TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest Films: 1001-2500

The buttoned-down, superstitious Kay is attempting to lead a normal existence with her new boyfriend Louis. That’s until Sweetie, her rampaging, devil-may-care sister, returns home after an absence, exposing the rotten roots of their family and placing a strain on Kay and Louis’ relationship.

The Black Audio Film Collective’s acclaimed essay film, 'Handsworth Songs', examines the 1985 race riots in Handsworth and London. Interweaving archival photographs, newsreel clips, and home movie footage, the film is both an exploration of documentary aesthetics and a broad meditation social and cultural oppression through Britain’s intertwined...

Tony spends his Saturdays at a disco where his stylish moves raise his popularity among the patrons. But his life outside the disco is not easy and things change when he gets attracted to Stephanie.

Footage shot in and around the Sahara Desert, accompanied only by a spoken creation myth and the songs of Leonard Cohen.

An early example of ultra-realism, this movie contrasts the quiet, bucolic life in the outskirts of Paris with the harsh, gory conditions inside the nearby slaughterhouses. Describes the fate of the animals and that of the workers in graphic detail.

Jean-Luc Godard mixes video and film in his Grenoble studio, discussing how he secured funding for the film. The action unfolds on two monitors, as a young working-class couple lives in a claustrophobic, high-rise apartment complex and marital discord is set off by the wife’s infidelity.

In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty as well as unexpected kindnesses Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionis...

The legendary Forty-seven ronin plot to avenge the death of their lord, Asano Naganori, by killing Kira Yoshinaka, a shogunate official responsible for Asano being forced to commit seppuku.

Oasis is a love story of two young people abandoned by families. A young man released from prison visits the widow of the man he killed drink-driving. There he meets her daughter, wheelchair bound with cerebral palsy. Will these two lost people find a way to make their relationship work?

A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.

In this classic French satire, Louis, a convict, escapes from prison and takes on legitimate work, making his way up in the business world. Eventually becoming the head of a successful factory, Louis opts to modernize his company with mechanical innovations. But when his friend Émile finally leaves jail years later and reunites with Louis, the p...

Taking place after alien crafts land around the world, an expert linguist is recruited by the military to determine whether they come in peace or are a threat.

The subject of the film was the Hauka movement. The Hauka movement consisted of mimicry and dancing to become possessed by French Colonial administrators. The participants performed the same elaborate military ceremonies of their colonial occupiers, but in more of a trance than true recreation.

The Docks of New York was one of the last successful silent films before cinemas turned towards sound. The film received excellent reviews and is today known as a classic conversation from the silent film era.

In the 1940’s Hollywood there are not only people but cartoon characters starring in films. Roger Rabbit, one of the biggest stars, is thought to have killed someone and the private detective Eddie Valiant must help the wanted Toonstar. A groundbreaking comedy where actors and cartoons are woven perfectly together.

A documentary on Soviet filmmaker Aleksandr Medvedkin, examining his tumultuous career, the rediscovery of his masterpiece Happiness, and Russia's struggles over the course of the 20th Century.

Convinced that his family is tainted by generations of evil, Roderick Usher is hellbent on stopping his sister Madeline’s wedding to prevent the cursed Usher bloodline from expanding. When her fiancé Allan arrives at the crumbling estate to claim his bride, Roderick goes to ruthless—even deadly—lengths to keep them apart.

A concert film documenting Talking Heads at the height of their popularity, on tour for their 1983 album "Speaking in Tongues." The band takes the stage one by one and is joined by a cadre of guest musicians for a career-spanning and cinematic performance that features creative choreography and visuals.

Rumble Fish is Coppola’s second gang film after ‘The Outsiders,’ based on the novel from S. E. Hinton. He tells the story of a young gang leader named Rusty James in an aesthetically black and white filmed tale.

The film is made up of one single take. The camera pans to the left, focusing on a dilapidated fence in a rural field, as Ella Fitzgerald's "All My Life" plays on the soundtrack. At the end of the 3 minute film, the camera tilts up to the blue sky just as the song ends.

When exposure to a combination of radiation and insecticide causes Scott Carey to begin to shrink medical science is powerless to help him.

Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well to convey confidence, needing money for these expenses and for her demanding mother and brother, and knowing she's growing older.

After her cheating husband leaves her, Mildred Pierce proves she can become independent and successful, but can't win the approval of her spoiled daughter.

Set in the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising, a married woman in a small Irish village has an affair with a troubled British officer.

