Moreover, it is 150 films, not the traditional 100. Perhaps that additional 50 allowed the inclusion of some Asian gems like Ozu’s ‘I Was Born, But…’, Guney’s ‘Yol’ and Kiarostami’s ‘Close-Up’.

That extra 50 ‘bests’ also permit some directors to deservedly get more than one entry: Lang’s 3 films (Metropolis, M and Ministry of Fear); Hitchcock’s 3 (39 Steps, Rear Window, Psycho); Bunuel’s 2 (Viridiana, Los Olivdados); Lubitsch’s 2 (Lady Windermere’s, The Shop Around The Corner), and Scoresese’s 2 (Mean Streets, Raging Bull.)

But it is inexcusable that the humorous and wise madman, the grand magician of world cinema, Federico Fellini, the incomparable writer and/or director of such extraordinary volume and range of intriguing, startling, exciting and fantastic films should only get one entry- ‘La Dolce Vita.’ How could they omit his 8½ (1963), an astounding autobiographical film about the trials and tribulations of film making as well as life itself. Watch his forgotten directorial debut Sceicco bianco, Lo (1952) aka ‘The White Sheikh’- a poignant, human and hilarious film - to appreciate Fellini’s brilliant and original gift for cinema.

Aiming at ‘serious’ ‘arty’ film festivals, ‘high brow’ film critics and ‘intellectual’ filmmakers, Fellini is reported to have said, “I prefer to make ‘spectacles’ for the audience, not ‘films’ for the elite.”

This refreshing statement from Fellini calls for a little digression. Nowadays, exploiting the rising power of the world’s leading film festivals as high-status ‘taste makers’, quite a few directors make films primarily aimed at the world’s top three or four film festivals which enjoy concurrent huge film markets where winners (and many candidates) get instant, lucrative sales.

Sadly, this includes a few directors from Iran and the Middle East who specialize in making ‘obscure’, ‘abstract’ or ‘minimalist’ irrelevant films for Cannes and other ‘snob’ festivals.

According to insiders from Paris, a couple of Iranian directors are ‘in bed’ with French production companies who typically fund a Cannes’s favorite icon Iranian director with about 200K to 250K Euros (the cost of a TV commercial)! This ‘small’ budget in today’s Iran is the equivalent to roughly one to two millions dollars. Then, the Iranian director spends about a half to two third of that budget to cheaply make an ‘intellectual’, vague 85-minutes film (90 minutes with credits) showing exotic Persian beauties in Hijabs, often including a cute kid and a philosophical elder, shot against oriental bazaars and architecture, or against the striking landscape of Iran.

Such ‘arty’ films – whose poorly written dialog is masked by better written foreign subtitles - have little relevance to the extraordinary, bizarre and tragic realities of Iranians, especially the unnatural lives and compromises suffered by overtly oppressed women. But such ‘intellectual’ films automatically get into Cannes’ Competition or at least into its ‘Un Certain Regard’ section.

A Cannes selection automatically guarantees worldwide sales several times the original 250K Euros investment. Then, everybody is happy and the director can live like a ‘Pasha’ in Tehran and be sought by pretty actresses dreaming of a visa to travel abroad.

There are no powerful unions for cast and crew in Iran. So a director can play king and take advantage. For example, an old established director can hire a young writer or editor to do most of, if not all, the long, laborious writing or editing, and then choose to credit himself as a writer or editor, or at least as co-editor. This makes him to be even more worshipped as a genius ‘auteur’ by unsuspecting festivals, film critics and fans.

Such icon directors can then afford to invite their admiring film critics and film programmers to visit Iran as intellectual luminaries and pay their hotel bills at Istiqlal (ex-Hilton) in Tehran.

Fortunately, there are some Iranian directors who are notable exceptions to this incestuous, self-perpetuating business circle. They dare to make engaging films that are socially and politically relevant, such as Jafar Panahi, Bahman Ghobadi, Tahmineh Milani and Rakhshan Bani-Etemad. Not surprisingly, unlike the Cannes’ cushy icons, these true artists and their films have been in trouble with the Islamic Regime. In 2001 in Tehran, I wished to meet Tamineh Milani to congratulate her for her courageous films depicting the ordeals of oppressed women. But she was in jail on the account of her films (Two Women, and The Hidden Half) awaiting trial. Only her relatives and lawyers were allowed to visit her.

Nama-ye Nazdik (1990, Abbas Kiarostami) aka ‘Close-Up’ - Back to the 150 Masterpieces of World Cinema: Goddard, Kieslowski, and Rohmer get two ‘best’ entries each. But Welles, Kubrick, Altman and Fellini only manage one ‘best’ each. These are respectively: Citizen Kane, Eyes Wide Shut, Nashville and La Dolce Vita. Bertolucci’s own ‘best’ is surprisingly ‘Before The Revolution’ (which he directed when he was a 22-year old ardent Goddard fan) not his more fashionable, ‘The Conformist.'

Forever-busy A-List ‘geniuses’ only get one entry each: Spielberg (Jaws), Woody Allen (Annie Hall), and Lucas (Star Wars.)

Greed (1924, Erich von Stroheim) -This best list begins with the silent era greats –‘Birth of a Nation’, ‘Noseferatu’, ‘The General’, et.’…. But how could Erich von Stroheim’s 1924 masterpiece ‘Greed’ be missed? The list ends with 1999 British animation, ‘Pleasure of War.’

