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Jonathan Rosenbaum's Essential Films top movies seen by tjalla

This list contains the favorite movies of movie critic Jonathan Rosenbaum who writes for the Chicago Reader. The movies span virtually every decade, and include many an obscure movie. Jonathan Rosenbaum's Essential Films

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    L'arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat

    1896 — a.k.a. Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat
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    La sortie des usines Lumière

    1895 — a.k.a. Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory
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    Le tunnel sous la manche ou Le cauchemar...

    1907 — a.k.a. Tunneling the Channel
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    A Corner in Wheat

    1909
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    The Musketeers of Pig Alley

    1912
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    Fantômas - À l'ombre de la guillotine

    1913
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    Juve contre Fantômas

    1913 — a.k.a. Juve Against Fantomas
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    Le mort qui tue

    1913 — a.k.a. The Dead Man Who Killed
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    Fantômas contre Fantômas

    1914 — a.k.a. Fantomas Against Fantomas
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    Le faux magistrat

    1914
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    The Avenging Conscience: or 'Thou Shalt Not Kill'

    1914
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    Ditya bolshogo goroda

    1914 — a.k.a. Child of the Big City
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    L'enfant de Paris

    1913
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    The Wishing Ring: An Idyll of Old England

    1914
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    Les vampires

    1915
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    Burlesque on Carmen

    1916
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    Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages

    1916
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    Judex

    1916
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    One A.M.

    1916 — a.k.a. Solo
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    Tih Minh

    1918
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    Barrabas

    1919
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    Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl

    1919 — a.k.a. Scarlet Blossoms
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    Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari.

    1920 — a.k.a. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
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    Die Austernprinzessin

    1919 — a.k.a. My Lady Margarine
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    True Heart Susie

    1919
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    The Last of the Mohicans

    1920
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    Prästänkan

    1920 — a.k.a. The Witch Woman
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    Die Puppe

    1919 — a.k.a. The Doll
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    Cops

    1922
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    Der müde Tod

    1921 — a.k.a. Between Two Worlds
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    The Kid

    1921
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    Nanook of the North

    1922
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    Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler - Ein Bild der Zeit

    1922 — a.k.a. Dr. Mabuse, King of Crime
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    Foolish Wives

    1922
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    Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens

    1922 — a.k.a. Nosferatu the Vampire
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    Orphans of the Storm

    1921
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    Raskolnikow

    1923 — a.k.a. Crime and Punishment
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    La souriante Madame Beudet

    1923 — a.k.a. The Smiling Madame Beudet
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    The Covered Wagon

    1923
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    Three Ages

    1923
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    Ballet mécanique

    1924
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    Greed

    1924
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    L'inhumaine

    1924 — a.k.a. The Inhuman Woman
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    Der letzte Mann

    1924 — a.k.a. The Last Laugh
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    Michael

    1924 — a.k.a. Chained
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    Die Nibelungen: Siegfried

    1924 — a.k.a. Siegfried's Death
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    Paris qui dort

    1925 — a.k.a. At 3:25
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    Peter Pan

    1924
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    Sherlock Jr.

    1924
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    Stachka

    1925 — a.k.a. Strike

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18 comments

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Comments 1 - 5 of 18

ebaum1saik's avatar
1 week 2 days ago ebaum1saik said:

Definitely, I was actually the one who nominated Canyon Passage so it could get on the Doubling the Canon list. Luckily it made it!
Kasparius's avatar
3 weeks ago Kasparius said:

Canyon Passage is just deliciously entertaining.
ebaum1saik's avatar
1 month 3 weeks ago ebaum1saik said:

The Shanghai Gesture (Sternberg, 1941)
Canyon Passage (Tourneur, 1946)
Unfaithfully Yours (Sturges, 1948)
Flaming Creatures (Jack Smith, 1963)

Nice... that Sternberg film is all style, amazing and decadent style. Canyon Passage is probably Tourneur's best western (got to see it in a theater thanks to Rosenbaum). Unfaithfully Yours is arguably the height of Sturges' craft, not as fast-paced and funny as some others, but brillantly shot and constructed. And of course Flaming Creatures is the pinnacle of avant-garde kitsch.

