Poring over Barry Norman’s ‘100 Best Films of the Century’ list last month set off musings on what a personal version of such a list would be. All such lists are entirely personal, and deeply speculative, but it’s time to be more ambitious/foolhardy than heretofore and nail this blog’s colours to the mast. Norman unapologetically focused on Old Hollywood, but Talking Movies has more regard than he for the 1980s and 1990s. The years to 1939 are allocated 10 films, and each decade thereafter gets 10 films, with an additional 10 films chosen to make up any egregious omissions. What is an egregious omission, or addition for that matter, is naturally a matter of opinion. Like the truest lists this was written quickly with little revision. If you don’t trust your own instincts why would you ever trust anyone else’s?
The first day to 1939
Nosferatu
The Lodger
M
King Kong
It Happened One Night
The 39 Steps
A Night at the Opera
Top Hat
Secret Agent
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Gone with the Wind
1940 to 1949
His Girl Friday
Rebecca
Citizen Kane
The Maltese Falcon
Casablanca
Shadow of a Doubt
The Big Sleep
The Stranger
Rope
The Third Man
1950 to 1959
Strangers on a Train
The Lavender Hill Mob
Singin’ in the Rain
Them!
Rear Window
High Society
Moby Dick
Vertigo
North by Northwest
Rio Bravo
1960 to 1969
Last Year in Marienbad
The Manchurian Candidate
The Birds
The Great Escape
Billy Liar
Dr. Strangelove
Goldfinger
Dr. Zhivago
The Sound of Music
The Good The Bad And The Ugly
Once Upon a Time in the West
Ma Nuit Chez Maud
The Italian Job
1970 to 1979
Kelly’s Heroes
Aguirre the wrath of God
The Godfather
Dog Day Afternoon
Jaws
All the President’s Men
Annie Hall
Star Wars
Superman
Apocalypse Now
1980 to 1989
The Blues Brothers
Chariots of Fire
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Blade Runner
Ghostbusters
Back to the Future
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Aliens
Blue Velvet
Wall Street
Au Revoir Les Enfants
Die Hard
1990 to 1999
JFK
My Own Private Idaho
The Silence of the Lambs
Terminator 2
The Age of Innocence
Jurassic Park
Pulp Fiction
Speed
The Usual Suspects
Scream
The Matrix
Fight Club
2000 to 2009
Memento
Almost Famous
Moulin Rouge!
Ocean’s Eleven
Donnie Darko
The Rules of Attraction
The Lord of the Rings
Team America
Brick
Casino Royale
Atonement
The Dark Knight
2010 to the present day
Inception
Scott Pilgrim Vs the World
Incendies
Skyfall
Mud
This is the End
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Birdman
High-Rise
20th Century Women
Talking Movies 
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