For the next 100 days, Dr. Glenn Berger, psychotherapist, relationship counselor, business coach, artist’s coach, and young person’s mentor, will be posting his top 100 movies that every person should see for their cultural education. Do you agree? Disagree? What would be on your list? Comment below.
The Top 10 Movies of All Time
Best Movie of All Time: Children of Paradise
A classic about art and love.
Top 10 Movies of All Time (2): Last Tango in Paris
Bertolucci’s sumptuous meditation on the existential relationship. A groundbreaking, searing performance by Brando at his most authentic.
Top 10 Movies of All Time (3): Grande Illusion
A gorgeous, touching, enigmatic film that has meaning of infinite depth.
Top 10 Movies of All Time (4): Chinatown
Director Roman Polanski and actor Jack Nicholson combine to make a perfect movie in the hey day of a golden era in American film, the 1970′s.
Top 10 Movies of All Time (5): La Strada
Director Federico Fellini’s greatest film. A dark vision of the struggle of man.
Top 10 Movies of All Time (6): Lolita
Stanley Kubrick’s perfectly crafted film. Wickedly funny satire on the American dream.
Top 10 Movies of All Time (7): The Third Man
Amazing photography, iconographic musical theme, Orson Welles, a gorgeous final scene. Perfection.
Top 10 Movies of All Time (8): Contempt
Goddard’s peak of the French New Wave. Brigette Bardot naked in the first scene. Jack Palance as the American film producer. The isle of Capri.
Top 10 Movies of All Time (9): How Green Was My Valley
Director John Ford’s Winner of the Best Picture Academy Award. I’m not the only one who puts this on their top ten list of all time. A deeply felt story and emotional film.
Top 10 Movies of All Time (10): Sullivan’s Travels
Preston Sturges’s post-modern masterpiece which crosses genres from over-the-top slapstick to deep pathos.
The Top 100 Movies of All Time: 11 -20
Top 100 Movies of All Time (11): The Misfits
A tragic film stunningly directed by John Huston. The last film made by Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. Written by Monroe’s husband, Arthur Miller. Also starring the terrific Montgomery Clift.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (12): Citizen Kane
It had to come near the top of the list. It’s on everyone else’s list. Orson Welles. What else do I need to say?
Top 100 Movies of All Time (13): Shane
My favorite western and a great little boy film. Jack Palance is a great villain.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (14): The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
A touching coming of age story based on an award-winning novel with the great Alan Arkin, and a rare, great performance by Chuck McCann.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (15): One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
A movie to be seen by anyone in the healing professions. Nicholson at his peak. Tragedy and uplift in its ultimate combination.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (16): The Bicycle Thief
The high point of neo-realist Italian cinema.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (17): On The Waterfront
Brando and director Elia Kazan combine to make a movie of great heart and social conscience.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (18): The Conformist
Director Bernardo Bertolucci’s densest film. The art direction, Dominique Sanda, and Pierre Clemente are luscious.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (19): The Tenant
Roman Polanski’s paranoid meditation on alienation is ghoulishly delightful.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (20): Touch of Evil
Orson Welles said that every great movie should start with an explosion. This one does.
The Top 100 Movies of All Time: 21 -30
Top 100 Movies of All Time (21): Groundhog Day
The secret of life can be found in this exquisitely devised comedy.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (22): Finding Nemo
A great moral tale of the archetypal relationship between father and son. Perfectly crafted, exquisite performances, works for kids and grownups, and a star-turn in a supporting role by Willem Defoe.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (23): Psycho
Hitchcock gets on the list with his ultimate statement of artful shock and suspense. Mothers, staircases, and crazy people: his favorite obsessions.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (24): Annie Hall
Woody Allen reaches his peak in 1977 with this classic on love and lobsters. Diane Keaton defined a style for an era.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (25): Performance
Mick Jagger and Keith’s woman, Anita Pallenberg mix it up with James Fox in the first great rock and roll movie.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (26): West Side Story
Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, and Arthur Laurents combine to create the greatest musical of all time in this contemporary update of Shakespeare.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (27): Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Edward Albee’s wicked masterpiece played to perfection by Liz and Dick.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (28): Patton
George C. Scott plays one of America’s unique inspiring heroes: a warrior poet. Brilliant writing from Coppola.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (29): A Streetcar Named Desire
Tennessee Williams gives Brando his breakthrough role.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (30):La Dolce Vita
My favorite actor, Marcello Matroianno, playing Federico Fellini’s alter ego in this entrancing and dark film.
