Films
A hand-picked canon of films from Battleship Potemkin to Oppenheimer — the movies that changed how movies are made, watched, or remembered.
A chronological documentary of 285 moments spanning 1915–2025 on Loreline.
last updated 2026-07-22
Eras
- Silent Era — Birth-of-cinema to the eve of sound. Griffith, Murnau, Eisenstein invent montage, the close-up, expressionism. Chaplin and Keaton make cinema a global language without dialogue.
- Studio Era — Hollywood's factory system. Genre cinema — gangster, musical, noir, Western — defined and refined. Welles, Wilder, Hitchcock, Hawks. The Italian neorealists and Japanese masters reshape the world's sense of what films can do.
- New Waves — Truffaut, Godard, Antonioni, Fellini, Wajda, Ray, Kurosawa, Bergman. The auteur theory turns directors into superstars; the studio system cracks.
- New Hollywood — The film-school generation — Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg, Lucas, De Palma — make their first masterpieces. Then Star Wars and Jaws invent the blockbuster and the era ends.
- Blockbuster Era — The MBA executives take over Hollywood; the independents fight back. Lynch, Lee, the Coens, Tarantino, Linklater, Wong Kar-wai, Kieślowski, Almodóvar. Pulp Fiction reorders everything.
- Digital Cinema — Digital cameras, CGI everywhere, the DVD boom and bust, the rise of streaming. PT Anderson, Linklater, Cuarón, the Dardennes, Park Chan-wook, Apichatpong. Cinema and television finally trade places.
- Contemporary — Streamers fund the auteurs the studios won't. Parasite wins Best Picture. International films break through. Barbenheimer briefly suggests cinemas have a future.
- — The Birth of a Nation. D. W. Griffith. Invented most of the grammar of feature filmmaking — close-ups, parallel editing, three-hour running time. Also a Klan-glorifying horror that revived the Klan in real life. The defining ethical problem of film history starts here.
- — Birth of a Nation by D.W. Griffith - Trailer (1915). ) · 00:02:21
- — The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Robert Wiene. Founded German Expressionism — painted shadows, jagged sets, a story told by a madman. Every horror film for the next 30 years owes it something.
- — The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari (1920) Official Trailer #1 - German Horror Movie. · 00:01:57
- — Nosferatu. F. W. Murnau. Unauthorised Dracula adaptation; Stoker's widow sued and won an order to burn every print. The negatives that survived gave horror cinema its first immortal monster.
- — The Gold Rush. Charlie Chaplin. The shoe-eating scene, the cabin teetering on the cliff. Chaplin's own pick as the film he'd be remembered for. The Tramp at his most universal.
- — Charlie Chaplin - The Gold Rush (Trailer). ) · 00:01:28
- — Battleship Potemkin. Sergei Eisenstein. The Odessa Steps sequence is the single most-quoted scene in film history. Built the case for montage — meaning created by the collision of shots — and turned cinema into a political weapon.
- — The General. Buster Keaton. Civil War chase comedy with his ace deadpan and astonishing real-train stunts. Flopped on release; now routinely on best-of-all-time lists.
- — The General (1926) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:01:54
- — Metropolis. Fritz Lang. The most expensive silent film ever made; the visual template for every cinematic dystopia since. Lost for decades in fragments; restored from a 2008 Argentine print find.
- — Metropolis (1927) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:02:00
- — Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. F. W. Murnau's American debut. Won the Academy Award for "Unique and Artistic Picture" — a category they awarded once. Considered by many the most beautiful silent film ever made.
- — F.W. Murnau's SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS - Trailer. · 00:01:50
- — The Jazz Singer. Alan Crosland. First feature-length film with synchronised dialogue. "You ain't heard nothin' yet." Killed the silent era within three years. Al Jolson's blackface performance is the rest of its legacy.
- — The Jazz Singer Official Trailer (1927). ) · 00:07:09
- — The Passion of Joan of Arc. Carl Theodor Dreyer. Renée Falconetti's face in close-up for 80 minutes. One of the greatest performances ever captured; she never made another film.
- — Un Chien Andalou. Luis Buñuel + Salvador Dalí. 16 minutes of dream logic, including the eyeball cut. The original surrealist film; the model for every avant-garde short that followed.
- — M. Fritz Lang. Peter Lorre as a child murderer hunted by Berlin's underworld. First major film to use leitmotifs in sound (Lorre's whistled "Hall of the Mountain King"). The first serial-killer film.
- — King Kong. Cooper + Schoedsack. Willis O'Brien's stop-motion gorilla. The first film to make audiences feel sorry for the monster. "It was beauty killed the beast."
- — King Kong (1933) Official 1938 Re-Release Trailer - King Kong Movie. · 00:01:32
- — Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Walt Disney. First feature-length animated film. People said no one would sit through 83 minutes of cartoons. It made $8M on a $1.5M budget and built Disney.
- — Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:01:25
- — The Rules of the Game. Jean Renoir. Released on the eve of WWII to a French audience that hated it. Re-released after the war and immediately recognised as one of the greatest films ever made. The template for every ensemble-comedy-of-manners since.
