Persona        (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
Performance        (Donald Cammell & Nicolas Roeg, 1970)
La Maman et la putain        (Jean Eustache, 1973)
Nostalghia        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983)
L'Eclisse        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962)
Sans soleil        (Chris Marker, 1982)
Viaggio in Italia        (Roberto Rossellini, 1953)
Days of Being Wild        (Wong Kar-wai, 1991)
Playtime        (Jacques Tati, 1967)
Dekalog        (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1988)

Plus these, which belong with the ones above: Celine et Julie Vont en Bateau (Jacques Rivette, 1974); Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001); Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999); Charulata (Satyajit Ray, 1964), and Scorpio Rising (Kenneth Anger, 1964). And until the next time I do one of these lists, I shall remain unforgiven for excluding the works of Hawks, Hitchcock, Buñuel, Greenaway, and Kiarostami, among others.

See also Mubarak's previous list: Sept–Oct 2003

Mubarak Ali is now a Medical Laboratory Scientist who enjoys witnessing art and science collide on a daily basis. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

(revised list, in chronological order)

M        (Fritz Lang, 1931)
La Grande Illusion        (Jean Renoir, 1937)
The Cranes are Flying        (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957)
Playtime        (Jacques Tati, 1967)
Performance        (Donald Cammell & Nicolas Roeg, 1970)
McCabe & Mrs. Miller        (Robert Altman, 1971)
Charley Varrick        (Don Siegel, 1973)
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie        (John Cassavetes, 1976)
Ms .45        (Abel Ferrara, 1981)
Videodrome        (David Cronenberg, 1982)
Man Bites Dog        (Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel & Benoît Poelvoorde, 1992)

See also Ashley's previous list: Sept–Oct 2003

Ashley Allinson is a Master of Film and Television graduate from Bond University. He currently lives in Toronto where he is the Marketing Director and a Lecturer of Film History & Theory at the Toronto Film College.

1.  Sanshô dayû        (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954)
2.  Aparajito        (Satyajit Ray, 1956)
3.  The Godfather II        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
4.  Rashomon        (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
5.  Le Mépris        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
6.  Crimes and Misdemeanors        (Woody Allen, 1989)
7.  Goodfellas        (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
8.  Ugetsu Monogatari        (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)
9.  An Autumn Afternoon        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1962)
10. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs        (Mikio Naruse, 1960)

This is a group of films that I consider infinitely entertaining, technically perfect (within whatever stated goals of the films' creators I am aware of), and they have all profoundly altered the way I view film, and what can be done with the medium. Selecting a favourite from each of these directors is enormously challenging; I went with films that I feel most eloquently offer a glimpse into the directors' thoughts and philosophies, while also allowing for some sentimental favourites. My honourable mentions would include Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964); Les Roseaux sauvages (Andre Techine, 1994); Being There (Hal Ashby, 1979); The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974), and The Silence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1998).

Patrick David Alston is a musician, writer, film fan, activist, and service-sector worker bee from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Current projects include the band Monsonia and an in-the-works film site.

Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Late Spring        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1949)
Vampyr        (Carl Dreyer, 1932)
Viaggio in Italia        (Roberto Rossellini, 1953)
Black Narcissus        (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1947)
Fanny and Alexander        (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
Videodrome        (David Cronenberg, 1982)
Close-Up        (Abbas Kiarostami, 1989)
Stalker        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
L'Eclisse        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962)

The ten directors who have most shaped my perceptions of cinema and whose bodies of work are “genres” in themselves.

Five others to consider: those two glorious late westerns, The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969) and Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1969); two cracking horror genre pics, Night of the Demon (Jacques Tourneur, 1957) and Carpenter's version of The Thing (1982), and Feuillade's first great serial Fantômas (1913–14).

See also Mike's previous list: Jul–Aug 2003

Mike Bartlett is a subtitler living and working in West London, UK.

