That's awesome. Very cool - I've never really followed/read up on him as an individual but have enjoyed a few of his films greatly. Thanks for sharing.
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Martin Scorsese lists his 12 favourite films of all time
- Thread starter fdst1983
- Start date
Scorcese does so much for classic cinema, I love it.
I just saw the 4K Restoration of Lawrence of Arabia in the theater last weekend, and sure enough there was Scorcese in the credits as a producer and consultant for the restoration (as was Steven Spielberg).
Also recently saw the new restoration on blu-ray of Marlon Brando's One-Eyed Jacks and Scorcese was in some of the bonus material and is credited as a supervisor for the 4K remaster.
No problem! Scorses also has a personal library of film that probably dwarfs anyone else's, to the tune of 10s of thousands of recordings in various media. Obviously, a lot of filmmakers have similar things but to my knowledge the only others that are as utterly obsessed with watching everything under the sun are Tarantino and del Toro.
Ugetsu is unexpected. Great horror film - although it's described as "fantasy drama romance" it's actually a very traditional ghost story. Also introduced me to the Japanese (and Chinese) tradition ofwhat initially appear to be) morality stories that don't go anywhere and where bad things happen to good people with no comeuppance or closure.
See also Japanese fairy tales/children's fables and Unreasonable Ghost with inexcusable motivations and indiscriminate vengeance on unrelated persons.
See also Japanese fairy tales/children's fables and Unreasonable Ghost with inexcusable motivations and indiscriminate vengeance on unrelated persons.
Yes! I actually think Psycho holds up much better except for the last little bit of exposition. Rear Window will always be my favorite. Vertigo just has so many problems with characters and writing.
A lot of these posters who complain about him only listing old movies as his favorites are probably the same people who won't even give older movies a try.
A very Boomer list, as expected. Having said that, I didn't think this thread would involve Speed Racer. Of all the films in the world... LOL. Good trolling Fernando!
He probably doesn't want to play favorites among people he knows or works with.
Probably also why he stopped at mid 60s in his American movies documentary, though I wish he would do something similar again for world movies and covering recent times as well.
For him these are movies he has enjoyed an incredible amount over half a century. They are all great films. The questiyof their being movies greater than them is a bit silly. They're the master pieces he enjoys the most at the moment. Doesn't mean he hasn't enjoyed anything since the 60s it's just what he was feeling when he made the list.
It's not a very boomer list though.
That doesn't make any sense. It's his all time list, any movies after 68 doesn't stand up to the 12 he listed, simple as that.
Some of you guys need to expand your cinematic horizons. For examples, after watching Kin-dza-dza which is... a movie to put it lightly, I've been interested in some more Soviet cinema, and have gotten a list together of films I wanna see from it, including:
- Battleship Potemkin (1925) - Sergei Eisenstein
- Man with a Movie Camera (1929) - Dziga Vertov
- The Cranes Are Flying (1957) - Mikhail Kalatozov
- Soy Cuba (1964) - Mikhail Kalatozov
- War and Peace (1966-67) - Sergei Bondarchuk
- Solaris (1975) - Andrei Tarkovsky
- Stalker (1979) - Andrei Tarkovsky
- Come and See (1985) - Elem Klimov
- Zerograd (1989) - Karen Shakhnazarov
If anyone has any suggestions, it'd be great.
- Battleship Potemkin (1925) - Sergei Eisenstein
- Man with a Movie Camera (1929) - Dziga Vertov
- The Cranes Are Flying (1957) - Mikhail Kalatozov
- Soy Cuba (1964) - Mikhail Kalatozov
- War and Peace (1966-67) - Sergei Bondarchuk
- Solaris (1975) - Andrei Tarkovsky
- Stalker (1979) - Andrei Tarkovsky
- Come and See (1985) - Elem Klimov
- Zerograd (1989) - Karen Shakhnazarov
If anyone has any suggestions, it'd be great.
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For the people complaining about none of his favorite movies coming out after 1968, I have a question. Are any of your favorite films from before 1968?
Out of the films in Scorsese's list, I've seen two: 2001: A Space Odyssey and Ugetsu Monogatari.
2001 is great and would probably be in my top 12 as well.
Ugetsu's interesting, but I didn't personally like it all that much. Though to be fair, I've only seen it once... thus my opinion of it is highly contingent upon my particular frame of mind when I watched it, since that can be a significant factor in whether something resonates or not.
2001 is great and would probably be in my top 12 as well.
Ugetsu's interesting, but I didn't personally like it all that much. Though to be fair, I've only seen it once... thus my opinion of it is highly contingent upon my particular frame of mind when I watched it, since that can be a significant factor in whether something resonates or not.
This is just a list of his absolute favorites. The way some people are commenting you'd think he said these are the only 12 movies he likes.
I'm surprised at some of the reactions in this thread. It's not a list of what Martin Scorsese thinks are the twelve greatest movies ever made. It's not the only twelve movies he likes either since he's talked about many other movies he's liked over the years—including newer ones. It's just the twelve movies he enjoyed watching the most. As such, it's much more of a subjective and personal thing. There might be better movies out there, but that's really not the point of the list.
Hell, one of my favorite movies is Ghostbusters. This doesn't mean I think it's better than every movie made before or since. It doesn't mean I also don't watch, appreciate, and even love all sorts of movies. Out of the (many) movies I've watched, I've even seen four on Scorsese's list here too (Ugetsu, Vertigo, 2001, & Citizen Kane) and enjoyed them all. They're also arguably all much better and more influential films than Ghostbusters too. Nonetheless, I obviously don't have same the kind of emotional attachment to those that I do to some sci fi comedy from the 80s that I grew up watching all the time as a kid.
