To me, finding films that resonate is more about branching out horizontally rather than vertically: find an era, or a director, or a style that works for you, and move outward from there in concentric circles. If you find you like French films from the 60s, seeing more French films from the 60s will likely uncover more things in that style that you enjoy.
Please note that I stopped bothering with recommendations after 1990; by that point I was growing up and making connections with films that are of a different kind than the ones from before that arbitrary benchmark. You can already see the shift into a more populist mode after 1980, when my tastes begin to reflect the American popular culture I was born into. I can't help it; nobody can. It's still part of who we are.
This list isn't a best-of; it's something of a self-portrait. One could easily add in the Sight & Sound list or a AFI 100 and come up with something nearer a comprehensive film overview, but that isn't the point of this. These are simply films that have marked me forever; they're the ones that play on my eyelids when the lights go out. Not all of them are classics, but they all have some elusive X factor that has stayed with me for a long time.
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Juve vs. Fantomas - Louis Feuillade 1913Kid Auto Races at Venice - Henry Lehrman 1915
Fatty and Mabel Adrift - Roscoe Arbuckle 1916
One A.M. - Charlie Chaplin 1916
He Did and He Didn’t - Roscoe Arbuckle 1916
The Oyster Princess - Ernst Lubitsch 1919
Way Down East - D. W. Griffith 1920
The High Sign - Buster Keaton/Eddie Cline 1920
Foolish Wives - Erich von Stroheim 1922
Haxan - Benjamin Christensen 1922
Nosferatu - F.W. Murnau 1922
Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler - Fritz Lang 1923
Sherlock, Jr. - Buster Keaton 1924
The Unholy Three - Tod Browning 1925
Phantom of the Opera - Rupert Julian/Lon Chaney 1925
His Marriage Wow - Harry Edwards 1925
The General - Buster Keaton 1927
The Kid Brother - Harold Lloyd 1927
Three's A Crowd - Harry Langdon 1927
Napoleon - Abel Gance 1927
Sunrise - F. W. Murnau 1927
Metropolis - Fritz Lang 1927
The Unknown - Tod Browning 1927
Underworld - Josef von Sternberg 1927
The Passion of Joan of Arc - Carl T. Dreyer 1928
Animal Crackers - Victor Heerman 1930
The Three Penny Opera - G. W. Pabst 1931
Bimbo's Initiation - Grim Natwick 1931
I Am A Fugitive From a Chain Gang - Mervyn LeRoy 1932
The Most Dangerous Game - Ernest B. Scoedsack 1932
Boudou Saved From Drowning - Jean Renior 1932
Vampyr - Carl T. Dreyer 1932
The Fatal Glass of Beer - Clyde Bruckman 1932
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse - Fritz Lang 1932
Footlight Parade - Lloyd Bacon 1933
Duck Soup - Leo McCarey 1933
Lady Killer - Roy Del Ruth 1933
Halleujah, I'm a Bum! - Lewis Milestone 1933
The Man Who Knew Too Much - Alfred Hitchcock 1934
Peter Ibbetson - Henry Hathaway 1935
Steamboat 'Round the Bend - John Ford 1935
The Bride of Frankenstein - James Whale 1935
A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Dieterlie 1935
Mad Love - Karl Freund 1935
Fury - Fritz Lang 1936
The Petrified Forest - Archie Mayo 1936
My Man Godfrey - Gregory La Cava 1936
Modern Times - Charles Chaplin 1936
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - Walt Disney/David Hand 1937
Bringing Up Baby - Howard Hawks 1938
Young Mr. Lincoln - John Ford 1939
Ninotchka - Ernst Lubitsch 1939
Rebecca - Alfred Hitchcock 1940
His Girl Friday - Howard Hawks 1940
The Maltese Falcon - John Houston 1941
Citizen Kane - Orson Welles 1941
The Devil and Daniel Webster - William Dieterlie 1941
Casablanca - Michael Curtiz 1942
The Vanishing Private - Jack King 1942
The Palm Beach Story - Preston Sturges 1942
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Michael Powell 1943
The Aristo-Cat - Chuck Jones 1943
The Three Caballeros - Norm Ferguson 1944
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek - Preston Sturges 1944
I Got Plenty of Mutton - Frank Tashlin 1944
