DAC’s Top Ten

Following on from the Sight&Sound critics’ poll, held every ten years, here is my up to date list of personal best, which I have tried not to base on my 2012 list… Again, this seems to me an utterly pointless exercise. When I think we wait ten years for the critics to somehow reveal something to us that we cannot even decide for ourselves without succumbing to platitudes. The below are all titles that have given me renewed pleasure over the last decade; can’t say fairer than that.

• Lawrence of Arabia

• The Big Country

• La Grande Bellezza

• The Ipcress File

• Once upon a Time in the West

• Le Bonheur est dans le Pré

• The Night of the Iguana

• Carol

• The Battle of Algiers

• Bullitt

It will be observed that the majority of these titles stem from the 1960s (and I almost included The Train, Zulu and Dr Strangelove), a decade whose output will have dominated my formative years, and another reason why such lists are flawed and subjective.