The Conformist: No 13 best arthouse film of all time
Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970A repressed upper-class intellectual is hired by Mussolini's fascist goons to go to Paris and kill a leading dissident who was once his philosophy tutor. Such is the premise...
View ArticlePather Panchali: No 12 best arthouse film of all time
Satyajit Ray, 1955It was the birth of a cinema, certainly the birth of a new kind of Indian cinema. On the first day of the shoot, the director had never directed, the cameraman had never shot a scene,...
View ArticleAguirre, Wrath of God: No 11 best arthouse film of all time
Werner Herzog, 1972This is pure Heart of Darkness territory. A band of conquistadors searching for El Dorado in darkest Peru find the horror within themselves. Never has Klaus Kinski been more unhinged...
View ArticleThe Gospel According to St Matthew: No 10 best arthouse film of all time
Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964A gay, Marxist Catholic: not the most likely candidate, you'd have thought, to make arguably the greatest of all religious films – and one of the very few based on the New...
View ArticleThe White Ribbon: No 9 best arthouse film of all time
Michael Haneke, 2009What is it about Michael Haneke's 2009 Palme d'Or winner that makes it so immaculately disquieting? It's not just the plot: a series of crimes – some ascribable, most anonymous –...
View ArticleFanny and Alexander: No 8 best arthouse film of all time
Ingmar Bergman, 1982Ingmar Bergman's self-styled farewell to cinema is an opulent family saga, by turns bawdy, stark and strange. For novices who are put off by the director's reputation as a dour,...
View ArticleDays of Heaven: No 7 best arthouse film of all time
Terrence Malick, 1978Art for art's sake, and proud of it, Days of Heaven has no reason to exist beyond the fact that Terence Malick was determined to make it exist and, as with all Malick's movies, it...
View ArticleA Clockwork Orange: No 6 best arthouse film of all time
Stanley Kubrick, 1971Even though it was made in long-ago 1971, there is still something almost fetishistically futuristic about A Clockwork Orange. Perhaps that is owed to the exuberant and indelible...
View ArticleCitizen Kane: No 5 best arthouse film of all time
Orson Welles, 1941So many things about Citizen Kane were outrageous at the time: that this arrogant kid, Orson Welles, in his early 20s had a deal to do what he liked; that he chose to make a thinly...
View ArticleTokyo Story: No 4 best arthouse film of all time
Yasujiro Ozu, 1953It's dangerous to start watching Japanese cinema, because the world is so extensive and dazzling you may quickly develop a taste for nothing but Japanese films. Is there a romance...
View ArticleL'Atalante: No 3 best arthouse film of all time
Jean Vigo, 1934At the age of 29, Jean Vigo died from rheumatic septicaemia, just a few days after the opening of his only feature film, L'Atalante. Those bare facts are a landmark not just in French...
View ArticleMulholland Dr.: No 2 best arthouse film of all time
David Lynch, 2001Not many films have managed to have their cake and eat it quite like Mulholland Drive (technically it's "Dr." not "Drive", which is important). It is a movie about the worst of...
View ArticleAndrei Rublev: Archive review
From the Guardian, 16 August 1973Tarkovsky's film Andrei Rublev switches from black and white into colour for the last five of its 146 minutes, and the camera tracks quietly over Rublev's masterpiece,...
View ArticleAndrei Rublev: the best arthouse film of all time
Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966Viewers and critics always have their personal favourites, but some films achieve a masterpiece status that becomes unanimously agreed upon – something that's undoubtedly true of...
View ArticleJoe Queenan's guide to arthouse cliches
The ideal arthouse film is set in a part of the world few of us know and even fewer intend to visit. The steppes of Central Asia or a forlorn village in Central America are fine, but rural Slovakia...
View ArticleWhat's the best arthouse film that makes no sense?
Problematic, directionlessness or just plain nonsensical – here are the inexplicable arthouse films you love to hate @DrGiggles Without a doubt Primer is the most obtuse film I've ever seen – it was as...
View ArticleThe 25 best arthouse films of all time
This is a red rag to a number of different bulls. Lovers of what's called arthouse cinema resent the label for being derisive and philistine. And those who detest it bristle at the implication that...
View ArticleThe 25 best arthouse films of all time: the full list
Just the list, no snazzy extras? You've come to the right place1) Andrei Rublev2) Mulholland DriveContinue reading...
View ArticleThe drama and arthouse 25: in pictures
The complete set of our critics' top choices. Just click the film title for more information Continue reading...
View ArticleThe 25 best arthouse films: which omissions leave you breathless? | Catherine...
This list of all-time greats will no doubt have some readers flinging their cappuccinos in disgust. Which choices put the sin in cineaste?There will be blood. Today's list, more than any other in our...
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