Cahiers du Cinéma's 100 Films for an Ideal Cinematheque

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.

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.

Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game is a comedic drama about a Parisian aristocrat. The film was released shortly before the start of World War II.

The first film from director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau to be finished in the States. The film has the tangible elements of German expressionism. Murnau received a big budget from Fox and the ability to make all the filmmaking decisions. The film has been called the greatest silent film of all time.

Newly married couple Juliette and ship captain Jean struggle through marriage as they travel on the L'Atalante along with the captain's first mate and a cabin boy.

M is German director Fritz Lang’s masterpiece that illustrates the portrait of a child murderer that has caused an entire city to begin rioting. The film is based on actual events.

Hollywood's attempts to move from the 'silent' era to the 'Talkies' are not going as planned.

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.

In a chaotic 19th-century Paris teeming with aristocrats, thieves, psychics, and courtesans, theater mime Baptiste is in love with the mysterious actress Garance. But Garance, in turn, is loved by three other men: pretentious actor Frederick, conniving thief Lacenaire, and Count Edouard of Montray.

As a Civil War veteran spends years searching for a young niece captured by Indians, his motivation becomes increasingly questionable.

The sudden fortune won from a lottery fans such destructive greed that it ruins the lives of the three people involved.

A classic old western film starring John Wayne, Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson as a defunct threesome; one wounded, another drunk, and the last one a young gunslinger. They are ask by a local sheriff to help keep a bad guy’s brother in jail. This is a western film for people who don’t even like westerns.

To Be or Not to Be is a statement against the Nazi regime. A propaganda film about the Polish resilience with a slight comedic aspect.

An old couple visit their children and grandchildren in the city, but receive little attention.

Contempt / Le Mépris is a film about filmmaking. Godard’s Masterfully staged melodrama tells of a woman’s love for a middle-class lifestyle and how a film maker must buy it for her while at the same time working as a writer for the film ‘The Odyssey’ to be directed by Fritz Lang.

In the civil wars of 16th century Japan, two ambitious peasants want to make their fortunes. The potter Genjuro intends to sell his wares for vast profits in the local city, while his brother-in-law Tobei wishes to become a samurai.

City Lights is the first silent film that Charlie Chaplin directed after he established himself with sound accompanied films. The film is about a penniless man who falls in love with a flower girl. The film was a great success and today is deemed a cult classic.

The General is an American silent film comedy from Buster Keaton from 1927. The film was in its time a flop yet now days is regarded as the height of silent film comedy. The film is based on events from America’s civil war.

Although the critics in 1922 didn’t find the film to be anything special, a few years after it’s release it was called innovative and a landmark in cinema history. German director Murnau’s vampire film holds claim to one of the most, if not the most important German expressionist film and a foundation for horror films.

The Music Room is a famous Bengali film from the great Satyajit Ray from 1958 about a improvised land owner and his love for music.

A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.

On the outskirts of town, the hard-nosed Vienna owns a saloon frequented by the undesirables of the region, including Dancin' Kid and his gang. Another patron of Vienna's establishment is Johnny Guitar, a former gunslinger and her lover. When a heist is pulled in town that results in a man's death, Emma Small, Vienna's rival, rallies the townsfo...

Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is an unemployed young man involved in a love triangle with both his girlfriend Marie, and a Polish nurse, Veronika (Françoise Lebrun), which he picked up at a café.

The Great Dictator is a cult film from Charlie Chaplin that satires German Nationalism and Adolf Hitler. The movie was filmed during the Nazi power and if Chaplin would have known what they were doing in German at the time he says he probably wouldn’t have made the film.

As Garibaldi's troops begin the unification of Italy in the 1860s, an aristocratic Sicilian family grudgingly adapts to the sweeping social changes undermining their way of life.

The deep conversation between a Japanese architect and a French actress forms the basis of this celebrated French film, considered one of the vanguard productions of the French New Wave. Set in Hiroshima after the end of World War II, the couple -- lovers turned friends -- recount, over many hours, previous romances and life experiences. The two...

