Fine, i give. I don’t usually post these kind of me-too, MySpace bulletin, meme things, but i kinda like this one. Film critic Jim Emerson says you don’t know movies unless you’ve seen his list of 102 films he pulled from the 20th century [via Elliot Back < via kottke.org]. Supposedly the list is the minimum curriculum to be “somewhat movie-literate.” Somewhat? Though the list was created in 1999 and so only included movies made up until then, i think there are plenty of movies not on the list that are “common cultural currency.” I also think there have been plenty since that are essential. But maybe that’s because i’m illiterate. Let’s see how i score (i’ve seen the bolded ones):

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Stanley Kubrick
2. The 400 Blows (1959), Francois Truffaut
3. 8 1/2 (1963), Federico Fellini
4. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Werner Herzog
5. Alien (1979), Ridley Scott
6. All About Eve (1950), Joseph L. Mankiewicz
7. Annie Hall (1977), Woody Allen
8. Apocalypse Now (1979), Francis Ford Coppola
9. Bambi (1942), Disney
10. The Battleship Potemkin (1925), Sergei Eisenstein
11. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), William Wyler
12. The Big Red One (1980), Samuel Fuller
13. The Bicycle Thief (1949), Vittorio De Sica
14. The Big Sleep (1946), Howard Hawks
15. Blade Runner (1982), Ridley Scott
16. Blowup (1966), Michelangelo Antonioni
17. Blue Velvet (1986), David Lynch
18. Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Arthur Penn
19. Breathless (1959), Jean-Luc Godard
20. Bringing Up Baby (1938), Howard Hawks
21. Carrie (1975), Brian DePalma
22. Casablanca (1942), Michael Curtiz
23. Un Chien Andalou (1928), Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali
24. Children of Paradise / Les Enfants du Paradis (1945), Marcel Carne
25. Chinatown (1974), Roman Polanski
26. Citizen Kane (1941), Orson Welles
27. A Clockwork Orange (1971), Stanley Kubrick
28. The Crying Game (1992), Neil Jordan
29. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Robert Wise
30. Days of Heaven (1978), Terence Malick
31. Dirty Harry (1971), Don Siegel
32. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), Luis Bunuel
33. Do the Right Thing (1989), Spike Lee
34. La Dolce Vita (1960), Federico Fellini
35. Double Indemnity (1944), Billy Wilder
36. Dr. Strangelove (1964), Stanley Kubrick
37. Duck Soup (1933), Leo McCarey
38. E.T. — The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Steven Spielberg
39. Easy Rider (1969), Dennis Hopper
40. The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Irvin Kershner
41. The Exorcist (1973), William Friedkin
42. Fargo (1995), Joel & Ethan Coen
43. Fight Club (1999), David Fincher
44. Frankenstein (1931), James Whale
45. The General (1927), Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman
46. The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II (1972, 1974), Francis Ford Coppola
47. Gone With the Wind (1939), Victor Fleming
48. GoodFellas (1990), Martin Scorsese
49. The Graduate (1967), Mike Nichols
50. Halloween (1978), John Carpenter
51. A Hard Day’s Night (1964), Richard Lester
52. Intolerance (1916), D.W. Griffith
53. It’s a Gift (1934), Norman Z. McLeod
54. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Frank Capra
55. Jaws (1975), Steven Spielberg
56. The Lady Eve (1941), Preston Sturges
57. Lawrence of Arabia (1962), David Lean
58. M (1931), Fritz Lang
59. Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior (1981), George Miller
60. The Maltese Falcon (1941), John Huston
61. The Manchurian Candidate (1962), John Frankenheimer
62. Metropolis (1926), Fritz Lang
63. Modern Times (1936), Charles Chaplin
64. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Terry Jones & Terry Gilliam
65. Nashville (1975), Robert Altman
66. The Night of the Hunter (1955), Charles Laughton
67. Night of the Living Dead (1968), George Romero
68. North by Northwest (1959), Alfred Hitchcock
69. Nosferatu (1922), F.W. Murnau
70. On the Waterfront (1954), Elia Kazan
71. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), Sergio Leone
72. Out of the Past (1947), Jacques Tournier
73. Persona (1966), Ingmar Bergman
74. Pink Flamingos (1972), John Waters
75. Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock
76. Pulp Fiction (1994), Quentin Tarantino
77. Rashomon (1950), Akira Kurosawa
78. Rear Window (1954), Alfred Hitchcock
79. Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Nicholas Ray
80. Red River (1948), Howard Hawks
81. Repulsion (1965), Roman Polanski
82. The Rules of the Game (1939), Jean Renoir
83. Scarface (1932), Howard Hawks
84. The Scarlet Empress (1934), Josef von Sternberg
85. Schindler’s List (1993), Steven Spielberg
86. The Searchers (1956), John Ford
87. The Seven Samurai (1954), Akira Kurosawa
88. Singin’ in the Rain (1952), Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
89. Some Like It Hot (1959), Billy Wilder
90. A Star Is Born (1954), George Cukor
91. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Elia Kazan
92. Sunset Boulevard (1950), Billy Wilder
93. Taxi Driver (1976), Martin Scorsese
94. The Third Man (1949), Carol Reed
95. Tokyo Story (1953), Yasujiro Ozu
96. Touch of Evil (1958), Orson Welles
97. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), John Huston
98. Trouble in Paradise (1932), Ernst Lubitsch
99. Vertigo (1958), Alfred Hitchcock
100. West Side Story (1961), Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise
101. The Wild Bunch (1969), Sam Peckinpah
102. The Wizard of Oz (1939), Victor Fleming

I’ve only seen 25, which is a failing grade no matter how you look at it. And some of them it’s been so long it’s probably not even worth claiming.

I’ve probably seen north of 50% of IMDb’s Top 250. Last year IMDb’s editors assembled the top 15 films of the past 15 years (from 1990–2005), which is maybe a more currently relevant metric than Emerson’s 102 of the last century, though not quite as complete. But i probably only mention it because i aced that list.