- — The Wizard of Oz. Victor Fleming. Sepia Kansas, Technicolor Oz — the shift is still one of the most famous moments in cinema. "Over the Rainbow" was nearly cut for being too slow.
- — The Wizard of Oz (1939) Original Trailer - Judy Garland Movie. · 00:02:29
- — Gone with the Wind. Victor Fleming. Highest-grossing film of all time adjusted for inflation. Hattie McDaniel won the first Oscar for a Black performer — and had to sit at a segregated table at the ceremony. Its mythology of the Lost Cause has aged badly.
- — Gone with the Wind (1939) Official Trailer - Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh Movie HD. · 00:02:37
- — Citizen Kane. Orson Welles, 25 years old. Deep focus, narrative misdirection, the long shadow of William Randolph Hearst (who tried to suppress it). The film that the rest of cinema would spend 80 years trying to surpass.
- — Citizen Kane (1941) Official Trailer #1 - Orson Welles Movie. · 00:03:45
- — The Maltese Falcon. John Huston's directorial debut. Bogart as Sam Spade. The film that announced film noir as a genre and turned hard-boiled detective fiction into the dominant American style.
- — Maltese Falcon (1941) Official Trailer - Humphrey Bogart Movie. · 00:02:43
- — Casablanca. Michael Curtiz. Shot during WWII without a finished script — they wrote each day's pages overnight. Bogart, Bergman, "We'll always have Paris." The reference text for romantic Hollywood.
- — Casablanca (1942) Official Trailer - Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman Movie HD. · 00:02:09
- — Double Indemnity. Billy Wilder, from a James M. Cain story Raymond Chandler rewrote. The noir blueprint — venetian-blind shadows, doomed lovers, insurance fraud, voiceover narration. Wilder taught Chandler to script and Chandler taught Wilder to drink.
- — Double Indemnity Official Trailer #1 - Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck Movie (1944) HD. · 00:02:15
- — Bicycle Thieves. Vittorio De Sica. The defining film of Italian Neorealism — non-professional cast, real locations, postwar Rome. Father and son search for a stolen bicycle. The blueprint for every social-realist film since.
- — Bicycle Thieves (1948) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:02:00
- — The Third Man. Carol Reed. Postwar Vienna in tilted angles and chiaroscuro. Orson Welles's Harry Lime delivers the cuckoo-clock speech (which Welles wrote himself). One of the great noirs.
- — The Third Man | Official Trailer. · 00:01:34
- — Sunset Boulevard. Billy Wilder. Hollywood's greatest film about itself — narrated by a dead screenwriter in a pool. Gloria Swanson, herself a faded silent star, as Norma Desmond. "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up."
- — Sunset Boulevard (1950) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:03:13
- — Rashomon. Akira Kurosawa. Four contradictory accounts of the same crime. Won the Venice Golden Lion and introduced Japanese cinema to the West. Coined the "Rashomon effect" — the term every social scientist would later steal.
- — Singin' in the Rain. Stanley Donen + Gene Kelly. The transition to sound, satirised by the people who lived through it. Considered by many the greatest movie musical ever made.
- — Singin' in the Rain (1952) Official Trailer - Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds Movie HD. · 00:04:03
- — Tokyo Story. Yasujirō Ozu. Elderly parents visit their adult children in Tokyo and find no one has time. Static cameras, tatami-mat angles, devastating quiet. Sight & Sound's greatest film of all time in the 2012 directors' poll.
- — Seven Samurai. Akira Kurosawa. Village hires seven masterless samurai to defend it from bandits. The template for every "team of misfits assembled for a mission" film ever since. Three and a half hours; not a minute too long.
- — Seven Samurai (1954) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:03:59
- — On the Waterfront. Elia Kazan. Brando: "I could've been a contender." Kazan made it as a defence of his own HUAC testimony — a justification for ratting on his communist friends. Won 8 Oscars.
- — On the Waterfront (1954) ORIGINAL TRAILER [FHD]. ] · 00:02:43
- — The Seventh Seal. Ingmar Bergman. A knight plays chess with Death during the Black Plague. One of the most-parodied images in cinema. Made Bergman an international name.
- — The Seventh Seal (1957) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD 1080p]. ] · 00:02:38
- — Vertigo. Alfred Hitchcock. Kim Novak twice; James Stewart's obsession with both. The dolly-zoom — invented for this film — became the visual shorthand for psychological vertigo. Now the canonical Sight & Sound #1.
- — Vertigo Official Trailer #1 - (1958) HD. · 00:02:52
- — Some Like It Hot. Billy Wilder. Lemmon and Curtis dress as women to escape the mob; Marilyn Monroe. "Nobody's perfect." Routinely voted the greatest American comedy.
- — Some Like It Hot (1959) Trailer | MGM Studios. · 00:02:20
- — The 400 Blows. François Truffaut. The 12-year-old Antoine Doinel's freeze-frame run to the sea. The film that launched the French New Wave at Cannes and made Truffaut a star at 27.
- — The 400 Blows (1959) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:03:57
- — La Dolce Vita. Federico Fellini. Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg in the Trevi Fountain. The film that gave the world the word "paparazzi" (after a character's name) and defined high-Italian glamour for a generation.
- — Breathless. Jean-Luc Godard. Jump cuts, location shooting with a handheld camera, jazz score, a gangster who wishes he were Bogart. The New Wave's manifesto.
- — Psycho. Alfred Hitchcock. Killed the lead character at the 47-minute mark. The shower scene was edited from 78 shots in 45 seconds. Birthed the modern horror film and traumatised an audience that had never seen a shower without Janet Leigh hidden behind it.
- — Psycho Official Trailer 1960 HD. · 00:01:41
- — Lawrence of Arabia. David Lean. Three hours and 38 minutes of desert in 70mm. Peter O'Toole's breakout. Spielberg said it made him want to make movies; so did most of the New Hollywood generation.
- — Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:04:45
- — 8½. Federico Fellini. A film director with director's block makes a film about a film director with director's block. The reference text for every artist's creative-crisis film since (All That Jazz, Synecdoche, Pain and Glory).
- — Dr. Strangelove. Stanley Kubrick. The Cuban Missile Crisis reimagined as black comedy. Peter Sellers played three roles. "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here — this is the War Room."
- — Dr. Strangelove (1964) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:03:25
- — The Sound of Music. Robert Wise. The Von Trapps singing their way out of the Anschluss. Highest-grossing film of all time when released. Saved 20th Century Fox from Cleopatra-induced bankruptcy.
- — The Sound of Music (1965) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:04:10
- — Persona. Ingmar Bergman. An actress goes mute; her nurse takes over the talking. The two faces merge in one of cinema's most analysed compositions. Bergman at his most rigorous.
- — Persona (1966) ORIGINAL TRAILER [FHD]. ] · 00:02:44
- — Bonnie and Clyde. Arthur Penn. Beatty and Dunaway as glamorous bank robbers. The shocking violence and amoral heroes scandalised critics and announced New Hollywood. Pauline Kael's 9,000-word New Yorker rave made her career.
- — Bonnie And Clyde (1967) Official Trailer #1 - Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway Movie. · 00:02:54
- — The Graduate. Mike Nichols. Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. Simon and Garfunkel score. The first New Hollywood blockbuster; gave a generation its definition of awkward.
- — The Graduate (1967) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:03:54
- — 2001: A Space Odyssey. Stanley Kubrick. The match cut from bone to spaceship. HAL's death. The Star Gate. The film that proved special effects could be art. Half of modern science fiction is footnotes to it.
- — 2001: A Space Odyssey - Trailer [1968] HD. · 00:02:30
- — Midnight Cowboy. John Schlesinger. Only X-rated film ever to win Best Picture. Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman as down-and-out hustlers in New York. "I'm walking here!"
- — Midnight Cowboy (1969) | Official Trailer | MGM Studios. · 00:01:59
- — Easy Rider. Dennis Hopper. Made for $360k; grossed $60M. Convinced studios to bet on the film-school generation. Killed off the studio system that had survived Bonnie and Clyde.
- — Easy Rider | Original Trailer [HD] | Coolidge Corner Theatre. · 00:03:05
- — The French Connection. William Friedkin. The car-chasing-the-elevated-train sequence was shot without permits at 90mph. Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle won Best Actor. First R-rated Best Picture.
- — The French Connection (1971) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:02:47
- — A Clockwork Orange. Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick himself pulled it from UK distribution after copycat violence reports — it wasn't shown legally in Britain for 27 years. Defined the look of dystopian futurism.
- — A Clockwork Orange | Trailer | Warner Bros. Entertainment. · 00:02:03
- — The Godfather. Francis Ford Coppola. Brando as Vito Corleone; Pacino's coming-of-age as Michael. The greatest American film by general critical consensus. Made Mario Puzo's pulp novel into Greek tragedy.
- — Last Tango in Paris. Bernardo Bertolucci. Brando and Maria Schneider. The film's reputation collapsed in 2016 when Schneider posthumously made clear she'd been blindsided by the butter scene. A case study in the cost of "art."
- — Mean Streets. Martin Scorsese's breakthrough. Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro in Little Italy. The Stones on the soundtrack. Scorsese's lifelong project — Catholic guilt, low-level criminals, jukebox needle drops — begins here.
- — Mean Streets - Original Theatrical Trailer. · 00:03:38
- — The Exorcist. William Friedkin. Linda Blair's head spins. First horror film nominated for Best Picture. Reports of viewers fainting and vomiting in cinemas; the studio pretended it was unhappy.
- — The Conversation. Francis Ford Coppola — made between the two Godfathers. Gene Hackman as a surveillance expert. Released months before Nixon resigned over Watergate. A film about wiretapping in a year about wiretapping.
- — The Conversation (1974) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD 1080p]. ] · 00:02:50
- — Chinatown. Roman Polanski, script by Robert Towne. Jack Nicholson investigating the LA water wars. The pure neo-noir; Towne's screenplay is taught in every film school. "Forget it, Jake."
- — Chinatown (1974) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:03:16
- — The Godfather Part II. Francis Ford Coppola. Pacino as the now-corrupted Michael; De Niro as the young Vito. First sequel to win Best Picture. Often argued to be the rare sequel that surpasses the original.
