Two German gentlemen, Bertz & Fischer, came up with a “list to end all lists” of the 100 greatest movies. It’s just another meta-list, but it’s worth recording anyway:
The Gold Rush, Chaplin, 1925
Battleship Potemkin, Eisenstein, 1925
The General, Keaton, 1926
Metropolis, Lang, 1927
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, Murnau, 1927
The Passion of Joan of Arc, Dreyer, 1928
City Lights, Chaplin, 1931
M, Lang, 1931
Modern Times, Chaplin, 1936
Grand Illusion, Renoir, 1937
Bringing Up Baby, Hawks, 1938
The Rules of the Game, Renoir, 1939
The Wizard of Oz, Fleming, 1939
Gone with the Wind, Fleming, 1939
Citizen Kane, Welles, 1941
The Maltese Falcon, Huston, 1941
Casablanca, Curtiz, 1943
Double Indemnity, Wilder, 1944
Children of Paradise, Carne, 1945
It’s a Wonderful Life, Capra, 1946
Bicycle Thieves, De Sica, 1948
The Third Man, Reed, 1949
Sunset Blvd., Wilder, 1950
Rashomon, Kurosawa, 1950
All About Eve, Mankiewicz, 1950
Singin’ in the Rain, Donen, 1952
Tokyo Story, Ozu, 1953
Seven Samurai, Kurosawa, 1954
On the Waterfront, Kazan, 1954
Rear Window, Hitchcock, 1954
The Night of the Hunter, Laughton, 1955
The Searchers, Ford, 1956
The Seventh Seal, Bergman, 1957
Touch of Evil, Welles, 1958
Vertigo, Hitchcock, 1958
Some Like It Hot, Wilder, 1959
The 400 Blows, Truffaut, 1959
North by Northwest, Hitchcock, 1959
La Dolce Vita, Fellini, 1960
Breathless, Godard, 1960
L’avventura, Antonioni, 1960
The Apartment, Wilder, 1960
Psycho, Hitchcock, 1960
Lawrence of Arabia, Lean, 1962
8 1/2, Fellini, 1963
The Leopard, Visconti, 1963
Dr. Strangelove, Kubrick, 1964
Persona, Bergman, 1966
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Leone, 1966
Bonnie and Clyde, Penn, 1967
2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick, 1968
Once Upon a Time in the West, Leone, 1968
Andrei Rublev, Tarkovsky, 1969
The Wild Bunch, Peckinpah, 1969
A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick, 1971
The Godfather, Coppola, 1972
Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Herzog, 1972
Chinatown, Polanski, 1974
The Godfather: Part II, Coppola, 1974
Nashville, Altman, 1975
Jaws, Spielberg, 1976
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Forman, 1975
Taxi Driver, Scorsese, 1976
Annie Hall, Allen, 1977
Star Wars, Lucas, 1977
The Deer Hunter, Cimino, 1978
Apocalypse Now, Coppola, 1979
Alien, Scott, 1979
The Empire Strikes Back, Kershner, 1980
The Shining, Kubrick, 1980
Raging Bull, Scorsese, 1980
Raiders of the Lost Arc, Speilberg, 1981
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Spielberg, 1982
Blade Runner, Scott, 1982
Fanny and Alexander, Bergman, 1982
Once Upon a Time in America, Leone, 1984
Back to the Future, Zemeckis, 1985
Blue Velvet, Lynch, 1986
Die Hard, McTiernan, 1988
GoodFellas, Scorsese, 1990
The Silence of the Lambs, Demme, 1991
Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Cameron, 1991
Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino, 1992
Schindler’s List, Spielberg, 1993
Pulp Fiction, Tarantino, 1994
Forrest Gump, Zemeckis, 1994
The Shawshank Redemption, Darabont, 1994
The Usual Suspects, Singer, 1995
Fargo, Coen, 1996
L.A. Confidential, Hanson, 1997
The Big Lebowski, Coen, 1998
Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg, 1998
The Matrix, Wachowski, 1999
American Beauty, Mendes, 1999
Fight Club, Fincher, 1999
Gladiator, Scott, 2000
Amelie, Jeunet, 2001
The Lord of the Rings, Jackson, 2001
City of God, Meirelles, 2002
The Dark Knight, Nolan, 2008