Films to introduce world cinema
 

Largely setting aside personal taste, here's a little list of films by year order as a basic introduction to world cinema. I've picked just one per director- M, La Grande Illusion, Rashomon, Ugetsu are among the top alternatives. A mix of established classics, critics' arthouse favourites and some popular hits. Lots of other goodies, important or interesting directors and countries to discover, of course..!

Nosferatu (Murnau) Germany
Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein) Soviet Union
Metropolis (Lang) Germany
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer) France
Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov) Soviet Union
L'Atalante (Vigo) France
Rules of the Game (Renoir) France
Children of Paradise (Carné) France
Bicycle Thieves (De Sica) Italy
Tokyo Story (Ozu) Japan
Seven Samurai (Kurosawa) Japan
Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi) Japan
Pather Panchali (Ray) India
A Man Escaped (Bresson) France
The Seventh Seal (Bergman) Sweden
The 400 Blows (Truffaut) France
Breathless (Godard) France
L'Avventura (Antonioni) Italy
8 1/2 (Fellini) Italy
The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo) Italy/Algeria
Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky) Russia
Belle de Jour (Bunuel) France
Aguirre Wrath of God (Herzog) Germany
Spirit of the Beehive (Erice) Spain
The Marriage of Maria Braun (Fassbinder) Germany
My Neighbour Totoro (Miyazaki) Japan
Cinema Paradiso (Tornatore) Italy
Raise the Red Lantern (Zhang Yimou) China
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee) China/Taiwan
In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai) China
Amélie (Jeunet) France
City of God (Meirelles) Brazil
Talk to Her (Almodovar) Spain
Pan's Labyrinth (Del Toro) Spain

Thanks Kenji for this comprehensive list. I know the ones I’ve seen are fantastic so I’ll definitely seek out all the others. I believe The 400 blows will be shown on the new Cinemoi channel soon, hopefully they have a few of the other French ones too.

Personally I would not reccomend:
Raise the Red Lantern (Zhang Yimou) China
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee) China/Taiwan
In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai) China

Not as they are bad films, all three are good. Just because all three Directors have done much better films. Then again as a Chinese it's much easier for me to get access to these films. I don't know how readily accessible they are in "The west".

I would reccomend Kar-Wai's 2046 or in particular Dung che sai duk. (Ashes of Time)

I was never a huge Ang Lee fan but Xi yan (Wedding banquet) would probably be his best (non American) work.*


*Ice storm might be his best.

As for Yimou Zhang look no further than Wo de fu qin mu qin (The road home) or Xingfu shiguang (Happy times).

I don't think most of WKW films with the exception of Chungking Express are suitable to new viewers (own personal opinion. Coincidently, happy Together is my fave song).

But the film list above sums up the obvious films that are 'must-sees'

its not really a comprehensive list. more a list of films you are supposed to watch as a student and understand their importance. what about films like La Haine /amores perros/ dobermann/ run lola run/ anything by luc besson ! (subway specifically ) cronos/ y tu mama tambien/ la scorta/ hard boiled... i could go on forever obviously, but dont get into world cinema to watch old classics . look at the new stuff. its much more cutting edge and relevant than hollywood...potempkin and nosferatu are vital films in history but they are only really watchable to understand the development of the later classics...

padre padrone
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076517/
tree of wooden clogs
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077138/
a nous la liberte
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022599/
jour da fete
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040497/

1) chungking express
2) la haine
3) city of god
4) amelie
5) hard boiled

Divide
 

Really gripping film I watched it a few months and would recommend to others