Jean-Luc Godard, widely regarded as one of the greatest directors of all time, died at the age of 91. Having started life as a critic as a prerequisite for forming his eventual New Wave ideas, Godard’s legacy is forever etched in the annals of film history.

The famous director, born in Paris in 1930, grew up in Nyon on the shores of Lake Geneva. Later in life and full of ambition, he returned to Paris in 1959 and quickly bonded with the city’s intellectuals. At this time, he met personalities such as the critic André Bazin and his fellow directors François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol.

With a burning new sense of creativity, Godard began writing for various film magazines that popped up sporadically in the city, including the highly influential publication Cinema Notebooks. Always living up to his reputation as an iconoclast, Jean-Luc championed the techniques and aesthetics of directors from Hollywood’s Golden Age. However, he would later turn his back on the Hollywood studio system in his own work, choosing instead to take his camera to the streets of Paris and work on a shoestring budget.

If Godard did not agree with the methods of Hollywood, he still appreciated certain images. As part of his contribution to film writing, a young Godard provided a list of what he considered the ten best American films of all time as part of an article published in 1964, a fascinating insight into the mindset of a filmmaker forming his first impression of the art form.

Godard, who was highly critical of mainstream French cinema in the past, once said that his sense of tradition only “emphasized craftsmanship over innovation, favored established directors over new directors and preferring great works of the past to experimentation”.

While Godard’s films have influenced some of the greatest, such as Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders and many more, the Franco-Swiss director has never been afraid to show his admiration for some of the finest works of cinema.

Having established itself as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, Godard’s relentless approach as a film critic before stepping onto the set has been praised on par with some of his most creative work. While most of his filmography has remained exclusive to Europe, his extensive catalog of work has been released in the United States in due course and the filmmaker has won worldwide acclaim.

“Cinema is not a profession. It’s an art,” Godard said. “It doesn’t mean teamwork. We are always alone on the set as before the blank page. And being alone…means asking questions. And making films is responding to it.

While French cinema caught Godard’s attention, he referenced a list of his favorite American films when he contributed to the reviews section of Notebooks of movie theatera publication for New Wave critics who turned their words into movies over the next few years.

Despite his famous declaration: “I pity French cinema because it has no money. I pity American cinema because it has no ideas”, Godard has always wanted to celebrate some of the most beautiful cinematographic creations. The list includes expected names, such as Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles, in reference to some of the most pioneering figures in the film industry.

See the full list below.

Jean-Luc Godard’s favorite films:

  1. scarface – (Howard Hawks, 1932)
  2. the great dictator – (Charlie Chaplin, 1940)
  3. vertigo – (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
  4. Researchers – (John Ford, 1956)
  5. Sing in the rain – (Kelly Donen, 1952)
  6. The Lady from Shanghai – (Orson Welles, 1947)
  7. larger than life – (Nicolas Ray, 1956)
  8. Angel Face – (Otto Preminger, 1953)
  9. To be or not to be – (Ernst Lubitsch, 1942)
  10. Dishonored – (Josef von Sternberg, 1931)

Of course, the feeling between this list of acclaimed directors and Godard was very mutual. To better expose this, we turn to the great Orson Welles, who once said of the French director: “His gifts as a director are enormous. I just can’t take it very seriously as a thinker – and that’s where we seem to diverge, because we do. His message is what he cares about these days, and like most movie messages, it could be written on the head of a pin.

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