Jonathan Demme
1991 • 118 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #13 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
In this chilling adaptation of the best-selling novel by Thomas Harris, the astonishingly versatile director Jonathan Demme crafted a taut psychological thriller about an American obsession: serial murder.
John Ford
1939 • 100 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #320 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
In John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln, Henry Fonda gives one of the finest performances of his career, as the young president-to-be, a novice lawyer struggling with an incendiary murder case.
Barbet Schroeder
1974 • 90 minutes • 1.37:1 • France
Spine: #153 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes
A revelatory tug-of-war between subject and filmmaker, General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait is a landmark in the art of documentary and an appalling study of egotism in power.
D. A. Pennebaker
1968 • 79 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #168 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, Collector’s Sets, iTunes
On a beautiful June weekend in 1967, at the beginning of the Summer of Love, the first and only Monterey International Pop Festival roared forward, capturing a decade’s spirit and ushering in a new era of rock and roll.
Stanley Kramer
1963 • 163 minutes • 2.76:1 • United States
Spine: #692 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, about a group of strangers fighting tooth and nail over buried treasure, is the most grandly harebrained movie ever made, a pileup of slapstick and borscht-belt-y one-liners performed by a nonpareil cast.
Alfred Hitchcock
1940 • 130 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #135 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, Collector’s Sets
Romance becomes psychodrama in Alfred Hitchcock’s elegantly crafted Rebecca, his first foray into Hollywood filmmaking.
Alex Cox
1986 • 113 minutes • 1.85:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #20 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
With the lacerating love story Sid & Nancy, Alex Cox reimagines the crash-and-burn affair between punk’s most notorious self-destructive poster children: Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen.
Ronald Neame
1980 • 105 minutes • 2.39:1 • United States
Spine: #163 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes
The inimitable comic team of Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson star in this nimble tale of international intrigue from master British filmmaker Ronald Neame.
Sam Peckinpah
1971 • 117 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #182 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
In this thriller, perhaps Sam Peckinpah’s most controversial film, a young American mathematician and his English wife are initiated into the iron laws of violent masculinity that govern the director’s world.
David Cronenberg
1991 • 115 minutes • 1.78:1 • Canada
Spine: #220 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
In this adaptation of William S. Burroughs’s hallucinatory, once-thought-unfilmable novel Naked Lunch, directed by David Cronenberg, a part-time exterminator and full-time drug addict named Bill Lee (Peter Weller) plunges into the nightmarish Interzone.
Robert Altman
1993 • 187 minutes • 2.35:1 • United States
Spine: #265 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
Epic in scale yet meticulously observed, Short Cuts interweaves the stories of twenty-two characters as they struggle to find solace and meaning in contemporary Los Angeles.
Robert Altman
1975 • 160 minutes • 2.35:1 • United States
Spine: #683 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
This cornerstone of 1970s American moviemaking from Robert Altman is a panoramic view of the country’s political and cultural landscapes, set in the nation’s music capital.
Carol Reed
1940 • 95 minutes • 1.33:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #523 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
This captivating, long-overlooked adventure—which features Paul Henreid and a clever screenplay by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, best known for writing Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes—is a deftly concocted spy game that could give the Master of Suspense a run for his money.
Herk Harvey
1962 • 78 minutes • 1.37:1 • United States
Spine: #63 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes
A young woman in a small Kansas town survives a drag race accident, then agrees to take a job as a church organist in Salt Lake City. En route, she is haunted by a bizarre apparition that compels her toward an abandoned lakeside pavilion.
Dennis Hopper
1969 • 95 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #545 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, Collector’s Sets
The down-and-dirty directorial debut of former clean-cut teen star Dennis Hopper, Easy Rider heralded the arrival of a new voice in film, one pitched angrily against the mainstream.
David Lean
1945 • 86 minutes • 1.37:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #76 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, Collector’s Sets, iTunes
After a chance meeting on a train platform, a married doctor (Trevor Howard) and a suburban housewife (Celia Johnson) begin a muted but passionate, and ultimately doomed, love affair.
Les Blank
1982 • 95 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #287 Editions: DVD, iTunes
Les Blank documents acclaimed German filmmaker Werner Herzog’s ambitious and troubled production of Fitzcarraldo, the story of one man’s attempt to build an opera house deep in the Amazon jungle.
