How the directors and critics voted

Stuart Gordon
US

Top Ten

  1. Behind the Green Door (Mitchell)
  2. Bride of Frankenstein (Whale)
  3. Duck Soup (McCarey)
  4. The Godfather (Coppola)
  5. King Kong (Cooper, Schoedsack)
  6. Psycho (Hitchcock)
  7. Rosemary's Baby (Polanski)
  8. Satyricon (Fellini)
  9. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
  10. The Tingler (W. Castle)
  11. The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah)

Comments

Behind the Green Door (Mitchell)
The Gone with the Wind of porno.
Bride of Frankenstein (Whale)
One of the few sequels that is better than the original.
Duck Soup (McCarey)
The Marx Brothers before Thalberg got his hands on them, and quite simply the funniest movie ever made.
The Godfather (Coppola)
The film you find yourself quoting all the time.
King Kong (Cooper, Schoedsack)
The father of all giant-monster movies and a love story in which size does matter.
Psycho (Hitchcock)
Hitchcock panicked audiences by breaking all the rules (killing the star 30 minutes into the film).
Rosemary's Baby (Polanski)
An incredibly subjective film which served as a textbook for me when I shot Re-Animator.
Satyricon (Fellini)
L.P. Hartley once said that the past is a foreign country; in Fellini's hands the past is another planet.
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
A religious experience, and still the best and most realistic portrayal of space travel.
The Tingler (W. Castle)
Released in William Castle's own Percepto-Vision (vibrators attached to the audience's seats), this film sent a terrified
12-year-old Stuart Gordon running from the theatre and inspired him to do the same to others.
The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah)
Before this movie was made, people who were shot in films merely clutched their chests and fell over.

Last Updated: 03 Aug 2011