Essential movies to watch
Essential movies to watch
Just name the movies you think everyone should have seen at least once in their lifetime. Go!
The Princess Bride
As you wish.
That's inconceivable!
Please remove "that's"
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- The Big Lebowski
- Inception
Edit: Can't believe I left these out:
- High Fidelity
- Princess Bride
ALRIGHT!
We’re throwing rocks tonight!
Because I haven't seen it mentioned:
They Live
I grew up with Duke Nukem and later found a lot of his quotes were from that movie.
- The Fifth Element
- Big Trouble in Little China
- LOtR
- Akira
- Up
Princess Mononoke
- The Thing Carpenter's version
- Shawshank Redemption
- Yojimbo
- The Seventh Seal
- Duck Soup
- No Country For Old Men
- The Naked Gun
- Back to the Future
- The Guest
- Shrek
- The Hunt for Red October
- The Blues Brothers
- Dark City
- The rifftrax version of Jaws
- Double Indemnity
- Lord of the Rings trilogy
- Hot Fuzz
- The Dead Don't Die
- Hunt for the Wilderpeople
- Free Solo
- In the Loop
- Evil Dead original
- Office Space
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
- The Cabin in the Woods
- Clue
- North by Northwest
- Brick
- The Sting
- Return of the Jedi
- Casablanca
- The Third Man
Shoutout for mentioning Brick. Modern noir masterpiece I never see mentioned online. Great, eclectic list overall!
Most of mine are already listed but here's a couple more.
Army of Darkness
Dogma
The Protector
Clue
Full Metal Jacket
One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest
Howl's Moving Castle
Four Rooms
Pulp Fiction
Idiocracy. It was funny when it came out. Now it hurts.
That might explain why I didn’t like it too much. I saw it last year, it probably hits too close to home :/
Seriously. Hulk Hogan spoke at the RNC thing tonight. Idiocracy is real. It's happening.
- Caddyshack
- Animal House
- Goodfellas
- The Godfather
- Shawshank Redemption
- Schindler’s List
- The Shining
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Big Trouble in Little China
Princess Bride
Romancing the Stone
The Shining
Full Metal Jacket
Memento
American History X and The Green Mile
- Airplane!
- Ghostbusters
The Naked Gun(Already mentioned)- Gremlins + Gremlins 2
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom + Raiders of the Lost Ark
- The Great Dictator
- Forrest Gump
- American History X
- Grave of the Fireflies
- Rear Window
- The Silence of the Lambs
- Braveheart
- Highlander
Resevoir Dogs(Already mentioned)Children of Men(Already mentioned)My Neighbor Totoro(Already mentioned)- The Exorcist
- Rambo: First Blood
- Groundhog Day
- What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
- Scent of a Woman
- Predator
No particular order. Also, it’s movies that I watched, can’t speak on essentials that I might be missing.
It’s kinda hard to make a list on essentials tho. Because your personal taste obviously plays a big role. I can’t see my girlfriend liking more than 10 percent of those…
Schindlers List
Gladiator
No country for old men
The grand Budapest hotel
The big Lebowski
The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers
Star Wars (the original one)
Requiem for a dream
Pulp fiction
The good, the bad, the ugly
The lives of others
La vita é Bella
All quiet on the western front (1930 version)
The dark knight
The Truman Show
2001: Space odyssey
Alien
7 Samurai
Princess Mononoke
Trainspotting
Boyz N the Hood
Scarface
The Godfather 1, 2
The Matrix
Clockwork Orange
Shutter Island
Kingdom of Heaven
Wolf of Wall Street
Honorable mentions because they are popular and everybody always talks about them (I like a lot of them, too. Don’t consider them essentials tho):
Inception
Interstellar
Fight Club
Harry Potter
Return of the King
Rest of Star Wars (whatever people consider the good ones at last)
Saving Private Ryan
Django Unchained
Toy Story
The Lion King
Listing a bunch of decaprio movies and not adding Romeo and Juliet feels wrong. Everyone should experience it at least once.
