John Landis names the 10 greatest movies of all time
The career of John Landis began the moment he dropped out of high school. At the age of 18, he travelled to Yugoslavia to work as a production assistant on the 1970 war movie Kelly’s Heroes. He remained in Europe into his 20s, finding work as an actor, extra and stuntman in spaghetti westerns before returning to the US to write and direct this debut feature Schlock in 1973. He went on to achieve international recognition, working on such classics as The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, Coming to America and An American Warewolf in London. Here, Landis makes his choice for the ten greatest movies of all time.
Introducing his selection for the BFI’s Greatest Movies list, Landis writes: “This list reflects some of the hundreds of movies I love. The idea of a list of ‘The Best’ or ‘The Greatest’ movies is an impossible task, as each film is unique. So these are some of the movies I appreciate, there are many many others equally wonderful.”
The director’s varied list stretches from Hollywood’s Golden Age all the way to the 1970s when he was making his first movies. His first choice is the classic 1933 monster movie King Kong. Directed by Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, this iconic pre-code adventure horror stars Faye Wray as Ann Darrow, a beautiful actress who joins director Carl Denham on a journey across the Indian Ocean to do location shots for his latest jungle picture.
After falling head-over-heels for First Mate John Driscoll, Ann arrives on a remote and unexplored island and is promptly taken hostage by natives who dedicate her as a sacrifice to a giant primate called Kong. The film laid the foundation for countless monster movies and was later parodied by Landis in Schlock, which stars the director as the titular gorilla. Other ’30s classics on his list include It’s A Gift, The Awful Truth and His Girl Friday.
At the other end of the spectrum, Landis includes Alfred Hitchcock’s classic psychological thriller Psycho and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II, which centres on the Corleone crime family after the events of the first film and simultaneously traces its move to American with a series of flashbacks to Vito Corleone’s childhood in turn-of-the-century Sicily. You can check out Landis’ full selection below.
John Landis’ 10 favourite films:
- King Kong (Ernest B. Schoedsack, Merian C. Cooper, 1933)
- The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
- It’s a Gift (Norman Z. McLeod, 1934)
- The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey, 1937 )
- His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1939)
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962 )
- The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (Preston Sturges, 1943)
- Throne of Blood (Akira Kurosawa, 1957)
- Pinocchio (Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton Luske, 1940)
- Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
