100 Essential Films

What follows is a list, to ever be revised again and again, of what I consider the 100 essential films anyone should see who wants a basic education in film. Ideally, after watching these films you'd have a good idea of what you'd like to watch next.

There are a few obvious ones that are missing: Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and Star Wars, for example; if the list were longer, I'd include them, but it seems that almost everyone's seen the films, so I let them go. Birth of a Nation is deliberately excluded, as I'm campaigning against the nonsense that prevails about this film being "essential." I've also handicapped the list by excluding my favorite film of all time, the one I'm always willing to drop everything to watch--Jason and the Argonauts; although be certain that I love all the films on this list (some more than others).

I think your average film buff would look at this list and call it boring. That's the point. It's a beginner's course in film, not advanced studies. Granted, I threw a couple of wild cards in there, such as The Saragossa Manuscript, and other great films that I feel are underexposed. But for the most part, it's a primer that is meant to show the possibilities of film.

And finally, in the interest of perspective, the cut-off date for eligibility is 1996--ten years gone.

1. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (D: Robert Wiene, Germany 1920)
2. Safety Last! (D: Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor, U.S. 1923)
3. Greed (D: Erich von Stroheim, U.S. 1924)
4. Battleship Potemkin (D: Sergei Eisenstein, Soviet Union 1925)
5. Flesh and the Devil (D: Clarence Brown, U.S. 1926)
6. Sunrise (D: F.W. Murnau, U.S. 1926)
7. Metropolis (D: Fritz Lang, Germany 1927)
8. The General (D: Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman, U.S. 1927)
9. Un Chien Andalou (D: Luis Bunuel, France 1929)
10. City Lights (D: Charlie Chaplin, U.S. 1931)
11. Trouble in Paradise (D: Ernst Lubitsch, U.S. 1932)
12. Duck Soup (D: Leo McCarey, U.S. 1933)
13. It Happened One Night (D: Frank Capra, U.S. 1934)
14. L'Atalante (D: Jean Vigo, France 1934)
15. Port of Shadows (D: Marcel Carne, France 1938)
16. The Rules of the Game (D: Jean Renoir, France 1939)
17. Fantasia (D: Various, U.S. 1940)
18. The Philadelphia Story (D: George Cukor, U.S. 1940)
19. Citizen Kane (D: Orson Welles, U.S. 1941)
20. Sullivan's Travels (D: Preston Sturges, U.S. 1941)
21. Casablanca (D: Michael Curtiz, U.S. 1942)
22. Double Indemnity (D: Billy Wilder, U.S. 1944)
23. To Have and Have Not (D: Howard Hawks, U.S. 1944)
24. Open City (D: Roberto Rossellini, Italy 1945)
25. A Matter of Life and Death (D: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, U.K. 1946)
26. Beauty and the Beast (D: Jean Cocteau, France 1946)
27. The Big Sleep (D: Howard Hawks, U.S. 1946)
28. Notorious (D: Alfred Hitchcock, U.S. 1946)
29. The Bicycle Thief (D: Vittorio de Sica, Italy 1948)
30. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (D: John Huston, U.S. 1948)
31. Orpheus (D: Jean Cocteau, France 1949)
32. The Third Man (D: Carol Reed, U.K. 1949)
33. All About Eve (D: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, U.S. 1950)
34. Rashomon (D: Akira Kurosawa, Japan 1950)
35. Sunset Blvd. (D: Billy Wilder, U.S. 1950)
36. Singin' in the Rain (D: Stanley Donen, U.S. 1952)
