The Wind Rises. I love everything about it. Beautiful soundtrack, fun sound design, and a fascinating treatment of various topics from the ethics of engineering to the miracle of flight. The end scene completely wrecks me every time.

The Downfall is one of the best movies about being on the losing side of a war. It’s impressively accurate, and the acting is outstanding.

When I don’t know who I’m watching the movie with, I recommend Snatch or Amélie.

Pretty much in this order

  The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
  Pride and Prejudice (2005)
  Second hand lions (2003)
  Hidden Figures (2016)
  Angel-A (2005)
  Warrior (2011)
  Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
  Spy Game (2001)
  Drive (2011)
  V for Vendetta (2005)
  Lost in Translation (2003)
  Into the Wild (2007)
  The Big Lebowski (1998)

2001: a Space Odyssey. I saw it in the theater in 70mm when it was released in 1968. It totally blew me away. A majestic vision of the future. Thirty three years from now (1968) there was going to be all this marvelous stuff: Pan Am space craft going to a huge rotating space station to a round globe ship to a moon with several lunar bases. And a talking intelligent computer! Cool space suits! Video telephones!

Remember, this was before the first moon landing in 1969. There were Apollo flights happening, like Apollo 8 that orbited the moon in December 1968. There was a strong commitment to advancing space flight.

In 1968, the movie presented things that could actually happen, by the year 2001. Much more like a bunch of product announcements rather than science fiction (long ago in a galaxy far, far away).

Well adding to the above list of what could be considered stand out movies, these below are some I really enjoyed / admired -- in no particular order.

Dark City

Ice Planet (2001)

The Green Mile

Mortadelo & Filemon: The Big Adventure

Flodder 3

Gettin' Square

Midnight Run

The Accountant

Slipstream (2005)

To Kill a Mockingbird

North by Northwest

In the Heat of the Night

What the Deaf Man Heard

The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn

Short film - Forklift Driver Klaus – The First Day on the Job

Children of Men (2006)

The mysterious story draws you in, and the epic takes make you forget that nothing makes sense.

I can't decide either so here are some top ones: Drama: The Social Network/The Big Short, Sci-fi: Dune I/II, History: Downfall, Comedy: Yesterday, Fantasy: Lord of the Rings trilogy, Action: Inception

One of the 1st adult films I enjoyed: One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. Beautiful pacing, acting, multi-layered.

The Conversation is well worth watching for someone interested in surveillance and paranoia.

Not movie, but Mr Robot is the gold standard when it comes to film making. It is by far the best piece of produced that humanity has ever done.

Love Exposure made me the man I am today.

Looking at the comments here, you can just randomly pick any 8+ rated movies on IMDB.

Top 5 Classics

V for Vendetta, Fight Club,Phonebooth, Idiocracy, Holy Motors

Newer Stuff I liked recently

Fresh, Blink Twice

Both have real Psycho vibes, with a bit of a twist.

Tokyo Story (1953)

Nemā-ye nazdīk [Close-up] (1990)

Cloud Atlas (2012)

Kimi no Na wa. (2016)

Breaking Away was pretty infuential. "Best", as I am sure is hard to define.

Some movies in various genres that I like:

* Everything Everywhere All At Once

* The Matrix

* Fight Club

* Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

* Pulp Fiction

* Shutter Island

* Inception

It's hard to pick one "best" movie.

Can't pin it down to one, so here are some of them:

* Solaris

* Tokyo Story

* Rashomon

* Apocalypse Now

* Doctor Strangelove

* Band of Outsiders

* Grand Illusion

* Metropolis

* Repo Man

over the past few years: Dune Part I/II. I love the story telling, the visuals, the character building, the intensity etc.

* Network (1976)

* Groundhog Day (1993)

* A Man for All Seasons (1966)

* Apocalypto (2006)

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

The Prestige

In no particular order:

12 Angry Men

Princess Bride

Shawshank Redemption

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

My Cousin Vinnie

Gataca, Fifth element, Memento

The Silence, Bergman.

Casablanca

Brazil

The Princess Bride

Most of shwarzenegger starred films.

Most of Zemekis works.

Early Cameron works.

Some Tim Burton’s works.

Leon

Etc. etc.