100 Great Films for Beginners… by runtime
Whether you’re in the mood for a short, sharp cinema classic or you have the headspace to spend a whole evening with the screen, here are 100 great films for those at the beginning of their journey with cinema. I start with classic films coming in under 90 minutes and work up to those over three hours, ten sections with ten films each. Enjoy!
Great Films… under 90 mins
Sherlock, Jr
45 mins
Director: Buster Keaton
Enjoyable fun for all the family. Also, watch film history being made with its incredible technical prowess. It’s 1924, people!
Primer
77 mins
Director: Shane Carruth
I’m not sure I have a flexible enough brain to work out what is going on in this movie so its brevity is a gift. However, it is a properly interesting experiment.
Paris is Burning
78 mins
Director: Jennie Livingston
It’s an Xtravaganza that never fails to disappoint. But also a vital piece of social and cultural cinematic storytelling.
The Passion of Joan of Arc
82 mins (restored version)
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
This is in like every film list ever made. Usually in the top ten or twenty. It’s universally acknowledged to be great. And actually, it is great. Which feels good!
Tomboy
82 mins
Director: Céline Sciamma
I absolutely love the honesty and intimacy of this film about a child struggling with their gender identity. Where others may go flashy, Sciamma keeps it totally real.
Distant Voices, Still Lives
85 mins
Director: Terence Davies
One of the best films set in England, and uniquely about English people and their culture, that I’ve ever seen. It’s a masterpiece where everyday life is elevated into cinematic art.
Breathless
87 mins
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Confession: I’m not the world’s biggest Godard fan by any means but actually this film is a lot of fun and is undeniably cool. Stylistically, it’s massively influential so give it a watch in order to know your onions.
Modern Times
87 mins
Director: Charlie Chaplin
If you’re into film, you have to watch Charlie Chaplin. And if you have to start somewhere in his canon, there’s no better place in my opinion.
The Wicker Man
88 mins
Director: Robin Hardy
Trace a line from this massively important horror classic to recent films such as The Witch and Midsommar. Its imprint is EVERYWHERE.
Cold War
88 mins
Director: Paweł Pawlikowski
Sometimes a film comes along that is so effortlessly constructed it leaves you slightly winded by its perfection. Pawlikowski has crafted a brief but luminous gem about two doomed lovers. You will not be disappointed.
Great Films… between 90–99 mins
The Bicycle Thieves
90 mins
Director: Vittorio de Sica
A boy. His father. A bike. Simple Italian homespun truths. This is all over everyone’s lists and deservedly so.
Cléo from 5 to 7
90 mins
Director: Agnès Varda
No film list is complete without the doyenne of the French New Wave. Varda is effortlessly artistic, and this is one of her finest hours.
The Night Hunter
93 mins
Director: Charles Laughton
This is relatively unknown in terms of the film canon, but it’s a really fascinating watch propelled by Robert Mitchum’s utter central villainy.
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
94 mins
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Fassbinder’s films have a special quality — dark, erotic, theatrical. But this is the most touching and human work of his that I’ve seen.
Eighth Grade
94 mins
Director: Bo Burnham
The greatest film about puberty that I have ever, ever seen. It may not hit you as it did me, but boy if it gets you, it gets you.
I Am Not Your Negro
95 mins
Director: Raoul Peck
Our first documentary entry. This is a stunningly complex and intelligent expression of James Baldwin’s monumental influence.
Two Days, One Night
95 mins
Directors: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
I wish I’d made this film. That is all.
Timbuktu
96 mins
Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
This is an extraordinarily beautiful and important film about a city’s occupation. One of the modern greats.
Four Lions
97 mins
Director: Chris Morris
Apart from being flat-out hilarious, this is a masterpiece of subversion and satire with uniformly incredible performances.
The 400 Blows
99 mins
Director: François Truffaut
Another one everyone says you have to see, but genuinely this is a good watch with a compelling young performance at its heart.
Great Films… between 100–110 mins
Jackie
100 mins
Director: Pablo Larraín
I love, love, love this film and just think more people should watch it. Portman’s best. By a country mile.
Shame
101 mins
Director: Steve McQueen
Ah, the unfavoured Steve McQueen. But actually I think this is a convoluted, knotty, pretty much unlikeable yet fantastic film about addiction and self-loathing.
Singin’ in the Rain
102 mins
Directors: Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
Weirdly, I only watched this for the first time in 2020 and it never disappointed. Not for one single toe-tappin’ second. Also, kids genuinely love it.
Rome, Open City
105 mins
Director: Roberto Rossellini
This film was made in 1945, in the still burning ashes of WWII. Yet it is triumphant in its depiction of the human spirit and a city in recovery.
