FILM-TRIP

THE TOP TRIPS 
CASABLANCA (Curtiz) AMARCORD (Fellini) A SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY (Tavernier) 
THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (Wyler) SUNRISE (Murnau) THE GENERAL (Keaton) MANHATTAN (Allen) CHINATOWN (Polanski) CITIZEN KANE (Welles)  
MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS  (Minnelli) THE WILD BUNCH (Peckinpah) LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (Lean) GRAND ILLUSION  (Renoir) SEVEN SAMURAI (Kurosawa) 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (Kubrick)  
RULES OF THE GAME (Renoir) FARGO (Coen) "I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING!" (Powell, Pressburger) STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (Hitchcock) A CANTERBURY TALE (Powell, Pressburger) LE CERCLE ROUGE (Melville) BLUE VELVET (Lynch)

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This is not a "best list."  Rather I have singled out films that, when revisited, can draw me into worlds that seem to have been created solely to seduce and entice me.  

Several of these films appear on top ten lists.  Citizen Kane has occupied the number one position on Sight & Sound's prestigious "The Greatest Films of All Time" since 1962; Rules of the Game (#3), 2001: A Space Odyssey (#6), and Sunrise (#8) are on its most recent (2002) list. In the 2007 American Film Institute poll Casablanca was voted the number three film, and Lawrence of Arabia number 7.

What puzzles me is the failure of critics to acknowledge the greatness of Tavernier's A Sunday in the Country.