Stanley Kubrick created and directed the 1968 epic science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick and science fiction novelist Arthur C. Clarke collaborated on the script, which was inspired by Clarke's 1951 short story "The Sentinel" and other short works. Clarke also worked on a novelization of the film, which was published after the film's premiere and was written in part concurrently with the script. Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, and Douglas Rain feature in the film, which depicts a mission to Jupiter with the sentient supercomputer HAL after the discovery of an extraterrestrial monolith.

The film is notable for its representation of space flight that is scientifically realistic, as well as its groundbreaking visual effects and ambiguous imagery. Kubrick ignored traditional cinematic and narrative tactics; talk is used infrequently, and extended stretches are supported solely by music. The soundtrack includes classical music by artists such as Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss II, Aram Khachaturian, and György Ligeti.

The film elicited a wide range of critical reactions, from some who regarded it as darkly apocalyptic to those who saw it as a hopeful reconsideration of humanity's hopes. Its treatment of issues such as existentialism, human development, technology, artificial intelligence, and the potential of alien life was praised by critics. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, including one for Kubrick's direction of the visual effects. The film is now largely acknowledged as one of the best and most influential films of all time. The United States Library of Congress designated it as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important" in 1991, and it was added to the National Film Registry.

Detailed Information:
Year: 1968
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Stars: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, Douglas Rain, William Sylvester
Rating: G
Runtime: 139 minutes

Spike Lee's masterwork Do the Right Thing (1989) could easily have made this list, but Lee's epic portrayal of the controversial 1960s activist is the other apex of his career. Denzel Washington's towering performance is central to the story, with a burning charisma throbbing behind a calm facade. Lee, unafraid to delve into the man's ideological and personal flaws, takes on the mission of demythologizing a modern legend. The evocative use of Otis Redding's A Change is Gonna Come, when the rousing cry for civil rights is contrasted against the tragic lead-up to Malcolm X's death, provides an ominous high point in the film - Christina Newland.

The script for Malcolm X, co-written by Lee and Arnold Perl, is primarily based on Alex Haley's 1965 book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Haley began working on the book alongside Malcolm X in 1963 and finished it after Malcolm X's death. The film depicts key events in Malcolm X's life, including his criminal career, incarceration, conversion to Islam, ministry as a member of the Nation of Islam and later falling out with the organization, marriage to Betty X, pilgrimage to Mecca, and reevaluation of his views on whites, and assassination on February 21, 1965. In flashbacks, defining childhood events such as his father's death, his mother's mental instability, and his encounters with racism are portrayed.

Detailed Information:
Year: 1992
Director: Spike Lee
Stars: Denzel Washington, Angela Bassett, Albert Hall, Al Freeman Jr., Delroy Lindo
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 201 minutes

What is it about Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away that makes it one of his best, if not the best, films? Perhaps it's because it best expresses his most distinguishing themes and concepts—a young woman's bravery and endurance, the ecstatic grandeur of flight, the spiritual conflict of personal and cultural forgetfulness with Japanese society, and the restorative power of love. Perhaps it has something to do with the film's central conceit being so archetypally recognized, not so much a modern reworking as a spiritual evocation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, a childhood voyage in a realm that feels both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

Chihiro Ogino, ten, and her parents are on their way to their new house when her father decides to take a shortcut. The family's automobile comes to a stop in front of what looks to be an abandoned amusement park, which Chihiro's father insists on investigating despite his daughter's protests. They come upon an apparently vacant restaurant that is still packed with food, which Chihiro's parents promptly start eating. Chihiro continues her exploration and comes into an immense bathhouse, where she encounters a kid named Haku, who warns her to return across the riverbank before dark. Chihiro, on the other hand, finds too late that her parents have transformed into pigs, and she is unable to cross the now-flooded river.

Detailed Information:
Year: 2001
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Stars: Rumi Hiiragi, Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki, Yumi Tamai
Rating: PG
Runtime: 125 minutes

Renée Jeanne Falconetti's face is in your head, whether you realize it or not. Its contours and stipples, topped by hair devoid of substance or style—her head centered by two wide eyes rimmed with tears, in a superposition between ecstasy and misery —consume boundless space in Danish director Carl Th. Dreyer's silent masterpiece, seemingly suspended over the long course of history between now (whenever now happens to be) and when Dreyer first envisioned this immersive, expressionist experience. "What mattered was getting the viewer engrossed in the past," Dreyer stated of his film, adding, "A detailed study of the records from the rehabilitation process was important.

Though Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc is based on the 1491 transcripts of its titular saint's heresy trial (the director was welcomed by the Société Générale des Films to make a film in France, his choice of subject bolstered by France's canonization of Joan of Arc after World War I), he provides little visual detail or historical context. Instead, he immerses the audience in Joan's point of view, keeping his hand on his head while sinking in the agony of what she's been exposed to, seldom releasing his grip till in the film's last minutes, when Joan's death at the stake sparks widespread mayhem.

Detailed Information:
Year: 1928
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Stars: Renée Jeanne Falconetti, Eugene Silvain, Antonin Artaud, Maurice Schultz
Rating: NR
Runtime: 82 minutes

Another wartime loss in a country ravaged by military warfare, Jacques Demy's masterwork is a soaring, bright, intrinsically tragic drama of love lost, found, and permanently dissolved. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a lived-in narrative based on Demy's personal experience, and that word—"experience"—is crucial to the film's success. Remove the musical cues, and you're left with a story about a young man (Nino Castelnuovo) and a young lady (Catherine Deneuve) who fall madly in love, only to be wrenched apart when he's conscripted to fight overseas.