It Happened One Night
105 mins
Director: Frank Capra
The blueprint for the romantic comedy. And like most things: original flavour is usually the best.
A Serious Man
106 mins
Directors: Joel & Ethan Coen
This is my favourite Coen brothers’ movie. Again, perhaps not as favoured as others, but I think it’s close to perfection.
Strong Island
107 mins
Director: Yance Ford
Headlines rarely reveal the true cost of systemic racism in America, but Ford’s film does. And that’s why everyone should watch it.
Certain Women
107 mins
Director: Kelly Reichardt
What I remember is the utter quietness of this film. It’s uncompromisingly slow but features luminous performances.
The Royal Tenenbaums
109 mins
Director: Wes Anderson
This is a childhood favourite. Love him or loathe him, I will defend this movie until I’m blue in the face.
High Life
110 mins
Director: Claire Denis
Space and film can be the happiest of bedfellows. And Denis’ slippery and cerebral offering is a great example of the genre. Also, hello André 3000.
Great Films… between 111–120 mins
Boyz N the Hood
112 mins
Director: John Singleton
An expertly crafted film about fathers and sons, communities and the social forces that act upon them.
Taxi Driver
114 mins
Director: Martin Scorsese
We’re still living with Travis Bickle’s America, let’s face it.
Fire at Sea
114 mins
Director: Gianfranco Rosi
I wept at this film. Which is a pitiful reaction in many ways because the migrant crisis demands much more than our tears.
Alien
117 mins
Director: Ridley Scott
I saw this quite late in life — my late 20s — but was thoroughly blown away by its perfectly executed claustrophobic hunt to the death. Ripley forever.
Nightcrawler
117 mins
Director: Dan Gilroy
This film is quite underrated in mainstream circles in my opinion. I think it’s a slice of LA noir brilliance with a distinct 21st century twist.
If Beale Street Could Talk
117 mins
Director: Barry Jenkins
If you haven’t yet seen this devastating story about a young couple torn apart my racial injustice, just go watch. Now.
The Souvenir
119 mins
Director: Joanna Hogg
I’m a big fan of Hogg’s diffident English emotional dramas, and this is the best of her films in my opinion. Tom Burke’s performance as a thoroughgoing cad is spellbinding.
Citizen Kane
119 mins
Director: Orson Welles
Look if you’re going to start somewhere, why not start right at the tippity top?
The Battle of Algiers
120 mins
Director: Gillo Pontecorvo
I have no words for how great I think this film is. This is my personal Citizen Kane if you like! Artistically, technically, emotionally, politically — bang on.
Do the Right Thing
120 mins
Director: Spike Lee
A movie both utterly of its moment and yet able to reverberate across time as it passes. That’s a seriously impressive feat.
Great Films… between 121–130 mins
Shoplifters
121 mins
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
I can recommend almost all Kore-eda films that I have seen. He is an artist of rare subtlety, sensitivity and intelligence — and this one of his best.
The Act of Killing
122 mins
Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
Some people cannot get along with this film, and that’s understandable. But we need art that experiments, pushes and discomfits — as long as it’s in the service of something worthwhile. Which it is here.
A Separation
123 mins
Director: Asghar Farhadi
A modern day morality tale set in Iran, crafted with compassion and complexity. It’s like a modern-day Chekhov. I think it’s a masterpiece.
Dog Day Afternoon
125 mins
Director: Sidney Lumet
I first came across this film in a list of 100 Greatest Lines in Movie History. Don’t judge me… I went and watched the movie and LOVED it.
The Apartment
125 mins
Director: Billy Wilder
Someone recommended this to me recently and I was blown away by how lightly it wears the emotional turmoil at the centre of Lemmon and MacLaine’s characters.
Capernaum
126 mins
Director: Nadine Labaki
A stunning portrait of two children struggling in Beirut. It takes you all the way there and back again. Laughter. Tears. This film has it all.
Amour
127 mins
Director: Michael Haneke
Not to everyone’s taste I’m sure, but I love the emotional austerity of this film. I’ve only seen it once, but that was enough.
Selma
128 mins
Director: Ava DuVernay
This film is also pretty underrated by mainstream. How it did not absolutely clean up is still a mystery to me. A beautifully executed emotional epic.
Happy as Lazzaro
130 mins
Director: Alice Rohrwacher
An Italian pastoral take on the Rip Van Winkle tale. This is an utterly charming and unique film that I highly recommend.
City of God
130 mins
Directors: Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund
Big international film here. But worth all the hype.
Great Films… between 131–140 mins
Eden
131 mins
Director: Mia Hansen-Løve
Totally immersive in a specific time and place without having to bother much with plot. Look out for a few fun Daft Punk references too.
Tokyo Story
134 mins
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
A classic of cinema. If you want to know your stuff about the art form, no better place to start than with Ozu’s masterwork.
