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Top 25 arthouse and drama movies, by the Guardian and Observer’s critics

“Lovers of what are called arthouse movies resent the label for being derisive and philistine,” said film critic Peter Bradshaw. “And those who detest it bristle at the implication that there is no artistry or intelligence in mainstream entertainment.”

For many, the stereotypical arthouse film is Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin was a classic art film from the 1920s and Luis Buñuel investigated cinema’s potential for surreality like no one before or since. The Italian neorealists applied the severity of art to a representation of society and the French New Wave iconoclastically brought a self-deconstructing critical awareness to film-making. Yasujiro Ozu conveyed a transcendental simplicity in his work. Andrei Tarkovsky and Michelangelo Antonioni achieved a meditative beauty, while David Lynch and John Cassavetes demonstrated an American reflex to the genre.

These are the 25 best arthouse and drama films according to the critics of the Guardian and Observer.


[amazon template=custom_thumbnail&asin=6305257450&search_text=%TITLE%&title=Andrei Rublev Andrei Tarkovsky]
1. [amazon text=Andrei Rublev&template=custom_title&asin=6305257450&search_text=%TITLE%&title=Andrei Rublev Andrei Tarkovsky] (1966)
Director: [amazon text=Andrei Tarkovsky&template=custom_search&search_text=%TITLE%&title=Andrei Tarkovsky] Stars: [amazon text=Anatoliy Solonitsyn&template=custom_search&search_text=%TITLE%&title=Anatoliy Solonitsyn], [amazon text=Ivan Lapikov&template=custom_search&search_text=%TITLE%&title=Ivan Lapikov], [amazon text=Nikolay Grinko&template=custom_search&search_text=%TITLE%&title=Nikolay Grinko]
[amazon text=Amazon&template=custom_text_price&asin=6305257450&multi_cc=1&search_text=%TITLE%&title=Andrei Rublev Andrei Tarkovsky]
[amazon template=custom_thumbnail&asin=B00N5ND6NW&search_text=%TITLE%&title=The Conformist Bernardo Bertolucci]
13. [amazon text=The Conformist&template=custom_title&asin=B00N5ND6NW&search_text=%TITLE%&title=The Conformist Bernardo Bertolucci] (1970)
Director: [amazon text=Bernardo Bertolucci&template=custom_search&search_text=%TITLE%&title=Bernardo Bertolucci] Stars: [amazon text=Jean-Louis Trintignant&template=custom_search&search_text=%TITLE%&title=Jean-Louis Trintignant], [amazon text=Stefania Sandrelli&template=custom_search&search_text=%TITLE%&title=Stefania Sandrelli], [amazon text=Gastone Moschin&template=custom_search&search_text=%TITLE%&title=Gastone Moschin]
[amazon text=Amazon&template=custom_text_price&asin=B00N5ND6NW&multi_cc=1&search_text=%TITLE%&title=The Conformist Bernardo Bertolucci]
The Godfather Francis Ford Coppola

The Godfather
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Stars: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan
The Godfather: Part II
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Stars: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall


The Guardian (founded in 1821) is a British national daily newspaper, and the Observer (founded in 1791) is its Sunday sibling. They are amongst the most influential papers in the world. The Guardian and its journalists have won numerous journalism awards, especially in the last decades.

Source: The Guardian
Last checked on: 16 January 2016
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