Kenji's "Canon": The Big 1000

Kenji's "Canon": The Big 1000's icon

Created by Fergenaprido.

Favorited 16 times, disliked 0 times, added to 19 watchlists.

Kenji's MUBI list

"I’ve called this list a canon, cos the original intention was of a wide-ranging canon, including established “classics” but also balancing the domination by Hollywood with a geographical spread. Now i’ve thought better of reinforcing received wisdom and the position of many popular and major films which hardly need promoting and which i’m not so keen on. So it’s become a personal “canon” like Rosenbaum’s 1000. Notable films I intend to see can be found on my “Percy the Porcupine” list. I need to keep extending my viewing in neglected areas of the world- Africa, Latin America, the Balkans and parts of Asia should then be better represented.

We didn’t have a TV till i was 12. My first memory of going to the cinema was Fantasia- my introduction to the devil and dinosaurs. Then there was a film called Emil and the Detectives. My small town’s cinema closed when i was 7- TV was too strong a competitor-, my sole memory of films there of “red Indians” on a hill. The bigger films were at the grand metropolis of the county town of 3,000 people 20 miles away, or an even greater city of a few thousand more in the other direction. How i wept when the childcatcher caught them in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and the sky outside had changed, with castles hidden in the majestic domes of cumulo-nimbus. At 11, The Great Escape was the greatest adventure, at 12, El Cid. At 13, i joined the school film society. I gazed in awe at the naked female on a motorbike in Vanishing Point- more fun than that boring Wild Strawberries. In my mid teens, the best discoveries were North by Northwest and Fred Astaire. At uni, on a French course, my special subject was French Cinema of the 30s- Renoir and Pagnol.. but i really got obsessively hooked on world cinema once i’d bought a video player in the late 80s (ooh those Wenders road movies!) and John Kobal’s book The Top 100 Movies (see my list on that); Tarkovsky and Mizoguchi were new names to me. Soon i saw Andrei Rublev and the rain and light had changed. Then a few years on (less availability in those days) it was the turn of Sansho the Bailiff."

Notes:

#361 Teen Kanya (Three Daughters, 1961) only refers to the segment "Postmaster"
#471 Le plus vieux métier du monde (1967) only refers to the segment "Anticipation, ou l'amour en l'an 2000"
#671 Fanny och Alexander (1982) specifically refers to the television version

1007 entries because....

#6-10 Fantômas (5 episodes) counted as one entry
#339-341 Ningen no jôken trilogy counted as one entry
#603-605 La batalla de Chile trilogy counted as one entry
Kenji's list now has only 999 entries

Remove ads

Pssst, want to check out the Kenji's "Canon": The Big 1000 list in our new look?

  1. 2 -

    Afgrunden

    1910 — a.k.a. The Woman Always Pays, in 3 top lists Check
  2. 3 -

    The Land Beyond the Sunset

    1912, in 2 top lists Check
  3. 6 -

    Fantômas - À l'ombre de la guillotine

    1913 — a.k.a. Fantômas: In the Shadow of the Guillotine, in 9 top lists Check
  4. 7 -

    Juve contre Fantômas

    1913 — a.k.a. Fantomas: The Man in Black, in 9 top lists Check
  5. 8 -

    Le mort qui tue

    1913 — a.k.a. Fantômas: The Dead Man Who Killed, in 9 top lists Check
  6. 9 -

    Fantômas contre Fantômas

    1914 — a.k.a. Fantomas: The Mysterious Finger Print, in 9 top lists Check
  7. 10 -

