This is a list of movies that connects to me personally and thus is skewed towards my personal taste and preference. I don’t believe in a canon of movies that is cast on stone and I believe movie experience is an evolving one. This list may just as well change tomorrow. But for now, here is a list of movies that I consider worth my time watching, even for the tenth time and will still surprise me with each viewing and discovering something new and fascinating.
This list is in no particular order. It is written as it comes to my memory. I will probably write short notes on why I like each of them.
001. Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
002. To Live (Zhang Yimou, 1994)
003. The Blue Kite (Tian Zhuangzhuang, 1993)
004. Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata, 1988)
005. Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000)
006. City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1989)
007. Goodbye Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming Liang, 2003)
008. Peking Opera Blues (Tsui Hark, 1986)
009. Chungking Express (Wong Kar Wai, 1994)
010. Salaam Bombay! (Mira Nair, 1988)
011. Charulata (Satyajit Ray, 1964)
012. Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini, 1957)
013. Decalogue (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1988)
014. The 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut, 1959)
015. Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)
016. Faces (John Cassavetes, 1968)
017. Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)
018. Au hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)
019. Close Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990)
020. Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa, 1952)
021: Life of Oharu (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1952)
022. Tempting Hearts (Sylvia Chang, 1999)
023. Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
024. Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray, 1955)
025. Kes (Ken Loach, 1969)
026. City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)
027. Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)
028. Twenty-Four Eyes (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1954)
029. Days of Being Wild (Wong Kar Wai, 1991)
030. Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978)
031. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1956)
032. Floating Clouds (Mikio Naruse, 1955)
033. That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Bunuel, 1977)
034. Satantango (Bela Tarr, 1994)
035. Sepet (Yasmin Ahmad, 2004)
036. My Life To Live (Jean Luc Godard, 1962)
037. La Jetee (Chris Marker, 1962)
038. My Neighbour Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988)
039. Unknown Pleasures (Jia Zhangke, 2002)
040. Shaolin Soccer (Stephen Chow, 2001)
041. Comrades: Almost a Love Story (Peter Chan, 1996)
042. Ashes of Time (Wong Kar Wai, 1994)
043. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
044. Lagaan: Once Upon A Time in India (Ashutosh Gowariker, 2001)
045. The Cloud-Capped Star (Ritwik Ghatak, 1960)
046. PTU (Johnnie To, 2003)
047. Memories of Murder (Bong Joon-ho, 2003)
048. JSA: Joint Security Area (Park Chan-wook, 2000)
049. Always: Sunset on Third Street (Takashi Yamazaki, 2005)
050. Still Life (Jia Zhangke, 2006)
051. Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami, 1997)
052. In The Mood For Love (Wong Kar Wai, 2000)
053. Before Sunset (Richard Linklater, 2004)
054. Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999)
055. Belle de Jour (Luis Bunuel, 1967)
056. Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954)
057. The Puppetmaster (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1993)
058. Tropical Malady (Apitchatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)
059. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
060. Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
061. The Bicycle Thief (Vittoro De Sica, 1948)
062. Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, 1959)
063. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
064. The Wind Will Carry Us (Abbas Kiarostami, 1999)
065. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
066. L’Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
067. Jules and Jim (Francois Truffaut, 1962)
068. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
069. Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)
070. 12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
071. Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997)
072. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
073. It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
074. The Music Room (Satyajit Ray, 1958)
075. Infernal Affairs (Alan Mak, Andrew Lau, 2002)
076. Made in Hong Kong (Fruit Chan, 1997)
077. Ashes and Diamonds (Andrzej Wajda, 1958)
078. Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987)
079. Man of Marble (Andrzej Wajda, 1977)
080. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
081. Late Chrysanthemums (Mikio Naruse, 1954)
082. Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice (Yasujiro Ozu, 1950)
083. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)
084. La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960)
085. Band of Outsiders (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964)
086. Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)
087. Once Upon a Time in China (Tsui Hark, 1991)
088. Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)
089. A Touch of Zen (King Hu, 1971)
090. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
091. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1977)
092. Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
093. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
094. The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
095. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
096. Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
097. Late Spring (Yasujiro Ozu, 1949)
098. Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988)
099. Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993)
100. Flirting Scholar (Lee Lik Chi, 1993)
Falling Stones are not Heavy 
Hi Ho —
Reading this list has tempted me to come up with my own 100 Movies list… and must say that I’m glad that some movies I introduced you to have made your list. ;b
On a different movie note: Why no “Hong Kong Cinema: View from the Brooklyn Bridge” among your Movies link? ;(
Hi YTSL! Thanks for visiting this new blog. Hope this is not too much trouble.
Please do the list! And yeah, of course some movies you introduced made it here. You know, we don’t call you a walking encyclopedia for nothing ;-)
Yup, will add BRNS but that site is not getting updated much nowadays, so I linked Brian’s blog instead. Still, it is a treasure trove of movie reviews.
Hi again Ho —
No, not too much trouble. And you might like to know that I’ve changed your link on my blog roll to this new one. :)
Hmmm re my being called a walking encyclopedia. I guess it’s better than being a walking dictionary like I was at work in KL… ;b
And okay, let me think a bit re the list. As for BRNS: It is a treasure trove and does have a lot of reviews, including of many movies it doesn’t seem like many others have reviewed. :)
Hi, thanks for changing the links ;-) Re walking dictionary, you are a fine one too and that’s probably why you got exploited coz you are such a nice person, at least b4 you realise you have been taken for a ride ;-)
Yeah, BRNS is really cool and I remember getting so much out of it when you first introduced that site. So, looking forward to your list.
Okay, Ho, have finally compiled my own 100 Movies list. Also, by my reckoning, you actually only have 99 movies since Decalogue is a TV series rather than feature film! ;b
Hi YTSL, wow, your 100 movies is very interesting and there are movies there that I have yet to watch! What took you so long?? ;-) Will go through your list when ordering my next batch of DVDs. Re Decalogue, is true that it is a TV series but what a TV series! I don’t care, it is still going to be in this list ;-)
Hi again Ho —
Same here regarding there being films on your 100 movies list that I have still to watch (and a few I hadn’t known about until I saw your list). Caveat emptor re my list: It’s more unorthodox and personal than yours. I.e., it seems like every one of the films on your list is by a famed auteur and/or won its share of awards. Some of mine, OTOH, really do reflect my particular interests (e.g., female-oriented/friendship films). Also, there are some on the list that I first watched as a child — so there are a fair few of which the last time I watched was more than a decade ago — so may not impact an older me/person the same way/to the same degree…
And hmmmm re your stubbornness re Decalogue. So… you’re saying that Kieslowski’s films just aren’t as good as it? Also, my own feeling about Decalogue is that it’s uneven, with some episodes being so much more better than others. ;S
Hi YTSL,
I think maybe one difference is that when I first started getting hooked on movies, I don’t have anyone to really help me or guide me and as such I went on to see what other people like and their list served as a guide for me to watch movies. Naturally, the list is extremely western centric and very auteur centric and that beginning sort of determined the rest of my movie watching. Being almost like a tabula rasa, those early films that I watched really impacted me hugely. There are some rather quirky films in the list too, some influenced by you and some which I picked up over the years and amused me greatly, such as FLIRTING SCHOLAR. I have watched that film probably over 100 times, to be honest and can recite from it.
Re Decalogue, as you know by now, I am interested in questions such as existence, morality etc. and the Decalogue as a whole addressed many of these questions. Kieslowski’s other works is fine, don’t mention the Three Colours as yet but the films that are derived from the Decalogue, especially so A Short Film About Killing which is a superb piece of work.
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