MAKING a list of the thousand greatest films and then putting them in order of merit could be seen, I suppose, as a pastime somewhat similar to trainspotting — the anorak activity, that is, and not Danny Boyle’s drug-fuelled movie, which comes in at No 243, just below Brighton Rock and ahead of Blue Velvet.

The book wasn’t intended as a symptom of delayed adolescence, though I did find myself chanting the mantra of Trainspotting’s Renton — “Pain and craving. A need like nothing I’ve ever known will soon take hold of me” — in brief moments of daylight before plunging back into a darkened room for another fix of cinematic delight.

It was essential to see again the best films made since 1915, the date of the earliest contender, D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (No 232). It may now seem dated, as does Trainspotting for that matter, and unpleasantly racist. Karl Brown, its assistant cameraman, rightly called the story “the usual diatribe of a fire-eating Southerner”, but it retains an innovative and irresistible sweep and power.

Hollywood may be upset to find that the top three films were made by directors from Japan, France and Britain. Critics who regularly vote Citizen Kane the greatest of films may not like the fact that I have put it sixth.

But Kane has been bettered — although it remains my favourite film, partly because, from the 20-odd years I spent working in Fleet Street, I recognise the accuracy of its portrait of a megalomaniac. And I identify with Joseph Cotten’s critic, asleep over his typewriter.

Writing about critics’ reactions to the TV soap-opera Crossroads, the 1970s epitome of wobbly sets and wobblier acting, an academic researcher claimed that it was wrong to take no account of the feelings of viewers. Apply that to the cinema and the greatest movie would probably be Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith, closely followed by Titanic and the other five Star Wars films (the original trilogy can be found at No 70).

This variance may result from most audiences’ limited experience of film. They go regularly from their teens, stop in their late twenties and tend to think that cinema begins and ends with their own immediate experience.

It would account for the fact that users of the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) rate The Shawshank Redemption as the second greatest film, whereas it doesn't even appear in Halliwell’s Top 1000. Conversely, Tokyo Story, rated as the best in Halliwell’s, is not in the IMDB’s Top 250.

The quietly reflective Tokyo Story does not conform to current fashion. It contains no car crashes or explosions. There is no frenetic cutting from one moment to another. There are no fancy camera angles, vertiginous panning or crane shots.

Page 2: What the movie-lovers say ()

What the movie-lovers say

Barry Norman, film critic

If you’re going to have these kinds of lists, by all means stick Tokyo Story at the top. If you’re in the right mood it’s a wonderful film, and to some extent forgotten.

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