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Mission: impossible. Ten best Biograph shorts by D.W. Griffith; ten best Hollywood animations from the 1940s; ten best experimental films from the 1960s; ten best Finnish films; ten best films of 1914 or 2012: justice would be possible in lists like them. I think there are on the average ten masterpieces per year in the history of the cinema. I wrote a book on the 1,000 best feature films for the centenary of the cinema and a new edition of it on the 1,100 best films for the 110th anniversary. I could include any of them in this top ten list. And many more short films.

City Lights: Still maturing after the passing of the golden age of comedy Chaplin moves towards heartbreaking self-reflection.


La Règle du jeu: Mozartian depths beneath a superficial frivolity.


Citizen Kane: There are a dozen reasons to like this. One is an enormous joy of the cinema. 


My Darling Clementine: A new gravity and dignity appears in Ford's Westerns after WWII.


Sansho dayu: Like Ford, Mizoguchi was a master of both the epic and the lyrical. In this story of injustice he is at his most ardent.
6. Smultronstället. A purely cinematic journey of self-discovery, worthy of Chekhov and Strindberg. Also the most beautiful hommage in the history of the cinema, in this case to Victor Sjöström and The Phantom Carriage, Bergman's personal favourite film.


Jules et Jim: Like Design for Living (Noël Coward / Ernst Lubitsch), an anti-triangle-drama: the saga of a friendship between two men and a woman. The title notwithstanding the central character is Catherine, immortalized by Jeanne Moreau. Also a rich period movie starting from la belle époque and reaching to the eve of WWII. Full of life and an irresistible love for the means of the cinema.


Kahdeksan surmanluotia/Eight Deadly Shots: Together with Loviisa (1946, Valentin Vaala) and Tuntematon sotilas/The Unknown Soldier (1955, Edvin Laine), this is one of the best Finnish films by a classical director, but only in its full version of 5 hours and 16 minutes.


The Mirror: A space odyssey into the interior of the psyche, Tarkovsky's "In search of lost time". Epic dimensions of history emerge during this personal journey through the memories of childhood.

Spirited Away: There is an affinity between animation and animism. Miyazaki, a master on the level of Lewis Carroll and Tove Jansson, creates a unique vision in which old spirits coexist with the modern world.