La Grande illusion
JEAN RENOIR (26)

1939 | 113m | BW | France | War Drama, Anti-War Film
"A film about World War One made on the brink of World War Two, is a milestone masterpiece, a war movie without a single battle scene...Perhaps the ultimate film about war." - Judith Christ
Selected by Robin Buss, Mike Newell, Sydney Pollack, Philip French, Guy Hamilton.
Amazon Strictly Film School Roger Ebert's Great Movies
The General
BUSTER KEATON & CLYDE BRUCKMAN(27)

1927 | 74m | BW | USA | Adventure Comedy, Slapstick
"Not only one of Keaton's greatest, but also one of the funniest films ever made...with enough gags to fill a dozen modern comedies." - Elkan Allan, NFT Bulletin
Selected by Andrew Sarris, Terry Jones, Roger Ebert, David Stratton, Michel Ciment.
Amazon Images Journal Derek Malcolm's Century of Films
Some Like it Hot
BILLY WILDER (32)

1959 | 119m | BW | USA | Sex Comedy, Farce
"Probably the funniest picture of recent memory. It's a wacky, clever, farcical comedy that starts off like a firecracker and keeps on throwing off lively sparks till the very end" - Variety
Selected by John Walker, Chris Hegedus, Barry Norman, Alexander Walker, Bryan Forbes.
Amazon Salon Roger Ebert's Great Movies

Breathless
JEAN-LUC GODARD (30)

1959 | 89m | BW | France | Drama, Crime Drama
"Fast and loose, with a buzzing sense of the potential of the cinema undercut by the beginnings of Godard’s intellectual rigour, this is at once a homage to the American gangster film, and an attack on the very ideas of Americans, gangsters and films" - Kim Newman, Empire
Selected by Jan Nemec, Michael Winterbottom, Bill Rothman, David Stratton, Andrey Plakhov.

Amazon Senses of Cinema Roger Ebert’s Great Movies
Psycho
ALFRED HITCHCOCK (29)

1960 | 109m | BW | USA | Thriller, Psychological Thriller
"What makes Psycho immortal, when so many films are already half-forgotten as we leave the theater, is that it connects directly with our fears." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Selected by Gavin Smith, Errol Morris, Joe Dante, Paul Mazursky, M. Night Shyamalan.
Amazon MovieMaker Roger Ebert's Great Movies
Sunset Blvd.
BILLY WILDER (28)

1950 | 110m | BW | USA | Showbiz Drama, Satire
"Hollywood craftsmanship at its smartest and just about at its best, and it is hard to find better craftsmanship than that, at this time, in any art or country...much the most ambitious movie about Hollywood ever done..." - James Agee
Selected by Kevin Thomas, Molly Haskell, Joel Schumacher, Harold Becker, John Boorman.
Amazon Boston Phoenix Philadelphia City Paper
See Also: 250 Quintessential Noir Films

Persona
INGMAR BERGMAN (34)

1966 | 81m | BW | Sweden | Drama, Psychological Drama
"Never before on film has the derailed psyche been more penetratingly examined, never before has the drama been played so consistently beneath the surface, yet without the slightest sacrifice in palpable excitement." - John Simon
Selected by Paul Schrader, István Szabó, Geoff Andrew, Molly Haskell, Albert Maysles.

Amazon Strictly Film School Kinoeye
L'Avventura
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI (31)

1960 | 145m | BW | Italy-France | Drama, Psychological Drama
"Masterpiece is the only word to describe L'Avventura, one of the very few films which achieve in cinematic terms the subtlety and complexity of a good novel." - The Times
Selected by Harold Becker, Theo Angelopoulos, Philip Strick, Julian Graffy, Donald Richie.
Amazon Senses of Cinema Images Journal
The Gold Rush
CHARLES CHAPLIN (37)

1925 | 82m | BW | USA | Comedy, Slapstick
"A distinct triumph for Charlie Chaplin from both the artistic and commercial standpoints. Billed as a dramatic comedy, the story carries more of a plot than the rule with the star's former offerings." - Variety
Selected by Michael Haneke, Lewis Gilbert, John Anderson, Michael Wilmington, John Pym.

