How come no ones mentioned De Sica's "Bicycle Thieves"???
A glaring omission I think.
Such a simple concept and so beautifully executed.
One of the cinemas finest achievements, and a huge inspiration to young filmakers from the late forties on.

Now i'm at it, why not throw in Wong Kar Wai's gorgeous " In The Mood For Love"

Oh, and anything by Powell/Pressburger.

My 2 Cents.

Dom

Malick's "Days of Heaven" and Woody's "Zelig" are personal faves of mine.

Oh, and wasn't it Godard who said all you needed to make a great movie was a girl and a gun?

Reading this thread I was thinking about it because it was one of the main examples used in all my classes in broadcast school. That and "The Hit" by Stephen Frears.

I'd say "Requiem for a dream" for about everything: storytelling, camera, music/sounddesign, editing. It's one of the movies where I can't focus on analyzing because it kind of sucks me in and I simply forget I was watching to analyze. I'm very much looking forward to watching Aronofsky's latest movie "The fountain".

For stunning cinematography, lighting, set design and all other things visual "Cite des enfants perdus" (City of the lost children) by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet comes to my mind.

Chris, I very much enjoyed reading your analysis of the ups and downs in the life of a filmmaker. Very well observed and very true :)
It reminded me of what I read on Rainer Werner Fassbinder. He was obsessed with making movies, always thought they weren't good enough, he wasn't good enough. And after a day of shooting he would, so I heard, snort cocaine to be able to stay awake and watch movies, then go back to work and make his next movie even better. No wonder he died young...

Heiko,
Glad you mentioned Fassbinder. I watched his adaptation of Jean Genet's "Querrelle" only two nights ago. There's a mad movie if ever there was one. The whole film is shot on one set - a highly stylised hypereal studio lit with various shades of orange - and the actors read the lines rather than act them. These kind of filmakers are fascinating because there's no attempt to emulate "normal" cinematic conventions which gives their films a a freshness and reinvigorates the artform. Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami's films have a similar quality, and i highly reccommend his "Taste of Cherry" for anyone out there who wants to make a movie but has only a car and a cheap camera at their disposal.

Documentaries about filmmaking...
 

I rented a couple of interesting documentaries from Netflix.

Visions of Light A documentary about cinematography. Has some history of the art, but doesn't go into a lot of detail about their methods.

The Cutting Edge About editing and post production.

Besides giving some history, they both illustrate how dealing with unexpected situations often leads to innovation.

Reading Chris Hurd's syllabus makes me want to go rent "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance". What a great movie.

If you want to watch a film where a massively talented director is showing off in EVERY SCENE, watch Orson Welles "The Stranger" - it's like Film School in a can.