What are your "must-watch" movies?

China Town

Young Guns 1&2

Naked Gun 1,2& 33 1/3

Repo Men

Everything Terry Gilliam ever made.

Ferris Buellers day off

Legend

Kung Pao Enter the Fist

Kung Fu Hustle

Tucker & Dale VS Evil

Evil Dead 1&2

Army of Darkness

American Werewolf in London

Spaceballs

Plains Trains and Automobiles

The Jerk

Beverly Hills Cop 1&2

Lucky Number Sleven

Snatch

Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Event Horizon

Shane

Ghost in the Shell - everything

Akira

Vampire Hinter D

Spirited Away

The Irishman

Reservoir Dogs

Pulp Fiction

Real Genius

Tombstone

My Cousin Vinny

High Plains Drifter

Outlaw Josey Wales

Big

LA Story

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

The Burbs

True Romance

Pump Up the Volume

Heathers

Beetlejuice

Multiplicity

Big Trouble in Little China

Tank Girl

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Princess Bride

Labyrinth

A diverse list of my some films I like, in no particular order:

• Memento.
• The Anchorman.
• LOTR extended editions.
• Terminator 1, 2, and Salvation (Yeah, those are my guilty pleasures. You can skip the 3rd and ignore the ones after Salvation, imho).
• The Usual Suspects.
• Zoolander.
• Inglorious Basterds.
• The Matrix.
• The Abyss (1989).
• Parasite

In no particular order, and not an exhaustive list

• The Big Lebowski
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Sin City
• Lord of The Rings Trilogy
• Star wars Original Trilogy & Rogue One
• Casablanca
• Mad Max Fury Road
• Arrival
• Pulp Fiction
• All the Studio Ghibli movies, but Especially Nausicaa, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited away, and Grave of the Fireflies
• Blazing Saddles
• Young Frankenstein
• Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
• Monty Python & the Holy Grail
• Jurassic Park
• Rocky Horror Picture Show
• Blade Runner
• Blade Runner 2049
• Mary & Max
• Akira
• Rocky
• The Godfather 1 & 2, and at that point I guess you might as well watch 3 as well
• Rashomon
• Chinatown
• Jaws
• All quiet on the western front
• Psycho
• Kill Bill 1&2
• The Shawshank Redemption
• Forest Gump
• Fight Club
• The Matrix (just 1)
• Silence of the Lambs
• Taxi Driver
• Back to the future trilogy
• The Usual Suspects
• Apocalypse Now
• Indiana Jones Trilogy
• Dune parts 1&2
• The Shining
• Dredd
• Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
• The Room
• A Clockwork Orange
• Gone with the Wind
• V for Vendetta
• Trainspotting
• Fargo
• Ben Hur
• Children of Men
• Shoot 'em Up
• Logan *The Princess Bride
• Old Yeller
• John Wick series
• Most Disney/Pixar movies
• Most Don Bluth movies

I'm going to restrict this list to older movies and imports since there's already most of Hollywood's best listed by other people.

• Ran (1985): Japanese take on King Lear. Kurosawa.
• 12 Angry Men (1957): Fonda has doubts about the man charged. Sidney Lumet.
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962): Based on actual WWI British officer T.E. Lawrence, but more story than history. David Lean.
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975): Jack Nicholson leads this Milos Forman movie about what it was like in mental hospitals (based on Ken Kesey's book of same name -- see also Keroac book On the Road for more of that generation).
• The Man Who Would Be King (1975) : Sean Connery and Michael Caine star in John Houston movie based on Ruyard Kipling story. There are more famous names to pack in there, but mostly the story is great (though told from a supremely Colonial POV).
• Grand Illusion (1937): French Jean Renoir film classic about WWI.
• Beauty and the Beast (1946): French Jean Cocteau masterpiece of the fairytalke before it got Disney-fied.
• The Tin Drum (1979): German Volker Schlöndorff film of Günter Grass story about a boy who won't grow up.
• Amarcord (1973): Italian Federico Fellini film about growing up. You could sub in Nights of Cabiria or Satyricon as a starter Fellini pic.
• Kes (1970): British Ken Loach film about a boy and a bird.
• Winter Light (1963): Swedish Ingmar Bergman about a priest struggling with faith. The 7th Seal probably a better place to ease in to Bergman, though.
• A Man for All Seasons (1966): British Fred Zinnemann telling of how Sir Thomas More was stuck between his Church and his King. For an alternate take on same chunk of history, see Wolf Hall.

