Olivier Assayas

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Che, the one movie ever made that seriously deals with military strategy, helped me imagine Carlos on a scale that otherwise would have intimidated me.

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Army of Shadows is not only one of the most important French films, it is also a national treasure.

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But La dolce vita is an amazing film, summing up an era, a culture, a city; in its own way it is of historical importance.

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I had to fit Topsy-Turvy into this list. It is also a period piece. This misunderstood, underrated biography of Gilbert and Sullivan must be one of the most touching, funniest—and cruelest—depictions of show business, split between art and commerce.

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The television cut of Fanny and Alexander, of course, which is the one and only version Bergman approved of. It is called the television version because that’s how it was financed, but this is meant to be seen on a big screen with one intermission. It is Bergman’s final masterpiece.

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Désiré is a remarkable film.

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In Thief, his first feature, you have echoes of Melville (it goes full circle), a sharp eye for realism, but also profound human characters with precisely drawn relationships, and great acting.

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Jules Dassin’s previous film, made in London five years earlier, Night and the City, is his masterpiece.

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Rififi is a strange animal, based on a novel by a typically French crime writer, Auguste Le Breton, and shot in Paris as the first foreign-language film by a great American filmmaker at the height of his powers, whose career had been broken by McCarthyism. Jules Dassin’s previous film, made in London five years earlier, Night and the City, is his masterpiece. This inspired hybrid of French and American noir—which I discovered as a child on French TV—has constantly impressed me with its violence, its despair, its darkness, and its beauty.