MOVIE SELECTION GUIDE

Below is a list of films that are well suited to this assignment and that I am very familiar with.  If, for some odd reason, there’s not a movie on this list that appeals to you, try shopping for something you haven’t seen (read the jacket covers).  If, on the other hand, you know of an incredibly artful film that you feel should be on the list, let me know.  I will need advance notice so that I can arrange to see it before I give you permission.  Note:  Please do not write on The Matrix since we’ll explore it together as a class.

DOCUMENTARY

Sicko

Death in Gaza
A Brief History of Time

Mindwalk
Why We Fight

DRAMA

Casablanca
The Piano
The English Patient
Pi π

Requiem for a Dream

Hamlet (Ethan Hawke's)

Macbeth
Othello
The Cell
What Dreams May Come
Snatch

Six Degrees of Separation

Chocolat

American Beauty
Legends of the Fall
Shawshank Redemption
Garden State

Man on Fire
The Aviator

The Pianist

Memoirs of a Geisha

Beyond Borders

Big Fish

HISTORICAL FICTION
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The Red Violin

Schindler's List
Braveheart

Rob Roy
Elizabeth
Orlando
Immortal Beloved

Lone Star
Shakespeare in Love
Dangerous Beauty
Dangerous Liaisons
Gladiator
Saving Private Ryan
Platoon
Full Metal Jacket

Apocalypse Now

The Last Samurai
300
Hotel Rwanda

IN A CLASS BY ITSELF

Fight Club

American History X
Donnie Darko
Pulp Fiction
Kill Bill (1 or 2)
The Wizard of Oz
Boondock Saints

What the #$*! (Bleep) Do We Know?

“ARTSY”
Metropolis

Wings of Desire

Frida

COMEDY

Royal Tannenbaums
Suicide Kings
(very dark with graphic violence)
I Huckabees
Twelfth Night

Click

The Big Lebowski
Clerks
Much Ado About Nothing

Midsummer Night's Dream

SUSPENSE

Rear Window (Hitchcock's version)

Vertigo
Notorious
Rebecca
Psycho (Hitchcock's version)
Citizen Kane
The Name of the Rose

The Sixth Sense

Seven
The Usual Suspects

Vanilla Sky
Memento

FOREIGN FILMS

Pan's Labyrinth
The Butterfly and the Diving Bell
Under the Same Moon
Amelie
It's a Beautiful Life
Seven Samurai
Belle Epoque

Like Water for Chocolate
Cinema Paradiso
Farewell My Concubine
Jesus of Montreal
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Hero
Run, Lola, Run
FANTASY& SCIENCE FICTION

Lord of the Rings (any of the trilogy)

The Fifth Element
Blade Runner
Equilibrium
A Clockwork Orange

STUDENT SUGGESTED:
Dark City

I am Sam

Nightmare Before Christmas

Spirited Away
Ghost in the Shell

Crash

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Through a Scanner Darkly
Waking Life

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly