Volume 5

On Independent Lens film companion sites, we ask filmmakers to list their top three films. Yes, they protest when we say “only three,” and sometimes they list more (it’s not easy to direct directors.) Among their picks are, of course, the seminal documentaries—a certain Maysles brothers’ film makes the list three times—and the masterworks of Kubrick, Fellini and Truffaut. Then there are the new indie classics like Babel and Man on Wire, alongside crowd-pleasers like The Wizard of Oz and Bollywood mega-hit Om Shanti Om.

See who chose what below. You can also view the complete list compiled from Independent Lens filmmakers of past seasons—275 films and counting—which also includes the names of the directors. Download a printer-friendly version of the big list, and prepare to expand your film-watching horizons!

AT HOME IN UTOPIA
Director/Producer/Editor Michal Goldman

I have many more than three favorite films. I still adore Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria, which seems to me perfect and totally alive at the same time. I was blown away by Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, Wrath of God, which seemed like opera, myth and cinema verité simultaneously. Most recently, I’ve loved James Marsh’s Man on Wire—I loved the way he interwove home movies, news footage, interviews and re-enactments into something momentous. I guess I especially love films that bring an epic, almost tragic dimension to stories that might otherwise seem like minor moments in the larger scheme.

DOC
Producer/Director Immy Humes
La Dolce Vita
This Is Spinal Tap
Cane Toads

MARCH POINT
Producer Tracy Rector and Director Annie Silverstein
Tracy: The Gleaners, Annie Hall and The Princess Bride
Annie: The Princess Bride, City of God, Life is Beautiful

LIONESS
Directors Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers
Meg: Coming Home by Hal Ashby; Seventeen by Joel DeMott and Jeff Kreines; My Night at Maud’s by Eric Rohmer
Daria: The Burmese Harp by Kon Ichikawa; Grey Gardens by Albert and David Maysles; To Kill A Mockingbird by Robert Mulligan

KNEE DEEP
Producer/Director Michael Chandler and Producer Sheila Canavan
It's too hard to list three, so here are our favorite films in two categories. For foreign: Children of Paradise, Loves of a Blonde and Brutti Sporchi e Cattivi
For domestic: Once Upon a Time in America, Unforgiven and The Incredibles

DINNER WITH THE PRESIDENT
Director Sabiha Sumar and Co-Director S. Sathananthan
Three Rooms of Melancholy
Megane
Om Shanti Om

WONDERS ARE MANY: The Making of Doctor Atomic
Producer/Director/Writer Jon Else
Amadeus by Milos Forman
Lonely Boy by Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroiter
The third is secret

GREY GARDENS: From East Hampton to Broadway
Producer Kelly Gonda
Love In the Afternoon, My Man Godfrey, Philadelphia Story; and anything with Katherine Hepburn

OPERATION FILMMAKER
Director/Producer/Editor/Cinematographer Nina Davenport
Grey Gardens by Albert and David Maysles
Time Indefinite by Ross McElwee
Wide Awake by Alan Berliner

HELVETICA
Director Gary Hustwit
Sans Soleil
Blue Velvet
Bugsy Malone

ADJUST YOUR COLOR: The Truth of Petey Greene
Director/Producer/Writer Loren Mendell
Documentaries: One Day in September; War Photographer; Pumping Iron
Features: The Graduate; 2001: A Space Odyssey; Goodfellas

TULIA, TEXAS
Producer/Director/Photographer Cassandra Herrman and Producer/Director Kelly Whalen
Cassandra: Bamako, Divorce Iranian Style, Raising Arizona
Kelly: The Thin Blue Line, The Sting, (and really any good heist film!), Antonia’s Line

BILLY STRAYHORN: LUSH LIFE
Writer/Producer/Director Robert Levi
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Viridiana and Belle de Jour…three films by the master, Luis Buñuel

THE ORDER OF MYTHS
Director/Producer/Editor Margaret Brown
This week, I am really happy about:
Examined Life (Astra Taylor)
Sans Soleil (Chris Marker)
I Vitteloni (Fellini)
Ask me again next week and you’ll get a different answer!

ABDUCTION: The Megumi Yokota Story
Producers/Directors Chris Sheridan and Patty Kim
Chris: The Deer Hunter, The Manchurian Candidate, Bottle Rocket
Patty: The Wizard of Oz, Sweetie, Les Amants du Pont-Neuf

ARUSI PERSIAN WEDDING
Director/Producer Marjan Tehrani
This is always a tough question and my list is always changing, but at the present moment:
Slumdog Millionaire—I know this is the hit movie of the year but I believe it to be a perfect film!
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
When We Were Kings

LAKSHMI AND ME
Director Nishtha Jain
The Gleaners and I by Agnès Varda
Belovy by Viktor Kosakovsky
The 3 Rooms of Melancholia by Pirjo Honkasalo

RECYCLE
Director/Cinematographer Mahmoud al Massad
There Will Be Blood
Darwin’s Nightmare
Kit Kat (an Egyptian film by Daoud Abdel Sayed)

MILKING THE RHINO
Director/Producer/Writer/Editor David E. Simpson
Le Fils (The Son) by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne
Manufacturing Consent by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick
2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick

TAKING ROOT: The Vision of Wangari Maathai
Directors/Producers Alan Dater and Lisa Merton
Alan: Night on Earth by Jim Jarmusch, Cinema Paradiso by Guiseppe Tornatore,
Grey Gardens by the Maysles brothers
Lisa: Eyes on the Prize by Henry Hampton, Tom Jones by Tony Richardson

WINGS OF DEFEAT
Producer/Director Risa Morimoto and Producer/Writer Linda Hoaglund
Risa: Man on Wire, God Grew Tired of Us, The War Room
Linda: The Battle of Algiers, Samurai Rebellion, Under the Flag of the Rising Sun

STRANDED: The Andes Plane Crash Survivors
Director Gonzalo Arijón
Blow Up by Michelangelo Antonioni
Barry Lyndon by Stanley Kubrick
La Nuit Américaine by François Truffaut

STEAL A PENCIL FOR ME
Director/Producer Michèle Ohayon
The Killing Fields
A Woman in the Dunes
West Side Story

ASK NOT
Director/Producer Johnny Symons
Tongues Untied by Marlon Riggs
The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) by Ellen Kuras
Babel by Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu

View the complete list of films >>

Check out the filmmakers' picks in Volume Four >>

Want to know more about these and other film faves?
Check out IMDb >>