Every ten years since 1952, the BFI’s magazine Sight and Sound has asked the world’s most prestigious directors and film critics for what they think are the greatest films ever made. The first winner was the neo-realist classic The Bicycle Thieves by Vittorio de Sica (which was also listed in our Top 10 Father and Son films list). Then the depth of field wonders of Citizen Kane won every time until last week when this decade’s list was released and Hitchcock’s Vertigo was named as the Greatest Film of All Time.
Forget that though! Here’s what the DEFINITIVE list of the Most MurdockMan Films Of All Time Ever. (Until the next DEFINITIVE list of the Most MurdockMan Films Of All Time Ever featuring all the films we’ve forgotten about here.) The films with male protagonists who we think most strongly display the MurdockMan qualities of confidence, strength, style, intelligence and artistic flair.
Le Quai des Brumes (1938)
Written by the brilliant Jacques Prévert and directed by the masterful Marcel Carné, Le Quai des Brumes (Port of Shadows in the English language) is a prime example of the rugged masculinity of French cinema’s biggest pre-war star, Monsieur Jean Gabin.
8 1/2 (1963)
The Fellini classic stars one of film’s great style icons, Signor Marcello Mastroianni. One of the most handsomest men in all of cinemadom Mastroianni basically plays Fellini in a film that is basically about Fellini except he’s literally called Guido. A fed up, creatively blocked film director, juggling a wife and mistresses he retreats into memories and fantasies as he struggles to find a story to tell and the true desire to make his next film and is commonly held up by filmmakers and critics alike as one of the greatest films ever made. But forget all that. This film is purely in here because Mastroianni as Guido looks so damn cool.
The 400 Blows (1959)
Perhaps as Francois Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel character (closely based on the director himself – especially in this first film) grows in the later films in the series of his life, the adult Doinel may not be a MurdockMan. Yet in this French classic, often regarded as the first film of the Nouvelle Vague , the young Doinel is a little scamp desperately trying to free himself from the confines of his parents, his school, his family’s tiny Parisian flat, a police holding cell and then juvenile detention center in which he’s taken to. That innate sense of searching for liberation, we salute.
La Dolce Vita (1960)
Why? Because it’s got our man Mastroianni in again that’s why. And Anita Ekberg. They don’t make film stars like they used to.
French playing Americans (but speaking French) in Italy
Americans (and a Brit) playing Americans (and speaking English) in Italy
En Plein Soleil (1960)/ The Talented Mr Ripley (1999)
These two films are both based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’ but the French got there first and played it as the American characters in the book, yet they were all French. That’s a little odd but what there’s no question about is the style in both of these films. It’s hard to ever think of a novel as being in itself ’stylish’, dealing as it does with words, and to be honest, having never read Highsmith’s book myself I’m in no position to say whether the source material is or isn’t. But judging by these films, two of the most stylish films ever in terms of menswear, then I’m going to guess that at some point early on there’s a line that says ‘And everyone looked really, really great.’ So this film is in the list mainly because of the clothes, Italian scenery and (SPOILER ALERT!) blagging skills but not (EVEN BIGGER SPOILER ALERT!) capacity to commit murder.
Dr No (1962)
Bond = MurdockMan. Connery = Best Bond. Dr No = Best Connery Bond Film. Dr No = MurdockMan film. (An unarguable equation we’re sure you’ll agree.)
Whisky? Check. Tweed? Check. Beard? Check. A happy, film-watching MurdockMan? Check.
Whisky Galore (1949)
Made the list because the Ealing Comedies are so very British and so very marvellous. And also because there’s loads of whisky in it. And we like whisky.
North by North West (1959)
Forget Vertigo, this is Hitchcock’s greatest (ok, at least his most MurdockMan) film. Cary Grant is the leading man to end all leading men. Firstly, he’s an Mad Men style 50s Manhattan ad exec – already a winner here – but then gets mistaken for a certain Mr George Kaplan, and is chased across the States and has to deal with all manner of dangerous spy-style shenanigans. Of course, he does it with aplomb, wit, style and self-assuredness, and without the swaggering arrogance of Bond.
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
A wartime love story that crosses the heavens and fills us with warm feelings about the human race. Men and women can be good people indeed. Plus, it’s got some cracking moustaches and beards.