This is an excellent question, and a rather serious issue for me personally. Given my reputation as a film expert and my avocation as a movie reviewer, I’m very conscious of a few rather serious gaps in my filmgoing history.
To highlight a few already mentioned above…
Mentioned by Ukelele Ike: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeousie and The Wages of Fear. (By the way, I agree that one can never see too much Bunuel. I’d also recommend you wait to see Bicycle Thief until you’re in a nice, neutral, open frame of mind; it’s quite a downer.)
By Hunsecker: Nashville. A major omission. Grrrrr. (And BTW, Miracle Mile is in fact a pretty good movie, although it hasn’t dated very well; the costuming is distracting, not to mention Anthony Edwards with hair, and the small cameo part played by Denise “Tasha Yar” Crosby" doesn’t work at all. Beyond that, it’s a killer movie.)
By sliv: The 400 Blows. Truffaut’s always been kind of an acquired taste; I’ve been working through his canon slowly. Day for Night and The Wild Child are both great, but I didn’t care for Fahrenheit 451 or Shoot the Piano Player.
By oldscratch: Kieslowski’s Dekalog. Good call. Meant to see it when a rep house in town programmed the whole thing, but… grrrr…
So those are the ones mentioned by others in the thread. Here are some additional titles I feel bad for never having seen:
Having mentioned Truffaut, I have to admit to never having seen what is generally regarded as his best film – Jules and Jim. Nothing against the movie, it’s just never been penciled on my calendar.
And speaking of French filmmakers, I’ve never seen Godard’s Breathless, the movie credited with launching the French New Wave into world consciousness. Another major gap.
And speaking of launches, I haven’t seen Scorsese’s Mean Streets. Can you believe it?
Another big one: Michael Antonioni’s Blowup. A quintessential film from a quintessential period of filmmaking. Haven’t seen it yet. Bad movie geek! Bad! No biscuit!
Another big one: Renoir’s The Grand Illusion. Regularly shows up on all-time top-ten lists. Doesn’t show up in my viewing catalog. Don’t make me turn in my film-buff membership card; I really will get to it eventually…
And although I wouldn’t call it a “good” movie, exactly, not like the above, Rollerball has such a cult following you’d think I would have caught it by now. Nope…
But this is probably the biggest omission on my list…
Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard. I know, I know. I feel like I should be wearing a scarlet letter or something.
(Sigh…)
But I have seen the overwhelming majority of movies mentioned by other posters, and hey, I’ve also seen Shatner in Kingdom of the Spiders, so that’s gotta count for something, right?