There's so many more. Rosselini's Open City, Jodorosky's El Topo/Santa Sangre, Errol Morris documentaries (Fog of War, etc.), Les Blank docs (from music to Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe), oh! and Herzog flicks! I should stop.

Pacific Rim. They never made any sequels though, so don't bother looking.

My thought process for this was asking myself what movie I'd recommend to people who have little to no experience or interest in specific genres. Tried to pick a wide range of movies

Comedies (my favorite genre)

• Kung Fu Hustle (probably favorite movie of all time): fun comedy action movie involving gangsters and a poor neighborhood. Think classic Hong Kong kung fu meets super hero movie. Haven't met anyone who didn't like the film
• Airplane: insanely funny movie with nonstop jokes. One of the best movies for comedy because you've got all types of jokes (puns, visual humor, recurring jokes etc)
• Blazing Saddles: revovles around a small western town through the perspective of a former slave turned sheriff. Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little have such great chemistry
• The Naked Gun trilogy: if you liked Airplane you'll love the Naked Gun. Has a lot of ridiculously silly lines told with a straight face.

Action

• LOTR trilogy: I feel like this needs no explanation.
• Star Wars original trilogy: no hate to the prequels (and a lot of hate to the sequels) but nothing quite hits like the OG Star Wars trilogy
• The Mummy: fun, interesting plot, charming characters just the quintissential 90s action movie. Also a great first movie for many people's bi-awakening 👀
• Police Story (trilogy, but mainly 3): it's been a while since I've seen this trilogy but I distinctly remember really liking the third one because it features both Jackie Chan and Michel Yeoh as equal badasses. If you've never seen Jackie Chan's Hong Kong films, this franchise is a great start.

Animation

• Spiderman Into The Spiderverse: beautifully animated movie that does an amazing job of capturing the feel comics in both style and vibes. Definitely way better than the sequel, in my opinion.
• Tokyo Godfathers: touching anime movie about 3 homeless people who ind a baby on Christmas. Don't want to spoil any more than that but it has a good balance of comedy and drama and unlike other anime movies I've seen, completes the story so well that you're not wanting more
• Up: my personal favorite Pixar movie and the first 20 min are a master class of short story telling. Was debating between this an Wall E but I think Up has a better story

Horror

Admittedly my least favorite genre. These movies are closer to thrillers than they are horror

• Train to Busan: zombie outbreak on a train. Premise is simple enough but the storytelling and characters are so well written that you get too attached and actually get anxiety when things are happening. It's a movie with an ending that stays with you
• The Silence of the Lambs: there's a reason Hannibal Lector is the most memorable part of this movie despite having only 16 minutes of screen time

Movies to watch only once

These are movies that will make you feel such intense emotions (usually sadness but not necessarily) that I would only watch once. No descriptions to avoid spoilers

• Grave of the Fireflies
• Schindler's List
• Old Boy

I'd recommend asking this over at !moviesuggestions@lemmy.world.

As for my answer:

• The Departed
• Parasite
• Django Unchained
• The Princess Bride
• Arrival
• The Intouchables
• Ben-Hur (1959 version)
• Fargo
• Amadeus
• Little Miss Sunshine
• The Matrix

There are more, but that's a solid selection IMO.

The Princess Bride

Shawshank Redemption

Jesus Christ Superstar

Life Is Beautiful

• Alien, then Aliens, then stop. If you watch Alien 3 then watch Alien: Resurrection, too, to get the taste out of your mouth, but then definitely stop.

• Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• House of Flying Daggers

If you watch Star Wars, then watch in this order:

• Episode 4 A New Hope

• Episode 5 The Empire Strikes Back

• Episode 2 Attack of the Clones

• Episode 3 Revenge of the Sith

• Episode 6 Return of the Jedi

Most of mine are already mentioned, but I don't think anyone said:

The Big Lebowski

City of God - movie about the struggles of growing up in a tough spot in Rio de Janeiro, it's just great

Gattaca - my favourite sci fi film, it's just a simple concept ... what if we could tell who you were going to grow up to be, just from your blood

Amelie

The Fall (mainly if you have a really nice screen and can watch full HD or 4k)

What Dreams May Come

I'm saving this thread to make a watch list, but I'll add a comedy I haven't seen mentioned: The Blues Brothers

• LA Confidential
• One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
• Chinatown
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Alien
• Wrath of Khan (Director's Cut)
• Moulin Rouge
• Children of Men
• Gattaca
• The Usual Suspects
• Fight Club
• The Thirteenth Floor

And probably a thousand more I'm not thinking of off the top of my head.

• Lawrence of Arabia.

Most of Denis Villenueve’s filmography are must watches:

• Prisoners
• Arrival
• Sicario
• Blade Runner 2049
• Dune 1 and 2
• Incendies

Korean movies:

• The Handmaiden
• Parasite
• Old Boy
• The Vengence Trilogy

• There Will be blood.
• No country for old men
• Sicario
• Anora
• Amadeus
• The Big Short
• Children of Men
• Collateral
• A Complete Unknown
• The Departed
• Djanjo Unchained
• Dune 1 & 2
• Ex Machina
• Fracture
• Gone Girl
• Good Time
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Her
• Heretic
• Hotel Rwanda
• The Killer
• The killing of a sacred deer
• Lord of War
• The Menu
• The Pianist
• Terminator 2
• Uncut Gems
• warfare
• Whiplash

Anything with Daniel Day-Lewis really. Or nothing by Aaron Sorkin. If bored and wanting to watch something familiar I like the Bourne (Jason) films.

-there will be blood

-magnolia

-birdman

I always recommend the Hitchcock movies from his middle era. My favorites:

• Lifeboat
• Rebecca
• Strangers on a Train
• Dial M for Murder
• Rope
• Rear Window
• The Man Who Knew Too Much
• North By NorthWest
• Vertigo
• Psycho

Rear Window is my all-time favorite movie. It's a perfect film, where every shot and line means something. Grace Kelly's appearance is the most beautiful that any woman has ever been, in any film. The rest are all 10 out of 10s.

And look for Hitchcock's famous cameos in every movie, always close to the beginning, and usually amusing.

Snatch

And watching Napoleon Dynamite with a 10-12 year old is HILARIOUS.

1. Airplane
2. Shawshank Redemption
3. Shrek
4. Secretary
5. Dead Poets Society
6. Bo Burnham: Inside

Ooh, my kids are heading deep into teenager territory so this feels like my chosen, specialist subject. Avoiding OP's picks (the Python stuff would be on my list too), and in no particular order:

Bladerunner (Directors cut)
The Blues Brothers
This is Spinal Tap
Alien
Aliens
Terminator
Terminator 2
Seven Samurai
Yojimbo (+ A Fistful of Dollars)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Schindler's List
12 Angry Men
Rear Window
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Memento
Dune (the Lynch 1980's one)
The Princess Bride
The Cornetto Trilogy (Sean of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World's End + Baby Driver)
Die Hard
Pulp Fiction
Fight Club
The Silence of the Lambs
Se7en
The Usual Suspects
2001 A Space Odyssey
Platoon
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Trainspotting
My Neighbour Totoro
Do The Right Thing
The Thing (John Carpenter version)

Some they've seen, most they haven't yet.

• The Godz Must be Crazy
• The Godz Must be Crazy II
• Top Secret!

