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10. Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993). In this virtually silent film, a young French woman (Juliette Binoche) seeks numbness after a car wreck kills her daughter and composer husband. Slowly but inexorably, the haunting coda of an unfinished symphony, which sounds Love itself, carries her back into living and loving.

Consider as well Places in the Heart, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Dead Man Walking, The Doctor, The Deer Hunter, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and, yes, Citizen Kane.

They asked for "favorite" films, not the "best" movies ever produced, so I will not pretend that this list is definitive for anyone other than myself. And even then—well, let's just say the top five or so are pretty much set in stone, but the rest remain more tentative.

1. Lawrence of Arabia (dir. David Lean, 1962). A grand, visual spectacle backed by Maurice Jarre's majestic music and supported by perhaps the greatest international cast ever assembled, yes, but also a thoughtful, incisive look at the tensions that exist between nationality and personality, power and identity, destiny and free will.
2. The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen, 1985). A "minor character" steps off a movie screen and into Depression-era New Jersey, stranding his fellow characters while offering perfect, but imaginary, love to an abused housewife. A delightfully comic exploration of the difference between movie fantasy and harsh reality, but also a remarkably canny parable about a created world that is deemed good yet loses its sense of purpose once its inhabitants "chuck out the plot."
3. The Family Way (Roy Boulting, 1966). A poignant, funny, bittersweet look at newlywed woes in working-class England that touches gently on a few hot buttons, notably impotence. John Mills delivers a superb, many-layered performance as real-life daughter Hayley's father-in-law, and Paul McCartney—in the first solo Beatle project—provides the tender, melancholy, and hauntingly perfect score.
4. Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1983). No script, no actors, no plot—just pure cinema, set to Philip Glass's mesmerizing music. The title is Hopi for "life out of balance," and Reggio employs a grab bag of camera tricks to convey the idea that modern technology—including moviemaking!—has thrown the created order out of whack. A dazzling film that seems to recreate itself with every viewing.
5. The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980). Not your typical sequel. George Lucas took a lot of risks with the middle chapter in his space opera and created a more successfully convincing parallel universe than Star Wars ever hinted at. The confrontation between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker is striking for its moral complexity, and it ultimately opens the door to Vader's redemption. Who could have predicted that?
6. When Harry Met Sally (Rob Reiner, 1989). Forget Seinfeld. Reiner, Nora Ephron, Billy Crystal, and Meg Ryan scooped that so-so series with this surprisingly perceptive and frequently amusing dissection of modern relationships—platonic and otherwise—between the sexes. A treat for cynics and romantics alike.
7. The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz & William Keighley, 1938). Swordfights, romance, swashbuckling derring-do, and a subversively patriotic idealism—what more could one want? Still the best film of its kind, even if Basil Rathbone is less menacing here than he is in The Court Jester (Melvin Frank & Norman Panama, 1956), Danny Kaye's witty, affectionate send-up of the genre.

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