70 - THE CONVERSATION (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
This was the sorbet that Coppola made to cleanse his palate in between the
first two Godfather films. But it’s anything but purifying, as Gene
Hackman’s anorak-swaddled surveillance geek pulls out what remains of his
hair trying to figure out whether the couple on whom he is eavesdropping are
about to be murdered. Set against a claustrophobic backdrop of
post-Watergate paranoia, Coppola’s favourite of his films hinges on the
intonation of a single word, much as Antonioni’s Blow-Up had revolved around
a single detail in a photograph. Except with much less fashionable threads. Ed
Potton
69 - HIDDEN (Michael Haneke, 2005)
With the recent release of his terrifying remake of Funny Games, Haneke has
justified his reputation as the most unnerving auteur in Europe. Caché
(Hidden) is his masterpiece: a magnificently understated thriller about
guilt and race that begins, innocuously enough, when a popular television
personality and cultural commentator, Georges (Daniel Auteuil), keeps
finding surveillance tapes on his doorstep with footage of his family. The
menace is terrific. Failure to find a culprit, a camera, or a reason, acts
like poison on Georges’s relationship with his wife (Juliette Binoche), and
ultimately his sanity. His desire to pin the guilt on Maurice Benichou’s
luckless immigrant, Majid, exposes an ugly, long-buried secret. Haneke
brilliantly needles fears and prejudices that the educated middle-classes
would be horrified to admit. Political cinema at its intimate best. James
Christopher
68 - THE MALTESE FALCON (John Huston, 1941)
Was there ever a greater MacGuffin in the movies than the fabled black statue
sought by Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre? The great
director John Huston keeps the action rolling along at such a cracking pace
that it papers over the cracks in the plot, but it is Bogey, before this a
bit-part player, who gives the defining performance of his career. Nigel
Kendall
67 - THE PIANO (Jane Campion, 1993)
Campion’s third film, a period melodrama set in 1850s New Zealand, redefined
the concept of the Art House Blockbuster. The movie described an erotic love
triangle between priggish landowner Stewart (Sam Neill), the earthy and
slightly simian Baines (Harvey Keitel) and the mysterious, piano-playing
protagonist Ada (Holly Hunter). Campion’s mercilessly tight direction plays
to startlingly seductive effect. Kevin Maher
66 - TOY STORY (John Lasseter, 1995)
It was with this deliriously entertaining feature film that the Pixar
Animation Studio burst on to the scene, rejuvenating an animation industry
that had sunk into a creatively moribund routine of fairytales and prissy
princesses. Toy Story reminded audiences that family entertainment didn’t
necessarily have to exclude adults, and proved digital animation didn’t have
to be ugly and sinister to behold. At the heart of the story is Woody
(voiced by Tom Hanks), a toy cowboy who is profoundly jealous of a shiny new
spaceman action figure called Buzz Lightyear, which has usurped his position
as favourite toy of Andy. When Buzz accidentally falls out of the window,
Woody is blamed. He must prove his innocence by rescuing Buzz from the
toy-destroying terror next door . . . Wendy Ide
65 - THE THIN BLUE LINE (Errol Morris, 1988)
Errol Morris’s unconventional documentary employed a series of stylised
dramatic reconstructions of a crime that resulted in the death of a Dallas
policeman in 1976, a murder for which a drifter called Randall Adams was
convicted and sentenced to death. The event is replayed several times,
incorporating new evidence and fresh perspectives each time. The resulting
movie puts a persuasive case for a miscarriage of justice and poses
fundamental questions about the nature of truth. As a result of its
allegations, the case was reopened and Adams was eventually released. A
remarkable, impassioned documentary. Wendy Ide
64 - DO THE RIGHT THING (Spike Lee, 1989)
It marked the feature debut of Martin Lawrence, but don’t hold that against
Spike Lee’s sweltering tale of racial tension in Brooklyn. It had an
ensemble cast that also featured actors as charismatic as Samuel L. Jackson,
Rosie Perez, Danny Aiello and Lee himself, and a killer script in which
grievances slowly bubble to the surface between blacks, whites and Asians on
the hottest day of the year. The presidential race has demonstrated that
race remains a hot potato in America, but no film in the intervening two
decades has addressed it with as much honesty, nuance — and style — as this
one. Ed Potton
63 - ON THE WATERFRONT (Elia Kazan, 1954)
Two years after he had identified a list of alleged communists to the House
Un-American Activities Committee and been ostracised by much of Hollywood,
Elia Kazan set about proving to the world that there could be honour in
being “a man who named names”. And how. Inspired by a Pulitzer Prize-winning
series of exposés by journalist Malcolm Johnson, he cast Marlon Brando as a
guilt-ridden dock worker who risks becoming a pariah among his colleagues by
testifying against the local gang boss (memorably snarled by Lee J. Cobb).
Brando, who was excused from set early every day to see his therapist,
walked out of a test screening because he was so depressed about his
performance. Posterity, and the Academy, disagreed. Ed Potton
62 - TAXI DRIVER (Martin Scorcese, 1976)
“You talking to me?” is the repeated line but, as several observers have
pointed out, the next one is the more telling. “I’m the only one here,”
mumbles cock-eyed cabbie Travis Bickle into his mirror, and Taxi Driver has
proved as powerful an essay as any on the pain, frustration and mania of
isolation. There was also an uncomfortable connection with assassination
attempts: Bickle was partly based on Arthur Bremer, the would-be killer of
the presidential candidate George Wallace, and in turn inspired John
Hinckley Jr to make his attempt on Ronald Reagan’s life. Ed Potton
61 - RASHOMON (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
Kurosawa’s influential film has become a reference point for countless later
pictures: it was remade as The Outrage, and was cited as an inspiration for
The Usual Suspects, Basic and most recently Vantage Point. Set in feudal
Japan, the story explores a single event — an ambush, rape and murder in a
forest — from the conflicting points of view of four different characters: a
bandit (played with gusto by Toshiru Mifune); a nobleman; his wife; and the
simple woodcutter who witnessed the tragedy. As a portrait of human weakness
and mendacity, it is damning. The subjective nature of each character’s
account leads to the conclusion that everyone lies. It’s visually arresting:
the black-andwhite compositions are as elegant and bold as ink calligraphy.
The score is magnificent, but it’s Kurosawa’s decision to let the final
account play out without musical accompaniment that confirms his genius. Wendy
Ide
