60. Babe (1995)

I have to say I was a little taken aback of the inclusion of Babe in this list. That quickly ended as I watched it and remembered what a thoroughly charming film it is.

Farmer Hoggett (James Cromwell) wins a piglet at a fair and they form a bond. Being a little out of place on a sheep farm, the pig is adopted by a sheepdog and learns the ways of sheep herding, only in a much more polite and agreeable fashion rather than just barking orders and biting them. Hoggett decides to enter him into a sheepdog trial.

Adapted from the children's book 'The Sheep Pig' , this film is quite an excellent kids film. It certainly doesn't gloss over the running of a farm and does become quite dark in places. There is plenty of light relief though. Ferdinand the duck is a particularly amusing character who decides that to avoid being eaten he must become of use around the farm and decides to take over the roosters job of crowing at dawn. Pigs acting like dogs, duck acting like roosters; it's quite the mixed up farm.

The film looks stunning and the visual effects are par excellence. A seamless mixture of live animals, puppets courtesy of Jim Henson's Creature shop and CGI effects make you believe that the animals are talking. Great voice characterisation from the likes of Miriam Margolyes and Hugo Weaving and a stalwart performance from Cromwell as the farmer of little words complete the recipe for an enchanting film.

59. Au Revoir les Enfants (1987)

A very personal piece from Louis Malle and probable career best.
It's an autobiographical account of his experience in a Catholic boarding school during the second world war.

Julien is sent away to boarding school with his brother to avoid the bombings in Paris. He becomes friends with a new boy, Jean Bonnet, and eventually learns that Jean and some other new kids are actually Jewish children with assumed names being hidden by the schoolmasters. Julien has little knowledge of anti-semitism and the film trundles along with the day to day life of the school. Quirky teachers, friendships formed and broken, practical jokes. Apart from the occasional air raid siren, the war has little impact on the school. Alas harmony is broken as a disgruntled ex employee decides to inform the Nazis of what is going on there. When the officers descend on the school, it is an inadvertent act from Julien that betrays Jen. The guilt is lasting and the film seems to be a sort of atonement for Julien/Louis's action. The voice over at the end admits that he has never forgotten about that morning.

This a poignant film that is alive with details you know come from real life. The eccentric habits of teachers, the 'black market exhange' in presents from home, the hints of sexual awakening. Even the films portrayal of Nazis as a mixed bag of gentlemen and thugs. It's a very worthy and honest portrayal of war through a child's eyes.

58. Atonement (2007)

Briony is a 13 year old precocious brat who has a small crush on the housekeeper's son, Robbie. After misinterpreting scenes between Robbie and her sister Cecilia, she labels him as a sex maniac and when her cousin Lola is raped, she tells the police she saw Robbie do it. What a bitch! It was clearly the creepy chocolate guy(is that Sherlock Holmes?)
Consequently Robbie is sent to prison then into military service. Cecilia, who is actually in love with Robbie, estranges her family and becomes a nurse. They meet up before he leaves for battle and make plans to be together on his return.
A more mature Briony decides to forsake a place at Cambridge and also becomes a nurse, possibly as some penance for the wrong he did. She meets up with the reunited couple and pledges to make right her lie. Especially after seeing that Lola has now married Sherlock Holmes.
Unfortunately the whole film is the elderly Briony's last novel. Finally telling the truth of her misdeed as a teenager. The reality is not as happy an ending, but a great twist.

I had read the book before seeing the film, so it was hard to separate the two. Ian McEwan's book is a masterpiece, but I believe this stands alone as a good film. The performances are great, in particular the three actresses playing Briony. Saoirse Ronan's 13 year old is very accomplished and she comes across as the true spoilt horror. Romola Garai as the 18 year old has the cracks showing as the horrors of war enforce how much she has done wrong. Vanessa Redgrave has a brief appearance at the end as the elderly Briony. It's as part of a television interview about her latest book. It's here that she confesses the reality of her secret. Briony is a coward and it's up to you if you forgive her. Redgrave certainly makes you feel sorry for her. Keira Knightley didn't bring much to the table, but then her character is quite glossed over.

The film is shot with great achievement by Joe Wright. The 'one shot' scene at Dunkirk is particularly affecting, haunting in the desperation of the situation.
It is a good adaptation. There is a whole chunk of the book missing as Robbie walks the long road to the coast. Here it is slight and rushed to get to that scene. I think there was more made of the class separation. It is touched on here, bu the divide between Robbie's mother, Robbie and the Tallis family is more pronounced in the book. Really should stop comparing it to the book though.

Okay one last time. As a film, it's a good costume drama. I wouldn't say it was worthy of the list. The book is most certainly on the 1001 books before you die list!

