Jacques Doniol-Valcroze on the beginnings of Cahiers du Cinema

In 1959, on the occasion of the publication of the 100th issue of Cahiers du Cinema, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, one of the founding triumvirate of editors of that magazine, contributed a short history of that magazine. This is excerpted from that article

(page 67-68) issue 100 October 1958 (my translation)
So, the first issues of Cahiers, in the lapse of time, appear only like a set of serous studies on film whose most prominent points are Bazin's article on "The Stylistics of Robert Bresson", that of Rohmer on "Vanity as Painting", issue no. 8 which was dedicated to Renoir, the entry onto the team of new-comers Jean-José Richer, Michel Mayoux, Hans Lucas (who was none other than Jean-Luc Godard) and Michel Dorsday, issues no. 17 and 18 dedicated in part to Chaplin on the occasion of Limelight, some dazzling articles by Astruc, Domarchi's first study on Murnau, Truffaut's first reviews, Rivette's first article on Hawks, the first special issue on "Women and Cinema" etc. Then in issue no. 31 there appeared, after a great hesitancy on the part of me and Bazin, an article by François Truffaut entitled "A Certain Tendency of French Cinema".
I do not seek here to flatter Truffaut, who really could care less, or to convince that his writings are forever graven in marble. I note objectively that the publication of this article marks the real point of departure for what today, rightly or wrongly, Cahiers du Cinema stands for. A hurdle was cleared, a suit was filed, all of us were in solidarity, something brought us all together. Henceforth, we knew that we were for Renoir, Rossellini, Hitchcock, Cocteau, Bresson. . . and opposed to X, Y and Z. Henceforth, there was a doctrine, the politique des auteurs, even if it lacked suppleness. Henceforth, it was quite natural that we did the series of "Interviews" with the great directors and that a real contact would be established between them and us.

Robert Hossein, Philippe de Broca, Edouard Molinaro, Cahiers thumbnails -- December 1962

Here are three thumbnail critiques from the December 1962 special issue of Cahiers du Cinema dedicated to the young cinema or the "New Wave". Three young directors - Robert Hossein, Philippe de Broca, and Edouard Molinaro - not associated with the "New Wave" who continued on to forge long careers are discussed. Although it must be remembered that Philippe de Broca is one of only three people to appear in both The Four Hundred Blows and Breathless. And he is the only person to appear in both of those films and Le Beau Serge. In the latter film he played a character named "Jacques Rivette de la Chasuble". Philippe de Broca was Truffaut's assistant director on The Four Hundred Blows as he was the AD on Claude Chabrol's first three feature films.

Robert Hossein (page 72)

The fear of ridicule, of naivete and of melodrama have never muzzled him: one thinks of a whiff of unpolluted air. Add to that an extreme but pleasing taste (he will be only through "realism", a petty bourgeois of the commercial French background) for stylisation and frenzied abstraction: two characters, three units, dead-ringers, twins, neatly-cut dilemmas, silences and few words, a taste acquired straight from Hitchcock and cinema a la Aldrich. But didn't it only add up to a lot of childishness? The thoughtful care of his advisers realized the transition of the insensible adolescent into the honorable and prissy, but perfectly boring, young man. Meanwhile, the darling child of the "working press" Each of his failures is greeted with the same formula, "we feel that his next film will be very successful", a prediction renewed each time.

Philippe de Broca (page 63)

Deceptively light, deceptively easy-going, this is a worrier, a melancholy humorist who is yet in search of himself. Little sure of himself, he advances into cinema leaning on two crutches, Daniel Boulanger and Jean-Pierre Cassel. The scenarist Boulanger brings with himself a little bit of fantasy and a great portion of eccentricity, but, to be sure, scarcely any rigor. As all unconsciously autobiographic filmmakers, he believes that he has found in his favorite interpreter, his idealized counter-type: while the actor Cassel is only his dull caricature.
Nevertheless, he has in his comedies given to his weak characters moments rather powerfully moving: on the other hand, he almost completely ruined Cartouche by crippling a character a priori strong. He can become, if he does not jump the tracks, a successful ironist whose films will be worth what his screenplays and actors are worth. It remains for him to choose them well.