Amazon Senses of Cinema Chicago Reader

Chinatown
ROMAN POLANSKI (40)

1974 | 131m | Col | USA | Mystery, Post-Noir (Modern Noir)
"Classic detective film, with Nicholson's JJ Gittes moving through the familiar world of the Forties film noir...Directed by Polanski in bravura style, it is undoubtedly one of the great films of the '70s." - Time Out
Selected by Hubert Cornfield, Carl Franklin, John Dahl, Gore Verbinski, Andy Medhurst.

Amazon Roger Ebert’s Great Movies metacritic
The Magnificent Ambersons
ORSON WELLES (51)

1942 | 88m | BW | USA | Family Drama, Period Film
"Flawed as it is by the recutting of the studio, it is an even more daring and imaginative work [than Citizen Kane]." - Peter Bogdanovich, 1975
Selected by Tom Charity, Andrew Sarris, Dennis Hopper, Molly Haskell, Geoff Andrew.

Amazon Magnificent Amberson’s Website The Village Voice
Ordet
CARL DREYER (41)

1955 | 125m | BW | Denmark | Drama, Religious Drama
"Carl Dreyer's great 1954 film is concerned with the moral and metaphysical shadings of love: Is it a thing of sex or of the spirit?...The film is extremely sensual in its spareness, a paradox always at the center of Dreyer's work." - Dave Kehr
Selected by Carrie Rickey, Catherine Breillat, Theo Angelopoulos, Olivier Assayas, Barbet Schroeder.

Amazon Strictly Film School Senses of Cinema

Taxi Driver
MARTIN SCORSESE (39)

1976 | 113m | Col | USA | Psychological Drama, Urban Drama
"Taxi Driver is a film that does not grow dated, or over-familiar. I have seen it dozens of times. Every time I see it, it works; I am drawn into Travis' underworld of alienation, loneliness, haplessness and anger." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Selected by Alexander Walker, Gavin Smith, Thomas Elsaesser, Quentin Tarantino, Nick James.

Amazon Senses of Cinema The Village Voice
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
STANLEY KUBRICK (35)

1964 | 93m | BW | UK | Military Comedy, Political Satire
"Dr. Strangelove is, first and foremost, absolutely unflinching...Kubrick's precise use of camera angles, his uncanny sense of lighting, his punctuation with close-ups and occasionally with zoom shots, all galvanize the picture into macabre yet witty reality." - Stanley Kauffman
Selected by Alan Rudolph, John Boorman, Scott Hicks, Michael Mann, Paul Mazursky.
Amazon Derek Malcolm’s Century of Films Strictly Film School
Jules et Jim
FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT (33)

1961 | 104m | BW | France | Drama, Romance
"The beauty, the real wisdom, of Jules et Jim is that the disillusionment of its characters - their painfully protracted awareness of failure - doesn't diminish the value of their moral experiment." - Terrence Rafferty
Selected by Peter Cowie, Armond White, Irene Bignardi, Ken Loach, James Toback.

Amazon Derek Malcolm’s Century of Films Strictly Film School

Rear Window
ALFRED HITCHCOCK (45)

1954 | 112m | Col | USA | Mystery, Thriller
"In an impressive oeuvre, Rear Window is arguably the most exquisitely handcrafted feature, because Hitchcock mastered the spatial as well as behavioral coordinates of his chosen universe inch by inch." - Jonathan Rosenbaum
Selected by Carrie Rickey, Ty Burr, David Siegel, Ginette Vincendeau, Kevin MacDonald.

Amazon Senses of Cinema Boston Phoenix
The Seventh Seal
INGMAR BERGMAN (36)

1957 | 96m | BW | Sweden | Drama, Fantasy
"If Ingmar Bergman had lived a hundred years ago he would have been a great novelist. For me he is the greatest figure since sound and The Seventh Seal is probably the film he's become most associated with" - William Goldman, NFT Bulletin, 1984
Selected by Dennis Hopper, Robin Buss, John Boorman, Barry Norman, Derek Malcolm.

