🎬martin scorsese's list for a young filmmaker: the first 19 of 39

he sent this to colin levy after levy won a youngarts award as a teenager. full list runs 39 films, i'm starting with the run from german silents through kurosawa

01
Nosferatu
Murnau, 1922. Start here, it's the reason vampires look the way they do in every movie after.
02
Metropolis
03
Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler
Fritz Lang again, five hours in the full cut. Nobody watches all five hours in one sitting
04
Napoleon
Abel Gance's silent epic. The triptych ending alone justifies the runtime
05
Grand Illusion
06
The Rules of the Game
Renoir, booed at its 1939 premiere. His words, not mine, but he'd probably laugh about it now.
07
Children of Paradise
08
Rome, Open City
Shot on scraps of film stock right after the war. It looks like it.
09
Paisan
10
La Terra Trema
Visconti cast actual Sicilian fishermen, not actors. Slow, worth it.
11
Bicycle Thieves
12
Umberto D.
De Sica again. The dog does more acting than most leads get credit for.
13
Beauty and the Beast
Cocteau, 1946. The arms holding candelabras in the wall are still unsettling
14
Tokyo Story
15
Ikiru
Kurosawa's quiet one before the swords. The swing scene wrecks people every time.
16
Seven Samurai
17
Ugetsu
Mizoguchi, ghosts and grief in feudal Japan. Gorgeous and a little heartbreaking.
18
Sansho the Bailiff
19
High and Low
Kurosawa's kidnapping thriller, structured like two different movies stitched together