"The television cut of Fanny and Alexander, of course, which is the one and only version Bergman approved of. It is called the television version because that’s how it was financed, but this is meant to be seen on a big screen with one intermission. It is Bergman’s final masterpiece. Well, not exactly, as he kept on making great films for years afterward. But in the master plan, this is the last actual film, the closing of his main body of work—others are supposed to be footnotes (they’re not). Initially, this film was overlooked because, in the shortened so-called theatrical version, it lost some of the richness of its texture. It was only gradually, when it was revisited in its full version, that it imposed itself, at least on me, as the key to his whole body of work. I had to fit Topsy-Turvy into this list. It is also a period piece. This misunderstood, underrated biography of Gilbert and Sullivan must be one of the most touching, funniest—and cruelest—depictions of show business, split between art and commerce. We see both the torments of creation and the anxieties of the box office. To me, it compares only with Jean Renoir’s French Cancan."

"The television cut of Fanny and Alexander, of course, which is the one and only version Bergman approved of. It is called the television version because that’s how it was financed, but this is meant to be seen on a big screen with one intermission. It is Bergman’s final masterpiece. Well, not exactly, as he kept on making great films for years afterward. But in the master plan, this is the last actual film, the closing of his main body of work—others are supposed to be footnotes (they’re not). Initially, this film was overlooked because, in the shortened so-called theatrical version, it lost some of the richness of its texture. It was only gradually, when it was revisited in its full version, that it imposed itself, at least on me, as the key to his whole body of work. I had to fit Topsy-Turvy into this list. It is also a period piece. This misunderstood, underrated biography of Gilbert and Sullivan must be one of the most touching, funniest—and cruelest—depictions of show business, split between art and commerce. We see both the torments of creation and the anxieties of the box office. To me, it compares only with Jean Renoir’s French Cancan."