100 Essential Films

Everyone has their list.  Here's mine in no particular order.  All are essential viewing.  I recommend reading the screenplays as well.


Citizen Kane
Metropolis
Petulia
Badlands
Days of Heaven
Breathless (original Godard)
The 400 Blows
Wild Strawberries
The Seventh Seal
Nights in Cabiria
La Dolce Vita
8 1/2
The World of Apu
Ikuru
Tokyo Story
Seven Samurai
Ugetsu Monegatare
Kind Hearts and Coronets
Kes
Night Mail
The Lady Vanishes
The Thief of Bagdad
Olivier's Richard III, Hamlet, Henry V
The Third Man
Brief Encounter
Black Narcissus
A Taste of Honey
Blowup
Repulsion
If....
The Ipcress File
Paths of Glory
Lawrence of Arabia
Lolita
2001: A Space Odyssey
A Clockwork Orange
Barry Lyndon
The Go-Between
Frenzy
Local Hero
The Long Good Friday
Brazil
A Fish Called Wanda
My Beautiful Laundrette
The Crying Game
Trainspotting
La Belle et La Bête
Children of Paradise
The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Don't Look Now
Black Orpheus
Diabolique
Wages of Fear
The French Connection
Godfather I and II
Apocalypse Now
The Wild Bunch
Shock Corridor
The Parallax View
Taxi Driver
The Searchers
Stagecoach
High Noon
Some Like It Hot
The Apartment
The Fortune Cookie
Sunset Boulevard
They Drive By Night
Casablanca
Sweet Smell of Success
The Graduate
On the Waterfront
Singin' In the Rain
The African Queen
Psycho
Chinatown
The Maltese Falcon
Raging Bull
Dr. Strangelove
Bonnie and Clyde
Annie Hall
Midnight Cowboy
North by Northwest
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The Philadelphia Story
Rebel Without a Cause
Vertigo
City Lights
Modern Times
Duck Soup
A Place in the Sun
Three Colours: Red, White, Blue
Kieszlowski's The Decalogue
Talk to Her
Law of Desire
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

In order to achieve even a modest level of film literacy, you need to have seen these.

I envy anyone watching them for the first time.