Edouard Molinaro (page 76)

He commits the mistake in his action films, the error of taking too serioulsy the receipts of Hollywood B-films. But, in front of the bursting machine-guns of those films, there is something other than pallid extras in stained or threadbare jackets. And when he wanted to prove himself ambitious, he erred in taking Clavel seriously. But La Mort de Belle is one of the rare Simenon adaptations which does not caricature its point of departure.
Alas, on the screen also science wiothout conscience is only the ruin of the soul. Molinaro, a technician without fear or blame, often says in his direction the contrary of what teh scenario implies: what is forbidden to him is emotion.

Eric Rohmer & Jacques Rivette on the auteur -- Dec. '61

The December 1961 special issue of Cahiers du Cinema dedicated to "Criticism" featured a debate between Eric Rohmer (at that time the editor of Cahiers), Jacques Rivette and three non-Cahiers critics, Morvan Lebesque, Pierre Marcabru and Georges Sadoul. This is a short excerpt from that debate . (page 17, my translation)

Eric Rohmer: The politique des auteurs is not an axiom, it is a postulate.

Jacques Rivette: A postulate which, in my judgment, has to be brought into question with each new viewing.

Georges Sadoul: Completely agreed; and while taking what is essential into account.

Jacques Rivette: That said, the principle of the politique des auteurs is, all the same, to complete that postulate with the following postulate: A filmmaker who in the past has made great films can make mistakes, but the mistakes which he makes have every chance, a priori, to be more fascinating than the successes of a journeyman.

Positif at Cahiers -- Robert Benayoun and Louis Seguin Dec. 1961

In their annual year-end special issue in December 1961, Cahiers du Cinema spotlighted "La Critique" (Criticism). The issue featured the responses of 36 French film critics to a battery of 14 questions asked by Cahiers. Question 14 was, "Speaking frankly, what to you is the contribution -- positive or negative -- of Cahiers du Cinema?". Among those who replied were 4 Positif regulars. What follows is my translation of the reaction of two of those Positif critics - Robert Benayoun and Louis Seguin.


Robert Benayoun (page 56)
On a critical plane, Cahiers du Cinema has made a negative contribution. They contradict themselves too often. Their extreme (and markedly useful) positions on Hitchcock, Rossellini, Donen, Huston, Bunuel, Anthony Mann and others have received throughout the years refutations too obvious for a guest to twist the knife in the wound intra-muros. No worthwhile theory has emerged there, no precise tendency has arisen there. Three schools of illusionists have exercised their powers there, destroying each time the preceding thesis.
On the other hand, on the plane of present expression, Cahiers has unquestionably encouraged the accession to direction of several talented directors, such as Philippe de Broca and Jacques Demy, The emphasis which at 146 Champs Elysées has been placed on the school of direction has in the end led to a new kind of Maecenas, confidential and semi-masonic which has clearly changed the situation of French cinema. From this crucible, films of often contradictory styles have emerged which demonstrate less a real viewpoint than an indeed new method. Alas, this method, greatly limited, seems to have already seen its day.


Louis Seguin (page 81)
Little of any good, put apart from some "interviews". I do not even believe that Cahiers has contributed anything whatever.
But why your misgivings? Are your critics so faint-hearted, so overwhelmed by a threat that is rather powerless to not dare to speak "frankly" here?

Louis Marcorelles 10 Best Films Cahiers du Cinema

Louis Marcorelles was a regular contributor to Cahiers du Cinema in the 50s and 60s. He was also a film critic for Le Nouvel Observateur during the same period.

