Veteran critic Brian Viner’s movies everyone should see at least once - and they don’t include Marvel, Shawshank Redemption or Titanic.

1. The Godfather (1972)

A powerful crime drama about the rise and fall of the Corleone family.

IMDb - Rating: 9.2

2. The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

Dorothy and her dog Toto are swept away to a magical land in a tornado and embark on a quest to see the Wizard.

IMDb - Rating: 8.1

3. Psycho (1960)

A secretary embezzles money and ends up at a secluded motel with a dark secret.

IMDb - Rating: 8.5

4. Jaws (1975)

A giant great white shark terrorises a small island community.

IMDb - Rating: 8.1

5. Some Like It Hot (1959)

Two musicians disguise themselves as women to escape from mobsters after witnessing a crime.

IMDb - Rating: 8.2

6. Casablanca (1942)

A tale of love and sacrifice set during World War II in the exotic locale of Casablanca.

IMDb - Rating: 8.5

7. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

A man fakes insanity to serve his sentence in a mental institution and inspires the patients to rebel against oppressive authority.

IMDb - Rating: 8.7

8. Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)

The epic story of T.E. Lawrence, the British officer who united Arab tribes during World War I.

IMDb - Rating: 8.3

9. The Graduate (1967)

A disillusioned college graduate finds himself torn between his older lover and her daughter.

IMDb - Rating: 8.0

10. Citizen Kane (1941)

An exploration of the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, a publishing tycoon.

IMDb - Rating: 8.3

11. Bonnie And Clyde (1967)

The story of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the infamous bank-robbing couple.

IMDb - Rating: 7.7

12. Apocalypse Now (1979)

A journey into the heart of darkness in Vietnam as Captain Willard is sent to assassinate a renegade colonel.

IMDb - Rating: 8.4

13. Singin’ In The Rain (1952)

A musical comedy about the transition from silent films to talkies, featuring iconic dance numbers.

IMDb - Rating: 8.3

14. The Apartment (1960)

A man lets executives use his apartment for their extramarital affairs, but complications arise when he falls for the elevator girl.

IMDb - Rating: 8.3

15. Shoah (1985)

An in-depth documentary chronicling the Holocaust through interviews and historical footage.

IMDb - Rating: 8.7

16. Modern Times (1936)

Charlie Chaplin’s iconic character struggles to survive in the modern industrialised world.

IMDb - Rating: 8.5

17. Brief Encounter (1945)

A chance meeting at a railway station leads to a brief but passionate extramarital affair.

IMDb - Rating: 8.0

18. Double Indemnity (1944)

An insurance salesman gets roped into a murder-for-insurance scheme by a seductive housewife.

IMDb - Rating: 8.3

19. The Banshees Of Inisherin (2022)

Two lifelong friends find themselves at an impasse when one abruptly ends their relationship, with alarming consequences for both.

IMDb - Rating: 7.7

20. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)

The classic animated fairy tale of a princess who escapes her wicked stepmother with the help of seven dwarfs.

IMDb - Rating: 7.6

21. The Sound Of Music (1965)

A governess brings music and joy to the household of a stern widower and his seven children.

IMDb - Rating: 8.1

22. Kind Hearts And Coronets (1949)

A distant relative of a noble family plots to inherit the title by eliminating the eight heirs ahead of him.

IMDb - Rating: 8.0

23. The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)

A young FBI cadet must confide in an incarcerated and manipulative killer to catch another serial killer.

IMDb - Rating: 8.6

24. The Maltese Falcon (1941)

A private detective gets involved in a complex plot involving a priceless statuette.

IMDb - Rating: 8.0

25. The French Connection (1971)

A gritty police drama about two New York City detectives uncovering a massive heroin smuggling operation.

IMDb - Rating: 7.7

26. Alien (1979)

The crew of a space tug must fight for their lives after an alien parasite infiltrates their ship.

IMDb - Rating: 8.5

27. Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)

Two outlaws flee to Bolivia after a string of train robberies puts them on the run from the law.

IMDb - Rating: 8.0

28. Annie Hall (1977)

A neurotic comedian falls in love with a quirky singer, leading to a tumultuous romance.

IMDb - Rating: 8.0

29. Raging Bull (1980)

The story of boxer Jake LaMotta, whose violent temper and self-destructive behaviour lead to his downfall.

IMDb - Rating: 8.2

30. Pulp Fiction (1994)

A collection of interwoven stories about the lives of two mob hitmen, a boxer, a gangster’s wife, and a pair of diner bandits.

IMDb - Rating: 8.9

31. It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)

A man is shown what life would have been like if he never existed by his guardian angel.

IMDb - Rating: 8.6

32. The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp (1943)

The epic story of an old British soldier, his life, loves, and friendships.

