FLICKERING MYTH’S TOP 10 FILMS OF ALL TIME:
EVER. IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD
: Or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Christopher Nolan
To steal Sight and Sound’s idea In honour of Sight and Sound’s once-a-decade poll of the world’s reviewers, critics, directors and general movie folk to select the greatest films of all time, we here at Flickering Myth have done likewise – compiling our diverse array of writers, contributors, interviewers and columnists’ favourite choices.
We knew the result would differ from S&S’s, but we couldn’t have bargained for how much. Although the films in our Top 10 are eclectic, they have, without a doubt, a consistent strain running through them. They are American; they are narrative; most of their roots can be found in Scorsese, Coppola, Lucas – the movie brats of the 70s.
Is this who Flickering Myth is? It’s a question we’ll have to ask ourselves, as we hope you do too.
And, to get you in the mood, here’s a drumroll…
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NUMBER TEN
The Lion King (1994)
Directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff
Written by Irene Mecchi and Jonathan Roberts
Starring Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons, James Earl Jones
Bambi aside, there are few onscreen animal deaths more traumatic than Mufasa’s, and the memory still affects our Flickering Myth team today.
Along with its Oscar-winning Original Song, Can You Feel the Love Tonight, and Original Score by Hans Zimmer (look out for more of him later), the Hamlet-inspired tale of a lion who grows up to be King is an odd, but comforting, way to kick off our Top 10.
Oh, and Scar is, like, one of the best bad guys ever.
But that’s for another poll…
NUMBER NINE
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Written by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke
Starring Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester
As followers of the Church called Cinema, it isn’t enough to answer the always-asked question with, “Oh, I don’t actually have a favourite ever film. I change my mind too often.” It’s easier to just give them what they want. Personally, I always say 2001.
Kubrick’s 2001 spans from the Dawn of Man to the Infinite and Beyond. Every scene is iconic. HAL’s beady, red eye. Those imposing monoliths. The spaceship and space-station pirouetting in an interstellar dance to Strauss’ The Blue Danube. That edit.
And that’s only at no.9 on our list. Well shucks, guys. How could it get any better?
NUMBER EIGHT
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Directed by Curtis Hanson
Written by Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland
Starring Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger
Based on James Ellroy’s 1990 novel, Hanson’s neo-noir told of police corruption and Hollywood celebrity in the 1950s. It won two Oscars – one for Basinger’s supporting role, another for Hanson and Helgeland’s screenplay.
The two Australians, Crowe and Pearce, excelled themselves too, their characters are the opposite of one another. Although widely respected, this film doesn’t feel as though it has yet been given the attention it deserves. Perhaps in another decade or two, Confidential will be considered alongside the best.
NUMBER SEVEN
Ghostbusters (1984)
Directed by Ivan Reitman
Written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis
Starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver
There’s a line in the ‘Who We Are’ section of Flickering Myth’s ‘About‘ page that might help you understand why Ghostbusters is here. It goes: “Here at Flickering Myth, we value movies as much as we do films. We’re the product of Ghostbusters double bills and academic Film Studies.”
A generation of people grew up watching, re-watching and re-re-watching Ghostbusters. Some saw it in the cinema. Others had VHS copies so used that they remember the tape’s distorted lines as vividly as the quotes.
The film hits every comedic note to which it aspires, yet maintains a level of danger and seriousness that keep you tied to its narrative. And Bill Murray’s oft-improvising performance is a fundamental part of this. Someone once said Murray’s face is like a bowel of porridge that had been thrown at a wall, and in no way was that a bad thing. He’s rarely looked more porridge-on-a-wall than here. Perfect.
NUMBER SIX
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Written by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman
Starring Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman
Before there was Short Round, before there was Sean Connery’s Dr. Henry Jones Sr., …before there was…*blood curdles*…Shia LeBoeuf’s Mutt Williams swinging in the jungle…there was Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Inspired by the adventure serials of the 1930s and 40s, Indiana Jones’ first outing pitted him against cinema’s best bad guy offering – the Nazis.
It won four Oscars (Art Direction, Film Editing, Sound and Visual Effects) and remains one of the highest-grossing films of all time.
NUMBER FIVE
The Godfather (1972)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Written by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola
Starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan
Boasting one of the most impressively Italian-descended casts ever, The Godfather seems a permanent fixture in Greatest Film lists.
The pacing is majestically slow, matching the speed of Brando’s Vito Corleone’s glacier-like movement. Popular culture has taken freely from it, pinching horses’ heads and oranges bouncing.
Despite the magnificence of Part II by (kind of) pairing Pacino and Robert De Niro, The Godfather has just edged it in our poll. It was the first, and is arguably just a teeny bit more brilliant than its sequel.
