Movie illiterate
Via Kottke, a list of 102 films you should have seen before considering yourself movie-literate. As I can’t resist anything that involves films and lists, here’s my list with those I’ve seen crossed out:
2001: A Space Odyssey- The 400 Blows
- 8 1/2
- Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Alien- All About Eve
Annie HallApocalypse NowBambi- The Battleship Potemkin
- The Best Years of Our Lives
- The Big Red One
- The Bicycle Thief
The Big SleepBlade Runner- Blowup
Blue Velvet- Bonnie and Clyde
- Breathless
Bringing Up BabyCarrieCasablanca- Un Chien Andalou
- Children of Paradise / Les Enfants du Paradis
ChinatownCitizen KaneA Clockwork OrangeThe Crying Game- The Day the Earth Stood Still
- Days of Heaven
Dirty Harry- The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Do the Right Thing- La Dolce Vita
- Double Indemnity
Dr. Strangelove- Duck Soup
E.T. The Extra-TerrestrialEasy RiderThe Empire Strikes BackThe ExorcistFargoFight Club- Frankenstein
- The General
The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II- Gone With the Wind
GoodFellasThe GraduateHalloween- A Hard Day’s Night
- Intolerance
- It’s a Gift
It’s a Wonderful LifeJaws- The Lady Eve
Lawrence of Arabia- M
Mad Max 2 / The Road WarriorThe Maltese Falcon- The Manchurian Candidate
MetropolisModern TimesMonty Python and the Holy Grail- Nashville
- The Night of the Hunter
Night of the Living DeadNorth by Northwest- Nosferatu
- On the Waterfront
- Once Upon a Time in the West
- Out of the Past
- Persona
Pink FlamingosPsychoPulp Fiction- Rashomon
Rear WindowRebel Without a Cause- Red River
- Repulsion
- The Rules of the Game
Scarface- The Scarlet Empress
Schindler’s ListThe Searchers- The Seven Samurai
Singin’ in the RainSome Like It Hot- A Star Is Born
A Streetcar Named Desire- Sunset Boulevard
Taxi DriverThe Third Man- Tokyo Story
- Touch of Evil
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
- Trouble in Paradise
VertigoWest Side Story- The Wild Bunch
The Wizard of Oz
53 out of 102.
There aren’t very many surprises on the list, although I’m surprised Hitchcock gets quite so many entries (and I’ve never really seen the attraction of Psycho myself, although I seem to be very much in the minority – Vertigo is a much better film IMHO).
I wouldn’t really describe Pink Flamingos as a must-see film to facilitate educated movie discussion either, unless we’re talking scatalogical movie lore…
Filed under: Film.
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Comments
- Matthew Pennell
- 892 days ago
- I think I’ve started to watch the last four of those; Gone with the Wind was on recently, but it just seemed like too long to bother recording… ;)
- #2
- James AkaXakA
- 892 days ago
- Ha! I’ve just seen 8 of those..
..of course, I wouldn’t call myself any where NEAR movie literate anyway!
I take it that the anime version of Samurai 7 doesn’t count ;) - #3
- Marko Mihelcic
- 887 days ago
- Hm there are some that i haven’t heard of heh :) , btw there is a list of movies -kinda a favorite movie list thing check it out on : http://twofifty.org/
cheers! - #4
Out of the ones you haven’t seen, the “must see”s are:
The Day the Earth Stood Still
La Dolce Vita
Gone with the Wind
A Hard Day’s Night
The Manchurian Candidate (the original)
The Night of the Hunter
Nosferatu
Once Upon a Time in the West
The Seven Samurai
Seven Samurai and The Day The Earth Stood Still are two of my all time favourite movies.