37. Tokyo Story (D: Yasujiro Ozu, Japan 1953)
38. On the Waterfront (D: Elia Kazan, U.S. 1954)
39. Seven Samurai (D: Akira Kurosawa, Japan 1954)
40. All That Heaven Allows (D: Douglas Sirk, U.S. 1955)
41. Kiss Me Deadly (D: Robert Aldrich, U.S. 1955)
42. Ordet (D: Carl Th. Dreyer, Denmark 1955)
43. Pather Panchali (D: Satyajit Ray, India 1955)
44. Rififi (D: Jules Dassin, France 1955)
45. The Searchers (D: John Ford, U.S. 1956)
46. Le Notte Bianche (D: Luchino Visconti, Italy 1957)
47. Wild Strawberries (D: Ingmar Bergman, Sweden 1957)
48. Vertigo (D: Alfred Hitchcock, U.S. 1958)
49. Hiroshima Mon Amour (D: Alain Resnais, France 1959)
50. North By Northwest (D: Alfred Hitchcock, U.S. 1959)
51. The 400 Blows (D: Francois Truffaut, France 1959)
52. Breathless (D: Jean-Luc Godard, France 1960)
53. La Dolce Vita (D: Federico Fellini, Italy 1960)
54. L'Avventura (D: Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy 1960)
55. Psycho (D: Alfred Hitchcock, U.S. 1960)
56. Rocco and His Brothers (D: Luchino Visconti, Italy 1960)
57. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (D: Mikio Naruse, Japan 1960)
58. Viridiana (D: Luis Bunuel, Spain 1961)
59. La Jetee (D: Chris Marker, France 1962)
60. Lawrence of Arabia (D: David Lean, U.K. 1962)
61. The Manchurian Candidate (D: John Frankenheimer, U.S. 1962)
62. 8 1/2 (D: Federico Fellini, Italy 1963)
63. Band of Outsiders (D: Jean-Luc Godard, France 1964)
64. Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (D: Stanley Kubrick, U.S. 1964)
65. The Battle of Algiers (D: Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy/Algeria 1965)
66. The Saragossa Manuscript (D: Wojciech Has, Poland 1965)
67. Au Hasard Balthazar (D: Robert Bresson, France 1966)
68. Blowup (D: Michelangelo Antonioni, U.K. 1966)
69. Persona (D: Ingmar Bergman, Sweden 1966)
70. Bonnie and Clyde (D: Arthur Penn, U.S. 1967)
71. Playtime (D: Jacques Tati, France 1967)
72. The Graduate (D: Mike Nichols, U.S. 1967)
73. 2001: A Space Odyssey (D: Stanley Kubrick, U.S. 1968)
74. Faces (D: John Cassavetes, U.S. 1968)
75. If... (D: Lindsay Anderson, U.K. 1968)
76. Medium Cool (D: Haskell Wexler, U.S. 1969)
77. The Wild Bunch (D: Sam Peckinpah, U.S. 1969)
78. Patton (D: Franklin J. Schaffner, U.S. 1970)
79. A Clockwork Orange (D: Stanley Kubrick, U.K. 1971)
80. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (D: Robert Altman, U.S. 1971)
81. Aguirre: The Wrath of God (D: Werner Herzog, Germany 1972)
82. Solaris (D: Andrei Tarkovsky, Soviet Union 1972)
83. The Godfather (D: Francis Ford Coppola, U.S. 1972)
84. Chinatown (D: Roman Polanski, U.S. 1974)
85. Jaws (D: Steven Spielberg, U.S. 1975)
86. Nashville (D: Robert Altman, U.S. 1975)
87. Shampoo (D: Hal Ashby, U.S. 1975)
88. Network (D: Sidney Lumet, U.S. 1976)
89. Annie Hall (D: Woody Allen, U.S. 1977)
90. Raging Bull (D: Martin Scorsese, U.S. 1980)
91. My Dinner with Andre (D: Louis Malle, U.S. 1981)
92. Sans Soleil (D: Chris Marker, France 1983)
93. Brazil (D: Terry Gilliam, U.K. 1985)
94. The Decalogue (D: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland 1988)
95. Wings of Desire (D: Wim Wenders, Germany 1988)
96. Do the Right Thing (D: Spike Lee, U.S. 1989)
97. Goodfellas (D: Martin Scorsese, U.S. 1990)
98. Raise the Red Lantern (D: Zhang Yimou, China 1991)
99. Pulp Fiction (D: Quentin Tarantino, U.S. 1994)
100. Fargo (D: Joel Coen, U.S. 1996)