Carol Morley

Comments

Well, the difficulty and pain of compiling my list ten years ago has flooded back. I could have handed in the same list, as I still believe all those films I selected back then are truly great, but I feel like this is an opportunity to include ones that I didn’t have the space to include, or that didn’t exist then. I’m not much of a list maker, and certainly not interested in which film knocks which off the ‘top spot’ – but this is an opportunity to celebrate what cinema has given to the world, and also to reflect on how films touch and shape you as a person.

My reasons for my selection are: American Honey for how it made me feel – it grasped my heart; An Angel at My Table for its beating heart celebration of an artist’s life; The Double Life of Véronique for beauty and mystery; Juliet of the Spirits for colour and how it searches for meaning; Cléo from 5 to 7 for its astonishing life force; Jeanne Dielman, for breaking boundaries brilliantly; Daughters of the Dust for its poetry and desire for new forms; The Thin Blu Line for its major influence on documentary form; Picnic at Hanging Rock – gifted like a recurring dream; and The Night of the Hunter for haunting me forever.