Satyajit Ray’s 1955 Bengali film Pather Panchali is the only Indian film, which found a spot in BBC’s list of the 100 best foreign-language films of the 21st century.
Filmmaker Satyajit Ray's classic Bengali film, Pather Panchali, has been chosen as one of the best foreign films of all time. As per BBC's 100 best movies, Pather Panchali stands at the 15th position.
Ray's film, released in 1955 and the first in his Apu trilogy, was placed at number 15 in the list, which has been topped by Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai.
The list was culled out from a poll where over 200 critics from 43 countries picked their best foreign language film. It all narrowed down to 100 films from 67 different directors, from 24 countries, and in 19 languages.
"27 of the highest-rated films were in French, followed by 12 in Mandarin, and 11 each in Italian and Japanese," according to the BBC.
Here's taking a look at the top 20 films. For this festive week ahead, we suggest you take some time off and watch the best classic movies of all time.
20. The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
19. The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)
18. A City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1989)
17. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972)
16. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)
15. Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray, 1955)
14. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
13. M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
12. Farewell My Concubine (Chen Kaige, 1993)
11. Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
10. La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960)
9. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
8. The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959)
7. 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini, 1963)
6. Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
5. The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)
4. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
3. Tokyo Story (Yasujirô Ozu, 1953)
2. Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)
1. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
The selected film, Pather Panchali depicts the childhood of the protagonist Apu (Subir Banerjee) and his elder sister Durga (Uma Dasgupta) and the harsh village life of the low-income family.
The BBC admitted that women had directed only four of the 100 films.
However, it said that 45 per cent of the critics who took part in the poll were women.
(Inputs from PTI)
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