Pinoy Rebyu's 100 Greatest Pinoy Films of All Time
In 2013, Filipino film blog Pinoy Rebyu invited around 200 film directors, screenwriters, critics, scholars, programmers, and archivists to send in a top 10 of their favourite Pinoy films. They received 81 ballots.
This top 100, published in 2015, is an expanded version of the original top 50 they published in 2013.
quote:
When we conducted our 2013 poll for the Greatest Pinoy Films of All Time, 81 respondents (critics, filmmakers, archivists, academics, etc.) provided us with a total of 204 films, ranging from obscure gems like Kidlat Tahimik’s Orbit 50: Letters to My 3 Sons to the unabashedly campy No Other Woman. We decided then to limit the list to 50 because we had a lot of ties, and it seemed unwieldy to publish a top 100 list with so many ties.
That was before we discovered a sensible method to break ties based on which of the tied films are ranked higher by their respective voters. We have since used that method to rank the 100 Best Performances of the Half-Decade. It’s a pretty boring task to detail the equation we used (you can message us if you want to know how we did it) so let us get on with the more exciting job of revealing which films are the 50 next best.
This top 100, published in 2015, is an expanded version of the original top 50 they published in 2013.
quote:
When we conducted our 2013 poll for the Greatest Pinoy Films of All Time, 81 respondents (critics, filmmakers, archivists, academics, etc.) provided us with a total of 204 films, ranging from obscure gems like Kidlat Tahimik’s Orbit 50: Letters to My 3 Sons to the unabashedly campy No Other Woman. We decided then to limit the list to 50 because we had a lot of ties, and it seemed unwieldy to publish a top 100 list with so many ties.
That was before we discovered a sensible method to break ties based on which of the tied films are ranked higher by their respective voters. We have since used that method to rank the 100 Best Performances of the Half-Decade. It’s a pretty boring task to detail the equation we used (you can message us if you want to know how we did it) so let us get on with the more exciting job of revealing which films are the 50 next best.
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100 titles
- DirectorLino BrockaStarsHilda KoronelBembol RocoLou Salvador Jr.Júlio Madiaga, a 'provinciano', arrives in Manila to search for his beloved, Ligaya.
- DirectorIshmael BernalStarsNora AunorSpanky ManikanGigi DueñasElsa saw the blessed Virgin Mary who had changed her life and caused a hysteria in a poor isolated village.
- DirectorMike De LeonStarsCharo Santos-ConcioJay IlaganVic SilayanA crime-drama-suspense genre film not often seen in Philippine cinema. A controlling patriarch loses it over his daughter's marriage and her attempts to escape from their incestuous household.
- DirectorIshmael BernalStarsCharito SolisAlma MorenoLorna TolentinoThe hidden nightlife of ordinary people living in Manila unveils. Lovers and families' conflicts are radically pitted against each other as they live in the night streets rampant with drugs and prostitution. The outstanding narrative explicitly unravels the various characters and episodes. This landmark film of Ishmael Bernal depicts the darkness of city life so vividly that it was once prohibited to use the word 'Manila' on its title.
- DirectorPeque GallagaStarsCherie GilSandy AndolongLiza LorenaTwo affluent families struggle and learn to survive during the Japanese occupation in the Philippines.
- DirectorManuel SilosStarsRosa RosalTony SantosLeroy SalvadorA young married couple, Maria and Jose (Rosa Rosal and Tony Santos) start life together creating a lanzones orchard in the countryside. They have four children - Miguel (Leroy Salvador), Arturo (Carlos Padilla Jr), Angelita (Marita Zobel), and Lito (Danilo Jurado). The eldest, Miguel, is a deaf-mute. Life is good to them and the children grow up and bring joy to the community. But trouble enters their lives when Jose makes an enemy of Bruno (Joseph de Cordova). Bruno, a widower, is much feared in the village, for it is rumored that he caused the death of his wife. And yet he wants to remarry and is courting Choleng (Mila Ocampo), Jose's niece. But Choleng avoids Bruno and one day, in trying to get away from him, she slips and falls off a cliff and dies. The village is outraged and Bruno hides in the mountains. There, he plots his revenge on the village, particularly on Jose's family.
- DirectorLino BrockaStarsHilda KoronelMona LisaRez CortezThe life of a young girl living with her mother in the slums of Manila becomes unbearable when her mother's young boyfriend moves in with them.
- DirectorEddie RomeroStarsChristopher De LeonGloria DiazEddie GarciaSet at the turn of the 20th century during the Filipino revolution against the Spaniards and, later, the American colonizers, it follows a naive peasant through his leap of faith to become a member of an imagined community.
- DirectorMike De LeonStarsMark GilSandy AndolongWard LuarcaThe lives of seven neophytes as they strive to enter a Greek letter fraternity through a difficult hazing process. The entire experience is seen through the eyes of Sid Lucero, one of the neophytes.
- DirectorLino BrockaStarsLolita RodriguezLilia DizonEddie GarciaThis landmark film is considered by many to be one of the most important in Philippine cinema. The son of a wealthy man, Junior has everything he could possibly want. But the emptiness of his extravagant lifestyle and the hypocrisy of the town's so-called leading citizens weigh heavily on him, pushing him to reach out to the village outcasts.
- DirectorKidlat TahimikStarsKidlat TahimikMang FelyDolores SantamariaA Filipino jeepney driver (Kidlat Tahimik) who idolizes America's space program comes to reject the rapid encroachment of technology.
- DirectorMike De LeonStarsTommy AbuelMario MontenegroMona LisaDuring a return to his provincial home, a young man gets involved with a woman who is ultimately possessed by her sister's spirit, paving the way to revealing the painful truth about her unsolved disappearance.