Here ya go!

• Ghost in the Shell 1998
• Hard Boiled
• Inception
• Aladdin 1992
• It's a Mad Mad Mad World
• The Raid
• Coco
• It's a Wonderful Life
• Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt
• Godzilla Minus One
• The Lord of the Rings trilogy
• Mask of Zorro
• Searching 2018
• Carnival of Souls
• Casino Royale
• The Dark Knight
• The Social Network
• Angel's Egg
• Wicker Man 1975
• Wild Robot
• Idiocracy
• Arrival

This list is in no particular order. And it's admittedly all over the place in time and genre. Feel free to use it as a grab bag rather than a checklist.

Old classics:

• It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
• Citizen Kane (1941)
• Casablanca (1942)
• 12 Angry Men (1957)
• Mr. Deeds Goes To Town (1936)
• Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939)

Drama/misc:

• Gandhi (1982)
• Network (1976)
• A Few Good Men (1992)
• The Truman Show (1998)
• Dead Poets Society (1989)
• Pay It Forward (2000)
• The Green Mile (1999)
• The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
• Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1967)

PG sci-fi/fantasy:

• Back To The Future (trilogy, 1985+)
• E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
• Jumanji (1995)

Action/etc.:

• The Matrix (1999)
• The Terminator (series, 1984+)
• Die Hard (series, 1988+)
• Mission: Impossible (1996)
• Air Force One (1997)
• Independence Day (1996)
• Speed (1994)
• Limitless (2011)

Generally romance-centered (other than Casablanca):

• Titanic (1997)
• Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)
• The Notebook (2004)
• Ghost (1990)

Comedies:

• Duck Soup (1933)
• The Great Dictator (1940)
• Monty Python And The Holy Grail (1975)
• Office Space (1999)

No movie collection is complete without Scott Pilgrim versus The World

Flow - if you like cats and beautiful animation.

Dave Made A Maze - is a fun watch with good writing.

Death Of Stalin - will be funny to you if you like British comedy.

Prospect - interesting scifi with Pedro Pascal (who I mistook for Nathan Fillion till I looked the cast up, lmao)

Triangle - well done time travel fuckery

Arq - more time travel fuckery

Primer - yet more time travel fuckery

Edit: pretty sure the title of the post has changed, or I somehow just didn't notice it fully before? Idk, none of the movies I've listed are 'must watch' they're just fun watches. I don't think any film is really a must watch.

Modern Times

Psycho

Dark Star

WarGames

Chinatown

1984

Soylent Green

Planet of the Apes

Ones I have not seen in other comments, although you probably have enough at this point:

• The Fifth Element - Yes I know the director is a sexual predator, it's still really really good. One of the most creative movies ever made
• Run Lola Run - Surreal modern-style impossible narrative movie from way before movies really did that, also very well done
• O Brother Where Art Thou - Damn, we're in a tight spot
• Schindler's List - Warning, very very very heavy obviously, but there is a reason it won all the awards
• Conan the Barbarian - You may or may not like B movies, but if you like "Sword and Sandal" B movies, this one is the king
• The Sting - Absolutely top-notch gangster movie from before your parents were born
• Office Space - If you have ever worked a crappy tech job this movie will become your spirit animal in time of need

I've also heard great things about "Highlander." Don't watch the sequels.

There are also miniseries. "Stranger Things" season 1, "Chernobyl," and "Game of Thrones" up until about season 5. Yeah, it's a shame they never made any more after that, but you can just let it be. You'll know roughly when. If the three female assassins from Dorne come on the screen, you went too far, just turn it off immediately and be sure to take a shower right away.

Edit: Additions

• La Haine
• City of God
• Alien
• The Shining
• 2001 Space Odyssey
• The Exorcist
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre
• Blue Velvet
• 12 Angry Men

Edit:

• The 39 Steps (Hitchcock original)
• The Third Man
• Some Like It Hot
• Royal Tenenbaums

Edit2:

• Shaun of the Dead
• The Act of Killing
• Nosferatu (1979)
• Yojimbo
• Rashomon
• A Serious Man

(Will stop making edits)

I’d add Saving Private Ryan to the list.

