I’ll put my essay on essential films — what I call ‘Fours’ — here when I move everything.

Meanwhile, we have a list. Some rules are:
• There can be no more than two films from any one filmmaker;
• There can be no more than two films in the year of release.

My selection simply has to do with whether the film worked, whether it changed me. I am sure there are better made, more significant, and/or more popular films, but these are the ones that helped create me. While some of these are good examples of narrative folding, often the most interesting folding examples are not films that mattered for me — films that I think for me were influential, potentially life-altering, or transcendental in some way. This list was motivated by people asking me for film recommendations beyond those that are ‘worth watching’, being what I will guide my children through as part of their discovering the world. I expect it to grow as my life improves.

(I may add pages for my special studies outside of the folding dynamics near here: Filmmakers and actors as lovers, redheads, Holmes, Alice, Shakespeare, and architectural form.)

For comparison, you may be interested in Sight and Sound’s Director and Critic lists.
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2023 The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
2016 Moana
2016 Kubo and the Two Strings
2011 The Tree of Life
2010 Inception
2010 Room in Rome
2009 Broken Embraces
2009 The Limits of Control
2009 Enter the Void
2008 Synecdoche, New York
2008 Tropic Thunder
2007 Across the Universe
2007 I’m Not There
2006 Blood Tea and Red String
2006 Inland Empire
2005 Hidden
2005 The Pianotuner of Earthquakes
2004 2046
2004 Tanner on Tanner
2003 21 Grams
2003 The Saddest Music in the World
2002 Heaven
2002 Talk to Her
2001 Moulin Rouge!
2001 Sex and Lucia
2000 In the Mood for Love
2000 Memento
1999 Marcel Proust’s Time Regained
1999 Sweet and Lowdown
1998 Snake Eyes
1998 The Thin Red Line
1997 Oscar and Lucinda
1996 Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream that One Calls Human Life
1996 The Pillow Book
1994 Three Colors: Red
1994 Vanya on 42nd Street
1993 Short Cuts
1993 Three Colors: Blue
1992 Oedipus Rex
1991 Prospero’s Books
1990 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
1987 King Lear
1986 The Singing Detective
1985 Ran
1983 Nostalghia
1983 Three Crowns of the Sailor
1982 Blade Runner
1981 The French Lieutenant’s Woman
1980 Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession
1979 My Brilliant Career
1979 The Muppet Movie
1977 Annie Hall
1976 Heart of Glass
1976 The Tenant
1975 Picnic at Hanging Rock
1973 Day for Night
1972 Aguirre, the Wrath of God
1971 A Clockwork Orange
1971 The Last Movie
1969 Fellini: A Director’s Notebook
1968 2001: A Space Odyssey
1968 Death by Hanging
1967 Japanese Summer: Double Suicide
1966 Andrei Rublev
1965 The Saragossa Manuscript
1964 I Am Cuba
1964 Red Desert
1963 8 1/2
1962 Lawrence of Arabia
1962 La Jetée
1961 Last Year in Marienbad
1959 Hiroshima Mon Amor
1958 Vertigo
1957 12 Angry Men
1957 The Seventh Seal
1956 Forbidden Planet
1954 Rear Window
1953 Duck Amuck
1953 Ugetsu
1952 Singin’ in the Rain
1951 Othello
1951 A Streetcar Named Desire
1950 Rashômon
1948 The Red Shoes
1947 The Lady from Shanghai
1941 Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
1941 Sullivan’s Travels
1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
1936 My Man Godfrey
1935 The Phantom Empire
1934 L’Atalante
1933 The Old Man and the Mountain
1933 The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
1932 Freaks
1932 The Mask of Fu Manchu
1931 City Lights
1929 The Bishop Murder Case
1929 Diary of a Lost Girl
1927 It
1924 Sherlock, Jr.
1920 The Golem
1910 Frankenstein
1902 Jack and the Beanstalk
1897 Danse serpentine

