100 Greatest Films of All Time

100 Greatest Films of All Time
Part 3 of 4 parts
by FilmFour

Film Four's
100 Greatest Films of All Time

(Part 3, Ranked)

51. THE ITALIAN JOB (1969) Much-loved British crime caper starring Michael Caine, Noel Coward and, er, Benny Hill. Plus a whole fleet of Minis.
52. SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950) Billy Wilder's sordid, angry classic is a razor-sharp dig at the Hollywood star system. William Holden plays a struggling writer who gets entangled with Gloria Swanson's silent era has-been.
53. THE JUNGLE BOOK (1967) Family favourite Disney animated adventure fare with show-stopping tunes and hilarious characterisation of Mowgli the Man Cub, Baloo the Bear and, of course, King Louie - king of the swingers, that is.
54. TITANIC (1998) Spectacular movie from James Cameron in which the central romance between Leonardo DiCaprio's poor artist and Kate Winslet's society girl is overwhelmed by the monumental recreation of the historical disaster.
55. JEAN DE FLORETTE (1986), MANON DES SOURCES (1986) A naive city dweller (Depardieu) inherits a farm - and the ill-will of his neighbours in this story of avarice and peasant unpleasantry in turn of the century Provence. Manon de Sources, the beautifully realised sequel to Jean De Florette, is a superbly crafted revenge story.
56. DR STRANGELOVE, OR: (1963) High cynical satire from Stanley Kubrick, with Peter Sellers, playing three key protagonists in the end of the world, George C. Scott and Sterling Hayden.
57. REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955) The film that established and immortalised James Dean as the ultimate icon for anguished youth. Charged, good looking and only slightly silly, this is a genuine teen classic.
58. THE SEVEN SAMURAI (1954) A simple story of seven mercenaries hired to protect a village from marauding bandits becomes a unique and mesmerising action-packed epic of sustained tension and stoic humanity in Kurosawa's hands: an enduring classic.
59. A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (1946) Originally commissioned by the wartime Ministry of Information to bolster relations between Britain and the US, Powell's compassionate and technically superb film about a pilot who cheats death has come to be regarded as a masterpiece in its own right.
60. BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969) Paul Newman and Robert Reford make one of cinema's greatest partnerships in this superb gangster Western.
61. SECRETS & LIES (1995) Mike Leigh's superb comedy-drama of family relationships. Heart-rending, bitter and delightful by turn.
62. BLUE VELVET (1986) One of Lynch's best and most controversial films, it gained particular notoriety for its depiction of Rossellini's dangerously dependent relationship with psychopathic kidnapper Hopper and their masochistic, oxygen-fuelled sex scenes.
63. LA DOLCE VITA (1960) Fellini's unforgettable vision of beauty, decadence and the decline of a generation. A riveting classic.
64. SPARTACUS (1960) The essential historical epic, and a forebear of Gladiator, this tale of a slave rebellion from Kubrick and producer/star Kirk Douglas is a true classic, despite its length.
65. METROPOLIS (1927) Original version of Fritz Lang's spectacular, highly-influential vision of a teeming, politically dubious urban future.
66. BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967) Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway pepper the American Midwest with bullets in this intelligent, amoral, genre-busting gangster movie.
67. KING KONG (1933) With two iconic 'performances' - Kong's and Fay Wray's - and one of the all-time climaxes: at the Empire State building, this has 'classic' written all over it.
68. GET CARTER (1971) British gangster classic starring Michael Caine as the eminently quotable, ultimately tough Jack Carter.
69. THE SEARCHERS (1956) A moody, intelligent Western starring John Wayne in his most complex role as Ethan Edwards, the eternal outsider.
70. THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957) Affectionately refenced/spoofed in many movies since most famously Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey the great Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal features as its central motif a knight taking on Death at a game of chess. The prize? His life.
71. DON'T LOOK NOW (1973) Chilling but moving classic of British cinema. Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland star as a couple who move to Venice after the death of their daughter, only to encounter forebodings of death amid its dank off-season canals.
72. BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945) David Lean breaks out the stiff upper lips for his restrained, yet emotionally charged, examination of forbidden passions in 1940s England.
73. MAS*H (1970) Anti-establishment comedy from Robert Altman set during the Korean War but satirising the US Vietnam war effort. Stars Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould and Robert Duvall.
74. THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971) The cop thriller that has been much copied but rarely matched, featuring one of the best car chases ever committed to film. And Gene Hackman isn't bad, either.
75. TOP HAT (1935) Arguably the classiest and funniest of the RKO Astaire-Rogers musicals. Top Hat offers something close to perfect cinematic escapism.