1959
1.....Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys (Leo McCarey)
2.....Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (Jean Renoir)
3.....Empress Yank Kwei Fei (Kenji Mizoguchi)
4.....Ivan the Terrible (Sergei Eisenstein)
5.....The Four Hundred Blows (François Truffaut)
6.....Solomon and Sheba (King Vidor)
7.....Hiroshima, mon amour (Alain Resnais)
8.....À Double tour (Claude Chabrol)
9.....Old Czech Legends(Jiří Trnka )
10...The Magician (Ingmar Bergman)

1960
1.....Poem of the Sea (Alexander Dovchenko'Julia Solntseva)
2.....Sterne (Konrad Wolf)
3.....Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray)
4.....Together (Lorenza Mazzetti)
5.....Sergeant Rutledge (John Ford)
6.....Nazarin (Luis Bunuel)
7.....L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni)
8.....Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi)
9.....Zazie on the Metro (Louis Malle)
10...Le Trou (Jacques Becker)

1961
1.....A Woman is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard)
2.....Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer)
3.....Paris nous appartient (Jacques Rivette)
.......Shadows (John Cassavetes)
5.....Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Riesz)
6.....Two Rode Together (John Ford)
7.....The Testament of Doctor Cordelier (Jean Renoir)
8.....The Horse That Cried (Mark Donskoy)
9.....Tire-au-flanc (Claude de Givray)
10....La Récréation (Fabien Collin/François Moreuil)

1962
1.....L'Eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni)
2.....Lolita (Stanley Kubrick)
3.....Primary (Robert Drew)
4.....The Elusive Corporal (Jean Renoir)
5.....Le Signe du lion (Eric Rohmer)
6.....Breakfast at Tiffany's (Blake Edwards)
7.....Too Late Blues (John Cassavetes)
8.....A Generation (Andrjez Wajda)
9.....Boccaccio '70 (Luchino Visconti sketch)
10...The Seven Capital Sins (Jean-Luc Godard sketch)

1963
1.....The Sporting Life (Lindsay Anderson)
2.....Family Diary (Valerio Zurlini)
3.....Les Carabiniers (Jean-Luc Godard)
4.....Muriel (Alain Resnais)
5.....The World of Apu (Satyajit Ray)
6.....Le Joli Mai (Chris Marker)
7.....Two for the Seesaw (Robert Wise)
8.....Hands over the City (Francesco Rosi)
9.....Vacances Portugaises (Pierre Kast)
10....L’Aîné des Ferchaux (Jean-Pierre Melville)

1964
1.....Pour la suite du monde (Michel Brault/Marcel Carrière/Pierre Perrault)
2.....Gertrud (Carl Theodore Dreyer)
3.....La Bataille de France (Jean Aurel)
.......David and Lisa (Frank Perry)
.......La Dérive (Paula Delsol)
.......Marnie (Alfred Hitchcock)
.......Moranbong (Jean-Claude Bonnardot)
.......The Soft Skin (François Truffaut)
.......Samson (Andrzej Wajda)
.......A Married Woman (Jean-Luc Godard

1965
1.....The Magic Desna (Julia Solntseva)
.......Paris vu par... (Jean-Luc Godard sketch)
.......Vidas Secas (Nelson Pereira dos Santos)
4.....The Sandpiper (Vincente Minnelli)
.......King and Country (Joseph Losey)
.......Vaghe stella dell'Orsa (Luchino visconti)
.......La Vieille dame indigne (René Allio)

1966
1.....Torn Curtain (Alfred Hitchcock)
2.....Du Courage pour chaque jour (Evald Schorm)
3.....Threatening Sky (Joris Ivens)

4.....7 Women (John Ford)
5.....It Happened Here (Kevin Brownlow/Andrew Mollo)
.......Non-reconciliés (Jean-Marie Straub)
7.....Age of Illusions (Istvan Szabo)
8.....Le Chat dans le sac (Gilles Groulx)
9.....Walkover (Jerzy Skolomowki)
10...Goldstein (Phillip Kaufman/Benjamin Manaster)

1967
1.....La Noire de... (Ousmane Sembene)
2.....Black God, White Devil (Glauber Rocha)
.......Ganga Zumba (Carlos Dieges)
.......O Desafio (Paul Cesar Saraceni)
5.....Rush to Judgment (Mark Lane
6.....Loin du Vietnam (Alain Resnais sketch)
7.....La Chinoise (Jean-Luc Godard)
,,,,,,,La Religeuse (Jacques Rivette)
.......Rondo (Berkovic Zvonimir)
.......Two for the Road (Stanley Donen)

