Are you looking for the most essential movies to watch? Let’s face it, movies have played an outsized role in driving culture forward. Their ability to tell stories is only rivaled by books (on which many films have been based). From its earliest days, film (motion pictures) has been a sensation. This only increased when motion pictures included sound. We’ve gone through the stark realism of silent pictures to the splashy musicals of the 40s and 50s and into the larger-than-life epics. From the American West to a galaxy far, far away, motion pictures have transformed how we see the world.

In this list, I have selected my favorite films and those which I think are most important. Some of them are Academy Award Nominees and many of them are simply excellent films. If you are looking for documentaries please see the Official Documentary List for what documentaries I think I really worth watching.

Here is my Official Movie List (2024)

• Apocalypse Now: Director’s Cut
• Your Loving Vincent
• Nosferatu (the black and white, silent film from 1922)
• Birth of a Nation
• Taxi
• The French Connection
• Coffee and Cigarettes
• Waking Life
• Gone with the Wind
• Capote
• Fried Green Tomatoes
• Mildred Pierce
• Sunset Boulevard
• Mulholland Drive
• What Happened to Baby Jane?
• The Godfather Part II
• The Breakfast Club
• St. Elmo’s Fire
• Rocky Horror Picture Show
• The Women
• The Searchers
• Stagecoach (The 1938 black and white version)
• White Christmas
• The King’s Speech
• The English Patient
• The French Lieutenant’s Wife
• Twister
• Schindler’s List
• Grey Gardens
• The Italian Job
• Citizen Kane
• Rebel Without a Cause
• Fantasia
• Network
• Some Like it Hot
• The Grapes of Wrath
• North by Northwest
• Annie Hall
• Interiors
• Dr. Strangelove or how I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb
• A Clockwork Orange
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
• It’s A Wonderful Life
• Chinatown
• Pulp Fiction
• Spirited Away
• The Lovely Bones
• The Killing Fields
• The Shawshank Redemption
• Inception
• Beauty and the Beast
• Hotel Rwanda
• The Great Dictator
• Das Boot
• The Apartment
• Persepolis
• L.A. Confidential
• Green Book
• There Will Be Blood
• No Country for Old Men
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
• The Bridge on the River Kwai
• 12 Years a Slave
• The Big Lebowski
• The Handmaiden
• In the Mood for Love

2026 update

Foreign

• The Faun (Il Fauno)
• Volver
• In the Mood for Love
• Y tu mamá también
•  Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• Curse of the Golden Flower
• Desperado
• Once Upon a Time in Mexico

Cult 

• Rocky Horror Picture Show 
• Clue
• Murder by Death
• Clerks
• The Room/The Artist 
• Scream (especially 1, 3, and 9)
• Airport (all)

Comedy 

• 3 Amigos 
• The Grand Budapest Hotel 
• Moonrise Kingdom 
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 
• It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad world 
• Gumball 
• The Royal Tenenbaums

Drama 

• Sunset boulevard 
• Mulholland Drive 
• The Women 
• Bridges of Madison county 
• Titanic (1997) 
• 3 Billboards of Ebbing, Missouri
• The Godfather/part 2 
• Syriana 
• The French connection/2
• Children of a Lesser God 
• Parasite

Just for fun 

• It’s a Wonderful Life 
  Breakfast Club 
• Pretty Woman 
• Volcano 
• Geostorm
• Chitty, Chitty Bang, Bang 

Intellectual 

• Network 
• My Dinner with Andre 
• Capote 
• Interiors 
• Coffee and Cigarettes 
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 
• The Social Network

Westerns

• Fort Apache 
• The Searchers 
• Stagecoach (1933)
• High Noon
• The Camancheros

Period 

• Marie Antoinette (2006)
• Glory 
• Hitari
• Gone with the wind 
• Bridge Over the River Kwai
• The Longest Day
• The 10 Commandments 
• St Elmo’s Fire 
• Cleopatra 
• Dunkirk
• No Country for Old Men
• Inglorious Bastards
• The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934)
• There Will Be Blood

Classic Hollywood and Broadway 

• Gypsy 
• The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas 
• Around the World in 80 Days (1957) 
• Grease 
• Some Like it Hot 

Animation 

• The Prince of Egypt 
• Beauty and the beast 
• Bed Knobs and Broomsticks 
• Mary Poppins 
• Snow White 
• Fantasia
• Anastacia

Horror

• Nosferatu (1925?)
• The Conjuring/3
• The Blair Witch Project 
• Dracula 
• The Day the Earth Stood Still 
• The Birds
• Insidious (franchise)
• Amityville Horror