For more on the impetus of this list, see my previous article, “We Need a Great Films List.”

The journey toward this list ultimately began with seeing Inception in 2010. I had experienced, so I thought, the greatest movie ever created, and I have been watching movies seriously ever since—seeking, sometimes unhealthily, to attentively watch all of the great films. Of course, early on these were “great” films as claimed by other teenagers and twenty-somethings, and my progressing taste was malformed as a result.

The pivotal juncture in my journey arrived when I became persuaded of two things: first, that it was possible to claim that a particular piece of art was objectively quality while another was not; and second, that the best indicator of a piece of art’s objective quality was expert consensus over time.

As a result of these convictions and seeing the need for better guidance in movie watching in the Christian community, I recently appealed for the creation of a Great Films list. This summer, I took it upon myself to develop this list, involving a two-step process. First, rather than simply give my own recommendations, I purposed to create a list by “talking” to dozens or maybe hundreds of lay and professional film connoisseurs. That is, I deemed the quasi-scientific method of list compiling to be the only practical way to achieve a list of films universally recognized as great. I included dozens of lists made by groups of people rather than individuals and gave precedence to lists produced by groups of film critics (Sight & Sound, AFI, etc.); one expert might make a mistake, but a room of a hundred experts in near unanimity is probably not wrong, especially when they agree with other rooms of experts in other places. In other words, though the following list awaits stamps of approval from other connoisseurs in the classical Christian community, I am quite confident in saying if one were to disagree with the greatness of a given film on this list, one would be in the vast minority of scholarly viewership.

A few comparisons may prove helpful. The Shawshank Redemption was nominated for seven Oscars and is popularly considered to be one of the best films of all time. It is nowhere near the caliber of the films listed below because, as critics collectively recognize, Shawshank is good but not as good as the masses think. The more contemporary The Dark Knight, with eight Oscars nods, is likewise critically appreciated but not perceived as uncommon. Even Raiders of the Lost Ark, popularly lauded and with more Oscars and critical recognition than either of the former, is not near the rank of recognized greatness reached by the films on this list. Likely, those films are more popularly acclaimed because they are easier to enjoy than the truly great ones, as Harry Potter is easier to enjoy than the Iliad. But, like Harry Potter, Raiders will probably fade from memory one day while the films on this list will almost certainly endure. And these enduring films, like the Iliad, offer something that Raiders never could.

When all the painstaking (ask my wife) research work was done (*details on the process are provided at the end of the article for those who are interested), I had a list of 110 films made before 2009 that stood noticeably above the rest. (It’s hard to claim a film less than fifty years old as any sort of “canon”, but I thought it helpful to share the kinds of films that will likely make the cut and the kinds of films that will not. Films less than fifteen years old are simply too young to have adequate proving ground, and remarkable praise was required for any film less than twenty-five years old.) The second step, after completing the list of candidates, was to watch each of the 110 films and assess its moral worthiness. Because of its intense audio-visual nature, I find film to be particularly potent in its ability to seduce—to subtly change one’s patterns of thought and desire. If the price of a film’s grotesque, graphic, or repugnant content seemed not at all worth the rewards it offered; if it seemed most likely to have a net result of stumbling, desensitizing, and degrading; if I judged it to smell too strongly of moral rubbish to enjoy its artistry, I could not bring myself to recommend it. That being said, there is certainly undesirable content in many of the included films. The vast majority of this content is very tame, but a few films do contain mature themes, drug and alcohol abuse, and even some graphic violence, strong profanity, and nudity. Viewers should know that I weighed and prayed before including any of the questionable titles, and I consider those included to be likely ultimately helpful for the great majority of people, at least for a single viewing. It probably goes without saying, but though age suggestions are included (based on both content maturity and probable interest level), some readers will find some films personally unsuitable. It is everyone’s prerogative and responsibility to determine whether a film is worth it for self or family before watching any of the titles.

It is a bit of an irony that so many of these titles will be unfamiliar to the average reader. Perhaps, given enough time, that will one day cease to be the case. May these breathtaking films about greed, sacrifice, politics, technology, betrayal, art, temptation, devotion, modernism, murder, mental illness, war, fear, pride, fortitude, the press, loneliness, suffering, suicide, desperation, nihilism, respect for elders, regret, honesty, nostalgia, poverty, joy, the good life, family, mercy, bravery, marriage, faith, justice, death, obsession, revolution, architecture, evolution, crime, personhood, jealousy, false religion, and love feed us and change us into the wise, Beauty-captivated image bearers we are meant to be.

The List

Intolerance (1916); 17+

Sherlock, Jr. (1924); 7+

Greed (1924); 13+

The Gold Rush (1925); 7+

Battleship Potemkin (1925); 12+

The General (1926); 7+

Metropolis (1927); 15+

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927); 13+

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928); 14+

Man With a Movie Camera (1929); 18+

City Lights (1931); 12+

M (1931); 18+

King Kong (1933); 10+

Duck Soup (1933); 14+

Modern Times (1936); 15+

The Grand Illusion (1937); 13+

The Rules of the Game (1939); 16+

The Wizard of Oz (1939); 6+

Gone with the Wind (1939); 14+

His Girl Friday (1940); 14+

The Grapes of Wrath (1940); 12+

Citizen Kane (1941); 12+

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942); 14+

Casablanca (1942); 10+

Double Indemnity (1944); 15+

Children of Paradise (1945); 17+

A Matter of Life and Death (1946); 12+

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946); 13+

It’s A Wonderful Life (1946); 10+

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948); 13+

Bicycle Thieves (1948); 13+

The Third Man (1949); 13+

Late Spring (1949); 13+

Sunset Blvd. (1950); 13+

Rashomon (1950); 15+

All About Eve (1950); 13+

Los Olvidados (1950); 16+

Singin’ in the Rain (1952); 6+

Ikiru (1952); 16+

Ugetsu (1953); 16+

Tokyo Story (1953); 13+

Sansho the Bailiff (1954); 13+

Seven Samurai (1954); 13+

On the Waterfront (1954); 13+

Journey to Italy (1954); 12+

Ordet (1955); 16+

The Night of the Hunter (1955); 14+

Pather Panchali (1955); 12+

The Searchers (1956); 11+

The Seventh Seal (1957); 16+

Touch of Evil (1958); 14+

Vertigo (1958); 16+

Rio Bravo (1959); 13+

Jules and Jim (1962); 17+

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962); 13+

Lawrence of Arabia (1962); 13+

The Leopard (1963); 15+

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964); 16+

Gertrud (1964); 16+

The Battle of Algiers (1966); 16+

Andrei Rublev (1966); 17+

Playtime (1967); 10+

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); 12+

The Godfather (1972); 16+

Chinatown (1974); 18+

The Godfather Part II (1974); 16+

Barry Lyndon (1975); 18+

Star Wars (1977); 8+

Apocalypse Now (1979); 18+

Stalker (1979); 16+

Blade Runner (1982); 18+

Shoah (1985); 15+

Ran (1985); 16+

Close-Up (1990); 12+

Schindler’s List (1993); 17+

Toy Story (1995); 6+

Beau Travail (1999); 18+

Spirited Away (2001); 9+

There Will Be Blood (2007); 16+

*36 lists were compiled from a variety of film websites, magazines, and polls, spanning 72 years. Source lists usually contained 100 titles, with some containing up to 500. Data was aggregated and analyzed through various lenses: unweighted, weighted toward critics, critics only, and most reputable lists only. Films that only appeared on a few lists were disqualified. Final candidates were those ranked in the top 200 through all lenses and the top 150 through most lenses. Thresholds were intentionally selected to reflect a proper cut off as deemed accurate by the list maker.