Kelly (Towers) is a prostitute who shows up in the small town of Grantville, just one more burg in a long string of quick stops on the run after being chased out of the big city by her former pimp.

Iwao Enokizu is a middle-aged man who has an unexplainable urge to commit insane and violent murders. Eventually he is chased by the police all over Japan, but somehow he always manages to escape. He meets a woman who runs a brothel. They love each other but how long can they be together?

Jean-Baptiste, a filmmaker, and Elie, an actress, fall in love. To fight their unhappiness, they cling to their children: Jean-Baptiste to his film and Elie to her young son.

Jacques, a young man with artistic aspirations, spends four nights wandering Paris with a young woman, whom he rescued from suicide.

Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern physics teacher, watches his life unravel over multiple sudden incidents. Despite seeking meaning and answers amidst his turmoils, he seems to keep sinking.

Iris is a shy and dowdy young woman stuck in a dead-end job at a match factory, who dreams of finding love at the local dancehall. Finding herself pregnant after a one-night stand and abandoned by the father, Iris finally decides the time has come to get even and she begins to plot her revenge.

A rebellious youth, sentenced to a boy's reformatory for robbing a bakery, rises through the ranks of the institution through his prowess as a long distance runner. During his solitary runs, reveries of his life and times before his incarceration lead him to re-evaluate his privileged status as the Governor's prize runner.

In the 16th century, when Prince Salim falls in love with a beautiful courtesan named Anarkali, Emperor Akbar's disapproval leads to a battle between father and son.

When the leading lady of a Broadway musical breaks her ankle, she is replaced by a young unknown actress, who becomes the star of the show.

Diamonds in the night is the tense, brutal story of two Jewish boys who escape from a train transporting them from one concentration camp to another. Ultimately, they are hunted down by a group of old, armed home-guardists. The film goes beyond the themes of war and anti-Nazism and concerns itself with man's struggle to preserve human dignity.

Stop-motion animated short film in which a puppet, newly released from his strings, explores the sinister room in which he finds himself.

Lem goes to Chicago to sell the wheat his family has grown on their farm in Minnesota. There he meets the waitress Kate.

In 8th-century China, the Emperor grieves the death of his wife. The Yang family wants to provide the Emperor with a consort so that they may consolidate their court influence. General An Lushan finds a distant relative working in their kitchen, whom they groom to present to the Emperor. The Emperor falls in love and she becomes the Princess Yan...

The Truman Show is a film about a man who unknowing has been watched by cameras and living in a fictitious world ever since birth. Millions of people watch Truman, played by Jim Carrey, 24 hours a day, everyday, on television. The film caricatures the force the media.

Purehearted teen Lazzaro is content living as a sharecropper in rural Italy, but an unlikely friendship with the marquise’s son will change his world.

Retired rodeo champion Jeff McCloud agrees to mentor novice rodeo contestant Wes Merritt against the wishes of Merritt's wife who fears the dangers of this rough sport.

Rififi is a classic film noir with a famous 20 minute long break-in in absolute silence. A classic film noir.

Four men from different parts of the globe, all hiding from their pasts in the same remote South American town, agree to risk their lives transporting several cases of dynamite (which is so old that it is dripping unstable nitroglycerin) across dangerous jungle terrain.

Amateur plumber Cluny Brown gets sent off by her uncle to work as a servant at an English country estate..

A suburban architect loves his wife but is bored with his marriage and with his work, so he takes up with the neglected, married beauty who lives down the street.

Can Christmas be saved? Bored with the same old scare-and-scream routine, Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, longs to spread the joy of Christmas. But his merry mission puts Santa in jeopardy and creates a nightmare for good little boys and girls everywhere!

A town—where everyone seems to be named Johnson—stands in the way of the railroad. In order to grab their land, robber baron Hedley Lamarr sends his henchmen to make life in the town unbearable. After the sheriff is killed, the town demands a new sheriff from the Governor, so Hedley convinces him to send the town the first black sheriff in the w...

Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss concerning two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie—until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely obs...

A harsh portrait of Turkey, its people and its authorities, shown through the stories of five prisoners given a week's home leave, and the problems they encounter in adjusting to the world outside.

A teenage girl with nothing to lose joins a traveling magazine sales crew, and gets caught up in a whirlwind of hard partying, law bending and young love as she criss-crosses the Midwest with a band of misfits.

In a world where technology exists to enter the human mind through dream invasion, a single idea within one's mind can be the most dangerous weapon or the most valuable asset.