My Film Canon

The Match Cuts Must See List

To me, these films are the la creme de la creme, the highest achievements in the medium, always changing and in motion. For those who care, enjoy.

– GHJ

– Films in Bold represent the beginnings of a Top 100 of all time.
– Films in Red represent review links.

1890-1920’s
Greed (4 hour cut) (von Stroheim, 1924)

1930’s
The Dawn Patrol (Flight Commander) (Hawks, 1930)
M (Lang, 1931)
Trouble in Paradise (Lubitsch, 1932)
I Was Born But… (Ozu, 1932)
Wild Boys of the Road (Wellman, 1933)
The Merry Widow (Lubitsch, 1934)
Fury (Lang, 1936)
Stage Door (La Cava, 1937)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (Curtiz, Keighley, 1938)
The Rules of the Game (Renoir, 1939)

1940’s
The Shop Around the Corner (Lubitsch, 1940)
His Girl Friday (Hawks, 1940)
The Grapes of Wrath (Ford, 1940)
The Lady Eve (Sturges, 1941)
49th Parallel (Powell, 1941)
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
The Palm Beach Story (Sturges, 1942)
The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles, 1942)
Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944)
They Were Expendable (Ford, 1945)
Notorious (Hitchcock, 1946)
The Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler, 1946)
My Darling Clementine (Ford, 1946)
Out of the Past (Tourneur, 1947)
Stray Dog (Kurosawa, 1949)

1950’s
All About Eve (Mankiewicz, 1950)
Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock, 1951)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (Wise, 1951)
The Steel Helmut (Fuller, 1951)
Ace in the Hole (Wilder, 1951)
Umberto D (De Sica, 1952)
Ikiru (Kurosawa, 1952)
El (Bunuel, 1952)
Pickup on South Street (Fuller, 1953)
The Big Heat (Lang, 1953)
Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
Wages of Fear (Clouzot, 1953)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Hawks, 1953)
La Strada (Fellini, 1954)
The Earrings of Madame De… (Ophuls, 1954)
Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954)
Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954)
Johnny Guitar (N. Ray, 1954)
Executive Suite (Wise, 1954)
Pather Panchali (S. Ray, 1955)
Rebel Without a Cause (N. Ray, 1955)
All That Heaven Allows (Sirk, 1955)
The Searchers (Ford, 1956)
The Killer is Loose (Boetticher, 1956)
The Burmese Harp (Ichikawa, 1956)
Aparajito (S. Ray, 1956)
The Killing (Kubrick, 1956)
Paths of Glory (Kubrick, 1957)
Nights of Cabiria (Fellini, 1957)
The Tall T (Boetticher, 1957)
Kanal (Wajda, 1957)
Wild Strawberries (Bergman, 1958)
Man of the West (Mann, 1958)
The 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959)
The World of Apu (S. Ray, 1959)
Ohayo (Good Morning) (Ozu, 1959)
Rio Bravo (Hawks, 1959)

1960’s
L’avventura (Antonioni, 1960)
Cleo from 5 to 7(Varda, 1961)
Ride the High Country (Peckinpah, 1962)
Advise and Consent (Preminger, 1962)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (Ford, 1962)
Contempt (Godard, 1963)
La Jetee (Marker, 1963)
High and Low (Kurosawa, 1963)
Winter Light (Bergman, 1963)
The Up Series (Apted, 1964-2005)
The War Game (Watkins, 1965)
The Battle of Algiers (Ponetecorvo, 1965)
For a Few Dollars More (Leone, 1965)
Blowup (Antonioni, 1966)
Au Hasard Balthazar (Bresson, 1967)
Week-End (Godard, 1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, 1967)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone, 1968)
The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969)
Kes(Loach, 1969)

1970’s
Little Big Man (Penn, 1970)
Five Easy Pieces (Rafelson 1970)
The Conformist (Bertolucci, 1970)
The Last Picture Show (Bogdonavich, 1971)
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Altman, 1971)
Aguirre, The Wrath of God (Herzog, 1972)
The Heartbreak Kid (May, 1972)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Bunuel, 1972)
Harold and Maude (Ashby, 1972)
Pat Garret and Billy the Kid (Peckinpah, 1972)
Paper Moon (Bogdanovich, 1973)
The Long Goodbye (Altman, 1973)
Hearts and Minds (Davis, 1974)
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Peckinpah, 1974)
Don’t Look Now (Roeg, 1974)
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Fassbinder, 1974)
Barry Lyndon (Kubrick, 1975)
Dersu Uzala (Kurosawa, 1975)
Jaws(Spielberg, 1975)
Overlord (Cooper, 1975)
Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976)
The Outlaw Josey Whales (Eastwood, 1976)
Network (Lumet, 1976)
All the President’s Men (Pakula, 1976)
Kings of the Road (in the course of time)(Wenders, 1976)
Killer of Sheep(Burnett, 1977)
Annie Hall (Allen, 1977)
Twilight’s Last Gleaming (Aldrich, 1977)
Halloween (Carpenter, 1978)
Blue Collar (Schrader, 1978)
Dawn of the Dead (Romero, 1978)
Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)

