Don Hertzfeldt names the 10 greatest movies of all time
I once had a roommate who insisted on watching It’s Such A Beautiful Day whenever he felt blue. It was a good choice. At once poignant, witty and tragic, the 2012 animation has come to define the left-field directorial style of Don Hertzfeldt. Nominated for two Oscars for his work as a writer and director of animated short and feature films, Hertzfeldt is more than qualified when it comes to discerning great films from mediocre ones.
Last year, Hertzfeldt was invited to vote for ten films in the Sight and Sound ‘Greatest Films of All Time’ poll. “This was really difficult,” Don explained, “but these ten titles have knocked me over the head at some point in life and continue to do so.” His list features a few obvious choices, which it’s probably good to get out of the way straight off the bat. We’re talking 2001: A Space Odyssey, Citizen Kane, and The Godfather – three films that are continually topping “greatest films” lists the world over.
What we’re more interested in here are the lesser-known and more surprising choices on Hertzfeldt’s list. The first of these is Errol Morris’ offbeat documentary Gates of Heaven. Released in 1978, Morris uses interviews with workers in the animal burial industry to explore universal existential questions about mortality and the afterlife. The film’s standout subject is Floyd ‘Mac’ McClure, a pet mortician who struggles to keep his business afloat amid a wave of competition.
Hertzfeldt also names Steven Spielberg’s 1977 classic sci-fi film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. After a rural American electrician – played by Richard Dreyfuss – witnesses an alien visitation, the inhabitants of a small town become obsessed with UFOS and attempt to contact the creature. Hertzfeld joins such luminaries as Jean Renoir and Ray Bradbury in singing this spectacular film’s praises.
Hertzfeldt also includes a couple of comedies on his list: Monthy Python’s Life of Brian and Hal Ashby’s classic dark comedy Harold and Maude, the latter of which (also a favourite of Irish actor Cillian Murphy) documents an unlikely relationship between a death-obsessed boy and an exuberant old woman.
Considering the strain of darkness that runs through Don’s work, it stands to reason that his list should also feature a couple of very harrowing selections. As well as the 2012 documentary The Act of Killing – an exploration of the mass executions of communists in Indonesia – Hertzfeldt also names Roman Polanski’s 2002 film The Pianist, in which Adrien Brody plays a Jewish radio pianist who is forced to hide from the Nazi’s in a devastated Warsaw during the Second World War. Brody famously sold everything he owned and broke up with his partner after winning the role.
Don Hertzfeld names the 10 greatest movies of all time:
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
- Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
- The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
- The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002)
- Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971)
- Monty Python’s Life of Brian (Terry Jones, 1979)
- The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012)
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977)
- Gates of Heaven (Errol Morris, 1978)
- GoodFellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