(in no particular order)

Playtime        (Jacques Tati, 1967)
Mirror        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974)
The Thin Red Line        (Terrence Malick, 1998)
Sans soleil        (Chris Marker, 1982)
Time Regained        (Raúl Ruiz, 1999)
In the Mood for Love        (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
Letter from an Unknown Woman        (Max Ophuls, 1948)
Tokyo Story        (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
Beau Travail        (Claire Denis, 1999)
Mulholland Drive        (David Lynch, 2001)

Maybe because:
a) I have problems letting go of the past
b) I'm introspective
c) I don't think causality in narrative is a particularly good way of looking at things
d) I'm never certain
e) I don't wear a watch

Significant others: Antonioni (Blow-Up); Varda (The Gleaners & I, [2000]); Melville (L'Armée des ombres [1969]/ Le Cercle rouge [1970]); Bresson (Au Hasard, Balthazar [1966]/Un Condamné à Mort s'est Echappé [1956]); Murnau (Sunrise [1927]/The Last Laugh [1925]); Godard (Le Mépris [1966]); Ramsay (Ratcatcher [1999], but not Morvern Callar [2002]), and Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Salaam Cinema [1995]).

There – I did it. No regrets.

Alifeleti Toki Brown is majoring in Cinema at RMIT University, Melbourne, and recently became a member of the Melbourne Cinémathèque committee.

(in no particular order)

A Streetcar Named Desire        (Elia Kazan, 1951)
The apotheosis of male sensuality ever shown.

Sleuth        (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1972)
Or how cinema and theatre can be twins.

La Maman et la putain        (Jean Eustache, 1973)
Flaubert had the wish to write a book about nothing; Jean Eustache filmed it. A powerful film about life.

Princess Mononoke        (Hayao Miyazaki, 1998)
One of the most poetic movies I've ever seen.

Aguirre: The Wrath of God        (Werner Herzog, 1972)
Nothing but pure madness.

To Be or Not to Be        (Ernst Lubitsch, 1942)
Perfectly witty.

Once Upon a Time in the West        (Sergio Leone, 1969)
Dust, silence, Claudia Cardinale and harmonica: great recipe for a great film.

The Man Who Would Be King        (John Huston, 1975)
The greatest adventure movie, or how death does not matter if you have lived immortal lives.

Underground        (Emir Kusturica, 1995)
Or how I learnt to start worrying and hate the bombs.

Ed Wood        (Tim Burton, 1994)
& Kill Bill        (Quentin Tarantino, 2003–2004)
The two most brilliant declarations of love ever made to the cinema.

Special mentions: Velvet Goldmine (Todd Haynes, 1998) and Devdas (Sanjay Leela Bhansali, 2002).

Jean-Baptiste Dusséaux is a French student in Cinema and Anthropology living in Paris.

1.  A Bout de Souffle        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1959)
2.  8½        (Federico Fellini, 1963)
3.  Weekend        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967)
4.  Manhattan        (Woody Allen, 1979)
5.  Run Lola Run        (Tom Tykwer, 1998)
6.  The Idiots        (Lars Von Trier, 1998)
7.  Playtime        (Jacques Tati, 1967)
8.  Citizen Kane        (Orson Welles, 1941)
9.  Jules et Jim        (François Truffaut, 1962)
10. Ladri di Biciclette        (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)

Prefaced by the humble claim that these are merely my favourites, and not the best (a claim I doubt anybody can make comprehensively); moderated by the fact that this list leans heavily toward the arbitrary rather than the meticulous side of things; culled from a field of about 70 films I consider to be the greats of cinema; sadly bereft of titles such as Life is All You Get (Wolfgang Becker, 1997); Pierrot le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965); Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989); Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1926), and Stardust Memories (Woody Allen, 1980), je vous presente my top ten films. Hope you disagree.

Danny Fairfax studies Film Studies, German and Philosophy at Sydney University, will spend 2005 on a scholarship at the Freie Universität Berlin, and hopes to meet Godard before either one of them dies.

(revised list, in preferential order)

1.  The Fountainhead        (King Vidor, 1949)
Hollywood cinema at its most radical. Beautiful, intense and mysterious.

2.  Chocolat        (Claire Denis, 1988)
Her debut, but every bit as hypnotic, humane and complex as her later masterpieces.

3.  Ballad of a Soldier        (Grigori Chukhrai, 1959)
Don't be put off by the “socialist realism” tag. Extraordinarily powerful.

4.  Les Biches        (Claude Chabrol, 1968)
Chabrol at his most ominously erotic. Audran's finest hour.

5.  Big Wednesday        (John Milius, 1978)
Puts American Graffiti (George Lucas, 1973) in perspective. Surfing as a metaphor for life actually works!

6.  Notorious        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)
Maybe not Hitchcock's most cinematically fluent or visually striking film, but certainly his most moving.

7.  Ulzana's Raid        (Robert Aldrich, 1972)
Of all revisionist westerns, this is the bleakest and most fatalistic.

8.  Tokyo Drifter        (Seijun Suzuki, 1966)
In the words of its director: “a free jazz gangster film”.

9.  Rabid Dogs        (Mario Bava, 1974)
Relentless road movie from the Italian master of the macabre.

10. In the Mouth of Madness        (John Carpenter, 1995)
A masterful finale to Carpenter's “Apocalypse Trilogy”.

See also Inge's previous list: Nov–Dec 2003

Inge Fossen is a 26-year-old student from Norway.

1.  Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
2.  Barry Lyndon        (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
3.  The Godfather I & II        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972 & 1974)
4.  Chinatown        (Roman Polanski, 1974)
5.  Il Conformista        (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1969)
6.  Touch of Evil        (Orson Welles, 1958)
7.  Z        (Costa-Gavras, 1969)
8.  Crash        (David Cronenberg, 1996)
9.  Raging Bull        (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
10. Le Salaire de la peur        (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953)

Paul Fries is a freelance film writer living in New York City.

Vertigo        (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Because this film grows with every film that it influences. When the thrill of North By Northwest (1959), the charm of Rear Window (1954), or the shock of Psycho (1960) has faded, the mystery of Vertigo will still be unsolved.

L'Année dernière à Marienbad        (Alain Resnais, 1962)
Inpenetrable and self-evident in a way that makes any explanation superfluous. A kind of cinema that can't be repeated or bettered. Our encounter with it can, though.

Death in Venice        (Luchino Visconti, 1971)
If you can't relate to the emotion, then this is obviously an immaculately stylished dud, but if you can...

Deliverance        (John Boorman, 1972)
For the clarity of the two opaque moments. No matter how often you freeze frame, it's still indecipherable.

The Conversation        (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
The final image in Gene Hackman's apartment. A state of mind or a state of cinema?

La Dentellière        (Claude Goretta, 1977)
To fall in and out of love with Isabelle Huppert in 90 minutes. To share the guilt of Yves Beneyton.

Stalker        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
Tarkovsky's ratio of masterworks per film is unequalled by anyone who made more than three films. It would take an essay to explain my preference for this one.

Subway        (Luc Besson, 1985)
The true start of Cinema de look. The films of Beineix and Carax might be more dense, but this one has an immediate emotional impact I still can't escape.

Three Colours: Blue        (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993)
Yes, I'm that kind of person.

Bad Boy Bubby        (Rolf de Heer, 1994)
Perfection. Never has a black comedy been so black and so quotable. Even its imperfections add to its enjoyability.

Every list is an X-ray. You feel exposed and naked. Guilty pleasures are included and favourites omitted. But these are the films I've enjoyed the most times and will continue to enjoy in the future. Is there a common denominator? Very controlled subversion of film grammar or perception, perhaps? The directors on the list are not necessarily my favourites, so I also have to name at least Antonioni, Lynch and Rohmer. Then of course, there should be a list of films you haven't had the chance to see more than once or twice, but which obviously are masterpieces of the kind that could become personal favourites – like “early” Sokurov (Whispering Pages [1993]).

As for Danish films, the non-melodramatic von Trier and the late period Dreyer should be accompanied by the Bent Christensen comedy Harry og kammertjeneren (Harry and the Butler) (1961), which Thomas Vinterberg refused to remake in English because it couldn't be improved.

Henrik Uth Jensen is a film critic writing for Danish daily Kristeligt Dagblad and teaching film science at the University of Copenhagen. As a hobby he is programmer for the film society STANLEY, which features its own top ten. At the moment of writing it goes like this: The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Seven Samurai, Trois couleurs: Bleu, Vertigo, Blade Runner, The French Connection, Blue Velvet, Pulp Fiction, Down By Law.

For Ever Mozart        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1996)
By listing this film I mean for it to represent all of Godard's films (even Alphaville [1965], even In Praise of Love [2001], etc.) because even his worst films touch me in ways most films never will.

L'Avventura        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
Same goes for Antonioni, my favourite Italian director. After seeing this film I cried, realised then and there that I somehow wanted my life to be associated with cinema (Godard made me realise this as well, but scared me; Antonioni sealed the deal).

