100 Must-See Films of the 20th Century

By Leonard Maltin

Listed in chronological order. Published in the 2000 Edition of the Movie and Video Guide.

• The Birth of a Nation (1915, D.W. Griffith)
• Intolerance (1916, D.W. Griffith)
• Our Hospitality (1923, Buster Keaton)
• Greed (1924, Erich von Stroheim)
• The Gold Rush (1925, Charles Chaplin)
• Battleship Potemkin (1925, Sergei Eisenstein)
• The Big Parade (1925, King Vidor)
• The Freshman (1925, Sam Taylor & Fred Newmeyer)
• Metropolis (1926, Fritz Lang)
• The General (1927, Buster Keaton)
• Sunrise (1927, F.W. Murnau)
• The Crowd (1928, King Vidor)
• All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, Lewis Milestone)
• City Lights (1931, Charles Chaplin)
• M (1931, Fritz Lang)
• Dracula (1931, Tod Browning)
• Frankenstein (1931, James Whale)
• Trouble in Paradise (1932, Ernst Lubitsch)
• King Kong (1933, Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack)
• Duck Soup (1933, Leo McCarey)
• Sons of the Desert (1933, William A. Seiter)
• It Happened One Night (1934, Frank Capra)
• It's a Gift (1934, Norman Z. McLeod)
• A Night at the Opera (1935, Sam Wood)
• Bride of Frankenstein (1935, James Whale)
• The 39 Steps (1935, Alfred Hitchcock)
• Swing Time (1936, George Stevens)
• Modern Times (1936, Charles Chaplin)
• Dodsworth (1936, William Wyler)
• Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936, Frank Capra)
• Grand Illusion (1937, Jean Renoir)
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937, Ben Sharpsteen)
• The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, Michael Curtiz)
• The Lady Vanishes (1938, Alfred Hitchcock)
• Stagecoach (1939, John Ford)
• Gone With the Wind (1939, Victor Fleming)
• The Wizard of Oz (1939, Victor Fleming)
• His Girl Friday (1940, Howard Hawks)
• The Grapes of Wrath (1940, John Ford)
• Fantasia (1940, Ben Sharpsteen--production supervisor)
• Sullivan's Travels (1941, Preston Sturges)
• Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
• The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston)
• The Lady Eve (1941, Preston Sturges)
• Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz)
• The Ox-Bow Incident (1943, William A. Wellman)
• The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944, Preston Sturges)
• Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder)
• My Darling Clementine (1946, John Ford)
• It's a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra)
• The Best Years of Our Lives (1946, William Wyler)
• Great Expectations (1946, David Lean)
• The Bicycle Thief (1948, Vittorio De Sica)
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948, John Huston)
• Gun Crazy (1949, Joseph H. Lewis)
• All About Eve (1950, Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
• Sunset Boulevard (1950, Billy Wilder)
• Rashomon (1950, Akira Kurosawa)
• Strangers on a Train (1951, Alfred Hitchcock)
• Singin' in the Rain (1952, Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly)
• High Noon (1952, Fred Zinnemann)
• Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954, Stanley Donen)
• On the Waterfront (1954, Elia Kazan)
• The Seven Samurai (1954, Akira Kurosawa)
• The Searchers (1956, John Ford)
• Paths of Glory (1957, Stanley Kubrick)
• The Seventh Seal (1957, Ingmar Bergman)
• Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)
• North By Northwest (1959, Alfred Hitchcock)
• The 400 Blows (1959, Francois Truffaut)
• Some Like It Hot (1959, Billy Wilder)
• Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock)
• La Dolce Vita (1960, Federico Fellini)
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean)
• 8 1/2 (1963, Federico Fellini)
• Dr. Strangelove (1964, Stanley Kubrick)
• Mary Poppins (1964, Robert Stevenson)
• Blow Up (1966, Michelangelo Antonioni)
• The Graduate (1967, Mike Nichols)
• Bonnie and Clyde (1967, Arthur Penn)
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanley Kubrick)
• The Wild Bunch (1969, Sam Peckinpah)
• Midnight Cowboy (1969, John Schlesinger)
• The Godfather (1972, Francis Ford Coppola)
• Mean Streets (1973, Martin Scorsese)
• The Godfather Part II (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
• The Conversation (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
• Blazing Saddles (1974, Mel Brooks)
• Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg)
• Nashville (1975, Robert Altman)
• Annie Hall (1977, Woody Allen)
• Star Wars (1977, George Lucas)
• The Deer Hunter (1978, Michael Cimino)
• Apocalypse Now (1979, Francis Ford Coppola)
• Raging Bull (1980, Martin Scorsese)
• E.T. - The Extraterrestrial (1982, Steven Spielberg)
• GoodFellas (1990, Martin Scorsese)
• Schindler's List (1993, Steven Spielberg)
• Pulp Fiction (1994, Quentin Tarantino)
• Fargo (1996, Joel Coen)