IMDb - Rating: 8.1

33. Taxi Driver (1976)

A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran becomes a taxi driver in New York City and spirals into violent madness.

IMDb - Rating: 8.3

34. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

A sci-fi epic exploring human evolution, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life.

IMDb - Rating: 8.3

35. Blade Runner (1982)

In a dystopian future, a blade runner must track down and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space.

IMDb - Rating: 8.1

36. The Third Man (1949)

A writer discovers his friend’s death was no accident in post-World War II Vienna.

IMDb - Rating: 8.1

37. The Red Shoes (1948)

A young ballerina is torn between her passion for dance and her romance with a composer.

IMDb - Rating: 8.1

38. Les Diaboliques (1955)

The wife and mistress of a cruel headmaster plot to murder him but are haunted by strange occurrences after his death.

IMDb - Rating: 8.1

39. Rear Window (1954)

A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbours from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.

IMDb - Rating: 8.5

40. The 400 Blows (1959)

The story of a misunderstood adolescent boy who struggles with his parents and school.

IMDb - Rating: 8.1

41. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency.

IMDb - Rating: 9.3

42. Double Indemnity (1944)

An insurance salesman is enticed into a murder scheme by a seductive housewife.

IMDb - Rating: 8.3

43. Rashomon (1950)

The murder of a samurai is recounted from the perspectives of a bandit, the samurai’s wife, and the samurai’s ghost.

IMDb - Rating: 8.2

44. The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari (1920)

A man discovers that an insane hypnotist is using a somnambulist to commit murders.

IMDb - Rating: 8.0

45. Breathless (1960)

A young car thief kills a policeman and tries to persuade a girl to hide in Italy with him.

IMDb - Rating: 7.8

46. North By Northwest (1959)

A man is mistaken for a government agent and pursued across the country by a spy organisation.

IMDb - Rating: 8.3

47. City Lights (1931)

The Tramp struggles to help a blind flower girl with the aid of a wealthy erratic tippler.

IMDb - Rating: 8.5

48. The Searchers (1956)

A Civil War veteran embarks on a quest to rescue his niece from Comanches.

IMDb - Rating: 7.9

49. Casablanca (1942)

An American expatriate struggles to choose between his love for a woman and helping her husband escape Nazi-occupied Casablanca.

IMDb - Rating: 8.5

50. Bicycle Thieves (1948)

In post-World War II Italy, a working-class man’s bicycle is stolen, threatening his family’s livelihood.

IMDb - Rating: 8.3

51. Boyhood (2014)

A coming-of-age story following a boy named Mason from early childhood to his arrival at college.

IMDb - Rating: 7.9

52. Schindler’s List (1993)

The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives during the Holocaust.

IMDb - Rating: 9.0

53. The Producers (1967)

A scheming producer and his accountant aim to stage the worst musical they can find.

IMDb - Rating: 7.6

54. No Country for Old Men (2007)

Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and more than two million dollars in cash.

IMDb - Rating: 8.2

55. Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)

Born on the original Christmas in the stable next door to Jesus, Brian of Nazareth spends his life being mistaken for a messiah.

IMDb - Rating: 8.0

56. Tokyo Story (1953)

An aging couple visit their grown children in Tokyo but find themselves neglected.

IMDb - Rating: 8.2

57. The Elephant Man (1980)

A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man who is mistreated while scraping a living as a side-show freak.

IMDb - Rating: 8.1

58. Deliverance (1972)

Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it’s dammed and turned into a lake, outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock takes his friends on a river-rafting trip they’ll never forget.

IMDb - Rating: 7.7

59. Apollo 11 (2019)

A look at the Apollo 11 mission to land on the moon led by commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin.

IMDb - Rating: 8.2

60. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

A former child star torments her paraplegic sister in their decaying Hollywood mansion.

IMDb - Rating: 8.0

61. Spartacus (1960)

The slave Spartacus leads a violent revolt against the decadent Roman Republic.

IMDb - Rating: 7.9

62. Toy Story (1995)

A cowboy doll is profoundly threatened and jealous when a new spaceman figure supplants him as top toy in a boy’s room.

IMDb - Rating: 8.3

63. The Lives of Others (2006)

In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police, conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives.

IMDb - Rating: 8.4

64. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

A bounty hunting scam joins two men in an uneasy alliance against a third in a race to find a fortune in gold buried in a remote cemetery.

IMDb - Rating: 8.8

65. West Side Story (1961)

Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.

IMDb - Rating: 7.6

66. The Third Man (1949)

Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.

IMDb - Rating: 8.1

67. Shakespeare in Love (1998)

A young Shakespeare, out of ideas and short of cash, meets his ideal woman and is inspired to write one of his most famous plays.