All About My Mother        (Pedro Almodóvar, 1999)
What an interesting director. Even though I've enjoyed just about all of his films, I think his style started to really be perfected with Live Flesh (1997), and then just about reached its point of Nirvana with this film. It's touching, disgusting, relevant, beautifully composed, and seriously funny. What more could I ask for?

Close-Up        (Abbas Kiarostami, 1989)
An incredible ode to the wonders and dangers of cinema. Kiarostami's style is so realistically realised I can say no more.

Hana-Bi        (Takeshi Kitano, 1997)
Kitano is such a thought-provoking person it is hard to know where to begin with him. His style is minimal, his dialogue right on and humorous, his acting unique, and his films are are all mysteriously compelling.

Through a Glass Darkly        (Ingmar Bergman, 1961)
Wow, how I would have loved to have been alive in the '60s. Bergman, Antonioni, Godard, Truffaut, Ozu, Bertolucci, Fellini, etc, etc, etc. This film represents Bergman in general, but with this being the first of his infamous trilogy, I felt it worth singling out. It also influenced Allen's dramatic trilogy, which I also love.

Last Tango in Paris        (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1972)
No need to say anything, Kael already did. I will reiterate that it was Brando's masterpiece (better than the first Godfather, though that was remarkable as well), and Bertolucci's most poetic film. And even though I enjoy Bertolucci, if it weren't for this film (don't take this the wrong way, he has other good ones), he just wouldn't mean to me what he does.

Interiors        (Woody Allen, 1978) / Manhattan        (Woody Allen, 1979)
When I say that these two films were directed by the best American director to ever grace the medium, I understand completely that this is totally subjective and extremely debatable (and of course, most likely not true). But his ability to pay homage, to contradict, to create wholly original films, and to redefine the words tragedy and comedy are still limitless and unfathomable (if that's a word). I just cannot understand how he has produced such a large body of work that is so outstanding. These two films stand in for all of his work.

Tokyo Drifter        (Seijun Suzuki, 1966)
This, along with his other '60s films, was the equivalent of the films of the French New Wave. It's the mode of storytelling, and the unoriginal stories completely turned around and made to look fresh and spectacular again. Suzuki is impressive.

Blue Velvet        (David Lynch, 1986) / Faust        (Jan Svankmajer, 1994)
Lynch is incredible, imaginative, surreal, and all those other good words used to describe a brilliant director who makes films delving so far into the subconscious that it's damned near ridiculous. Svankmajer is simply a master, I don't know what else to say – my favourite Czech director, that's for sure. Watching his “militant surreal” films is like reading Kundera.

These ten films and directors are the ones that have touched me the most and deepest along my very young journey of film watching and cinephilia. I hope I can be forgiven for excluding such amazing films as The Steamroller and the Violin (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1960); all of Hitchcock; Floating Weeds (Yasujiro Ozu, 1959); Shock Corridor (Samuel Fuller, 1963), and anything by the great German directors.

Isaac Johnson is an 18-year-old from Buffalo, N.Y. He is just starting college at the University of Buffalo and hopes to major in Comparative Literature and Film Studies, though he wouldn't mind making experimental films (another group he forgot to mention in his top ten... unless you count all of them in that category... hmmm). Although he is young, he prides himself on having a knack for knowing intelligent films (and enjoying them!). He hopes that one day he will have published numerous essays and books on film and philosophy and possibly even directed an interesting film. If not, he will always take comfort in the fact that great films have been made before him, great films will be made after him, and meantime he will spend a lot of time watching as many as he can.

Meshes of the Afternoon        (Maya Deren, 1943)
Window, Water, Baby, Moving        (Stan Brakhage, 1959)
Vivre sa vie        (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)
Blonde Cobra        (Ken Jacobs, 1959–63)
Scorpio Rising        (Kenneth Anger, 1964)
Unsere Afrikareise        (Peter Kubelka, 1966)
Report        (Bruce Conner, 1965)
Titicut Follies        (Frederick Wiseman, 1967)
Blue Velvet        (David Lynch, 1986)
Delicacies of Molton Horror Synapse        (Stan Brakhage, 1991)

Combine this revised list with my original list (2003) for a top 18. Runners up include Salò (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975); Celine et Julie vont en bateau (Jacques Rivette, 1974), and The Savage Eye (Ben Maddow, Sidney Meyers & Joseph Strick, 1960).

