Essential movies to watch

• The Fifth Element
• Big Trouble in Little China
• LOtR
• Akira
• Up

Princess Mononoke

Most of mine are already listed but here's a couple more.

Army of Darkness

Dogma

The Protector

Clue

Full Metal Jacket

One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest

Howl's Moving Castle

Four Rooms

Pulp Fiction

• Caddyshack
• Animal House
• Goodfellas
• The Godfather
• Shawshank Redemption
• Schindler’s List
• The Shining
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Big Trouble in Little China

Princess Bride

Romancing the Stone

The Shining

Full Metal Jacket

Memento

American History X and The Green Mile

• Airplane!
• Ghostbusters
• The Naked Gun (Already mentioned)
• Gremlins + Gremlins 2
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom + Raiders of the Lost Ark
• The Great Dictator
• Forrest Gump
• American History X
• Grave of the Fireflies
• Rear Window
• The Silence of the Lambs
• Braveheart
• Highlander
• Resevoir Dogs (Already mentioned)
• Children of Men (Already mentioned)
• My Neighbor Totoro (Already mentioned)
• The Exorcist
• Rambo: First Blood
• Groundhog Day
• What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
• Scent of a Woman
• Predator

Donnie Darko

Office Space

Equilibrium

Amélie

Back to the Future

• The Thing ('82)
• Hot Fuzz
• Mad Max: Fury Road
• Spirited Away
• Taxi Driver
• The Matrix
• Unforgiven
• Nosferatu
• Suspiria ('77)
• 12 Angry Men
• Psycho
• The Wizard of Oz

"Should have seen" is strange, I'll go with titles that, if you are into cinema probably you have heard about?

Citizen Kane

The Seventh Sigil

Apocalypse Now

Vertigo (Any Hitchcock movie really)

Seven Samurai (Any Kurosawa movie really)

Pretty much anything from Buster Keaton

Charlie Chaplin (I guess Modern Times)

The Godfather part I & II

Taxi Driver

On the Waterfront (Peak Marlon Brando stuff)

Some Truffaut stuff (I guess "Day for Night" would be the most relevant here)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind to get pretty much everything interesting from the Spielberg side of things

Man with a Camera (ok this one is not something I espect any conema lover to know, it's a very early montage wonder from Russia, always good to get back there and get reminded progress doesn't always go forward)

La Dolce Vita

2001: A Space Odyssey

Shining

A Clockwork Orange

Reservoir Dogs

Lost Highway (The better Mulholland Drive)

Blade Runner

The Matrix

Star Wars

There's some good newer stuff but it's much less "popular" so it wouldn't make sense to expect anybody to know them. Very little new stuff looks like has the staying power to be relevant years down the line.

I guess The Lord of the Rings? But I consider it more of a great book that got a quality adaptation than a ground breaking stepping stone of cinema.

No country for old men, probably.

Just off the top of my head: Alien and Aliens are wonderful, Apocalypse Now needs no introduction, Interstellar, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and finally Oppenheimer, which is one of the best movies ever made in my opinion (what can I say, I'm a sucker for an incredibly well-told story).

Alien, Aliens, Alien3.

Rashomon

Man with a Movie Camera

Battleship Potemkin

Metropolis

The Lost Boys

The Matrix

Withnail & I

Requeim for a Dream

Synecdoche, New York

Hero

Let the Bullets Fly

Jackie Brown

Anomalisa

The Skin I Live in

Parrallel Mothers

Martyrs

Amélie

Taxi Driver

Etneral Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The Lighthouse

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

A New Hope, Empire, RotJ (despecialised, or original cuts

Bladerunner, Bladerunner 2049.

The Orphanage

Watership Down

Donnie Darko

American Beauty

I'm All Right, Jack

The Great Dictator

Blow-Up

City of God

Amadeus

Seven Samurai

Lust for Life

District 9

Network

The Road, so people should know what to expect in a decade or so.

Krull is one that stays in all my libraries. It's so obscure yet has names like Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane, and David Battley. It was my dad's favorite movie.

Office Space - the message was ahead of it's time 12 Angry Men – reactionaries vs rationality

• Lord of The rings Trilogy
• All Quiet on the Western Front
• Princess Bride

Yeesh, apologies for crappy formatting

Matrix

Alien/Aliens

Spirited Away

The Dark Knight

The Shining

Heat

Wall-E

Memento

Jurassic Park

Apollo 13

Children of Men

Unbreakable

Hereditary

The Witch

Arrival

Thin Red Line

Sixth Sense

Terminator 2

Primer

Finding Nemo

I could keep going

Hunt for the Wildepeople

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hunt_for_the_wilderpeople

The Truman Show

Secretary (2002)

Think what you want, this movie has layers of depth to it. Every time I watch it I feel like I learn something new about a character and why they are the way they are.

