You can already say that this is my personal canon – the films that speak the most to me as I am right now. This is never a permanent list, for as I keep watching more films, titles are to fall and come in at any point. At some point, maybe the limit may increase for as I see more films and my attachment to them grows, the selection can be quite restricting. Because what’s the point in trying to pride yourself a film lover if you always hold yourself at great limits to something you love so greatly?
- Ikiru
- A Brighter Summer Day
- Persona
- Mulholland Drive
- Nashville
- Magnolia
- Don’t Look Now
- The Graduate
- The 400 Blows
- Tokyo Story
- Only Angels Have Wings
- Yi Yi
- Solaris
- Taxi Driver
- Hiroshima Mon Amour
- Seven Samurai
- Paris, Texas
- In a Lonely Place
- Barry Lyndon
- The Human Condition
- A Woman Under the Influence
- Brazil
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- McCabe & Mrs. Miller
- On the Waterfront
- Casablanca
- The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums
- The Apartment
- Sullivan’s Travels
- The Double Life of Veronique
- Anatomy of a Murder
- Blade Runner
- In the Mood for Love
- Woman in the Dunes
- Repulsion
- Short Cuts
- Le Samouraï
- 3 Women
- Vertigo
- Do the Right Thing
- Day for Night
- The Passion of Joan of Arc
- Three Colors Trilogy (Blue, White, Red)
- The Decalogue
- Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
- Spirited Away
- High and Low
- All That Jazz
- Chinatown
- La Dolce Vita
- Lawrence of Arabia
- Apocalypse Now
- It’s a Wonderful Life
- The Big Sleep
- Make Way for Tomorrow
- Umberto D.
- His Girl Friday
- Wild Strawberries
- Tess
- Psycho
- The Battle of Algiers
- A Touch of Zen
- The Red Shoes
- City Lights
- Stalker
- Fanny & Alexander
- Sweet Smell of Success
- 8½
- The Big Lebowski
- The Night of the Hunter
- The Thin Red Line
- Raging Bull
- Chungking Express
- Cries and Whispers
- Bicycle Thieves
- Blow Out
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
- Suspiria
- Once Upon a Time in America
- Late Spring
- Harakiri
- The Searchers
- The Third Man
- Network
- Paths of Glory
- The Shining
- Sansho the Bailiff
- Singin’ in the Rain
- Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
- Rashomon
- The Godfather
- Rear Window
- Children of Men
- The Leopard
- The Apu Trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito, Apur Sansar)
- Princess Mononoke
- Boogie Nights
- Kiss Me Deadly
- Eraserhead
- My Neighbor Totoro
- The Young Girls of Rochefort
- Blue Velvet
- Sunset Boulevard
- Being There
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
- Brief Encounter
- Kwaidan
- The Player
- A Matter of Life and Death
- Alien
- 12 Angry Men
- Marketa Lazarová
- Mikey and Nicky
- The Conformist
- Time of the Gypsies
- Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
- Eyes Wide Shut
- Napoleon
- The Emigrants, The New Land
- Picnic at Hanging Rock
- Weekend
- Funeral Parade of Roses
- Days of Heaven
- Annie Hall
- A Clockwork Orange
- Ran
- Heat
- The Virgin Suicides
- Rosemary’s Baby
- The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
- Lost in Translation
- Winter Light, Through a Glass Darkly, The Silence
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight
- There Will Be Blood
- Safe
- Toy Story
- Band of Outsiders
- Vivre sa vie
- Double Indemnity
- M
- The Seventh Seal
- The Long Day Closes
- My Dinner with André
- The Rules of the Game
- GoodFellas
- Opening Night
- Pulp Fiction
- Manhattan
- Z
- Exotica
- Rififi
- Throne of Blood
- Fargo
- Los Olvidados
- Pan’s Labyrinth
- Belle de Jour
- The Last Picture Show
- Dead Ringers
- MASH
- Vengeance is Mine
- Videodrome
- The Sweet Hereafter
- The Thing
- Broadcast News
- All That Heaven Allows
- Jules and Jim
- Some Like It Hot
- The Hidden Fortress
- Harold and Maude
- Beau Travail
- The Philadelphia Story
- Stop Making Sense
- Hedwig and the Angry Inch
- The Godfather: Part II
- It Happened One Night
- Bonnie and Clyde
- The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
- All About Eve
- Daisies
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Manila in the Claws of Light
- Canoa: A Shameful Memory
- Grave of the Fireflies
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
- Betty Blue
- The Saragossa Manuscript
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
- Amadeus
- Crumb
- RoboCop
- Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
- Punch-Drunk Love
- L’avventura, La notte, L’eclisse
- Au Revoir Les Enfants
- Halloween
- Last Year at Marienbad
- sex, lies, and videotape
- My Darling Clementine
- Oasis
- Farewell My Concubine
- Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
- Dog Day Afternoon
- The Long Goodbye
- Close-Up
- The Silence of the Lambs
- Love Streams
- Johnny Guitar
- Naked
- Jaws
- Aguirre, the Wrath of God
- Rio Bravo
- Two-Lane Blacktop
- The Palm Beach Story
- The Deer Hunter
- The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
- The Truman Show
- In the Realm of the Senses
- Bigger Than Life
- Autumn Sonata
- The Exorcist
- Hannah and Her Sisters
- The General
- Rebel Without a Cause
- The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
- Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
- Death by Hanging
- Y Tu Mamá También
- Red River
- The Great Silence
- Drifting Clouds
- The Devils
- Metropolis
- Pauline at the Beach
- Rushmore
- Election
- Raise the Red Lantern
- The Exterminating Angel
- The Fisher King
- Beauty and the Beast
- The Best Years of Our Lives
- The Innocents
- The Hustler
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind
- Roman Holiday
- Once Upon a Time in the West
- The Wild Bunch
- The French Connection
- Ghost in the Shell
- Wings of Desire
- Shock Corridor
- El Sur
- La Strada
- Toy Story 2
- West Side Story
- To Be or Not to Be
- Se7en
- The Earrings of Madame de…
- Vagabond
- Ugetsu
- Yojimbo
- Seconds
- Wild at Heart
- Out of Sight
- Chimes at Midnight
- Crimes and Misdemeanors
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
- The In-Laws
- An Autumn Afternoon
- Marty
- A Star is Born
- They Live by Night
- The Fly
- Trust
- The Matrix
- My Night at Maud’s
- Hoop Dreams
- Malcolm X
- The Manchurian Candidate
- Cléo from 5 to 7
- Morvern Callar
- The Gospel According to St. Matthew
- Down by Law
- The Spirit of the Beehive
- Purple Noon
- The Green Ray
- Tropical Malady
- Eros + Massacre
- The Tree of Life
- Soldier of Orange
- Toute une nuit
- Rocco and His Brothers
- The Friends of Eddie Coyle
- The Piano Teacher
- Trouble Every Day
- A New Leaf
- Barton Fink
- House
- A.I. Artificial Intelligence
- Police Story
- Millennium Actress
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
- Pastoral: To Die in the Country
- The Heiress
- Boyfriends and Girlfriends
- Hard Boiled
- Ghost World
- North by Northwest
- A Face in the Crowd
- The Empire Strikes Back
