The following titles have been selected on the basis of top marks received by film critics. It is undoubtedly questionable, but it remains a point of reference for those who want to follow a path of training to the taste of cinema.
1922 Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Nosferatu: a symphony of horror
1924 Buster Keaton, Sherlock junior
1925 Sergej M. Ejzenštejn, Battleship Potëmkin
1925 Charles S. Chaplin, The gold rush
1927 Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Sunrise
1928 Buster Keaton, The cameraman
1928 Carl Theodor Dreyer, The passion of Joan of Arc
1930 Aleksandr P. Dovzenko, Earth
1931 Charles S. Chaplin, City lights
1931 Fritz Lang, M
1931 Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Tabu
1934 Robert J. Flaherty, Man of Aran
1936 Charles S. Chaplin, Modern times
1937 Jean Renoir, La grande illusion
1938 Howard Hawks, Bringing up baby
1939 John Ford, Stagecoach
1939 Jean Renoir, The rules of the game
1941 Orson Welles, Citizen Kane
1943 Carl Theodor Dreyer, Day of Wrath
1944 Sergej M. Ejzenštejn, Ivan Groznyi
1945 Marcel Carné, Children of Paradise
1946 Jean Renoir, A day in the country
1946 Roberto Rossellini, Paisà
1947 Charles S. Chaplin, Monsieur Verdoux
1948 Vittorio De Sica, Bicycle Thieves
1948 Luchino Visconti, The Earth Trembles – Episode of the sea
1950 Billy Wilder, Sunset Boulevard
1952 Vittorio De Sica, Umberto D
1952 Kenji Mizoguchi, The life of Oharu
1953 Kenji Mizoguchi, Ugetsu
1953 Yasujiro Ozu, Tokyo story
1954 Kenji Mizoguchi, The crucified lovers
1954 Luchino Visconti, Senso
1954 Akira Kurosawa, Seven samurai
1955 Charles Laughton, Night of the Hunter
1957 Ingmar Bergman, Wild strawberries
1958 Alfred Hitchcock, Vertigo
1958 Orson Welles, Touch of Evil
1958 Keisuke Kinoshita, The Ballad of Narayama
1958 Luis Buñuel, Nazarín
1959 Alain Resnais, Hiroshima mon amour
1960 Federico Fellini, La dolce vita
1962 Francesco Rosi, Salvatore Giuliano
1963 Federico Fellini, 8 ½
1966 Andrej Tarkovskij, Andrej Rublëv
1966 Robert Bresson, Au hasard Balthazar
1967 Jacques Tati, Play Time
1968 Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A space odyssey
1969 Marco Ferreri, Dillinger is dead
1969 Sam Peckinpah, The wild bunch
1972 Luis Buñuel, The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie
1973 Marco Ferreri, La grande bouffe
1974 Robert Altman, Nashville
1974 Theodoros (Théo) Anghelopulos, The travelling players
1978 Ermanno Olmi, The tree of wooden clogs
1979 Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse now
1982 Ingmar Bergman, Fanny and Alexander
1984 Sergio Leone, Once upon a time in America
1985 Akira Kurosawa, Ran
1987 Stanley Kubrick, Full Metal Jacket
1992 Edgar Reitz, Heimat 2 – Chronicle of a youth
1995 Emir Kusturica, Underground
1997 Aleksandr Sokurov, Mother and son
1998 Terrence Malick, The thin red line
2001 Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse now redux
2005 David Cronenberg, A history of violence
2006 Pedro Almodóvar, Volver
2006 Martin Scorsese, The departed
2008 Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino
2009 Marco Bellocchio, Vincere