Playtime - One of the strangest and most delightful comedies ever made. The way this vision of a modern [for the 60's] urban landscape is itself a character in this absurd story is so unlike nearly any other movie ever made. It's as thought Jacques Tati took one of those Tex Avery cartoons about ridiculous futuristic technology [like The House of Tomorrow] and brought it to life.
Ikiru - The sometime-heartbreaking, sometimes inspiring story of one man's struggle to leave some lasting impact on the world [or at least those around him] as he is faced with him impending death. There's obviously a lot of Kurosawa films that could have made this list [and one other does], but there's something about Ikiru's singular focus on a very ordinary man and his year-long struggle to leave something positive behind that really struck a cord with me. He isn't a great man, he isn't a powerful man. He's just an ordinary man who realizes that it's not enough to just slowly plod from one day to the next, what's important is to actually LIVE.
The Godfather - Well, what else can be said here? It's one of the most epic crime dramas ever made. The characters, the tension, the sudden bursts of violence that nevertheless do not constitute the whole of the movie, it's all that and so much more.
Blade Runner - I'll admit that the first time I watched Blade Runner it didn't really make that much of an impact on me. Sure, it looked really great and all that, but...I don't know. I've watched a lot of times since then [including once in theaters] and I've come regard it as one of my favorite movies of all time. Aside from just the way the movie looks, what's really stuck with me the most is Batty's fight for life, because it is that struggle that makes him the most human. To live, to survive, that's what all life is about. And Vangelis's soundtrack is a thing of beauty.
Apocalypse Now - An odyssey into madness. Its trappings are that of a Vietnam movie, but it could just as easily be about any war or not even about war at all. This is as much a movie about a journey into the darkest depths of the mind as it is about a journey into the heart of a forbidding jungle. Few movies have captured that descent so well and no other produced such madness on both ends of the camera. As a companion to this, I would suggest watching Heart of Darkness, because it is perhaps even more so the cautionary tale than the movie is.
2001: A Space Odyssey - Slow and deliberate, and I wouldn't have it any other way. This is the poster child for hard science-fiction and no other movie has done in nearly as well in the realm of space exploration. This is a story about man's struggle to understand the unknown and the unknowable, to look in the face of an intelligence that is so far beyond anything that we understand and try to make some sense of it. It is through this struggle that we grow. Or maybe it's something different. Maybe it's about how our tools are doing us more harm than good and that are only hope for getting rid of violence is to forego our over-reliance on computers and guns and satellites. Maybe that's what it's about. Or maybe not. That a movie can have so many interpretations and themes speaks volumes of the skill of the minds involved in its creation. And I happen to like this bran of scifi, so that certainly helps.
Seven Samurai - I think the reason this works so well and is so far above other movies with a similar setup, is that Kurosawa was willing to let so many of his heroes get killed. They know going into this fight that it's going to be hard and long and most of them probably won't survive, but they do it anyway because they can't sit back and watch a village full of innocent people be destroyed. It's easy to glorify that kind of thing, and I think Kurosawa does do that a little bit, but I also think that he shows that a battle this violent and terrible cannot be fought with losing something, which is seen in the way the farmers fight by ganging up on the injured. There's no black and white in the world, just shades of gray.
Lawrence of Arabia - We have this glorified idea of the stranger in a strange land going native and leading simpler native people's against an oppressive, modern regime. The outcome is always glory and fame. See: Avatar, Pocahontas, Far Cry 3. But that's not what Lawrence of Arabia does. It's built around the same idea, but all that Lawrence has fought for falls apart around him in the end because he just didn't understand the people he was trying to help. He was young, handsome, idealistic, educated. In his mind, he thought he knew what was best for the people of Arabia, but he was ultimately blinded by his own ego and arrogance. That's why this movie stands the test of time, because it defies expectations and challenges romantic ideals. Well, that and it's one of the most sweeping epics ever filmed.
For All Mankind - Well, this one is a documentary. There's no new footage shot, it's just some footage that was already filmed and some background narration. Yet somehow, it's one of the most inspiring films ever made. It's a testament to the best of mankind, the drive to do what should be utterly impossible. And the soundtrack by Brian Eno is just so heartbreakingly beautiful.
Ghost in the Shell - Like Blade Runner, I didn't appreciate GitS the first time I saw it. For whatever reason, I didn't feel that it lived up to the hype surrounding it. I've changed that appraisal in the years since. Something about Mamoru Oshii's direction really speaks to me, somehow it's those quieter moments where it's only the music that really capture the heart of his movies. For GitS, it's the loss of individuality and humanity through cyberization. When everyone is made of metal and wires, when even brains aren't organic anymore, how can you know whether you're human anymore? At what point does humanity end and soulless robot begin? Unlike Blade Runner, GitS is not so much about the struggle to live but about the struggle to know whether one is truly alive or not. If there's no distinction between the fake and the genuine article, does the question even matter?
I hate having to leave out certain movies, but I'll leave this list as it is and not try to cram in something else.
