Sam Mendes’ 10 Favorite Movies Of All Time Ranked According To IMDb

Sam Mendes’ 10 Favorite Movies Of All Time, Ranked According To IMDb

When Sight & Sound requested his list of favorite movies, the Skyfall director Sam Mendes submitted this mix of epics and dysfunctional family dramas.

You Are Reading :[thien_display_title]

Along with the likes of Alfonso Cuaron and Denis Villeneuve, Sam Mendes is one of the most inspiring filmmakers working today. Film after film, the director constantly pushes the boundaries of what the medium is capable of. Most recently, Mendes directed the unbelievable 1917, which, through the magic of editing, is made to look like two continuous shots.

However, the director would never have been capable of such things if it wasn’t for decades worth of influential movies. According to Collider, when Sight & Sound requested directors to submit their favorite movies to the magazine, Mendes submitted this mix of epics and dysfunctional dramas.

10 Blue Velvet (1986) – 7.7

Blue Velvet is a masterfully written mystery thriller that follows a college student, who uncovers a huge criminal conspiracy upon finding a severed ear in a field. Although some might think the mantle belongs to Mulholland Drive or Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet is David Lynch’s masterpiece.

Sam Mendes thinks so too, and though there aren’t many parallels between the 1986 mystery movie and Sam Mendes’ films, it’s easy to see why filmmakers would be drawn to it. It’s an expert piece of filmmaking that’s not only visually stunning, but the appeal of it is what it doesn’t tell audiences, which is so hard to pull off.

9 Kes (1969) – 7.9

Not many people will have heard of Kes, as it’s an independent British movie about a dysfunctional, working-class family from more than 50 years ago. The movie is directed by Ken Loach, who is known for his unapologetically realistic portrayals of working-class characters, and he has won the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival twice for doing just that.

Kes follows a no-hoper in school, who finds his own means of escapism from his life by training in the art of falconry. The middle-class American lives depicted in American Beauty are worlds apart from Kes, but the bleak and dreary hardship of life in the 1969 movie clearly influenced the tone of Mendes’ directorial debut.

8 Rosemary’s Baby (1968) – 8.0

There seems to be a pattern in Mendes’ list of favorite movies in which, if they’re not classics that everyone loves, then they are about dysfunctional families, if not both. Rosemary’s Baby is a 1960s classic and it follows possibly the most dysfunctional family in cinema history.

The movie is about a woman who gives birth to the devil, or at least she thinks she does. The movie ends ambiguously, almost leaving it up to the audience to decide if it was simply paranoia or not, making it one of the most haunting psychological movies ever.

7 The 400 Blows (1959) – 8.1

The 400 Blows is extremely similar to Kes in that the protagonist is an adolescent with not much hope for a decent future. It follows the child as he struggles to fit in anywhere, having problems with both family life and school life. The movie is considered one of the best French movies in cinema history, but it isn’t just the dysfunctional family themes as to why Mendes loves it.

Even if filmmakers don’t know it, The 400 Blows, and many other films by Francois Truffaut for that matter, have had a huge influence on them. The movie is one of the very first films of the French New Wave film movement, which was experimental at the time, but Hollywood movies have long used many of the movement’s trademarks. Long tracking shots, jump cuts, and many other popular film techniques were first used in The 400 Blows.

6 Fanny And Alexander (1982) – 8.1

Being yet another dysfunctional family-based drama, Fanny and Alexander is one of director Ingmar Bergman’s most fascinating movies. Considering that director Ingmar Bergman’s most famous movies tended to be lean, barely ever surpassing 90 minutes, Fanny and Alexander is well over three hours long.

However, more like Bergman’s better-known works, Fanny and Alexander is full of intense and heated conversations, even more so than The Seventh Seal and Persona. Interestingly, the movie was originally a miniseries made for television that ran five hours in length, but it was cut into a three-hour movie. But the five-hour version was also released theatrically, making it one of the longest movies of all time.

5 Taxi Driver (1976) – 8.2

Every filmmaker seems to have at least one Scorsese movie on their list of favorite movies. Submitting their lists to the same Sight & Sound poll, Bong Joon-Ho lists one of his favorite movies as Raging Bull and one of David O’Russell’s favorites is Goodfellas. And so many directors like Quentin Tarantino, Guillermo del Toro, and Sam Mandes cite Taxi Driver as one of the greatest movies of all time too.

Taxi Driver still holds up today, and it’s a masterclass in filmmaking, whether it’s Robert De Niro’s ad-libs, the mise-en-scene, or the unglamorous depiction of violence. The movie has influenced Mendes more clearly than any other one. That unglamorous depiction of violence and the portrait of loneliness in the movie can be seen in spades in American Beauty.

4 There Will Be Blood (2007) – 8.2

There Will Be Blood seems to be another movie that is shared by many filmmakers as their favorite, and it’s the only movie from the 21st century that most directors agree is a classic. The film follows an opportunistic and greedy oil tycoon lock horns with a preacher, who won’t let him drill on private land.

Although the film is set in the early 20th century, its strong stance on capitalism is an allegory of today’s times. That mix of being a period drama while still being able to apply its message to the world of today is incredible storytelling, and it’s a style that Mendes applied with 1917, albeit with a lot more visual flair.

3 Vertigo (1958) – 8.3

Along with being a classic mystery thriller and featuring one of the best Alfred Hitchcock villains, Hitchcock came up with more inventive and groundbreaking ways to use a movie camera in the film. it’s no wonder that Vertigo is one of Mendes’ favorite movies.

Vertigo features what is known as the “Vertigo effect,” which is when the camera moves forward but zooms out (or vice versa) to create the effect of the background (either growing or shrinking while the subject stays the same). Just as Hitchcock did, Mendes advanced the capabilities of what a film camera and editing can do with 1917, as the whole two-hour movie is made to look like one shot.

2 Citizen Kane (1941) – 8.3

Citizen Kane is such a perfect movie that it’s surprising when it isn’t on filmmakers’ lists of favorite films. Along with many other directors, the 1941 picture is one of Martin Scorsese’s favorite movies of all time too, as it’s the most innovative movie ever made.

The movie used non-linear storytelling, which had never been done before but is so popular today. It also saw the first proper use of the deep focus technique, which is when everything in the shot has a sharp focus. Every filmmaker has been inspired by the movie. In fact, modern cinema wouldn’t exist if not for Citizen Kane.

1 The Godfather Part II (1974) – 9.0

The Godfather Part II is the greatest sequel of all time according to IMDb. The film perfectly balances the events the follow the first movie, as well as depicting Vito Corleone building his criminal empire in the 1910s.

When it comes to sequels, The Godfather Part II is a perfect example of outside-the-box thinking, and it’s an epic in every sense of the word. Unfortunately, Mendes didn’t approach Spectre, the sequel to Skyfall, in the same way that Coppola approached Part II. If he did, then Spectre might not have gotten the negative response that it did.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/sam-mendes-favorite-movies-influences-imdb-ratings/

• Lord of the Rings The Main Characters & Their Harry Potter Counterpart

• Mass Effect 3 How to Unlock The Secret Bonus Power

• Ron Perlman Doubts Hell Ever Play Another Superhero

• Masters of the Universe Noah Centineo Confirms HeMan Casting

• Poison Ivy Threatens A Fate Worse Than No Mans Land For Gotham City

• Lord of the Rings How Gandalf The Grey & White Are Different More Lord of the Rings Why Gandalf Is Actually An Angel

• Pokémon Diamond & Pearl How To Get The Destiny Knot (& What It Does)