List of Movies (2018-2025)
Buster Keaton as cameraman
For the past seven years (1 Jan 2018 to 31 Dec 2025, since I was 16 y.o.), I’ve kept a list of nearly all the movies I’ve seen (forgetting to record a few here and there). The list has been accumulating in my Notes app with no use to anyone, until today, when I noticed that a lot of people on X have been asking for lists of movies to introduce them to “film history” or “film as an art” or whathaveyou. Hoping to reply to a post, I went to my Notes app and started picking some favorites.
That’s when I realized: I’ve got a long list. Turns out I’ve watched ~400 movies the past seven years, though if we take out repeats, it’s only ~325.
Well, I decided to organize the list, since it was a mess. And here’s what I came up with:
Here is a list of my top ~150.
Marcello Mastroianni, 8 1/2
(These are roughly ranked in order of preference using a Python program of pairwise comparison and a bit of adjustment thereafter. It goes without saying that an entirely accurate ranking of 150 movies is impossible. Keep in mind that this is largely personal preference; I realize that some of the ordering may be contentious.)
- Andrei Rublev
- 8 ½
- Paris, Texas
- The Oak (Balanța)
- Buster Keaton movies as a package deal (see full list of movies included in this "package" below)
- Charlie Chaplin movies as a package deal (see full list of movies included in this "package" below)
- Underground (Kusturica)
- tie: La Chimera, Happy as Lazzaro
- Amarcord
- Brazil
- Pulp Fiction
- Nashville
- Gone With the Wind
- There Will Be Blood
- Barry Lyndon
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- La Haine
- Death Note (mini-series, included as a movie)
- The Seventh Seal
- Trainspotting (Boyle)
- Ko to tamo peva
- Dom Za Vesanje
- Arizona Dream
- On the Wings of Desire (Der Himmel Über Berlin)
- Nostalghia
- tie: Stalker, Mirror, Sacrifice (Tarkovsky)
- The Long Goodbye
- Breathless
- Humphry Bogart movies as a package deal (see full list of movies included in this "package" below)
- Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
- tie: All About My Mother, Talk to Her
- Raging Bull
- Taxi Driver
- Woody Allen’s movies as a package deal (see full list of movies included in this "package" below)
- David Lynch movies as a package deal (see full list of movies included in this "package" below)
- Kinds of Kindness
- Bugonia
- E La Nave Va
- Nosferatu (Murnau) (1922)
- Synonyms
- Black Cat, White Cat
- Roma
- The Wind Rises
- The Conformist
- Mon Oncle
- The 400 Blows
- Blow-Up
- Death of Stalin
- It’s a Wonderful Life
- A Clockwork Orange
- Being John Malkovitch
- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
- Cinema Paradiso
- Metropolitan
- Tale of Winter
- L’Atalante
- Jim Jaramusch Movies as a package deal (see full list of movies included in this "package" below)
- Singing in the Rain
- Il Maffioso
- Come and See
- La Dolce Vita
- Once Upon a Time in America
- The Big Lebowski
- After Hours
- Goodfellas
- Kill Bill
- Wild Strawberries
- The Favourite
- Cold War
- The Executioner
- The Lion King
- The Rules of the Game
- Toni Erdmann
- The Florida Project
- The Mother and the Whore
- Rear Window
- Shoot The Piano Player
- Lucky
- Pain and Glory
- The Phantom Thread
- Transit
- Get Out
- I Vitelloni
- The Social Network
- American Beauty
- Natural Born Killers
- The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie
- Persona
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Reservoir Dogs
- Pierrot le Fou
- Pi
- Happy End
- Withnail and I
- Do You Remember Dolly Bell?
- Totem
- I Don’t Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians
- Dance of Reality/Endless Poetry (Jodorowsky)
- Blazing Saddles
- Grand Tour
- High Heels
- Vivre Sa Vie
- The Hateful Eight
- Pickpocket
- La Notte
- L'avventura
- Viridiana
- Vertigo
- The Banshees of Inisherin
- Y Tu Mama Tambien (Cuarón)
- Wes Anderson movies as a package deal (see full list of movies included in this "package" below) (excludes The Grand Budapest Hotel, because that movie is far superior to all his others)
- Amelie
- Fargo
- A Serious Man
- American Psycho
- The Truman Show
- The Age of Innocence
- Fanny and Alexander
- A Faithful Man
- Mother!
- Melancholia
- Loveless
- Man Bites Dog
- Jules et Jim
- Au Hasard Balthazar
- Psycho
- The Brutalist
- Atame!
- Dead Poets Society
- First Reformed
- Uncut Gems
- La La Land
- Inside Llewyn Davis
- Volver
- Fallen Leaves
- WR: Mysteries of the Organism
- La Pianiste
- Magnolia
- La Grazia
- Dogtooth
- La Piscine
- A Summer's Tale
- Harold and Maude
- Kids (Clark)
- Rebel Without a Cause
- Murmur of the Heart
- La Vie de Bohème
- An Autumn's Tale
- La Religieuse
Buster Keaton Movies Package (ranked in order of preference)
- Steamboat Bill Jr.
- Sherlock Jr.
