Scorcese: 85 films list… or is it?

We’ve been down this road before. First with Steven Spielberg’s supposed ‘curriculum’ of must-see movies. That turned out to be fake.

Then there was the Spike Lee list. That turned out to be real.

Now there is this from Fast Company: Martin Scorcese’s Film School: The 85 Films You Need To See To Know Anything About Film. Here is that list:

  1. Ace in the Hole
  2. All that Heaven Allows
  3. America, America
  4. An American in Paris
  5. Apocalypse Now
  6. Arsenic and Old Lace
  7. The Bad and the Beautiful
  8. The Band Wagon
  9. Born on the Fourth of July
  10. Cape Fear
  11. Cat People
  12. Caught
  13. Citizen Kane
  14. The Conversation
  15. Dial M for Murder
  16. Do the Right Thing
  17. Duel in the Sun
  18. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
  19. Europa ’51
  20. Faces
  21. The Fall of the Roman Empire
  22. The Flowers of St. Francis
  23. Force of Evil
  24. Forty Guns
  25. Germany Year Zero
  26. Gilda
  27. The Godfather
  28. Gun Crazy
  29. Health
  30. Heaven’s Gate
  31. House of Wax
  32. How Green Was My Valley
  33. The Hustler
  34. I Walk Alone
  35. The Infernal Cakewalk
  36. It Happened One Nght
  37. Jason and the Argonauts
  38. Journey to Italy
  39. Julius Caesar
  40. Kansas City
  41. Kiss Me Deadly
  42. Klute
  43. La Terra Trema
  44. The Lady From Shanghai
  45. The Leopard
  46. Macbeth
  47. The Magic Box
  48. M*A*S*H
  49. A Matter of Life and Death
  50. McCabe & Mrs. Miller
  51. The Messiah
  52. Midnight Cowboy
  53. Mishima
  54. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
  55. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
  56. Nashville
  57. Night and the City
  58. One, Two, Three
  59. Othello
  60. Paisa
  61. Peeping Tom
  62. Pickup on South Street
  63. The Player
  64. The Power and the Glory
  65. Stagecoach
  66. Raw Deal
  67. The Red Shoes
  68. The Rise of Louis XIV
  69. The Roaring Twenties
  70. Rocco and his Brothers
  71. Rome, Open City
  72. Secrets of the Soul
  73. Senso
  74. Shadows
  75. Shock Corridor
  76. Some Came Running
  77. Stromboli
  78. Sullivan’s Travels
  79. Sweet Smell of Success
  80. Tales of Hoffman
  81. The Third Man
  82. T-Men
  83. Touch of Evil
  84. The Trial
  85. Two Weeks in Another Town

Hmm. No Kurosawa? No French ‘new wave’?

In fact, this article by Brendan Connelly at BleedingCool points out this isn’t a definitive list at all, but rather 85 films Scorcese mentioned in a 4 hour conversation that led to the overhyped titled article from Fast Company.

Not to minimize the value of the list, nor the fact that Scorcese could toss off such a collection of films off the top of his head.

Which of the above films have you not seen?

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