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
- Mulholland Drive
- A Brighter Summer Day
- Persona
- Nashville
- Magnolia
- Don’t Look Now
- The Graduate
- Hiroshima Mon Amour
- Tokyo Story
- Only Angels Have Wings
- Yi Yi
- Solaris
- Taxi Driver
- Seven Samurai
- The 400 Blows
- 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
- Vertigo
- Casablanca
- The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums
- The Apartment
- The Double Life of Veronique
- Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
- Do the Right Thing
- Lawrence of Arabia
- Anatomy of a Murder
- Sullivan’s Travels
- Blade Runner
- In the Mood for Love
- Three Colors Trilogy (Blue, White, Red)
- Spirited Away
- Woman in the Dunes
- Repulsion
- Short Cuts
- Le Samouraï
- Day for Night
- The Passion of Joan of Arc
- The Decalogue
- High and Low
- All That Jazz
- Chinatown
- The Leopard
- Make Way for Tomorrow
- La Dolce Vita
- It’s a Wonderful Life
- Apocalypse Now
- The Big Sleep
- 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
- Eraserhead
- Raging Bull
- Chungking Express
- Cries and Whispers
- Blow Out
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
- Suspiria
- Once Upon a Time in America
- Paths of Glory
- Late Spring
- Eyes Wide Shut
- Harakiri
- Sansho the Bailiff
- The Searchers
- Princess Mononoke
- The Third Man
- My Neighbor Totoro
- Network
- The Shining
- Singin’ in the Rain
- Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
- Rashomon
- The Godfather
- Rear Window
- Children of Men
- The Apu Trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito, Apur Sansar)
- Boogie Nights
- Kiss Me Deadly
- Blue Velvet
- The Young Girls of Rochefort
- Army of Shadows
- Rosemary’s Baby
- Throne of Blood
- Last Year at Marienbad
- GoodFellas
- Bicycle Thieves
- Sunset Boulevard
- Being There
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
- Mikey and Nicky
- Brief Encounter
- The Player
- A Matter of Life and Death
- Alien
- There Will Be Blood
- Exotica
- 12 Angry Men
- The General
- All About Eve
- Marketa Lazarová
- Dead Ringers
- The Conformist
- Paris is Burning
- Time of the Gypsies
- Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
- Harold and Maude
- Johnny Guitar
- Napoleon
- 3 Women
- The Emigrants, The New Land
- Picnic at Hanging Rock
- Weekend
- Funeral Parade of Roses
- Days of Heaven
- A Clockwork Orange
- Ran
- Heat
- The Virgin Suicides
- Vagabond
- The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
- Daisies
- Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
- Bergman’s Reduction Trilogy (Winter Light, Through a Glass Darkly, The Silence)
- Tampopo
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
- The Before Trilogy (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight)
- Safe
- Videodrome
- Pan’s Labyrinth
- Kwaidan
- Toy Story
- Rio Bravo
- Perfect Blue
- Band of Outsiders
- The Thing
- Annie Hall
- Vivre sa vie
- Double Indemnity
- M
- Los Olvidados
- The Seventh Seal
- The Long Day Closes
- The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
- My Dinner with André
- The Rules of the Game
- Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
- Opening Night
- Pulp Fiction
- Fargo
- Naked
- The Exterminating Angel
- Rififi
- Hedwig and the Angry Inch
- The Long Goodbye
- My Darling Clementine
- Mildred Pierce
- Belle de Jour
- The Last Picture Show
- The Sweet Hereafter
- Broadcast News
- All That Heaven Allows
- Some Like It Hot
- The Godfather Part II
- Ghost in the Shell
- The Hidden Fortress
- Beau Travail
- Manila in the Claws of Light
- The Philadelphia Story
- Stop Making Sense
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Grave of the Fireflies
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
- Betty Blue
- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
- Amadeus
- RoboCop
- Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
- Punch-Drunk Love
- Jules and Jim
- It Happened One Night
- Z
- Manhattan
- Canoa: A Shameful Memory
- In the Realm of the Senses
- The Saragossa Manuscript
- Antonioni’s Alienation Trilogy (L’avventura, La notte, L’eclisse)
- Au Revoir Les Enfants
- Halloween
- sex, lies, and videotape
- Oasis
- Once Upon a Time in the West
- Farewell My Concubine
- Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
- The Silence of the Lambs
- Dog Day Afternoon
- Close-Up
- Old Joy
- Love Streams
- Jaws
- Red River
- Aguirre, the Wrath of God
- The Fisher King
- Yojimbo
- The Deer Hunter
- The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
- The Truman Show
- Bigger Than Life
- Beauty and the Beast
- Autumn Sonata
- Millennium Actress
- The Exorcist
- Hannah and Her Sisters
- Rebel Without a Cause
- Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
- Death by Hanging
- Y Tu Mamá También
- The Great Silence
- Drifting Clouds
- The Devils
- Metropolis
- Pauline at the Beach
- Rushmore
- Election
- Raise the Red Lantern
- The Best Years of Our Lives
- The Innocents
- The Hustler
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind
- Castle in the Sky
- All About My Mother
- Roman Holiday
- The Wild Bunch
- The French Connection
- Seconds
- Cléo from 5 to 7
- Wings of Desire
- The Palm Beach Story
- Sans Soleil
- Shock Corridor
- Lost in Translation
- El Sur
- La Strada
- Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
- West Side Story
- To Be or Not to Be
- The Earrings of Madame de…
- Ugetsu
- Crumb
- Bonnie and Clyde
- Vengeance Is Mine
- Wild at Heart
- Out of Sight
- Chimes at Midnight
- My Own Private Idaho
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
- An Autumn Afternoon
- The Tree of Life
- A Star is Born
- The King of Comedy
- They Live by Night
- The Fly
- Trust
- The Matrix
- My Night at Maud’s
- Hoop Dreams
- The Master
- Malcolm X
- Parasite
- Klute
- The Manchurian Candidate
- Morvern Callar
- Down by Law
- The Spirit of the Beehive
- The Green Ray
- Tropical Malady
- The Piano Teacher
- Trouble Every Day
- A New Leaf
- An Unmarried Woman
- Toute une nuit
- The Gospel According to St. Matthew
- Rocco and His Brothers
- Claire’s Knee
- Possession
- The Friends of Eddie Coyle
- Marty
- Toy Story 2
- Soldier of Orange
- Night of the Living Dead
- Barton Fink
- House
- A Man Escaped
- Eros + Massacre
- A.I. Artificial Intelligence
- The Princess Bride
- PlayTime
- Police Story
- Memories of Murder
