MovieChat Forums > La règle du jeu (1950) Discussion > 100 Essential Films

100 Essential Films

posted 19 years ago by monkeeking
43 replies | jump to latest

A local library in association with a film center put out this list. I agree with most of their choices and many are overlooked by people who put their top 100 lists on imdb.

From oldest to most recent:

1. Les Vampires (1915-16)
2. Intolerance (1916)
3. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919)
4. Nosferatu (1922)
5. Greed (1924)
6. The Navigator (1924)
7. Battleship Potemkin (1925)
8. Metropolis (1925)
9. The General (1927)
10. Napoleon (1927)
11. The Crowd (1928)
12. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
13. Speedy (1928)
14. Un Chien Andalou (1928)
15. The Wind (1928)
16. Pandora’s Box (1929)
17. All Quiet On The Western Front (1930)
18. The Blue Angel (1930)
19. M (1931)
20. Frankenstein (1931), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
21. King Kong (1933)
22. Duck Soup (1933)
23. Scarface (1933)
24. L’Atlante (1934)
25. Modern Times (1936)
26. La Grande Illusion (1937)
27. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
28. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
29. Olympia (1938)
30. The Rules of The Game (1939)*
31. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
32. Pinocchio (1940)
33. Citizen Kane (1941)
34. The Lady Eve (1941)
35. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
36. Double Indemnity (1944)
37. The Children of Paradise (1945)
38. Beauty And The Beast (1946)
39. Notorious (1946)
40. The Bicycle Thief (1948)
41. Red River (1948)
42. The Third Man (1949)
43. Rashomon (1950)
44. Sunset Boulevard (1950)
45. Singin’ In The Rain (1952)
46. Earrings of Madame De… (1953)
47. Tokyo Story (1953)
48. Ugetsu (1953)
49. Wages of Fear (1953)
50. The Seven Samurai (1954)
51. La Strada (1954)
52. All That Heaven Allows (1955)
53. The Apu Trilogy: Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956), The World of Apu (1958)
54. Invasion of The Body Snatchers (1956(
55. The Searchers (1956)
56. The Seventh Seal (1956)
57. The Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
58. Vertigo (1958)
59. L’Avventura (1959)
60. Breathless (1959)
61. The 400 Blows (1959)
62. Some Like It Hot (1959)
63. La Dolce Vita (1960)
64. Psycho (1960)
65. Jules And Jim (1962)
66. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
67. Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (1964)
68. Andrei Rublev (1966)
69. The Battle of Algiers (1966)
70. Chimes At Midnight (1966)
71. Belle De Jour (1967)
72. Le Samourai (1967)
73. Bonnie And Clyde (1967)
74. Once Upon A Time In The West (1968)
75. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
76. The Wild Bunch (1969)
77. Le Boucher (1970)
78. Gimme Shelter (1970)
79. The Conformist (1971)
80. Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972)
81. McCabe And Mrs. Miller (1971)
82. The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974)
84. Day For Night (1973)
85. Ali-Fear Eats The Soul
86. Chinatown (1974)
87. The Parallax View (1974)
88. A Woman Under The Influence (1974)
89. The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
90. Nashville (1975)
91. Taxi Driver (1976)
92. Network (1976)
93. Apocalypse Now (1979)
94. Raging Bull (1980)
95. Blade Runner (1982)
96. Tootsie (1982)
97. The Terminator (1984), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
98. Hannah And Her Sisters (1986)
99. Decalogue (1988)
100. The Thin Blue Line (1988)
101. Ju Dou (1989)
102. The Sheltering Sky (1990)
103. Malcolm X (1992)
104. Crumb (1994)
105. Pulp Fiction (1994)
106. Through The Olive Trees (1994)
107. Breaking The Waves (1996)
108. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
109. All About My Mother (1999)
110. Yi Yi (2000)

*Listed as the greatest film by the greatest film director (Jean Renoir).

[–] beaucoupjosue 19 years ago

I love it. That's a solid list, of course those are by no means the definitive 100 greatest films ever made.

[–] jpgvanlaarhoven 19 years ago

That's one great list!

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] ottffsse_sequence 19 years ago

Yeh...there's more: L' Age D'OR (1930), Sisters of the Gion (1938), Diary of a Country Priest (1950)!, Life of Oharu (1952), Ordet (1955), Winter Light (1962), Woman in the Dunes (1964), Persona (1966), Mirror (1974), )...these are esserntials. Some more probably too.

[–] ottffsse_sequence 19 years ago

add "Baraka" by Ron Fricke to the list as well (1998?). Every human being on this planet should see that movie.

