50 Films to See Before You Die

50 Films to See Before You Die

50 Films to See Before You Die was a programme shown on Channel 4 on
Saturday 22 July 2006, to celebrate the relaunch of Film4 as a
free-to-air channel available to digital terrestrial homes in the
United Kingdom. It consisted of a countdown of, as the name suggests,
a list of 50 films to see before you die, compiled by various film
critics, experts and personalities. Each film was supposed to be
"chosen as a paragon of a particular genre or style". The list is as
follows:

1. Apocalypse Now (1979)
2. The Apartment (1960)
3. City of God (2002)
4. Chinatown (1974)
5. Sexy Beast (2000)
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
7. North by Northwest (1959)
8. À bout de souffle (1959)
9. Donnie Darko (2001)
10. Manhattan (1979)
11. Alien (1979)
12. Lost in Translation (2003)
13. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
14. Lagaan (2001)
15. Pulp Fiction (1994)
16. Touch of Evil (1958)
17. Walkabout (1971)
18. Black Narcissus (1947)
19. Boyz N the Hood (1991)
20. The Player (1992)
21. Come and See (1985)
22. Heavenly Creatures (1994)
23. A Night at the Opera (1935)
24. Erin Brockovich (2000)
25. Trainspotting (1996)
26. Hero (2002)
27. The Breakfast Club (1985)
28. Fanny and Alexander (1982)
29. Pink Flamingos (1972)
30. All About Eve (1950)
31. Scarface (1983)
32. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
33. Three Colors: Blue (1993)
34. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
35. The Ladykillers (1955)
36. Fight Club (1999)
37. The Searchers (1956)
38. Mulholland Drive (2001)
39. The Ipcress File (1962)
40. The King of Comedy (1983)
41. Manhunter (1986)
42. Dawn of the Dead (1978)
43. Princess Mononoke (1997)
44. Raising Arizona (1987)
45. Cabaret (1972)
46. This Sporting Life (1963)
47. Brazil (1985)
48. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
49. Secrets & Lies (1996)
50. Badlands (1973)

Many of the films included in the list are being shown on Film4 in
upcoming weeks, and this was advertised prominently at the time of
broadcasting. This may suggest some amount of bias, especially
considering the absence of such notable films as Citizen Kane (1941),
The Godfather (1972), Taxi Driver (1976), Star Wars Episode IV: A New
Hope (1977), Halloween (1978) and Blue Velvet (1986). However, the
list was assembled to contain non-mainstream films that not all
viewers may have seen, so the absence of these common 'list show'
films is understandable, however most of them are well known, but may
not have all been seen, including the ones mentioned in this article,
but not present on the list.

It has been suggested by some parties that the list features a bias
towards films made by Film4 itself. In fact, only three of the 50
films are from the parent channel - Trainspotting, Secrets & Lies and
Sexy Beast. As the former 2 (and arguably the latter) are considered
by a huge number of critics and film fans to be a quality benchmark in
cinema.

The title 50 films to see before you die appears to be very similar to
a book, published before the show began, 1001 films to see before you
die.

Posted by El nasty at 4:58 PM 0 comments

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