Spike Lee
1989 • 120 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #97 Edition: DVD
The hottest day of the year explodes on-screen in this vibrant look at a day in the life of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Spike Lee’s powerful portrait of urban racial tensions sparked controversy while earning popular and critical praise.
Michael Ritchie
1969 • 102 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #494 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
In a beautifully understated performance, Redford is David Chappellet, a ruthlessly ambitious skier competing for Olympic gold with an underdog American team in Europe, and Gene Hackman provides tough support as the coach who tries to temper the upstart’s narcissistic drive for glory.
David Lynch
2001 • 146 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #779 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
David Lynch’s seductive and scary vision of Los Angeles’s dream factory is one of the true masterpieces of the new millennium, a tale of love, jealousy, and revenge like no other.
David Cronenberg
1979 • 92 minutes • 1.78:1 • Canada
Spine: #777 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes
With its combination of psychological and body horror, The Brood laid the groundwork for many of the director’s films to come, but it stands on its own as a personal, singularly scary vision.
Gus Van Sant
1991 • 104 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #277 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves star in this haunting tale from Gus Van Sant about two young street hustlers: Mike Waters, a sensitive narcoleptic who dreams of the mother who abandoned him, and Scott Favor, the wayward son of the mayor of Portland and the object of Mike’s desire.
Leonard Kastle
1969 • 107 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #200 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes
Based on a shocking true story and shot in documentary-style black and white, The Honeymoon Killers is a stark portrayal of the desperate lengths to which a lonely heart will go to find true love.
James Ivory
1986 • 117 minutes • 1.66:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #775 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes
Merchant Ivory Productions, led by director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant, became a household name with A Room with a View, the first of their extraordinary adaptations of E. M. Forster novels.
Wes Anderson
2012 • 94 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #776 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
An island off the New England coast, summer of 1965. Two twelve-year-olds, Sam and Suzy, fall in love, make a secret pact, and run away together into the wilderness.
Bruce Beresford
1980 • 107 minutes • 1.85:1 • Australia
Spine: #773 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes
Director Bruce Beresford garnered international acclaim for this riveting drama set during a dark period in his country’s colonial history, and featuring passionate performances by Edward Woodward, Bryan Brown, and Jack Thompson.
Bruce Beresford
1990 • 101 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #774 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes
A decade after he broke through with Breaker Morant, Australian director Bruce Beresford made another acclaimed film about the effects of colonialism on the individual.
Brian De Palma
1980 • 105 minutes • 2.35:1 • United States
Spine: #770 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
Brian De Palma ascended to the highest ranks of American suspense filmmaking with this virtuoso, explicit erotic thriller.
Karel Reisz
1981 • 123 minutes • 1.85:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #768 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
An astounding array of talent came together for the big-screen adaptation of John Fowles’s novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman, a postmodern masterpiece that had been considered unfilmable.
Jules Dassin
1950 • 95 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #274 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
Two-bit hustler Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) longs for “a life of ease and plenty.” Trailed by an inglorious history of go-nowhere schemes, he tries to hatch a lucrative plan with a famous wrestler.
Stephen Frears
1985 • 98 minutes • 1.66:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #767 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
Stephen Frears was at the forefront of the British cinematic revival of the mid-1980s, and the delightfully transgressive My Beautiful Laundrette is his greatest triumph of the period.
Carroll Ballard
1979 • 117 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #765 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
A wild horse saves a young boy’s life after a terrifying shipwreck and the two become unlikely friends in Carroll Ballard’s cinematic tour de force, adapted from Walter Farley’s classic children’s novel.
Lawrence Kasdan
1983 • 105 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #720 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
After the shocking suicide of their friend, a group of thirtysomethings reunite for his funeral and end up spending the weekend together, reminiscing about their shared past as children of the sixties and confronting the uncertainty of their lives as adults of the eighties.
Bob Rafelson
1970 • 98 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #546 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, Collector’s Sets
Following Jack Nicholson’s breakout supporting turn in Easy Rider, director Bob Rafelson devised a powerful leading role for the new star in the searing character study Fve Easy Pieces.
