Comments

Lists are ultimately subjective. I initially considered a list of films that would represent the ‘most important’ in film history, such as great work from the silent era by Eisenstein and/or Chaplin; features such as Citizen Kane, Rules of the Game, and the other titles that have dominated Sight & Sound polls since 1952. I am teaching international film history and have studied these films. Many of them do represent the aesthetic pinnacles of achievement, but in a strange way my admiration for Welles, Renoir and Eisenstein remains purely cognitive. The ten films in my list had the biggest impact on my view of cinema as an artform, as a means for directorial self-expression, in essence a cinema of auteurs that moved me on an intellectual and emotional level. I would have loved to add a few more: The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Werner Herzog), The Tree of Wooden Clogs (Olmi), Hyenas (Mambety), Mother and Son (Sokurov) and the wonderful Apu Trilogy (Satyajit Ray).