See also Mark's previous list: Sept–Oct 2003

Mark Johnson, 41, is a writer, director and researcher living in Los Angeles.

Puce Moment        (Kenneth Anger, 1949)
L'Année dernière à Marienbad        (Alain Resnais, 1962)
2001: A Space Odyssey        (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Camille 2000        (Radley Metzger, 1969)
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls        (Russ Meyer, 1970)
Scenes from a Marriage        (Ingmar Bergman, 1973)
Chinese Roulette        (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1976)
The Draughtsman's Contract        (Peter Greenaway, 1982)
Institute Benjamenta        (Brothers Quay, 1995)
The Piano Teacher        (Michael Haneke, 2001)

I have trouble picking only one Greenaway film; I have very much enjoyed every film that he has ever made that I've seen. I feel bad for leaving off horror movies, so my five favourite horror movies are as follows: Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001); Daughters of Darkness (Harry Kümel, 1971); Virgin Among the Living Dead (Jess Franco, 1971); Silent Night, Bloody Night (Theodore Gershuny, 1974), and The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973).

See also Mike's other lists: Nov–Dec 2003      Apr–June 2007

Mike Kitchell is a freshman photography student at Northern Illinois University.

L'Atalante        (Jean Vigo, 1934)
Ordet        (Carl Dreyer, 1954)
Rio Bravo        (Howard Hawks, 1959)
Stalker        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
A Woman Under the Influence        (John Cassavetes, 1974)
Aguirre: The Wrath of God        (Werner Herzog, 1972)
Un Condamné à Mort s'est Echappé        (Robert Bresson, 1956)
The Heartbreak Kid        (Elaine May, 1972)
Out of the Blue        (Dennis Hopper, 1980)
Playtime        (Jacques Tati, 1967)

Since there are about 200 films competing for my personal top ten, I decided to pick ten completely different titles this year. If I had to pick five alternates, they would be (at the moment): Two-Lane Blacktop (Monte Hellman, 1971); Fat City (John Huston, 1972); Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah, 1974); McCabe & Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971), and Les Bonnes femmes (Claude Chabrol, 1960). Three of my favourite directors – Nicholas Ray, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Mike Leigh – were excluded because I had a difficult time separating a single film from an entire body of work.

See also Josh's previous list: Nov–Dec 2003

Josh Krauter loves film and lives in Austin, Texas.

Breaking the Waves        (Lars von Trier, 1996)
Il Postino        (Michael Radford, 1994)
Stalker        (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
Winter Light        (Ingmar Bergman, 1963)
2046        (Wong Kar-wai, 2004)
Punch-Drunk Love        (P.T. Anderson, 2002)
A Zed and Two Noughts        (Peter Greenaway, 1985)
Reservoir Dogs        (Quentin Tarantino, 1992)
Reconstruction        (Lucian Pintilie, 1968)
Il Vangelo secondo Matteo        (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964)

Daniel Tudor Munteanu is 24 and a freelance architect living and working in Romania.

The Golem        (Carl Boese & Paul Wegener, 1920)
The Adventures of Prince Achmed        (Lotte Reiniger, 1926)
Berkeley Square        (Frank Lloyd, 1933)
The Black Cat        (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1934)
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break        (Edward F. Cline, 1941)
Suddenly        (Lewis Allen, 1954)
The Wrong Box        (Bryan Forbes, 1966)
Money Movers        (Bruce Beresford, 1979)
Lucifer Rising        (Kenneth Anger, 1970–81)
Prospero's Books        (Peter Greenaway, 1991)

Top ten lists are shite. I've seen about 2500 films in my 30 years on this Earth. I suspect several contributors to this section of SoC have seen even more. I distrust anyone who thinks they can boil down their cinematic experience to an even remotely definitive “ten best” list, particularly one in preferential order. So, in the interest of diversity and perversity, here are ten films I love for varying reasons that no one else had cited up to installment 33 of SoC as far as I could see. I love Citizen Kane, of course, along with many of the other “approved” classics, but they don't need me to boost their points tally here. People's less obvious favourites are always more interesting, anyway.

James Russell reviews films for “Celluloid Dreams” on 2SER in Sydney. He harbours no desire, not even a secret one, to be a filmmaker.

