Spike Lee’s List of Films All Aspiring Filmmakers Must See
Spike Lee (who writes everything in title case but won’t tell you the title of the film he’s raising money for on Kickstarter) has just posted a list of the films every aspiring director must see to his Kickstarter campaign. It’s the list he gives to all of his students on the first day of classes at NYU.
Check out the Kickstarter campaign for “The Newest Hottest Spike Lee Joint here and check out this video of Spike explaining the list.
Here’s The List In Its Entirety:
“Bad Lieutenant,” Abel Ferara (1992)
“Rashomon,” Akira Kurosawa (1950)
“Yojimbo,” “Akira Kurosawa (1961)
“Ran,” Akira Kurosawa (1985)
“Rear Window,” Alfred Hitchcock (1954)
“Vertigo,” Alfred Hitchcock (1958)
“North by Northwest,” Alfred Hitchcock (1959)
“Bonnie and Clyde,” Arthur Penn (1967)
“The Conformist,” Bernardo Bertolucci (1970)
“Last Tango in Paris,” Bernardo Bertolucci (1972)
“Ace in the Hole,” Billy Wilder (1951)
“Some Like It Hot,” Billy Wilder (1959)
“Killer of Sheep,” Charles Burnett (1977)
“Night of the Hunter,” Charles Laughton (1955)
“Raising Arizona,” The Coen Brothers (1987)
“The Bridge on the River Kwai,” David Lean (1954)
“Lawrence of Arabia,” David Lean (1962)
“On the Waterfront,” Elia Kazan (1954)
“A Face in the Crowd,” Elia Kazan (1957)
“La Strada,” Federico Fellini (1954)
“La Dolce Vita,” Federico Fellini (1960)
“8 1/2,” Federico Fellini (1963)
“City of God,” Ferando Meirelles, Katia Lund (2002)
“The Godfather,” Francis Ford Coppola (1972)
“The Godfather: Part II,” Francis Ford Coppola (1974)
“400 Blows,” Francois Truffaut (1959)
“Day for Night,” Francois Truffaut (1973)
“Patton,” Franklin J. Schnaffner (1970)
“Mad Max,” George Miller (1979)
“The Road Warrior,” George Miller (1981)
“Battle of Algiers,” Gillo Pontecorvo (1966)
“The Last Detail,” Hal Ashby (1973)
“Breathless,” Jean-Luc Godard (1960)
“West Side Story,” Jerome Robbins & Robert Wise (1961)
“Stranger than Paradise,” Jim Jarmusch (1984)
“The Train,” John Frankenheimer (1964)
“The Maltese Falcon,” John Huston (1941)
“The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” John Huston (1948)
“Fat City,” John Huston (1972)
“Midnight Cowboy,” John Schlesinger (1969)
“Marathon Man,” John Schlesinger (1969)
“Boyz n the Hood,” John Singleton (1991)
“Los Olivdados,” Luis Bunuel (1950)
“Black Orpheus,” Marcel Camus (1959)
“Home of the Brave,” Mark Robson (1949)
“Mean Streets,” Martin Scorsese (1973)
“Raging Bull,” Martin Scorsese (1980)
“Apocalypto,” Mel Gibson (2006)
“Casablanca,” Michael Curtiz (1942)
“Thief,” Michael Mann (1981)
“The Red Shoes,” Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger (1948)
“Coolie High,” Michael Schultz (1975)
“I Am Cuba,” Mikhail Kalatozov (1964)
“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Milos Forman (1975)
“District 9,” Neill Blomkamp (2009)
“In the Heat of the Night,” Norman Jewison (1967)
“Touch of Evil,” Orson Welles (1958)
“Blue Collar,” Paul Schrader (1978)
“White Heat,” Raoul Walsh (1949)
“Is Paris Burning?,” Rene Clement (1966)
“M*A*S*H,” Robert Altman (1970)
“To Kill a Mockingbird,” Robert Mulligan (1962)
“Rome Open City,” Roberto Rossellini (1945)
“Paisan,” Roberto Rossellini (1946)
“Chinatown,” Roman Polanski (1974)
“Black Rain,” Shohei Imamura (1989)
“Dog Day Afternoon,” Sidney Lumet (1975)
“Singin’ in the Rain,” Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly (1952)
“Paths of Glory,” Stanley Kubrick (1957)
“Spartacus,” Stanley Kubrick (1960)
“Dr. Strangelove,” Stanley Kubrick (1964)
“Kung Fu Hustle,” Stephen Chow (2004)
“Dirty Pretty Things,” Stephen Frears (2002)
“Hoop Dreams,” Steve James (1984)
“Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” Steven Spielberg (1977)
“Empire of the Sun,” Steven Spielberg (1987)
“Cool Hand Luke,” Stuart Rosenberg (1967)
“Badlands,” Terrence Malick (1973)
“Days of Heaven,” Terrence Malick (1978)
“The Wizard of Oz,” Victor Fleming (1939)
“An American in Paris,” Vincente Minnelli (1951)
“Lust for Life,” Vincente Minnelli (1956)
“The Bicycle Thief,” Vittorio De Sica (1948)
“Miracle in Milan,” Vittorio De Sica (1951)
“Dead End,” William Wyler (1937)
“Zelig,” Woody Allen (1983)
