Spike Lee's Essential List of Films for Filmmakers

While investigating a young nun's rape, a corrupt New York City police detective, with a serious drug and gambling addiction, tries to change his ways and find forgiveness.

In ancient Japan a crime take place as told from three different travelers who have experienced the crime: a man being killed and his wife being raped. Which if any of the stories is true? A Akira Kurosawa film about morals, truth, and communication.

A crafty ronin comes to a town divided by two criminal gangs and decides to play them against each other to free the town.

A story of greed, a lust for power, and ultimate revenge when an elderly lord abdicates to his three sons, and the two corrupt ones turn against him.

Jefferies has had his leg in a cast for weeks and has nothing to do but watch his neighbors from his window. His voyeurism leads him to think that he’s witnessed a murder. Together with his girlfriend Lisa and his nurse Stella they try to solve the mystery and possibly a murder.

An ex-police officer is asked to follow an old friends wife who thinks she is being followed by ghosts. A classic Hitchcock about a man who’s afraid of heights and a woman he must unfortunately follow to great heights.

North by Northwest is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest works. The master of suspense is at it again as we follow the protagonist Roger Thornhill from Manhattan to Mount Rushmore Memorial Park.

Bonnie and Clyde is based on the true stories of the gangster pair Bonnie Parker and Clyde Parker who in the 1930’s began robbing banks in all the main US cities until they were eventually killed. The film takes on the aesthetical movement of New Hollywood.

A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.

A young Parisian woman begins a sordid affair with a middle-aged American businessman whom lays out ground rules that their clandestine relationship will be based only on sex.

One of the most scathing indictments of American culture ever produced by a Hollywood filmmaker. Kirk Douglas gives the fiercest performance of his career as Chuck Tatum, an amoral newspaper reporter caught in dead-end Albuquerque who happens upon the story of a lifetime and will do anything to ensure he gets the scoop.

PLEASE DELETE, EXISTS ALREADY!

An African-American man working at a slaughterhouse in the Watts area of Los Angeles leads a dissatisfied and listless existence.

A religious fanatic marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real daddy hid $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.

The Coen Brothers tell the story of a absurd yet likable family with an unproductive couple as the focal point. The couple has gotten themselves into some trouble while kidnapping a baby and give Hollywood one of the most memorable chase scenes to date.

A classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson , the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.

Lawrence of Arabia is the classic film from David Lean starring Peter O’Toole and based on the autobiography from Thomas Edward Lawrence who during the first World War was on assignment by the British Empire in Arabia. The film would become a cult classic and is known today as a masterpiece.

On the Waterfront is a social criticism gangster film from director Elia Kazan, about an ex-boxer, who is part of the corruption of the trade unions for the men working on the waterfront in New York. A film about mob violence that won eight Academy Awards.

"A Face in the Crowd" charts the rise of a raucous hayseed named Lonesome Rhodes from itinerant Ozark guitar picker to local media rabble-rouser to TV superstar and political king-maker. Marcia Jeffries is the innocent Sarah Lawrence girl who discovers the great man in a back-country jail and is the first to fall under his spell

Martinique, in the early 1930s. Young José and his grandmother live in a small village. Nearly everyone works cutting cane and barely earning a living. The overseer can fine a worker for the smallest infraction. The way to advance is to do well in school. José studies hard and succeeds in an exam allowing him to attend school in the capital. Wit...

With this poetically fabulous film classic Italian director Federico Fellini makes a world wide success of emotional melodrama and a highlight of the Italian Neo-realism movement.

An episodic romantic film, built up with many stories instead of one main plot, that ponders the voids and decadence of high society. A classic film and upon it’s first night out a scandal. The 1960 film by Federico Fellini is named the film that split up his earlier neo-realist films from the art films he did later in his career.

With 8 ½ Frederico Fellini leaves a self-portrait where dreams and reality are a mix. With help from a most excellent cast and unique scenery this self reflecting film is one of his master works.

City of God is one of the most successful Brazilian films of all times. It depicts the raw violence in the ghettos of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970’s that even had young kids carrying guns and joining gangs when they should be playing hide-and-seek.