- — The Godfather: Part II (1974) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:04:11
- — Jaws. Steven Spielberg, 27. First summer blockbuster — wide release + saturation TV ads. Broken animatronic shark forced Spielberg to keep the shark off-screen, which made it scarier. Killed beach attendance worldwide that summer.
- — Jaws Official Trailer #1 - Richard Dreyfuss, Steven Spielberg Movie (1975) HD. · 00:03:22
- — One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Miloš Forman. Jack Nicholson as McMurphy. Second film to sweep the Big Five Oscars (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay) — and the only one in 40 years.
- — One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975) Official Trailer #1 - Jack Nicholson Movie HD. · 00:02:35
- — Taxi Driver. Scorsese, script by Paul Schrader. De Niro's Travis Bickle. "You talkin' to me?" John Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate Reagan to impress Jodie Foster, who plays a 12-year-old prostitute in the film.
- — TAXI DRIVER [1976] - Official Trailer (HD). ) · 00:03:05
- — Rocky. John G. Avildsen. Stallone wrote it in three days, refused to sell unless he could star. Beat Taxi Driver and Network for Best Picture. Spawned an empire.
- — ROCKY (1976) | Official Trailer | MGM. · 00:03:39
- — Annie Hall. Woody Allen. Broke the fourth wall, used animated sequences and split-screen, won Best Picture over Star Wars. Defined the urban-neurotic romantic comedy for the next 30 years.
- — Annie Hall Official Trailer #1 - Woody Allen Movie (1977) HD. · 00:02:09
- — Star Wars. George Lucas. ILM invented modern visual effects to make it. Toy revenue Lucas had kept for himself made him a billionaire; merchandising became the studio business model overnight.
- — Star Wars A New Hope 1977 Trailer. · 00:02:46
- — Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Spielberg. First film to imagine extraterrestrials as benevolent. Five-note motif from John Williams. The mashed-potato mountain remains one of cinema's great images of obsession.
- — CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND - Official Trailer. · 00:02:43
- — The Deer Hunter. Michael Cimino. Russian-roulette Vietnam scene was historically dubious but devastating. Won Best Picture; first major Vietnam film by the New Hollywood generation.
- — Apocalypse Now. Coppola in the Philippine jungle for 16 months — typhoons, heart attacks, Brando arriving overweight and unprepared. The making is its own legend (see Hearts of Darkness). "The horror, the horror."
- — APOCALYPSE NOW | Official Trailer | Starring Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen. · 00:01:41
- — Alien. Ridley Scott. H. R. Giger's xenomorph. Sigourney Weaver as Ripley — the action heroine the genre had been waiting for. Married horror and sci-fi for good.
- — Alien Trailer HD (Original 1979 Ridley Scott Film) Sigourney Weaver. · 00:01:57
- — The Shining. Stanley Kubrick. "Here's Johnny!" Steadicam through the hotel corridors. Stephen King hated it. Released to mediocre reviews; now one of the most analysed horror films ever made.
- — The Shining - Official Trailer [1980] HD. · 00:01:28
- — Raging Bull. Scorsese in black-and-white about boxer Jake LaMotta. De Niro gained 60 pounds for the later scenes. Frequently called the greatest film of the 1980s.
- — RAGING BULL (1980) | Official Trailer | MGM. · 00:02:17
- — Raiders of the Lost Ark. Spielberg + Lucas. Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. The boulder, the swordsman shot dead, the melting Nazi faces. Perfected the popcorn-adventure film.
- — Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:02:23
- — E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Spielberg's gentle counterpoint to Close Encounters. Highest-grossing film of all time for 11 years. The bicycle silhouette against the moon is one of the canonical shots in cinema.
- — ET The Extra Terrestrial (1982) Official 20th Anniversary Trailer Movie HD. · 00:02:06
- — Blade Runner. Ridley Scott. Bombed at the box office; became the visual touchstone for every cyberpunk film since. Five director's cuts later, Rutger Hauer's "tears in rain" improv remains the high point.
- — Blade Runner (1982) Official Trailer - Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford Movie. · 00:03:37
- — Scarface. Brian De Palma + Oliver Stone script. Al Pacino as Tony Montana. Critically panned, banned in some markets, became the most quoted gangster film in hip-hop history.
- — Scarface Trailer HD (1983). Director: Brian De Palma Cast: Al Pacino, Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio Plot: In 1980 Miami, a determined Cuban immigrant takes over a drug empire while succumbing to greed.
- — Amadeus. Miloš Forman. Salieri's envy of Mozart in 18th-century Vienna. Won Best Picture; renewed mass interest in Mozart's music single-handedly.
- — The Terminator. James Cameron, $6.4M budget. Schwarzenegger as an unstoppable cyborg assassin. "I'll be back." Started the franchise and made Cameron a major director.
- — THE TERMINATOR (1984) | Official Trailer | MGM. · 00:02:05
- — Ran. Akira Kurosawa, 75, his last great epic. King Lear transposed to feudal Japan. Self-financed because Japanese studios wouldn't back him by then.
- — Ran | Official Trailer. · 00:01:04
- — Back to the Future. Robert Zemeckis. Highest-grossing film of 1985. Marty McFly is the rare time-traveller hero everyone actually likes. "Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads."
- — Back To The Future (1985) Theatrical Trailer - Michael J. Fox Movie HD. · 00:01:43
- — Aliens. James Cameron's sequel — turned Scott's claustrophobic horror into a war film. Sigourney Weaver became the first action heroine nominated for an Oscar. The rare sequel as good as the original.
- — Aliens (1986) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:01:56
- — Blue Velvet. David Lynch. Suburbia with severed ears in the lawn. Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth. Made Lynch the patron saint of weird American cinema.
- — BLUE VELVET (1986) | Official Trailer | MGM. · 00:01:48
- — Platoon. Oliver Stone's Vietnam film, based on his own combat tour. Won Best Picture. The Adagio for Strings sequence ended the genre's remaining moral ambiguity about the war.
- — PLATOON (1986) | Official Trailer | | MGM. · 00:01:52
- — Wings of Desire. Wim Wenders. Angels listening to Berliners' inner monologues over the divided city. Shot the year before the Wall came down. Inspiration for City of Angels and a thousand black-coats-in-melancholy films.
- — My Neighbor Totoro. Hayao Miyazaki. Studio Ghibli's breakthrough into the world's consciousness. The two sisters in 1950s rural Japan and their forest spirit. Permanently raised the bar for animated children's films.
- — Die Hard. John McTiernan. Bruce Willis in the Nakatomi Plaza. The template for every "trapped in a [confined space] with [terrorists]" film for the next 20 years.
- — Die Hard (1988) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:02:34
- — Akira. Katsuhiro Otomo. The film that broke anime in the West. Neo-Tokyo, biker gangs, psychic powers. Influenced everything from The Matrix to Stranger Things.
- — Akira (1988) Trailer. · 00:01:16
- — Do the Right Thing. Spike Lee's Brooklyn block-party-becomes-riot. Released the week Yusef Hawkins was murdered in Bensonhurst. Roger Ebert called it the most important film of the year; the Academy nominated Driving Miss Daisy instead.
- — Do the Right Thing Official Trailer #1 - Danny Aiello Movie (1989) HD. · 00:02:11
- — GoodFellas. Scorsese. Henry Hill's rise and fall in the Lucchese crime family. The Copacabana Steadicam shot. The pure narrative drive that defined gangster cinema for the next 30 years.
- — Goodfellas (1990) Official Trailer #1 - Martin Scorsese Movie. · 00:01:28
- — The Silence of the Lambs. Jonathan Demme. Hopkins as Lecter for 16 minutes total. Third film to sweep the Big Five Oscars. The only horror film to win Best Picture.
- — THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991) | Official Trailer | MGM. · 00:01:59
- — Terminator 2: Judgment Day. James Cameron. Most expensive film ever made at the time. The T-1000's liquid-metal morphing rewrote what CGI could do; Industrial Light & Magic's career as the leader of visual effects starts here.
- — Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:02:13
- — Reservoir Dogs. Quentin Tarantino's debut, $1.2M budget. Non-linear timeline, profanity-as-music, mid-heist diner conversation. Made him an instant figure and primed the world for Pulp Fiction.
- — Reservoir Dogs (1992) Official Trailer #1 - Quentin Tarantino Movie. · 00:02:04
- — Unforgiven. Clint Eastwood. The deconstructed Western — aging gunfighters with no glamour, only consequence. Won Best Picture; Eastwood's "It's a hell of a thing, killing a man" closed out the genre as a moral exercise.
- — Unforgiven (1992) Official Trailer - Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman Movie H. · 00:01:56
- — Jurassic Park. Spielberg. ILM's photoreal CGI dinosaurs ended the era of practical stop-motion. Highest-grossing film of all time until Titanic. Spawned an entire franchise and a thousand "we should clone X" pitches.
- — Jurassic Park Official Trailer #1 - Steven Spielberg Movie (1993) HD. · 00:01:16
- — Three Colors: Blue. Krzysztof Kieślowski. Juliette Binoche grieving a husband and child. The first in the Three Colors trilogy — Blue, White, Red. The defining European art-house films of the 1990s.
- — Three Colors: Blue (1993) - Trailer. · 00:01:54
- — Schindler's List. Spielberg in black-and-white. The girl in the red coat — only colour in the film. The first major Hollywood film to make the Holocaust unflinching mainstream subject matter.
- — Schindler's List 25th Anniversary - Official Trailer - In Theaters December 7. · 00:02:31
- — Pulp Fiction. Tarantino. Won the Palme d'Or, reset what an independent film could earn, brought Travolta back, made the diner-philosophy-monologue a cinema staple. The most influential film of the 1990s.
- — Pulp Fiction Official Trailer #1 - (1994) HD. · 00:03:06
- — Forrest Gump. Zemeckis. Tom Hanks Zelig-ing through 30 years of US history. Won Best Picture over Pulp Fiction and Shawshank — the platonic example of Academy taste vs critical canon.
