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Stanley Fish’s Top 10 American Movies

posted by Patton Dodd | 9:25am Tuesday January 6, 2009

double_indemnity.jpgThat’s the top story on the NY Times Most Emailed List right now (another list that never fails to fascinate–subject for another post). Stanley Fish is a hugely influential literary and legal scholar, and I’ve long been an admirer–but Fish on film? And a Top 10 list to boot? I clicked expecting to snort. 

But it’s a list of movies to savor, and a fairly unique list, as these things go. The Best Years of Our Lives? Check–a gorgeous movie that manages to be both sentimental and realistic, which is no small feat. Sunset Blvd. and Double Indemnity would make my own American Top 10; Red River, Raging Bull, and Vertigo are among the best movies by three of our best directors. Groundhog Day? Why not? It’s definitely worth considering a smart, subversive comedy like that for inclusion on a list like this. 
I’d quibble with Meet Me in St Louis–you gotta include at least one musical on any list of great American films, but many entries could trump that one: Singing in the Rain, Swing Time, Mary Poppins, Moulin Rouge!. 
I’ve not seen Fish’s others, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn or Shane. 
What’s missing? Fish says he could have included Nashville (Altman definitely deserves props) and The Night of the Hunter, a film after my own heart. I’d also want to include Annie Hall, Citizen Kane, The Godfather (and II), Imitation of Life, perhaps Do the Right Thing, and something by the quintessential American director, Stephen Spielberg (tho I’d have to consider which is more essential–E.T./War of the Worlds Spielberg, or Schindler’s List/Munich Spielberg). 


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