Film Picks from Agnès Varda, Arnaud Desplechin, Olivier Assayas, and More
As part of the launch of the new French streaming video service La Cinetek—which was founded by the filmmakers Pascale Ferran (Bird People), Cédric Klapisch (Chinese Puzzle), and Laurent Cantet (Return to Ithaca), as well as Alain Rocca, president of the French video-on-demand service UniversCiné—the company has compiled a list of twenty-six filmmakers, from Olivier Assayas and Arnaud Desplechin to Hirokazu Kore-eda and Agnès Varda, and asked the directors to share their fifty favorite films. The platform, which will highlight rare auteur works, as well as influential films from around the world, isn't available in the U.S., but we thought we'd share a selection of great directors' picks below—and for the full list, head to La Cinetek's website.
Olivier Assayas
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
Robert Altman’s California Split
Robert Bresson's L’argent
Kenneth Anger’s Invocation of My Demon Brother
David Cronenberg’s Videodrome
Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le cercle rouge
Maurice Pialat’s La maison des bois
Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris
Francois Truffaut’s The Story of Adele H.
Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls
See the full list here.
Costa Gavras
John Cassavetes’s The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times
Ernst Lubitsch’s To Be or Not to Be
Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo
Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’s West Side Story
Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider
Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert
Satyajit Ray’s The Music Room
Claude Chabrol’s Le boucher
See the full list here.
Arnaud Desplechin
Jean Renoir’s The River
Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious
George Cukor's The Philadelphia Story
Yasujiro Ozu's There Was a Father
Preston Sturges's The Lady Eve
Leo McCarey’s The Awful Truth
King Hu’s A Touch of Zen
Ernst Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise
Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo
John Ford’s The Searchers
See the full list here.
Lynne Ramsay
Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces
Federico Fellini’s La strada
Ingmar Bergman’s Persona
Claire Denis’s Beau travail
Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now
Roman Polanski’s Repulsion
Robert Bresson’s Mouchette
Samuel Fuller’s Shock Corridor
Tony Richardson’s The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
Ken Loach’s Kes
See the full list here.
Agnès Varda
Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho
Chantal Akerman’s Tout une nuit
Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket
Jane Campion’s Sweetie
John Cassavetes’s A Woman Under the Influence
Jacques Demy’s Une chambre en ville
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun
Abbas Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry
Martin Scorsese’s After Hours
Jean Vigo’s L’Atalante
See the full list here.
Hirokazu Kore-eda
Jacques Demy’s Lola
Vittorio De Sica’s Umberto D.
Federico Fellini’s Amarcord
John Cassavetes’s Opening Night
Mikio Naruse’s Floating Clouds
Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights
Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby
Robert Altman’s Short Cuts
Eric Rohmer’s Le rayon vert
See the full list here.
