Max Scharnberg

(A)
Throughout many years I have reflected on the same problem. Some movies which I love extremely much are not highly appreciated by the experts. And other movies which I am much less enthusiastic of, are strongly admired by the experts.

Restricting the presentation to the former group, I have more than once published the following lists of my own favourites which are less acknowledged by the experts. When it is a matter of comparing so many movies, I think that the number of votes of IMDb users may be a more informative indicator than the average vote.

The number of votes were gathered in 2006. For obvious reason I have not been inclined to update the list every year. However, by and large the pattern has not changed very much.

  • Count Only the Happy Hours (Rune Carlsten, 1944, Sweden) less than 5
  • L'épave (The Wreck / Sin and Desire) (Willy Rozier, 1949, France) less than 5
  • Gibier de potence (Prey of the Gallow) (Roger Richebé, 1952, France) less than 5
  • La jeune folle (Yves Allegret, 1952, France) less than 5
  • Conspirator (Daisuke Itô, 1961, Japan) less than 5
  • Bird of Paradise (Marcel Camus, 1962, France) less than 5
  • The Island (Alf Sjöberg, 1964, Sweden) less than 5
  • Afternoon Breezes (Hitoshi Yazaki, 1980, Japan) less than 5
  • Ex libris (Mats Olof Olsson, 1989, Sweden) less than 5
  • Ballad of the Yellow River (Teng Wenji, 1990, China) less than 5
  • The Two Truths (Antonia Leonviola, 1951, Italy/France) 000’005
  • With Beauty and Sorrow (Masahiro Shinoda, 1965, Japan) 000’007
  • Wild Birds (Alf Sjöberg, 1954, Sweden) 000’008
  • Karin Månsdotter (Alf Sjöberg, 1954, Sweden) 000’009
  • Lost Souvenirs (Christian-Jaque, 1950, France) 000’010
  • Die Herrenpartie (Stag Party) (Wolfgang Staudte, 1964, Germany) 000’010
  • Baltic Love (Peeter Urbla, 1992, Estonia) 000’010
  • A Story of Love (Guy Lefranc, 1951, France) 000’013
  • A Woman Without a Face (Gustaf Molander, 1947, Sweden) 000’015
  • Kirmes (Deadly Carousel) (Wolfgang Staudte, 1960, Germany) 000’015
  • The Eighth Day (Anders Grönros, 1978, Sweden) 000’016
  • Wienerblut (Willi Forst, 1942, Germany) 000’018
  • The Medium (Alexander Hammid, 1951, USA) 000’018
  • Time Out of War (Denis Sanders, 1954, USA) 000’019
  • The Undeadly One (Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1963, France) 000’020
  • November (Lukasz Karwowski, 1992, Poland) 000’022
  • Seppan (Agneta Fagerström-Olsson, 1986, Sweden) 000’024
  • Beautiful May (Chris Marker, 1963, France) 000’029
  • The Seven Deadly Sins (Georges Lacombe, 1952, France) 000’031
  • Miss April (Göran Gentele, 1958, Sweden) 000’035
  • Dialogue of the Carmelites (R. L. Bruckberger & Philippe Agostini, 1959, France) 000’035
  • Dear John (Lars-Magnus Lindgren, 1964, Sweden) 000’035
  • Marianne of My Youth (Julien Duvivier, 1955, France) 000’040
  • Peppermint Peace (Marianne Rosenbaum, 1983, Germany) 000’041
  • Der dibek (Michal Waszynski, 1937, Poland-Yiddish) 000’045
  • Valley of Peace (France Stiglic, 1956, Slovenia) 000’046
  • Mee Pok Man (Eric Khoo, 1995, Singapore) 000’055
  • Diamonds of the Night (Jan Nemec, 1964, Czechia) 000’061
  • The Little Chartreuse (Jean-Pierre Denis, 2005, France) 000’064
  • The Perambulator (Bo Widerberg, 1963, Sweden) 000’066
  • The Lady With the Dog (Yossif Kheifits, 1959, Russia) 000’073
  • Years of Stone (Pantelis Voulgaris, 1985, Greece) 000’073
  • An American Tragedy (Josef von Sternberg, 1931, USA) 000’076
  • Stormy Weather (Solveig Anspach, 2003, France/Iceland) 000’076
  • One Night, One Train (André Delvaux, 1968, Belgium) 000’078
  • Something Wild (Jack Garfein, 1961, USA) 000’084
  • Clair de femme (Constantin Costa-Gavras, 1979, France) 000’107
