Top Ten 1940s

We're almost done with these quickie surveys of my favorites and yours from decades past. Herewith the 1940s which I hesitated jotting down as there are more classics from this decade that I haven't seen than in arguably any other. If I keep waiting until I've watched everything it would never be posted. In truth, I need a project which forces me to fully deal with the gaps in my 40s viewing. A pleasurable project it would be, surely. But for now, off the top of my list-manic head....

Black Narcissus (1947)

top ten
01 The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
02 Casablanca (1943)
03 The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
04 Meet Me in St Louis (1944)
05 Double Indemnity (1944)
06 Black Narcissus (1947)
07 Citizen Kane (1941)
08 Notorious (1946)
09 It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
10 Gilda (1946) 

with apologies to other greats
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1945), Beauty and the Beast (1948), Mildred Pierce (1945), The Lady Eve (1941), Red River (1948), The Bicycle Thief (1949), Pinnochio (1940)

honorable mention
Rope (1948), The Heiress (1949), Spellbound (1945), Now Voyager (1942), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), The Search (1948), Fantasia (1940)

I'll admit I don't love these three quite as much you're supposed to... 
His Girl Friday (1940), Rebecca (1940), All the Kings Men (1949)

I've never seen (gulp)
Too many to list. More than in any of these other quickie top tens I'll gladly take your word for it with your top ten lists in the comments. Maybe we'll do a poll to force me into a handful of 40s films as follow up. 

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Team Top Ten: Women Who Deserve An Honorary Oscar

Amir here, to bring you this month’s Team Top Ten on a topic that remains one of our biggest collective pet peeves here at The Film Experience.

Every year when the Academy announces the list of recipients of the Honorary Oscar, we can expect only one thing: they will all be men. Sure, the odd woman wins the award here and there, but consider this: between 1993, when the honor was bestowed upon Deborah Kerr, until 2009, when Lauren Bacall shared the award with two men, not a single woman was deemed worthy of the biggest honor AMPAS has to offer. Apologists can point to the fact that men have run the industry at large since its inception. They would be right; the industry as a whole is equally at fault, if not more, but take a look at the list of women still awaiting their first statue – or *gasp* first nomination – and tell me they don’t deserve better than one golden man every sixteen years. If the drought is as depressingly long this time as it was between Kerr and Bacall, it can be 2025 before we see another lady take home an honorary Oscar!

Deborah Kerr in 1993 and Lauren Bacall in 2009 and a great chasm between them

We know all too well that complaining about the Academy’s decision doesn’t get us anywhere, but since we found recently that they do have a listening ear, we’ve decided to do our part and help them correct this injustice. Let’s give voters the benefit of the doubt and assume that all they really needed all these years was a list of suggestions. So, here is ours: the top ten women who most deserve an honorary Oscar, under the following three criteria: they need to be alive, above the age of 55 and Oscar-less.

 GIVE THESE WOMEN THE HONORARY! 

[tie] 10. Marni Nixon
You may not know what Marni Nixon looks like, but I guarantee you know what she sounds like. If you've seen Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Secret Garden (1949), The King and I, An Affair to Remember, West Side Story, or My Fair Lady, you have heard Nixon's golden voice coming from the mouths of some of Hollywood's most legendary actresses. As if it isn't hard enough work to try to make your voice sound just like someone else's, in some instances Nixon had to do so in secret, the studios wanting to hide the dubbing from their big stars. Nixon's onscreen credits may number only in the single digits (her role as Sister Sophia in The Sound of Music being the most famous by far), but had she actually performed the roles she dubbed onscreen, she would have had at least two Oscar nominations by now. She's an indelible part of film history, and she never received any onscreen credit for her most famous work. If that isn't cause to give someone an Honorary Oscar, then I don't know what is.
-Daniel Bayer

10 more legends to honor after the jump!  

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Top Ten 1960s

I still have a lot more to see from the 1960s but this top ten, more than most apart from the 1980s is a combination of films I fell for as a child on television in the 70s and 80s and films I love now as an adult. I'm bookending with two Natalie Wood features -- the first actress I ever loved -- though I recognize that they are more personal favorites than perfect films. That caveat aside I do find Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice to be grossly undervalued since it's essentiall a comedy about its time and therefore "light" and "dated" . Still, I absolutely insist, it's a wonderful wonderful light and dated thing. At the top of the list West Side Story has been my favorite film of all time for as long as I remember being conscious of movies so it'll just have to keep on being so -- it's fundamentally part of who I am -- flaws and all (and yes, I can see its flaws).

