100 Movies to See Before You Die

This is a broad foundation in film history: one hundred titles, from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in 1920 to Parasite in 2019, chosen so that a viewer can follow how the medium found its language, lost it, and found it again elsewhere.

It is not a ranking of favourites, and it does not claim these are the only films worth seeing. Popular successes sit beside demanding art films, because the canon here includes what audiences loved as well as what critics defended.

A film belongs when it changed how cinema is made, seen or understood, or when it is the clearest way into a tradition, director, country or genre. The list draws on the critical canon, including Sight & Sound and the BFI, and on editorial judgement.

The list opens in the silent era, with Caligari and Nosferatu making shadow and distortion part of the story. Chaplin and Keaton, in The Kid, Sherlock Jr. and The General, perfect physical comedy. Potemkin, Metropolis, Sunrise, Joan of Arc and Man with a Movie Camera widen what images can do. City Lights, M and Modern Times then meet sound on their own terms.

From Snow White and The Rules of the Game, the path runs through Hollywood's classical peak: Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Double Indemnity. Rome, Open City and Bicycle Thieves then take cameras into real streets. Rashomon, Ikiru, Tokyo Story and Seven Samurai bring Japanese cinema into view, followed by Pather Panchali, The Searchers and Bergman's The Seventh Seal.

Around 1958 the centre of gravity shifts. Vertigo turns suspense inward, while Hiroshima mon amour, The 400 Blows, Breathless, L'Avventura and Cléo from 5 to 7 break classical continuity. Fellini's 8½ and Bergman's Persona turn the camera on the mind and the filmmaker. Meanwhile Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Strangelove, A Fistful of Dollars and 2001 stretch scale, satire and genre.

Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate and Easy Rider open Hollywood to younger voices, and the 1970s follow: The Godfather films, Mean Streets, Chinatown, Taxi Driver and Network. Jaws and Star Wars then redraw the industry around the blockbuster. Apocalypse Now, Alien, Raging Bull, The Shining and Blade Runner keep ambition and unease alive, and E.T. sets warmth against spectacle.

The final stretch turns outward and forward. Paris, Texas, Ran, Blue Velvet and Do the Right Thing keep authorship vivid, while Goodfellas, Schindler's List, Pulp Fiction and Fargo mark the 1990s. Jurassic Park, Toy Story and The Matrix bring digital tools, alongside Princess Mononoke, In the Mood for Love, Spirited Away, City of God and, finally, Parasite.