This will be a constantly-updated list of the best (or at least the best according to my own idiosyncratic standards) films I’ve ever seen.

Disclaimer:

Yes, this is highly skewed towards American film noir, French New Wave, Pixar, and early Soviet films. Please forgive me. I also heavily favor interesting editing and cinematography to plot and general comprehensibility, which is a weakness of mine. Lastly, the vast majority of these movies are heavily leftist (as evidenced by the sheer number of Soviet filmmakers plus Godard), but that by no means excludes Hollywood from this already overly populated list.

Things I would like to watch/study/write overly politicized papers about (it usually goes in that order) next: Japanese New Wave, more Jean Renoir, Chaplin and Buster Keaton, Tarkovsky, and later Soviet films generally.

• Woody Allen, Annie Hall, 1977. USA.
• Darren Aronofsky, Requiem for a Dream, 2000. USA.
• Joel and Ethan Coen, Fargo, 1996. USA.
• Joel and Ethan Coen, The Big Lebowski, 1998. USA.
• Joel and Ethan Coen, A Serious Man, 2009. USA.

• Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather I/II, 1972-74. USA.
• Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now, 1979. USA.
• Disney, The Lion King, 1994. USA.
• Disney, Fantasia, 1940. USA.
• Alexander Dovzhenko, Earth, 1930. USSR.

• Sergei Eisenstein, Ivan the Terrible Pt. 1, 1944. USSR.
• Fridrikh Ermler, Fragment of an Empire, 1929. USSR.
• Federico Fellini, Nights of Cabiria, 1957. Italy.
• Milos Forman, Amadeus, 1984. USA.
• Jean-Luc Godard, Breathless, 1960. France.
• Jean-Luc Godard, A Woman is a Woman, 1961. France.

• Jean-Luc Godard, Contempt, 1963. France.
• Jean-Luc Godard, La Chinoise, 1967. France.
• Michel Gondry, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004. USA.
• Alfred Hitchcock, Vertigo, 1958. USA.

• Alred Hitchcock, Rear Window, 1954. USA.
• John Hughes, The Breakfast Club, 1985. USA.
• Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Amelie, 2001. France.
• Jim Jarmusch, Night on Earth, 1991. USA.
• Mikhail Kalatazov, Soy Cuba, 1964. Cuba/USSR.

• Krzysztof Kieslowski, Three Colors Trilogy, 1993-4. France.
• Satoshi Kon, Paprika, 2006. Japan.
• Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 1964. USA.
• Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968. USA.

• Stanley Kubrick, A Clockwork Orange, 1971. USA.
• Fritz Lang, M, 1931. Germany.
• Alexander Mackendrick, The Sweet Smell of Success, 1957. USA.
• Terrence Malick, Badlands, 1973. USA.

• Chris Marker, The Last Bolshevik, 1992. France.
• Chris Marker, Sans Soleil, 1983. France.
• Toshio Matsumoto, Funeral Parade of Roses, 1969. Japan.
• Vincente Minnelli, An American in Paris, 1951. USA.
• Hayao Miyazaki, Princess Mononoke, 1997. Japan.

• Mike Nichols, The Graduate, 1967. USA.
• Nagisa Oshima, Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, 1968. Japan.
• Katsuhiro Otomo, Akira, 1988. Japan.
• Ivan Perestiani, The Red Imps, 1923. USSR.
• Pixar, Wall-E, 2008. USA.

• Pixar, Up, 2009. USA.
• Pixar, Toy Story 3, 2010. USA.
• Iakov Protazanov, Aelita, 1924. USSR.

• Vsevelod Pudovkin, Mother, 1926. USSR.
• Nicholas Ray, In a Lonely Place, 1950. USA.
• Jean Renoir, The Rules of the Game, 1939. France.
• Alain Resnais, Hiroshima mon amour, 1959. France.

• Steven Spielberg, Schindler’s List, 1993. USA.
• Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction, 1994.
• Quentin Tarantino, Kill Bill I/II, 2003-4. USA.
• Julie Taymor, Frida, 2002. USA.
• Jacques Tati, Mon Oncle, 1958. France.

• Francois Truffaut, The 400 Blows, 1959. France.
• Francois Truffaut, Jules et Jim, 1962. France.
• Agnes Varda, The Gleaners and I, 2000. France.
• Dziga Vertov, Man with a Movie Camera, 1929. USSR.

• Dziga Vertov, A Sixth Part of the World, 1926. USSR.
• Dziga Vertov, Kino-Glaz, 1924. USSR.
• Charles Vidor, Gilda, 1946. USA.
• Orson Welles, Citizen Kane, 1941. USA.
• Billy Wilder, Some Like It Hot, 1959. USA.