8½
135 mins
Director: Federico Fellini
Another stone-cold classic here. I actually don’t love Fellini but everyone has to admit that 8½ is an irrepressible, irresistible, and trend-setting romp of a film.
Uncut Gems
135 mins
Directors: Benny & Josh Safdie
Watching this film is like waking up and realising you’re late for your flight. You just know the next couple of hours are going to be STRESSFUL, but the relief once you make it is terrific.
North by Northwest
136 mins
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
This is a preposterous but perfectly confected mistaken identity thriller, aided by crisp cinematography, sharp suits and a kind of suave everyday heroism exhibited from Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. Lotsa fun.
The Matrix
136 mins
Directors: Lilly & Lana Wachowski
Mixing postmodernist theory, computer game aesthetics, a Jesus narrative and lots of leather, the Wachowskis turned out a flawless work of art and my favourite film of the 90s.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
137 mins
Director: James Cameron
I know it’s ‘better’ to say T1 is the masterpiece, and T2 the fluffy follow-up. But I love T2 with all my heart. An paralleled thrill-ride.
Gomorrah
137 mins
Director: Matteo Garrone
The real Italian gangster could be the subtitle of this intelligence, nuanced portrayal of the Camorra crime syndicate.
The Lives of Others
138 mins
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Everyone loves this film. For good reason. Do yourself a solid and watch it.
All About Eve
138 mins
Director: Joseph L Mankiewicz
I actually don’t love this film, and remain fairly unconvinced about its feminist credentials. However, it’s absolutely worth watching. Good script, great scenes and Bette Davis at her most Bette Davis-esque!
Great Films… between 141–150 mins
Leviathan
141 mins
Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev
I’m a bit obsessed with Russian culture, history and cinema (of course) and this is a stone-cold modern classic.
Secrets and Lies
142 mins
Director: Mike Leigh
I’m also a bit obsessed with Mike Leigh’s particular brand of semi-improvised and domesticated English cinema. Though it’s not my favourite film of his, it is a fabulous introduction to his work.
A Great Beauty
142 mins
Director: Paolo Sorrentino
One of the most intoxicating opening sequences to a film, ever. And the rest lives up to the hype. Gorgeously philosophical and curiously shallow at the same time. Italy’s finest.
The Wild Bunch
144 mins
Director: Sam Peckinpah
The anti-hero’s Western and classic of the genre. This is a very highly rated and I found it a good watch, despite being mostly allergic to Westerns!
L’Avventura
145 mins
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
I have a love/hate relationship with Antonioni but ultimately found the composition of this film arresting and seductive.
The Handmaiden
145 mins
Director: Park Chan-wook
An erotic, twisting thrill ride from start to finish, ingeniously adapted from Sarah Waters’ novel Fingersmith. I LOVE this film.
Mulholland Drive
147 mins
Director: David Lynch
Look, even if you have no idea what on earth’s going on, this film’s place in cinematic history is now secure so it’s definitely worth a watch. See what you make of it for yourself.
Burning
148 mins
Director: Lee Chang-dong
Aptly named, this film is one long slow burn. At first glance it may seem underwhelming. Disorienting, even. But on further inspection, its embers continue sparking long after the picture’s flickered out.
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
150 mins
Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
This is regarded as a classic of modern international cinema and a fascinating evocation of small-town life in Turkey. Brooding. Reticent. Memorable.
Inglorious Basterds
153 mins
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Hands down, the best alternative history film I have ever seen and one of Tarantino’s absolute finest.
Great Films… between 151–160 mins
West Side Story
151 mins
Director: Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins
The best musical ever written. Ever choreographed. Ever filmed. Ever made.
And I don’t like musicals.
The Square
151 mins
Director: Ruben Östland
Not to everyone’s taste, this is a spiky viewing experience which at first may seem emotionally void. However, stick with it, and the onion begins to shed its layers.
Amores Perros
153 mins
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Love’s a bitch, famously. But all I remember about this film is its undeniably power to compel, move and thrill in equal measures.
A Woman Under the Influence
155 mins
Director: John Cassavetes
FAVOURITE FILM ALERT.
In my top 10 of all time. Incredible cinema-making from Cassavetes, who I still consider to be underrated in the film canon.
A Prophet
155 mins
Director: Jacques Audiard
This is a great piece of crime cinema, eschewing all the stereotypes for something far knottier, meaningful and contemporary.
Breaking the Waves
156 mins
Director: Lars von Trier
From the Marmite director comes what is possibly his most beloved picture. You can’t not fall for Emily Watson’s idiosyncratic heroine, Bess.
Amadeus
158 mins
Director: Miloš Forman
There is nothing not to love about this intellectually and visually sumptuous story about composer Salieri and his relationship with Mozart. Much credit must go to Peter Shaffer, who wrote the play.
