Re: Requested Info

Possible Film Choices for Microthemes and Papers

*1915 Birth of a Nation / D.W. Griffith
1922 Nosferatu, The Vampire / F.W. Mumau
*1927 Metropolis / Fritz Lang
1933 King Kong / Merian C. Cooper
1935 The Bride of Frankenstein / James Whale
1939 Gone with the Wind / Victor Fleming
1939 The Wizard of Oz / Victor Fleming
*1941 Citizen Kane / Orson Wells
1942 Casablanca / Michael Curtiz
1951 The African Queen / John Huston
*1954 Rear Window / Alfred Hitchcock
1955 Rebel without a Cause / Nicholas Ray
1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers / Don Siegel
1958 Vertigo / Alfred Hitchcock
*1960 Psycho / Alfred Hitchcock
1962 Dr. No / Terence Young
1964 Dr. Strangelove [. . .] / Stanley Kubrick
1965 The Sound of Music / Robert Wise
1966 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly / Sergio Leone
1967 The Graduate / Mike Nichols

1972 The Godfather / Francis Ford Coppola
1972 Slaughterhouse Five / George Roy Hill
*1976 Sybil / Daniel Petrie
*1976 The Tenant / Roman Polanski
1977 Annie Hall / Woody Allen
1977 Star Wars / George Lucas
1978 The Deer Hunter / Michael Cimino
*1979 Apocalypse Now [Redux 2001] / Francis Ford Coppola
1979 Alien / Ridley Scott
1980 Airplane / Jim Abrahams
1981 Excalibur / John Boorman
1982 Gandhi / Richard Attenborough
1986 The Fly / David Cronenberg
1987 Fatal Attraction / Adrian Lyne
1987 Akira / Katsuhiro Otomo
1987 Moonstruck / Norman Jewison
*1988 Chocolat / Claire Denis
1988 The Suitors / Chasem Ebrahimian
1988 Die Hard / John McTieman
1989 Batman / Tim Burton

1990 Dances with Wolves / Kevin Costner
*1990 Total Recall / Paul Verhoeven
1990 Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes / Peter Werner
1991 The Silence of the Lambs / Jonathan Demme
1991 JFK / Oliver Stone
1992 Unforgiven / Clint Eastwood
1992 Malcolm X / Spike Lee
*1993 The Piano / Jane Campion
1993 Groundhog Day / Harold Ramis
1993 Schindler’s list / Steven Speilberg
*1993 The Joy Luck Club / Wayne Wang
1994 The Mask / Chuck Russell
1994 Pulp Fiction / Quentin Tarantino
*1995 Twelve Monkeys / Terry Gilliam
1995 Clueless / Amy Heckerling
1995 Toy Story / John Lasseter
1995 Seven / David Fincher
1996 Independence Day / Roland Emmerich
*1996 [. . .] Romeo + Juliet / Baz Luhrmann
1997 Titanic / James Cameron
1997 Starship Troopers / Paul Verhoeven
*1998 Pi / Darren Aronofsky
1998 American History X / Tony Kaye
1998 Shakespeare in Love / John Madden
1998 Saving Private Ryan / Steven Speilberg
1998 The Truman Show / Peter Weir
*1999 The Virgin Suicides / Sofia Coppola
*1999 Fight Club / David Fincher
1999 Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai / Jim Jarmusch
1999 Office Space / Mike Judge
1999 The Blair Witch Project / Daniel Myrick
1999 The Sixth Sense / M. Night Shyamalan
*1999 The Matrix / The Wachowski Brothers
2000 Titan A.E. / Don Bloth &Gary L. Goldman
2000 O Brother, Where Art Thou? / Joel Coen
2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon / Ang Lee
2001 Shrek / Andrew Adamson
2001 Gosford Park / Robert Altman
*2001 Vanilla Sky / Cameron Crowe
*2001 Monster’s Ball / Marc Forster
2001 The Lord of the Rings [. . .] / Peter Jackson
2001 Moulin Rouge / Baz Luhrmann
2001 Mulholland Dr. / David Lynch
*2001 Tortilla Soup / Maria Ripol

*Denotes films I might particularly recommend for these assignments.


This list is constantly being modified; in fact, I allow students to add films at the beginning of each quarter so that each list is customized to that particular set of students.

Most of these are popular Hollywood flicks--instead of artsy indies. That's on purpose. The goal of the class is to begin questioning the ideologies that each film reinforces and/or challenges. yadda yadda. hey, take my class if you want more.