It was curious yesterday when The Lego Movie,” one of the best reviewed animated movies of 2014, couldn’t make the final cut in the Best Animated Film category at the Oscars. Just as curious yesterday, the film’s co-director Phil Lord called his own film “a classic.” To be fair to Lord, he’s not the first director to laud his own film. Case in point? Federico Fellini.
The folks over at Open Culture have shared Fellini’s top 10 list from Sight And Sound and as expected, it’s very idiosyncratic. First of all, the list isn’t confined to only 10 selections —Fellini left the list open for as few as 12 movies to as many as 131. How? He had three Charlie Chaplin films tied for the top spot (“The Circus,” “City Lights” and “Monsieur Verdoux”) and declined to list a title for the next spot, opting instead to write “Any Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy.” The latter comedy duo have 106 films to their name in a 30-year-run, whereas the former group has 14 to their credit.
And in a move that’s positively Fellini-esque, the director listed his own “8 1/2” as his 10th favorite film of all time. But who could blame him? It’s a classic. Check out Fellini’s list below.
Federico Fellini’s 10 Favorite Films
1. The Circus/City Lights/Monsieur Verdoux (1928,31,47, Charles Chaplin)
2. Any Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy
3. Stagecoach (1939, John Ford)
4. Rashomon (1950, Akira Kurosawa)
5. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972, Luis Bunuel)
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
7. Paisan (1946, Roberto Rossellini)
8. The Birds (1963, Alfred Hitchcock)
9. Wild Strawberries (1957, Ingmar Bergman)
10. 8 1/2 (1963, Federico Fellini)
