Votes cast by Melissa Anderson, Geoff Andrew, Richard Brody, Michael Chaiken, Chris Chang, Chris Darke, Scott Foundas, J. Hoberman, Alexander Horwath, Kent Jones, Laura Kern, Nathan Lee, Elisabeth Lequeret, Adrian Martin, Olaf Möller, James Quandt, Jonathan Romney, Gavin Smith, Chuck Stephens, and Amy Taubin.
Village Voice critic J. Hoberman proposed that we make it a 10 Best and 10 Worst Palmes list and we solicited from him a personal list of 10 Worst:
|
1. A Man and a Woman |
||
|
2. Barton Fink |
3. The Mission |
4. Paris, Texas |
|
5. Pelle the Conqueror |
6. The Best Intentions |
7. Black Orpheus |
|
8. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg |
9. When Father Was Away on Business |
10. The Wind that Shakes the Barley |
New Yorker film editor Richard Brody submitted a brief list with the following observations: “This is a fun question that is hard to answer seriously, because 1) there are a bunch I haven't seen, and 2) a serious answer would take into account the other movies in competition each year that these winners beat out and the respondents’ sense of whether the juries’ choices were good ones. To take two years chosen at random, 1991: Barton Fink is a nice movie, but it was up against Malina (Werner Schroeter) and Van Gogh (Maurice Pialat), two vastly superior films. 1957: Friendly Persuasion beat out Funny Face, The Nights of Cabiria, and A Man Escaped. 1946: Brief Encounter beat Open City. The more you look, the worse it gets; it’s easy to conclude that the best film in competition almost never won.
Another thing this list reveals is that Cannes is often five to 10 years behind the curve on the work of most filmmakers. For instance, why did Kiarostami win for Taste of Cherry in 1997 and not for more or less anything else he had been doing for the previous 10 years? Why Antonioni in 1966 for Blow-Up and not in 1960 for L’Avventura? Nothing ever for Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer, Rivette? Bergman, Bresson, Tati, Rossellini, Fassbinder, Jia Zhangke?”
1. Taxi Driver Martin Scorsese, 1976
2. The Leopard Luchino Visconti, 1963
3. Viridiana Luis Buñuel, 1961
4. The Conversation Francis Ford Coppola, 1979
5. The Third Man Carol Reed, 1949
6. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Jacques Demy, 1964
7. Rosetta Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 1999
8. Blow-Up Michelangelo Antonioni, 1967
9. Apocalypse Now Francis Ford Coppola, 1979
10. The Wages of Fear Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953
11. La Dolce Vita Federico Fellini, 1960
12. Othello Orson Welles, 1952
13. Under the Sun of Satan Maurice Pialat, 1987
14. Taste of Cherry Abbas Kiarostami, 1997
15. If… Lindsay Anderson, 1969
16. The Tree of Wooden Clogs Ermanno Olmi, 1978
17. The Cranes are Flying Mikhail Kalatozov, 1958
18. Kagemusha Akira Kurosawa, 1980
19. Padre Padrone Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, 1977
20. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days Cristian Mungiu, 2007
21. The Ballad of Narayama Shohei Imamura, 1983
22. Brief Encounter David Lean, 1946
23. The Working Class Goes to Heaven Elio Petri, 1972
24. The Go-Between Joseph Losey, 1971
25. The Eel Shohei Imamura, 1997
26. Pulp Fiction Quentin Tarantino, 1994
27. The Tin Drum Volker Schlöndorff, 1979
28. Wild at Heart David Lynch, 1990
29. Underground Emir Kusturica, 1995
30. L’Enfant Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2005