Amazon Roger Ebert’s Great Movies CultureDose
The Night of the Hunter
CHARLES LAUGHTON (52)

1955 | 93m | BW | USA | Crime Thriller, Psychological Thriller
"A genuinely sinister work, full of shocks and over-emphatic sound effects, camera angles and shadowy lighting ." - NFT, 1973
Selected by David Ehrenstein, Stig Bjorkman, Nigel Andrews, Gore Verbinski, Alejandro Amenábar.
Amazon Derek Malcolm’s Century of Films Gerald Peary
See Also: 250 Quintessential Noir Films

Apocalypse Now
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA (44)

1979 | 150m | Col | USA | Anti-War Film, Adventure Drama
"Apocalypse Now is the best Vietnam film, one of the greatest of all films, because it pushes beyond the others, into the dark places of the soul. It is not about war so much as about how war reveals truths we would be happy never to discover." - Roger Ebert
Selected by Terry Jones, Michael Mann, Roger Ebert, Kim Newman, Antonia Bird.

Amazon Images Journal Roger Ebert’s Great Movies
Contempt
JEAN-LUC GODARD (49)

1963 | 103m | Col | France-Italy | Drama, Satire
"It's one thing for a film to retain every bit of its worth after more than 30 years, but more impressive is the ability to be increasingly relevant and moving with the passage of time. Such is the case with Godard's Contempt." - Kenneth Turan, 1997
Selected by Stig Bjorkman, Ginette Vincendeau, Todd McCarthy, Jonathan Romney, Philip Strick.

Amazon Salon The Criterion Collection
The 400 Blows
FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT (48)

1959 | 99m | BW | France | Childhood Drama, Coming-of-Age
"Stylistically Truffaut has a marvellous command...The images effortlessly carry the narrative...The cinema achieves one of its pure moments of catharsis." - David Robinson, Financial Times
Selected by Dennis Hopper, Robin Buss, Richard Lester, Alexander Walker, Norman Jewison.

Amazon Senses of Cinema Strictly Film School

It's a Wonderful Life
FRANK CAPRA (43)

1946 | 129m | BW | USA | Comedy Drama, Fantasy
"What is remarkable about It's a Wonderful Life is how well it holds up over the years; it's one of those ageless movies, like Casablanca or The Third Man, that improves with age." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Selected by Edward Zwick, Alex Proyas, Jonathan Romney, Mark Kermode, Owen Gleiberman.
Amazon Roger Ebert's Great Movies Chicago Reader
Andrei Rublev
ANDREI TARKOVSKY (38)

1966 | 185m | Col-BW | Russia | Historical Film, Biography
"With the exception of the great Eisenstein, I can't think of any film which has conveyed a feeling of the remote past with such utter conviction...a durable and unmistakable masterpiece." - Michael Billington, Illustrated London News
Selected by Nick James, Olivier Assayas, Peter Bradshaw, Vincent Ward, Jonathan Glazer.

Amazon Strictly Film School Senses of Cinema
Intolerance
D.W. GRIFFITH (46)

1916 | 178m | BW | USA | Historical Epic, Melodrama
"Intolerance launched ideas about associative editing that have been essential to the cinema ever since, from Soviet montage classics to recent American experimental films. And in the use of crosscutting and action to generate suspense, the film's climax hasn't been surpassed." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Selected by Armond White, Tom Gunning, Sidney Lumet, Pauline Kael, Michael Sragow.

Amazon Bright Lights Film Journal Chicago Reader

50 Notes on 26-50• The risers include CHINATOWN (up 5 spots), THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (up 15) and THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (up 9)
• The tumblers were JULES ET JIM (down 7 spots), THE SEVENTH SEAL (down 6) and ANDREI RUBLEV (down 10).

Ugetsu monogatari
KENJI MIZOGUCHI (47)

1953 | 96m | BW | Japan | Romantic Fantasy, Period Film
"Mizoguchi's unique establishment of atmosphere by means of long shot, long takes, sublimely graceful and unobtrusive camera movement, is everywhere evident...Ravishingly composed, evocatively beautiful" - Rod McShane, Time Out