Best Films of the 1910s

Birth of a Nation
Intolerance
Broken Blossoms
Fantomas
Dantes Inferno
20,000 Leagues under the Sea
Judex (1916)
Les Vampires
Carmen
Harakiri

Best Films of the 1920s

The Passion of Joan of Arc
Metropolis
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Nosferatu
Anything by Charlie Chaplin during the 20s
Haxan
Battleship Potemkin
The Jazz Singer
Strike!
The Thief of Baghdad

Best Films of the 1930s

Gone with the Wind
M
The Wizard of Oz
It Happened One Night
City Lights
Stagecoach
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Vampyr
The Rules of the Game
Duck Soup

Best Films of the 1940s

Anything by Alfred Hitchcock from the 40s
Citizen Kane
Anything starring Humphrey Bogart from the 40s
Its a Wonderful Life
The Great Dictator
Double Indemnity
Bicycle Thieves
Red River
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Philadelphia Story

Best Films of the 1950s

The Seventh Seal
Seven Samurai
Anything by Elia Kazan from the 50s
Vertigo
Forbidden Planet
Some Like it Hot
North by Northwest
Sunset Boulevard
12 Angry Men
Paths of Glory
Best films of the 1960s
2001: A Space Odyssey
Psycho
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Graduate
Breakfast at Tiffanys
To Kill a Mockingbird
Dr. Strangelove
Lawrence of Arabia
Belle de Jour
Rosemarys Baby

Best films of the 1970s

A Clockwork Orange
The Godfather, 1 and 2
The Exorcist
The French Connection
Star Wars
Apocalypse Now
Jaws
Alien
Taxi Driver
Chinatown

Best films of the 1980s

The Shining
Blade Runner
Full Metal Jacket
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Amadeus
Platoon
Elephant Man
Scarface
Ghostbusters
(For better or for worse) Heavens Gate

Best films of the 1990s

Silence of the Lambs
Eyes Wide Shut
Boogie Nights
Fargo
Dazed and Confused
Jurassic Park
Good Will Hunting
American History X
Anything by Quentin Tarantino from the 90s
Life is Beautiful

Best films of the 2000s

There Will Be Blood
No Country for Old Men
The Departed
Mulholland Dr.
The LotR Trilogy
Inglorious Basterds
Almost Famous
Memento
Doubt

Best films of the 2010s (so far)

12 Years a Slave
Tree of Life
The Kings Speech
The Master
Blue is the Warmest Color
Killer Joe
The Fighter
Holy Motors
Boyhood
Ida

Best Animated Features

My Neighbor Totoro
Waltz with Bashir
Lion King
Toy Story
Akira
Persepolis
Princess Mononoke
Snow White
Wall-e
Robin Hood (1973)
Grave of the Fireflies
A Scanner Darkly
Waking Life
Best Non-narrative/Non-traditional Narrative
Night and Fog
Thin Blue Line
Deliver us from Evil (Documentary)
Lessons of Darkness
The War Room
Shoah
Man on a Wire
F for Fake
The Act of Killing
Exit through the Gift Shop
Chronos/Baraka/Samsara /Koyaanisqatsi/Powaqqatsi/Naqoyqatsi
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

Best Criterion Collection stuff on H+

Diabolique, 1954 - Horror, basis for Hitchcock's Psycho

Gray's Anatomy, 1997 - Sardonic, arthouse monologue film

Tess, 1979 - Psycho-drama about rape and revenge

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, 1990 - Colorful comedy-drama about Stockholm syndrome

Scanners, 1981 - Horror-thriller about battling psychics. Inspired Akira

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, 1974 - German New Wave quintessential drama

Things to Come, 1936 - Classic wonky sci-fi, written by H.G. Wells

Babette's Feast, 1987 - Food drama. Should eat while watching

The League of Gentlemen, 1960 - Basil Dearden's crime drama about the post-war
years

Anything by Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai, Sanjuro, Yojimbo, etc.)

Breathless, 1960 - Godard's classic commentary on the lives of the bourgeois

Watership Down, 1978 - Dark and atypical animated film

Judex, 1963 - Franju's funky, weird ?superhero? film

The Double Life of Veronique, 1991 - Kieslowski's ethereal melodrama about love
and identity

Belle de Jour, 1967 - Bunuel's radical film about a working girl

Quadrophenia, 1979 - As described by Nicolas Refn: "It's fucking rock'n'roll, man!"

My Dinner with Andre, 1981 - Wallace Shawn ("Inconceivable!") and theater director
Andre Gregory muse about life, love, and art

Anything by Andrei Tarkovsky (Solaris, Ivan's Childhood, Andrei Rublev, etc.)

Anything by Ingmar Bergman (Seventh Seal, Cries and Whispers, Persona, etc.)

Late Spring, 1949 - Ozu's meditation on time, and his portraiture of an aging Tokyo

Anything by Federico Fellini (Amarcord, 8 1/2, La Dolce Vita, etc.)