Terry Gilliam
1991 • 138 minutes • 1.78:1 • United States
Spine: #764 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
A fairy tale grounded in poignant reality, the magnificent, Manhattan-set The Fisher King, by Terry Gilliam, features Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams in two of their most brilliant roles.
Louis Malle
1981 • 111 minutes • 1.66:1 • United States
Spine: #479 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, Collector’s Sets, iTunes
Actor and playwright Wallace Shawn sits down with his friend the theater director André Gregory at a restaurant on New York’s Upper West Side, and the pair proceed through an alternately whimsical and despairing confessional about love, death, money, and all the superstition in between.
Jonathan Demme
2014 • 127 minutes • 2.35:1 • United States
Spine: #762 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, Collector’s Sets, iTunes
Brought pristinely to the screen by Jonathan Demme, this compellingly abstract reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s Bygmester Solness features Shawn (who also wrote the adaptation) as a visionary but tyrannical middle-aged architect haunted by figures from his past,
Mark Rydell
1979 • 134 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #757 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
Bette Midler exploded onto the screen with her take-no-prisoners performance in this quintessential film about fame and addiction from director Mark Rydell.
Charles Chaplin
1952 • 137 minutes • 1.37:1 • United States
Spine: #756 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes
Charlie Chaplin’s masterful drama about the twilight of a former vaudeville star is among the writer-director’s most touching films. Chaplin plays Calvero, a once beloved musical-comedy performer, now a washed-up alcoholic who lives in a small London flat.
Leo McCarey
1937 • 92 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #505 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
Make Way for Tomorrow, by Leo McCarey, is one of the great unsung Hollywood masterpieces, an enormously moving Depression-era depiction of the frustrations of family, aging, and the generation gap.
Peter Yates
1973 • 102 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #475 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
In one of the best performances of his legendary career, Robert Mitchum plays small-time gunrunner Eddie “Fingers” Coyle in an adaptation by Peter Yates of George V. Higgins’s acclaimed novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle.
Jean Renoir
1951 • 99 minutes • 1.33:1 • France
Spine: #276 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes
Based on the novel by Rumer Godden, the film eloquently contrasts the growing pains of three young women with the immutability of the Bengal river around which their daily lives unfold.
Preston Sturges
1941 • 90 minutes • 1.37:1 • United States
Spine: #118 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
This comic masterpiece by Preston Sturges is among the finest Hollywood satires and a high-water mark in the career of one of the industry’s most revered funnymen.
Carol Reed
1947 • 116 minutes • 1.37:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #754 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
Taking place largely over the course of one tense night, Carol Reed’s psychological noir, set in an unnamed Belfast, stars James Mason as a revolutionary ex-con leading a robbery that goes horribly wrong.
Steve James
1994 • 172 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #289 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes
This landmark film, which documents the journeys of two remarkable families, continues to educate and inspire viewers, and it is widely considered one of the great works of American nonfiction cinema.
Errol Morris
1988 • 102 minutes • 1.78:1 • United States
Spine: #753 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
A work of meticulous journalism and gripping drama, it recounts the disturbing tale of Randall Dale Adams, a drifter who was charged with the murder of a Dallas police officer and sent to death row, despite evidence that he did not commit the crime.
Robert Montgomery
1947 • 101 minutes • 1.37:1 • United States
Spine: #750 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
With its relentless pace, expressive cinematography by the great Russell Metty, and punchy, clever script by Charles Lederer and Ben Hecht, this is an overlooked treasure from the heyday of 1940s film noir.
Martin Rosen
1978 • 92 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #748 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes
This is a faithful big-screen adaptation of Richard Adams’s classic British dystopian novel about a community of rabbits under terrible threat from modern forces.
Nicolas Roeg
1973 • 110 minutes • 1.85:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #745 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
A masterpiece from Nicolas Roeg, Don’t Look Now, adapted from a story by Daphne du Maurier, is a brilliantly disturbing tale of the supernatural.
Guy Maddin
2007 • 80 minutes • 1.33:1 • Canada
Spine: #741 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray
A work of memory and imagination, the film burrows into what the filmmaker calls “the heart of the heart” of the continent, conjuring a city as delightful as it is fearsome, populated by sleepwalkers and hockey aficionados.