IMDb - Rating: 7.1

68. His Girl Friday (1940)

A newspaper editor uses every trick in the book to keep his ace reporter ex-wife from remarrying.

IMDb - Rating: 7.9

69. Henry V (1944)

In the midst of the Hundred Years War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France in 1415.

IMDb - Rating: 7.1

70. The Shining (1980)

A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.

IMDb - Rating: 8.4

71. Chinatown (1974)

A private detective hired to expose an adulterer finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption, and murder.

IMDb - Rating: 8.2

72. Zulu (1964)

Outnumbered British soldiers do battle with Zulu warriors at Rorke’s Drift.

IMDb - Rating: 7.7

73. Sunset Boulevard (1950)

A screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return.

IMDb - Rating: 8.4

74. City Lights (1931)

With the aid of a wealthy erratic tippler, a dewy-eyed tramp who has fallen in love with a sightless flower girl accumulates money to be able to help her medically.

IMDb - Rating: 8.5

75. Gone with the Wind (1939)

A manipulative woman and a roguish man conduct a turbulent romance during the American Civil War and Reconstruction periods.

IMDb - Rating: 8.1

76. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Three World War II veterans return home to small-town America to discover that they and their families have been irreparably changed.

IMDb - Rating: 8.1

77. Ben-Hur (1959)

After a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend, he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge.

IMDb - Rating: 8.1

78. Get Out (2017)

A young African-American visits his white girlfriend’s parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him eventually reaches a boiling point.

IMDb - Rating: 7.7

79. The Night of the Hunter (1955)

A religious fanatic marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real daddy hid $10,000 he’d stolen in a robbery.

IMDb - Rating: 8.0

80. Rear Window (1954)

A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbours from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.

IMDb - Rating: 8.5

81. Star Wars (1977)

Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a Wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire’s world-destroying battle station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the mysterious Darth Vader.

IMDb - Rating: 8.6

82. Parasite (2019)

Greed and class discrimination threaten the newly formed symbiotic relationship between the

wealthy Park family and the destitute Kim clan.

IMDb - Rating: 8.6

83. All The President’s Men (1976)

Two journalists uncover the Watergate scandal, leading to President Nixon’s resignation.

IMDB - Rating: 8.0

84. High Noon (1952)

A town marshal faces a gang of deadly outlaws alone as his wedding day approaches.

IMDB - Rating: 8.0

85. The Exorcist (1973)

A mother seeks the help of priests to save her daughter from a demonic possession.

IMDB - Rating: 8.1

86. Kes (1969)

A young boy in a bleak Yorkshire mining town finds solace training a kestrel.

IMDB - Rating: 7.9

87. Shane (1953)

A weary gunfighter attempts to settle down with a homesteading family, but his past catches up with him.

IMDB - Rating: 7.6

88. Chariots Of Fire (1981)

Two British track athletes, one a determined Jew, the other a devout Christian, compete in the 1924 Olympics.

IMDB - Rating: 7.2

89. It Happened One Night (1934)

A spoiled heiress running away from her family is helped by a man who’s actually a reporter in need of a story.

IMDB - Rating: 8.1

90. 12 Angry Men (1957)

A lone juror tries to prevent a miscarriage of justice by forcing his colleagues to reconsider the evidence.

IMDB - Rating: 9.0

91. When We Were Kings (1996)

A documentary about the legendary “Rumble in the Jungle” heavyweight championship fight.

IMDB - Rating: 8.0

92. The Vanishing (1988)

A man obsessively searches for his girlfriend who disappeared during their vacation in France.

IMDB - Rating: 7.7

93. The Sting (1973)

Two con men set out to avenge the death of a friend by swindling a mob boss.

IMDB - Rating: 8.3

94. To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)

Atticus Finch, a lawyer in the Depression-era South, defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge.

IMDB - Rating: 8.3

95. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

A mockumentary about the rise and fall of a fictional British heavy metal band.

IMDB - Rating: 7.9

96. In The Heat Of The Night (1967)

An African American detective is asked to investigate a murder in a racially hostile southern town.

IMDB - Rating: 7.9

97. Goldfinger (1964)

James Bond must foil a plot to contaminate the Fort Knox gold reserve.

IMDB - Rating: 7.7

98. Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)

Archaeologist Indiana Jones races against time to retrieve a religious artifact before the Nazis can get it.

IMDB - Rating: 8.4

99. Thelma & Louise (1991)

Two friends embark on a road trip that ends up becoming a flight from the law.

IMDB - Rating: 7.5

100. Oliver! (1968)

A musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic tale of an orphan who runs away from an orphanage.

IMDB - Rating: 7.4