The opening sequence is just abhorrent and showcases the reality of war far better than any other war movie I have seen.

Speed Racer (2009) by the Wachowskis

There are way to few people recommending The Lord of the Rings Extended Editions. I recently rewatched them after not seeing them for a decade and I was surprised by how much growing older allowed me to better recognize the themes in the story. My wife watched them for the first time with me and she said they're the best movies she's ever seen.

Heist (2001)

I like all of Mamet's films, but Heist is head and shoulders above the rest, IMO. Besides being a well written heist film with a great cast, it rewards rewatching. I've watched it so many times, but the last time I watched it, I caught a new detail I hadn't noticed before.

Alien, Aliens, Alien 3. Two different movies that are great, then how to make a movie bad.

I am not sure if its exactly what you are lookomg for by some random movie recs. Some of these may not be great but are just movies I enjoy for one reason or another.

• True Lies
• Varsity Blues
• Scott Pilgrim vs the World
• Coraline
• Shawshang Redemption
• Jurassic Park
• The Princess Diaries
• Speed Racer
• Das Boot
• Maverick
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Lost in Translation

Jurassic Park

Ones I haven’t seen mentioned so far:

• Rashomon
• Dr. Strangelove
• Princess Mononoke
• Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers
• Ran

• Rubber
• Fantastic Planet
• Willy Wonka
• Heavy Metal

Just taking this opportunity to recommend you tengers

A few nobody has mentioned:

• A Mighty Wind
• Best in Show
• Dumb and Dumber
• It's a Wonderful Life
• Moonrise Kingdom

Poor things

Everything Everywhere All At Once

K-Pop Demon Hunters

Black Swan

All I can think of right now.

Young Frankenstein Labyrinth Last Unicorn Reservoir Dogs The Crow Hard Boiled

Rush is probably one of the best motorsports movies out there, definitely better than whatever the fuck the F1 movie was trying to be.

Also try Ford Vs Ferrari that one's good too.

Adding in some documentaries, I'd highly recommending watching these climbing docs as a trilogy to understand the scope of what's being achieved as well as understanding the different approaches to the sport:

The Dawn Wall: Introduces you to climbing legends such as Tommy Caldwell and the difficulty of the sport, with the main focus being one climb in Yosemite.

Free Solo: Takes the dawn wall and makes it look entry level, focuses on Alex Honnold who climbs 'free solo' meaning without ropes or a partner.

The Alpinist: Difficult to put into words, focuses on an almost completely unknown climber called Marc-André Leclerc who is to climbing as Michael Phelps is to swimming. This guy completes climbs even the greatest in the sport consider far from humanly achievable, with part of the doc being a battle to even find the guy to film as he doesn't care for media attention or fame for his climbs.

The docs all contribute to the understanding of what drives the people pushing the bar of what's considered possible, and in the subsequent docs the previous climbers appear frequently in interviews that adds a kind of continuum which is why I love these 3 together rather than as individual pieces.

Brazil
Wings of Desire
Blade Runner: Original Theatrical Cut

Others too obvious to mention... see the rest of the thread.

I checked that no one has posted these yet:

• Dallas Buyers Club
• The Trial of the Chicago 7
• The Prestige

• Lost Highway
• Session 9
• Blade Runner: The Final Cut
• Speed Racer
• Constantine
• Total Recall (1990)
• Sin City
• Atomic Blonde
• Night of the Living Dead (1968)
• The Blair Witch Project
• Paranormal Activity
• Strange Darling
• Postal (I know it sucks, but I love it)
• Superbad

-Boondock saints

There's a lot of movies I really like. But I believe these to be my all time favorites:

Master and Commander

Rogue One

Tron: Legacy

Arrival

Damn, I haven't watched 99% of these in the comments, I think I might be too picky about what to watch.