Die Büchse der Pandora, meaning Pandora’s Box, is a classic German silent film from director Pabst. This is the third film about the Lulu-Stoffes character from Frank Wedekind and is deemed a masterpiece.

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.

Pick Pocket is a corporation drama from French avant-garde director Robert Bresson about a pickpocket thief.

Ispirato ad una storia vera. Parigi, fine Ottocento. La bella prostituta Marie vive nel quartiere di Belleville ed è soprannominata Casco d'oro per via dei suoi meravigliosi capelli biondi: il suo amore è conteso da due uomini, un mite falegname ed il protettore della ragazza.

The life of a Hollywood film star is recalled by the different men who knew, worked with, and loved her.

set in the eighteenth century, the film is about John Mohune, a young orphan, played by Jon Whiteley, who is sent to the Dorset village of Moonfleet to stay with an old friend of his mother's, Jeremy Fox. Fox, played by Stewart Granger, is a morally ambiguous character, an elegant gentleman involved with smugglers and pirates.

In late 19th century France, the Countess Louise, wife of a wealthy general, sells the earrings her husband gave her on their wedding day to pay off her secret debts, then claims to have lost them. Her husband quickly learns of the deceit, which is the beginning of many tragic misunderstandings, all involving the earrings, the general, the count...

Three short stories about pleasure.

The Deer Hunter is a 1978 war drama film about a trio of Rusyn American steel worker friends and their infantry service in the Vietnam War.

A woman disappears during a Mediterranean boating trip. But during the search, her lover and her best friend become attracted to each other.

Battleship Potemkin is the classic masterpiece silent film from director Sergej Eisenstein from 1925. The film is based on the true events of the Russian Revolution of 1905. The film had an incredible impact on the development of cinema and was a masterful example of montage editing.

Released shortly after the war, this classic Hitchcock film illustrates the battle between German Nazis and American spies and the trafficking of drugs.

Set during the early part of his reign, Ivan faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people. Sergei Eisenstein's final film, this is the first part of a three-part biopic of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, which was never completed due to the producer's dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's attempts ...

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.

Stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping, and police corruption in Mexican border town.

When Letty Mason relocates to West Texas, she finds herself unsettled by the ever-present wind and sand. Arriving at her new home at the ranch of her cousin, Beverly, she receives a surprisingly cold welcome from his wife, Cora. Soon tensions in the family and unwanted attention from a trio of suitors leave Letty increasingly disturbed.

The highly respected and often cited milestone in Science Fiction cinema. Director Stanley Kubrick takes us into the future, into outer space and aboard a spacecraft that’s controlled by a seemingly trustworthy computer named HAL.

A widowed actress and her children suffer hardships when she marries a conservative church leader.

The film centers on ambitious but undisciplined New York City office worker John who meets and marries Mary. They start a family, struggle to cope with marital stress, financial setbacks, and tragedy, all while lost amid the anonymous, pitiless throngs of the big city.

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.

The Pier / La Jetee is a masterpiece from French director Chris Marker from 1962. A post apocalyptic science fiction short film in the form of a photo collage. The film inspired the film ’12 Monkeys.’

Ferdinand Griffon (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is unhappily married and has been recently fired from his job at a TV broadcasting company. After a boring party in Paris, he decides to leave his wife and children for his baby-sitter, an ex-girlfriend, Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina).

Un homme, depuis son enfance, n'a qu'une seule ambition, devenir riche. Pour cela il a decide de devenir tricheur et voleur professionnel. A douze ans, il survit a l'empoisonnement collectif dans lequel perit sa famille: pour avoir vole des champignons, il avait ete puni et n'avait pas pu en manger...

In an Italian seaside town, young Titta gets into trouble with his friends and watches various local eccentrics as they engage in often absurd behavior. Frequently clashing with his stern father and defended by his doting mother, Titta witnesses the actions of a wide range of characters, from his extended family to Fascist loyalists to sensual w...