Great films I need to see

Growing up, it’d be hard to describe me as a cinephile. I went to the movies regularly – but not frequently, and rarely to see films targeted at adult audiences (as opposed to kids or the mass-market, wide-release movies). Similarly, at home we’d watch movies on TV or VHS (and later DVD) periodically, but not with any regularity. Books, and then computer games, interested me more.

As I got into the later years of high school and then into college, I started making more of an effort to see “art” movies, limited release dramas and foreign films, but again it was something I just sort of did as I went along, rather than something I pursued with any sort of passion.

As a result, when I think back on the movies I’ve seen, there’s all sorts of holes. I’m not talking merely about movies I haven’t seen, but great movies, classics – movies that, by dint of my not seeing them, I’m missing out on a significant part of the cultural zeitgeist. (Though, as you’ll see below, I’m not talking exclusively about the mass, popular cultural zeitgeist.) So I spent some time combing through “best movies of all time” lists to come up with the ones that I feel I should see. I’ve seen 28 of the 100 films on the American Film Institute’s Top 100 Films in 100 Years. I certainly don’t feel under any obligation to see all of them. But I do feel that some of them – and other great films that didn’t make that list – should definitely get crossed off my list in the months and years to come.

My preliminary list:

Hollywood films

• Casablanca: I can’t remember if I’ve seen this, or if I’ve just seen so many clips and parodies that I think I’ve seen it. Regardless, I need to give this a straight watch-through.

• The Godfather (Part 1 and Part 2)

• Apocalypse Now

• The entire Hitchcock canon: Can you believe I’ve never seen a single one? I can’t, either, though I’ve seen so many parodies it sometimes seems like I have.

• Mutiny on the Bounty:

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: I’ve read the book, so it’s not that I’m completely missing out, but I should give this a watch.

• The Third Man

• High Noon, The Searchers, Unforgiven, The Wild Bunch, Stagecoach: I didn’t watch Westerns growing up, so I’m trying to catch up on the great ones

• Network

• E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

• A Bug’s Life: The only Pixar movie I haven’t seen

Silent-era classics

• Modern Times, The Great Dictator (not actually silent, but one of Charlie Chaplin’s best)

• The General

• Metropolis

• The Battleship Potemkin

Foreign Films

• Alexander Nevsky

• The 400 Blows

• Rashomon

• Akira

Also:

“Great” films I haven’t seen and see no need to

• Titanic: Yes, this probably should go up above. I’m rejecting this more out of petulance than anything else

• The Sixth Sense: Once you know the twist, what’s the point?

• The Birth of a Nation: I know it’s groundbreaking cinema, but given its moral questionableness, I’m content to shove it way to the bottom of the list

• The Silence of the Lambs: Horror’s really not my genre, particularly not bloody horror.

• Cabaret: The world of nightclubs, dancers and such has no interest for me.

I’m sure I’ve left films off both lists – just as I’m sure there’s films I haven’t even heard of that I should absolutely see – but there’s no sense in belaboring this.