1980’s
The Shining (Kubrick, 1980)
Dressed to Kill (De Palma, 1980)
Breaker Morant (Beresford, 1980)
Bad Timing (Roeg, 1980)
Gloria (Cassavetes, 1980)
The Big Red One (Fuller, 1980)
My Dinner With Andre (Malle, 1981)
Escape From New York (Carpenter, 1981)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, 1981)
Fanny and Alexander (Bergman, 1982)
White Dog (Fuller, 1982)
Fitzcarraldo (Herzog, 1982)
Stalker (Tarkovsky, 1982)
The Thing (Carpenter, 1982)
The King of Comedy (Scorsese, 1983)
Sans Soleil (Marker, 1983)
Tender Mercies (Beresford, 1983)
El Norte (Nava, 1983)
Ran (Kurosawa, 1985)
Come and See (Kravchenco, 1985)
After Hours (Scorsese, 1985)
Brazil (Gilliam, 1985)
Manhunter (Mann, 1986)
Tampopo (Itami, 1986)
Blue Velvet(Lynch, 1986)
Empire of the Sun (Spielberg, 1987)
Where Is the Friend’s Home (Kiarsotami, 1987)
Decalogue (Kieslowski, 1988)
Die Hard (McTiernan, 1988)
Do the Right Thing (Lee, 1989)
84 Charlie MoPic (Duncan, 1989)
Glory (Zwick, 1989)
The Killer(Woo, 1989)
Sweetie (Campion, 1989)

1990’s
Miller’s Crossing (Coen/Coen, 1990)
White Hunter, Black Heart (Eastwood, 1990)
A Brighter Summer Day (4 hour cut) (Yang, 1991)
Barton Fink (Coen/Coen, 1991)
Unforgiven (Eastwood, 1992)
Lessons of Darkness (Herzog, 1992)
Man Bites Dog (Belvaux, Poelvoorde, 1992)
Life, and Nothing More… (Kiarostami, 1992)
Hardboiled (Woo, 1992)
Dazed and Confused (Linklater, 1993)
A Perfect World (Eastwood, 1993)
Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, USA)
Exotica (Egoyan, 1994)
Natural Born Killers (Stone, 1994)
Safe (Haynes, 1995)
Cyclo (T. Anh Hung, 1995)
Heat (Mann, 1995)
The White Balloon (Panahi, 1996)
Lone Star (Sayles, 1996)
Dead Man (Jarmusch, 1996)
Jackie Brown (Tarantino, 1997)
Happy Together (Wong, 1997)
Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control (Morris, 1997)
L.A. Confidential (Hanson, 1997)
Saving Private Ryan (Spielberg, 1998)
The Thin Red Line (Malick, 1998)
The Big Lebowski (Coen/Coen, 1998)
The Insider (Mann, 1999)
All About My Mother (Almodovar, 1999)
Three Kings (O’Russell, 1999)
Magnolia (Anderson, 1999)

2000’s
The Wire (Simon, 2000-2008)
In the Mood For Love (Wong, 2000)
Yi Yi (Yang, 2000)
The Royal Tenenbaums (Anderson, 2000)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Coen/Coen, 2000)
Almost Famous (Crowe, 2000)
Mulholland Drive (Lynch, 2001)
Adaptation (Jonze, 2002)
Bloody Sunday (Greengrass, 2002)
25th Hour (Lee, 2002)
All the Real Girls (Green, 2003)
Elephant (Van Sant, 2003)
Cafe Lumiere (Hou, 2003)
Stevie (James, 2003)
Time of the Wolf (Haneke, 2004)
The World (Jia, 2004)
Spartan (Mamet, 2004)
The New World (Malick, 2005)
A History of Violence (Cronenberg, 2005)
Happy Feet(Miller, 2006)
Children of Men (Cuaron, 2006)
Miami Vice (Mann, 2006)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Dominik, 2007)
WALL•E (Stanton, 2008)