[–] GETHIN-1 19 years ago

I'd question the importance of some of the later films. Tootsie and Malcolm X for example but good for the most part.

-It's envy you know. Dudley is consumed with envy.
-That's one of the seven Dudley sins.

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] richardstark 14 years ago

Yeah, Diary of a Country Priest should have made it. As should Koyannisqatsi.

[–] jprince11 19 years ago

why is pulp fiction on that list?!

blade runner...terminator...come on

plus To Live (Zhang Yimou one) is a much better version of Ju Duo and Saving Private Ryan is just a so so war epic to me

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] bencottam 18 years ago

I can't believe that people get so snotty and pretentious about these 'best film' or 'most important film' lists!!! How can anyone argue that E.T., Pulp Fiction and especially Blade Runner don't deserve a place in a classic movie poll?! Oh yeah, they argue it by citing some obscure foreign film, thereby sounding 'cool' and avoiding arguement as they know a lot of people won't have seen it! Pretentious idiots.

p.s. Neither E.T. or Pulp Fiction are my favourite films. Blade Runner certainly is. And before you start, I know and love a lot of foreign films so don't go saying that I am being cinematically xenophobic (see, I can be pretentious too!)

[–] hsemhsem 19 years ago

I would add to that:
The Conversation
Easy Rider
The 39 Steps
The Lady Vanishes
Casablanca
Brief Encounter

AFI's top 100 Most Important films:
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Intolerance (1916)
Our Hospitality (1923)
Greed (1924)
The Gold Rush (1925)
Battleship Potemkin (1925 - Russian)
The Big Parade (1925)
The Freshman (1925)
Metropolis (1926 - German)
The General (1927)
Sunrise (1927)
The Crowd (1928)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
City Lights (1931)
M (1931 - German)
Dracula (1931)
Frankenstein (1931)
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
King Kong (1933)
Duck Soup (1933)
Sons of the Desert (1933)
It Happened One Night (1934)
It's A Gift (1934)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
The 39 Steps (1935 - British)
Swing Time (1936)
Modern Times (1936)
Dodsworth (1936)
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
Grand Illusion (1937 - French)
Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
The Lady Vanishes (1938 - British)
Stagecoach (1939)
Gone With The Wind (1939)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
His Girl Friday (1940)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Fantasia (1940)
Sullivan's Travels (1941)
Citizen Kane (1941)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Lady Eve (1941)
Casablanca (1942)
The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)
Double Indemnity (1944)
My Darling Clementine (1946)
It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Great Expectations (1946 - British)
The Bicycle Thief (1948 - Italian)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Gun Crazy (1949)
All About Eve (1950)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Rashomon (1950 - Japanese)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Singin' In The Rain (1952)
High Noon (1952)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)
On The Waterfront (1954)
The Seven Samurai (1954 - Japanese)
The Searchers (1956)
Paths of Glory (1957)
The Seventh Seal (1957 - Sweden)
Vertigo (1958)
North By Northwest (1959)
The 400 Blows (1959 - French)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Psycho (1960)
La Dolce Vita (1962 - Italian)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962 - British)
8 1/2 (1963 - Italian)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned... (1964 - British)
Mary Poppins (1964)
Blow-Up (1966 - British/Italian)
The Graduate (1967)
Bonnie And Clyde (1967)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968 - British)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
The Godfather (1972)
Mean Streets (1973)
The Godfather, Part II (1974)
The Conversation (1974)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Jaws (1975)
Nashville (1975)
Annie Hall (1977)
Star Wars (1977)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Raging Bull (1980)
E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Goodfellas (1990)
Schindler's List (1993)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Fargo (1996)

They're pretty similar...

"LOOK MAN! I AIN'T GONNA FALL FOR NO BANANA IN MY TAIL PIPE!"

[–] mastercard 19 years ago

I've stumbled upon a good many similar lists, made up by official organizations
and whatnot, but what strikes me as funny is how that, when it comes to more
recent cinema, they pick some ludicrous things. How is "E.T." important? How
is "Tootsie" essential viewing? "Pulp Fiction," while a pretty good film, is
extremely unimportant in cinema history. Until they get to the seventies, they
seem to have a pretty good grasp on things, but then they go and call a popcorn
film essential. I'd go ahead and throw in a vote for Kieslowski's color trilogy, or
perhaps "The Sorrow and the Pity." Something actually important or essential.

[–] Krustallos 18 years ago

"Pulp Fiction" has been pretty influential. Time will tell whether it belongs on a "top 100" list, but it's far from being a "popcorn movie" (whatever that is).

