Top 50 Films
Updated Sat Aug 16 2025
This list is a congregation of several countries, a dozen languages, and many directors' worth of material. With this list, I am hoping to express my personal favorites as well as acknowledge the greatest films of all time. See also my Top Albums List.
| # | Title | Director | Year |
| 1. | Stardust Memories | Woody Allen | 1980 |
| 2. | Persona | Ingmar Bergman | 1966 |
| 3. | 2001: A Space Odyssey | Stanley Kubrick | 1968 |
| 4. | The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari | Robert Wiene | 1920 |
| 5. | A Woman under the Influence | John Cassavetes | 1974 |
| 6. | Woman in the Dunes | Hiroshi Teshigahara | 1964 |
| 7. | Heaven Knows What | Josh Safdie & Benny Safdie | 2014 |
| 8. | The Passion of Joan of Arc | Carl Theodor Dreyer | 1928 |
| 9. | Dogville | Lars von Trier | 2003 |
| 10. | Sátántangó | Béla Tarr | 1994 |
| 11. | Inland Empire | David Lynch | 2006 |
| 12. | The Connection | Shirley Clarke | 1962 |
| 13. | Manhattan | Woody Allen | 1979 |
| 14. | Naked Lunch | David Cronenberg | 1991 |
| 15. | Kings of the Road | Wim Wenders | 1976 |
| 16. | Stalker | Andrei Tarkovsky | 1979 |
| 17. | Mulholland Dr. | David Lynch | 2001 |
| 18. | Thelma & Louise | Ridley Scott | 1991 |
| 19. | Streetwise | Martin Bell | 1984 |
| 20. | The Florida Project | Sean Baker | 2017 |
| 21. | Mommy | Xavier Dolan | 2014 |
| 22. | The Color of Pomegranates | Sergei Parajanov | 1968 |
| 23. | Happiness | Todd Solondz | 1997 |
| 24. | Dancer in the Dark | Lars von Trier | 2000 |
| 25. | Do the Right Thing | Spkie Lee | 1989 |
| 26. | Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind | Michel Gondry | 2004 |
| 27. | The Holy Mountain | Alejandro Jodorowsky | 1973 |
| 28. | M | Fritz Lang | 1931 |
| 29. | The Bicycle Thief | Vittorio de Sica | 1948 |
| 30. | Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown | Pedro Almodóvar | 1988 |
| 31. | A Raisin in the Sun | Daniel Petrie | 1961 |
| 32. | Paris Is Burning | Jennie Livingston | 1990 |
| 33. | Pink Flamingos | John Waters | 1972 |
| 34. | Lilya 4-Ever | Lukas Moodysson | 2002 |
| 35. | 8½ | Federico Fellini | 1963 |
| 36. | Chinatown | Roman Polanski | 1974 |
| 37. | The Doom Generation | Gregg Araki | 1995 |
| 38. | All That Jazz | Bob Fosse | 1979 |
| 39. | Amour | Michael Haneke | 2012 |
| 40. | Vagabond | Agnès Varda | 1985 |
| 41. | Synecdoche, New York | Charlie Kaufman | 2008 |
| 42. | Dead Man | Jim Jarmusch | 1995 |
| 43. | Network | Sidney Lumet | 1976 |
| 44. | Funeral Parade of Roses | Toshio Matsumoto | 1969 |
| 45. | Suburbia | Penelope Spheeris | 1983 |
| 46. | Love Streams | John Cassavetes | 1984 |
| 47. | The 400 Blows | François Truffaut | 1959 |
| 48. | The Fire Within | Louis Malle | 1963 |
| 49. | Bad Lieutenant | Abel Ferrera | 1992 |
| 50. | Holy Motors | Leos Carax | 2012 |