    Le faux magistrat

    1914 — a.k.a. Fantômas: The False Magistrate, in 9 top lists Check
  8. 12 -

    Sumerki zhenskoy dushi

    1913 — a.k.a. Twilight of a Woman's Soul, in 1 top list Check
  9. 13 -

    Ditya bolshogo goroda

    1914 — a.k.a. Child of the Big City, in 1 top list Check
  10. 15 -

    Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages

    1916, in 24 top lists Check
  11. 18 -

    Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl

    1919 — a.k.a. Broken Blossoms, in 13 top lists Check
  12. 22 -

    Körkarlen

    1921 — a.k.a. The Phantom Carriage, in 16 top lists Check
  13. 23 -

    The Kid

    1921, in 17 top lists Check
  14. 25 -

    Foolish Wives

    1922, in 10 top lists Check
  15. 26 -

    Coeur fidèle

    1923 — a.k.a. The Faithful Heart, in 4 top lists Check
  16. 27 -

    La souriante Madame Beudet

    1923 — a.k.a. The Smiling Madame Beudet, in 3 top lists Check
  17. 28 -

    Die Nibelungen: Siegfried

    1924, in 13 top lists Check
  18. 31 -

    Stachka

    1925 — a.k.a. Strike, in 14 top lists Check
  19. 32 -

    The Gold Rush

    1925, in 29 top lists Check
  20. 34 -

    The Big Parade

    1925, in 13 top lists Check
  21. 35 -

    Du skal ære din hustru

    1925 — a.k.a. Master of the House, in 5 top lists Check
  22. 36 -

    Mat

    1926 — a.k.a. Mother, in 9 top lists Check
  23. 38 -

    Kurutta ippêji

    1926 — a.k.a. A Page of Madness, in 12 top lists Check
  24. 40 -

    Napoléon vu par Abel Gance

    1927 — a.k.a. Napoleon, in 24 top lists Check
  25. 41 -

    Metropolis

    1927, in 36 top lists Check
  26. 42 -

    Devushka s korobkoy

    1927 — a.k.a. The Girl with the Hat Box, in 3 top lists Check
  27. 43 -

    Tretya meshchanskaya

    1927 — a.k.a. Bed and Sofa, in 6 top lists Check
  28. 44 -

    Le joueur d'échecs

    1927 — a.k.a. The Chess Player, in 1 top list Check
  29. 45 -

    Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

    1927 — a.k.a. Sunrise, in 36 top lists Check
  30. 46 -

    Oktyabr

    1927 — a.k.a. October (Ten Days that Shook the World), in 12 top lists Check
  31. 47 -

    The Wind

    1928, in 14 top lists Check
  32. 48 -

    Street Angel

    1928, in 3 top lists Check
  33. 50 -

    The Docks of New York

    1928, in 9 top lists Check
  34. 53 -

    Moulin Rouge

    1928, in 0 top lists Check
  35. 56 -

    Zvenigora

    1928, in 6 top lists Check
  36. 57 -

    La passion de Jeanne d'Arc

    1928 — a.k.a. The Passion of Joan of Arc, in 27 top lists Check
  37. 58 -

    Arsenal

    1929, in 7 top lists Check
  38. 60 -

    Die Büchse der Pandora

    1929 — a.k.a. Pandora's Box, in 18 top lists Check
  39. 61 -

    Mutter Krausens Fahrt ins Glück

    1929 — a.k.a. Mother Krause's Journey to Happiness, in 4 top lists Check
  40. 62 -

    Lucky Star

    1929, in 5 top lists Check
  41. 66 -

    The River

    1928, in 3 top lists Check
  42. 67 -

    Die wunderbare Lüge der Nina Petrowna

    1929 — a.k.a. The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrovna, in 4 top lists Check
  43. 68 -

    Tagebuch einer Verlorenen

    1929 — a.k.a. Diary of a Lost Girl, in 8 top lists Check
  44. 69 -

    Menschen am Sonntag

    1930 — a.k.a. People on Sunday, in 12 top lists Check
  45. 71 -

    Morocco

    1930, in 9 top lists Check
  46. 72 -

    L'âge d'or

    1930 — a.k.a. L'Age d'Or, in 16 top lists Check
  47. 74 -

    All Quiet on the Western Front

    1930, in 19 top lists Check
  48. 75 -

    Mädchen in Uniform

    1931, in 5 top lists Check
  49. 76 -

    Other Men's Women

    1931, in 1 top list Check
  50. 78 -

    Limite

    1931, in 10 top lists Check
Remove ads
Show all 1007 movies

Last updated on Aug 13, 2017 by Fergenaprido; source