David Wallechinsky - The Book of Lists

It’s five hours long, at times confusing and frustrating, but I don’t know of any other film with quite the intelligence and humanity of Ophuls’ masterwork about a small French town under Nazi occupation. All human life is here.

It could as easily be Listen to Britain or Fires Were Started — all of them show Jennings’ surrealist flair for the striking image that burrows deep into your subconscious. All are full of the epiphanies of everyday life. I understand perfectly why Lindsay Anderson called him the ‘only poet of British Cinema’.

A film filled with magic and wonder — it tells the story of a group of blind children at an institution in the Czech Republic who become obsessed with taking photographs.

The most painful, honest and moving film you are ever likely to see. Lanzmann’s sparse epic of the Holocaust is a life changing experience.

Not only does it capture the Rolling Stones at their bombastic, glorious best, but its elegant, complex structure means that it has the resonance and thematic depth of a great piece of literature — like some twentieth-century re-telling of Paradise Lost .

The most revealing ‘portrait film’ I know — about one of the most enigmatic public figures of her era: Marlene Dietrich. Overcoming the curmudgeonly exterior of the old battle-axe, Schell reveals the icon’s broken heart.

The first documentary I saw in the cinema, it made me realise that documentaries can be more dramatic, more moving, more surprising than any piece of fiction. I’ll never forget how the audience stood and cheered when one of the boys scores a decisive point.

Born Walter Matthow on October 1, 1920, to Russian–Jewish immigrants in New York City, Matthau was an amazingly versatile actor who could ‘play anything from Scarlett O’Hara to Rhett Butler’. While best known for his comedic performances in such hits as The Odd Couple, The Bad News Bears and Grumpy Old Men , Matthau also played notable dramatic roles in a wide variety of films, including Fail-Safe, Charley Varrick and JFK . He received Best Actor Oscar nominations for his work in The Sunshine Boys and Kotch , and won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in The Fortune Cookie . Matthau died of a heart attack on July 1, 2000, just a few months after the release of his final film, Hanging Up . He contributed this list to The Book of Lists in 1983.

• The Odd Couple

• The Producers

• A New Leaf

• Macbeth

• City Lights

• Wuthering Heights

• Death of Salesman

• A Streetcar Named Desire

• Horse Feathers

• Hamlet

In the music business, you have to hit not only the right chords but also the right name. Here’s a quiz to test your knowledge.

1. Angel and the Snakes a. Bangles

2. Composition of Sound b. Beach Boys

3. Big Thing c. Beatles

4. Artistics d. Bill Haley and His Comets

5. Carl and the Passions e. Black Sabbath

6. Primettes f. Blondie

7. Tom and Jerry g. Byrds

8. Johnny and the Moondog h. Chicago

9. Caesar and Cleo i. Creedence Clearwater Revival

10. Paramours j. Depeche Mode

11. Polka Tulk k. Led Zeppelin

12. Bangs l. Lynyrd Skynyrd

13. Beefeaters m. Mamas and the Papas

14. Falling Spikes n. Righteous Brothers

15. Sparrow o. Simon and Garfunkel

16. My Backyard p. Sonny and Cher

17. The New Journeymen q. Steppenwolf

18. The Elgins r. Supremes

19. The Four Aces of Western Swing s. Talking Heads

20. The Golliwogs t. Temptations

21. The New Yardbirds u. Velvet Underground

Answers: 1 (f), 2 (j), 3 (h), 4 (s), 5 (b), 6 (r), 7 (o), 8 (c), 9 (p), 10 (n), 11 (e), 12 (a), 13 (g), 14 (u), 15 (q), 16 (l), 17 (m), 18 (t), 19 (d), 20 (i), 21 (k)

Radio personality Dr Demento’s private collection of more than 200,000 records is said to be one of the world’s largest. He puts his library of discs to use on ‘The Dr Demento Show’, which is heard on 200 radio stations in the US and on the Armed Forces Radio Network.

What’s a really bad song title? One that’s offensive or inarticulate, I’d say, or one that doesn’t readily identify the song it’s attached to (Bob Dylan did that for kicks in the Sixties). I think we can leave those alone for now.

Then there are the sort of song titles (often from country music) that are often rather clever, to be truthful, but induce the same sort of groans that often greet a really good pun when heard for the first time.