[kenji]

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