What are some movies I would have to see to be a “MOVIE BUFF”?
Casablanca
Citizen Kane
Singin’ in the Rain
The General
City Lights
Double Indemnity
Psycho
The Apartment
Some Like it Hot
2001: A Space Odyssey
Dr. Strangelove
Rear Window
Vertigo
North by Northwest
Gone with the Wind
Bringing Up Baby
Stagecoach
The Searchers
His Girl Friday
Just for starters, of course.
Depends on what you mean by “movie buff”. Are you talking about those lonely middle age men who can repeat entire scenes of dialogue from just about any low brow comedy of the last twenty years? Or are you talking about film student pointy-headedness?
If it’s the later, you need to see at least fifty subtitled films (English language films are for the hoi polloi!). Movies from the big name directors (Bergman, Fellini, Kurosawa, Truffaut) will suffice. A black turtle-neck sweater is also a must.
If it’s the former, just watch everything that comes on HBO. Discriminate viewing is not a prerequisite.
Anything by Georges Melies
Intolerance
The Gold Rush
Sherlock Jr.
Duck Soup
Nosferatu (both versions)
Metropolis
M
Breathless (original version)
The Bicycle Thief
La Strada
Lawrence of Arabia
Easy Rider
The Seventh Seal
Rashomon
Touch of Evil (director’s cut)
Apocalypse Now (original cut)
The Little Shop of Horrors (50’s version)
Plan Nine From Outer Space
Berlin Alexanderplatz (15 hour version)
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (uncut)
Sunset Boulevard
An American in Paris
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Manhattan
La Grande Illusion
The Conversation
The Battleship Potemkin
Night of the Living Dead
The Quiet Man
The 39 Steps (Hitchcock version)
Un Chien Andalou
That oughta hold ya!
Here’s a list of 200 great films I compiled a couple years ago:
IMDb’s Top 250, as rated by their users. Fairly reliable except for brand new movies that come out and briefly have no ratings but 10s and 9s, so they are abnormally high.
American Film Institute lists, the most famous of which is probably their 100 Years 100 Movies list of the 100 greatest American movies, selected by a “blue-ribbon panel.”
Hope this helps.
Some more lists IMHO leagues better than the one is the previous links (no offense to “blue-ribbon panelists” like, uh, Bill Clinton):
The International Federation of Film Archives did an international poll among film archives of films that were “the most meaningful in the history of film, ranging from the best movies of all time to those whose influence is found in their power of innovation or impact on
society.” The results are here.
Sight & Sound has been doing its Greatest Films of All Time poll every 10 years since 1952 (the most recent one comes out this Fall). They poll a large assortment of genuine film critics and scholars (no Joel Siegels here). Here’s the list from the last poll in 1992.
The Village Voice did a similar poll to cap out the 20th Century. Here are their results.
All lists incredibly diverse in silents & sounds, variety of countries & genres, and eras (unlike the AFI or IMDB).
Why are there no recent editions?
Damn it, I don’t care what anyone thinks… “Truman Show” should be a classic. I ask you to see it again if you don’t believe me.
Oh, Eve, are you out there?
Zev Steinhardt
I saw it.
And I don’t believe you.
In addition to the best-movie lists above, I think you’d also do well by seeing, say, three out of four of Ebert’s Great Movies. If you want to go a more pointy-headed film-geek route, you could do the same based on the 100 best American movies according to Jonathan Rosenbaum, the critic for the Chicago Reader (the parent of the Straight Dope).
Or you could read everything on my website and say you like what I like. 
I actually agree with “The Truman Show,” it was a great stories with great actors, awesome movie score and some of the most amazing scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie. The people waiting at their “first possessions,” the searchlight moon, the extras halting for the high pitch squeal and the spot light rain… (I read the screenplay, and that was a mistake with coordinates).
I’ve seen a few of the movies listed. (No Godfather 1&2)? Citizen Kane was great… that movie stands out most. The meaning behind one word spoken at death leads to a mans life story, then it turns out …SPOILER… it’s something that meant a lot to him, but is nothing more than a sled. Awesome. Great shots too.
Lisa:
“There’s no CANE in Citizen Kane!?”
I’ve been using Rosenbaum’s list as a checklist for a couple years now, and as a result I’ve experienced an amazing education in film.
Rosenbaum’s list was intended as a rebuttal to the inept AFI list, so it omits a few “classics” but more than makes up for it in the variety and quality of the films he suggests. FTR, he also contributed to the Sight & Sound and Village Voice lists. Here’s his personal list for the latter.
Both the Marx Brothers films & King Kong are a must.
Here is a list I agree with more than any other “best” list I’ve ever seen.
I would add more pre-1950 films like Citizen Kane, Detour, Cat People etc. and also suggest all of the Monsieur Hulot movies. Too often movie lists reflect a very limited “pallete” of films- too many “classics”, too many “cult films”, too many silent comedies- IMHO it is better to see a larger variety of films than to see every movie of a certain “type”.
grendel72,
That list you give in your link is interesting. It includes some of the lesser known films that I have been pushing on people (like After Hours, Chungking Express, House of Games, and Unmade Beds). It’s not a list of generally accepted classic films, though. It’s a somewhat quirky list of favorites.
Lists of personal favorites are interesting, certainly. Here’s my list of favorites:
http://www.dcfilmsociety.org/rv_wendell100.htm
This is not the same thing as my list of 200 great films given in my link above. That list was supposed to be a list of generally accepted classic films. I would be somewhat reluctant to give someone who wants to become educated in film a list of personal favorites. A personal favorites list would give you a lot of interesting off-beat experiences in film, but it wouldn’t let you know what the standard classics are.
MyFootZZZ writes:
> I’ve seen a few of the movies listed. (No Godfather 1&2)?
Are you bothering to click on the links we give? The Godfather films appear in lots of the lists mentioned so far. We’re not quoting long lists of films in the thread itself for a good reason. It would make this thread too long if we repeatedly gave lists with hundreds of films.
You are right, of course. What I was trying to get at is that to consider yourself knowledgeable I think a broader base is needed than “classics”. I know I’m not an expert, hell, I may be the only person alive who didn’t like Casablanca.
I love Kurosawa, and samurai films in general, but if I had relied on “classics” lists I would have seen Rashoman first and that was not what got my interest in the genre started [sub]it’s not even really a samurai movie at all[/sub].
Also, I honestly couldn’t consider anyone a “film buff” who hasn’t seen After Hours.
Yes, I had, I should have thought to say I was referring to the movies listed in the posts. I’ve looked at all the links.
Yeah, I’d say you could just watch The Truman Show and consider yourself a film buff. Screw all these pointy-headed intellectuals, with their D.W. Griffiths and their Sergei Eisensteins and their Rainer Werner Fassbinders and their Stan Brakhages.
The Truman Show. Yeah.