The classic star-studded film from the brilliant direction of Francis Ford Coppola tells the saga of New York mafia family’s everyday life. The film from 1972 became the new ultimate gangster film in the new Hollywood movement.

After the extraordinary success of the first Godfather film came this second saga of the New York mafia family. This mafia epic tells the story of Michael Corleone and his father Vito.

The 400 Blows is Francois Truffaut’s first feature film about a boy who is misunderstood by his parents causing him to leave them and enter into a life of crime. A powerful film set in Paris that gives a glimpse into Paris life of the 1950’s along with a Jazz soundtrack.

A committed filmmaker struggles to complete his latest project while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew.

"Patton" tells the tale of General George S. Patton, famous tank commander of World War II. The film begins with patton's career in North Africa and progresses through the invasion of Germany and the fall of the Third Reich. Side plots also speak of Patton's numerous faults such his temper and habit towards insubordination.

In a dystopic future Australia, a vicious biker gang murder a cop's family and make his fight with them personal.

In the post-apocalyptic Australian wasteland, a cynical drifter agrees to help a small, gasoline rich, community escape a band of bandits.

The French Colonel...who was forced even to torture! One of the many women...who stopped at nothing to win! The Algerian Street Boy...who became a rebel hero!

Two Navy men are ordered to bring a young offender to prison but decide to show him one last good time along the way.

Meloncholy drama about the Pianist named Ada who because of an arranged marriage moved to New Zealand with her daughter to start a new life. Her husband has no sense for music and sells her piano to the neighbors. This causes her to however to have more interest in the piano and it’s new owner…

A bout de Souffle is Godard’s debut film and a French classic. With this film Godard begins a new style of filming that revolutionized the film industry.

West Side Story is the film adaptation of the popular Broadway musical of the same name from directors Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins.

Jim Jarmusch sensibly tells a story about being a foreigner and adapting to an unknown place. The American dream seems like it wont be fulfilled by the three protagonists in the film.

As the Allied forces approach Paris in August 1944, German Colonel Von Waldheim is desperate to take all of France's greatest paintings to Germany. He manages to secure a train to transport the valuable art works even as the chaos of retreat descends upon them. The French resistance however wants to stop them from stealing their national treasur...

The Maltese Falcon is a mystery thriller detective film from John Huston starring Humphrey Bogart. The film is regarded as a landmark in the film-noir movement.

Two jobless Americans convince a prospector to travel to the mountains of Mexico with them in search of gold. But the hostile wilderness, local bandits, and greed all get in the way of their journey.

The story of two men, a veteran boxer who is down and out, and a young man who is just starting his life and boxing career. Their fighting careers cross paths as their lives and fortunes head in opposite directions. Director John Huston tells their stories with a level, unsentimental honesty and makes it into one of his best films.

A naive male prostitute and his sickly friend struggle to survive on the streets of New York City.

A graduate student and obsessive runner in New York is drawn into a mysterious plot involving his brother, a member of the secretive Division. This film, famous for its excruciating "Is it safe?" torture scene by a Nazi dentist, is a spy classic with an all star cast.

Boyz N The Hood is the popular and successful film and social criticism from John Singleton about the conditions in South Central Los Angeles where teenagers are involved in gun fights and drug dealing on a daily basis.

Languid look at the Gullah culture of the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia where African folk-ways were maintained well into the 20th Century and was one of the last bastion of these mores in America.

Forced to play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in the chaos of war, an elite Army bomb squad unit must come together in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb.

Sicilian dockworker Mimi inadvertently becomes embroiled in an increasingly complicated array of personal conflicts. When he loses his job after voting against a Mafia kingpin in an allegedly secret election, Mimi leaves his wife to find new employment. He moves to Turin, where he engages in an affair with a Communist organiser. Soon, Mimi finds...

Set in Fascist Italy before the outbreak of World War II, the story centers on Giannini's character, an anarchist who stays in a brothel while preparing to kill Benito Mussolini. Giannini's character, while preparing to assassinate Mussolini, falls in love with one of the whores working in the brothel

Stranded and alone on a desert island during a cruise, a spoiled rich woman and a deckhand fall in love and make a date to reunite after their rescue. He is stood up.

The defense of honor, a strong value in Neapolitan society, and its effects on the life of everyman Pasquale Frafuso.