100 - JURASSIC PARK (Stephen Spielberg, 1993)
Michael Crichton’s novel theory that DNA specialists could clone a
tyrannosaurus rex from a mosquito trapped in amber inspired the greatest
theme-park movie ever made. Crichton’s premise, coupled with Spielberg’s
obsession with dinosaurs, resulted in a box-office sensation. The plot could
have been written on a parking ticket. Doctors Sam Neill, Laura Dern and
Jeff Goldblum test-drive a dinosaur park on a tropical island before Richard
Attenborough’s bumbling billionaire opens it to the public. The awe at the
first sight of grazing brachiosaurs and a galloping herd of gallimimus was
not confined to the cast. No one had seen computer-generated miracles on
this scale before. Spielberg’s touch of genius was to make his meat-eating
predators far more intelligent, indeed “human”, than the sloppy scientists
who cloned them. James Christopher
99 - LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE (Jean Cocteau, 1946)
Few directors are as skilled at enchantment as Jean Cocteau, as this dreamlike
version of the fairytale Beauty and the Beast demonstrates. La Belle et
la bête must be among the most achingly beautiful films yet made.
The black and white photography adds a sensual mystery to the story. Surreal
visual enigmas captivate the viewer and the design of the beast’s magical
domain, by Christian Bérard, is exquisite. Jean Marais spent five hours
every day in make up for the role of the Beast. His interpretation is
skilfully nuanced, despite the layers of fur: this beast is fearsome,
dignified and tragic. Wendy Ide
98 - MY FAIR LADY (George Cukor, 1964)
Audrey Hepburn as a grubby urchin was always going to be a bit of a stretch,
even for the most credulous audiences. But her repartee with co-star Rex
Harrison (on magnificently irascible form) and the delicious design of the
film by Cecil Beaton ensure that any minor quibbles about her Cockney
authenticity are soon forgotten. This screen adaptation of Lerner and
Loewe’s musical take on Pygmalion embraces its theatrical
roots: it is archly stagey and the stylised design heightens the
artificiality of the story and some of the performances. But it’s a glorious
confection blessed with some of the catchiest songs and most memorable dance
routines in Hollywood musical history. And Hepburn’s poise is positively
regal. The film won an impressive eight Oscars in 1965. Wendy Ide
97 - POINT BREAK (Kathryn Bigelow, 1992)
The surprise in Point Break is not that it redefined the macho action
flick, but that it was done by a woman. From within a derivative tale about
a rookie undercover FBI agent, Keanu Reeves, who infiltrates a gang of, yes,
bank-robbing surfers led by Patrick Swayze, director Bigelow magnified the
homoerotic tension between agent Reeves and surfer Swayze (parodied recently
in Hot Fuzz). She made an action star out of the epicene Reeves and
turned the movie’s “100% Pure Adrenaline” mantra into a shooting style — the
effects of which are still felt today (the Bourne movies are an
elaboration of the Reeves-Swayze chase in Point Break). The surfing
scenes aren’t too shabby either. Wendy Ide
96 - LOST IN TRANSLATION (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
This brief encounter between Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in a five-star
hotel in Tokyo is a remarkable follow-up to The Virgin Suicides.
Murray plays a washed-up Hollywood star who fronts adverts for cheap
whiskey. He hasn’t been so mordantly funny since Groundhog Day.
Johansson is the frustrated wife of a photographer forever on shoot. The
magic of their hotel romance is how little needs to be said. The melancholic
humour is deliciously taboo. The platonic loners visit karaoke bars, watch La
Dolce Vita at 3am, and sizzle politely in hotel lifts. The ending is one
of life’s great mysteries. James Christopher
95 - GRAND HOTEL (Edmund Goulding, 1932)
One of Hollywood’s first ultra-glamorous A-list ensembles, Grand Hotel
and its legendary producer Irving Thalberg boasted the genius idea of
sticking a slew of head-lining stars such as Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo and
John Barrymore in a Berlin hotel for 48 hours, and simply watching the drama
unfold. The resulting movie is famous for a typically steely turn from
Crawford, a clever criss-crossing narrative, and a scene-stealing
performance from Garbo as a suicidal Russian dancer who rebuffs Barrymore
with the iconic line: “But I want to be alone!” Kevin Maher
94 - THE TOWERING INFERNO (John Guillermin, Irwin Allen, 1974)
Proudly riding high in our charts, because trash this good cannot be ignored,
this is the granddaddy of disaster flicks. There’s a brand-new hotel, all
the guests have some extra layer of drama attached to them, and there’s a
raging fire. Steve McQueen and Paul Newman play the heroes. There are
brilliant scenes set in a rooftop ballroom, kiddies in peril, baddies you
want to burn and an overused dangling rope ladder. O. J. Simpson plays a
security guard. Elements have become so parodied in films like Airplane you
may find yourself laughing at inappropriate moments. Tim Teeman
93 - COOL HAND LUKE (Stuart Rosenberg, 1967)
Eight years before Jack Nicholson took on the system in One Flew Over the
Cuckoo’s Nest, Paul Newman’s prisoner strained against the chains
of a Florida work camp in Rosenberg’s sweat-soaked allegory. Blue-eyed
Newman was set up as a Christ figure, earning hero status via prodigious
egg-eating and frequent escape attempts before being disowned by his fellow
inmates, broken by the guards and gloriously resurrected. Luke’s prison
number, 37, is a biblical reference to Luke 1:37: “For with God nothing
shall be impossible.” Ed Potton
92 - A BOUT DE SOUFFLE (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
The movie that launched the French New Wave, Godard’s A bout de
souffle is often mistakenly perceived as a formal experiment in
film-making and an intellectual event. Whereas in fact, this story of a
chain-smoking petty criminal (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and his impressionable
American girlfriend (Jean Seberg) is a testament to the power of propulsive
film-making (the title in English, Breathless, is a hint). Everyone
here is running, fleeing or marching around Paris (Belmondo, in particular
is evading les flics after an opening-reel murder). The camera too,
wielded by the legendary Raoul Coutard, rarely stops moving. Even a quiet
bedroom scene between the two star-crossed leads is spliced to giddy shreds
by Godard’s then infamous jump-cuts. The results are anything but dull. Ed
Potton
91 - SHORT CUTS (Robert Altman, 1993)
The ensemble promise of Altman’s Nashville and The Player
are fully realised in this breathtakingly confident homage to Los Angeles
and to the poetry of alienation it engenders in its residents. Actors as
disparate as Robert Downey Jr, Jack Lemmon and Julianne Moore, working from
a Raymond Carver adaptation, play struggling Los Angelinos with emotional
wounds and fractured relationships. Best is Jennifer Jason Leigh’s
phone-sexpert, whose explicit hotline conversations eventually drive
frustrated husband Chris Penn to a random act of violence. The film,
ultimately, is beautiful but without hope. Which, of course, is very LA. Kevin
Maher