The Top 100 Movies of All Time: 31 -40
Top 100 Movies of All Time (31):The Godfather 1 and 2
Coppola’s masterpiece is such a popular favorite, it had to make the list.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (32):Taxi Driver
Scorsese and DeNiro’s breakthrough film. After seeing this film New York will never look the same again.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (33):Schindler’s List
Speilberg’s great and important film on the holocaust.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (34):Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Director John Huston teamed his father, Walter Houston, with Bogart in this classic of paranoia and the corruption of gold.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (35):Black Narcissus
Sumptious, erotic, deep, provocative.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (36):Ordinary People
A deeply moving story that explores family psychology with the best onscreen shrink.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (37):2001
Kubrick’s ultimate, iconic, psychedelic trip.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (38):The Dead
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John Huston’s final film is suffused with duende. Heartbreakingly beautiful.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (39):Strangers On a Train
Hitchcock’s masterpiece of suspense with the great carousel ending.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (40):Dr. Strangelove
The darkest of all black comedies. Peter Sellers in another tour de force multiple role performance.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (41):The Year of Living Dangerously
Peter Weir’s first great film on his clash-of-cultures theme.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (42):A Face in the Crowd
This is one of several films on this list by the iconoclastic Elia Kazan. This great cautionary tale about how an entertainer can use the power of the media to become a demagogue is more relevant today than ever.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (43):All That Jazz
I must admit this is included in part because I worked on it. This iconoclastic, sexy, dark film redefined musicals and ushered in the 1980s.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (44):Splendor in the Grass
This moving film, which marks the screen debut of Warren Beatty, unearths the dark side of American sexual repression.
Top 100 Movies of All Time (45):To Kill a Mockingbird
This transformative film is deepened by the pitch-perfect score of Elmer Bernstein. Watch for the screen debut of Robert Duvall as Boo.
Dr. Glenn Berger is a psychotherapist, relationship counselor, business and artist’s coach, and young person’s mentor. He sees patients in New York City, in Mt. Kisco, NY, and around the world by Skype.
Hi, Glenn,
I don’t see your other films, but will just list a handful of favorites, including some truly great comedies (I see you do have at least one Preston Sturges): An Actor’s Revenge; Manhattan; Intolerance; Midnight Cowboy; 2001; Limelight; City Lights; Dreyer’s Joan of Arc; Greed; The Wind; Sunrise; Semchuk’s uncut all-day) War and Peace; The Lady Eve; The Awful Truth; Palm Beach Story; Trouble in Paradise; The Magnificent Ambersons; To Have and Have Not; Night of the Hunter; The Searchers; Peeping Tom; Kiss Me Deadly; Rome: Open City; Il Gattopardo (The Leopard); Wild River; The Last Picture Show; The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp; Au Hazard Balthazar; Pickpocket; Alphaville; Naked; L’Atalante; Zero de Conduit; The Marriage of Maria Braun; Effie Briest; Wajda’s trlogy, Man of Marble, Man of Iron, WIthout Anesthesia; Andrei Rublev; The 400 Blows; Sansho Daiyu (Sansho the Bailiff); The Life of Oharu; Ugetsu Monogatari; Rules of the Game (La Regle de Jeux); L’avventura; Accident; Vertigo; Tokyo Story; Paths of Glory; Ray’s Apu Trilogy; Salaam, Bombay… There are tons of other films I would recommend, but many of them benefit from having a fairly broad filmography under one’s belt. These seem more like a dusting of the basics with just a few more recent curve balls thrown in. There are fresh new, more complete, prints of the old ones now available, and it’s truly worth searching those out wherever possible–makes all the difference!
Deborah,
This is a great list. Several of yours will appear later on the list. Some are great reminders that I’ll add in. Some I don’t know and I look forward to checking out. Our taste and reference points are very similar so I look forward to that! Thanks for adding some Asian films, something I feel my list lacks. Keep checking in to see what else gets on there. Thanks.
My votes. Groundhog day. American Beauty. It’s a wonderful Life.