1000 films to see before you dieMoviesFilms beginning with J
Jackie Brown
(Quentin Tarantino, 1997)
The follow up to Pulp Fiction is decidedly less violent: it's an elegant adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel that platforms his storytelling prowess. Plucked from career wilderness, Pam Grier is languidly brilliant as the lonely air hostess with a score to settle, while Samuel L Jackson's drug dealer shows Tarantino's heart is still in the same seedy place.
Jacquot De Nantes
(Agnes Varda, 1991)
A wonderfully moving tribute to Umbrellas of Cherbourg director Jacques Demy by his film-maker wife, that is documentary, biopic and love letter rolled into one. Footage of Demy himself near death is intercut with recreations of his childhood and clips from his films: a heady cocktail fuelled by a lifetime of affection.
Japon
(Carlos Reygadas, 2002)
The Latin American renaissance's most zealous aesthete drew admiring gasps with his debut, a beguiling film that hangs luminously in the moment as it follows a lame painter to the countryside to commit suicide. Reygadas uses non-professional actors and spare dialogue to scrape away artifice - unlikely to be directing the next Harry Potter, then.
Jason and the Argonauts
(Don Chaffey, 1963)
Virtually a one-man special-effects crew, Ray Harryhausen perfected his craft here with such indelible imagery as bronze Talos coming to life, the writhing hydra and the classic battle with seven skeletons. Virtually everyone working in special effects today was inspired by his work. Without him, we'd be living in a greyer world.
Jaws
(Steven Spielberg, 1975)
After all these years Spielberg's story of a killer shark terrorising a sleepy beach town still has the power to shock and entertain in equal measure. Long takes, clever edits and a menacing score ramp up the tension as local police chief Roy Schneider, oceanographer Richard Dreyfuss and fisherman Richard Shaw head for a showdown with the great white.
The Jerk
(Carl Reiner, 1979)
Steve Martin's first starring role finds him on a freewheeling odyssey. From his origins as a "poor black child" to spells as a gas-station attendant, a fairground worker and disco-grooving accidental millionaire, it's his resolute stupidity that propels him through the world. Like Forest Gump without the history lessons.
Jerry Maguire
(Cameron Crowe, 1996)
Crowe pulls out all the stops in his effort to make even a sports agent seem like a decent human being. Resistance is pretty much useless when faced with the Tom Cruise charm offensive, here reinforced by RenÈe Zellweger's loyal secretary and her impossibly cute kid.
La Jetée
(Chris Marker, 1962)
Told as a series of still, black-and-white photographs - save for one subtle scene - Marker's time twister tells a deceptively simple story that starts to eat its own tail. Hard science, romance, action, memories and heartache resonate from the compact, 28-minute long work.
Johnny Guitar
(Nicholas Ray, 1954)
Freudian western; abstract-impressionist western; anti-McCarthy western; feminist western; lesbian western - whatever, it's quite a western: perverse, politically reckless, colorful and filled with romance, hatred and regret. One of Joan Crawford's craziest roles, and perhaps Ray's most experimental movie this side of You Can't Go Home Again.
Le Jour Se Leve
(Marcel Carne, 1939)
Carne's existential thriller opens with Jean Gabin's murderer holed up in an attic, and dissolves back to show how he got there. Hailed as a parable of French disillusion in the run-up to the second world war, this hard, jaundiced tale later went on to influence a generation of American film noir.
Jubilee
(Derek Jarman, 1977)
Jarman captures the art-school ethos of punk before the music and fashion became blankly uniform. It's pretentious but has an undeniably raw quality that captures the feeling of the times far more effectively than the cartoon anarchists that followed.
Jules et Jim
(Francois Truffaut, 1962)
Captivating love triangle involving Austrian Jules, his French soulmate Jim, and their volatile muse Catherine, which begins in turn-of-the-century Paris and ends after the first world war. Truffaut pays poetic tribute to undying friendship as the ménage a trois never looked so innocent - and never will again.
The Jungle Book
(Wolfgang Reitherman, 1967)
Baloo the Bear and Bagheera the Panther teach mancub Mowgli how to be more of a man and less of a cub in this classic animated version of the Rudyard Kipling fable. With some of the zippiest offerings in the Disney musical canon, a pair of great villains (slinky Shere Khan and the mesmerising python Kaa) and a real warmth in the relationships, it's a concise successssss.
Jurassic Park
(Steven Spielberg, 1993)
Jaws' greatest strength might have been hiding the shark, but Spielberg displayed no such coyness here: the panoramic sweep of a dinosaur-filled prairie represented an early-1990s quantum leap for SFX. Whether blockbuster narrative evolution has since dwindled to a useless stump is questionable; what isn't is that Jurassic Park shows Spielberg on impressive form.
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