250 favorite films, ranked

These are the movies I’m most in awe of. If you asked me to rank the greatest films,the list would be similar but not identical; for example I make no claim for Picnic at Hanging Rock being one of the few greatest movies, but it haunts me like no other film. Caligari, L’avventura, Stalker, Vertigo, La notte, Alphaville, Casablanca, Mulholland Drive, and Holiday Inn are the pinnacles of cinema to the best of my current ability to judge – however the list below is ranked by the power of the experience these movies offer me.

I’m not interested in movies that “kill time” – in fact I’ve...