🎬guillermo del toro's criterion top 10 (2010)

his official top 10 for the Criterion Collection, picked in 2010. he broke the format almost immediately - ties instead of ranking, paired by theme.

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Throne of Blood / High and Low / Ran (Akira Kurosawa)

his rule-breaking tie for #1, three Kurosawas instead of one. picked for how operatic and visually extreme they are

The Seventh Seal / Fanny and Alexander: Theatrical Version (Ingmar Bergman)

he calls Bergman "a fabulist" here (his words, not mine), his favorite label in the whole list

Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau) / Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju)

Great Expectations / Oliver Twist (David Lean)

Time Bandits / Brazil (Terry Gilliam)

says Brazil is one of the most important films of his life

Onibaba / Kuroneko (Kaneto Shindo)

says he first saw these at age ten and they did real damage

Spartacus / Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick)

Sullivan's Travels / Unfaithfully Yours (Preston Sturges)

Vampyr (Carl Th. Dreyer) / Häxan (Benjamin Christensen)

he actually recorded a commentary track for this, just on the UK Eureka edition, not Criterion's

The Spirit of the Beehive (Víctor Erice) / The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton)

his closer, "the two supreme works of childhood/horror" in his words. start here if you only watch one pairing

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