- — Forrest Gump - Trailer. Stupid is as stupid does, says Forrest Gump (played by Tom Hanks in an Oscar-winning performance) as he discusses his relative level of intelligence with a stranger while waiting for a bus. Despite his sub-normal IQ, Gump leads a truly charmed life, with a ringside seat for many of the most memorable events of the second half of the 20th century. Entirely without trying, Forrest teaches Elvis Presley to dance, becomes a football star, meets John F. Kennedy, serves with honor in Vietnam, meets Lyndon Johnson,…
- — The Shawshank Redemption. Frank Darabont. Bombed at the box office; saved by VHS, cable, and word-of-mouth into the all-time #1 on IMDb. Proof that audiences eventually find the right films.
- — The Shawshank Redemption | Official Trailer | Warner Bros. Entertainment. · 00:01:40
- — Seven. David Fincher. "What's in the box?" Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey. Made Fincher a major director after Alien 3 nearly ended his career. The 1990s serial-killer template.
- — Se7en (1995) Official Trailer - Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman Movie HD. · 00:02:16
- — Toy Story. Pixar. First fully computer-animated feature film. Made $373M on a $30M budget; killed hand-drawn animation as a commercial form within ten years.
- — Toy Story (1995) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:01:28
- — Heat. Michael Mann. Pacino and De Niro on screen together — for one diner scene — for the first time. The downtown LA bank-robbery shootout. The high-water mark for the LA crime film.
- — Heat Trailer HD (1995). ) · 00:02:27
- — Lost Highway. David Lynch. Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Robert Blake. The Möbius-strip narrative that became Lynch's late-career template (Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire follow).
- — Lost Highway. Fred Madison, saxophoniste, soupçonne sa femme, Renee, de le tromper. Il la tue et est condamné à la peine capitale. Le film raconte l'histoire de cet assassinat du point de vue des différentes personnalités de l'assassin lui-même.
- — Titanic. James Cameron. First film to gross $1B. Won 11 Oscars (tied with Ben-Hur). Convinced studios to spend $200M on tentpole movies. "I'm king of the world."
- — Titanic | #TBT Trailer | 20th Century FOX. · 00:04:18
- — The Big Lebowski. Coen brothers. Jeff Bridges as The Dude. Modest reception; became one of the most-quoted cult films in history. Lebowski Fest is now an annual thing.
- — Official Trailer | The Big Lebowski | Screen Bites. · 00:02:34
- — Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg. The 27-minute Omaha Beach opening was so visceral it sent WWII veterans out of theaters. Defined every war film made after — from Band of Brothers to 1917.
- — Saving Private Ryan (1998) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:02:10
- — The Matrix. The Wachowskis. Bullet time. "There is no spoon." Sold a generation on simulation theory and cyberpunk aesthetics. The Wachowskis introduced action choreography (Yuen Woo-ping) to Hollywood.
- — The Matrix (1999) Official Trailer #1 - Sci-Fi Action Movie. · 00:02:20
- — All About My Mother. Pedro Almodóvar. The film that won him his first Oscar and consolidated his reputation as the great living filmmaker of women. Trans, mother, dead son, faith — all of his themes in one piece.
- — All About My Mother | Theatrical Trailer | 1999. · 00:01:35
- — Fight Club. David Fincher, from Palahniuk. Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. "The first rule of Fight Club..." Misread as a celebration of toxic masculinity by exactly the people it was satirising.
- — Fight Club (1999) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:02:28
- — Magnolia. Paul Thomas Anderson. Three-hour ensemble of Los Angeles damaged people. Ends with a rain of frogs. Established Anderson as the heir to Altman and Scorsese.
- — Magnolia (1999) Official Trailer #1 - Paul Thomas Anderson Movie. · 00:02:45
- — Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Ang Lee. First foreign-language film to gross $100M+ in the US. Yuen Woo-ping's wire-work choreography; the bamboo-forest duel. Brought wuxia to Western mass audiences.
- — Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:02:04
- — In the Mood for Love. Wong Kar-wai. Maggie Cheung's cheongsams, Tony Leung's cigarette smoke, Nat King Cole on the soundtrack. The most stylistically beautiful film of the 2000s.
- — Amélie. Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Audrey Tautou's breakthrough. Defined the candy-coloured, twee, Montmartre-romanticised Paris that flooded film and design for the next decade.
- — Amélie (2001) Official Trailer 1 - Audrey Tautou Movie. · 00:01:03
- — Mulholland Drive. David Lynch. Originally shot as an ABC pilot the network rejected; Lynch shot extra material and turned it into a feature. Sight & Sound's greatest film of the 21st century in the 2016 poll.
- — Mulholland Drive | Official Trailer | Starring Naomi Watts. · 00:01:24
- — Spirited Away. Hayao Miyazaki. First non-English-language animated feature to win the Oscar. Highest-grossing Japanese film ever. The bathhouse-of-the-gods imagery remains unsurpassed in animation.
- — Spirited Away - Official Trailer. · 00:02:27
- — The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Peter Jackson, shot the trilogy back-to-back in New Zealand. WETA Digital's motion-capture for Gollum. Made the franchise blockbuster respectable to critics.
- — The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Official Trailer #1 - (2001) HD. · 00:02:56
- — City of God. Fernandes Meirelles. Cast Rio favela non-actors. Burst of energy that put Latin American cinema back on the world map. Made gritty, kinetic poverty-cinema briefly fashionable.