I also gotta check out Star Splanged to Death sometime.
jewellrunner's avatar
2 months ago jewellrunner said:

Before Sunset? Bleh, I expect better from Rosenbaum.
Kasparius's avatar
2 months 2 weeks ago Kasparius said:

In the reprint edition of Essential Cinema Rosenbaum adds these titles to the list of 1000.

"I've jotted down 30 titles of more recent films (2003-2007) - preceded by 30 titles of more recent discoveries, rediscoveries, or acknowledged oversights of older films (1919-2001) - that would qualify as contenders If I had such an option , Which I'll list Chronologically."

Here's the list:

Blind Husbands (Stroheim, 1919)
Diagonale Symphonie (Viking Eggeling, 1924)
King Kong (Cooper and Schoedsack, 1933)
Jolly Fellows (Alexandrov, 1934)
Okraina (Boris Barnet, 1934)
Young Mr. Lincoln (Ford, 1939)
The Shanghai Gesture (Sternberg, 1941)
I Married a Witch (Clair,1942)
La nuit fantastique (L'Herbier, 1942)
A Canterbury Tale (Powell and Pressburger, 1944)
Canyon Passage (Tourneur, 1946)
Unfaithfully Yours (Sturges, 1948)
Late Chrysanthemus (Mikio Naruse, 1954)
Peter Kelly's Blues (Jack Webb, 1955)
Calle Mayor (Bardem, 1956)
Les espions (Clouzot, 1957)
Don Quixote (Welles, 1957) (Movie Theater Sequence from unfinished film)
Komal Gandhar/ E-Flat (Ghatak, 1961)
Flaming Creatures (1963) Jack Smith
The Iranian Crown Jewels (Golestan, 1965)
Chimes at Midnight (Welles, 1966)
Kiev Frescos (Paradjanov, 1966)
Army of Shadows (Melville, 1969)
Umbracle (Portabella, 1970)
Rendez-vous à Bray (Delvaux, 1971)
Winter Soldier (Collectively made, 1971)
The Other Side of the Wind (Welles, 1976. Unfinished Film)
Warsaw Bridge (Portabella, 1990)
Balkan Inventory (Lucci, 2000)
Oporto of my Childhood (De Oliveira, 2001)
Silence... On tourne (Chahine, 2001)
Coffee and CIgarettes (Jarmusch, 2003)
The Corporation (Abbott, 2003)
Pas sur la bouche (Resnais, 2003)
The Saddest Music in the World (Maddin, 2003)
Before Sunset (Linklater, 2004)
Delamu (Tian, 2004)
Ten SKies (Benning, 2004)
The World (Jia, 2004)
Howl's Moving Castle (Miyazaki, 2004)
The Power of Nightmare (Curtis, 2004)
Star Spangled to Death (Jacobs, 2004)
Yes (Potter, 2004)
A History of Violence (Cronenberg, 2005)
Away from Her (Polley, 2006)
Bamako (Sissako, 2006)
Black Book (Verhoeven, 2006)
Citadel (Egoyan, 2006)
Coeurs (Resnais, 2006)
The Dead Girl (Moncrieff, 2006)
Find Me Guilty (Lumet, 2006)
Inland Empire (Lynch, 2006)
Offside (Panahi, 2006)
Opera Jawa (Nugroho, 2006)
Still Life (Jia, 2006)
When the Levees Broke (Spike Lee, 2006)
I'm Not There (Haynes, 2007)
Kramasha (Dutta, 2007)
Secret Sunshine (Lee Chang-dong, 2007)
The Silence before Bach (Portabella, 2007)
The Trap (Adam Curtis, 2007)

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