Zodiac
158 mins
Director: David Fincher
From the master of the serial killer thriller comes a confection of the highest order. Based on a famous unsolved case, it’s a riveting and detailed watch from start to finish.
Stalker
160 mins
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
My favourite from the Russian great in, let’s face it, a stacked oeuvre. There is no cinematic landscape like the ‘Zone’ in this philosophical treatise on human longing. And here is no filmmaker like Tarkovsky.
Nashville
160 mins
Director: Robert Altman
From the high priest of Hollywood’s New Wave comes this fragmented and diffuse ensemble piece. 70s America, with all its darkness and light, is the evocative backdrop.
Great Films… between 161–180 mins
Toni Erdmann
162 mins
Director: Maren Ade
An international arthouse super hit that lives up to expectations. Embrace the weird, open-hearted and altogether human world of ‘Erdmann’.
Ran
162 mins
Director: Akira Kurosawa
The truth is, I think Shakespeare can be tediously ponderous on screen (and I’m a theatre nerd). However, this is based on one the Bard’s best: King Lear. And it’s Kurosawa. So compulsory watching for budding film buffs.
American Honey
163 mins
Director: Andrea Arnold
This is a woozy, electric, heartsick look at contemporary working-class American adolescence. Seduction, escape and unexpected consequences are the currency of youth, and you won’t find a better evocation than this film.
Boyhood
165 mins
Director: Richard Linklater
This film lost the Academy Award for Director and Picture to Birdman. *no shade
Film history will have the last word on this. In fact, it already has :)
Scenes from a Marriage
167 mins
Director: Ingmar Bergman
No film list is complete without the beautifully austere Swedish master. This has been remade quite a few times, in different media, but watch the original. It’s usually the best.
Hoop Dreams
170 mins
Director: Steve James
A trailblazing doc from 1994 details the lives and dreams of two high school ball players. Totally ahead of its time. A must for any sports fans out there.
Scarface
170 mins
Director: Brian De Palma
I’m actually not a huge fan of this film but it’s totally overwhelming trash opera. Al Pacino stuffed with ham with dollops of hysteria. Fun.
Heat
174 mins
Director: Michael Mann
You know when they say ‘they don’t make ’em like that anymore’? Well, I feel like they really don’t make ’em like this. All out cops ’n’ robber thrills from start to finish without a dropped moment.
The Godfather
177 mins
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
The OG of OGs. Coppola’s film is still a sublime American melodrama oozing passion from every frame. The sequel’s not bad too.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
177 mins
Director: Sergio Leone
Sometimes it’s hard to get past a film’s iconography. Clint Eastwood’s scowl glowers over this film, still a classic of the genre and part of the Western film canon.
Great Films… over 180 mins
The Deerhunter
183 mins
Director: Michael Cimino
This film is much better without the iconic scene — which is ridiculously overwrought and mars what is otherwise a sensitive anti-war film.
Barry Lyndon
183 mins
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Every frame a painting (which by the way is a *great* YouTube channel you should check out.) But is also an accurate description of this Kubrick classic.
So Long My Son
185 mins
Director: Wang Xiaoshuai
This domestic tragedy from Chinese director Xiaoshuai is a masterpiece that will keep you hooked from start to finish, with a few tears in between.
Margaret
186 mins
Director: Kenneth Lonergan
Film connoisseurs will tell you all about the apocryphal story of Lonergan’s lost masterpiece. However bumpy the road that brought us the film, it’s definitely worth the hype.
Magnolia
188 mins
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Also known as the last good movie Tom Cruise did, this is a 90s indie classic and a must watch for fans of the irrepressibly brilliant PT Anderson.
The Green Mile
189 mins
Director: Frank Darabont
I haven’t seen this film in a long time but I’m pretty sure it’s relentless sentimentality and sincere goodness would beat me into submission once more.
Schindler’s List
195 mins
Director: Steven Spielberg
This is a good film for younger audiences to learn something about the Holocaust. Though it strains towards romanticism, it’s a good place to start.
Dr Zhivago
197 mins
Director: David Lean
If you’re at all interested in film, David Lean is a major contributor to the artform for his sweeping, epic stories of love and comradeship — all of which are exquisitely designed, shot and cast.
Shoah
566 mins
Director: Claude Lanzmann
If Schindler’s List is where you start, then Shoah is where you should move to. This goes beyond art, it’s recorded oral history and therefore of monumental importance to our world.
The Clock
1440 minutes
Director: Christian Marclay
24 hours long. Each frame showing the passing of time with images of time keepers mined from cinema’s rich archive. I’ve only seen about 3.5 hours of it but it was totally great and always worth catching.
