100 FilmsPour Une Cinematheque Ideale

Cahiers Du Cinema, the highly respected French film magazine, has published a book listing 100 films necessary for a perfect cinema programme. The book, by Claude-Jean Philippe, is titled 100 Films Pour Une Cinematheque Ideale. A Parisian cinema, the Reflet Medicis, will indeed be screening the 100 films, in a season called Les 100 Plus Beaux Films De L'Histoire Du Cinema, running from yesterday until 6th July 2009.

The 100 films were chosen by a panel of seventy-eight film critics. The list is ranked according to the proportion of votes each film received, as follows:

48/78 (61%)

• Citizen Kane
  

47/78 (60%)

• The Night Of The Hunter
  
• The Rules Of The Game

46/78 (59%)

• Sunrise

43/78 (55%)

• L'Atalante

40/78 (51%)

• M

39/78 (50%)

• Singin' In The Rain

35/78 (45%)

• Vertigo

34/78 (44%)

• Les Enfants Du Paradis
  
• The Searchers
  
• Greed

33/78 (42%)

• Rio Bravo
  
• To Be Or Not To Be

29/78 (37%)

• Tokyo Story

28/78 (36%)

• Le Mepris

27/78 (35%)

• Ugetsu Monogatari
  
• City Lights
  
• The General
  
• Nosferatu
  
• The Music Room

26/78 (33%)

• Freaks
  
• Johnny Guitar
  
• La Maman & La Putain

25/78 (32%)

• The Great Dictator
  
• The Leopard
  
• Hiroshima Mon Amour
  
• Pandora's Box
  
• North By Northwest
  
• Pickpocket

24/78 (31%)

• Casque D'Or
  
• The Barefoot Contessa
  
• Mme De...
  
• Le Plaisir
  
• The Deer Hunter

23/78 (29%)

• L'Avventura
  
• Battleship Potemkin
  
• Notorious
  
• Ivan The Terrible I-II
  
• The Godfather
  
• Touch Of Evil
  
• The Wind

22/78 (28%)

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
  
• Fanny & Alexander

21/78 (27%)

• The Crowd
  
• 8½
  
• La Jetee
  
• Pierrot Le Fou
  
• Confessions Of A Cheat

20/78 (26%)

• Amarcord
  
• La Belle & La Bete
  
• Some Like It Hot
  
• Some Came Running
  
• Gertrud
  
• King Kong
  
• Laura
  
• Seven Samurai

19/78 (24%)

• The 400 Blows
  
• La Dolce Vita
  
• The Dead
  
• Trouble In Paradise
  
• It's A Wonderful Life
  
• M. Verdoux
  
• The Passion Of Joan Of Arc

18/78 (23%)

• Breathless
  
• Apocalypse Now
  
• Barry Lyndon
  
• Grand Illusion
  
• Intolerance
  
• Partie De Campagne
  
• Playtime
  
• Rome: Open City
  
• Senso
  
• Modern Times
  
• van Gogh

17/78 (22%)

• An Affair To Remember
  
• Andrei Rublev
  
• The Scarlet Empress
  
• Sansho Dayu
  
• Talk To Her
  
• The Party
  
• Tabu
  
• The Bandwagon
  
• A Star Is Born
  
• M. Hulot's Holiday

16/78 (20%)

• America America
  
• El
  
• Kiss Me Deadly
  
• Once Upon A Time In America
  
• Le jour se leve
  
• Letter From An Unknown Woman
  
• Lola
  
• Manhattan
  
• Mulholland Drive
  
• My Night At Maud's
  
• Night & Fog
  
• The Gold Rush
  
• Scarface
  
• Bicycle Thieves
  
• Napoleon

It's a pleasant surprise to see two films by Kenji Mizoguchi - Ugetsu Monogatari and Sansho Dayu - as his work rarely appears on top-100 lists. Note that Some Like It Hot is the 1959 comic masterpiece, not the obscure 1939 comedy. Cahiers produced a similar list in 1994, 100 Films Pour Une Videotheque, though that list was restricted to films available on VHS.