16 - 22 SEPTEMBER 2023

Best Film polls and All-Time Great lists are always fascinating, even if we are bound to disagree with some of the choices. A year ago, Sight & Sound magazine was getting ready to announce the results of its decennial survey; in August of this year, Stephanie Zacharek, Time magazine’s film critic, gave us her selection. As Time is celebrating 100 years of journalism in 2023, she opted for 10 films per decade – and deliberately ignored some big hitters (Citizen Kane) for a lesser work from the same director (The Magnificent Ambersons). Anyway, LRFS has shown 11 films that are on her list, over the years. And what are they? In order of release, they are: TOP HAT (1935); STAGECOACH (1939); BLACK NARCISSUS (1947); SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959); THE NIGHT OF SAN LORENZO (1982); ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER (1999); IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2000); FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002); PAN’S LABYRINTH (2006); UNDER THE SKIN (2013) and the German film PHOENIX (2014). I really need to watch Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995) again. It makes her list – and I would struggle to include it in my Top 1000 Westerns! Clearly, I missed something . . . . 
GOLD RUN (2022) Saturday 16 September 9.00-10.55pm BBC 4    P         
If, increasingly, subtitled films are not going to have a decent UK cinema release, we can hope that the likes of BBC 4 will continue to show them and at a decent time. Loosely based on actual events, resistance fighters try to hide Norway’s gold reserves as Nazi troops prepare to invade.  
MY MAN GODFREY (1936) Sunday 17 September 3.10-5.00pm TP (Channel 82)        
Here we have another interesting choice from Stephanie Zacharek’s Top 100. Apparent down-and-out William Powell is employed by Carole Lombard as the family butler. The fact that the actors had divorced recently didn’t mar their chemistry, or timing, and the comedy is brilliant. Whether this classic is better than Ms Lombard’s Twentieth Century (1934) or Nothing Sacred (1937) is one for earnest discussion. 
MADEMOISELLE (1966) Monday 18 September 10.05pm-12.10am TP (Channel 82)        
TP are picking up again with rare showings of films that are not well known and that might be described as ‘unusual’ fare. This is a French-British co-production that stars Jeanne Moreau as a teacher whose sexual frustration causes her to behave very oddly. It doesn’t work entirely; by 1966, and after a brilliant run of films, director Tony Richardson seemed to be losing the plot, as it were. Three years later, the same fate was to befall director Bryan Forbes with The Madwoman of Chaillot.
MINARI (2020) Tuesday 19 September 11.10pm-1.25am Film Four    P            
New to Freeview is the third film from our shortened 2021-2022 season; it had a rating of 80% from members. 
THE FAREWELL (2019) Wednesday 20 September 9.00-10.55pm Film Four    P
Film Four are making it a good week for interesting premieres. Relatives (including a granddaughter from New York) fly to China to spend time with their grandmother. They meet under pretext of attending a wedding, as she has cancer and the family don’t want her to know. The Farewell isn’t a sombre drama by any means. It is engaging, has a light touch and is often funny. Without a pandemic, it is one we might well have shown.