Jonathan Rosenbaum's Alternate 100

Bulle Ogier in L'Amour Fou

Jonathan Rosenbaum, probably the best film critic working in America today, has reprinted a 1998 article in the Notes section of his blog in which he proposes an alternate list of the 100 greatest American movies, a provocative response to the American Film Institute's list that came out around the same time. http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?cat=9 It's a fascinating list, informed by a wide-ranging knowledge of what the American film canon should look like, in opposition to the AFI's lackluster list. He admits that there are "25 titles on the AFI list that I probably would have included on my own if I hadn’t wanted to create an all-new list for polemical purposes." The Magnificent Ambersons and Sunrise rank at the top of my own 10-best list but amazingly are absent from the AFI's list. I've seen 92 of Rosenbaum's Alternate 100, most of them multiple times. The 8 I have yet to see mostly fall in the avant-garde or experimental category and are therefore harder to come by, but I plan to catch Jonas Mekas's Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania at Anthology Film Archives soon. However, even a masterpiece like John Cassavetes's Love Streams and several other of these titles remain unreleased on Region 1 DVD.

I won't waste space posting the AFI list, but I'd like to present Rosenbaum's Alternate 100 both for my own easy reference and as a challenge to conventional wisdom.

Ace in the Hole/The Big Carnival (1951)
An Affair to Remember (1957)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
Avanti! (1972)
The Barefoot Contessa (1954)
Bigger Than Life (1956)
The Big Sky (1952)
The Black Cat (1934)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Broken Blossoms (1919)
Cat People (1942)
Christmas in July (1940)
Confessions of an Opium Eater (1962)
The Crowd (1928)
Dead Man (1995)
The Docks of New York (1928)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (1974)
11 x 14 (1976)
Eraserhead (1978)
Foolish Wives (1922)
Force of Evil (1948)
Freaks (1932)
The General (1927)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Gilda (1946)
The Great Garrick (1937)
Greed (1925)
Hallelujah, I’m a Bum (1933)
The Heartbreak Kid (1972)
Housekeeping (1987)
The Hustler (1961)
Intolerance (1916)
Johnny Guitar (1954)
Judge Priest (1934)
Killer of Sheep (1978)
The Killing (1956)
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
The Ladies’ Man (1961)
The Lady From Shanghai (1948)
Last Chants for a Slow Dance (1977)
Laughter (1930)
Letter From an Unknown Woman (1948)
Lonesome (1929)
Love Me Tonight (1932)
Love Streams (1984)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
Man’s Castle (1933)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
Mikey and Nicky (1976)
Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
My Son John (1952)
The Naked Spur (1953)
Nanook of the North (1922)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
The Nutty Professor (1963)
The Palm Beach Story (1942)
Panic in the Streets (1950)
Park Row (1952)
The Phenix City Story (1955)
Point Blank (1967)
Real Life (1979)
Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1971)
Rio Bravo (1959)
Scarface (1932)
The Scarlet Empress (1934)
Scarlet Street (1945)
Scenes From Under Childhood (1967)
The Scenic Route (1978)
The Seventh Victim (1943)
Shadows (1960)
Sherlock Jr. (1924)
The Shooting (1967)
The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
The Sound of Fury/Try and Get Me! (1950)
Stars in My Crown (1950)
The Steel Helmet (1951)
Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
The Strawberry Blonde (1941)
Sunrise (1927)
Sylvia Scarlett (1935)
The Tarnished Angels (1958)
That’s Entertainment! III (1994)
This Land Is Mine (1943)
Thunderbolt (1929)
Tom Tom the Piper’s Son (1969)
To Sleep With Anger (1990)
Track of the Cat (1954)
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Vinyl (1965)
Wanda (1971)
While the City Sleeps (1956)
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957)
Woodstock (1970)
The Wrong Man (1957)
Zabriskie Point (1970)

UPDATE 7/28: Today in the Notes section of his blog Rosenbaum reprints a short item about the recent popularity of retrospectives of so-called "difficult" directors like Bresson, Tarkovsky and Rivette. He mentions a 2006 screening of Rivette's 4-hour L'Amour Fou at the Museum of the Moving Image that I was lucky enough to attend, at which he led a discussion of the film. There is an eager audience out there. I think the continued success of revivals in general depends on a combination of support from traditional media (New York Times, Village Voice) and the online community. The huge turnout for the Nicholas Ray series is a case in point.