, so desperate to expand my perspectives and taste, leaving it a little disappointing to look back on my previously archived list of favourites and find that there hasn’t been much change at all. Of course, there are always films that will appear on this list no matter what, but I get disappointed in myself when all that I expose myself to amounts to no new additions.
This is something I’ve long grappled with, a constant push and pull between acceptance and anger, currently landing somewhere in the middle. Yes, this list is ultimately representative of the films I love, the ones that are always swirling around in my head, and the films that have meant the most to me over my life so far. And, at the same time, it’s not entirely representative of all that I’m interested in, of all that I’ve seen, and of all that matters to me. It’s so incredibly difficult to properly strike a balance between these two forces. While I find a film like La Belle Noisseuse undeniably incredible, can I honestly say that I love it more than Back to the Future? I don’t think so.
While some may read this list and consider it too America-centric, or too focused on a certain era and style of filmmaking, it is, for better or worse, indicative of the films that mean the most to me right now. I can only hope that, 500 films down the line, there are innumerable new entrants from around the world and different time periods. But, until then, I’m content enough with my list, for better or worse.
With that lengthy pre-amble aside, here is a list of my Top 50 Favourite Films (as of right now, on September 3rd 2024):
50. BlackBerry (2023, dir. Matt Johnson)
49. The Heartbreak Kid (1972, dir. Elaine May)
48. Only Yesterday (1991, dir. Isao Takahata)
47. Real Life (1979, dir. Albert Brooks)
46. Seven Samurai (1954, dir. Akira Kurosawa)
45. Rachel Getting Married (2008, dir. Jonathan Demme)
44. All That Jazz (1979, dir. Bob Fosse)
43. Dog Day Afternoon (1975, dir. Sidney Lumet)
42. Jackie Brown (1997, dir. Quentin Tarantino)
41. A Face in the Crowd (1957, dir. Elia Kazan)
40. Something Wild (1986, dir. Jonathan Demme)
39. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001, dir. Wes Anderson)
38. The Thing (1982, dir. John Carpenter)
37. The Insider (1999, dir. Michael Mann)
36. Do the Right Thing (1989, dir. Spike Lee)
35. Evil Dead II (1987, dir. Sam Raimi)
34. GoodFellas (1990, dir. Martin Scorsese)
33. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015, dir. George Miller)
32. Back to the Future (1985, dir. Robert Zemeckis)
31. The Fly (1986, dir. David Cronenberg)
30. After Hours (1985, dir. Martin Scorsese)
29. All the President’s Men (1976, dir. Alan J. Pakula)
28. Repo Man (1984, dir. Alex Cox)
27. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982, dir. Steven Spielberg)
26. The Heart of the World (2000, dir. Guy Maddin)
25. Le Samouraï (1967, dir. Jean-Pierre Melville)
24. Blue Collar (1978, dir. Paul Schrader)
23. How Green Was My Valley (1941, dir. John Ford)
22. Don’t Look Now (1973, dir. Nicolas Roeg)
21. Tea and Sympathy (1956, dir. Vincente Minnelli)
20. Streetwise (1984, dir. Martin Bell)
19. The American Friend (1977, dir. Wim Wenders)
18. The Age of Innocence (1993, dir. Martin Scorsese)
17. The Last Waltz (1978, dir. Martin Scorsese)
16. The Elephant Man (1980, dir. David Lynch)
15. A Matter of Life and Death (1946, dir. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)
14. The Silence of the Lambs (1991, dir. Jonathan Demme)
13. The Bridges of Madison County (1995, dir. Clint Eastwood)
12. Phantom of the Paradise (1974, dir. Brian De Palma)
11. Dazed and Confused (1993, dir. Richard Linklater)
10. After Life (1998, dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)
9. Strange Days (1995, dir. Kathryn Bigelow)
8. Speed Racer (2008, dir. Lilly & Lana Wachowski)
7. Alien (1979, dir. Ridley Scott)
6. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977, dir. Steven Spielberg)
5. Being John Malkovich (1999, dir. Spike Jonze)
4. Apocalypse Now (1979, dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
3. The Shop Around the Corner (1940, dir. Ernst Lubitsch)
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, dir. Stanley Kubrick)
1. The Social Network (2010, dir. David Fincher)