All good choices from everyone! A few I’ve seen in the past year or two that I’ve enjoyed (in no particular order):
- Touch of Evil, Orson Wells (1958)
- The Third Man, Carol Reed (1949)
- In a Lonely Place, Nicholas Ray (1950)
- Key Largo, John Huston (1948)
- All Quiet on the Western Front, Lewis Milestone (1930)
- Sleepers West, Eugene Forde (1941)
- Yojimbo, Akira Kurosawa (1961)
- The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sidney Lanfield (1939)
- This Gun for Hire, Frank Tuttle (1942)
- The Tragedy of Macbeth, Joel Coen (2021)
Okay, my turn…
Are repeat mentions allowed? The posters so far have good taste.
In no particular order, my baker’s dozen:
- Eraserhead (Lynch, 1977)
- The Elephant Man (Lynch, 1980)
- Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick, 1964)
- Le Trou (The Hole), Becker, FRA, 1960
- The Third Man (1949)
- Village of The Damned (1960)
- Casablanca (Really? Thought I’d leave that one out?) (19
- Spellbound (Hitchcock, 1945)
- Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)
- Fail Safe (Lumet, 1964)
- Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog), Buñuel/Dalí, FRA, 1929
- Double Indemnity (1944)
- The Apartment (1960)
Wait! Wait! I have to repeat-mention 2019’s The Lighthouse!
Great list! You should post frames from some of those that are still missing here :)
Your wish is my command! 🧞
Can’t believe I forgot The Apartment from my list! And really I’d include all of these. There’s so many to choose from
Yes, this is a spiteful thread indeed! 😈 It’s so pernicious, I hadn’t noticed you’d already listed The Third Man! 🤤 Oops! 🤣
Les Diaboliques (1955)
I will start with some of mine!
- Strangers on a Train, Alfred Hitchcock (1951)
- Blonde Venus, Joseph Von Sternberg (1932)
- Witness for the Prosecution, Billy Wilder (1957)
- The bad and the Beautiful, Vincent Minelli (1952)
- Hail the Conquering Hero, Preston Surges (1944)
- Ace in the Hole, Billy Wilder (1951)
- Elevator to the Gallows, Louis Malle (1958)
- Rome Open City, Roberto Rossellini (1945)
- The Third Lover, Claude Chabrol (1962)
- The Ascent, Larisa Shepitko (1977)
- Ivan’s Childhood, Andrei Tarkovsky (1962)
- Masculin Feminin, Jean-Luc Godard (1966)
- The Cameraman, Buster Keaton (1928)
- Shock Corridor, Sam Fuller (1963)
- The Gold Rush, Charlie Chaplin (1925)
Curious about yours ! :)
I really like Francis Ha - not sure why, maybe it’s just the way Greta moves
Does memento count?
Otherwise I would say Eraserhead and m - eine Stadt sucht einen mörder
12 Angry Men was the b/w film I watched. It blew my mind.
I could pick so many. Gonna try to limit it.
- 8 1/2
- Persona
- Los Olvidados
- Harakiri
- The Human Condition Trilogy
- Hiroshima Mon Amour
- Au Hasard Balthazar
- Cleo From 5 to 7
- Seven Samurai
- It’s A Wonderful Life
- Citizen Kane
- City Lights
- Man With a Movie Camera
- La Haine
For a modern option I would go with Max Mad - Fury Road : Black & Chrome (2015).
Scene example - https://youtu.be/BQ3AZNOpzs4
Allow me to politely disagree.
I think we all can agree that an integral part of Fury Road was the hot palette of colors: you could feel the baking heat of the desert and the road-distorting heat coming off of all those “Big Daddy” Roth mega-engines…to be then starkly contrasted by the cool, cobalt-blue night desert scenes. In my less-than-humble opinion, rendering it in b/w adds absolutely nothing to Miller’s over-the-top latest chapter of the saga and actually diminishes its impact. They might as well have made it silent.
You wanna see black and white used effectively as effectively as color in a 21st century film? See
Zack Snyder’s Justice League: Justice is GrayRobert Eggar’s The Lighthouse (2019).