I'd assume the films Scorsese put on this list were chosen for similar reasons. This is probably why his favorites are old (much like himself). By that same token, Ghostbusters is beloved to a lot of other millennials, so I'd expect it to be on the favorites list of many people my age. Outside of that age group, I'm sure it's more of a rarity. I'm not quite getting why there's a bit of a controversy with Scorsese's choices. Don't get me wrong, I'm surprised other movies he's praised didn't make the list, but's it's not because [I thought] they were better films.
EDIT: On that note, one of the movies I was surprised to not make the list was The Third Man. Not because I think it's a better movie than say Citizen Kane, but because Scorsese wrote an article on how much he loved the movie. In fact, here's a whole article by him talking about how great the film is (and the film really is great): https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...e-best-revelation-in-all-cinema-10340553.html
Hell, one of my favorite movies is Ghostbusters. This doesn't mean I think it's better than every movie made before or since. It doesn't mean I also don't watch, appreciate, and even love all sorts of movies. Out of the (many) movies I've watched, I've even seen four on Scorsese's list here too (Ugetsu, Vertigo, 2001, & Citizen Kane) and enjoyed them all. They're also arguably all much better and more influential films than Ghostbusters too. Nonetheless, I obviously don't have same the kind of emotional attachment to those that I do to some sci fi comedy from the 80s that I grew up watching all the time as a kid.
I'd assume the films Scorsese put on this list were chosen for similar reasons. This is probably why his favorites are old (much like himself). By that same token, Ghostbusters is beloved to a lot of other millennials, so I'd expect it to be on the favorites list of many people my age. Outside of that age group, I'm sure it's more of a rarity. I'm not quite getting why there's a bit of a controversy with Scorsese's choices. Don't get me wrong, I'm surprised other movies he's praised didn't make the list, but's it's not because [I thought] they were better films.
EDIT: On that note, one of the movies I was surprised to not make the list was The Third Man. Not because I think it's a better movie than say Citizen Kane, but because Scorsese wrote an article on how much he loved the movie. In fact, here's a whole article by him talking about how great the film is (and the film really is great): https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...e-best-revelation-in-all-cinema-10340553.html
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Not sure if it has been posted or not, but here is his list of favorite movies from the 90s:
Roger Ebert and Martin Scorsese's Best 90's Movies List
Roger Ebert and Martin Scorsese's Best 90's Movies List
This thread is wild, lol. Not sure why it's shocking that a guy in his 70s most enjoys watching movies from his formative years that probably led to him becoming a director in the first place.
I've only seen 4 of the 12, but am familiar with all of them and I'm completely not surprised by these picks. Pretty much all of them are movies you'd run into if you were in film school or had a passion for film history. A lot of these movies were extremely influential in how modern fimmakers approach their craft today, there are a ton of lessons in cinematography and frame composition in these movies.
They may not be the most entertaining of things to watch nowadays, but I can absolutely see how Scorsese would love watching these movies seeing as he took a lot of lessons from these movies and implemented them within his own body of work. I'm sure he could watch them still and still find something new to utilize as a filmmaker. I always find these sort of lists fascinating as a film lover because you can watch them and understand how the director in question learned and developed their own style by recognizing individual elements in the films on their list.
I've only seen 4 of the 12, but am familiar with all of them and I'm completely not surprised by these picks. Pretty much all of them are movies you'd run into if you were in film school or had a passion for film history. A lot of these movies were extremely influential in how modern fimmakers approach their craft today, there are a ton of lessons in cinematography and frame composition in these movies.
They may not be the most entertaining of things to watch nowadays, but I can absolutely see how Scorsese would love watching these movies seeing as he took a lot of lessons from these movies and implemented them within his own body of work. I'm sure he could watch them still and still find something new to utilize as a filmmaker. I always find these sort of lists fascinating as a film lover because you can watch them and understand how the director in question learned and developed their own style by recognizing individual elements in the films on their list.
Gonna go on a limb and say that the movie where the trainers beat up the chimps for not acting well enough did in fact, not have better direction then this, admittedly somewhat stuffy "true film" list.
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Congratulations, you guys have managed to find a phrase that makes you feel socially righteous without actually engaging with anything Scorsese's written down here. Anti-intellectionism dressed up as social progress.
What's so boomer about it? The movies he lists seem very different than what the average baby boomer grew up on after all.
The Leopard it's not a leopard, it's a serval
Yeah but leopards are cooler.
Well said. I'm fine with people having issues with the list but it would be nice if their criticism had any sort of substance instead of "old=bad".
No Infernal Affairs ? You know the movie that your movie (The Departed) was based on for you to win your oscar for the first time.
Lol at some of he drive by posting here. Dude just puts up his 12 faves like any person would and surprise it's a reflection of an older man who loves film and in particular classics that influenced his career. Won't stop others from shitting on it with garbage like "boomer list" and "pretentious."
I did not get the love for The Searchers when I watched it like 15 years ago. Even setting aside the shitty motives of the main character (which probably isn't too out of line from a lot of men in the late 1800s) that movie didn't do much for me.
If I had to watch a John Wayne movie again, I'd rather watch The Shootist.
If I had to watch a John Wayne movie again, I'd rather watch The Shootist.
He has in the past
He even includes movies as recent as the past year