M, 1931 - Fritz Lang's brilliant reverse mystery film

Ugetsu, 1953 - Kenji Mizoguchi's otherworldly and meditative romance

The Vanishing, 1988 - George Sluzier's crushing, creepy murder mystery that
inspired Gone Girl
Walkabout, 1971 - A fantastical and dark coming-of-age tale in the Australian
Outback

A Woman Under the Influence, 1974 - John Cassavetes' prototypical independent

drama

Zazie dans le Metro, 1960 - A funky fantasy drama, where a young girl explores
Paris by herself

A Hard Day's Night, 1964 - The Beatles star in Richard Lester's wild vision of mass-
hysteria and pop music

Z, 1969 - Costa-Gravas' dark comedy about politics and the average person

Vivre Sa Vie, 1952 - Extremely controversial and idiosyncratic film about a prostitute
in Paris

House, 1977 - Fucking strange psychotropic Japanese thriller

Lord of the Flies, 1963 - Brook's clever interpretation of the classic youth novel

Jules and Jim, 1962 - French New Wave love story that defined an age

The Rules of the Game, 1939 - Jean Renoir's hilarious commentary on upper-class
excess, constantly called one of the best films ever

Carnival of Souls, 1982 - Bizarre horror film that is the epitome of a 'cult classic'

The Three Colors Trilogy, 1990 - 1995 - Kieslowski's sometimes-funny, sometimes-

sad reflection on life in post-Soviet Poland
Sansho the Bailiff, 1954 - Mizoguchi's exquisite costume drama about commoners in
transition in Ido-period Japan

Anything by Max Ophuls (The Red Shoes, The Earrings of Madame de..., La Ronde,
Lola Montes)

The Night Porter, 1974 - A highly controversial, darkly funny erotic thriller. Oh and
Nazisploitation..

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, 1985 - Paul Schraders mockudockudrama about a

man who commits seppuku

Anything by Charlie Chaplin (The Modern Age, City Lights, Gold Rush, The Kid, etc.)

Anything by C.T. Dreyer (Vampyr, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Ordet, Gertrud, etc.)

The Wages of Fear, 1953 - Gripping thriller about four men that are tasked with
moving hundreds of pounds of nitroglycerin across the mountains

Richard III, 1955 - Laurence Olivier delivers a great performance as the titular evil
aristocrat

Picnic at Hanging Rock, 1975 - Sunbathed Australian msytery film, with themes
about romance, power, and class relations

Eraserhead, 1977 - David Lynch's idiosyncratic fantasy horror school project

The War Room, 1993 - D.A. Pennebaker's awesome look behind the scenes of Bill
Clinton's campaign

Murmur of the Heart, 1971 - A lovely little French film about incest

The Joke, 1969 - Excellent commentary on Communism, written by Milan Kundera

Anything by Sergei Eisenstein (Ivan the Terrible, Strike, Alexander Nevsky,
Battleship Potemkin)

Au Hasard Balthazar, 1966 - The life and times of a donkey, and all of his strange
owners

F for Fake, 1973 - Orson Welles' tribute to cons, fakes, and charlatans everywhere

Exterminating Angel, 1962 - Rich people can't leave dinner for some reason

Branded to Kill, 1963 - Colorful and wacky Yakuza thriller. Inspired Tarantino and
others

Sisters, 1973 - Brian de Palma's classic doppelganger thriller

Paris, Texas, 1984 - Wim Wenders' trippy, thoughtful melodrama about finding one's
roots

Black Orpheus, 1959 - Marcel Camus' sumptuous costume drama brings myth to life

Umberto D., 1952 - De Sica's pensive drama about an aging business man in post-
War Italy

Cronos, 1993 Del Toros first foray into horror is an interesting and visually
impressive thrill

Best Books
100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Siddartha, Herman Hesse

The Stranger, Albert Camus

Roadside Picnic, Boris and Arkady Strugatsky

The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer

The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk

Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs

Richard III, William Shakespeare

Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott

The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie

House of Leaves, Mark Danielewski

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsen

No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy

The Worm Ouroboros, Eric Eddison

Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Oil!, Upton Sinclair

Dune, Frank Herbert

The Nibelungenlied, Unknown

A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin

The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan

The Silmarillion, J. R. R. Tolkien

The Ground Beneath her Feet, Salman Rushdie

Eclipse of the Crescent Moon, Geza Gardonyi

Dracula, Bram Stoker

The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux

Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein

The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov

Snowcrash, Neal Stephenson

12 Years a Slave, Solomon Northup

Ulysses, James Joyce

A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter Miller, Jr.

Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Don Quixote, Cervantes

The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco

Foundation, Isaac Asimov

Exodus, Leon Uris

Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon

Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier

Les Liasons Dangereuses, Christopher Hampton

Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton

Raw Shark Texts, Steven Hall

A Million Little Pieces, James Frey

Pillars of Earth, Ken Follet

Shogun, James Clavell

Brighton Rock, Graham Greene

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl

The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

Faust, Johann von Goethe

War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio