Andrew Mohsen

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La DOUBLE VIE DE VÉRONIQUE

This film ticks all the boxes you would love cinema for. A plot that never looks like any other, sensitive acting, exceptional role for the soundtrack, and lots of emotions. It's a film that you can easily love if you are searching for any of the previous criteria, and then you can love it for mastering them all.

Oldboy

This film redefines the term 'twist', but it's not great for that reason, although it will appeal to many audiences because of it. It's easily one of the great modern tragedies, inspired by Greek originals, but taking them to a very recent world. Park Chan-wook introduces very complicated characters whose fates we can't foresee, and towards whom we can't be certain of our feelings till the end.

Raging Bull

It's hard to choose one film as Scorsese's best, he has so many, but Raging Bull has a very special place. We follow an anti-hero protagonist – unusual in a film about sportsmen, who are usually heroes even if they lose.

This film dissolves what happens inside and outside the boxing ring to shape the life of the central character, in a way that still feels fresh and new even after more than 40 years.

Limelight

Maybe not Chaplin's most famous work, but it's the film that sums up not only his work but also the era he worked in. Limelight is like a sad song that Chaplin sings; he delivers one of his best performances, and proves that he is a great actor even without the Tramp character's make-up.

ALEXANDRIE ENCORE ET TOUJOURS

Chahine reaches the high-point of his career in this film. It's as though he managed to put everything he presented in his previous films into one. Music, dancing, real events, historical events, fantasy, love, Hamlet, and of course his own biography. He also delivers his last and best performance.

Black Swan

The best interpretation of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. No matter how many times you watch this film, it keeps shocking you as if it's the first time. We can't specify a besty scene, or a scene that lasts longest after watching this film, there are so many here. Aronofsky was never closer to 'perfection'.

Howl's Moving Castle

Maybe the best surreal world we can watch in any film. You have to drop your previous sense of judgement while you're watching, since everything in this world is not as it seems to be, bad and good are redefined here. We can't talk about this film without mentioning the great soundtrack by Joe Hisaishi.

Amadeus

Breaking the usual gaze on celebrity, and talking about a very unique love-hate relationship. This film may be the best biopic made about a brilliant talent from this era.

Further remarks

In the beginning I thought 10 films was a huge number, but then I discovered it's really small. When I went through the films I really love, I asked my elf, which of them I can describe as 'great', and that word really changed the perspective.

I wanted to add more directors, and in some cases more than one film for the same director, but after lots of thinking I came up with this list as representing my taste in cinema, and I believe they are great films.