One of the classes that I taught was American Cinema. Over the years I developed a list if what I thought was the best films to get a sense of what American Cinemas was, and where it might be going. This is my list.
Filmography, the minimum to be literate
*The Birth of a Nation (1915)
*The Gold Rush (1925)
*Citizen Kane (1941)
*Rear Window (1954)
*Vertigo (1958)
*Some Like It Hot (1959)
*The Terminator (1984)
*Goodfellas (1990)
*Bringing Up Baby (1938)
*Notorious (1946)
*American Graffiti (1973)
*All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
*Dracula (1931)
*Frankenstein (1931)
*The Mummy (1932)
*The Invisible Man (1933)
*Imitation of Life (1934)
*Winchester 73 (1950)
*The Glenn Miller Story (1954)
*The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
*Touch of Evil (1958)
*The Sheik (1921)
*Steamboat Willie (1928)
*It Happened One Night (1934)
*The Littlest Rebel (1935
*Camille (1937)
*Gone With the Wind (1939)
*Ninotchka (1939)
*The Maltese Falcon (1941)
*Casablanca (1942)
*Singin in the Rain (1952)
*Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
*Giant (1956)
*The Seachers (1956)
*Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? (1967)
*In the Heat of the Night (1967)
*True Grit (1969)
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
*The Shootist (1976)
*Annie Hall (1977)
*The Shining (1980)
*48 Hours (1982)
*Trading Places (1983)
*Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
*Coming to America (1988)
*Ghost (1990)
*Pretty Woman (1990)
*Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)
*My Dinner with Andre (1981)
*Ed Wood (1994)
*Clerks (1994)
*Smoke (1995)
*Waiting for Guffman (1996
*SLC Punk! (1998)
*Being John Malkinvich (1999)
*Memento (2000)
*Donnie Darko (2001)
*The Room (2003)
*Sideways (2004
*Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
*Harold & Kumar go to White Castle (2004)
*Brick (2005)
Notice that I do not have current movies. I’m still pondering about the last eight years. Is Titanic important?
