There was a time when draw­ing up a list of your top ten favorite films of all time would suf­fice to estab­lish your­self as a cinephile. But sub­se­quent gen­er­a­tions of ever more obses­sive film-lovers have upped the ante — as, even more influ­en­tial­ly, have the film­mak­er-cinephiles. Quentin Taran­ti­no (on whose favorite movies we have post­ed many a time) may still stand as that tribe’s liv­ing arche­type, but his suc­ces­sors have made no secrets of the cin­e­ma they admire. Take, for instance, Edgar Wright, direc­tor of such intel­li­gent come­dies as Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End, and author (with MUBI’s Sam DiS­alle) of a list of his top thou­sand favorite films of all time.

“Arranged in chrono­log­i­cal order, Wright’s list kicks off with Robert Wiene’s 1920 clas­sic The Cab­i­net of Dr. Cali­gari and con­cludes with Nico­las Wind­ing Refn’s con­tro­ver­sial hor­ror flick The Neon Demon, which opened this year,” writes Enter­tain­ment Week­ly’s Dec­van Cog­gan. “In between are 998 eclec­tic choic­es, includ­ing every­thing from Cit­i­zen Kane and The God­fa­ther to The Lob­ster and The LEGO Movie.” That may not come as much of a sur­prise to Wright’s fans, who appre­ci­ate the eclec­tic sen­si­bil­i­ty, both aes­thet­ic and comedic, that per­me­ates his films. Now they have a guide to fol­low, through its influ­ence on his thor­ough­ly 21st-cen­tu­ry work, into near­ly the entire his­to­ry of cin­e­ma.

In fact, they can start right now with no few­er than ten pic­tures from the ear­li­er part of his chrono­log­i­cal­ly-arranged list. Fol­low the links below to our posts on them here on Open Cul­ture, where you can watch them for free. The ones with an aster­isk you can watch right here on this page.

• The Cab­i­net of Dr Cali­gari*
• Nos­fer­atu
• The Gen­er­al*
• Metrop­o­lis
• Sun­rise
• The Pas­sion of Joan of Arc
• Un Chien Andalou*
• His Girl Fri­day
• Detour
• D.O.A.

Hyper­ki­net­ic humor, snap­py dia­logue, unre­al­i­ty, dystopia, men­ace: all qual­i­ties just as present in these clas­sic movies as in Wright’s own. Once you’ve seen them, you’ll find your appre­ci­a­tion for his back cat­a­log has risen to a whole new lev­el — and they’ll no doubt place you well to have the fullest pos­si­ble view­ing expe­ri­ence of his lat­est pic­ture, a crime com­e­dy called Baby Dri­ver, when it hits the­aters next year.

via Enter­tain­ment Week­ly

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Quentin Taran­ti­no Picks the 12 Best Films of All Time; Watch Two of His Favorites Free Online

Mar­tin Scors­ese Makes a List of 85 Films Every Aspir­ing Film­mak­er Needs to See

Wes Anderson’s Favorite Films: Moon­struck, Rosemary’s Baby, and Luis Buñuel’s The Exter­mi­nat­ing Angel

Orson Welles Names His 10 Favorite Films: From Chaplin’s City Lights to Ford’s Stage­coach

1,150 Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, etc.

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.