List of Lists

The Greatest Classic Performances by an Actor
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The Greatest Classic Performances by an Actress
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My 10 favorite classic (pre-1950) movie actors:

1. Cary Grant
2. James Stewart
(3-10 listed alphabetically)
3. Humphrey Bogart
4. James Cagney
5. Henry Fonda
6. John Garfield
7. Fredric March
8. William Powell
9. Edward G. Robinson
10. Spencer Tracy
rising fast: Robert Mitchum


My 10 favorite classic (pre-1950) movie actresses:

1. Bette Davis
2. Katharine Hepburn
(3-10 listed alphabetically)
3. Jean Arthur
4. Claudette Colbert
5. Olivia de Havilland
6. Irene Dunne
7. Greta Garbo
8. Carole Lombard
9. Barbara Stanwyck
10. Margaret Sullavan
rising fast: Susan Hayward


My 10 favorite performances by Cary Grant:

1. North by Northwest (1959)
2. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
3. The Awful Truth (1937)
4. His Girl Friday (1940)
5. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1947)
6. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
7. To Catch a Thief (1954)
8. Charade (1963)
9. Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
10. The Bishop's Wife (1948)


My 10 favorite performances by Bette Davis:

1. All About Eve (1950)
2. The Little Foxes (1941)
3. The Letter (1940)
4. Dark Victory (1939)—Davis's own favorite role
5. Jezebel (1938)
6. Now, Voyager (1942)
7. Marked Woman (1937)
8. Mr. Skeffington (1944)
9. The Star (1952)
10. Deception (1946)


My 10 favorite performances by James Stewart:

1. Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
2. Vertigo (1958)
3. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
4. Rear Window (1954)
5. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
6. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
7. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
8. Destry Rides Again (1939)
9. The Naked Spur (1953)
10. Harvey (1950)


My 10 favorite performances by Katharine Hepburn:

1. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
2. Long Day's Journey into Night (1962)
3. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
4. Woman of the Year (1942)
5. Summertime (1955)
6. Adam's Rib (1949)
7. Alice Adams (1935)
8. The African Queen (1951)
9. The Lion in Winter (1968)
10. Stage Door (1937)


My 10 favorite movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock:

1. North by Northwest (1959)
2. Vertigo (1958)
3. Rear Window (1954)
4. Strangers on a Train (1951)
5. Psycho (1960)
6. Notorious (1946)
7. Foreign Correspondent (1940)
8. Rebecca (1940)
9. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
10. The 39 Steps (1935)

• My 15 Most Beautiful Narrative Movies of All Time (chronological order)

1. Metropolis
2. Citizen Kane
3. The Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau)
4. The Red Shoes
5. Ugetsu
6. Lawrence of Arabia
7. The Leopard
8. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
9. Andrei Rublev
10. Romeo and Julie (Zeffirelli)
11. Cries and Whispers
12. Barry Lyndon
13. Days of Heaven
14. Aguirre the Wrath of God
15. Raise the Red Lantern

My ratings of the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movies:

****
Top Hat (1935)
Swing Time (1936)

***½
The Gay Divorcée (1934)
Follow the Fleet (1936)
Shall We Dance (1937)

***
Flying Down to Rio (1933)
Roberta (1935)
Carefree (1938)
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939)

**½
The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)


My ratings of the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn movies:

****
Adam"s Rib (1949)

***½
Woman of the Year (1942)
State of the Union (1948)
Pat and Mike (1952)

***
Without Love (1945)
The Sea of Grass (1947)
Desk Set (1957)

**½
Keeper of the Flame (1943)
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)


My directors' pantheon:

Ingmar Bergman
Luis Buñuel
Charles Chaplin
Vittorio de Sica
Sergei Eisenstein
Federico Fellini
John Ford
Howard Hawks
Alfred Hitchcock
Buster Keaton
Akira Kurosawa
David Lean
Ernst Lubitsch
Terrence Malick
Jean-Pierre Melville
Kenji Mizoguchi
Max Ophüls
Yasujiro Ozu
Roman Polanski
Michael Powell
Satyajit Ray
Jean Renoir
Jacques Tati
François Truffaut
Orson Welles