A-Z of favourite films - insert G pun here.

You know the format, it’s my favourite films, this time beginning with G, whittling them down to a final 5 shortlist, before picking the favourite.

Going in chronological order, we start with 2 Buster Keaton films, so far conspicuous by their absence in these lists. There’s the excellent The Goat, a short from 1921, and then from 1927, The General, a famous feature length film set during the American civil war and with Buster on a runaway train – The General of the title.

From 1938 comes my favourite of Jean Renoir’s films, Le Grande Illusion. Every time I watch it I think that it must be more modern than 1938 – it just seems fresh and so well made that you assume it was made more recently. It’s one of the finest examples in the anti-war film genre.

I’m going to mention Gone with the Wind very briefly – that was it. I just didn’t like it okay, and it was far too long. You’re free to disagree if you think it’s the greatest film ever made, but you’re wrong. 1940 brings two great films – Henry Ford stars in John Ford’s adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath and then there’s Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece, The Great Dictator with him playing both Hitler and the tramp who gets mistaken for Hitler.

Another 2 great films come in 1946 (what is it with the doubling up of classic films?) with Gilda – Rita Hayworth at her best, and Great Expectations – not only David Lean’s finest film, but also one of the best British films of all time, just beautifully told. From Europe a year later came Rossellini’s Germany Year Zero, another neo-realist film which sticks in my mind for having one character who is both a Nazi AND a child molester. Hmm, I’ll go for number 2 or 3 actually, Cilla.

Passing through the fifties (there’s decent films like Genevieve and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but nothing to trouble the shortlist) and we reach the sixties where we find a handful of contenders. There’s Peckinpah’s excellent and underrated Western, Guns in the Afternoon from ’62; a year later comes the perennial Christmas TV classic The Great Escape, and then 1964 brought Goldfinger – the best Bond film ever? Discuss.
My favourite G film of the 60s is none of these though, and neither is it The Graduate or Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. It is in fact Leone’s The Good, the Bad and The Ugly, which is just about as flawless as a Spaghetti Western can get and spawned a slew of imitations.

The 1970s bring a couple of films that you may have heard of – The Godfather, and The Godfather Part II. They’re undoubtedly classics but I wasn’t as blown away by them as some are, perhaps because I’d had almost 30 years of being told how good they were before I finally watched them.

Ghostbusters and The Goonies are highlights from the 1980s; from the UK came Gregory’s Girl and the slightly dull Gandhi. The 90s got off to a blazing start with Scorsese’s Goodfellas and the hustling movie, The Grifters. Glengarry Glen Ross shows off some sterling acting from the likes of Jack Lemmon amongst others, and then we have the timeless classic Groundhog Day – a film that could have easily been made by Capra in the forties and that’s high praise indeed. Good Will Hunting and Grosse Point Blank are both decent entries from 1997 and the following year comes the marvellous Gods and Monsters, a film based on the life of Frankenstein director James Whale in his final years with a fine performance from Ian McKellan in the lead role. To round the decade off, Frank Darabont made The Green Mile which, whilst not quite living up to his earlier film The Shawshank Redemption, didn’t fall far short.

Ridley Scott started the new millennium off with a Best Picture Oscar for Gladiator, a surprise return for the sword and sandals epic and Scorsese had a slight misfire with his ambitious epic Gangs of New York. From Germany came the delightful Goodbye Lenin a tale set around the coming down of the Berlin Wall, and then George Clooney came up with Good Night and Good Luck, not only starring but also taking responsibility for the direction. From last year came Ricky Gervais in Ghosttown and a big budget oddity from South Korea – The Good, the Bad and the Weird. Barking mad, but good fun.

That’s all very good you say, but what about the final five?

Le Grande Illusion – nope I’m not just being pretentious, putting in a Jean Renoir French film. It’s a superb tale set in a POW camp during the First World War, examining the relationships between the French soliders and also between one of the French upperclass soldiers who has more in common with a German guard of his own class than with other soldiers on his own side. Thought-provoking but also laced with dark humour, it’s a damn fine film

The Great Dictator – At a push I might put this 1940 film ahead of Modern Times and City Lights as Chaplin’s best film. Although he later said he wouldn’t have made it had he known the true horrors of what Hitler was doing to the Jews, it’s one of the finest examples of satire you’ll find in film, so much so we can almost forgive the self-indulgent ending.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly – Along with Once Upon a Time in the West, this is one of Leone’s best films. Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach,k guns, horses, buried treasure – what more could you want?

The Godfather – It still makes it in even if it didn’t live up to my exorbitant expectations – it remains a definitive example of classy filmmaking and acting. Brando, Pacino, Caan, Duvall, Keaton – a who’s who of 70s actors, a sprawling epic, Shakespearean in its themes and intensity, and eminently quotable to this day.

Goodbye Lenin – from the German director Wolfgang Becker, this is a charming little gem about a son who has to pretend to his Communist mother that the Berlin Wall is still standing after she emerges from a coma – the shock of finding out the truth may kill her. Comic, but told with a real sensitivity, this is a classic of the new German cinema.

And the winner is … Le Grande Illusion – the first foreign language winner in this list and deservedly so for being pretty much the best war film ever made.