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I’ve gotten a lot of comments on my choices from major filmmakers:
Those with two, listed in order of the director’s birth year:
Alfred Hitchcock’s (b 1899) two are ‘Rear Window‘ and ‘Vertigo‘
Akira Kurosawa’s (b 1910) two are ‘Rashômon‘ and ‘Ran‘
Orson Welles’ (b 1915) two are ‘The Lady from Shanghai‘ and ‘Othello‘
Frederico Fellini’s (b 1920) two are ‘8 ½‘ and ‘Fellini: A Director’s Notebook‘
Alain Resnais‘ (b 1922) two are ‘Hiroshima Mon Amore‘ and ‘Last Year at Marianbad‘
Robert Altman’s (b 1925) two are ‘Short Cuts‘ and ‘Tanner on Tanner‘
Stanley Kubrick’s (b 1928) two are ‘A Clockwork Orange‘ and ‘2001: A Space Odyssey‘
Andrey Tarkovskiy‘s (b 1931) two are ‘Andrei Rublev‘ and ‘Nostalghia‘
Nagisa Oshima’s (b 1932) two are ‘Death by Hanging‘ and ‘Double Suicide: Japanese Summer‘
Woody Allen’s (b 1935) two are ‘Annie Hall‘ and ‘Sweet and Lowdown‘
Krzysztof Kieslowski‘s (b 1941) two are ‘Three Colors: Red‘ and ‘Three Colors: Blue‘
Raoul Ruiz‘s (b 1941) two are ‘Three Crowns of the Sailor‘ and ‘Marcel Proust’s Time Regained‘
Werner Herzog’s (b 1942) two are ‘Heart of Glass‘ and ‘Aguirre, the Wrath of God‘
Peter Greenaway’s (b 1942) two are ‘Prospero’s Books‘ and ‘The Pillow Book‘
Terrence Malick’s (b 1943) two are ‘The Thin Red Line‘ and ‘The Tree of Life‘
The Quay Brothers (b 1947) two are ‘Institute Benjamenta’ and ‘Piano Tuner of Earthquakes‘
Pedro Almodóvar’s (b 1949) two are ‘Talk to Her’ and ‘Broken Embraces‘
Gillian Armstrong’s (b 1950) two are ‘My Brilliant Career‘ and ‘Oscar and Lucinda‘
Julie Taymor’s (b 1952) two are ‘Oedipus Rex‘ and ‘Across the Universe‘
Kar Wai Wong’s (b 1956) two are In the ‘Mood for Love‘ and ‘2046‘
Julio Medem’s (b 1958) two are ‘Sex and Lucia‘ and ‘Room in Rome‘
Christopher Nolan’s (b 1970) two are ‘Memento‘ and ‘Inception‘

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Notable others with one, expected to deliver a second:
Roman Polanski‘s (b 1933) two are ‘The Tenant‘ and …
Ridley Scott‘s (b 1937) two are ‘Blade Runner‘ and …
Brian De Palma’s (b 1940) two are ‘Snake Eyes‘ and …
David Lynch’s (b 1948) two are ‘Inland Empire‘ and …
Guy Maddin’s (b 1956) two are ‘The Saddest Music in the World‘ and …
Charlie Kaufman‘s (b 1958) two are ‘Synecdoche, New York‘ and …
Baz Luhrmann’s (b 1962) two are ‘Moulin Rouge!’ and …
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s (b 1963) two are ‘21 Grams‘ and …
Wes Anderson’s (b 1969) two are ‘The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar’ and…
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With no surprise, many of the actors we admire feature in some of these:
Julianne Moore (b 1960) ‘Vanya on 42nd Street‘, and ‘Short Cuts‘
Sean Penn (b 1960) ‘The Tree of Life‘, ‘21 Grams‘, ‘Sweet and Lowdown‘, and ‘The Thin Red Line‘
Philip Seymour Hoffman (b 1967) ‘Synecdoche, New York‘
Cate Blanchett (b 1969) ‘Heaven‘, ‘Oscar and Lucinda‘, and ‘I’m Not There‘
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Interesting Cinematographers:
Christopher Doyle (‘In the Mood for Love‘, ‘2046‘, and ‘The Limits of Control‘)
Sacha Vierny (‘The Pillow Book‘, ‘Prospero’s Books‘, ‘Three Crowns of the Sailor’, ‘Last Year at Marienbad ‘, and ‘Hiroshima mon amour‘)