Aki­ra Kuro­sawa, the great Japan­ese direc­tor, would have turned 100 today. And to mark the occa­sion, The Guardian has assem­bled a handy guide to ten key Kuro­sawa movies. Above, we high­light a clip from Sev­en Samu­rai (1954), an enor­mous­ly influ­en­tial film both in Japan and abroad. The Guardian guide cel­e­brates this and nine oth­er major Kuro­sawa films, so it’s def­i­nite­ly worth a vis­it. Mean­while, you’ll con­ve­nient­ly find two impor­tant Kuro­sawa works (Rashomon and Throne of Blood) list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Movies.

Right in time for the week­end… Work­ing in part­ner­ship with Stel­la Artois, TheAuteurs.com is now fea­tur­ing a selec­tion of its favorite films that have played at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val.

The line­up, includ­ing many prize win­ners, fea­tures movies by Fed­eri­co Felli­ni (Amar­cord), Wong Kar-wai (Hap­py Togeth­er), Michelan­ge­lo Anto­nioni (L’avven­tu­ra), Jacques Tati (Mon oncle), and oth­ers. There are nine movies in total, filmed between 1958 and 2008. And they’re free until June. These films should be avail­able world­wide, but reg­is­tra­tion is required. Kick back and start watch­ing here.

For more great clas­sics, see our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

This week­end, The Guardian film crit­ic and select film­mak­ers list­ed their favorite movie scenes of all time. It starts with the icon­ic show­er scene from Hitch­cock­’s Psy­cho (above). No sur­prise there. And then what? The very long car chase from The French Con­nec­tion, Robet DeNiro’s talk­ing to the mir­ror scene in Taxi Dri­ver, the mem­o­rable last min­utes of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the fight­ing skele­tons in Jason and the Arg­onauts, Bri­an DePal­ma’s “blood at the prom” scene in Car­rie, and some oth­er mem­o­rable ones.

Note: Some lan­guage is NOT safe for work…

This past week­end, François Alaux and Herve de Cre­cy’s 17 minute film, Logo­ra­ma, won the Oscar for the best Short Film (Ani­mat­ed). The plot comes basi­cal­ly boils down to this: “In a world made up entire­ly of trade­marks and brand names, Miche­lin Man cops pur­sue a crim­i­nal Ronald McDon­ald.” Obvi­ous­ly, there is some com­men­tary here on how cor­po­ra­tions per­me­ate Amer­i­can soci­ety. The film has been brought online by GarageTV. For more films, check out our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

via @dylanschenkler and theflickcast.com

Alice in Won­der­land has a long tra­di­tion in Amer­i­can cin­e­ma. You can find ver­sions from 2010, 1972, and 1951. You’ll even find a silent ver­sion dat­ing all the way back to 1903. Thanks to the British Film Insti­tute (BFI), you can watch online this silent ver­sion of Lewis Car­rol­l’s clas­sic tale for the first time. Pro­duced just eight years after the birth of cin­e­ma, the film, orig­i­nal­ly run­ning 12 min­utes, was “the longest film pro­duced in Eng­land at that time.” The ver­sion above is unfor­tu­nate­ly incom­plete, run­ning just 9 and a half min­utes. But it has been recent­ly restored (to the best extent pos­si­ble). BFI offers more infor­ma­tion about this ear­ly cin­e­ma gem here. Final­ly, you can down­load a free copy of Lewis Car­rol­l’s clas­sic, Alice in Won­der­land, with­in our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions.

For more vin­tage movies, vis­it our col­lec­tion of 700 Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pho­to of the Real Alice in Won­der­land Cir­ca 1862

The Orig­i­nal Alice’s Adven­tures In Won­der­land Man­u­script, Hand­writ­ten & Illus­trat­ed By Lewis Car­roll (1864)

See Ralph Steadman’s Twist­ed Illus­tra­tions of Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land on the Story’s 150th Anniver­sary

With the Oscars com­ing up, Amer­i­can Pub­lic Media re-aired today our inter­view from last Novem­ber. Here, we tell radio lis­ten­ers about the wealth of great movies avail­able online for free. You can lis­ten to the inter­view below (or here), and explore our ever-grow­ing col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online, which includes films by Hitch­cock, Polan­s­ki, Cop­po­la, David Lynch and many oth­ers. It also includes a long list of sites where you can freely watch movies online, includ­ing clas­sics, indies, doc­u­men­taries and beyond. Thanks to Jon Gor­don and Future Tense for talk­ing with me and help­ing get the word out.

Become a fan on Face­book or get extra cul­tur­al good­ies on Twit­ter!