Go to the home page Go to the master list sorted by rank Go to the master list sorted alphabetically Go to the top films as determined by each taste Go to the master list sorted by director Go to the master list sorted by actor Go to the master list sorted by year of release Go to the master list sorted by genre Go to the master list sorted by nation of origin Go to more lists of films Find alternate titles of master list films Go to lists of top films as determined by normal film fans Go to the FAQ and other essays Go to the links page Go to the site map

Top Highbrow Films (#1-200)

Rank Title Year Director(s) Overall
Rank
1 Seven Samurai 1954 Akira Kurosawa 24
2 Tokyo Story 1953 Yasujirô Ozu 78
3 Citizen Kane 1941 Orson Welles 11
4 M 1931 Fritz Lang 84
5 Rashômon 1950 Akira Kurosawa 65
6 The Bicycle Thief 1948 Vittorio De Sica 69
7 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 Stanley Kubrick 3
8 The 400 Blows 1959 François Truffaut 70
9 La Dolce Vita 1960 Federico Fellini 124
10 Vertigo 1958 Alfred Hitchcock 15
11 The Rules of the Game 1939 Jean Renoir 138
12 The Godfather 1972 Francis Ford Coppola 2
13 8 1/2 1963 Federico Fellini 100
14 Metropolis 1927 Fritz Lang 43
15 Breathless 1960 Jean-Luc Godard 97
16 Apocalypse Now 1979 Francis Ford Coppola 10
17 Persona 1966 Ingmar Bergman 122
18 Psycho 1960 Alfred Hitchcock 1
19 Taxi Driver 1976 Martin Scorsese 17
20 The Passion of Joan of Arc 1928 Carl Theodor Dreyer 152
21 Casablanca 1942 Michael Curtiz 5
22 The Battleship Potemkin 1925 Sergei Eisenstein 131
23 The Seventh Seal 1957 Ingmar Bergman 118
24 Pather Panchali 1955 Satyajit Ray 155
25 Singin' in the Rain 1952 Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly 7
26 In the Mood for Love 2000 Kar-Wai Wong 94
27 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb 1964 Stanley Kubrick 16
28 Aguirre: The Wrath of God 1972 Werner Herzog 178
29 City Lights 1931 Charles Chaplin 40
30 Sunset Blvd. 1950 Billy Wilder 41
31 Sunrise 1927 F.W. Murnau 117
32 Pulp Fiction 1994 Quentin Tarantino 8
33 Some Like It Hot 1959 Billy Wilder 19
34 Raging Bull 1980 Martin Scorsese 44
35 The Godfather: Part II 1974 Francis Ford Coppola 23
36 The Third Man 1949 Carol Reed 42
37 The Battle of Algiers 1966 Gillo Pontecorvo 158
38 The Grand Illusion 1937 Jean Renoir 180
39 Rear Window 1954 Alfred Hitchcock 37
40 Andrei Rublev 1966 Andrei Tarkovsky 264
41 The Searchers 1956 John Ford 53
42 Goodfellas 1990 Martin Scorsese 14
43 Modern Times 1936 Charles Chaplin 61
44 Chinatown 1974 Roman Polanski 34
45 L'Avventura 1960 Michelangelo Antonioni 299
46 Fanny and Alexander 1982 Ingmar Bergman 253
47 Double Indemnity 1944 Billy Wilder 51
48 Wild Strawberries 1957 Ingmar Bergman 245
49 The General 1926 Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton 86
50 Blade Runner 1982 Ridley Scott 12
51 The Night of the Hunter 1955 Charles Laughton 57
52 Touch of Evil 1958 Orson Welles 87
53 Lawrence of Arabia 1962 David Lean 25
54 Spirited Away 2001 Hayao Miyazaki 32
55 Annie Hall 1977 Woody Allen 33
56 It's a Wonderful Life 1946 Frank Capra 46
57 The Apartment 1960 Billy Wilder 59
58 Children of Paradise 1945 Marcel Carné 216
59 Nosferatu 1922 F.W. Murnau 107
60 Mulholland Dr. 2001 David Lynch 89
61 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 1966 Sergio Leone 48
62 Ikiru 1952 Akira Kurosawa 223
63 Ugetsu 1953 Kenji Mizoguchi 352
64 The Conformist 1970 Bernardo Bertolucci 287
65 L'Atalante 1934 Jean Vigo 332
66 Ran 1985 Akira Kurosawa 186
67 North by Northwest 1959 Alfred Hitchcock 49
68 Once Upon a Time in the West 1968 Sergio Leone 76
69 All about Eve 1950 Joseph L. Mankiewicz 64
70 Star Wars 1977 George Lucas 4
71 Do the Right Thing 1989 Spike Lee 75
72 The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie 1972 Luis Buñuel 368
73 The Man with the Movie Camera 1929 Dziga Vertov 240
74 A Clockwork Orange 1971 Stanley Kubrick 36
75 Au hasard Balthazar 1966 Robert Bresson 365
76 Jules and Jim 1962 François Truffaut 241
77 Three Colors: Red 1994 Krzysztof Kieslowski 208
78 Sansho the Bailiff 1954 Kenji Mizoguchi 414
79 The Maltese Falcon 1941 John Huston 81
80 Playtime 1967 Jacques Tati 328
81 The Shining 1980 Stanley Kubrick 22
82 The Red Shoes 1948 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger 150
83 Wings of Desire 1987 Wim Wenders 277
84 The Wild Bunch 1969 Sam Peckinpah 88
85 Paths of Glory 1957 Stanley Kubrick 127
86 The Spirit of the Beehive 1973 Víctor Erice 390
87 12 Angry Men 1957 Sidney Lumet 66
88 One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest 1975 Milos Forman 39
89 The Gold Rush 1925 Charles Chaplin 171
90 Rome, Open City 1945 Roberto Rossellini 360
91 Fargo 1996 Joel Coen 67
92 City of God 2002 Fernando Meirelles 103
93 The Wizard of Oz 1939 Victor Fleming 9
94 Nashville 1975 Robert Altman 161
95 The Wages of Fear 1953 Henri-Georges Clouzot 269
96 Ordet 1955 Carl Theodor Dreyer 514
97 Come and See 1985 Elem Klimov 255
98 Blue Velvet 1986 David Lynch 133
99 La Strada 1954 Federico Fellini 366
100 Alien 1979 Ridley Scott 6
101 The Leopard 1963 Luchino Visconti 340
102 His Girl Friday 1940 Howard Hawks 98
103 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 1920 Robert Wiene 174
104 Last Year at Marienbad 1961 Alain Resnais 433
105 On the Waterfront 1954 Elia Kazan 79
106 Days of Heaven 1978 Terrence Malick 243
107 Schindler's List 1993 Steven Spielberg 21
108 Duck Soup 1933 Leo McCarey 129
109 Stalker 1979 Andrei Tarkovsky 195
110 Bringing Up Baby 1938 Howard Hawks 128
111 Sherlock, Jr. 1924 Buster Keaton 281
112 Jeanne Dielman 1975 Chantal Akerman 321
113 Beauty and the Beast 1946 Jean Cocteau 201
114 Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981 Steven Spielberg 28
115 Hiroshima mon amour 1959 Alain Resnais 432
116 Viridiana 1961 Luis Buñuel 485
117 Pan's Labyrinth 2006 Guillermo del Toro 82
118 Barry Lyndon 1975 Stanley Kubrick 233
119 Jaws 1975 Steven Spielberg 13
120 There Will Be Blood 2007 Paul Thomas Anderson 125
121 Paris, Texas 1984 Wim Wenders 353
122 Shoah 1985 Claude Lanzmann 254
123 Belle de Jour 1967 Luis Buñuel 378
124 Solaris 1972 Andrei Tarkovsky 170
125 The Big Sleep 1946 Howard Hawks 215
126 Three Colors: Blue 1993 Krzysztof Kieslowski 322
127 Gone with the Wind 1939 Victor Fleming 31
128 The Decalogue 1989 Krzysztof Kieslowski 508
129 The Empire Strikes Back 1980 Irvin Kershner 29
130 Manhattan 1979 Woody Allen 191
131 The Silence of the Lambs 1991 Jonathan Demme 20
132 Notorious 1946 Alfred Hitchcock 148
133 Rio Bravo 1959 Howard Hawks 202
134 The Conversation 1974 Francis Ford Coppola 207
135 The World of Apu 1959 Satyajit Ray 492
136 The Grapes of Wrath 1940 John Ford 273
137 Brief Encounter 1945 David Lean 211
138 Close-Up 1990 Abbas Kiarostami 531
139 A Man Escaped 1956 Robert Bresson 617
140 Contempt 1963 Jean-Luc Godard 496
141 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 1948 John Huston 142
142 A Woman under the Influence 1974 John Cassavetes 449
143 Bonnie and Clyde 1967 Arthur Penn 116
144 Intolerance 1916 D.W. Griffith 369
145 King Kong 1933 Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack 68
146 Late Spring 1949 Yasujirô Ozu 593
147 Stagecoach 1939 John Ford 183
148 The Mirror 1975 Andrei Tarkovsky 597
149 Unforgiven 1992 Clint Eastwood 120
150 It Happened One Night 1934 Frank Capra 99
151 Rosemary's Baby 1968 Roman Polanski 77
152 Yojimbo 1961 Akira Kurosawa 354
153 Los Olvidados 1950 Luis Buñuel 570
154 La Jetée 1962 Chris Marker 474
155 Umberto D. 1952 Vittorio De Sica 491
156 All about My Mother 1999 Pedro Almodóvar 320
157 The Lives of Others 2006 Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck 244
158 Un chien andalou 1929 Luis Buñuel 382
159 Yi yi: A One and a Two... 2000 Edward Yang 457
160 The Best Years of Our Lives 1946 William Wyler 200
161 The Shawshank Redemption 1994 Frank Darabont 45
162 Le Samouraï 1967 Jean-Pierre Melville 455
163 The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance 1962 John Ford 230
164 Badlands 1973 Terrence Malick 272
165 Greed 1924 Erich von Stroheim 473
166 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 1982 Steven Spielberg 27
167 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 2001 Peter Jackson 35
168 The Deer Hunter 1978 Michael Cimino 121
169 Ashes and Diamonds 1958 Andrzej Wajda 680
170 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul 1974 Rainer Werner Fassbinder 471
171 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg 1964 Jacques Demy 292
172 A Matter of Life and Death 1946 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger 316
173 Oldboy 2003 Park Chan-wook 141
174 The Great Dictator 1940 Charles Chaplin 222
175 Once Upon a Time in America 1984 Sergio Leone 157
176 Cleo from 5 to 7 1962 Agnès Varda 383
177 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2000 Ang Lee 140
178 Chungking Express 1994 Kar-Wai Wong 372
179 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 2004 Michel Gondry 56
180 To Be or Not to Be 1942 Ernst Lubitsch 251
181 Nights of Cabiria 1957 Federico Fellini 693
182 Sweet Smell of Success 1957 Alexander Mackendrick 209
183 The Graduate 1967 Mike Nichols 73
184 Reservoir Dogs 1992 Quentin Tarantino 95
185 Brazil 1985 Terry Gilliam 114
186 Toy Story 1995 John Lasseter 38
187 Trouble in Paradise 1932 Ernst Lubitsch 540
188 Cries and Whispers 1972 Ingmar Bergman 695
189 The Earrings of Madame De… 1953 Max Ophüls 801
190 Amélie 2001 Jean-Pierre Jeunet 119
191 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 2003 Peter Jackson 52
192 Diary of a Country Priest 1951 Robert Bresson 715
193 Pierrot le Fou 1965 Jean-Luc Godard 671
194 Sátántangó 1994 Béla Tarr 776
195 L'Eclisse 1962 Michelangelo Antonioni 806
196 Raise the Red Lantern 1991 Yimou Zhang 509
197 No Country for Old Men 2007 Ethan and Joel Coen 101
198 Bride of Frankenstein 1935 James Whale 123
199 The Bridge on the River Kwai 1957 David Lean 91
200 My Life to Live 1962 Jean-Luc Godard 724
Go to the next 200 highbrow films
This page was last modified on March 29, 2025