I'd like this list to constitute some sort of conversation piece, although I fear that my rather conservative selections will fail to elicit much chatter among the cineastes here.  Oh well, I might as well chip in my two cents anyway.  As my list will reveal, I have auteurist sympathies.  (It does make the history of cinema so much easier to digest, doesn't it?)

Let's call the order very roughly preferential.  (I apologize in advance to all you Antonioni, Kiarostami, Rossellini, Oshima, and Rivette fans.  I would add something but can't due to lack of either acquaintance or strong preference.  I refuse to apologize to all the Fellini, Bergman, and Herzog fans out there.  Well, I sorta liked Herzog's Fata Morgana, but Fellini and Bergman?  Come on.)  

Dreyer:  Ordet / Vampyr
Lang:  M / (and from his American period:) Fury / Scarlet Street / Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
Ozu:  Tokyo Story / Late Spring
Godard:  Vivra sa Vie / Two or Three Things I Know about her / Ici et Ailleurs
Bunuel:  Las Hurdes / Los Olividados
Mizoguchi:  Life of Oharu / Sisters of the Gion
Davies:  Distant Voices, Still Lives / The Long Day Closes
Tarkovsky:  Stalker
Vertov:  The Man with the Movie Camera
Dudov/Brecht:  Kuhle Wampe (It's much better than they'd have you believe)
De Sica:  Umberto D
Feuillade:  Les Vampires
Bresson:  L'Argent / Au Hasard Balthazar
Renoir:  A Day in the Country
Hamer:  Kind Hearts and Coronets
Fassbinder:  Fox and His Friends / Effi Briest
Eisenstein:  Ivan the Terrible, Part I

And if we're going to allow American films (let's call the order here non-preferential):

Welles:  The Magnificent Ambersons
Laughton:  The Night of the Hunter
Lubitsch:  The Shop around the Corner
Romero:  Martin (No, Seriously.)
von Stroheim:  Greed / Queen Kelly
Murnau:  Sunrise
Hawks:  Scarface
Polonsky:  Force of Evil

I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch of good stuff.  Suggestions, anyone?




