We’ve now reached the point of 2022 where everyone has already given up on their new year’s resolutions, so it felt like the perfect time to post about my own. Instead of doing something useful or practical like regular exercise or logging off, I have decided to create a public watchlist of 100 films.
All of these films represent blind spots in my knowledge of the medium or just films that I’ve been meaning to watch for years but just never got around to. In curating this list I tried to pull together a selection of films that vary wildly in subject matter, design, composition, tone, form, symmetry, and balance; while also incorporating more red, more blue, more beer, and more light.
In this post, I have divided these films into nine categories to make it more readable, but the full list is available on my Letterboxd and sorted in alphabetical order. I plan to hold myself accountable by making update posts throughout the year to highlight my favorite and least favorite of these films. Will I actually watch all of them? Subscribe to find out in 2023.
Silent Cinema
Body and Soul (Oscar Micheaux, US, 1925)
It (Josef von Sternberg and Clarence G. Badger, US, 1927)
Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, Russia, 1929)
Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, Germany, 1922)
Strike (Sergei Eisenstein, Russia, 1925)
Early Sound and Pre-Code Hollywood
Follow the Fleet (Mark Sandrich, US, 1936)
The Gay Divorcee (Mark Sandrich, US, 1934)
Mädchen in Uniform (Leontine Sagan, Germany, 1931)
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Frank Capra, US, 1936)
Queen Christina (Rouben Mamoulian, US, 1933)
The Smiling Lieutenant (Ernst Lubitsch, US, 1931)
Twentieth Century (Howard Hawks, US, 1934)
Classic Talkies and the Golden Age Musical
The Best of Our Lives (William Wyler, US, 1946)
Calamity Jane (David Butler, US, 1953)
The Gang’s All Here (Busby Berkeley, US, 1943)
Irma la Douce (Billy Wilder, US, 1963)
Laura (Otto Preminger, US, 1944)
The Red Shoes (Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell, UK, 1948)
The Searchers (John Ford, US, 1956)
A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, US, 1951)
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, US, 1958)
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (Robert Aldrich, US, 1962)
New Hollywood and American Independent Fiction
All the President’s Men (Alan J. Pakula, 1976)
The Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993)
Angels in America (Mike Nichols, 2003)
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Paul Mazursky, 1969)
Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, 1991)
Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet, 1975)
Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992)
Finian’s Rainbow (Francis Ford Coppola, 1968)
Frida (Julie Taymor, 2002)
History of the World: Part I (Mel Brooks, 1981)
Mysterious Skin (Gregg Araki, 2004)
The Player (Robert Altman, 1992)
The Prince of Tides (Barbra Streisand, 1991)
The Ritz (Richard Lester, 1976)
Shampoo (Hal Ashby, 1975)
Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven, 1990)
The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)
Watermelon Man (Melvin Van Peebles, 1970)
Innovations in Documentary
The Atomic Café (Jayne Loader, Kevin and Pierce Rafferty, US, 1982)
Ex Libris: The New York Public Library (Frederick Wiseman, US, 2017)
F For Fake (Orson Welles, France, 1973)
Harlan County U.S.A. (Barbara Kopple, US, 1976)
Law and Order (Frederick Wiseman, US, 1969)
The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris, US, 1988)
International Musicals
¡Ay Carmela! (Carlos Saura, Spain, 1990)
Black Cat, White Cat (Emir Kusturica, Serbia, 1998)
Blood Wedding (Carlos Saura, Spain, 1981)
The Blue Angel (Josef von Sternberg, Germany, 1930)
Dil Se… (Mani Ratnam, India, 1998)
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (Aditya Chopra, India, 1995)
Hipsters (Valery Todorovsky, Russia, 2008)
Jolly Fellows (Grigoti Aleksandrov, Russia, 1934)
Kal Ho Naa Ho (Nikkhil Advani, India, 2003)
Lemonade Joe (Oldřich Lipský, Czechoslovakia, 1964)
Le Million (René Clair, France, 1931)
Mother India (Mehboob Khan, India, 1957)
Office (Johnnie To, Hong Kong, 2015)
The Pirates of Penzance (Wilford Leach, UK, 1983)
Princess Raccoon (Seijun Suzuki, Japan, 2005)
Pyaasa (Guru Dutt, India, 1957)
The Threepenny Opera (G.W. Pabst, Germany, 1931)
Under the Roofs of Paris (René Clair, France, 1930)
8 Women (François Ozon, France, 2002)
Post-War East Asian Cinema
Fallen Angels (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong, 1995)
The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook, South Korea, 2016)
House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou, China, 2004)
In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong, 2000)
Millennium Actress (Satoshi Kon, Japan, 2001)
Paprika (Satoshi Kon, Japan, 2006)
Peking Opera Blues (Tsui Hark, Hong Kong, 1986)
Sanjuro (Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1962)
Tokyo Story (Yasujirō Ozu, Japan, 1953)
Yojimbo (Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1961)
The Global South Outside East Asia
The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy and Algeria, 1966)
La Ciénaga (Lucretia Martel, Argentina, 2001)
The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, Mexico, 1962)
Touki Bouki (Djibril Diop Mambéty, Senegal, 1973)
Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand, 2004)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand, 2010)
Viridiana (Luis Buñuel, Spain and Mexico, 1961)
Western European Art-House
Autumn Sonata (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1978)
Bad Education (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, 2004)
Blithe Spirit (David Lean, UK, 1945)
Le Bonheur (Agnès Varda, France, 1965)
Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1963)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Buñuel, Spain, 1972)
The Marriage of Maria Braun (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Germany, 1979)
The Merchant of Four Seasons (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Germany, 1972)
News from Home (Chantal Akerman, Belgium, 1976)
Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini, Italy, 1957)
Pepi, Luci, Bom (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, 1980)
Persona (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1966)
Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, France, 1959)
Rome, Open City (Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 1945)
Testament of Orpheus (Jean Cocteau, France, 1960)
8 ½ (Federico Fellini, Italy, 1963)
The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, France, 1959)