1968
1.....La Règne du jour (Pierre Perrault)
.......Le Mandat (Ousmane Sembene)
3.....In Cold Blood (Richard Brooks)
.......2001 A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)
.......Il ne faut pas moourir pour ça ()Jean-Pierre Lefebvre
.......The Red and the White (Miklos Jancso)

François Truffaut letter to Jean Renoir -- Oct 1960

François Truffaut's letters to (and from) Jean Renoir were not published in Correspondence 1945-1984 /François Truffaut. That corrspondence was withheld and published a few years later in Jean Renoir : letters / edited by David Thompson and Lorraine LoBianco ; translations by Craig Carlson, Natasha Arnoldi, Michael Wells ; translations of the letters of François Truffaut by Anneliese Varaldiev. The first letter in that collection written by Truffaut to Renoir was written on October 31, 1960 with a short addendum written on November 20 just before Truffaut got around to sending it. These two excerpts are from that letter.

letter of Oct 31 1960

I haven't really kept up-to-date on what you're doing these days (teaching cinema courses?), but if any of your current activities might result in writing something which you would entrust to Cahiers, I can assure you that we would be extremely grateful for it. All of us at Cahiers have resorted to "begging for alms", as it were -- you see, we (Godard, Rivette, Doniol and myself) are so shocked by the gap between our ideas as cinephiles and our discoveries as film-makers that we don't dare write anything any more. Nevertheless, so much journalistic attention has been paid to the "New Wave" that the magazine is selling better than ever.
The situation with French cinema is very strange at the moment -- the number of films produced has doubled within a year, and in the last year's euphoria, many young film-makers jumped in feet first and made films without producers. And what's more, some young producers have also thrown themselves into the water the same way, by producing films without having distribution for them. What this means is that right now, distributors (and especially exhibitors) are in a very advantageous position: they can sit back and let the films pile up -- and collectively depreciate. Then they can pick and chose the ones they want, only taking what they think is sure to do well at the box office. And so, for most films, the market is totally closed off -- the only films which get released are by major directors, with big budgets and stars. Perhaps the revolution in film production happened too quickly, too roughly, or perhaps what's to blame is that no restructuring took place at the level of distribution and exhibition. In any case, the "New Wave" is currently coming under such attack -- from all sides -- that in order to survive, it needs to come up with a big hit every three months. The most recent one, last February, was Jean-Luc Godard's A Bout de Souffle. Ever since then, we've been massacred. Godard's second film, Le Petit Soldat (about torture) was completely banned by the censors, and everything else has completely flopped or was never released in the first place -- even some really lovely films, like Eric Rohmer's Le Signe du Lion.
page 400-401 (translated by Annaliese Varaldiev)

Sunday 20 November

I let this letter go unfinished for a couple of weeks, feeling doubtful that the one-way chatter I'm imposing on you is even worth sending. But, as I am leaving Paris the day after tomorrow and will be gone for a number of days, I decided that I might as well send it after all. My film, Tirez sur le Pianiste, is opening here in Paris next Friday -- that's why I'm escaping to where it's warm and sunny, because I predict the worst. It's a small tight-lipped film without laughs and at times sad, and is in no way suitable for a big first-run house on the Champs-Elysées; in a cinema like that it's bound to be buried.
page 401 (translated by Annaliese Varaldiev)

Jean Douchet 10 Best Films Cahiers du Cinema 1958-1968

Jean Douchet was in the last couple of years of the 1950s and the first years of the 1960s one of the most prolific contributors to Cahiers du Cinema. Also, towards the end of Eric Rohmer's term as editor and at the beginning of Jacques Rivette's term as editor, he, along with both Rohmer and Rivette comprised a triumvirate which were Cahiers regular nominees to its monthly conseil des dix. In 1999, he was the author of the coffee table book Nouvelle Vague (French New Wave) in collaboration with Cédric Anger. That being said it should be noted that in the first two years of the "young cinema", Douchet cited no film from the New Wave in his best film lists. It was not until 1961 when he placed Jacquse Demy's Lola at number 10, that he cited any film from that movement. a fact which is made even more unusual when one considers that Douchet is one of only three people to appear in the cast of both The Four Hundred Blows and Breathless. He was Antoine's mother's lover in the former and "a journalist" in the latter. The future director Philippe de Broca and Claude Mansard are the other two who appeared in both films.

1958
1.....Bonjour Tristesse (Otto Preminger)
2.....White Nights (Luchino Visconti)
.......Touch of Evil (Orson Welles)
4.....Dreams (Ingmar Bergman)
.......Une Vie (Alexander Astruc)
6.....Les Girls (George Cukor)
7.....Summer Interlude (Ingmar Bergman)
8.....Wild is the Wind (George Cukor)
9.....Il Grido (Michelangelo Antonioni)
10...The Adventures of Hajji Baba (Don Weis)

1959
1.....The Tiger of Eschnapur (Fritz Lang)
2.....Empress Yank Kwei Fei (Kenji Mizoguchi)
3.....Wind Across the Everglades (Nicholas Ray)
4.....Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks)
5.....Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger)
.......General Della Rovere (Roberto Rossellini)
.......Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
8.....The Reluctant Debutant (Vincente Minnelli)
9.....Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys (Leo McCarey)
10...Tales of Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi)

1960
1.....Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi)
2.....Moonfleet (Fritz Lang)
3.....The Savage Innocents (Nicholas Ray)
.......Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock)
.......Time without Pity (Joseph Losey)
6.....Heller in Pink Tights (George Cukor)
.......Bells are Ringing (Vincente Minnelli)
.......Suddenly, Last Summer (Joseph L Mankiewicz)
9.....Verboten! (Samuel Fuller)
10...Le Trou (Jacques Becker)

1961
1.....Taira Clan Saga (Kenji Mizoguchi)
2.....Diabolical Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang)
3.....Exodus (Otto Preminger)
4.....The Testament of Doctor Cordelier (Jean Renoir)
5.....The Horse That Cried (Mark Donskoy)
6.....Home from the Hill (Vincente Minelli)
.......Esther and the King (Raoul Walsh/Mario Bava)
.......Escape by Night (Roberto Rossellini)
9.....Blind Date (Joseph Losey)
10...Lola (Jacques Demy)

1962
1.....The Elusive Corporal (Jean Renoir)
.......Advise and Consent (Otto Preminger)
3.....The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Vincente Minnelli)
.......Vanina Vanini (Roberto Rossellini)
5.....Hatari (Howard Hawks)
6.....Merrill's Marauders (Samuel Fuller)
7.....L'Education sentimentale (Alexander Astruc)
.......Vivre sa vie (Jean-Luc Godard)
9.....Boccaccio '70 (Luchino Visconti sketch)
10...Le Signe du lion (Eric Rohmer)

1963
1.....The Cardinal (Otto Preminger)
.......Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard)
.......The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock)
4.....Cleopatra (Joseph L Mankiewicz)
.......The Nutty Professor (Jerry Lewis)
.......Two Weeks in Another Town (Vincente Minnelli)
7.....The Chapman Report (George Cukor)
.......Donovan's Reef (John Ford)
9.....The Trial of Joan of Arc (Robert Bresson)
10...Cronaca familiare (Valerio Zurlini)

1964
1.....Gertrud (Carl Theodore Dreyer)
2.....Marnie (Alfred Hitchcock)
.......Man's Favorite Sport? (Howard Hawks)
.......A Distant Trumpet (Raoul Walsh)
.......Wagonmaster (John Ford)
6.....Bande a part (Jean-Luc Godard)
.......Gordeyev Family (Mark Donskoy)
.......The Patsy (Jerry Lewis)
9.....America, America (Elia Kazan)
.......The Servant (Joseph Losey)

1965
1.....The Sandpiper (Vincente Minnelli)
2.....In Harm's Way (Otto Preminger)
.......The Family Jewels (Jerry Lewis)
4.....Goodbye Charlie (Vincente Minnelli)
5.....Young Cassidy (Jack Cardiff/John Ford)
.......Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa... (Luchino Visconti)
7.....Kiss Me, Stupid (Billy Wilder)
8.....Juliet of the Spirits (Federico Fellini)
.......Marie Chantal contre le docteur Kha (Claude Chabrol)
.......Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard)

1966
1.....7 Women (John Ford)
2.....Red Line 7000 (Howard Hawks)
3.....The Courtship of Eddie's Father (Vincente Minnelli)
.......Torn Curtain (Alfred Hitchcock)
.......Three on a Couch (Jerry Lewis)
6......Bunny Lake Is Missing (Otto Preminger)
.......La Longue marche (Alexander Astruc)
.......The Rise of Louis XIV (Roberto Rossellini)
9......La Guerre est finie (Alain Resnais)
........Walkover (Jerzy Skolomowski)

1967
1.....Belle du jour (Luis Bunuel)
.......The Big Mouth (Jerry Lewis)
.......The Countess from Hong Kong (Charlie Chaplin)
.......El Dorado (Howard Hawks)
5.....La Collectioneuse (Eric Rohmer)
.......The Fortune Cookie (Billy Wilder)
.......Le Samouri (Jean-Pierre Melville)
.......The Strawberry Blonde (Raoul Walsh)
.......I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur)
.......Week End (Jean-Luc Godard)

1968 (alphabetical in French)
Stolen Kisses (François Truffaut)
Les Biches (Claude Chabrol)
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (Jean-Marie Straub)
The Edge (Robert Kramer)
2001 A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)
Il ne faut pas mourir pour ça (Jean-Pierre Lefebvre)
Reflections in a Golden Eye (John Huston)
Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski)


Best American Films of the Sound Era (from the Dec63/Jan64 special issue on American cinema)
1.....While the City Sleeps (Fritz Lang)
2.....Exodus (Otto Preminger)
.......The Naked and the Dead (Raoul Walsh)
.......North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock)
.......Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks)
6.....Bells Are Ringing (Vincente Minnelli)
.......Cluny Brown (Ernst Lubitsch)
.......Suddenly, Last Summer (Joseph L Mankiewicz)
9.....Wind Across the Everglades (Nicholas Ray)
10...Samson and Delilah (Cecil B DeMille)

Best French Films since the Liberation (Jan65 special issue on French cinema)
1.....Le Caporal épinglé (Jean Renoir)
.......Le Testament du Docteur Cordelier (Jean Renoir)
.......French Cancan (Jean Renoir)
4.....La Poison (Sacha Guitry)
5.....L'Education sentimentale (Alexander Astruc)
.......Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard)
.......The Trial of Joan of Arc (Robert Bresson)
8.....Les Bonnes femmes (Claude Chabrol)
.......Le Signe du lion (Eric Rohmer)
.......Le Trou (Jacques Becker)

Jean de Baroncelli 10 best films Cahiers du cinema 1957-1968

Considered the dean of French film critics in the second half of the 20th century, Le Monde's Jean de Baroncelli, the son of film director Jacques de Baroncelli. was a regular on Cahiers du cinema's conseil des dix from the late 1950s thru the 1960s. He also contributed 10 best film lists during that period. He is credited at the Criterion site as an "artistic adviser" on François Truffaut's short film Antoine and Collette.

1957
1.....Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini)
2.....12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)
3.....Porte des lilas (René Clair)
4.....Sunset of a Clown (Ingmar Bergman)
5.....A Face in the Crowd (Elia Kazan)
6.....A King in New York (Charlie Chaplin)
7.....Torero (Carlos Velo)
8.....Sait-on jamais. . . (Roger Vadim)
9.....The Girl Can't Help It(Frank Tashlin)
10....Bitter Victory (Nicholas Ray)

1958
1.....The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman)
2.....Mon Oncle (Jacques Tati)
3.....Illicit Interlude (Ingmar Bergman)
4.....Kanal (Andrjez Wajda)
5.....Les Amants (Louis Malle)
6.....White Nights (Luchino Visconti)
7.....En Cas de malheur (Claude Autant-Lara)
8.....No Down Payment (Martin Ritt)
9.....Touch of Evil (Orson Welles)
10...The Cranes Are Flying (Mikhail Kalatozov)

1959
1.....Ivan the Terrible (Sergei Eisenstein)
2.....Hiroshima, mon amour (Alain Resnais)
3.....Les Quatres cents coups (François Truffaut)
4.....Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman)
5.....Tales of Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi)
6.....Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)
7.....General della Rovere (Roberto Rossellini)
8.....Corrida interdite (Denys Columb Daunant)
9.....Black Orpheus (Marcel Camus)
10...Head Against the Wall (Georges Franju)

