CLOSE TO MY HEART

Casablanca (USA, 1942). Directed by Michael Curtiz. With Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains.
"We'll always have Paris."

Clockwork Orange (UK, 1971). Directed by Stanley Kubrick. With Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates, Warren Clarke.

The Godfather (USA, 1972). Directed by Francis Ford Coppola (story by Mario Puzo). With Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard S. Castellano, Robert Duvall.
Part II (1974). Part III (1990).
"What the hell is this?" "It's a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes."

The Quintet (USA, 1979). Directed by Robert Altman. With Paul Newman, Vittorio Gassman, Fernando Rey, Bibi Andersson.

Blade Runner (USA, 1982). Directed by Ridley Scott. With Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos.
"Is this testing whether I'm a replicant, or a lesbian, Mr Deckard?"
"It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?"

L' Année des méduses ("The Year of the Jellyfish", France, 1984). Directed by Christopher Frank. With Bernard Giraudeau, Valérie Kaprisky, Caroline Cellier, Jacques Perrin.

Crimes of Passion (USA, 1984). Directed by Ken Russell. With Kathleen Turner, Anthony Hopkins, Bruce Davison, Annie Potts.

Body Double (USA, 1984). Directed by Brian De Palma. With Craig Wasson, Melanie Griffith, Gregg Henry, Deborah Shelton.

Sex, Lies, and Videotape (USA, 1989). Directed by Steven Soderbergh. With James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, Laura San Giacomo.
"You're right, I've got a lot of problems... But they belong to me."

¡Átame! ("Tie me up, tie me down", Spain, 1990). Directed by Pedro Almodóvar. With Victoria Abril, Antonio Banderas, Loles León, Julieta Serrano.

RECENT PICKS

Goldfish Memory (Ireland, 2003). Directed by Elizabeth Gill. With Sean Campion, Flora Montgomery, Jean Butler, Peter Gaynor, Fiona Glascott.
I saw this at the 2004 Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. It's about love, of course -- what else? Gorgeous.

De Reditu (Il Ritorno) ("The Voyage Home"; Italy, 2004). Directed by Claudio Bondi. With Elia Schilton, Rodolfo Corsato, Romuald Andrzej Klos, and Roberto Herlitzka.
I saw this at the 2005 Philadelphia International Film Festival. It's about the end of an era and a lost cause (in another part of that world, Pythia would lament: "Tell the emperor that the carven hall is fallen in decay. Phoebos has no chapel left, no prophesying bay. No talking spring. The stream is dry that had so much to say."). Evocative.

Great movies that consistently make various "best-ever" lists (but not necessarily mine): Metropolis (1927, Fritz Lang, director), Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles, dir), The Bicycle Thief ("Ladri di Biciclette", 1948, Vittorio De Sica, dir), Rashomon (1950) and The Seven Samurai (1954, both Akira Kurosawa, dir), Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960, both Alfred Hitchcock, dir), The 400 Blows ("Les Quatre Cents Coups", 1959, Francois Truffaut, dir), A Streetcar Named Desire (1961, Elias Kazan, dir), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, Robert Mulligan, dir), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975, Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones, dir), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975, Milos Forman, dir)... The list goes on.