“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.
Director: David Lynch
Stars: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring
, Justin Theroux
Director: Yasujirô Ozu
Stars: Chishû Ryû, Chieko Higashiyama
, Sô Yamamura
Director: Orson Welles
Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten
, Dorothy Comingore
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee
, Michael Bates
Director: Terrence Malick
Stars: Richard Gere, Brooke Adams
, Sam Shepard
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Stars: Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson
, Ingrid Thulin
Director: Michael Haneke
Stars: Christian Friedel, Ernst Jacobi
, Leonie Benesch
Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Stars: Enrique Irazoqui, Margherita Caruso
, Susanna Pasolini
Director: Werner Herzog
Stars: Klaus Kinski, Ruy Guerra
, Helena Rojo
Director: Satyajit Ray
Stars: Kanu Bannerjee, Karuna Bannerjee
, Subir Banerjee
Director: Luchino Visconti
Stars: Dirk Bogarde, Romolo Valli
, Mark Burns
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
Director: Mike Nichols
Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft
, Katharine Ross
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano
, Ciarán Hinds
Director: Jean Renoir
Stars: Marcel Dalio, Nora Gregor
, Paulette Dubost
Director: John Cassavetes
Stars: Ben Carruthers, Lelia Goldoni
, Hugh Hurd
Director: Terence Davies
Stars: Pete Postlethwaite, Freda Dowie
, Angela Walsh
Director: Federico Fellini
Stars: Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg
, Anouk Aimée
Director: Lars von Trier
Stars: Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgård
, Katrin Cartlidge
Director: Victor Erice
Stars: Fernando Fernán Gómez, Teresa Gimpera
, Ana Torrent
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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