Extensive lists about subjective preferences are the only real way to evaluate art, don’t you know?
Per my own nonsensical rule, there’s a three year waiting period for new additions, meaning the most recently released movies on this list would have made their US debut in 2013.
- 8 1/2 [Fellini]
- Amadeus [Forman]
- The Third Man [Reed]
- Au Revoir Les Enfants [Malle]
- The Lord of the Rings Trilogy [Jackson]
- To Die For [Van Sant]
- Barton Fink [Coen]
- The Three Colors Trilogy [Kieslowski]
- Pan’s Labyrinth [Del Toro]
- Orlando [Potter]
- 2001: A Space Odyssey [Kubrick]
- Alien [Scott]
- Ugetsu [Mizoguchi]
- The Apu Trilogy [Ray]
- Beau Travail [Denis]
- Under the Sand [Ozon]
- Dogville [von Trier]
- Cries & Whispers [Bergman]
- Notorious [Hitchcock]
- LA Confidential [Curtis]
- Seven Beauties [Wertmuller]
- High & Low [Kurosawa]
- Z [Gavras]
- The Godfather Part II [Coppola]
- No Country for Old Men [Coen]
- The Talented Mr. Ripley [Minghella]
- The Thin Red Line [Malick]
- Moulin Rouge! [Luhrmann]
- Army of Shadows [Melville]
- La Dolce Vita [Fellini]
- The White Ribbon [Haneke]
- Zodiac [Fincher]
- Manhattan [Allen]
- The Hurt Locker [Bigelow]
- All That Jazz [Fosse]
- Apocalypse Now [Coppola]
- Monsoon Wedding [Mira Nair]
- Do the Right Thing [Lee]
- Werckmeister Harmonies [Tarr]
- Sunset Blvd [Wilder]
- Before Sunrise/Before Sunset/Before Midnight [Linklater]
- The Manchurian Candidate [Frankenheimer]
- Fargo [Coen]
- Throne of Blood [Kurosawa]
- The Best of Youth [Giordana]
- Dancer in the Dark [von Trier]
- There Will be Blood [Anderson]
- The Insider [Mann]
- Life is Beautiful [Benigni]
- Nashville [Altman]
- Persona [Bergman]
- The Conformist [Bertolucci]
- Chicago [Marshall]
- Birth [Glazer]
- Chinatown [Polanski]
- Sweeney Todd [Burton]
- Autumn Sonata [Bergman]
- Dr. Strangelove [Kubrick]
- Nights of Cabiria [Fellini]
- In the Loop [Ianucci]
- In Bruges [McDonagh]
- Requiem for a Dream [Aronofsky]
- Hedwig and the Angry Inch [Mitchell]
- 2046 [Kar-wai]
- A Serious Man [Coen]
- Annie Hall [Allen]
- Oldboy [Chan-wook]
- The Shining [Kubrick]
- La Ceremonie [Chabrol]
- Network [Lumet]
- Cache [Haneke]
- White Material [Denis]
- The Double Life of Veronique [Kieslowski]
- Being John Malkovich [Jonze]
- Badlands [Malick]
- Suspiria [Argento]
- Close Up [Kiarostami]
- The Assassination of Jesse James [Dominik]
- Edward Scissorhands [Burton]
- Black Swan [Aronofsky]
- Finding Nemo [Stanton]
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl [Verbinski]
- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof [Brooks]
- The Devil’s Backbone [Del Toro]
- Thelma & Louise [Scott]
- The Man Who Wasn’t There [Coen]
- Amarcord [Fellini]
- Love & Anarchy [Wertmuller]
- Dog Day Afternoon [Lumet]
- Through a Glass Darkly [Bergman]
- Far From Heaven [Haynes]
- The Tree of Life [Malick]
- Cabaret [Fosse]
- Pulp Fiction [Tarantino]
- Il Divo [Sorrentino]
- A Separation [Farhadi]
- Waltz With Bashir [Folman]
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy [Alfredson]
- Quills [Kaufman]
- The Conversation [Coppola]
- Full Metal Jacket [Kubrick]