57. The Apartment (1960)

In the film Brief Encounter, Alec is lent the use of a friend's apartment to meet up with the woman he is having an affair with. Billy Wilder took inspiration from this scenario and wrote about the third man. The man who would lend out his apartment for such a sordid use.

Jack Lemmon plays CC Baxter. A clerk in an office who is allowing his apartment to be used by executives, who meet up with their mistresses there, on the promise of a promotion in the company. At first he comes across as a bit of a doormat having to wait outside his apartment when the trysts run over, but we quickly learn that we have entered this story well into a situation that is now beyond his control. This is epitomised in a comic scene as Baxter struggles to balance his diary to allow himself a night alone in bed to recover from a cold.
Baxter's boss, Mr. Sheldrake, gets to hear of this apartment and now wishes to use it to conduct an affair. Unfortunately the affair is with Fran Kubelik. The one woman who pays attention to Baxter and someone he finally has a date with. Poor Baxter, always the played, though he finally gets his promotion.
 It's Fran who is being played along too and after finding out that Mr. Sheldrake's promises to divorce his wife are false and she is one in a long string of mistresses, she takes an overdose of pills in Baxter's apartment. Baxter finds her in time and with the help of his doctor neighbour, save her life. She is told to stay put for a couple of days and the two strike up a friendship further strengthening Baxter's feelings for her, but can h give her up when Mr. Sheldrake wants her back? Will she finally settle for Mr. Sheldrake?

This is a mixed genre piece. Starting off as a satirical comedy, dipping into emotional drama and then finishing with romantic comedy it certainly never gets boring. I'm not sure I find Lemmon and Maclaine to be a particularly believable couple though. I can buy them as friends though and with the excellent last line and the fact that she never shows any romantic inkling to Baxter, I can take it that they will be just good friends. Poor Baxter. Will he ever get what he wants or even deserves?!

Despite their lack of chemistry, Maclaine and Lemmon both shine here. The whole ensemble is great. Particular dues to Jack Kruschen and Naomi Stevens playing Baxter's next door neighbours. He has them convinced that it's him who is partying with different women every night. "Mildred! He's at it again!"

A clever punchy script, acted well and shot lovingly. It's not Wilder's best, but it's certainly up there. Certainly belongs on this list.

56. Animal Farm (1954)

The first ever British animation feature may have the look of the Disney films that saturate the genre, but this is far from kid's stuff.

It pretty much tells the story of George Orwell's anti-Stalin novel, but with a more uplifting ending. Possibly because it was partly funded by the CIA as anti-communist propaganda. Allegedly!

Sick of being mistreated by the owner, the animals of Manor Farm stage a revolution, kick him out and run things for themselves in the renamed Animal Farm. Under the guidance of Snowball the pig, the farm is run smoothly and a set of commandments are drawn up and emblazoned on the side of the barn. Snowball's leadership is overthrown by power hungry, work-shy Napoleon, who tricks the other animals to thinking Snowball is a traitor who has been conspiring with the old farmer. Slowly but surely the animals are repressed under Napoleonic rule and the commandments are amended as the pigs break them, eventually replacing them all with the maxim, "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." This is the last straw for the other animals and they overthrow the ever humanising pigs and their tyrannical leader.

It really does not hold back on the bloodshed. Even Snowball isn't killed in the book. It certainly must have shocked parents a plenty on it's release.

As the first British animated feature and as a piece of propaganda, I do see it's relevance in film history, but yet again I think this list is a little unsure of the criteria needed for a 'film to see before you die'. I was happy to see this and enjoyed it, but I don't think it really belongs here.

55. Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)

Acting as a lesson that crime never pays, Michael Curtiz's sermon on social responsibility tries not to be too preachy. Not very hard though!

Rocky and Jerry were childhood friends who grew up in Hell's Kitchen in New York. After being rumbled, robbing a train car they run away. Being the quicker runner, Jerry gets away leaving Rocky to Juvenile hall. Rocky grows up in a life of crime and Jerry becomes a priest. As adults they meet up in their old neighbourhood where Jerry runs a centre for kids to keep them on the straight and narrow. Rocky turns up looking for a place to stay whilst he gets back into his racketeering business. His old partner Frazier isn't so pleased to see him. Cue plenty of gunfights and no good deeds.

James Cagney's Rocky is the charismatic gangster who had been much parodied; Pat O'Brien's Father Jerry is played like a stiff old nag, however it's in no doubt at the conclusion whos viewpoint is for the greater good. Rocky finally succumbing to Jerry's wishes to 'go yellow' at his execution to show the right message to the gang of reprobates that hero worship him. It's actually quite an odd scene to swallow as his demise is filmed in siolhette. I'm still not sure it's a way out the character would have settled for.

