Ji.hlava IDFF asked the 218 alumni of past EMERGING PRODUCERS* programmes to select the films they most admire and which have, in part, defined their approach to the art of doc. Each could nominate up to 15 films, which resulted in 1369 films receiving a citation. But clear favourites emerged, and the table below indicates all the films that received four or more votes.
Unsurprisingly, there were two docs in the top three, with Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil proving Top Doc. Third place went to Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing.
Thereafter, fiction ruled, with docs accounting for a mere 20 of the top 88 films that received four or more nominations. Wong Kar-wai’s romantic drama In the Mood for Love (2000) was the second on the list, with fourth and fifth slots allotted to Paolo Sorrentino’s epic fiction La Grande Bellezza (2013) and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972) respectively.
The most recent documentary on the list is Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts’ For Sama (2019) while the oldest is Dziga Vertov’s classic experimental doc Man With A Movie Camera.
US Joshua Oppenheimer was the only docmaker on the list with two films, The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014).
“The films selected by our Emerging Producers participants show the richness of cinema, which can be imagined as a river full of interconnected inspirations,” comments Ji.hlava IDFF director Marek Hovorka. “We often think of films as singular titles, but even this list shows how significantly they influence each other and continue to transform the shape and meaning of cinema, literally every day. It’s not a matter of whether a film is fiction, documentary, or experimental, or which is the period of its creation, it is the film’s uniqueness and timelessness that counts.”
The following list comprises the top 88 films in ascending order from Béla Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies(which received 4 nominations) to Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil which received 13. Documentaries are listed in bold.
- Sans Soleil / Chris Marker / 1983
- In the Mood for Love / Wong Kar-wai / 2000
- The Act of Killing / Joshua Oppenheimer / 2012
- La Grande Bellezza / Paolo Sorrentino / 2013
- The Godfather / Francis Ford Coppola / 1972
- Daisies / Věra Chytilová / 1966
- Pulp Fiction / Quentin Tarantino / 1994
- The Big Lebowski / Joel and Ethan Coen / 1998
- Wings of Desire / Wim Wenders / 1987
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind / Michel Gondry / 2004
- 2001: A Space Odyssey / Stanley Kubrick / 1968
- Blade Runner / Ridley Scott / 1982
- Holy Motors / Leos Carax / 2012
- Mirror / Andrei Tarkovsky / 1975
- Close-Up / Abbas Kiarostami / 1990
- Dogtooth / Yorgos Lanthimos / 2009
- L’Atalante / Jean Vigo / 1934
- Pierrot Le Fou / Jean-Luc Godard / 1965
- Reservoir Dogs / Quentin Tarantino / 1992
- Satantango / Béla Tarr / 1994
- The 400 Blows / Francois Truffaut / 1959
- The Adventure / Michelangelo Antonioni / 1960
- A Separation / Asghar Farhadi / 2011
- A Woman Under the Influence / John Cassavetes / 1974
- All About My Mother / Pedro Almodóvar / 1999
- Amour / Michael Haneke / 2012
- Barry Lyndon / Stanley Kubrick / 1975
- Belovy / Victor Kossakovsky / 1994
- Fargo / Joel Coen and Ethan Coen / 1996
- Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles / Chantal Akerman / 1975
- Lost in Translation / Sofia Coppola / 2003
- Mulholland Drive / David Lynch / 2001
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo‘s Nest / Miloš Forman / 1975
- Only Lovers Left Alive / Jim Jarmusch / 2013
- Songs from the Second Floor / Roy Andersson / 2000
- The Grand Budapest Hotel / Wes Anderson / 2014
- Amarcord / Federico Fellini / 1973
- Andrei Rublev / Andrei Tarkovsky / 1966
- Beau Travail / Claire Denis / 1999
- Breaking the Waves / Lars von Trier / 1996
- Down by Law / Jim Jarmusch / 1986
- Force Majeure / Ruben Östlund / 2014
- Grey Gardens / Albert and David Maysles / 1975
- Magnolia / Paul Thomas Anderson / 1999
- Man with a Movie Camera / Dziga Vertov / 1929
- Metropolis / Fritz Lang / 1927
- Mommy / Xavier Dolan / 2014
- Searching for Sugar Man / Malik Bendjelloul / 2012
- Stop the Pounding Heart / Roberto Minervini / 2013
- Tabu / Miguel Gomes / 2012
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly / Sergio Leone / 1966
- The Shining / Stanley Kubrick / 1980
- There Will Be Blood / Paul Thomas Anderson / 2007
- 20,000 Days on Earth / Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard / 2014
- Amadeus / Miloš Forman / 1984
- Amores Perros / Alejandro González Iñárritu / 2000
- Annie Hall / Woody Allen / 1977
- Apocalypse Now / Francis Ford Coppola / 1979
- Blow-up / Michelangelo Antonioni / 1966
- Blue Velvet / David Lynch / 1986
- Breathless / Jean-Luc Godard / 1960
- Dead Man / Jim Jarmusch / 1995
- Dekalog / Krzysztof Kieslowski / 1989
- Do the Right Thing / Spike Lee / 1989
- Drive / Nicolas Winding Refn / 2011
- El Sicario, Room 164 / Gianfranco Rosi / 2010
- For Sama / Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts / 2019
- Gambling, Gods and LSD / Peter Mettler / 2002
- Children of Men / Alfonso Cuarón / 2006
- Koyaanisqatsi / Godfrey Reggio / 1982
- La Ciénaga / Lucrecia Martel / 2001
- Love Streams / John Cassavetes / 1984
- Melancholia / Lars von Trier / 2011
- Moonrise Kingdom / Wes Anderson / 2012
- News from Home / Chantal Akerman / 1977
- Nostalgia for the Light / Patricio Guzmán / 2010
- Paris, Texas / Wim Wenders / 1984
- Playtime / Jacques Tati / 1967
- Spirited Away / Hayao Miyazaki / 2001
- Step Across the Border / Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel / 1990
- Stories We Tell / Sarah Polley / 2012
- Taxi Driver / Martin Scorsese / 1976
- The Hunt / Thomas Vinterberg / 2012
- The Look of Silence / Joshua Oppenheimer / 2014
- The White Ribbon / Michael Haneke / 2009
- Twin Peaks / Mark Frost and David Lynch / 1990
- Waltz with Bashir / Ari Folman / 2008
- Werckmeister Harmonies / Béla Tarr / 2000