- The General
- Our Hospitality
- The Playhouse
- Misc. other Buster Keaton shorts
- The Great Buster (documentary)
Charlie Chaplin Movies Package (ranked in order of preference)
Charlie Chaplin, The Kid
- City Lights
- Modern Times
- The Circus
- The Kid
- The Gold Rush
- The Great Dictator
Humphrey Bogart Movies Package (ranked in order of preference)
Humphrey Bogart, The Big Sleep
- Casablanca
- The Big Sleep
- The Maltese Falcon
- Key Largo
- Treasure Of Sierra Madre
- In a Lonely Place
Woody Allen Movies Package (ranked in order of preference)
- Annie Hall
- Love and Death
- Crimes and Misdemeanors
- Hannah and Her Sisters
- Play it Again, Sam
- Stardust Memories
- Midnight in Paris
- To Rome, With Love
- Manhattan
- Sleeper
- Bananas
- Vicky Cristina Barcelona
- Everything you ever wanted to know about sex
- Wonder Wheel
- Cafe Society
- Manhattan Murder Mystery
- The Front
- Shadows and Fog
- Take the Money and Run
- Small Time Crooks
David Lynch Movies Package (ranked in order of preference)
David Lynch, handsome man
- Twin Peaks (series counted as a movie)
- Mulholland Dr.
- Eraserhead
- Blue Velvet
- Wild a Heart
- Inland Empire
- The Elephant Man
Jim Jaramusch Movies Package (ranked in order of preference)
- Down by Law
- Mystery Train
- Stranger than Paradise
- The Dead Don’t Die
- Coffee and Cigarettes
Wes Anderson Movies Package (ranked in order of preference)
- The Royal Tenenbaums
- Moonrise Kingdom
- Rushmore
- The Life Aquatic
- Fantastic Mr. Fox
- Isle of Dogs
- The Phoenecian Scheme
These are very good to watch for film history but unrankable given that they are a bit outdated.
(Ordered by estimated date of production.)
- Lumiere and Edison shorts
- Dante’s Inferno (1911)
- A Trip to the Moon
- The Great Train Robbery
- The Phantom Carriage
- Nanook of the North
- Battleship Potemkin
- The Cabinet of Dr Caligari
- L’Age d’Or
- La Belle et La Bete
- The Story of Film: An Odyssey (excellent tv show about film history, included here as a resource)
These are gems, but I chose not to rank them, either because they are purely entertaining or too unique/eccentric to be ranked.
(No order.)
- Rush Hour (entire trilogy)
- Leningrad Cowboys Go America
- I’m Thinking of Ending Things
- Beethoven
- Matilda
- Steamboat Willie
- The Red Balloon
- They Shall Not Grow Old
- Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
- Ballad of Buster Scruggs (a bit too uneven, some parts super good, others quite boring)
- House
I remember that I liked these, but I don’t remember them well enough to rank them justly.
(No order.)
- Do the Right Thing
- Fish Tank
- Sorry to Bother You
- Synecdoche, New York
- Tardes de Solidad
- Manchester By the Sea
- Personal Shopper
- Mank
- The Banishment
- The Beguiled
- The Graduate
- The Revenant
- The Wolf of Wallstreet
- The Killing of a Sacred Deer
- The Load
- The Other Side of Hope
- The Rider
- The Square
- Django Unchained
- At Eternity’s Gate
- In the Mood for Love
- Elle
- Julieta
- Kedi
- Welcome Mr. Marshal
- Paterson
- Perfect Days
- The Shape of Water
- To the Wonder
- The Virgin Spring
- Incredibles 2
- Climax
- Raw
- Safety Last!
- Whiplash
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
I don’t really remember much about these.
(No order.)
- First Man
- Brad's Status
- Force Majeure
- Frantz
- Félicité
- Holiday
- I, Daniel Blake
- I, Tonya
- Lacho Drom
- Lincoln Lawyer
- Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator
- Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
- Redoubt
- Uncle by Jaromil Jireš
- Under the Silver Lake
- Undine
- White Boy Rick
- You were never really here
- Young and Beautiful
Did not tickle my fancy.
(No order.)
- Breaking the Waves
- Daisies
- Donnie Darko
- Entr’acte
- Goodbye to Language
- His Girl Friday
- Irreversible
- Lost Highway
- Masculin Feminin
- Possession
- Post tenebras lux
- The Cremator
- The Hand of God
- The Human Voice
- A Woman Under the Influence
- A Taste of Cherry
- The Decalogue
- Barton Fink
- Contempt
- About Dry Grasses
- Annette
- Blue is the Warmest Color
- Call Me By Your Name
- 15:17 to Paris
- 20th Century women
- A Ghost Story
- Afire
- Black panther
- BlackkKlansman
- Cosmos
- Lady Bird
- Little Women
- Pacific Rim
- Shoplifters
- Split
- The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
- The Mountain
- The Souvenir
- The Theory of Everything
- Titane
I would be interested to hear others’ thoughts and recommendations.
If this list inspired you to watch a particular movie or set of movies, please share your experience with me!
If you would like me to write a short post about any of these movies or groups of movies, please let me know, as I plan to write some posts about movies soon.
The Mirror