Cagney plays the wisecrack to a tee and the comic relief as he hangs with the kids in the local street gang adds a much needed as a balance to the social lecture.

'Dames' don't fair well here. What comes across as the potential for an equally wisecracking character in Laury (Ann Sheridan) turns into another wimpy female victim of this era.

Despite it's sanctimonious ending, this isn't so bad a sermon and a rather good film.

54. Amores Perros (2000)

The Tarantino effect hits Mexico and produces a similar, but arguably superior, film to 1994's Pulp Fiction. Here, three stories literally collide in a car crash then swing their relative ways. The time line is a lot more linear than that of PF though. They take the form of past, present and future as relative to the crash. Each story also has a theme of loyalty to a dog and disloyalty to a human. The much argued translation of the title also shows this. 'Dog Love' or 'Love's a Bitch' depending on which side of the Mexico/USA border you are translating!

The first story(Past) centres on Octavio who is in love with his brother's wife(Susana) and hates that his brother is constantly ill treating of her. He starts to enter his well hard dog into dog fights and begins to earn a tidy peso from it. He gives this money to Susana and they begin an affair that she seems forced into with the promise they will run away and begin a life together with her child and another on the way, but is this too good to be true?

In the Second story(Present), Daniel has just left his wife and family for the supermodel Valerie. Their new found bliss is cut short as Valerie is involved in a car crash which crushes her leg and leaves her confined to their new apartment with a patronising view of a billboard of her as her old self. Things get worse as her dog gets trapped in the crawl space under the floorboards and they are tormented by his scrabbling around and whimpering, but the can't afford to lift up the floorboards. Can it get worse? You betcha!

The third story(Future) centres on El Chivo: A man who turned his back on his wife and child to become a mercenary. Now dead to his family, he is a dog loving vagrant and occasional hit man. Whilst scoping out a hit, he witnesses the accident and rescues Octavio's injured dog. He makes a decision to get back to his old life somehow and reconnect with his daughter.

Each story is a worthy film in it's own right and the crash connection isn't contrived. It is more the disloyalty theme that links them (Octavio to his brother; Daniel to his wife; El Chivo to his wife and daughter) and how that disloyalty, no matter how seemingly good natured, destroys them. It's basically a tale of karma!

Filmed beautifully, it is a pretty gruesome film and the dogfights particularly are so realistic that the usual disclaimer that no animals were harmed during the filming of this movie, that would usually be buried in the credits, went up at the start of the film. It's only when you see the extras that you see that they are actually just rather rampant animals and they were mostly shagging! It's very clever editing with great use of quick cuts and a shaky camera.

An outstanding first feature from director Alejandro González Iñárritu, but it seems that he has yet to equal with such fare as 21 grams and the abysmal Babel. I hear good things about Biutiful, so perhaps this is not a genius fluke.

53. An American Werewolf in London (1981)

How do you go about making fantasy horror more real? Add humour.
Written by John Landis wen he was just 19 years old, this horror comedy sets many new boundaries in the genre. Previous incarnations of the werewolf in film have been of  a 2 legged beast and the metamorphosis from man to wolf has been a clunky clumsy one. Make-up artist Rick Baker conquered this challenge, coining the phrase special visual effects and winning the inaugural Best make-Up Oscar for his troubles.

It really is the human story that makes this such a great film. David and Jack are American tourists who have inexplicably decided to take in the Yorkshire Moors on their travels about Europe. After being told by the creepy patrons of The Slaughtered Lamb pub to stick to the road, they find themselves wandering onto the moors much to the delight of the local werewolf who attacks them killing Jack and injuring David as the Slaughtered Lamb patrons have an attack of conscience and kill the animal. A bit late though as David ow has the curse. Something he finds out when the decomposing body of his friend Jack meets up with him in a London hospital.

There are great scenes throughout this black comedy. Jack introducing David to his victims in a darkened porn theatre, one of which is an enthusiastic Sloane ranger who offers up ways for David to kill himself like she's a contestant on a quiz show, is a particular favourite.

There are some discrepancies to be had. The geography, for one, is quite bizarre. Why does he have to go to London? I'm quite positive there are many closer hospitals to Yorkshire. Also, despite all the pleads for him to kill himself, why doesn't anyone suggest that he leaves London and heads for a less populated area or maybe just chains himself up? Just a suggestion.

It is a fantastic film. The comedy/horror ratio is well balanced and,though the effects are a bit clunky now, I think it still stands up now. The physical effects, despite their clunkiness, are a preference to the unrealistic CGI effects of late.

"Mummy! A naked American man stole my balloons." Such innocent times!