It's difficult with people like Spielberg - clearly they're a major force in motion pictures so some recognition of that is essential, but it's quite hard to pick out one movie which sums up his work - hence "ET" I guess.

"I don’t like the term torture. I prefer to call it nastiness."

Donald Rumsfeld

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] californiadreaming26 18 years ago

So far as I can find anywhere on the web, there is no "AFI's top 100 Most Important films" and all the rest of the lists that they have done are only American movies I believe so where did you get this list???

I have always wanted AFI to do a list with international films on it, but is this really theirs?

[–] nocheesie 17 years ago

Great list. have seen/enjoyed most of these movies. now i know what else i need to see. =)

[–] lorddarkknight3 18 years ago

How is Star Wars not on that list?

Know religion, no peace. No religion, know peace.

[–] Krustallos 18 years ago

I love the fact that this list of the 100 essential films has 110 films on it (in fact more as several entries are multiples).

I've seen 76 out of the 110, how about you? (edit Jan 2007 - 83 now...)

Quibbles:-

Most cinephiles would pick "8 1/2" over "La Dolce Vita"

What is "Tootsie" doing on this list?

"Hannah" is hardly the one Woody Allen film to pick - I would go for "Stardust Memories" or maybe "Annie Hall".

Lanzmann's "Shoah" belongs on here.

"Star Wars" belongs on here, not because it's any good, but because it's a key movie in Hollywood history.

And if I was going to pick one Spielberg movie it would be "Jaws"

"I don’t like the term torture. I prefer to call it nastiness."

Donald Rumsfeld

[–] rml_89 18 years ago

for the poster that said Robocop is credible because of critereon: Well, first off Armeggedon is on critereon and so it the Rock. So, just because a movie is on critereon doesnt necessarily mean they want it on critereon.

[–] Senator_Corleone 18 years ago

Both "8 1/2" and "La Dolce Vita" have to be on the list.

"Annie Hall," definitely. But "Manhattan" and "Hannah and Her Sisters" are both acceptable choices. And "Crimes and Misdemeanors," for that manner.

No list is complete without at least three Spielberg films - usually "Jaws," "E.T." and "Schindler's List," but sometimes people shake it up and include "Close Encounters" or "Saving Private Ryan."

[–] EllawoodBlues 18 years ago

"How is "E.T." important?"

ET was important because it's a cute story of the bond between a boy and an alien. It might not seem important but it is. Tell me you didn't secretly want to cheer when Eliotte and his friends road those flying bikes over the heads of the cops? It's a triumphant moment when the protagonists [the kids] beat the villains [the cops/FBI basically the corporate world adults]..

So yeah, it is an essential movie. It may not be the best Speilberg film, but it definetly deserves its place in cinema history.

There are no athiests in fox holes

[–] PriceOfAnarchy 18 years ago

E. T., along with The 400 Blows, is perhaps one of the best films made about Children.

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] alfus 18 years ago

Definitely "Annie Hall" in place of "Hannah and Her Sisters." And "The Conversation" and "Sherlock Holmes, Jr." should also be up there.

[–] filmbuff99 18 years ago

Great lists here! Hannah and Her Sisters is actually my favourite Woody Allen film, and despite criticism towards it here, it should be a must-see. I love Allen's story being told from several points of view, his use of fg/bg and the swiveling shot in the restaurant really emphasizes the conflicting natures of the three sisters. Plus I think the attempted suicide scene is pretty funny and my favourite line is from Mickey's father: "How the hell do I know why there were Nazis? I don't know how the can opener works!"

I think E.T. is important because it portrays childhood and Spielberg's recurring theme of father figures or lack thereof. I think the fantastical elements of the film are astonishing, and the film really launched Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic (after Star Wars, of course) for special effects. It's one of my favourite films, too.

But my taste is not just in mainstream films (though I have to say they are the most addictive and most available films in North America). I enjoy films by Ang Lee, Jean-Luc Godard, Vittorio DeSica and the subject of this board, The Rules of the Game is quite a landmark in French cinema by Jean Renoir.

I think many "classic" films and several foreign films require an advanced cultured taste and frankly some films listed would only appeal to the few that are most aware of cinematic history and filmmaking. The best we can do is appreciate them, if not like them, and learn from them somehow, because they must be influential for some reason.

Thanks for sharing your favourites. I'm currently racking up a Top 100 films list myself. It's quite a challenge!

~filmbuff99~

Another quote from Hannah and Her Sisters...
"I had a great time, really. It was like the Nuremberg trials"
~ Woody Allen

[–] 18 years ago

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