My Top Ten Criterions

Christa Lang-Fuller

Author and actor Christa Lang-Fuller married director Samuel Fuller in 1967. In 1981, they founded Chrisam Films, which Lang-Fuller has continued to run since her husband's death, in 1997. She coedited Fuller's autobiography, A Third Face, and is currently writing a new book and working on two screenplays. She has one daughter by Fuller, Samantha, a glass artist and actor, and a granddaughter, Samira, eight years old. They are all big film buffs.

1. Children of Paradise
Marcel Carné

Marcel Carné’s masterpiece, starring the unforgettable Jean-Louis Barrault and the divine Arletty.

2. The Rules of the Game
Jean Renoir

Jean Renoir’s exposé of French bourgeois hypocrisy—always a great subject!

3. That Obscure Object of Desire
Luis Buñuel

Luis Buñuel's take on hypocrisy.

4. Pickpocket
Robert Bresson

To be viewed with Pickup on South Street. Samuel Fuller originally wanted to use the same title as Bresson’s film.

5. The Tin Drum
Volker Schlöndorff

Volker Schlöndorff’s brilliant adaptation of the great Günter Grass novel.

6. The BRD Trilogy
Rainer Werner Fassbinder

I love it for Fassbinder’s truthful rendering of the German psyche after World War II devastation and post–Marshall Plan de-Nazification, and for the great parts that he offered to his female actors. Being a teenager in the fifties, in Germany, I left for Paris to avoid being sucked into the materialistic obsession displayed here.

7. Alphaville
Jean-Luc Godard

It has not aged a bit, and it contains my cinema debut, albeit in a small role. And the great Akim Tamiroff gets to die on me! An unforgettable experience. My daughter loves the way I pickpocket Tamiroff while taking his coat off.

8. Contempt
Jean-Luc Godard

Brigitte Bardot has never been better. The way Jack Palance’s producer brilliantly humiliates Michel Piccoli’s writer, who tries to hold on to his pride, rings a bell. Plus, our friend Fritz Lang as the director . . . Sacré Jean-Luc!

9. M
Fritz Lang

Anguish and hope, and Peter Lorre’s sterling performance.

10. Shock Corridor
      Samuel Fuller

      The Naked Kiss
      Samuel Fuller

Something’s to be said for the Bicameral Mind. Kill the Pig and the Gods will commune through the head on the pole. I think I’m getting Lasik—just in case the veneer shatters.

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My Top Ten Criterions

Christa Lang-Fuller