NUMBER FOUR
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Written by Quentin Tarantino
Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman
Tarantino has said in interviews before that the stories of Pulp Fiction are cliche. The mob boss’ bored wife, the stick-up gone wrong, the boxer not throwing the fight – they’re all conventional narratives played out a gazillion times before. What Tarantino did, however, was to breathe life into every line. His dialogue is at its most pop-culture-superb. His characters are more than memorable. And he manipulated the standard linear narrative like with considerable flair.
The beauty of Pulp Fiction is that Tarantino made these comic book gangsters – these torturers and robbers – seem relatively banal. They didn’t speak about burglars. They spoke about hamburgers.
The Academy recognised this by awarding Tarantino Best Original Screenplay. But the film also won, probably a more personal victory for ardent cinephile Quentin, the Palme d’Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival.
NUMBER THREE
Back to the Future (1985)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale
Starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover
Two years ago, Back to the Future was re-released in cinemas for its 25th anniversary. Half the audience murmured happily along to most of it. It’s as though every line in the film is a quote. Or maybe it’s just because we’ve all seen it so many times.
Back to the Future shares a similar warmth and genuineness with Ghostbusters, but it’s difficult to say why Future is a whole four places ahead. Perhaps there’s just a little bit more charm. Perhaps it’s because a youthful Marty McFly was easier to escape into than a hang-faced Bill Murray.
Or maybe it’s because the protagonist’s mum hits on him. Take your pick.
NUMBER TWO
Inception (2010)
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Written by Christopher Nolan
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
The story goes that Nolan’s second Batman film made Warner Brothers so much money, they effectively handed him a carte blanche to make whatever he wanted next. Studios do not do this. They like money too much. WB must have had faith in the guy. If anyone could make this crazy script about dreams within dreams within dreams work, it was going to be Nolan. Needless to say, he made Warner’s money back in ACME sized buckets.
You can argue that most of the film is exposition, or that a few gaping plot holes become noticeable on the fourth or fifth viewing, but the fact you’re on your fifth viewing tells you something. Inception is a bloody masterpiece.
Wally Pfister’s photography, Hans Zimmer’s score, DiCaprio’s incredibly touching performance – all components are on top form. And each layer Nolan adds, the deeper the dreamers go. Effectively, alongside the narrative, Nolan comments on the cinematic apparatus itself, of how film projection is like a dream, where the spectator is completely immersed.
But most importantly, this is a watershed in blockbuster filmmaking. Nolan’s intricate narrative showed that multiplex audiences aren’t as dumb as studio bosses would like them to be. Intelligence and big budgets are not generally mutually exclusive. Nolan did more than realise a dream – he gave it to others.
The Dark Knight (2008)
Sequels are rarely better than their originals, why bother making them? Of the nine films before here in this poll, six of them sparked at least one sequel; some for better (The Godfather Part II); some for worse (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull); and some to stretch on ad infinitum (The Lion King, though it hasn’t been as exploited as other Disney titles). But amidst all the crap and missed potential and shameless cash-ins, there lies the greatest film of all time.
It’s easy to isolate Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker as why it’s the best move ever. The interrogation scene between him and Batman is one of the most awe-inspiring dialogues of recent times. But there’s so, so much more to The Dark Knight. Again, Hans Zimmers’ score. Again, Wally Pfister’s cinematography. Again, Nolan’s Dickensian cross-cutting between various narrative strains.
Yet although this is Gotham, not New York, there’s also the Twin Towers’ looming specter. Terrorism, and society’s response to it, haunts The Dark Knight. When we were in need of heroes, the comic book genre took off. Batman occupied the imagination that world leaders failed to grasp, saving the day and delivering us from evil.
Nolan, however, had the gall to also show us the cost of our hero’s presence. Batman creates a network that can hack any phone. He made privacy a privilege, not a right. Sound familiar?
All the anxiety and fear of a post-9/11 world is entrenched in the tone of The Dark Knight, though not in a preachy or explicit manner. It is simply there, like a reflection. Perhaps on a subconscious level we related to it. Or perhaps it’s because the Joker is really, really cool.
It’s hard to say.
Is this who Flickering Myth is?
Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. There’s no Citizen Kane, nor any Godard, Kurosawa, Renoir or Hitchcock. This is a far more modern Top 10 than those films found in S&S. Their most recent film was also the only one our two polls shared – 2001: A Space Odyssey, made in 1968. All of their others were made before 1968. All our others released after.
Is this who Flickering Myth is?
I’m still not sure. But judging on that Top 10, I’d bloody like to have a pint with them.
Oliver Davis
