Listing the most important films of all time is an impossible task, so we have chosen, better, to gather the films that changed cinema forever.
With a Hollywood approach, these films have left an indelible mark on art, whether in the way we watch movies, attend them or even how they are made and who makes them.
GQ’s movie selection is an introduction to a story that, in the age of streaming, is at your fingertips, not as an exhaustive study, because for that, there are too many movies to list. Exciting, isn’t it?
Citizen Kane – 1941
There used to be three rules in life: assume death, pay taxes, and watch Orson Welles’ groundbreaking obituary story that topped Sight and Sound’s once-a-decade survey of critics. The film still occupies the insignificant third place of these norms, but to despise Citizen Kane would be a mistake.
Centered on the life of a journalist eerily resembling Rupert Murdoch, the film set the new patterns of cinema for new generations, from its rejection of orderly chronology to its exciting, bold and varied images, full of symbolism. When asked years later how he achieved such a triumph with his first film, Welles said: “Ignorance … Pure ignorance. There is no trust that equals it. Only when you know something about a profession are you shy or cautious.” Take that witty and impeccable commentary to your next job interview.
Psycho – 1960
There used to be three rules in life: assume death, pay taxes, and watch Orson Welles’ groundbreaking obituary story that topped Sight and Sound’s once-a-decade survey of critics. The film still occupies the insignificant third place of these norms, but to despise Citizen Kane would be a mistake.
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Centered on the life of a journalist eerily resembling Rupert Murdoch, the film set the new patterns of cinema for new generations, from its rejection of orderly chronology to its exciting, bold and varied images, full of symbolism. When asked years later how he achieved such a triumph with his first film, Welles said: “Ignorance … Pure ignorance. There is no trust that equals it. Only when you know something about a profession are you shy or cautious.” Take that witty and impeccable commentary to your next job interview.
Out of Breath – 1960
Described by one critic as the “definitive manifesto of the [French] New Wave,” Jean-Luc Godard’s crime thriller rushes with the youthful energy of a filmmaker on the precipice of an idea, an event, a movement. He jumps and shakes, passing from one moment to another with great nonchalance, driven by a Jean-Paul Belmondo who doesn’t give a damn about everything, but who can’t look away from Patricia (played by Jean Seberg).
On the other hand, François Truffaut, his contemporary, directed The 400 Blows, about a young working-class man without luck, a film that drips with silent sadness and that could also be considered another reference for newbies in French cinema. But Breathless is one of those hundred movies you must see before you die, and much of Hollywood cinema is indebted to it.
Night of the Living Dead – 1968
The zombie genre has grown overwhelmingly in the last decade and a half, to the point where these creatures make us want to run, but not out of fear, but out of boredom (thanks, The Walking Dead). It wasn’t always like this: how terrifying it must have been to live those bloody and happy days with the films of George A. Romero, from Dawn of the Dead to Day of the Dead, passing through the imitations along the way.
But it all started with 1968’s Night of the Living Dead, when, apocryphally inspired by the Haitian myth of voodoo, Romero invented a new kind of monsters on screen, hollow bodies with human faces doomed to wander eternally in earthly purgatory while searching for delicious brains. The film not only began a subgenre of horror in which countless filmmakers would weave their own grotesque stories, but Romero can also be considered one of the first enthusiasts of “high terror”, since each film in the saga addresses sociopolitical issues of the time, from racism to insatiable consumerism and nuclear terror. One of the films that changed cinema, without a doubt.
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The Exorcist – 1973
There’s no horror movie without a creepy soundtrack, but The Exorcist isn’t just about “Tubular Bells.” No, this is also the story of a possessed teenager who pees on the carpet, whose head oozes pus and spins on her shoulders, and who yells at a priest that her mother is having an amazing time in the depths of hell, thank you!
Back then, local reports abounded that the satanic film left audiences in a state of confusion, vomiting and fainting in movie theaters around the world (they don’t make movies like they used to). Such was the phenomenal response to this film starring Ellen Burstyn, that it became the first horror film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, and remained the highest-grossing R-rated film until the 2017 remake of That.
Jaws – 1975
By now we’re so used to summer mega-productions that it’s hard to imagine a non-“covidified” world in which the sunny half of the year isn’t dominated by films with budgets equivalent to the GDP of some microstates.
But before 1975, and before a young man named Steven Spielberg battled a huge mechanical fish for five whole months, that wasn’t the case: Jaws was a watershed moment in the history of film exhibition, ushering in the era of big-budget movies opening in the summer. Seemingly fulfilling Roy Scheider’s famous wish for a bigger ship, Jaws was distributed in an exceptional number of movie theaters for the time, backed by a marketing strategy that emphasized advertising campaigns and ties to merchandising products, the kinds of things we’re all too familiar with in 2023. but without the originality.
Titanic – 1997
Bet against James Cameron and you’ll be a fool, or so the old saying goes, and for good reason: this guy just doesn’t know how to fail at the box office. Not even, for example, with a romantic film set in one of the greatest nautical disasters in human history, centered on the impossible love of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, separated not by the conflict between two houses equal in dignity, but by the economic classes of an ocean liner.
It wouldn’t be far-fetched to claim that Leo was already a movie star before Titanic (he had already done Who Does Gilbert Staplee Love? and Romeo + Juliet before), but this film catapulted him to worldwide fame, eventually leading to one of the greatest characters in film history, Rick Dalton from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. . As for the ripple effect in the Mecca of Cinema, this two-billion-dollar blockbuster has probably had the greatest reach.
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Brokeback Mountain – 2005
Including Secret on the Mountain as the only queer title on this list means running the risk of causing hypertension in all gay moviegoers due to its obviousness, but let us explain.
It’s true that a film like The Boys in the Band was also revolutionary in bringing gay faces to American screens in the 1970s; William Friedkin’s later work, Cruising, might seem narratively outdated by focusing on a New York cop consumed by the city’s seedy gay underworld, but it remains an important artifact of a long-lost gay social scene. There are lesser-known films, such as Scorpio Rising, Flaming Creatures, Victim, Querelle, or the later AIDS film Longtime Companion or Parting Glances. You could also mention Poison, by Todd Haynes, as a work of the new queer cinema, in fact, it is one of the best gay films ever made.
The point of this anticipated defense is that there are many queer works that could be considered vital, but Secret on the Mountain — a conventional romantic drama, pejoratively known at the time as the “gay cowboy movie,” now kindly mentioned with irony knowing its importance — that centers on the decades-long love affair between Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger. , playing two tough cowboys, marked a sea change in the inclusion of queer films in the mainstream. Without it we wouldn’t have movies like Moonlight or Call Me by Your Name.
Iron Man – 2008
Depending on your personal cinematic inclinations, you can regard the advent of Marvel’s industrial machinery in 2008 as one of the greatest moments in Hollywood history, or as the start of a steady creative degradation that is being progressively accentuated.
Whatever the case, Iron Man profoundly altered the film industry: While it was not the first successful comic book adaptation to hit the big screen, since Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy and Bryan Singer’s X-Men flicks came before it, this picture starring Robert Downey Jr. cemented the popularity of superhero movies.
Furthermore, the pre-credits scene hinted to the crossover format that would later define the Avengers flicks and sweep the box office. After fifteen years, the commercial model pioneered by Iron Man and comparable films has become the standard, with recognized characters and intellectual property taking precedence over novelty. Don’t worry, comic book enthusiasts will be pleased.
Avatar – 2009
This is the second James Cameron film on this list, yet such is the impact that his films have had on cinema. Avatar is as essential as Titanic in terms of technology: to this day, it is one of the few cases where 3D is employed as an artistic method rather than a gimmick, which extends to its first sequel, Avatar: The Shape of Water, and, undoubtedly, future releases.
Avatar was presented as an important reminder of why the cinematic experience needs to be protected in 2009, one of the last years before streaming hit movie theaters; in a terrifying new world where Netflix threatens to turn theatrical exhibition into a vinyl-like niche market, it becomes even more indispensable. If you don’t believe us, trust the viewers who have spent their money to make it the highest-grossing film of all time in the globe.
