The Perfect Film

Well, it's a coherent world unto itself. The 'what it's about' I think is a lot less important than the uniqueness of vision, the execution, the sheer audacity of it all. Yeah, who knows what it's about. Lynch has said that it reflected his fears about becoming a father. The film feels deeply spiritual to me, particularly the end. It's also pretty darn funny in the beginning.

 

Raiders of the Lost Ark

 

It has to be Amadeus for me. Looks amazing, paced perfectly, fantastic acting, funny, dramatic and never a bum note.

 

Some very, very good choices here, but since you could only pick one, that's what I did. I, too, love "Apocalypse Now", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", and "Amadeus". They are all great. I'd probably put "Platoon" and "A Clockwork Orange" also if I was creating a list. So many, actually, but, as I said, it was "choose one".

 

The Maltese Falcon and Raiders of the Lost Ark are two films I have trouble finding flaws in. They're not perfect, of course, but I never seem to notice any issues when watching them.

 

Rear Window. Perfect. Badlands is pretty close

 

Brother, Where Art Thou

 

It was Akira Kurosawa's notion of "pure cinema" that led me to pose the thread question. For years Seven Samurai was my idea of the perfect film, too.

 

There is a copy of the Criterion Collection full interview with the director, Akira Kurosawa, on YouTube, but in addition to his idea of pure cinema I like his advice to young filmmakers about the first step -

 

Beautiful film, even if it does feel like a long music video.

 

Hitchcock had issues, didn't he? The idea of this film is a bit revolting, to be honest. And I've avoided watching it. But now I'll have to reconsider. Jimmy Stuart's sexual obsession was enough for me with Vertigo (a pick I'm surprised I haven't seen yet!) but this is just straight up perv territory - with a real princess!

So I'll get right on it.

 

Well, it was sort of a personal gold standard/no hesitation type of decision for a great film; the chief reveal (if we're honest) is that it probably says more about who we are than we care to admit.

 

I like that the fact that you made us choose only one. Too often, it's long lists of movies which doesn't tell us much. I was just commenting on other movies that are dear to me.

 

I thought some of it had too many notes because one can only hear so many notes...

 

Bande à part (1964) Jean-Luc Godard

 

I'm pretty sure the perfect film hasn't been done yet...because Vince Gilligan is still too busy making television...!

 

Some good ones listed. I'm partial to David Lean's Great Expectations.

 

After much deliberation over Michael Powell's, Hitchcock's and Kubrick's greatest achievements,
I arrived at the one inescapable conclusion:

 

There's only one!

 

La Jetée, dir. Chris Marker, 28 min. B&W
In post-apocalyptic Paris after WW III, a man is selected for time-travel experiments to try to reverse the course of events. A very cool film. See it on Amazon Prime Video.

 

Thanks, wwf. The late Chris Marker is something of a legend. Got my 30 minutes:

 

The perfect film? Singular?

I can think of at least two, for me: The Night of The Hunter and To Kill A Mockingbird.

I might add Roman Holiday to that, I'm not sure, it's been too long. It used to be my favorite film (now The Night Of The Hunter is).

 

For me Ozu is usually the answer, however for a film from the past few years nothing has come close to:

 

okay, Hugo then.

Scorcese's best film? Just possibly.

 

O Brother is fantastic! It's just that (imo) the incredible music overwhelms the skinny plot to such an extent that it almost vies with Thriller for the best ever long form music video.