MIND
This is a list of the movies that I intellectually realize as great or enormously influential but with which I have not (yet) made a personal connection. (Because, really, something might be wrong with you if you feel a personal connection to “Birth of a Nation.”) Movies from this list, upon further viewing or contemplation, are liable to graduate to The Soul. (Although, if “Birth of a Nation” does, please shoot me.) Back to first "Best" page.
1) All Quiet on the Western Front (Milestone, Lewis; 1930; US)
2) Au Hasard, Balthazar/Balthazar (Bresson, Robert; 1966; France)
3) Battleship Potemkin/Potemkin (Eisenstein, Sergei; 1925; Russia)
4) Best Years of Our Lives, The (Wyler, William; 1946; US)
5) Bicycle Thief, The/Ladri di Biciclette/Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, Vittorio; 1948; Italy)
6) Birth of a Nation, The (Griffith, D.W.; 1915; US)
7) Casablanca (Curtiz, Michael; 1942; US)
8) Duck Soup
9) Five Easy Pieces (Rafelson, Bob; 1970; US)
10) Gold Rush, The (Chaplin, Charles; 1925; US)
11) Grapes of Wrath, The (Ford, John; 1940; US)
12) It’s a Wonderful Life (Capra, Frank; 1946; US)
13) Modern Times (Chaplin, Charles; 1936; US)
14) Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Capra, Frank; 1939; US)
15) Nashville (Altman, Robert; 1975; US)
16) Paths of Glory (Kubrick, Stanley; 1957; US)
17) Rashomon (Kurosawa, Akira; 1950; Japan)
18) Singin’ in the Rain (Donen, Stanley/Gene Kelly; 1952; US)
19) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937; US)
20) Stagecoach (Ford, John; 1939; US)
21) Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock, Alfred; 1951; US)
22) Streetcar Named Desire, A (Kazan, Elia; 1951; US)
23) Sunset Blvd. (Wilder, Billy; 1950; US)
24) Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (Huston, John; 1948; US)