Natalie & Deneuve, the greatest of the 60s screen beauties

top ten
01 West Side Story (1961)
02 Persona (1967)
03 Psycho (1960)
04 The Sound of Music (1965)
05 Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
06 Hud (1963)
07 They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)
08 [Cheating w/ a Deneuve Double] The Umbrellas of Cherbrough (1965) & Belle de Jour (1967)
09 The Manchurian Candidate (1962) 
10 Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)

pick a film, any film

i'll only be satisfied with a top 17
11 Rosemary's Baby (1968)
12 Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
13 Splendor in the Grass (1961)
14 La Dolce Vita (1960)
15 Mary Poppins (1964).... coming up soon on "Hit Me..."
16 Playtime (1967)
17 Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

and affectionate nods to... 
Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962), Breathless (1961), Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962), My Fair Lady (1964), 8 ½ (1963), Darling (1965), The Apartment (1960), Bay of Angels (1963), and Rachel Rachel (1968).

Which films define you and which films can't you live without... from the subcategory of the 1960s of course?

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Team Top Ten: The Greatest Comic Book Adaptations of All Time

Amir here. It’s the first Tuesday of the month and we’re back with another edition of Team Top Ten. In case you haven’t caught up with the series yet, you can see our first episode here (best new directors of the 21st century) and the second here (greatest Best Actress-losing performances). 

With the summer movie season finally upon us in full force, I thought it’d be as good a time as any to discuss what has become one of the premier ways for Hollywood to take every last penny out of collective pockets: comic books! So let’s have a look at what Team Experience considers The Greatest Comic Book Adaptations of All Time.

While spandex-and-cape-clad superheroes and over the top villains usually come to mind when “comic books” are mentioned, the range of films adapted from this source is as wide as films adapted from any other pre-existing material, really. If we had waited a year to do this poll, Blue Is the Warmest Color, Abdellatif Kechiche’s three hour, Francophone epic about a teenage lesbian love affair could have possibly made the top ten and that should tell you all you need to know about the variety of films at our disposal – and mind you, we needn’t wait for Kechiche’s Palme d’Or winner to put lesbians on our list.

For various reasons including several ties, additional weight given to films placed first on a ballot and late submissions by procrastinating Team Experience members we’ve ended up with a list of 11, but even so, we’ve had to leave out some pretty terrific titles. Last month, many of you were surprised at the absence of Glenn Close from Dangerous Liaisons on our list. I found this month’s list to be even more surprising so I’ve listed some of the curiosities of our votes in a trivia section after the list. For now, let’s get right to it with...

11. Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988)
Adapted by Katsuhiro Otomo from his own epic manga, Akira is a sprawling and hyperviolent tour through a post-apocalyptic Tokyo. It's the original "darker and grittier," set in a dystopia dominated by self-interest, whether among the city's corrupt officials or its teenage motorcycle gangs. An angry youth movie, a work of cosmic sci-fi, and a colossal audiovisual achievement, Akira was really the ideal introduction for American audiences to anime's capabilities as an art form.
-Andreas Stoehr

10 more after the jump with misfits, assassins, and superheroes galore

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Top Ten 2010s... So Far

I just spent 108 minutes catching up with Jesse and Celine. We've met them twice Before... and I spent the first 2/3rds of the movie grinning like a damn fool I was so happy to be marinating in their always passionate detour-filled conversations. It's too early to say how much I loved the movie (though I did) but it got me to thinking what an achievement this series is and got me to thinking of true movie magic and how much of it we've had lately. So while so many of my fellow critics enjoy their mad rush through Auteursville at Cannes tonight I'm remembering the time I fell in love with this movie...

...and that one

...and that one

...and that one.

Here's my ten favorite movies of the 'Teens (2010-2019) ... so far of course

the bonafide masterpieces -it'd be tough to imagine them not being on the decade best list 6 years from now
1. I Am Love (Luca Guadagnini)
2. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
3. The Social Network (David Fincher)

indelible achievements
4. Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin)
5. The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Cholodenko)
6. Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance)

movie magic
7. Amour (Michael Haneke)
8. The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius)
9. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)

and?
10 ... let's leave this spot open for a current passion since this list is silliness until 2019 rolls around. How will Frances Ha and Before Midnight age? They'll certainly make my top ten list this year. And if they don't this will be a startlingly fine year.

And while I still have your attention you should "like" The Film Experience

Honorable Mention: Beginners, Weekend, Magic Mike, and Moonrise Kingdom
Growing?: Blue Valentine and The Fighter and Melancholia are aging well
Fading?: I admit my initial passions for both Black Swan and The Artist have cooled a bit.

Which films this young decade have already staked a claim on your 4ever heart?

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