1960 (alphabetical in French)
Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard)
L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni)
La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini)
Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi)
Nazarin (Luis Bunuel)
Poem of the Sea (Alexander Dovchenko/Julia Solntseva)
Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray)
The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman)
Shoot the Piano Player (François Truffaut)
Zazie dans le métro (Louis Malle)

!961 (alphabetical in French)
Last Year in Marienbad (Alain Resnais)
The Concrete Jungle (Joseph Losey)
The Lady with the Dog (Iosif Kheifits)
Taira Clan Saga (Kenji Mizoguchi)
Naked Island (Kaneto Shindô)
Lola (Jacques Demy)
La Notte (Michelangelo Antonioni)
Rocco and his Brothers (Luchino Visconti)
Une aussi longue abscence (Henri Colpi)
A Woman is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard)

1962 (alphabetical in French)
Through a Glass Darkly (Ingmar Bergman)
Cleo from 5 to 7 (Agnès Varda)
Ride the High Country (Sam Peckinpaugh)
Electra (Michael Cacoyannis)
Jules and Jim (François Truffaut)
The Trial (Orson Welles)
Advise and Consent (Otto Preminger)
Un Coeur gros comme ça (François Reichenbach)
Viridiana (Luis Bunuel)
West Side Story (Robert Wise/Jerome Robbins)

1963 (alphabetical in French)
Adieu Philippine (Jacques Rozier)
The Exterminating Angel (Luis Bunuel)
Le Feu follet (Louis Malle)
The Leopard (Luchino Visconti)
Harikiri (Kunio Watanabe)
8 1/2 (Federico Fellini)
Hands Over the City (Francesco Rosi)
Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard)
The Trial of Joan of Arc (Robert Bresson)
Tom Jones (Tony Richardson)

1964 (alphabetical in French)
America, America (Elia Kazan)
Becket (Peter Glenville)
The Red Desert (Michelangelo Antonioni)
Dr Strangelove ()Stanley Kubrick)
Woman in the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara)
My Fair Lady (George Cukor)
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy)
The Silence (Ingmar Bergman)
Le Terroriste (Gianfranco De Bosio)
A Married Woman (Jean-Luc Godard)

1965 (alphabetical in French)
Black Peter (Milos Forman)
Winter Light (Ingmar Bergman)
La Douceur du village (François Reichenbach)
The Knack. . . and How to Get It (Richard Lester)
Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi)
Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard)
Shock Corridor (Sam Fuller)
Tokyo Olympiad (Kon Ichikawa)
The 317th Section (Pierre Schoendoerffer)
Vidas Secas (Nelson Pereira dos Santos)

1966 (alphabetical in French)
Loves of a Blonde (Milos Forman)
Au Hasard Ballthazar (Robert Bresson)
Wild Horses of Fire (Sergei Parajanov)
Young Torless (Volker Schlöndorff)
Fahrenheit 451 (François Truffaut)
Falstaff (Orson Welles)
Le Guerre est finie (Alain Resnais)
Masculin Feminin (Jean-Luc Godard)
Fists in the Pocket (Marco Bellocchio)
Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa)

1967 (alphabetical in French)
Blow Up (Michelangelo Antonioni)
La Chinoise (Jean-Luc Godard)
Black god, White Devil (Glauber Rocha)
El Dorado (Howard Hawks)
Hunger (Henning Carlsen)
Mouchette (Robert Bresson)
Persona (Ingmar Bergman)
Playtime (Jacques Tati)
Le Samourai (Jean-Pierre Melville)

1968 (alphabetical in French)
Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski)
The Fearless Vampire Killers (Roman Polanski)
Stolen Kisses (François Truffaut)
Les Gauloises Bleues (Michel Cournot)
Before the Revolution (Bernardo Bertolucci)
China is Near (Marco Bellochio)
Return of the Prodigal Son (Evald Schorm)
Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn)
Spirits of the Dead (Federico Fellini sketch)