Madame Emery and her lovely 17-year-old daughter Geneviève own a small, failing umbrella shop in the Normandy beach town of Cherbourg. The guy is a dashing young auto mechanic who lives with and looks after his ailing aunt and godmother Elise. Guy and Geneviève are much in love, despite Geneviève's mother's disapproval; they intend to marry and name their first child Françoise. Madeleine, a timid young lady who tends after Guy's aunt, is secretly in love with Guy at the same time. The guy is conscripted to fight in the Algerian War. The night before he departs, he and Geneviève make a vow of eternal love and have intercourse, maybe for the first time.

Detailed Information:
Year: 1964
Director: Jacques Demy
Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo, Anne Vernon
Rating: G
Runtime: 92 minutes

There are undoubtedly a few auteur-theorist types who would disagree if Casablanca is a perfect film. In truth, the production crew didn't think it was a huge thing; it was simply one of the hundreds of films being created that year (despite a major league cast and great writers). It did well at the box office, but not spectacularly. The film then went on to win a slew of Academy Awards. Then it began to get a reputation. One of the many fascinating aspects of Casablanca is its epic longevity - the plot remains as current and relevant now as it was in 1945.

Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid, is a 1942 American romantic drama film. It is set during World War II and revolves around an American expatriate (Bogart) who must choose between his love for a lady (Bergman) and assisting her and her husband (Henreid), a Czech resistance commander, in escaping from the Vichy-controlled city of Casablanca to continue fighting the Germans. The script is based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's unproduced theatrical play Everybody Comes to Rick's. Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson are among the supporting actors.

Detailed Information:
Year: 1942
Director: Michael Curtiz
Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre
Rating: PG
Runtime: 102 minutes

Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005) deserved the universal sigh of relief it got for resurrecting the Caped Crusader's cinematic reputation after Joel Schumacher's neon-disco nightmare on ice that was Batman & Robin in 1997. And, if Batman Begins represented the character's tonal shift, The Dark Knight provides an equally vital act of rehabilitation in the form of Batman's arch-nemesis, the Joker. (Let's face it: while hardly a Schumacherian crime, Jack Nicholson's portrayal of the Joker fell short of setting a benchmark for the character.)

Christopher Nolan directed, co-produced, and co-wrote the 2008 superhero picture The Dark Knight. The film is based on the DC Comics character Batman and is the sequel to 2005's Batman Begins. It stars Christian Bale and is assisted by Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Morgan Freeman. In the film, Bruce Wayne / Batman (Bale), Police Lieutenant James Gordon (Oldman), and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Eckhart) form an alliance to combat organized crime in Gotham City, but they are threatened by the Joker (Ledger), an anarchistic mastermind who seeks to undermine Batman's influence and throw the city into chaos.

Detailed Information:
Year: 2008
Director: Christopher Nolan
Stars: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Rating: R
Runtime: 142 minutes

Citizen Kane is obviously no stranger to any list like this, but there's no denying that part of what makes this film ostensibly the "greatest of all time" is the way it uses the process of journalism to create a style and structure of storytelling that felt completely unique at the start of the 1940s. Much of the film is seen through the eyes of a reporter (the great Joseph Cotten), who are striving to comprehend the life and death of newspaper mogul Charles Foster Kane (director Orson Welles).

Orson Welles produced, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane, a 1941 American drama film. He also collaborated with Herman J. Mankiewicz on the script. It was Welles's debut feature film. Many reviewers and professionals believe Citizen Kane to be the finest picture ever created. Also topped the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound decennial critics poll for 50 years in a row, and it topped the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movies list in 1998, as well as its 2007 edition. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Writing (Original Screenplay) by Mankiewicz and Welles.

Detailed Information:
Year: 1941
Director: Orson Welles
Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore
Rating: PG
Runtime: 120 minutes

The film is set in various locations of France, Austria, and Germany before, during, and after World War I. Jules (Oskar Werner) is a quiet Austrian writer who befriends the more outgoing Frenchman Jim (Henri Serre). They both have an interest in the arts and the bohemian lifestyle. They are captivated by a bust of a goddess and her calm smile during a slide exhibition and journey to view the antique monument on an Adriatic Sea island.

They meet the free-spirited, capricious Catherine (Jeanne Moreau), a doppelgänger for the statue with a peaceful smile, after interactions with various women. The three of them grow inseparable. Despite the fact that she initiates a relationship with Jules, her presence and approach toward life have an impact on both men. Jim maintains his relationship with Gilberte, whom he normally sees apart from the others. Jules and Catherine go to Austria to marry just a few days before the war is declared. Both men fight on different sides during the war, and each is terrified of seeing the other or finding that he may have murdered his comrade.

Detailed Information:
Year: 1962
Director: François Truffaut
Stars: Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Henri Serre, Michel Subor
Rating: R
Runtime: 107 minutes

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a 1939 American political comedy-drama film directed by Frank Capra and starring Jean Arthur, James Stewart, and Claude Rains. Sidney Buchman wrote the screenplay, which is based on Lewis R. Foster's unpublished tale "The Gentleman from Montana," about a newly appointed United States Senator who battles against a corrupt political system. The picture was controversial when it was initially released, yet it was a box office triumph, and it catapulted Stewart to stardom. It was also partially modeled on the life of Montana U.S. Senator Burton Wheeler, who went through a similar ordeal while investigating the Warren Harding administration.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington received eleven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor in a Leading Role, and won Best Original Story. The film was chosen by the Library of Congress in 1989 as one of the first 25 films for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important." It is widely regarded as one of the best films of all time.

Detailed Information:
Year: 1939
Director: Frank Capra
Stars: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains
Runtime: 129 minutes