Star Wars (Original Trilogy)

Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Indiana Jones (first 3 movies)

Sing Terminator Toy Story The Corporation ET Dirty Harry A Fistful of Dollars

I haven't seen it posted here yet so I'd like to add one of my favorites, Big Fish.

Harold and Maude (1971)

Puss in Boots: the Last Wish turned out to be really good, imo.

Just gonna name a few ones that weren't mentioned yet that I find noteworthy, unique and/or just pure fun:

• The Boy and the Heron (2023)
• Parasite (2019)
• The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
• The Man from Earth (2007)
• Ratatouille (2007)
• Catch Me If You Can (2002)
• The Sixth Sense (2001)
• The Emperor's New Groove (2000)
• Playtime (1967)

A lot of movies already mentioned, so I'll add two movies which I feel are essential to watch:

• Ex Machina (2014)
• Into the Wild (2007)

Dr. Strangelove

Interstellar

Unironically: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Forrest Gump The Blues Brothers Jurassic Park Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

• The fool
• The platform

A bunch of other people have mentioned Ghibli movies and since I'm in the middle of a binge through every Ghibli movie I think I'll recommend one that I hadn't seen before a few days ago: Only Yesterday or Omoide Poroporo.
It's Isao Takahata, not Miyazaki, but it's easily my favorite Ghibli movie and one of my favorite movies of all time. It feels so real and relatable, the whole movie is essentially a really slow-paced series of flashbacks to the main character's 10-year-old self and every detail is so well-thought-out and interesting.
Very worth watching, although I'll mention as a disclaimer that all the friends I was watching it with thought it was super pointless and boring.

The original Jumanji. The first Jurassic Park. Rush Hour. The Sound of Music. Spirited Away. Alien. The Dead Poet's Society. The Matrix. Happy as Lazaro. The Dark Knight. The Godfather. 2001: A Space Odyssey The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy). Seven Samurai. The Terminator. The Lion King.

Such classics.

If we're ever going to see eye to eye, you must be familiar with a Goofy Movie.

Predestination

Network

YOU HAVE MEDDLED WITH THE PRIMAL FORCES OF NATURE, MR. BEALE, AND I WON'T HAVE IT! Is that clear?!

Interstate 60

Some I haven't seen mentioned: -The Best of Youth -Enter the Void -Call Me by Your Name -Nocturnal Animals -The Secret Life of Walter Mitty -The Hunt -Moonrise Kingdom -Mother (Korean movie) -The Baader Meinhoff Complex -City of God -Snatch

Day of the Wacko

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) - not entirely faithful to the novel, but this version is brutal in its depiction of the war. I do think removing Paul's short return to his village hurt the story. It's interesting to compare this one to the 1930 version

Spaceballs (1987) - Mel Brooks doing what he does best.

Blindness (2008)

Everyone going the biggest and best....

I suggest:

Both versions of House on Haunted Hill (evolution of the campy horror genre)

Both versions of Black Christmas (see horror tropes become them and the retelling)

Jason X (Jason the undying killer but in space!)

Teeth (if you needed a movie to really drive home that SA is bad)

Trainspotting (if you needed a movie to really drive home that drug addiction is bad)

The Room (a detailed instructional of how not to write a movie)

Super Mario Bros 1993 (watch as both the main characters appear to become more drunk as the story goes on because their actors actually were) .... And the new one I guess. It's ok but not as entertaining on a meta level

DOA Dead or Alive (possibly the most true to source video game movie and a fun martial arts movie)

Patch Adams (if you can watch the whole thing twice, you're better than me. That third act is brutal emotionally for me)

Slaxx (do not read anything about it. Go in blind. Enjoy the layers of what the actual fuck is going on)

Dungeons and Dragons 2000 (about as accurate a oneshot as I've ever seen. Also, Jeremy Irons being peak Jeremy Irons)

What the bleep do we know (Science! Physics! Learning!)

Wicker man (Cage version during the height of him taking literally any role to pay off debts. Watch him overact and punch a woman in a bear suit)

Romeo and Juliet (decaprio version. Shakespeare but in modern day Miami. They do not update the language to current English.)

I've got more but that should be good for a few days worth of watching.

It hasn't been mentioned.

Primer

It's simply the BEST time travel movie

American Movie

Mary and Max

Good responses! I couldn't think of anything that wasn't already there!

Cinema Paradiso Gaslight Arsenic and Old Lace North by Northwest The Mummy (Brenden Fraser) Gladiator Saving Private Ryan Up Finding Nemo

Gremlins (The only Christmas movie worth watching).

I know the franchise has been on shaky ground lately, but I really think everyone should watch the Infinity Saga, in order, at least once. 23 movies that tell one vast over-arching story, featuring some of the best god-damn superhero casting ever seen.

Ghostbusters.

I work with people who have never seen it. Like, what the fuck are they even teaching kids these days?

Lots already mentioned, but these i would add:

• Werk ohne autor
• Gattaca
• Thank you for smoking
• Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis

Lord of the rings the fellowship, lotr two towers, lotr return of the king.