In memory of the late Damien Bona, I'm posting a list of favorite films from 1955 - which was his birth year, but also in his opinion (and that of many cinephiles, I think), an exceptional year for movies.
The older I've gotten, the more difficult it is for me to play the game of ranked favorites, and I'm eschewing numerical rankings for the more impressionistic proviso that this list is in roughly descending order of preference. Some films are in need of another viewing (Kiss Me Deadly, The Tender Trap), even desperately so (Lola Montes, Floating Clouds).
The Long Gray Line (John Ford)
Les Maîtres fous (Jean Rouch)
Night and Fog (Alain Resnais)
The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton)
The Princess Yang Kwei Fei (Kenji Mizoguchi)
Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer)
The Princess Yang Kwei Fei (Kenji Mizoguchi)
Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer)
The Tender Trap (Charles Walters)
All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk)
Mr. Arkadin (Orson Welles)
Mosaik Im Vertrauen (Peter Kubelka)
Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich)
Summertime (David Lean)
Lola Montes (Max Ophüls)
Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray)
Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray)
Floating Clouds (Mikio Naruse)
Violent Saturday (Richard Fleischer)
A Bloody Spear on Mt. Fuji (Tomu Uchida)
A Bloody Spear on Mt. Fuji (Tomu Uchida)
The Far Country (Anthony Mann)
Devdas (Bimal Roy)
Two Scent's Worth (Chuck Jones)
One Froggy Evening (Chuck Jones)
Knight-Mare Hare (Chuck Jones)
Devdas (Bimal Roy)
Two Scent's Worth (Chuck Jones)
One Froggy Evening (Chuck Jones)
Knight-Mare Hare (Chuck Jones)
The Trouble with Harry (Alfred Hitchcock)
The Phenix City Story (Phil Karlson)
The Phenix City Story (Phil Karlson)
The Seven Year Itch (Billy Wilder)
To Catch a Thief (Alfred Hitchcock)
Some honorable mentions: The Indian Fighter (Andre De Toth), Moonfleet (Fritz Lang), Run for Cover (Nicholas Ray), Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple (Hiroshi Inagaki), Murder Is My Beat (Edgar G. Ulmer), A Man on the Beach (Joseph Losey).
If there's a title you're looking for, and not seeing ... it's possible that I've forgotten a film or two, or would categorize a title in a different year than you might. It's very possible that I might not have seen a film - skipping over the likes of Tales of the Taira Clan, Mr. and Mrs. '55, Le Amiche, The Man with the Golden Arm, Strategic Air Command, and Shree 420, you should ask me about how life has conspired against me seeing the whole of Smiles of a Summer Night. (Don't really ask - the stories are boring.) And of course there's always a chance that I might not be crazy about a film that I've seen but which you might love.