In between, it rounds up the usual suspects: It’s a Wonderful Life, His Girl Friday, Wild Bunch, Bonnie & Clyde, The Godfather…and some deserving unusual gems: Josef von Sternberg’s Morocco, Nicholas Ray’s In A Lonely Place, Michael Powell’s The Red Shoes, Brazil, Stranger Than Paradise, Sex, Lies…, Do The Right Thing, Pulp Fiction, Blue Velvet and Clair Denis’s Beau Travail.

Morocco (1930, Josef von Sternberg) - Aptly making the ‘best’ list is Josef von Sternberg’s classic Morocco (1930) starring the inimitably seductive femme fatale Marlene Dietrich and coolly masculine Gary Cooper, both in usual leading roles.

Many of your favorite films may be missing from this choice: Casablanca, Chinatown, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Some like It Hot, The French Connection (why should not a great thriller be also included?), Costa Garvaz's ground-breaking political thriller ‘Z’, Cinema Paradiso- best nostalgic film on film!

Moreover, you may question why Kazan’s ‘East of Eden’ is chosen instead of his more remarkable classic ‘On The Water Front’. And why Kenji Mizoguchi’s ‘Story of Last Chrysanthemum’ is chosen over his more mesmerizing masterpiece, ‘Ugetsu Monogatari’?

This best selection admits a bias towards the West’s output apparently because of its easier accessibility. Sadly, many Asian masterpieces - such as Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali trilogy’, and Yimou Zhang’s ‘Raise the Red Lantern’ and ‘Ju Dou’ - are honored briefly with photos but are not chosen.

Yol (Yilmaz Guney, 1982) Yol meaning ‘The Way’ or 'The Road' is perhaps the first film from the Middle East to win Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival.

Yol (1982), the epic Kurdish film by the legendary Yilmaz Guney should also be in the Guinness Book of World Records for the first true, independent film written and directed (via his assistant) from a prison cell. The legendary actor, screenwriter, novelist, director and producer Guney was serving an accumulated one hundred year sentence in a Turkish prison.  

In 1981, Guney escaped prison and finished Yol in Europe, eventually living in exile in Paris, pursued by Turkish government’s agents. Tragically, he died of cancer in 1984 at the youngish age of 47. Attended by French Minister of Culture and Paris’s top filmmakers, intellectuals and artistes, Guney was honorably buried at Père La Chaise in the company of Chopin, Wilde and Morrison.

Duvar (Yilmaz Guney, 1983) aka The Wall, Guney’s final film shot in France. It is a tough film about unspeakable prison life in Turkey.

Many of Guney’s of over 50 films were burned, lost, censored or damaged through the deliberate actions of the Turkish government. Yol and many of Guney’s master films - such as Yol and The Wall - were banned in Turkey until the 1990s when finally Guney was declared as a “Turkish” genius and his films were shown in Istanbul after censoring out all words and references to Kurds and Kurdistan.

Viridiana (1961, Luis Bunuel) - Both Luis Bunuel’s Olivdados, Los (1950) and his evergreen masterpiece Viridiana (1961) are in this book. Viridiana is probably Bunuel’s best film- an unforgettably engaging, fascinating and powerful moral tale.

I did not count but it seems that most of America’s contributions to this Critic’s Choice are films made prior to 1980’s: only a few U.S films made in the 80s and 90s were chosen. So much for the power of tons of money, super stars and high technology! Perhaps the general deterioration of Hollywood films, aimed more and more at the billion-dollar ‘impressionable and easily exploitable’ kids’ market, is true. If so, look for even larger percentage contributions in future ‘Best Lists’ from abroad.

Ladri di biciclette (Vittorio De Sica, 1948) aka ‘Bicycle Thieves’

Why didn’t this book also include special chapters on Italian and French cinemas when each of these has provided the world with equal, if not more resonant counterpoint, in both style and content, to Hollywood’s slick films? It is astonishing that Bertolucci does not seem to have prevailed on these mostly Anglo-Saxon and American film critics, the unique importance of the Italian neo-realism or the French nouvelle vague.

Notti di Cabiria, Le (Federico Fellini, 1957) aka ‘Nights of Cabiria’

Then, perhaps the Italian ‘human story’ films about marginal people - such as Bicycle Thieves or La Strada or Nights of Cabiria - may have replaced some British oddities like Leigh’s Topsy Turvy. (Or, did I miss something when I dizzily walked out after 30 minutes of Topsy Turvy?) This book’s ’150 Best’ is what the French might justifiably label as ‘le gout u peu Anglo-Saxone’, with Bertolucci’s ‘foreword’ probably added for Latin prestige.

Gaav (Dariush Mehrjui, 1969) aka ‘The Cow’ – an astonishing, original Iranian film that did not get into this Critics Choice. If the likes of Richard Pena, David D’Arcy, Godfrey Cheshire, Dave Kehr, Jean-Michel Frodon, Giona Nazarro, Joan Dupont, Michael Henry Wilson … decide to make up their own ‘best’ list, then many more foreign films such as Russian (‘Viy’ and ‘Ruslan I Lyudmila’), Egyptian (‘Cairo Station’), Brazilian (‘Pixote’), Iranian (‘The Cow’) would likely replace many otherwise ‘mediocre’ British and American films. Still, this somewhat ‘Anglo-Saxon Choice’ is well worth studying. No ‘best’ list is perfect!