- — City of God (2002) Official Trailer - Crime Drama HD. · 00:01:04
- — Oldboy. Park Chan-wook. The hammer fight shot in a single take. Won the Grand Prix at Cannes — Tarantino, on the jury, championed it. The film that broke Korean cinema globally.
- — OLDBOY - Official Trailer. After being kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen years, Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) is released, only to find that he must find his captor in five days.
- — Before Sunset. Richard Linklater. Sequel to Before Sunrise (1995). 80 minutes of Jesse and Céline walking through Paris. Realised in 2013 with Before Midnight as the definitive trilogy of romantic conversation in modern cinema.
- — Before Sunset (2004) Official Trailer #1 - Ethan Hawke Movie. · 00:02:46
- — Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Michel Gondry, script by Charlie Kaufman. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet erasing each other from their memories. The best original screenplay of the 2000s.
- — Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Official Trailer #1 - Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet Movie (2004) HD. · 00:01:24
- — Rules of the Game Trailer (Jean Renoir, 1939). ) · 00:01:34
- — No Country for Old Men. Coen brothers. Javier Bardem's coin-flip killer. Won Best Picture. Single-handedly restored the dread-Western to American cinema; ended with a monologue rather than a resolution.
- — No Country For Old Men (2007) Official Trailer - Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem Movie HD. · 00:02:31
- — There Will Be Blood. Paul Thomas Anderson. Daniel Day-Lewis as oilman Daniel Plainview. "I drink your milkshake." Often called the best American film of the 2000s.
- — There Will Be Blood (2007) Official Trailer - Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano Movie HD. · 00:02:12
- — WALL-E. Andrew Stanton. First 40 minutes nearly dialogue-free. Pixar at its peak; environmental allegory wrapped in romance between two robots. Won Best Animated Feature.
- — WALL-E (2008) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. · 00:02:22
- — The Dark Knight. Christopher Nolan. Heath Ledger's posthumous Oscar for the Joker. Killed the "comic-book-films-are-disposable" assumption; made superhero stories Oscar-eligible. Did $1B+ worldwide.
- — The Dark Knight (2008) Official Trailer #1 - Christopher Nolan Movie HD. · 00:02:30
- — Rashomon Trailer (Akira Kurosawa, 1950). ) · 00:01:49
- — Avatar. James Cameron. $237M budget; grossed $2.9B. Sold 3D to the world (briefly). Defined the era's peak-CGI immersive blockbuster. Held the all-time gross record for a decade.
- — Avatar | Official Trailer (HD) | 20th Century FOX. · 00:03:31
- — Nosferatu (1922) - Trailer. · 00:01:41
- — Inception. Christopher Nolan. Dreams-within-dreams heist film. Folding Paris, hallway zero-g fight, the spinning top. Made conceptual blockbusters viable.
- — Inception (2010) Official Trailer #1 - Christopher Nolan Movie HD. · 00:02:23
- — The Social Network. Fincher, Sorkin script. Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg. Made before anyone knew how much Facebook would matter. The opening Erica Albright dialogue is a masterclass.
- — THE SOCIAL NETWORK - Official Trailer [2010] (HD). ) · 00:02:30
- — Battleship Potemkin Trailer 2011 HD Official. · 00:01:33
- — The Tree of Life. Terrence Malick. 1950s Texas childhood + the cosmic origin of the universe. Booed and applauded at Cannes; won the Palme d'Or. The most divisive American film of the decade.
- — THE TREE OF LIFE Official HD Trailer. · 00:02:12
- — Amour. Michael Haneke. Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant as an elderly couple after her stroke. Won the Palme d'Or and Best Foreign Language Film. Devastating, unsentimental masterpiece on aging and love.
- — Amour (2012) - Official Trailer [HD]. ] · 00:02:00
- — 12 Years a Slave. Steve McQueen. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lupita Nyong'o. First film directed by a Black filmmaker to win Best Picture. McQueen's static camera doesn't look away from the violence of slavery.
- — 12 YEARS A SLAVE - Official Trailer (HD). ) · 00:02:30
- — The Grand Budapest Hotel. Wes Anderson. The film that codified Anderson's aesthetic into a household look (and a million Instagram filters). Ralph Fiennes as M. Gustave.
- — THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL - Official Wolrdwide Trailer HD. · 00:02:26
- — M (1931) - Fritz Lang (Trailer) | BFI release. · 00:02:05
- — My Neighbor Totoro - Official Trailer. · 00:00:53
- — La Dolce Vita Trailer - Starring Anita Ekberg Dir. Federico Fellini. · 00:01:26
- — Mad Max: Fury Road. George Miller, 70. Two hours of one chase. Charlize Theron's Furiosa is the actual hero. The best action film of the 2010s; mostly practical effects; a master class in how to direct kinetic cinema.
- — Mad Max: Fury Road - Official Main Trailer [HD]. ] · 00:02:32
- — Spotlight. Tom McCarthy. Boston Globe journalists investigate Catholic Church sexual-abuse cover-up. Won Best Picture. A throwback procedural in the spirit of All the President's Men.
