Directed by Jean Vigo. Starring Dita Parlo, Jean Dasté, and Michel Simon.
Director Vigo died shortly after finishing this, his first feature, and while dying young is tragic in and of itself (he was 29), it's an especially monumental loss in light of this film's greatness. The film follows Jean and Juliette (Dasté and Parlo), a newly-married couple, as they embark on their new life on a barge on the Seine. The film quickly establishes that the new husband and wife hardly seem to know each other at all- their faces are solemn following the wedding, and the provincial girl seems ill-prepared for life at sea. As the barge approaches Paris, Juliette, who has never before left her small town, decides to see the world on her own, leaving Jean behind and pining for her. If the film was simply about its main story, however, it would still be lovely but certainly wouldn't warrant a spot this high on this list. The key to the film's greatness isn't the couple but rather Jean's well-traveled first mate, Jules. As played by the great Michel Simon, Jules is one of the great characters in cinema- simultaneously comic, menacing, sexually ambiguous, macabre, and finally heroic. The elements he adds to the film make it truly unforgettable, enhancing its romanticism and also turning into a peerless cinematic magic-realist fairy tale.
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