- DirectorLav DiazStarsYul ServoJoel TorreGloria DiazA Filipino teenager is shot to death on a New Jersey, USA sidewalk: an investigation starts and his family and friends are interviewed. Along the way, more about him is revealed and so is more about the Filipino community in America in general, including the destructive effect of the drug "shabu" on its youth. The detective who handles the case also has his own personal demons to settle with his violent past.
- DirectorLav DiazStarsElryan de VeraAngie FerroPen MedinaThe collapse and the struggle of a poor farming clan in Philippines.
- DirectorIshmael BernalStarsElizabeth OropesaDaria RamirezGeorge EstreganIshmael Bernal's opus recreates the quality and slow pace of life in a dying village surrounded by the sea as it is caught in the eternal cycle of love and hate, of fertility and pollution, of birth and death. A bold and successful attempt to depart from the usual commercial fare, it cryptically paints a large, bleak canvas showing rural fold and how their chances at redemption and happiness are irreversibly decimated by poverty, ignorance, neglect and the dark side of big business.
- DirectorCelso Ad. CastilloStarsVilma SantosRosemarie GilRolly QuizonTo support her paralytic father, Chato works as a utility girl for a burlesque star Virgie Nite. But when Virgie gets drunk on the night of her scheduled show, Chato pitches in for her. And she becomes an instant sensation. Enthused by the initial acceptance of the audience, she defies her father's admonitions and presents herself to the manager. And thus, becoming the new burlesque queen.
- DirectorLamberto V. AvellanaStarsRosa RosalTony SantosJoseph De CordovaA war hero meets a prostitute in the postwar ruins of Manila.
- DirectorLino BrockaStarsPhillip SalvadorDina BonnevieGina AlajarIn 1985, in the obscure town of Santa Filomena, the Orapronobis, a cult under the leadership of Kumander Kontra (Roco), murders a foreign priest who gave the last rites to an alleged rebel, who was also executed by the same group. At the success of the 1986 EDSA revolt, political detainees, led by Jimmy Cordero (Salvador), celebrate the fall of the dictatorship. All political prisoners are released, including Jimmy, an ex-priest-turned-underground revolutionary. Not long, after, Jimmy marries a human rights activist, Trixie (Bonnevie). Jimmy becomes an advocate of human rights. Despite Trixie's protests, her brother, Roland (Lorenzo), and Jimmy go on a fact-finding mission to Santa Filomena to investigate the latest crime committed by the Orapronobis. Jimmy meets Esper (Alajar), his ex-girlfriend. He finds out that he has a son with her, Camilo (Herrera). They agree to keep Jimmy's true identity a secret form the boy. Conniving with the military, the Orapronobis step up their acts of terror. Jimmy's group helps evacuate the townspeople to the town church, then later to Manila. Back in Manila, Jimmy turns down a friend's invitation to rejoin the underground movement. Later, he and Roland are ambushed. Jimmy survives, but Roland does not. He recovers and shortly after that, Trixie gives birth to their child. Soldiers raid the refugee center with a masked man who identifies several of the barrio folk as rebels. The refugees and the human rights activists complain to the government. Esper and her son are abducted by the Orapronobis who accuse Esper of helping the rebels. She is raped and beaten up by Kumander Kontra in front of Camilo. Fighting back, she shoots at Kontra. In a hysterical rage, Kontra goes on a shooting rampage, killing Esper, Camilo and the captured barrio men. Later, the military bring the casualties to the town where Jimmy weeps over the bodies of Esper and his son. The film ends with Jimmy contacting his old colleague from the underground.
- DirectorMike De LeonStarsChristopher De LeonCharo Santos-ConcioJay IlaganThe film revolves around two couples who find themselves in conflict with the foreign commercial giants that control the Philippine economy, the Japanese and the Chinese.
- DirectorMarilou Diaz-AbayaStarsCharito SolisVic SilayanPhillip SalvadorA groom takes his city bride to his hometown to settle in his father's house. Struck by her uncanny resemblance to his dead wife, the patriarch is driven to lust after his daughter-in-law. When things come to a head, a violent family quarrel ensues and leads to tragedy. A middle-aged spinster recounts the tale to reveal her identity and trace the downfall of the landowning clan trapped in the past.
- DirectorMario O'HaraStarsNora AunorChristopher De LeonBembol RocoA woman falls in love with a Japanese soldier during the Japanese Occupation in the Philippines; the whole town turns against her.
- DirectorMarilou Diaz-AbayaStarsLorna TolentinoGina AlajarSandy AndolongJoey, Kathy, Sylvia, and Maritess, best friends from 1979 to 1982, navigate drug use, singing dreams, unconventional relationships, and housewife roles, depicting personal battles and societal challenges during that period.
- DirectorManuel CondeStarsManuel CondeElvira ReyesInday JalandoniTemujin, who later became Genghis Khan is wise, or sometimes cunning. He goes through several heroic episodes; competing at the Man of Men contest, falling in love with the enemy commander's daughter, and struggling to restore his demolished hometown. Meanwhile his steps guide him to be a great conqueror. Khan's witty, humorous side in his adolescent years before he takes the throne.
- DirectorPeque GallagaStarsDaniel FernandoAnna Marie GutierrezOrestes OjedaA college student has an affair with a security guard's passive wife. The husband finds out that his wife is cheating on him, when one day he walks in on them while they are having sex, and shoots them both.
- DirectorMike De LeonStarsRicky DavaoJoel TorreCris VillanuevaPart-investigative documentary, part-satire and shot entirely in black-and-white, the film tackles the mystery that surrounds the life and death of the Filipino hero, Jose Rizal.