• Castle in the Sky (for the beautiful hand-drawn art) (also known as Laputa: Castle in the Sky)
• Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (for the memes)

Please give this most amazing movie a look: Stay. Very mind bending and great acting by Ryan gosling, Ewan Mcgregor, Naomi Watts.

The last unicorn

the thirteenth floor

back to the future

I'm more into just about anything animated, so my list is absolutely biased against most any live action film:

• Prince of Egypt ( Pixar's last good film before they started flying off a cliff, in my opinion )

• An American Tail ( Fivek Goes West as well, but the first one is definitely better )

• The Land Before Time ( specifically movies 1 & 5 since they're my favorites of the overdone franchise )

• Secret of NIMH

I can't think of any others off the top of my head that aren't your standard 1970s animated Robin Hood ( the dosney one ) or Zootopia, but I can't say I'd put them up there despite how much I adore those movies.

The wicker man (1973)

Shaun of the dead

The Shawshank redemption

The thing

Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite is a masterful film in every aspect. See also:

The Lighthouse Pulp Fiction

I love Ahmir Khan's movies so any of those are great. Didn't really like Dangal Dangal but that's just me

• Joe vs the Volcano
• The Princess Bride
• Monty Python and the holy grail
• Inception
• the matrix
• UHF
• Knives Out
• Groundhog Day
• The Lord of the Rings trilogy
• Various Studio Ghibli movies (spirited away, Howl's Moving Castle, etc.)

(I'm definitely forgetting some)

• Grand Budapest hotel.
• All the movies made by Quintin Tarentino.
• Lord of the Rings trilogy
• 2001 a Space Oddesy
• Dracula dead and loving it.
• Conspiracy (2001)
• Star Trek: First Contact
• the Incredibes
• Mad Max: Fury Road
• We were soldiers
• Sweeny Todd
• Tron Legacy
• Office Space
• Jurassic Park
• Fury (2014)
• Eurotrip
• Redline (2009)
• The 12 Tasks of Asterix
• Gormenghast (mini series)
• Conan the Barbarian
• True Lies

Mystery Train

Baraka

Bad Boy Bubby

I found a few missing!

I personally loved Sunshine. if you are into Scifi; it's not Interstellar, but it's great in it's own right.

Then there are movies that are so bad that they come out on top, the Sharknado series fill that spot for me.

I'm also a big fan of The Machinist, seeing what actors do to their bodies opened my eyes to the dedication they show.

A movie that was so full of suspense for me that I couldn't watch it to the end in one sitting was The Hunt (2012), a Danish film about Mass Hysteria in a small village after someone gets falsely accused of child molestation.

All other movies that I can recommend are already mentioned in the other lists, and I've saved this whole thread for the huge amount of movies I'm still missing.

1. Wild tales
2. Black mirror

Funny, for me there are more items in Must read List than Must watch.

Goodfellas

Lawrence of Arabia

12 Angry Men

To Kill A Mocking Bird

The Thin Man or any of the sequels

Some Like It Hot

The Fifth Element

Grosse Pointe Blank

Life Boat

2001 Space Odyssey

Singing In The Rain

On The Town

Blazing Saddles

Dr. Stangelove

Young Frankenstein

Kubo and the Two Strings

Apocalypse Now

Doonie darko American physco
Primer
The Odaysee Interstellar

A guy who becomes a reporter and muder his friend to shoot the shot for money

The mask
Matrix
Robocop The minecraft

Mr robot style hacker movie but every character was made by the guy

A guy who goes in the dream to make a businessman understand something with his friends

A girl who is a physicotic lover for the guy who dies at the end

I forgot but their are more 😃

Looking at these lists really makes me glad that I don't share tastes with the average person at this point.

• Citizen Kane

• Paprika

• Forrest Gump

• Synecdoche, New York

All that monty python shit tells me that I'm in curated reddit-land where white mediocrity rules.

Edit: All the people with low standards get upset when called out.