André Bazin Ten Best Films

1954
(no preferred order)
Gate of Hell (Teinosuke Kinugasa)
El (Luis Bunuel)
Robinson Crusoe (Luis Bunuel)
Chateaux en Espagne[El Torero] (René Wheeler)
Touchez pas au Grisbi (Jacques Becker)
From Here to Eternity (Fred Zinneman)
Romeo and Juliet (Renato Castellani)
The Living Desert (James Algar)
The Wild One (Laszlo Benedek)
Monsieur Ripois (René Clement)


1955
1.......Ordet (Carl Dreyer)
2.......La Strada (Federico Fellini)
3.......Voyage in Italy (Roberto Rossellini)
4.......The Big Knife (Robert Aldrich)
5.......French Cancan (Jean Renoir)
6.......Lola Montes (Max Ophuls)
7.......The Gold of Naples (Vittorio De Sica)
8.......Du Rififi chez les Hommes (Jules Dassin)
9.......The Man from Laramie (Anthony Mann)
10.....Les Mauvaises Rencontres (Alexander Astruc)


1956
1.......A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson)
2.......Il Bidone (Federico Fellini)
3.......Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray)
4.......Elena and her Men (Jean Renoir)
5.......Bus Stop (Joshua Logan)
6.......Senso (Lucchino Visconti)
7.......Smiles of a Summer Night (Ingmar Bergman)
8.,,,,,,L'Amore (Roberto Rossellini)
9.,,,,,,Gervaise (Rene Clement)
10.....The Man Who Knew Too Much (Alfred Hitchcock)


1957
1......The Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini)
2.......Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (Frank Tashlin)
3.......Porte des Lilas (Rene Clair)
4.......Torero (Carlos Velo)
5.......12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)
6.......Sait-on Jamais (Roger Vadim)
7.......Street of Shame (Kenzo Mizoguchi)
8.......Aparijito (Satyajit Ray)
9.......The Criminal Life of Archibald Cruz (Luis Bunuel)
10.....Seven Men from Now (Budd Boetticher)


André Bazin died on November 11, 1958. One can begin to conjecture what his list for 1958 might have looked like from his ranking of films as reported in Cahiers' “conseil des dix” in those months that he did participate.


April
Bonjour Tristesse (Otto Preminger) --- 3 stars
Kanal (Andrej Wajda) --- 3 stars


June
Mon Oncle (Jacques Tati) --- 4 stars
This Angry Age (Rene Clement) --- 3 stars


July
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles) --- 4 stars
The Cranes are Flying (Mikhail Kalatozov) --- 4 stars


November
The Left-Handed Gun (Arthur Penn) --- 3 stars
Une Vie (Alexander Astruc) --- 3 stars
The Goddess (John Cromwell) --- 3 stars
En Cas du Malheur (Claude Autant-Lara) --- 3 stars

Rene Wheeler was for anyone who saw Bertrand Tavernier’s Laissez-Passer the character selling shoelaces who about an hour into film Jean Aurenche meets on a Paris sidewalk whom Aurenche brings to Continental studios to co-write the Fernandel film he has been assigned.
El Torero is one of only three films that directed. An earlier film of his Premières armes was credited according to the one user comment on the IMDb by François Truffaut with influencing him. Wheeler also collaborated on the screenplay for Rififi chez les Hommes which was highly regarded by the staff at Cahiers du Cinema. Wheeler also worked on some films that were disliked by those critics such as Les Salauds vont en enfer and "Méfiez-vous fillettes. Wheeler would once more in the mid-60s figure in some yearly Cahiers ten best lists. He co-scripted
Le Journal d'une femme en blanc with Jean Aurenche for director Claude Autant-Lara. Jean-Luc Godard rated that film third for the year 1965 and Jacques Rivette also listed the film.

Bazin is often written of for his love of animals.

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is what happens when you hang around with Jean-Luc Godard too much. Street of Shame is what happens when you hang around with Jacques Rivette too much.

Bonnie and Clyde, Arthur Penn’s most famous film, was first offered to François Truffaut, then to Godard and then to Truffaut again before Penn agreed to direct it.