Fair enough, I haven’t seen it yet. Also didn’t really notice how Decaprio heavy the list was until your comment.
Big Trouble in Little China
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Brazil
A Clockwork Orange
12 Monkeys
The Abominable Dr.Phibes
3 from Gilliam? Agreed, tho Might as well just watch everything he's associated with.
Fisher King & Time Bandits are lovely. Zero Theorem, the Man Who Killed Don Quixote, Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
All the Monty Python, of course.
Clockwork Orange was pivotal in my late teens, early twenties.
Eraserhead as well, other Lynch works: Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks & Lost Highway hold solid ground for me.
- The Thing ('82)
- Hot Fuzz
- Mad Max: Fury Road
- Spirited Away
- Taxi Driver
- The Matrix
- Unforgiven
- Nosferatu
- Suspiria ('77)
- 12 Angry Men
- Psycho
- The Wizard of Oz
Donnie Darko
Office Space
Equilibrium
Amélie
Back to the Future
Just off the top of my head: Alien and Aliens are wonderful, Apocalypse Now needs no introduction, Interstellar, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and finally Oppenheimer, which is one of the best movies ever made in my opinion (what can I say, I'm a sucker for an incredibly well-told story).
12 Angry Men
My Neighbour Totoro
Memento
Wall-E
The Truman Show
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
My Neighbour Totoro over Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle though?
My neighbor Totoro is a kids movie and probably one of the best one there is because it's about them, it's not a princess movie, the others aren't really aimed at kids so they can't really be compared.
My Neighbour Totoro is unique. In this film kids actually act and talk like kids. It is extremely imaginative and magical while not trying to be epic. It treats the audience as intelligent, curious people, giving a lot of quiet thinking space in between scenes.
It is a masterpiece of film making. The other Studio Ghibili films are good, but Totoro remains to be my favourite.
I watch eternal sunshine most times i see it on, but some days I just don't have the energy. It's so good, but also exhausting.
"Should have seen" is strange, I'll go with titles that, if you are into cinema probably you have heard about?
Citizen Kane
The Seventh Sigil
Apocalypse Now
Vertigo (Any Hitchcock movie really)
Seven Samurai (Any Kurosawa movie really)
Pretty much anything from Buster Keaton
Charlie Chaplin (I guess Modern Times)
The Godfather part I & II
Taxi Driver
On the Waterfront (Peak Marlon Brando stuff)
Some Truffaut stuff (I guess "Day for Night" would be the most relevant here)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind to get pretty much everything interesting from the Spielberg side of things
Man with a Camera (ok this one is not something I espect any conema lover to know, it's a very early montage wonder from Russia, always good to get back there and get reminded progress doesn't always go forward)
La Dolce Vita
2001: A Space Odyssey
Shining
A Clockwork Orange
Reservoir Dogs
Lost Highway (The better Mulholland Drive)
Blade Runner
The Matrix
Star Wars
There's some good newer stuff but it's much less "popular" so it wouldn't make sense to expect anybody to know them. Very little new stuff looks like has the staying power to be relevant years down the line.
I guess The Lord of the Rings? But I consider it more of a great book that got a quality adaptation than a ground breaking stepping stone of cinema.
No country for old men, probably.
Alien, Aliens, Alien3.
Rashomon
Man with a Movie Camera
Battleship Potemkin
Metropolis
The Lost Boys
The Matrix
Withnail & I
Requeim for a Dream
Synecdoche, New York
Hero
Let the Bullets Fly
Jackie Brown
Anomalisa
The Skin I Live in
Parrallel Mothers
Martyrs
Amélie
Taxi Driver
Etneral Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Lighthouse
Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
A New Hope, Empire, RotJ (despecialised, or original cuts
Bladerunner, Bladerunner 2049.
