OK, here they are, and without apologies: my favorites. I proudly present and heartily recommend the world films you can't afford to miss.
Like John Lennon, I watch "2001" once a week. Granted, Kubrick's epic is slow and only vaguely narrative and certainly not everybody's idea of a good time. But for sheer inventiveness and pure filmmaking genius, there is nothing to match it. Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-
dum.
If the grandeur of "2001" lacks the sense of humanity and interest in characters you crave, "Grand Illusion" more than makes up for it. Jean Renoir's 1938 WWI drama is so warm and rich, so masterfully filmed and acted that it routinely causes superlative overload in reviewers. The superb Criterion restoration makes this film an absolute must-own for anybody with two eyes to watch it.
Jacques Demy's candy-colored love story is sung all the way through, but don't let that turn you off. Catherine Deneuve is so young, beautiful, and innocent, it's enough to make the toughest musical hater's heart melt. A romance for the ages.
Kurosawa at his best: "Yojimbo," Japanese for "bodyguard," is violent, witty, thrilling, and darkly comic. Toshiro Mifune gives an unforgettable performance as proto-Clint Eastwood with a samurai sword.
Tom Tykwer's breathless 1999 techno mindgame has quick become an art house classic and even been poorly copied by American TV ("Alias"). If you consider foreign films boring, this is the one to watch: hit "play" and hold on to your couch.
Daniel Auteil and Emmanuelle Beart play star-crossed lovers of a unique sort in this 1992 film about art, broken violins, and frozen hearts.
This epic submarine drama is grim and heart-stoppingly tense -- still the best war movie in my book.
Guiseppe Tornatore's masterful tear-jerker is as shameless as it is effective. Philip Noiret plays the kindly projectionist who introduces a young boy to the joys of love and movies.
Death don't have no mercy: Ingmar Bergman's most famous film has been made a cliché by its parodists, but it's still fresh and gripping five decades later.
Nicolas Roeg's cult classic about the adventures of two abandoned children in the Australian outback is a taut, fascinating look into the interactions of humans and nature.
