Martin Scorsese is Against Making “10 Best Lists” of Films

Ranking your favorites films, listing them, has been part of cinephile culture for years. Critics’ year-end ten best lists have been around since, at least, the late ‘60s. However, Martin Scorsese wants no part in that tradition.

In a just-released video, Scorsese says that he is “against” making Top 10 lists of movies:

“I’ve tried to make lists over the years of films I personally feel are my favorites, whatever that means, and then you find out that the word ‘favorite’ has different levels: Films that have impressed you the most, as opposed to films you just like to keep watching, as opposed to those you keep watching and learning from, or experiencing anew. So, they’re varied. And I’m always sort of against ’10 best’ lists.”

He continued, “Well yes, there’s ‘Citizen Kane.’ That changed my life. He broke all of the rules. One of the things that [Orson] Welles said was one of the best things you can bring to filmmaking is ignorance. When they say you can’t do this, why not?”

The interviewer actually manages to get Scorsese to mention some of his favorites, he cites three Welles classics: ‘Kane,’ “Crimes at Midnight” and “The Trial.” in addition, he loves Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Barry Lyndon.”

Late last year, Sight and Sound had given us a peek at Scorsese’s ballot, which he submitted for their famous poll. It was a wonderful collage of established cinematic powerhouses. Scorsese had submitted 15 films instead of the usual 10 needed for the poll, I presume, due to his distaste for list-making:

2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
8 1/2 (Fellini)
Ashes and Diamonds (Wajda)
Citizen Kane (Wells)
Diary of a Country Priest (Bresson)
Ikiru (Kurosawa)
The Leopard (Visconti)
Ordet (Dreyer)
Paisa (Rossellini)
The Red Shoes (Powell & Pressburger)
The River (Renoir)
Salvatore Giuliano (Rosi)
The Searchers (Ford)
Ugetsu (Mizoguchi)
Vertigo (Hitchcock)

Scorsese recently mentioned, in a Chicago-set conversation with Jeffrey Katzenberg, that his favourite all-time film was Powell & Pressburger’s “The Red Shoes.” A fabulously dreamy film. He’s seen it hundreds of times. I also love his inclusion of “Ordet” and “Ugetsu,” two of the most haunting movies I’ve ever seen.