Independent Lens . Inside Indies . Favorite Films

Independent Lens Filmmakers’ Favorites

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Volume 2

On the Independent Lens film companion sites, we ask filmmakers to list their top three favorite films. Yes, they protest when we say “only three,” and sometimes they list more than three (those renegade independents!), but they do their best. From Blue Velvet and High Noon to La Dolce Vita and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, their choices are as individual as the filmmakers themselves.

See who chose what below. You can view the complete list, including the names of the directors, and download a printer-friendly version to use when you’re ready to see the best of the best. Prepare to expand your film watching horizons!

Writer/Director/Producer Rodney Evans
BROTHER TO BROTHER
Here are three that influenced BROTHER TO BROTHER:
My Own Private Idaho, Midnight Cowboy, Tongues Untied
The subject matter and styles of these films and the ways the stories unfolded were all really inspirational for BROTHER TO BROTHER and these were films that I kept going back to over and over again.

Director/Producer/Editor Jim Fields
END OF THE CENTURY: The Ramones
Unfair. I have a thousand favorite films. I’ll try. As of today:
Carnival of Souls
Save the Green Planet (Korean)
Rushmore

Producer/Director/Co-writer Meema Spadola
RED HOOK JUSTICE
This list changes on a regular basis. I’ll name two recent documentaries that I think are must-sees: Carlos Bosch and Josep Maria Domenech’s Los Balseros, which followed Cuban refugees over a period of seven years, and The Passion of Maria Elena by Mercedes Moncada Rodriguez, about an indigenous Mexican woman who is seeking justice for her son who was killed by a hit and run driver.

Director Jon Alpert
THE LAST COWBOY
High Noon. High Noon. High Noon.

Director/Producer Laura Gabbert, Producer Caroline Libresco and Producer Eden Wurmfeld
SUNSET STORY
Laura: (sorry, couldn’t list just three) The Ice Storm, Nanook of the North, The Times of Harvey Milk, The Bicycle Thief, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Klute, 8 1/2, Fanny and Alexander, The Rules of the Game
Eden: The Best Years of Our Lives, Raging Bull, Murnau’s The Last Laugh
Caroline: Monsoon Wedding, Secrets & Lies, The Graduate, The Last Waltz, Meredith Monk’s Book of Days

Director/Producer Joanne Caputo
ON A ROLL
I love documentaries for telling compelling truths, like What the Bleep.
Fahrenheit 9/11 was so powerful I had to Reiki myself. Older favorites are Eye of the Needle, Frankie & Johnny and What Dreams May Come.

Producer/Directors Cynthia Salzman Mondell and Allen Mondell
SISTERS OF ’77
Allen: The Magnificent Seven. On the one hand it’s a dramatic example of good overcoming evil. At the same time, a small group of professional gunfighters (the good guys) comes to the aid of poor farmers (also good guys) unable to protect themselves from marauding bandits. However, the only way the gunfighters defeat the large force of bandits is by making the farmers understand that the only way they can possibly win is by fighting together.
Cynthia: My Brilliant Career. It is a film that I took our daughter to see three times when she was young. It says everything I feel about the conflicts a woman faces. I think the film is extremely well done and I just love it.

Writer/Director Yvonne Smith
PARLIAMENT FUNKADELIC: One Nation Under a Groove
Pixote (Hector Babenco, Brazil)
Cries & Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden)
Lumumba (Raoul Peck, Haiti)

Producer/Director Simone Duarte
EN ROUTE TO BAGHDAD
I can’t just pick three. But among my favorites are:
La Dolce Vita
The Woman Next Door (La Femme a Coté)
Blue Velvet

Filmmaker Jørgen Flindt Pedersen
A FAMILY AT WAR
Kess by Kenneth Loach
Dogville by Lars von Trier
1900 by Bernardo Bertolucci

Director/Producers Frances McElroy
MIRROR DANCE
Children of Heaven (Majidi)
Local Hero (Forsythe)
Il Postino (Radford)

Director/Producer Anayansi Prado
MAID IN AMERICA
Satyajit Ray’s The Apu Trilogy
Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2
Pedro Almódovar’s Talk to Her

Filmmaker Jim Butterworth
SEOUL TRAIN
Kind of a quirky list, but:
Lawrence of Arabia
Memento
Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Producer/Director John Hanson, Producer Tom Livingston and Producer/Camerman/Editor Jack Lind
SISTERS: Portrait of a Benedictine Community
John: Raging Bull, Tender Mercies, Unforgiven
Tom: Stand By Me, Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, The Natural
Jack: The Red Violin, The Passion of the Christ, The Godfather

Writer/Director/Editor Jordan Mechner
CHAVEZ RAVINE
Seven Samurai
The Third Man
Raiders of the Lost Ark

Director Amanda Micheli
DOUBLE DARE
American Movie
Pumping Iron
Gummo

Director/Producer Ramona Diaz
IMELDA
That’s tough but let me give it a go:
Rules of The Game
The Conformist
Pet Cemetery

Producers/Directors David G. Berger and Holly Maxson
KEEPING TIME: The Life, Music and Photographs of Milt Hinton
Citizen Kane
On the Waterfront
Raging Bull

Director François Verster
A LION’S TRAIL
This is an impossible choice! I have far more than three favorites, and they change all the time, but a quick guess would include:
Aguirre, Wrath of God by Werner Herzog
The Idiots by Lars von Trier
Haiti Untitled by Jorgen Leth

Director/Producer/Editor David Petersen
LET THE CHURCH SAY AMEN
Killer of Sheep, Charles Burnett
La Vie Sur Terre (Life on Earth), Abderrahmane Sissako
Blood of a Poet, Jean Cocteau

Director/Writer/Producer Suzanne Wasserman
THUNDER IN GUYANA
Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief
Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life
Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County, USA

Executive producer Dr. Steven Channing and Producer Rebecca Cerese
FEBRUARY ONE: The Story of the Greensboro Four
Rebecca: Hard to pick just three, but let’s say, Room With a View, Fog of War, Control Room.
Steven: These are great. I’d add Paths of Glory.

Producer/Director/Editor Paul Devlin
POWER TRIP
When We Were Kings
Days of Heaven
Dig!

Director Leslie Sullivan and producer Catherine Gund
A TOUCH OF GREATNESS
Leslie: Michael Apted’s 28 UP and Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc
Catherine: Sorry but I can only get it down to five: Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa), Ma Vie En Rose (Alain Berliner), Tongues Untied (Marlon Riggs), Body Beautiful (Nguzi Onwurah), Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alain Resnais).