The Guardian's 1000 Films to See Before You Die

Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep.

Hidden is a film by Austrian director Michael Haneke. A suspenseful thriller with bloody elements from French history. A family man receives a video of him and his family yet there is nothing saying who it is from. This continues and it turns out to be someone that has know him for a while.

Two gay men living in St. Tropez have their lives turned upside down when the son of one of the men announces he is getting married. They try to conceal their lifestyle and their ownership of the drag club downstairs when the fiancée and her parents come for dinner.

Three modern-day pilgrims investigate a bizarre crime in a small town while on their way to Canterbury.

Follows the Friedmans, a seemingly typical, upper-middle-class Jewish family whose world is instantly transformed when the father and his youngest son are arrested and charged with shocking and horrible crimes.

A retelling of the life of the celebrated 17th-century Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld.

Carne Trémula is a thriller about a heterosexual couple’s meeting and becoming a couple. Based on a novel by American author Ruth Rendel this version from director Almodovar is extremely altered.

Writer/director/actor Nanni Moretti offers a three-part film diary which takes a sharply satiric look at Italian life.

Two Britons are captured and enslaved by invading Romans and taken to Rome. Hengist Pod creates useless inventions...

The small town of Paris, Australia deliberately causes car accidents, then sells/salvages all valuables from the wrecks as a means of economy.

In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.

Meister director Scorsese depicts the sloping depth of a Casino mafia boss’ fall. Filmed in a semi-documentary fashion; about the life of the gambling paradise Las Vegas and it’s dark mafia underbelly.

The story of a Southern family in crisis, focusing on the turbulent relationship of a wife and husband, Maggie "The Cat" and Brick Pollitt, and their interaction with Brick's family over the course of one evening gathering at the family estate in Mississippi.

A mysteriously linked pair of young women find their daily lives pre-empted by a strange boudoir melodrama that plays itself out in a hallucinatory parallel reality.

Four children live with their terminally ill mother. After she dies, they try to hold things together. In their isolated house, they begin to deteriorate mentally, whilst they hide their mom's decomposing corpse in a makeshift concrete sarcophagus.

Central do Brasil is a Brazilian film from Walter Salles about the relationship between an old and bitter woman and a young orphan boy.

As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.

A newly hired maid for a rich countryside family befriends a post-office clerk who encourages her to rebel against her employers.

A film crew follows a ruthless thief and heartless killer as he goes about his daily routine. But complications set in when the film crew lose their objectivity and begin lending a hand.

An in-depth exploration of the various reactions by the French people to the Vichy government's acceptance of the German invasion.

During the Crimean War between Britain and Russia in the 1850s, a British cavalry division, led by the overbearing Lord Cardigan, engages in an infamously reckless strategic debacle against a Russian artillery battery.

Based on the true story of British athletes preparing for and competing in the 1924 Summer Olympics. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four, including Best Picture.

In Luis Buñuel’s deliciously satiric masterpiece, an upper-class sextet sits down to dinner but never eats, their attempts continually thwarted by a vaudevillian mixture of events both actual and imagined.

A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.

Having been hopelessly repressed and facing eventual certain death at the chicken farm where they are held, Rocky the rooster and Ginger the chicken decide to rebel against the evil Mr. and Mrs. Tweedy, the farm's owners. Rocky and Ginger lead their fellow chickens in a great escape from the murderous farmers and their farm of doom.

Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí present 16 minutes of bizarre, surreal imagery.

Chinatown is a classic US American film from 1974 Directed by Roman Polanski and starring Jack Nicholson. A plot about a conspiracy of the water and land use in the state of California.

Based on one the most popular historical plays by Shakespeare and made in order to boost moral of British troops during WW2, this movie is about English king Henry V and his military campaign in France in 1415.

Chuck and Buck are childhood best friends whose lives have taken very different paths. While Chuck moved away and now has a real life, Buck stayed behind and developed a dangerous fixation—on Chuck's life.

Two melancholic Hong Kong policemen fall in love: one with a mysterious female underworld figure, the other with a beautiful and ethereal waitress at a late-night restaurant he frequents.

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.

Amid the sweltering summer heat in northern Argentina, two middle-class families retreat to a crumbling country estate and a modest townhouse, where strained relationships, simmering tensions, and the presence of children and servants quietly expose the fractures of family life. Between idle days, gossip, and unspoken desires, the boundaries of ...

Filmmaking is the process of making a film.

Orson Wells was 26 when he made his first feature film Citizen Kane. The film became known as one of the greatest of all time and earned him international celebrity. The story is about the publishing business and how one thrill-seeker’s struggle for power negatively affected everybody he came in contact with and eventually lead to a merciless war.

Dante works in a local shop. He has to work on his day off, which he doesn't like. Just as he doens't like his customers. But hey? Why not close the shop and play hockey on the rooftop?

In a near-future Britain, young Alexander DeLarge and his pals get their kicks beating and raping anyone they please. When not destroying the lives of others, Alex swoons to the music of Beethoven. The state, eager to crack down on juvenile crime, gives an incarcerated Alex the option to undergo an invasive procedure that'll rob him of all perso...

Close Encounters of the Third kind is a science fiction film from Steven Spielberg about a peaceful contact between aliens and mankind.

Cher, a high school student in Beverly Hills, must survive the ups and downs of adolescent life. Her external demeanor at first seems superficial, but rather it hides her wit, charm, and intelligence which help her to deal with relationships, friends, family, school, and the all-important teenage social life.

This is the story of the Stones 1972 tour.

A la suite des récits que lui fait sa grand-mère sur d'étranges légendes, la jeune Rosaleen fait d'étranges rêves, peuplés de loups-garous. Selon les recommandations de son aïeule, elle doit éviter à tout prix de fréquenter les hommes dont les sourcils se touchent, signe d'appartenance aux loups-garous.

The story of "The Tolpuddle Martyrs". A group of 19th century English farm labourers who formed one of the first trade unions and started a campaign to receive fair wages.

A newly released ex con and former US Ranger finds himself trapped in a prisoner transport plane when the other prisoners seize control.

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

Titta di Girolamo has been living in a small hotel in Lugano for ten years, he leads a dull and rigid live and has apparently lost his capability to feel human emotion. This all changes when he decides to talk to Sofia, the Barmaid.

The Conversation is a Francis Ford Coppola thriller from 1974 about a professional surveillance man who is hired to record the conversations between two workers. Yet it looks like he’s gotten into more than he’s getting paid for as information about a murder may have been recorded.

Coogan (Clint Eastwood) an Arizona deputy sheriff goes to New York to pick up a prisoner. While escorting the prisoner to the airport he escapes and Coogan heads into the City to recapture him.

The wife of a barbaric crime boss engages in a secretive romance with a gentle bookseller between meals at her husband's restaurant. Food, colour coding, sex, murder, torture and cannibalism are the exotic fare in this beautifully filmed but brutally uncompromising modern fable which has been interpreted as an allegory for Thatcherism.

Cool Hand Luke is a Drama from director Stuart Rosenberg starring Paul Newman. The film tells the story of a nonconformist rebel named Luke who while in jail tries to break out.

Remy Germain is a doctor in a French town who becomes the focus of a vicious smear campaign, as letters accusing him of having an affair and performing unlawful abortions are mailed to village leaders. The mysterious writer, who signs each letter as "Le Corbeau" (The Raven) soon targets the whole town, exposing everyone's dark secrets.

Crash is the controversial thriller from David Cronenberg about the interwoven relationship of 12 very different Los Angeles residents after a deadly car accident. Writer James Ballard starts a journey into the abyss of human obsession, lust, and ruin.