- — Spotlight TRAILER 1 (2015) - Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton Movie HD. · 00:02:29
- — Tokyo Story - Official Trailer. · 00:01:22
- — Moonlight. Barry Jenkins. Three-act portrait of a Black gay man growing up in Liberty City, Miami. Won Best Picture in the most chaotic Oscar moment ever (after La La Land was wrongly announced).
- — Moonlight | Official Trailer HD | A24. · 00:01:56
- — Arrival. Denis Villeneuve, from Ted Chiang. Amy Adams as a linguist contacting heptapod aliens. The thinking-person's sci-fi film of the decade.
- — Arrival Trailer (2016) - Paramount Pictures. · 00:02:25
- — Get Out. Jordan Peele's directorial debut. Made for $4.5M, grossed $255M. Reinvented Black-American social horror as a commercial genre. Best Original Screenplay.
- — Get Out Official Trailer 1 (2017) - Daniel Kaluuya Movie. · 00:02:33
- — The Shape of Water. Guillermo del Toro. Won Best Picture. Sally Hawkins as a mute janitor in love with a fish-man. Mainstreamed monster-romance as Academy-respectable cinema.
- — THE SHAPE OF WATER | Official Trailer | FOX Searchlight. · 00:02:31
- — Lady Bird. Greta Gerwig's solo directorial debut. Saoirse Ronan in Sacramento. Helped open mainstream Hollywood to women-directed coming-of-age films.
- — Lady Bird | Official Trailer HD | A24. · 00:02:33
- — THE DEER HUNTER - Official Trailer - Starring Robert De Niro. · 00:01:02
- — Roma. Alfonso Cuarón. Mexico City 1970-71 in black-and-white 65mm. First Netflix film nominated for Best Picture — the streaming-vs-cinema fight crystallised here.
- — ROMA | Official Trailer | Netflix. · 00:02:15
- — Parasite. Bong Joon-ho. First non-English film to win Best Picture in 92 years of Oscars. Class warfare comedy-thriller; the basement scene. The Korean film industry's coronation moment.
- — Parasite - Official Trailer (2019) Bong Joon Ho Film. · 00:02:17
- — The Passion of Joan of Arc | Trailer HD. · 00:01:44
- — BREATHLESS - HE Trailer - Directed by Jean-Luc Godard. · 00:01:18
- — Nomadland. Chloé Zhao. Frances McDormand among the real-life van-dwelling itinerant workers of the American West. Won Best Picture in the COVID-virtual-ceremony year; Zhao the first woman of colour to win Best Director.
- — NOMADLAND | Official Trailer | Searchlight Pictures. · 00:02:06
- — Drive My Car. Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, from Murakami. Three-hour film about grief, theatre, and the long drive between work and home. Won Best International Feature; nominated for Best Picture.
- — Drive My Car - Official Trailer. · 00:02:01
- — THE GODFATHER | 50th Anniversary Trailer | Paramount Pictures. · 00:02:00
- — Everything Everywhere All at Once. Daniels (Kwan + Scheinert). Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan. Won 7 Oscars including Best Picture. The most successful indie maximalism film since the 2000s.
- — Everything Everywhere All At Once | Official Trailer HD | A24. · 00:02:42
- — WINGS OF DESIRE (4K RESTORATION) | Official UK trailer [HD] In Cinemas 24 JUNE. · 00:01:36
- — Tár. Todd Field. Cate Blanchett as a conductor cancelled at the height of her career. Field's third film in 21 years — and his masterpiece.
- — TÁR - Official Trailer [HD] - In Select Theaters October 7. · 00:02:46
- — Past Lives. Celine Song. Two childhood friends, Seoul and New York, 24 years apart. Quiet, restrained, devastating. Best Picture nominee on a tiny A24 budget.
- — Past Lives | Official Trailer HD | A24. · 00:02:25
- — LAST TANGO IN PARIS trailer NEW STAR στο STUDIO απο 20/4/23. · 00:02:27
- — The Zone of Interest. Jonathan Glazer. The Auschwitz commandant's family in their idyllic house next to the camp wall. The sound design — the camp always there, never seen — is the film. Best International Feature.
- — The Zone of Interest | Official Trailer HD | A24. · 00:01:01
- — Anatomy of a Fall. Justine Triet. Sandra Hüller's novelist on trial for the death of her husband. Won the Palme d'Or and Best Original Screenplay.
- — Anatomy of a Fall Trailer #1 (2023). ) · 00:02:18
- — Oppenheimer. Christopher Nolan. Won Best Picture and Best Director. Three hours of physicists arguing, with the Trinity test in the middle. Released the same day as Barbie — "Barbenheimer" briefly made cinemas relevant again.
- — Oppenheimer | New Trailer. · 00:03:07
- — The Exorcist | 4K Ultra HD Official Trailer | Warner Bros. Entertainment. · 00:01:43
- — An Andalusian Dog (Un Chien Andalou) (1929) | trailer. · 00:02:18
- — Amadeus | 4K Ultra HD Trailer | Warner Bros. Entertainment. · 00:02:06
- — 8 1/2 - 35mm Trailer. · 00:01:45
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