1.- THE PIANO (1993) by Jane Campion
With a definite woman's gaze, Campion reinterprets a man's world of tragedy. Yes, the world would be a different place.
2.- 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) by Stanley Kubrick
Infinitely small, the man tries to adjust and tame the universe, but has to conform to watching as the cycle of life continues beyond his understanding
3.- CITIZEN KANE (1941) by Orson Welles
Filled with meaning in its complex structure, Kane develops the idea of a tale told by many fools that don't amount to much, or at least, amount to a single thing: Rosebud
4.- THE GODFATHER I, 2 and (yes, that's right) 3 (1972, 1974, 1990) by Francis Ford Coppola
A dramatic saga of an italian family in New York, its roots and consequences. It'll take 20 more years till the 3rd part gets its proper recognition.
5.- LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962) by David Lean
With its jump cut from a match igniting to an immense desert, Lawrence Jumped into our imagination
6.- BLUE VELVET (1986) by David Lynch
Look inside your soul, and you won't find the same person you see in the mirror, or other people see in you. Lynch put all that out for good
7.- PSYCHO (1960) by Alfred Hitchcock
Picture this: you are in a room of a deserted hotel, night time, nobody you know knows you're there, and you are in the shower. feel the chills? you know who did that to you?
8.- RASHOMON (1950) by Akira Kurosawa
A killing told by different witnesses (including the spirit of the victim) only reinforces the impossibility of justice
9.- LA DOLCE VITA (1960) by Federico Fellini
A blinding portrait of midnight in Rome and everything else that corrupts our life, including the Paparazzi
10.- HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986) by Woody Allen
In the spectacular work of Allen, this is an absolute pleasure: I use it as my personal shrink: no matter how bad, sad or angry I am, just ten minutes of this and my mood changes completely
11.- PARIS, TEXAS (1984) by Wim Wenders
Two burnt out characters, with mirrored destroyed lives cross paths for a second to save the forgotten product of their love: Hunter.
12.- WINGS OF DESIRED (1987) by Wim Wenders
Pure Poetry: In a black a white heaven, two angels pity the humans until one desides to enter the colored world to fall in love with a trapezist.
13.- L'ECLISSE (1962) by Michelangelo Antonioni
A man and a woman try to fall in love while the emptiness of society eclipses every effort. An eventual final encounter is virtually impossible
14.- BRAZIL (1985) BY TERRY GILLIAM
Orwell gave Gilliam the best canvas in which to set himself lose on everything that is our social future. Brazil is, perhaps, the most incredible creation of a dystopian world where individuals are crushed into a machinery of nonsense, placing our planet in the last place on the countdown to savagery.
15.- WILD STRAWBERRIES (1957) BY INGMAR BERGMAN
As 80-year old Dr. Isak Borg is preparing for a Career Tribute, he enters a world of wonders, where memories of his childhood, phantasmagorical apparitions of the future, and renewed relationships in the present retell his whole life.
16.- ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER (1999) by Pedro Almodovar
This is pure woman power, suffering, understanding and love.
17.- THE ENGLISH PATIENT (1996) BY ANTHONY MINGHELLA
When Katharine Clifton and Count Almasy exchange glances, they are signing their death. Actually he becomes her executioner and his secrets and shame will literally burn him alive
18.- FARGO (1996) BY THE COEN BROTHERS
Whenever you watch a Coen Brothers movie, you watch their characters from above as they play a chess game they are already destined to lose.
19.-SUNSET BLVD. (1950) BY BILLY WILDER
Many years before Sam Mendez used his deceased protagonist to tell his story, Wilder had devised the twist in this ghoulish story of Hollywood ultimate decadence. Norma Desmond (with the face of Gloria Swanson) entered our pop culture pantheon with her "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up"
20.-GOODFELLAS (1990) by Martin Scorsese
As far back I as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. If you take this initial realization and make a jump-cut a la 2001, to the last scene where Henry Hill is living a common life hiding from the mafia, the irony of this beautifully violent world finds a true chronicler in Scorsese, without highlighting ridiculous laws and the codes of family that this italian sub-world tries to sell.
21.- SHORT CUTS (1993) BY ROBERT ALTMAN
All the decades building up an improvised style, with multiple characters and story lines converge in this fresco of modern day Los Angeles and what lurks under, over and around its dwellers. And after all the characters basically created by Raymond Carver, find themselves in a dead end, Altman finds the only way to homogenize their feeling with a perfect ending.
