It's not total crap; most of the films on the list probably do deserve their place on anyone's hypothetical list. But it's certainly light on indie, experimental, and world cinema (particularly non-Western cinema), and I can think of many films I'd swap out for films not on the list. As could any film buff, I'd imagine. Which is kind of the whole point of being a film buff: there will be plenty of room for disagreement.

But yeah, this is basically a Film Studies 101 primer list.

It shows a lack of imagination. You see this and want to be surprised. Learn about some fantastic unknown Malaysian film that blows doors...

I overuse a half learned Nietzsche quote from the beginnings of "The use and abuse of history..." - actually I think a requote of Goethe - along the lines of 'I hate that which merely instructs me without increasing my vitality...'

Butchered I am sure but I think that is the gist.

There is literally nothing new on this list.

Again - I am not a film buff - but I have seen movies in the past 3 months that are better than many movies on this list.

Glengarry Glen Ross comes to mind. Slate article is dead on about the omission of Ozu and Ackermann. What about documantaries like "Once were kings" or Errol Morris or for historical purposes, Leni Riefenstahl

I see things like this as an indictment of a dangerous lack of imagination in liberal US. Its killing us.

Ozu is a big oversight on this list. I'll grant you that few people outside of film scholars and students have seen anything in his catalog beyond Tokyo Story, but shit, that movie alone is easily one of the greatest ever made.

And the inclusion of films like Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun" is bizarre. That film is like a 2hr episode of "Hogan's Heros" set in a Japanese POW camp.

JG Ballard spoke about his time in the camp and why he wrote the book.

Including the film makes a lot more sense when you see the context: http://www.jgballard.ca/media/2002_feb3_BBC4_radio.html

Ballard says this about the film: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/mar/04/fiction.film

The story is incredible - the film is not very good.

I'm curious - why do you list women as a separate category, is there something essentially different about how women direct? I've never watched a film and thought "that must be by a $sex director".

Agreed - I didn't, the article did. It is a fatuous distinction. In fact - that categorizing is an example of the complete lack of imagination that I am talking about.