Having spent some time browsing the Criterion Collection’s site recently, I got inspired by the celebrity ‘Top Ten Criterion’ lists (not to mention some awesome best-of-the-decade lists from my friends Will Gray and Jordan Poss) and decided to make my own.

Here are my favorite Criterion films:

1: Yojimbo – Kurosawa molded the way I think about cinema more than any other director. ‘Yojimbo’ is the best film about violence ever made, and one of Kurosawa’s biggest hits. I put off seeing this film for years, even while being inspired by Kurosawa’s other masterpieces (‘The Seven Samurai,’ ‘The Hidden Fortress,’ ‘Rashomon,’ ‘Throne Of Blood,’ ‘High and Low,’ and ‘Madadayo’ in particular), and finally saw it in college. It’s an inspiration to me to this day.

2: Brazil – Terry Gilliam’s emotionally exhausting, hallucinogenic, hilarious masterpiece says more about who I am as a person than most starkly realistic dramas. Gilliam has always been a technical master, though an excessive and oftentimes frustrating filmmaker. His creativity often gets the best of him, and it’s a shame that Brazil is his only film that shows focus and emotional power. As literate and poetic as 1984, this Monty-Python-meets-George-Orwell journey into madness is the powerful tragedy of a man who can’t stop dreaming.

3: Rebecca – I don’t care of Hitchcock disowned this film; it’s one of his best: a literary girl-power drama with moral complexity that gives p.t. Anderson’s films a run for his money. And it’s packaged like a gold-plated bullet by Hollywood’s greatest sorceror.

4: Do The Right Thing – Raw, angry, profane, hilarious, ecstatic—Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing channels much of the conflict I witnessed as a child growing up in Baltimore (even though the film takes place in Brooklyn), and it’s directed with a humanity, empathy, and glee that evokes adolescent joy. Yeah, it’s angry, and yeah, the ending’s controversial (the first time I saw it, it just made sense to me–a character made a decision, and that decision caused a riot), but it is essential viewing for anyone who wants to know what it means to be an auteur. The clip below changed my life.

5: 8 ½ - Probably the pinnacle of 60s filmmaking. Ar self-absorbed, auteur-ego-worship extravaganza that became one of the greatest films ever made: a cartoonish, deeply personal ‘dream-autobiography’ of the Italian celebrity/filmmaker Frederico Fellini. This is the only Fellini film I’ve ever seen more than ten minutes of… but I could watch it over and over again.

6: Hoop Dreams – My second favorite documentary (behind my favorite film The Fog Of War) is an epic tale of the American dream. It’s the story of two young African American teenage boys fighting to keep their dream of getting into the NBA; a longitudinal documentary following them through all four years of high school. Words can’t describe the power and near-perfection of this film, the countless ‘I’m-a-guy-so-I-shouldn’t-be-crying-right-now’ moments on their journey to manhood. I took this film home once and watched it in the living room with my family, fully expecting them to walk out after ten minutes… only to watch, elated, as they finished the film with me.

7: Hard-Boiled – Profoundly influential, John Woo’s hyper-kinetic, technically astonishing, nine-mil-in-both-hands blast-fest is one of the greatest–and most stylistically excessive–action films ever made. I heard about it in high school: a friend told me that the climax of the film, a set piece in a hospital, was an hour long. I had to see it. I found it a couple years later on VHS at a Best Buy in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and was enraptured at first viewing. Later, I found the film onceagain–the out of print Criterion Collection edition–for ten dollars at a Blockbuster in Spring Valley, California.

Just a quick note: I can see why the Criterion Collection edition of this film wasn’t in print for long: the transfer kinda stinks. The extras are great (it even includes one of Woo’s student films), but the newer, non-Criterion version released a year ago is probably a better bet if you’re on the market to buy it.

8: Howards End – Rich and literate, with an entrancing atmosphere that threatens to envelop the viewer, Howards End represents the pinnacle of the Merchant/Ivory experience. This E.M. Forster adaptation of intersecting social classes also features top-of-their-game work from Anthony Hopkins (in the middle of his four-banger ‘best run of the 90s’ performances, which also include The Silence Of The Lambs, The Remains Of The Day, and Shadowlands), Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham-Carter, and Vanessa Redgrave. It’s the ultimate British costume drama; and the ultimate in fine, classically-styled film.