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Martin Scorsese’s Film School: The 85 Films You Need To See To Know Anything About Film

There are few directors who know every nook and cranny of film history with the degree of depth and excitement as Martin Scorsese. And if you’re trying to condense over one hundred years of cinema history, and stack up the movies you need to see to earn you cinephile stripes, the director has you covered.

A few years back, the filmmaker sat down with FastCoCreate for a lengthy four-hour chat during which Scorsese dropped the names of no less than eighty-five movies. The site compiled them at the time (with complete notes and quotes from the filmmaker — so head over there for more context) and Open Culture has put them back on the radar today.

And of course, it cuts a big swath through cinema, from stone cold classics to foreign film essentials, film noir treasures and much, much more.

  • Ace in the Hole
  • All That Heaven Allows
  • America America
  • An American in Paris
  • Apocalypse Now
  • Arsenic and Old Lace
  • The Bad and the Beautiful
  • The Band Wagon
  • Born on the Fourth of July
  • Cape Fear
  • Cat People
  • Caught
  • Citizen Kane
  • The Conversation
  • Dial M for Murder
  • Do the Right Thing
  • Duel in the Sun
  • The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
  • Europe '51
  • Faces
  • The Fall of the Roman Empire
  • The Flowers of St. Francis
  • Force of Evil
  • Forty Guns
  • , Year Zero
  • Gilda
  • The Godfather
  • Gun Crazy
  • HealtH
  • Heaven's Gate
  • House of Wax
  • How Green Was My Valley
  • The Hustler
  • I Walk Alone
  • The Infernal Cakewalk
  • It Happened One Night
  • Jason and the Argonauts
  • Journey to Italy
  • Julius Caesar
  • Kansas City
  • Kiss Me Deadly
  • Klute
  • La Terra Trema
  • The Lady from Shanghai
  • The Leopard
  • Macbeth
  • The Magic Box
  • M*A*S*H
  • A Matter of Life and Death
  • McCabe & Mrs. Miller
  • The Messiah
  • Midnight Cowboy
  • Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
  • Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
  • Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
  • Nashville
  • Night and the City
  • One, Two, Three
  • Othello
  • Paisan
  • Peeping Tom
  • Pickup on South Street
  • The Player
  • The Power and the Glory
  • Stagecoach
  • Raw Deal
  • The Red Shoes
  • The Taking of Power by Louis XIV
  • The Roaring Twenties
  • Rocco and His Brothers
  • Rome, Open City
  • Secrets of the Soul
  • Senso
  • Shadows
  • Shock Corridor
  • Some Came Running
  • Stromboli
  • Sullivan's Travels
  • Sweet Smell of Success
  • The Tales of Hoffmann
  • The Third Man
  • T-Men
  • Touch of Evil
  • The Trial
  • Two Weeks in Another Town