Duck Pimples - Jack Kinney 1945
Ivan the Terrible I & II - Sergei Eisenstein 1945/6
Notorious - Alfred Hitchcock 1946
The Great Piggy Bank Robbery - Bob Clampett 1946
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre - John Houston 1947
The Red Shoes - Michael Powell 1948
The Tales of Hoffmann - Michael Powell 1949
Stray Dog - Akira Kurosawa 1949
The Quiet Man - John Ford 1950
Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday - Jacques Tati 1953
Stalag 17 - Billy Wilder 1953
Mr. Arkadin - Orson Welles 1955
The Night of the Hunter - Charles Laughton 1955
Disneyland: People and Places - Hamilton S. Luske 1956
Bigger Than Life - Nicholas Ray 1956
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? - Frank Tashlin 1957
Quatermass 2 - Val Guest 1957
The Abominable Snowman - Val Guest 1957
Sweet Smell of Success - Alexander Mackendrick 1957
Night of the Demon - Jacques Tourneur 1958
Gideon of Scotland Yard - John Ford 1958
The Horse's Mouth - Ronald Neame 1958
Touch of Evil - Orson Welles 1958
The Tingler - William Castle 1959
The Apartment - Billy Wilder 1960
La Dolce Vita - Federico Fellini 1960
One, Two, Three - Billy Wilder 1961
Carnival of Souls - Herk Harvey 1962
Winter Light - Ingmar Bergman 1962
Burn Witch Burn - Sidney Hayers 1962
An Autumn Afternoon - Yasujiro Ozu 1962
Lawrence of Arabia - David Lean 1962
Judex - George Franju 1963
High and Low - Akira Kurosawa 1963
Black Sabbath - Mario Bava 1963
From Russia With Love - Terence Young 1963
The Gorgon - Terence Fisher 1964
Mary Poppins - Walt Disney/Robert Stevenson 1964
Mothra vs. Godzilla - Ishiro Honda 1964
Danger: Diabolik - Mario Bava 1965
Red Beard - Akira Kurosawa 1965
Kaidan - Masaki Kobayashi 1965
Kill, Baby… Kill! - Mario Bava 1966
Blowup - Michaelangelo Antonioni 1966
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - Sergio Leone 1966
Wavelength - Michael Snow 1967
Chimes at Midnight - Orson Welles 1967
If…. - Lindsay Anderson 1968
Signs of Life - Werner Herzog 1968
Toby Dammit - Federico Fellini 1968
Hour of the Wolf - Ingmar Bergman 1968
The Mercenary - Sergio Corbucci 1968
The Immortal Story - Orson Welles 1968
The Abominable Dr. Phibes - Robert Fuest 1971
Straw Dogs - Sam Peckinpah 1971
Macbeth - Roman Polanski 1971
Giu la Testa / Fistful of Dynamite - Sergio Leone 1971
(nostalgia) - Hollis Frampton 1971
The Magic of Walt Disney World - Tom Leetch 1972
Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter - Brian Clemens 1972Sleuth - Joseph L. Mankewicz 1972
F for Fake - Orson Welles 1972
Don't Look Now - Nicholas Roeg 1973
Emperor of the North - Robert Aldrich 1973
Chinatown - Roman Polanski 1974
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid - Sam Peckinpah 1974
Phantom of the Paradise - Brian de Palma 1974
Hard Times - Walter Hill 1975
Profundo Rosso - Dario Argento 1975
Every Man For Himself And God Against All - Werner Herzog 1976
Suspiria - Dario Argento 1977
The Duellists - Ridley Scott 1977
Eraserhead - David Lynch 1977
Animal House - John Landis 1978
Alien - Ridley Scott 1979
The Muppet Movie - Jim Henson 1979
Apocalypse Now - Francis Coppola 1979
The Shining - Stanley Kubrick 1980
The Howling - Joe Dante 1981
Raiders of the Lost Ark - Steven Spielberg 1981
The Thing - John Carpenter 1982
Fanny & Alexander - Ingmar Bergman 1982
The Draughtsman's Contract - Peter Greenaway 1982
Fitzcarraldo - Werner Herzog 1982
The Evil Dead - Sam Raimi 1982
A Christmas Story - Bob Clark 1983
Once Upon a Time in America - Sergio Leone 1984
Gremlins - Joe Dante 1984
Ghostbusters - Ivan Reitman 1984
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - Steven Spielberg 1984
Brazil - Terry Gilliam 1985
Back to the Future - Robert Zemeckis 1985
Phenomena - Dario Argento 1985
Ran - Akira Kurosawa 1985
The Goonies - Richard Donner 1985
Blue Velvet - David Lynch 1986
Big Trouble in Little China - John Carpenter 1986
The Dead - John Houston 1987
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? - Robert Zemeckis 1988
