Visually beautiful films

[El_Elvis_Rojo]

Delicatessen
Amelie
City of Lost Children
Dark City
Moulin Rogue
Braveheart
Evil Dead 2
Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust
Metropolis
Fight Club
The Adventures of Baron Munchaussen

[ArrMatey]

I’m suprised no one has added Kurosawa’s “Dreams” to this list yet.

I guess I just did, though!

[Kalhoun]

Zoe, Days of Heaven is also one of my favorites. It almost makes me breathless to look at some of those scenes.

Another one I really like is “The Man Who Wasn’t There”. There’s something about black-and-white cinematography that is just unbeatable when done well.

[lieu]

The Big Blue. The first few scenes are in B&W, thus adding to the startling beauty when they switch to the rich color of the Med and Greek villages. Pretty good sleeper movie as well.

[plastic_conspiracy]

Babe: Pig In The City

Gosford Park

Heaven’s Gate

The Shining

Many of Hitchcock’s films come to mind, especially Vertigo and Psycho

[Zazie]

What dreams may come
Le pacte des loups (brotherhood of the wolves)

[Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow]

The correct answer is Lawrence of Arabia. Everything else is an also-ran.

[MSU_1978]

Apocalypse Now

Dr. Zhivago

[Enola_Straight]

Blade Runner

[Interrobang]

Lots of good candidates on the list so far. I’ll add two classics that I saw on the big (well, not so big at this theater) recently: Written on the Wind and Imitation of Life, both directed by Douglas Sirk with cinematography by Russell Metty. Gorgeous cinematography with color and lighting telling half the story.

If you like how Far From Heaven looks, you’ll love these as well, since the look of Sirk’s films was one of the biggest influences on Haynes’ movie.

[UrbanChic]

Snow Falling on Cedars

[MonkeyMensch]

*Originally posted by CalMeacham *
**As Walloon has already mentioned, Barry Lyndon. Every shot seems set up to mimic an 18th century painting. For the night scenes, Kubrick reported had a special lens made with a tiny f/# (which means a huge amount of light-gathering capability, yet providing excellent quality pictures – a really difficult combination to achieve) so that he could shoot the scenes entirely by candlelight.
**

Actually Kubrick got a hold of some aerial photography lenses, IIRC. For a number of reasons aerial photgraphy needs gigantic apertures and I think the lenses used on Barry Lyndon were on the order of f .6 or so. I agree that those interior shots look wonderful on account of the effort.

Plus you can count me in with anything shot by Gordon Willis.

[drm]

Gerry is the very first movie to come to mind. It was a pleasure to watch. Other movies that come to mind are the two Lord of the Rings and The Pianist.

[BlackLabel]

American Beauty
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Edward Scissorhands
Lord of the Rings

[kiffa]

Lawrence of Arabia… in spite of the fact that it takes place in a very dirty desert.

[KneadToKnow]

Ooooo. I completely forgot about American Beauty.

[chukhung]

*Originally posted by MonkeyMensch *
**Actually Kubrick got a hold of some aerial photography lenses, IIRC. **

There’s a very interesting interview with Kubrick discussing Barry Lyndon here: http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/interview.bl.html

I [Kubrick] have always tried to light my films to simulate natural light; in the daytime using the windows actually to light the set, and in night scenes the practical lights you see in the set. This approach has its problems when you can use bright electric light sources, but when candelabras and oil lamps are the brightest light sources which can be in the set, the difficulties are vastly increased. Prior to Barry Lyndon, the problem has never been properly solved. Even if the director and cameraman had the desire to light with practical light sources, the film and the lenses were not fast enough to get an exposure. A 35mm movie camera shutter exposes at about 1/50 of a second, and a useable exposure was only possible with a lens at least 100% faster than any which had ever been used on a movie camera. Fortunately, I found just such a lens, one of a group of ten which Zeiss had specially manufactured for NASA satellite photography. The lens had a speed of f/0.7, and it was 100% faster than the fastest movie lens. A lot of work still had to be done to it and to the camera to make it useable. For one thing, the rear element of the lens had to be 2.5mm away from the film plane, requiring special modification to the rotating camera shutter. But with this lens it was now possible to shoot in light conditions so dim that it was difficult to read.

[Agrippina]

Despite the flaws of this movie, Hannibal has some beautiful shots in it, especially of Italy. And the interior shots are beautiful too, like the homes of Lecter and Mason Verger.

[Tangent]

A River Runs Through It

Seven Years in Tibet

The Joy Luck Club

and second to Dances With Wolves

[bbonden]

I third Lawrence of Arabia. I can’t think of anything close.