22.-THE PIANO TEACHER (2001) by Michael Haneke
The definitive Freudian movie. A mature woman who still sleeps in bed with her mom, mistakes love for sexual repression and can only understand the world through S&M. A tour de force for Isabella Huppert
23.- LORNA'S SILENCE (2008) (Jean-Pierra and Luc Dardenne)
With illegal immigration being a major issue worldwide, The Dardenne brothers focus their restraint style on Lorna, who is trapped in a web of opportunism and can't seem to give a hand to the only character that really needs her. A global tragedy.
24.-CRASH (1996) BY DAVID CRONENBERG
picture this: A car crashes violently, a couple has sex, another crash, more sex, more sex, more crashes and sex and crashes, until you realized that technology and violence has changed our desires and how we live our lives. The most Shocking film from Cronenberg's theater of the flesh.
25.- THE GRIFTERS (1990) BY STEPHEN FREARS
In the gallery of dark and cruel films, The Grifters should be up there with the best of the best. The rottenness of its characters and what they are eager to do for reasons of the unknown can freeze you to death. Plus, you'll develop a phobia to oranges in the process.
26.- THE CONVERSATION (1974) by Francis Ford Coppola
Harry Caul is a very simple man with no life, that spends his days stealing private moments from others and selling them. Talking about facebook and the whole Internet experience!, this was a film for a paranoid decade that opened up a can of worms to our end of privacy.
27.- THE REMAINS OF THE DAY (1993) by James Ivory
Feelings are neglected in this film about human servitude and the extent of responsibility and alienation. Can you sit and not be moved by Stevens absence at his father's last hour? And his rejection of Miss Kenton's very human tenderness? Restraint and sacrifice for the ages.
28.- THE SHELTERING SKY (1990) by Bernardo Bertolucci
Too immerse in the boredom of life. Too self absorbed and lost in culture and society's vanity, Port and Kit try to find meaning in their world trips, but can only encounter their void. As death approaches, they reach for each other, but they are both experience the transformation after their own apocalypse. And when Kit walks to find Paul Bowles, we discover that we are children, and never adults, our entire life.
29.- RAISE THE RED LANTERN (1991) BY YIMOU ZHANG
Nineteen year old Songlian is forced to marry Cheng Zuoquian, a powerful lord, who already holds 3 more wives of different ages. Every week, he decides who he wants to spend his evenings with, which translates in a splendorous treatment for the winner, and oblivion for the remaining 3. Yimou reminds us that our purpose in life is to be comfortable, even if we destroy others in the process.
30.- CITY LIGHTS (1931) by Charles Chaplin
Chaplin's eternal Charlot has always been a down-and-out man and he has always survived gold rushes, great dictators and modern times, but when he falls for this blind woman and befriends a drunk millionaire, he finds the way to give back even if that means to lose the girl in the process.
31.-VERTIGO (1958) by Alfred Hitchcock
Hitchock always found a way to disguise some of the most tabu ideas in stories that Hollywood could sell easily. In this case, Necrophilia becomes the basic for this love story that obsesses itself with the raw sexuality of Kim Novak.
32.-REAR WINDOW (1954) by Alfred Hitchcock
The ultimate voyeuristic movie, confines James Stewart to a wheelchair as his imagination builds up a macabre story through his window. It turns out he was right, so what Hitchock is telling you is: expect the worst and you won't err.
33.- THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985) BY Woody Allen
During the depression era, Movies were only for escapism. Cecilia is a faithful proof of that. She escapes the harsh reality and her abusive husband watching the same movies over and over as if she wanted some adventurous character to come out of it and take her to a wonderful world, which eventually happens.
34.-A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) by Stanley Kubrick
In an ultraviolent future world, the only way to civilize people is by inflicting more violence into their brain, making them unable to decide the bad from the worst. Not that Alex deserves our sympathy, but, we kinda feel sorry for the miss guided guy.
35.- CASABLANCA (1942) by Michael Curtiz
In the realm of moviemaking, there is nothing compared to the perfection of this romantic anti-nazi story. To watch Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in an impossible love story is pure and unadulterated hypnosis.
36.- THE EXORCIST (1973) by William Friedkin
What Friedkin brought to this demonic possession story is a ghoulish atmosphere, a sense of no hold barrels, an attack against establishment and some of the most horrifically unforgettable images.
37.-THE BIG CHILL (1983) By Lawrence Kasdam
These children of the 60's find themselves trapped in a bunuel-like weekend exploring what was left to explore from their youth and looking to their current life (and future) with disappointment. It is the cry of a whole generation.
38.-AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS (1987) by Louis Malle
France, during the occupation. A boarding school hides a jewish boy, and this microcosm reflects what's wrong and what can be saved from this world. Sadly, he is discovered and has to leave for an uncertain future as the rest of the children face, for the first time, a real and imminent death. Au revoir innocence.