This year saw the arrival of the eighth Sight & Sound greatest films of all time list. Sight & Sound serves as a tip of the iceberg for any budding cinephile, the most well-dressed monstrosity of aggregation that has consumed film culture with the rise of the internet.

The ten films I have chosen for this list are not my ten favorite films of all time, though some would fall in that list. Rather, these are ten films I love that I think any person looking to study film as a medium should seek, learn from, and grow with. This list will be presented in order of release.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) - dir. Carl Theodore Dreyer

Dreyer’s expressionistic silent film showed what the power of a single face can do, even without words coming forth from it. Maria Falconetti’s stunning performance as Joan of Arc is one of the greatest captured on film, and Dreyer’s surgical direction and editing allows the story to be told entirely through it. Possibly the greatest silent film.

M (1931) - dir. Fritz Lang

A crime thriller that has influenced everything to come in the 90 years since its release, Fritz Lang formed a genre with M thanks to his genius use of music and shadow. German expressionism has always gripped me, and Peter Lorre’s screams have haunted me since my first viewing.

The Emperor Jones (1933) - dir. Dudley Murphy

Paul Robeson was one of our finest actors and The Emperor Jones is his greatest display. The adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s play follows Brutus Jones’s slow corruption and his collapse. The final sequence is one of the moments that cinema was created for.

Rashomon (1950) - dir. Akira Kurosawa

A film that changed the kind of stories that films could tell, and the people that could tell it. I am spoiled for choice in terms of Kurosawa’s filmography, but Rashomon is the most impactful to me in its uncertainty and its eternally challenging questions about truth and morality.

A Face in the Crowd (1957) - dir. Elia Kazan

Possibly the greatest American drama of the mid 20th century. Andy Griffith is another contender for greatest performance captured on film as the power hungry Lonesome Rhodes. A white hot critique of the connections between American media and politics, and how one person can move mountains in the right place at the right time.

Night of the Living Dead (1968) - dir. George Romero

A new breed of independent cinema was born with George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. A film whose influence can be felt all across our culture illuminated by both the performance of Duane Jones and a perfectly escalating story of horror and self destruction.

A Woman Under the Influence (1974) - dir. John Cassavetes

A brilliant portrait of the downfall of the nuclear family despite all attempts to maintain normalcy, Cassavetes’s direction of Gena Rowlands’s best performance is essential viewing for any film enthusiast.

Harlan County, USA (1976) - dir. Barbara Kopple

The three most recent films on my list are all documentaries, films that chronicle people in a place and time that we don’t normally discuss. Harlan County, USA chronicles the Brookside Strike of 1973, where dozens of coal miners stood up against the Duke Power Company and were met with intimidation from legislation and from company strike breakers. A story of resilience and community that hits particularly close to home for me.

Paris Is Burning (1990) - dir. Jennie Livingston

A story of a small queer community elevated to the history books by Jennie Livingston’s efforts to capture everything it represented. This is, simply put, the reason documentary film exists.

Field N****s (2015) - dir. Khalik Allah

Khalik Allah’s unique art of moving portraiture blends the faces and voices of dozens of souls drifting at the corner 125th and Lexington Avenue in Harlem. A seminal capsule of modern American life told through an eternal night, where each voice contributes to the singular spirit of Harlem’s streets.