The Orphanage
Watership Down
Donnie Darko
American Beauty
I'm All Right, Jack
The Great Dictator
Blow-Up
City of God
The Road, so people should know what to expect in a decade or so.
Krull is one that stays in all my libraries. It's so obscure yet has names like Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane, and David Battley. It was my dad's favorite movie.
- Lord of The rings Trilogy
- All Quiet on the Western Front
- Princess Bride
Office Space - the message was ahead of it's time 12 Angry Men – reactionaries vs rationality
The Truman Show
Equilibrium or The Fountain
I don't see these enough
Fully believe Equilibrium would be our Matrix if the Matrix didn't exist
Santa Sangre (1989)
Little Shop of Horrors (Director's Cut) (1986)
Sorcerer (1977)
The General (1926)
Hunt for the Wildepeople
Yeesh, apologies for crappy formatting
Matrix
Alien/Aliens
Spirited Away
The Dark Knight
The Shining
Heat
Wall-E
Memento
Jurassic Park
Apollo 13
Children of Men
Unbreakable
Hereditary
The Witch
Arrival
Thin Red Line
Sixth Sense
Terminator 2
Primer
Finding Nemo
I could keep going
Secretary (2002)
Think what you want, this movie has layers of depth to it. Every time I watch it I feel like I learn something new about a character and why they are the way they are.
Star Wars (Original Trilogy)
Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Indiana Jones (first 3 movies)
I can't believe no one has said Tucker and Dale vs Evil yet. It's best if you watch it without knowing anything about it beforehand.
Oh this is honestly a good one that I wouldn’t have thought of. Just obscure enough to be unknown, but still solid.
Harold and Maude (1971)
I haven't seen it posted here yet so I'd like to add one of my favorites, Big Fish.
Frankenstein (1931), Dracula (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Colin (2008), Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Metropolis (1927), The Last Man on Earth (1964), and The Crow (1994) are all I can come up with.
- Perfect Blue
- The End of Evangelion
- Love & Pop
Love & Pop the Hideaki Anno movie? I don't think I've ever seen anybody else mention it online before
Yup, the Hideaki Anno movie! I think it's one of the greatest movies I've seen. There's a chapter of the book called Sexography that discusses the movie very well. It kind of helped me understand the issue a bit more.
Hell yeah! Ritual by him is also wonderful.
I haven't seen Ritual yet but it's on my watch list!
Just gonna name a few ones that weren't mentioned yet that I find noteworthy, unique and/or just pure fun:
- The Boy and the Heron (2023)
- Parasite (2019)
- The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
- The Man from Earth (2007)
- Ratatouille (2007)
- Catch Me If You Can (2002)
- The Sixth Sense (2001)
- The Emperor's New Groove (2000)
- Playtime (1967)
Puss in Boots: the Last Wish turned out to be really good, imo.
Forrest Gump The Blues Brothers Jurassic Park Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Interstellar
Jupiter Ascending
Lonesome
I just watched Jupiter Ascending and it didn't click with me at all. Glad you enjoyed it!
Dr. Strangelove
Unironically: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
A lot of movies already mentioned, so I'll add two movies which I feel are essential to watch:
- Ex Machina (2014)
- Into the Wild (2007)
- The fool
- The platform
The original Jumanji. The first Jurassic Park. Rush Hour. The Sound of Music. Spirited Away. Alien. The Dead Poet's Society. The Matrix. Happy as Lazaro. The Dark Knight. The Godfather. 2001: A Space Odyssey The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy). Seven Samurai. The Terminator. The Lion King.
Such classics.
If we're ever going to see eye to eye, you must be familiar with a Goofy Movie.
A bunch of other people have mentioned Ghibli movies and since I'm in the middle of a binge through every Ghibli movie I think I'll recommend one that I hadn't seen before a few days ago: Only Yesterday or Omoide Poroporo.
It's Isao Takahata, not Miyazaki, but it's easily my favorite Ghibli movie and one of my favorite movies of all time. It feels so real and relatable, the whole movie is essentially a really slow-paced series of flashbacks to the main character's 10-year-old self and every detail is so well-thought-out and interesting.
Very worth watching, although I'll mention as a disclaimer that all the friends I was watching it with thought it was super pointless and boring.Predestination
Day of the Wacko
Interstate 60
Everyone going the biggest and best....
I suggest:
Both versions of House on Haunted Hill (evolution of the campy horror genre)
Both versions of Black Christmas (see horror tropes become them and the retelling)
Jason X (Jason the undying killer but in space!)
Teeth (if you needed a movie to really drive home that SA is bad)
Trainspotting (if you needed a movie to really drive home that drug addiction is bad)
The Room (a detailed instructional of how not to write a movie)
Super Mario Bros 1993 (watch as both the main characters appear to become more drunk as the story goes on because their actors actually were) .... And the new one I guess. It's ok but not as entertaining on a meta level
DOA Dead or Alive (possibly the most true to source video game movie and a fun martial arts movie)
Patch Adams (if you can watch the whole thing twice, you're better than me. That third act is brutal emotionally for me)
Slaxx (do not read anything about it. Go in blind. Enjoy the layers of what the actual fuck is going on)
Dungeons and Dragons 2000 (about as accurate a oneshot as I've ever seen. Also, Jeremy Irons being peak Jeremy Irons)
What the bleep do we know (Science! Physics! Learning!)
Wicker man (Cage version during the height of him taking literally any role to pay off debts. Watch him overact and punch a woman in a bear suit)
Romeo and Juliet (decaprio version. Shakespeare but in modern day Miami. They do not update the language to current English.)
I've got more but that should be good for a few days worth of watching.
All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) - not entirely faithful to the novel, but this version is brutal in its depiction of the war. I do think removing Paul's short return to his village hurt the story. It's interesting to compare this one to the 1930 version
Spaceballs (1987) - Mel Brooks doing what he does best.
Blindness (2008)
Some I haven't seen mentioned: -The Best of Youth -Enter the Void -Call Me by Your Name -Nocturnal Animals -The Secret Life of Walter Mitty -The Hunt -Moonrise Kingdom -Mother (Korean movie) -The Baader Meinhoff Complex -City of God -Snatch
Mary and Max
Good responses! I couldn't think of anything that wasn't already there!
Con Air aka the greatest film ever made : https://youtu.be/5ekakWBxspA?si=SxnwRkzsJWQaCo47
Sorry, Im more of a Face Off guy.
Cinema Paradiso Gaslight Arsenic and Old Lace North by Northwest The Mummy (Brenden Fraser) Gladiator Saving Private Ryan Up Finding Nemo
American Movie
It hasn't been mentioned.
Primer
It's simply the BEST time travel movie
A few I don't see getting mentioned much:
- 3-Iron
- The Seventh Continent
- Hausu
- The Lives of Others
- Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring
- Spoorloos
In all my years as a fan of movies I have never heard anyone ever mention SSFWS! I feel like I just found a kindred spirit. It is a movie that sticks with you forever. One of my favorites for sure. You might enjoy The Best of Youth based off your list.
Haha, I have no idea why it is so unheard of. Absolutely floored me the first time I saw it years ago and I've come back to it at various times in my life and gotten different things out of it each time. Such a gem of a film.
Haven't seen The Best of Youth but I'll put it on my list right next to Satantango 😉.
I know the franchise has been on shaky ground lately, but I really think everyone should watch the Infinity Saga, in order, at least once. 23 movies that tell one vast over-arching story, featuring some of the best god-damn superhero casting ever seen.
Ghostbusters.
I work with people who have never seen it. Like, what the fuck are they even teaching kids these days?
Lord of the rings the fellowship, lotr two towers, lotr return of the king.
Lots already mentioned, but these i would add:
- Werk ohne autor
- Gattaca
- Thank you for smoking
- Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis
Gremlins (The only Christmas movie worth watching).