  • The Shadow of Emma (Sören Kragh-Jakobsen, 1988, Denmark) 000’107
  • Gates of the Night (Marcel Carné, 1946, France) 000’118
  • Miss Julie (Alf Sjöberg, 1951, Sweden) 000’124
  • Close to Life (Ingmar Bergman, 1957, Sweden) 000’130
  • Floating Clouds (Mikio Naruse, 1955, Japan) 000’134
  • Gingko Bed (Jacky Kang J. K., 1996, Korea) 000’138
  • Liebelei (Max Ophüls, 1933, Austria) 000’141
  • Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960, France) 000’149
  • Giliap (Roy Andersson, 1975, Sweden) 000’150
  • The People Against O'Hara (John Sturges, 1951, USA) 000’152
  • A Few Days With Me (Claude Sautet, 1988, France) 000’159
  • Happiness (Agnès Varda, 1965, France) 000’161
  • The Living Dessert (James Algar, 1953, USA) 000’172
  • King and Country (Joseph Losey, 1964, UK) 000’180
  • Les misérables (Jean-Paul de Chanois, 1958, France) 000’184
  • Phaedra (Jules Dassin, 1961, Greece) 000’189
  • Les diables (Christophe Ruggia, 2002, France) 000’193
  • The Bee Keeper (Theodor Angelopoulos, 1986, Greece) 000’196
  • Muriel (Alain Resnais, 1962, France) 000’204
  • Beauty of the Devil (René Clair, 1949, France) 000’206
  • Sundays and Cybèle (Serge Bourguignon, 1961, France) 000’220
  • Mickey One (Arthur Penn, 1964, USA) 000’227
  • 30th November (Daniel Fridell, 1995, Sweden) 000’238
  • Carrie (William Wyler, 1952, USA) 000’256
  • My Uncle Antoine (Claude Jutra, 1971, Canada) 000’262
  • J'embrasse pas (I Don't Kiss) (André Téchiné, 1991, France) 000’281
  • Jeanne and the Perfect Boy (Olivier Ducastel & Jacques Martineau, 1997, France) 000’283
  • The Glass Menagerie (Irving Rapper, 1950, USA) 000’284
  • Lilith (Robert Rossen, 1964, USA) 000’289
  • Summer Play (Ingmar Bergman, 1951, Sweden) 000’296
  • The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Vincente Minnelli, 1962, USA) 000’333
  • Love at 20 Years (Truffaut & Rosselini & Wajda & Ophüls & Ishihara, France/Germany/Italy/Poland/Japan, 1962) 000’341
  • The Lace-Maker (Claude Goretta, 1977, France) 000’349
  • Yellow Earth (Chen Kaige, 1984, China) 000’352
  • The Lovers (Louis Malle, 1958, France) 000’368
  • Tabu (Friedrich Murnau, 1930, USA) 000’391
  • Meeting Venus (István Szabó, 1990, Hungaria) 000’413
  • A Taste of Honey (Tony Richardson, 1961, UK) 000’432
  • Landscape in the Mist (Theodor Angelopoulos, 1988, Greece) 000’460
  • Housekeeping (Bill Forsyth, 1987, USA) 000’461
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream (Max Reinhardt, 1935, USA) 000’483
  • Gertrud (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1964, Denmark) 000’497

(B)
Considering your list of 255 movies I have certain difficulties.

  1. I am not aware of having seen a considerable number of these movies.
  2. There are a number of movies I have seen according to the information in my computer. But I do not recall them. – I cannot imagine that I would have forgotten them if they had impressed me much.
  3. There are very many of the 255 movies which I do not appreciate, or even deem to be very poor. I thoroughly dislike Straub. I see little value in Akerman. There is a large sample of movies I consider good but not excellent. As a consequence, it is simply not possible for me to select 30 or 20 high-quality movies from your list.
  4. I might have misunderstood your selection procedure, but I am surprised that “Les dimanches de Ville d’Avray” it missing from your list. I have checked today that it has got 491 votes from IMDb users.

(C)
My selection from the list:

(D)
My own supplementary sample. I have kept strictly to the rule that each movie had got less than 500 votes by IMDb users, though the number is not updated since 2006.

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