100 Best Movies (11-20)

Blue Velvet (1986)
David Lynch's fabulously, authentically neo-Freudian fairy tale about the seriously dark and weird things going on in a small American town and/or in the mind of an over-curious young man who lives there. A masterpiece that slipped miraculously through the screens Hollywood keeps in place to prevent such original eruptions.

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
A precariously thin veneer of charm helps put over this frankly amoral tale of venal users who deserve--and, surprise, wind up with--each other. Hit theme tune goes a long way to disguise the bitterness of this pill.

Cabaret (1972)
A precariously thin veneer of charm helps put over this frankly amoral tale of venal users who deserve--and, surprise, don't wind up with--each other. Flashy musical numbers go a long way to disguise the bitterness of this pill.

Casablanca (1942)
A time capsule of World War II-era glamour, nobility and romance. The only movie that could rival the average Shakespeare play for number of lasting phrases contributed to everyday speech.

Chinatown (1974)
The best thing Jack Nicholson will ever do. The best thing Faye Dunaway will ever do. The best thing Roman Polanski will ever do. The best thing Robert Towne will ever do. Etc.

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Citizen Kane (1941)
A boy and his sled are separated. Problems ensue.

City Lights (1931)
Even if--like us--you can generally do without Charlie Chaplin, this one's a keeper.

The Conversation (1974)
Are we just being paranoid, or has everything this movie predicted about the invasion of personal privacy come to pass? In any case, the thinking man's Sliver.

Dodsworth (1936)
This tale of a self-made American millionaire industrialist who sells his factory and sails off to Europe with his flighty, pretentious wife is even more remarkable than it seemed upon first release, because Hollywood would never write as much virtue and benevolence into the character of a businessman now.

Don't Look Now (1973)
There's a lot more going on in this film than the question of whether Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie were or were not actually doing it during the filming of the sex scene. Basically a kinky and intellectual ghost story, outre director Nicolas Roeg's tale of things unseen becomes, thanks to his lucid, subversive eye, an Investigation of the Unseen.

100 Best Movies, Part 3 (21-30)

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