Jim Emerson's "101 102 Movies You Must See Before..."

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This isn’t like Roger Ebert’s "Great Movies" series. It’s not my idea of The Best Movies Ever Made (that would be a different list, though there’s some overlap here), or that they were my favorites or the most important or influential films, but that they were the movies you just kind of figure everybody ought to have seen in order to have any sort of informed discussion about movies. They’re the common cultural currency of our time, the basic cinematic texts that everyone should know, at minimum, to be somewhat "movie-literate."

-Jim Emerson

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  1. 1.
    2001 - A Space Odyssey
    by Stanley Kubrick
  2. 2.
    The 400 Blows (The Criterion Collection)
    by François Truffaut
  3. 3.
    8 1/2 (The Criterion Collection)
    by Federico Fellini
  4. 4.
    Aguirre, the Wrath of God
    by Werner Herzog
  5. 5.
    Alien
    by Ridley Scott
  6. 6.
    All About Eve
    by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
  7. 7.
    Annie Hall
    by Woody Allen
  8. 8.
    Apocalypse Now
    by Francis Ford Coppola
  9. 9.
    Bambi (Two-Disc Platinum Edition)

  10. 10.
    Battleship Potemkin
    by Sergei M. Eisenstein
  11. 11.
    The Best Years of Our Lives
    by William Wyler
  13. 13.
    The Bicycle Thief
    by Vittorio De Sica
  14. 14.
    The Big Sleep (Snap case)
    by Howard Hawks
  15. 15.
    Blade Runner (The Director's Cut)
    by Ridley Scott
  16. 16.
    Blow Up

  17. 17.
    Blue Velvet (Special Edition)

  18. 18.
    Bonnie and Clyde
    by Arthur Penn
  19. 19.
    Breathless
    by Jean-Luc Godard
  21. 21.
    Carrie (Special Edition)
    by Brian De Palma
  22. 22.
    Casablanca (Snap Case)
    by Michael Curtiz
  23. 23.
    Un Chien Andalou
    by Luis Buñuel
  25. 25.
    Chinatown
    by Roman Polanski
  26. 26.
    Citizen Kane (Two-Disc Special Edition)
    by Orson Welles
  27. 27.
    A Clockwork Orange
    by Stanley Kubrick
  28. 28.
    The Crying Game (Collector's Edition)
    by Neil Jordan
  29. 29.
    The Day the Earth Stood Still
    by Robert Wise
  30. 30.
    Days of Heaven
    by Terrence Malick
  31. 31.
    Dirty Harry
    by Don Siegel
  33. 33.
    Do the Right Thing: The (The Criterion Collection)
    by Spike Lee
  35. 35.
    Double Indemnity
    by Billy Wilder
  37. 37.
    Duck Soup

  39. 39.
    Easy Rider (Special Edition)

  40. 40.
  41. 41.
    The Exorcist (The Version You've Never Seen)
    by William Friedkin
  42. 42.
    Fargo

  43. 43.
    Fight Club (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
    by David Fincher
  44. 44.
  45. 45.
    The General
    by Clyde Bruckman
  47. 47.
    Gone with the Wind

  48. 48.
    GoodFellas
    by Martin Scorsese
  49. 49.
    The Graduate (Special Edition)
    by Mike Nichols
  50. 50.
    Halloween (Divimax 25th Anniversary Edition)
    by John Carpenter

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Created by Jess on Apr 22, 2006.
 

Comments

johnwayne1939

john wayne — 4 years ago

Apocalypse Now wasn’t on the list when it was added later (thats why 101 is slashed). It seemed this mistake was made b/c he counted the godfather parts 1 and 2 as one film and you had it as two separate films. So I just put the whole trilogy on and added Apocalypse.

Feb 12, 11:38PM | 1 comment | Reply to this

allisoncm

A Star is Born! — 4 years ago

The original with Janet Gaynor is much better :) I Promise.

Jul 21, 09:13PM | 0 comments | Reply to this

livinglife29

Untitled — 5 years ago

memento?

american history x?

just wondering :-)

May 08, 10:18PM | 0 comments | Reply to this

Jordan

Untitled — 5 years ago

where’s the jerk?

Apr 26, 11:46PM | 1 comment | Reply to this

Jess

Untitled — 5 years ago

Okay, so there’s actually 102 films on this list – I think Emerson counts The Godfather Part I and Part II as one film.

Apr 22, 02:23AM | 0 comments | Reply to this



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