What is the best movie for you? These days I have this kind of discussion often so I'll just leave the list here. 1. Wild Strawberries (1957) / Ingmar Bergman This is a movie about our impression of time and moments. We always imagine the time, and live in the moment at the same time. There are both truth and fallacy within it, therefore a man can live both in heaven and in hell. The latter is sometimes devastating, and the director never ignored it. 2. The Winter Light (1963) / Ingmar Bergman Bergman shot God's silence a lot of times. The obsession with this theme can be particularly seen in this film. I cannot see any redundant noise in it. It's pure, therefore staggering. 3. The Hidden Fortress (1958) / Akira Kurosawa I don't think Kurosawa is known for Samurai films. He's known for his intense focus and dynamism seen in his works, which is something you can't find anywhere else. When I first saw this film, I lost hope of finding a more fascinating movie than this. 4. Mirror (1975) / Andrei Tarkovsky When you watch it, you can't escape from it. Because you've already seen it, and it involves you in the collection of moments. Tarkovsky explored the place where only movies can tell us something beyond words. Or should I call it music? Like Takemitsu's music, he didn't allow this film to bring a story. It's only allowed to bring moments. 5. The Godfather (1972) / Francis Ford Coppola If society is the game driven by incentives, is even murder worth it? Michael Corleone is the character who is the victim of social incentives, and it totally makes sense to him to kill other competitors. This film is also a short description of our history. 6. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) / Arthur Penn "We rob banks", that's Bonnie and Clyde. If you can describe your work within 3 words, it's not a bullshit job. And if you can run faster than death, you're in your youth. 7. Blade Runner (1982) / Ridley Scott Cyberpunk is not about super technology. It's about the characters' existential crisis threatened by technology that can alter humanity. The director shot the most intense realism in the lights of neon, under the skyscrapers, and in the eyes of androids. 8. Mulholland Drive (2001) / David Lynch Lynch explores time. He tries to bring a different kind of time we don't usually experience, and therefore it scares us. This can be more devastating than any other horror movie. 9. Matrix (1999) / Wachowski Brothers If you question something, maybe that leads you to the rabbit hole. To question is to fight against conceptual anxiety. I basically hate action movies, except for Matrix. The battle in this story has a fundamental motivation, and if you've once questioned it, you can't get out of this battle. 10. 2046 (2004) / Wong Kar-Wai Love is a question. It questions eternity. Do we always get the answers? Probably not. But people will never stop questioning. Wong Kar-Wai picks up the random moments in our life and extracts them into poetic sequences, which you can see in this film with a cryptic (but actually ordinary) title. 11. 8 1/2 (1967) / Federico Fellini Fellini is Tolstoy in the world of movies. He had eyes on people. He shot their mind, their moves, and how they actually look through the filter of our eyes. The last scene is a miracle. 12. Farewell My Concubine (1993) / Chen Kaige When you look back on glory, it's always sad and beautiful. This film brings each beautiful moment with a slight sense of sadness, and few films can compete with this masterpiece in that sense. 13. Waking Life (2001) / Richard Linklater The sea refuses no river. You wanna go with the flow. Because ongoing wow is happening right now. I remember dialogues from this film, and they still remain questioning. And they're well delivered in a form of an animated film. 14. North by Northwest (1959) / Alfred Hitchcock Hitchcock is seductive. He invites us into the story. Quick and smooth. Few directors could achieve like him. There's pure joy in watching this movie, and it might be something primitive we've had since our childhood, or since when we were in the Garden of Eden. 15. Gattaca (1997) / Andrew Niccol Life is absurd if you try. It's not specific about the circumstance you're in. It's not specific about how you are. The absurdity shows up because you try. And this film is the perfect example that SF films can be a perfect place to generalize/bring this wariness, despair, or hope. 16. Exterminating Angel (1962) / Luis Bunuel You're always in a situation. You see it, you hear it, and you can't get out of it. While watching this movie, at least for 90 minutes, you're forced to experience it. 17. Harakiri (1962) / Masaki Kobayashi Suicide is not rare in a movie. But it might be the case that Japanese people do it differently. It's the country of Kamikaze and this: Harakiri. The silence speaks in this film, and therefore the duel scene so staggering. And committing suicide makes more sense than living. 18. All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001) / Shunji Iwai I used to watch this when I was in high school. Kids are always naive, they see the world with the wrong glasses, yet it makes the world perfect. It can be completely beautiful, completely absurd, or completely hopeless. 19. Ghost In The Shell (1995) / Mamoru Oshii Even if the original comic by Shirow Masamune is epic, this animation film has its own advantage over the original. The animated sequences have their own physics and gravity, which proposed another view of the GTIS universe. 20. The Birth of a Nation (1915) / G.W.Griffith History is sometimes beyond our imagination. It's so powerful that it can be violent. What makes it different from Wikipedia is the feel of the experience. 21. Metropolis (1927) / Fritz Lang A classic. If we were to introduce ourselves to aliens from the universe, we should let them watch this film. 22. A Page Of Madness (1926) / Teinosuke Kinugasa I bet you can't take your eyes off this early experimental horror movie. 23. Manhattan (1980) / Woody Allen I like Woody because he's funny and depressed. 24. Violent Cop (1989) / Takeshi Kitano Kitano knows how to make fun of violence. I particularly like this film because this is his first film and there's pure curiosity in this work. He was just a successful comedian back then. BTW I got surprised to know that he's not known as a comedian outside Japan.