Susan Sontag’s 50 favourite movies of all time
The American novelist, critic, and essay writer Susan Sontag, best known for her critically acclaimed works such as Against Interpretation and Illness as Metaphor, along with fictional efforts The Volcano Lover and In America, is established as one of the greatest creative thinkers in contemporary culture history.
Sontag’s writing explored a wide range of topics and issues, including media, culture, travel, human rights, AIDS, areas of conflict, the Vietnam War, and left-wing politics. Offering a peek behind the curtain of her inspiration, Sontag once revealed a selection of her favourite films, with choices that seem to reflect her attraction to serious and complex issues. There are no comedies on this list, for example.
However, Sontag did seem to be drawn to some brilliant character-driven stories that also addressed far wider societal issues at the time. Robert Bresson’s 1959 Pickpocket is a prime example, along with George Hill’s brilliant war and romance drama, The Big Parade, from 1925.
Gems from Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, and John Ford all make the cut, filmmakers that embrace the pure spectacle of cinema – Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kurosawa’s The Seventh Samurai, and John Ford’s The Searchers all share a similar ethos of pushing the boundaries of technical filmmaking but at the heart are tales of profound human endeavours.
European films seem to dominate throughout the list, with very few American movies featured, which is surprising considering the list was compiled in 1977, during the golden age of American cinema. The master of the French New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard, features most on the list, with four films in total – again, another filmmaker that challenged the conventions of the medium itself.
It’s an intriguing list Sontag has compiled, and even if you aren’t familiar with her work, it’s an extensive list with some incredible films she acknowledges.
Susan Sontag’s favourite movies:
- Bresson, Pickpocket
- Kubrick, 2001
- Vidor, The Big Parade
- Visconti, Ossessione
- Kurosawa, High and Low
- [Hans-Jürgen] Syberberg, Hitler
- Godard, 2 ou 3 Choses …
- Rossellini, Louis XIV
- Renoir, La Règle du Jeu
- Ozu, Tokyo Story
- Dreyer, Gertrud
- Eisenstein, Potemkin
- Von Sternberg, The Blue Angel
- Lang, Dr. Mabuse
- Antonioni, L’Eclisse
- Bresson, Un Condamné à Mort …
- Gance, Napoléon
- Vertov, The Man with the [Movie] Camera
- [Louis] Feuillade, Judex
- Anger, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome
- Godard, Vivre Sa Vie
- Bellocchio, Pugni in Tasca
- [Marcel] Carné, Les Enfants du Paradis
- Kurosawa, The Seven Samurai
- [Jacques] Tati, Playtime
- Truffaut, L’Enfant Sauvage
- [Jacques] Rivette, L’Amour Fou
- Eisenstein, Strike
- Von Stroheim, Greed
- Straub, …Anna Magdalena Bach
- Taviani brothers, Padre Padrone
- Resnais, Muriel
- [Jacques] Becker, Le Trou
- Cocteau, La Belle et la Bête
- Bergman, Persona
- [Rainer Werner] Fassbinder, … Petra von Kant
- Griffith, Intolerance
- Godard, Contempt
- [Chris] Marker, La Jetée
- Conner, Crossroads
- Fassbinder, Chinese Roulette
- Renoir, La Grande Illusion
- [Max] Ophüls, The Earrings of Madame de …
- [Iosif] Kheifits, The Lady with the Little Dog
- Godard, Les Carabiniers
- Bresson, Lancelot du Lac
- Ford, The Searchers
- Bertolucci, Prima della Rivoluzione
- Pasolini, Teorema
- [Leontine] Sagan, Mädchen in Uniform
