To celebrate its 20th annual awards ceremony, the Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film will be publishing a series of Top 20 lists on its Facebook page. For the website however, we’ve expanded this first list to a Top 50. For our second such list, we’ve chosen to highlight movies about movies! We all love the movies, and from that, you might expect we love movies about movies! The number of films people singled out was astouding. Watch for more lists leading up to our 20th annual Chlotrudis Awards, to be held on Sunday, March 16 at the Brattle Theatre. The entire list of films chosen by Chlotrudis members topped 140. Check out our first list for the year, the 50 Best French-Language Films as chosen by Chlotrudis.
Billy Wilder’s classic 1950 film, SUNSET BLVD., about a hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent-film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity tops the Chlotrudis list of the Best Movies About Movies. The list skews fairly American, and fairly modern, although the Society does reach all the way back to 1929 to note the documentary from the Soviet Union, MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA coming in at #29. Last year’s Chlotrudis winner, THE ARTIST, coming in at #4 is the first film from another country, although it was a U.S. co-production. Fellini’s classic film 8 1/2 comes in at #7, and is the highest ranking international film. Three filmmakers made the list more than once, and it’s no surprise as these directors have a fascination for the medium. David Lynch’s MULHOLLAND DR. hits at #9, and his tour de force INLAND EMPIRE shows up at #31. Woody Allen anchors the top 10 with THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO, and makes another appereance at #49 with STARDUST MEMORIES. Pedro Almodóvar’s BAD EDUCATION shows up at #18, and BROKEN EMBRACES shows up at #42 (what about LAW OF DESIRE – a far better film in this member’s opinion). Documentaries about film are represented 7 times, lead by Kirby Dick’s incendiary THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED.
We hope you enjoy our list of the 50 Best Movies About Movies!
| 01 | Sunset Blvd. | Billy Wilder | 1950 |
| 02 | Ed Wood | Tim Burton | 1994 |
| 03 | Boogie Nights | Paul Thomas Anderson | 1997 |
| 04 | The Artist |
Michel Hazanavicius | 2011 |
| 05 | The Player | Robert Altman | 1992 |
| 06 | Gods and Monsters | Bill Condon | 1998 |
| 07 | 8 1/2 | Federico Fellini | 1963 |
| 08 | Singin’ in the Rain | Stanley Donen; Gene Kelly | 1952 |
| 09 | Mulholland Dr. | David Lynch | 2001 |
| 10 | The Purple Rose of Cairo | Woody Allen | 1985 |
| 11 | Cinema Paradiso | Giuseppe Tornatore | 1988 |
| 12 | This Film Is Not Yet Rated | Kirby Dick | 2006 |
| 13 | Good Bye, Dragon Inn | Tsai Ming-liang | 2003 |
| 14 | Adaptation | Spike Jonze | 2002 |
| 15 | Millennium Actress | Satoshi Kon | 2001 |
| 16 | Barton Fink | Joel Coen; Ethan Coen | 2001 |
| 17 | Day for Night | François Truffaut | 1973 |
| 18 | Bad Education | Pedro Almodóvar | 2004 |
| 19 | State and Main | David Mamet | 2000 |
| 20 | A Star Is Born | George Cukor | 1954 |
| 21 | Living in Oblivion | Tom DiCillo | 1995 |
| 22 | Who Framed Roger Rabbit? | Robert Zemeckis | 1988 |
| 23 | Hitchcock | Sacha Gervasi | 2012 |
| 24 | For Your Consideration | Christopher Guest | 2006 |
| 25 | Best Worst Movie | Michael Stephenson | 2009 |
| 26 | Sullivan’s Travels | Preston Sturges | 1941 |
| 27 | Ararat | Atom Egoyan | 2002 |
| 28 | American Movie | Chris Smith | 1999 |
| 29 | Man With a Movie Camera | Dziga Vertov | 1929 |
| 30 | Hugo | Martin Scorsese | 2011 |
| 31 | Inland Empire | David Lynch | 2006 |
| 32 | Lost in La Mancha | Keith Fulton; Luis Pepe | 2002 |
| 33 | Shadow of the Vampire | E. Elias Merhige | 2000 |
| 34 | Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story | Michaël Winterbottom | 2005 |
| 35 | L.A. Confidential | Curtis Hanson | 1997 |
| 36 | CQ | Roman Coppola | 2001 |
| 37 | Double Dare | Amanda Michell | 2004 |
| 38 | What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? | Robert Aldrich | 1962 |
| 39 | Argo | Ben Affleck | 2012 |
| 40 | Tropic Thunder | Ben Stiller | 2008 |
| 41 | The Bad and the Beautiful | Vincente Minnelli | 1952 |
| 42 | Broken Embraces | Pedro Almodóvar | 2000 |
| 43 | Peeping Tom | Michael Powell | 1960 |
| 44 | Contempt | Jon-Luc Godard | 1963 |
| 45 | Torremolinos 73 | Pablo Berger | 2003 |
| 46 | The Day of the Locust | John Schlessinger | 1975 |
| 47 | The Blair Witch Project | Daniel Myrick; Eduardo Sánchez | 1999 |
| 48 | Casting By | Tom Donahue | 2012 |
| 49 | Stardust Memories | Woody Allen | 1980 |
| 50 | Sex Is Comedy | Catherine Breillat | 2002 |