The Best Years of Our Lives        (William Wyler, 1946)
Flowers of Shanghai        (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1998)
Immensee        (Veit Harlan, 1943)
The Loveless        (Kathryn Bigelow & Monty Montgomery, 1982)
La Maman et la putain        (Jean Eustache, 1973)
Sanshô dayû        (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954)
Stroszek        (Werner Herzog, 1977)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre        (Tobe Hooper, 1974)
Two-Lane Blacktop        (Monte Hellman, 1971)
Warheads        (Romuald Karmakar, 1992)

Michael H. Schmidt is 32 years old and a film programmer and geek from Germany.

La Battaglia di Algeri        (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1965)
The chef d'oeuvre that modern guerrilla warriors looked upon as a Bible and the one that modern nations looked upon to stop them.

Network        (Sidney Lumet, 1976)
An all too perfectly prophetic profile of America, politics and the media.

Kwaidan        (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964)
Quite possibly the greatest Japanese film ever made, period.

The Vanishing        (George Sluizer, 1988)
A shocking examination of controlled insanity and a film of relentless suspense and revelatory consternation.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia        (Sam Peckinpah, 1974)
Peckinpah's introspective journey into desperation, chaotic violence and surrealism.

Metropolis        (Fritz Lang, 1926)
This film was Orwellian before Orwell, and the template for significant sci-fi films to this very day.

The Hustler        (Robert Rossen, 1961)
Newman's Fast Eddie Felson proclaimed “I'm the best you've ever seen. Even if you beat me, I'm still the best.”

The Shining        (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
Kubrick, Nicholson and a haunted hotel? Two words: utterly horrifying.

The Thin Red Line        (Terrence Malick, 1998)
Malick's philosophical musings on war and especially faith, death and natural beauty.

Fargo        (Joel Coen, 1995)
A black comedy so dark and funny you can't decide whether to laugh hysterically or stare in shock.

Honourable mentions: Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001); sex lies & videotape (Steven Soderbergh, 1989); The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950); Gallipoli (Peter Weir, 1981), and julien donkey-boy (Harmony Korine, 1999).

David Schoonover is currently working as an advertising filmmaker in Kansas City and is an impassioned screenwriter.

Touch of Evil        (Orson Welles, 1958)
Pulp Fiction        (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
Barry Lyndon        (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
The Killer        (John Woo, 1989)
Singin' in the Rain        (Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1952)
Les Vacances de M. Hulot        (Jacques Tati, 1953)
Underground        (Emir Kusturica, 1995)
Once Upon a Time in America        (Sergio Leone, 1984)
Werckmeister Harmonies        (Béla Tarr, 2000)
Le Plaisir        (Max Ophuls, 1951)

Giancarlo Semeraro is a 21-year-old actor/filmmaker. He's a great lover of cinema.

Three Colours: Blue        (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993)
Impossible to describe with words. Juliette Binoche is superb. A perfect blend of imagery and background score.

Jules et Jim        (François Truffaut, 1962)
Lyrical. The recurrent theme of the cycle occurs throughout the movie. A profound film on love and friendship, and a masterpiece of the French New Wave.

Amores Perros        (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2000)
A modern masterpiece. It is simultaneously bleak, cynical, insightful and compassionate. A multi-layered film that necessitates mutiple viewings to peel the layers to get at its core.

Blow-Up        (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)
A haunting image of isolation pervades the screen. An ever lasting experience.

Charulata        (Satyajit Ray, 1964)
A beautiful, lyrical yet emotionally complex film on the nature of human relationships. A paragon of perfect filmmaking. A classic from a master.

Persona        (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
A daringly experimental film that explores the dark side of human nature.

In the Mood for Love        (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
A poignant, nostalgic movie on lost love, and chances. Hong Kong auteur Wong's best.

Mulholland Drive        (David Lynch, 2001)
Lynch's surreal nightmare. A daringly experimental film that breaks all the cinematic norms to create the Lynchian atmosphere.

Taxi Driver        (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader burst with raw energy in this '76 classic. Bickle (played to the T by De Niro) is one of the most memorable characters in the history of cinema.

Pulp Fiction        (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
An exhilarating, infectious experience. Tarantino's best.

Special mentions: Magnolia (P.T. Anderson, 1999); Delicatessen (Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro, 1991); Underground (Emir Kusturica, 1995); Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979), and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols, 1966). Some of my closest-to-heart movies had to be left out because of limitations.

Omprakash Seresta is a cinephile and a student of aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech.