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Top 10 films

For no particular reason. I've just been praising several films recently, saying they're in my top ten, yet not fully sure what my top ten actually are. Let's see:

1. Zerkalo (The Mirror) - The first Tarkovsky I'd ever seen, and so it sticks with me. It has a similar theme of Persona--examination of self--yet with a completely different and more autobiographical approach. Sadly, not available on DVD, and I've no VCR to play my VHS tape.
2. Persona - Bergman at his experimental best. Its split-in-the-middle structure reminds me of several David Lynch films.
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Sweet without being Hallmark.
4. Cure - A moody murder mystery that kinda falls apart under its own confusion at the end, but ultimately a unique vision. One of the less kooky expressions of East Asian mysticism.
5. The Saddest Music in the World - This has the same astonishing dream-logic as Ishiguro's novel The Unconsoled, and yet the story (and the images) make the going less frustrating.
6. Lost Highway - This choice is a little cliched, but still. The experimentally slow first half (like the famous driving scene in Solaris) is workable only with its cinema-saturated second half.
7. Solyaris - The other Tarkovsky film. Holds up nicely today even for a 1972 sci-fi flick. The remake wasn't as bad as people's avoidance of it warranted, it just didn't have the thoughtfulness of the first and so got punished for its differences. The images in this Tarkovsky aren't nearly as beautiful as those in The Mirror, but they still have a solid emotional feel.
8. Irréversible - I really hesitate with this one because it's a film that I cannot recommend, may never watch again, and yet still love it and its message. Similar to Eternal Sunshine, yet very different (if that helps in any way).
9. À bout de souffle (Breathless) and Pierrot le fou - The obligatory cheat. I haven't seen enough Godard, but what I have I loved. In fact, I'm tempted to give up this item in the list to all of French New Wave, but I suspect it's a style that could go bad quickly. Still, the improvisatory livliness is fun.
10. Criminali della galassia, I (Wild, Wild Planet) - The only camp movie on the list. What can I say? I'm a sucker for its unbridled 1965 wackiness.

I tried to avoid as many "classic" top tens as I could and even excluded some films that I would give a 5/5 to but that weren't as memorable to me. Classic blog stuff! Nice and self-absorbed. Now let's see how long I go without changing my mind...