Martin Scorsese's 39 Essential Foreign Films, Ranked
The homework list Scorsese handed a young filmmaker who asked what to watch: 39 world-cinema essentials. Ranked here by our composite canon score, with every film's other list and award appearances cited.
39 films from this list are in our library; the top 30 by composite score are shown — the ranking is ours, not the list's own order.
- 1Tokyo Story1953 · Yasujirō Ozu · Japan · drama4.91
Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #4 · Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #4 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (Japanese) 1953 #2
- 2Bicycle Thieves1948 · Vittorio De Sica · Italy · drama4.78
BAFTA Best Film winner 1950 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1950 #1 · Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #20
- 3The 400 Blows1959 · François Truffaut · France · drama, crime4.04
Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #33 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #50 · Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1959 #5
- 4Breathless1960 · Jean-Luc Godard · France · drama, crime3.95
Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #14 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #38 · Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1960 #3
- 5Blowup1966 · Michelangelo Antonioni · United Kingdom / Italy · mystery, thriller, drama3.93
Palme d'Or winner 1967 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1967 #2 · Sarris's annual top 10 1966 #1
- 6Ikiru1952 · Akira Kurosawa · Japan · drama3.78
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (Japanese) 1952 #1 · Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #72 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #157
- 7Seven Samurai1954 · Akira Kurosawa · Japan · drama, action, adventure3.60
Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #14 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #20 · Letterboxd Top 250 #5
- 8L'Avventura1960 · Michelangelo Antonioni · France / Italy · drama3.35
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1960 #2 · Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #38 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #72
- 9Ugetsu1953 · Kenji Mizoguchi · Japan · fantasy, drama3.22
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1959 #1 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (Japanese) 1953 #3 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #90
- 10Sansho the Bailiff1954 · Kenji Mizoguchi · Japan · drama3.00
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1960 #1 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #75 · Sarris's annual top 10 1969 #2
- 11Rome, Open City1945 · Roberto Rossellini · Kingdom of Italy · drama2.82
Palme d'Or winner 1946 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1950 #4 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 12La Grande Illusion1937 · Jean Renoir · France · drama2.53
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1949 #2 · Oscar Best Picture nominee 1938 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #146
- 13The Rules of the Game1939 · Jean Renoir · France · drama, romance2.38
Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #13 · Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #38 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 14Children of Paradise1945 · Marcel Carné · France · romance, drama2.19
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1952 #3 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #136 · TIME All-TIME 100
- 15Metropolis1927 · Fritz Lang · Weimar Republic · silent, drama, sci-fi2.18
Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #67 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1929 #4 · TIME All-TIME 100
- 16Ali: Fear Eats the Soul1974 · Rainer Werner Fassbinder · Germany · drama, romance2.17
Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #52 · Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #52 · Kehr's annual top 10 1974 #2
- 17Paisà1946 · Roberto Rossellini · Italy · drama, war2.17
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1949 #1 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #196 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 18Bande à part1964 · Jean-Luc Godard · France · crime, romance, drama2.05
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1964 #1 · TIME All-TIME 100 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 19High and Low1963 · Akira Kurosawa · Japan · drama, film-noir, crime2.01
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (Japanese) 1963 #2 · Letterboxd Top 250 #6 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 20Weekend1967 · Jean-Luc Godard · France / Italy · comedy, drama1.96
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1967 #3 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1969 #4 · Ebert's annual top 10 1969 #3
- 21Aguirre, the Wrath of God1972 · Werner Herzog · Germany / Mexico / Peru · drama, adventure1.92
Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #118 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1983 #9 · TIME All-TIME 100
- 22Shoot the Piano Player1960 · François Truffaut · France · film-noir, drama, crime1.70
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1960 #4 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1963 #9 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 23Umberto D.1952 · Vittorio De Sica · Italy · drama1.70
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1962 #7 · TIME All-TIME 100 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 24The Marriage of Maria Braun1979 · Rainer Werner Fassbinder · Germany · drama1.69
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1980 #6 · Sarris's annual top 10 1979 #3 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 25Rocco and His Brothers1960 · Luchino Visconti · France / Italy · drama, crime1.47
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1961 #4 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films · Letterboxd Top 250 #129
- 26Beauty and the Beast1946 · Jean Cocteau, René Clément · France · fantasy, drama1.45
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1948 #6 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films · Empire 500 (2008) #292
- 27The Butcher1970 · Claude Chabrol · France / Italy · thriller, drama1.35
Ebert's annual top 10 1972 #3 · Siskel's annual top 10 1972 #3 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 28The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser1974 · Werner Herzog · Germany · biography, drama1.28
Cannes Grand Prix winner 1975 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films · Empire 500 (2008) #428
- 29Nosferatu1922 · F. W. Murnau · Germany · silent, horror, drama1.20
Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #196 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films · Vatican film list
- 30Napoléon1927 · Abel Gance · France / Germany / Italy · biography, drama, silent1.01
Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #225 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films · Vatican film list
The homework list
In 2013 a young filmmaker named Colin Levy got a mentoring session with Martin Scorsese and asked, more or less, "what should I watch?" Scorsese's answer arrived as a handwritten list: 39 foreign-language essentials, from The 400 Blows to Ugetsu — later transcribed and circulated widely online. It's the most practical document in the Scorsese film-evangelism canon, the same instinct that produced his World Cinema Project (which restores and re-circulates endangered films) and his four-hour documentaries on American and Italian movies: the conviction that filmmakers are made by what they've seen, and that most people haven't seen enough.
As a syllabus it has a clear center of gravity — postwar Italy and the French New Wave, the cinemas that made Scorsese — with deliberate reach into Japan, India and Eastern Europe. We show it ranked by our composite canon score rather than in list order, with each film's full list-and-award record cited, so you can see which of Scorsese's assignments the whole canon endorses and which are personal dares. If you want a place to start, start at the top; if you want to know Scorsese, look at the bottom.