The best films of the 1980s

The fine folks at the Criterion Forum have an ongoing "lists project" intended to compile a series of best-of lists for each decade in cinematic history. These lists are invariably interesting and educational, with a much more varied and well-rounded view of film than most critics' organizations tend to produce when asked to gather lists of this sort. The project is currently polling the forum members to list the best films of the 1980s, and I've decided to contribute. I'm coming into this at the last minute — the lists are due on January 15 — so I haven't watched or re-watched any films specifically for this purpose, something I might've liked to do if I'd prepared for this earlier. Instead, since I probably won't be watching very many films at all until the new year, I put this list together now based only on films I'd already seen. There were still more than enough great choices from this supposedly sub-par decade for cinema, and the list below has been culled down from an initial selection of nearly double the size. I also limited myself to a maximum of three films per director, or else Woody Allen, Jean-Luc Godard, and Eric Rohmer each might have had several more films on the list: this was an especially strong decade for those three favorites of mine.

Here is my list:

1. Sans soleil (Chris Marker)
2. King Lear (Jean-Luc Godard)
3. Fanny & Alexander (Ingmar Bergman)
4. The Aviator's Wife (Eric Rohmer)
5. First Name: Carmen (Jean-Luc Godard)
6. A nos amours (Maurice Pialat)
7. Down By Law (Jim Jarmusch)
8. Three Crowns of a Sailor (Raoul Ruiz)
9. Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (Todd Haynes)
10. Lola (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
11. Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen)
12. Coup de torchon (Bertrand Tavernier)
13. Blue Velvet (David Lynch)
14. Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
15. Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg)
16. Damned If You Don't (Su Friedrich)
17. The Angelic Conversation (Derek Jarman)
18. The Dante Quartet (Stan Brakhage)
19. After Hours (Martin Scorsese)
20. Quando l'occhio trema (Paolo Gioli)
21. The Falls (Peter Greenaway)
22. My Girlfriend's Boyfriend (Eric Rohmer)
23. Hail Mary (Jean-Luc Godard)
24. Broadway Danny Rose (Woody Allen)
25. Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog)
26. Tango (Zbigniew Rybcznski)
27. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick)
28. Secret Honor (Robert Altman)
29. Le Pont du Nord (Jacques Rivette)
30. Pauline at the Beach (Eric Rohmer)
31. Grass Labyrinth (Shuji Terayama)
32. Videodrome (David Cronenberg)
33. RoboCop (Paul Verhoeven)
34. Elephant (Alan Clarke)
35. Chocolat (Claire Denis)
36. Berlin Alexanderplatz (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
37. Mystery Train (Jim Jarmusch)
38. The Thing (John Carpenter)
39. The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris)
40. Mala Noche (Gus Van Sant)
41. Brazil (Terry Gilliam)
42. The Last of England (Derek Jarman)
43. Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen)
44. Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (Les Blank)
45. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee)
46. Loulou (Maurice Pialat)
47. Dimensions of Dialogue (Jan Svankmajer)
48. The Ties That Bind (Su Friedrich)
49. Street of Crocodiles (Quay brothers)
50. The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese)