Out of the Past
Directed by Jacques Tourneur
1947
If you want to know what film noir means, this is the film people hand you: a gas station owner's past arrives in the form of a woman he once found.
★ 7.4
The Movies canon
Sourced and screened.
Every film chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 731 films or filter by genre, director, place, and year.
Browse all 731 films or filter by genre, director, place, and year.
Le Samourai
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
1967
Every filmmaker who has ever shot a hitman putting on a hat is quoting this: Melville stripped the crime film down to ritual, silence and a trench coat.
★ 8.1
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Directed by Sergio Leone
1966 · Italy
No spaghetti western got higher, and no film score is better known: Leone shoots faces like landscapes, and Morricone's music does as much work as the dialogue.
★ 8.9
The Third Man
Directed by Carol Reed
1949
Britain has never made a better one, and nothing else sounds like it: a ruined postwar Vienna, and a zither score by a musician Reed first heard playing for the crew.
★ 9.3
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Directed by Irvin Kershner
1980
Everyone learned how to make a sequel from this: the pressure builds for two hours, the tone stays darker than anyone expected, and one line near the close rearranged a generation's childhood.
★ 9.4
Goodfellas
Directed by Martin Scorsese
1990
Every gangster film of the last thirty years is arguing with this one: Scorsese made the life so intoxicating for an hour that the comedown lands like a physical event.
★ 9.6