Robin Hood to Indiana Jones: Brian Viner’s top 100 films (pt 2)
LAST week, I began listing my 100 favourite English-language feature films. Here is the second batch of ten — all available to stream, download or order on DVD. Please write in if you feel strongly enough either in favour of my choices or in disagreement — Daily Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT, or via email ( filmclassics@
I have already had lots of responses, including some polite questioning of my sanity for placing Unforgiven right at the bottom, at number 100. But then that’s what lists are all about — to generate debate.
In due course I hope to publish some of your letters and also to remind you of the entire list (which, I have to say, is already causing me some personal turmoil ... at the moment, I can’t find room for several films that I cherish. Clearly, a top 100 just isn’t enough).
90 Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)
THE first and best in the franchise, a wildly enjoyable adventure perfectly choreographed by Steven Spielberg.
89 The Wicker Man (1973)
AS A director the late Robin Hardy was something of a one-hit wonder, but what a hit. The best of all folk horror films is as weird and chilling now as it always was.
88 Groundhog Day (1993)
SUCH a whimsical idea, so gloriously executed. It is the perfect vehicle for Bill Murray, wonderful as the grouchy weatherman who finds himself reliving the same day, over and over.
87 Spotlight (2015)
AN investigative-journalism procedural into errant priests, done with such elan that it fully deserved its Oscar for Best Picture.
86 LA Confidential (1997)
A NEO-NOIR classic, one of the great thrillers of the past 30 years, and in my view a much better picture than Titanic, which eclipsed it at that year’s Oscars.
85 The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)
ALEC Guinness is brilliant in David Lean’s hugely stirring and powerful war film. Oddly enough, he only got the part because Charles Laughton, Lean’s first choice, didn’t fancy the heat.
84 The Great Escape (1963)
TO REITERATE, these are not what I consider to be the 100 best films ever made, but just my 100 favourites. So by that measure, this is impossible to omit.
83 The Adventures Of Robin Hood (1938)
ERROL Flynn at his most dashing, Olivia de Havilland (still with us, aged 103) at her most radiant. An enduring joy.
82 American Graffiti (1973)
NOT George Lucas’s most famous film of the 1970s (that would be Star Wars). But one of the great coming-of-age movies. Maybe the greatest.
81 The Magnificent Seven (1960)
JOHN Sturges (who also directed The Great Escape) rose superbly to the challenge of remaking Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 classic The Seven Samurai.