Mike Mashon

Head, Moving Image Section, Library of Congress
USA

Voted for

FilmYearDirector
The Last Picture Show1971Peter Bogdanovich
Fear Eats the Soul1974Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Notorious1946Alfred Hitchcock
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans1927F.W. Murnau
LETYAT ZHURAVLI1957Mikhail Kalatozov
Always for Pleasure1978Les Blank
The Battle of Algiers1966Gillo Pontecorvo
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang1932Mervyn Leroy
Tokyo Story1953Yasujirō Ozu
Citizen Kane1941Orson Welles

Comments

The Last Picture Show

1971 USA

Brilliant cast mixing beloved veterans and young actors at the beginning of their careers. Gorgeous black-and-white cinematography that captures the desolation and beauty of North Texas. A sensitive script that eschews the cliches of coming-of-age tales to achieve an emotional nuance that lingers in the soul.

Fear Eats the Soul

1974 Federal Republic of Germany

No director deconstructed and rearticulated a genre like Fassbinder and melodrama.

Notorious

1946 USA

A master class in how to balance suspense and surprise.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

1927 USA

The poetic acme of silent cinema.

LETYAT ZHURAVLI

1957 USSR

Impossibly beautiful film in an impossibly devastating time.

Always for Pleasure

1978 USA

A soft spot for this because it's home.

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

1932 USA

No final line of dialogue has ever landed with such existential hopelessness.

Tokyo Story

1953 Japan

A film of enormous sentiment without being sentimental.

Citizen Kane

1941 USA

I don't want to but I have to.