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.
37 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.
- 1Blowup1966 · Michelangelo Antonioni4.41
Palme d'Or winner 1967 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1967 #2 · BFI Top 100 British films #60
- 2Tokyo Story1953 · Yasujirō Ozu4.01
Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #4 · Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #4 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (Japanese) 1953 #2
- 3Bicycle Thieves1948 · Vittorio De Sica3.96
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1950 #1 · Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #20 · BAFTA Best Film nominee 1950
- 4Seven Samurai1954 · Akira Kurosawa3.05
Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #14 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #20 · Letterboxd Top 250 #5
- 5La Grande Illusion1937 · Jean Renoir2.86
Oscar Best Picture nominee 1938 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1949 #2 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #146
- 6Breathless1960 · Jean-Luc Godard2.85
Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #14 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #38 · Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1960 #3
- 7The 400 Blows1959 · François Truffaut2.80
Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #33 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #50 · Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1959 #5
- 8Ikiru1952 · Akira Kurosawa2.78
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (Japanese) 1952 #1 · Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #72 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #157
- 9Ugetsu1953 · Kenji Mizoguchi2.68
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1959 #1 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (Japanese) 1953 #3 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #90
- 10L'Avventura1960 · Michelangelo Antonioni2.64
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1960 #2 · Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #38 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #72
- 11Sansho the Bailiff1954 · Kenji Mizoguchi2.57
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1960 #1 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #75 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (Japanese) 1954 #9
- 12The Rules of the Game1939 · Jean Renoir1.88
Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #13 · Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #38 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 13The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser1974 · Werner Herzog1.86
Cannes Grand Prix winner 1975 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films · Roger Ebert's Great Movies
- 14Paisà1946 · Roberto Rossellini1.78
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1949 #1 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #196 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 15Metropolis1927 · Fritz Lang1.69
Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #67 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1929 #4 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 16Children of Paradise1945 · Marcel Carné1.65
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1952 #3 · Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #136 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 17Ali: Fear Eats the Soul1974 · Rainer Werner Fassbinder1.57
Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #52 · Sight & Sound 2022 directors' poll #52 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 18High and Low1963 · Akira Kurosawa1.55
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (Japanese) 1963 #2 · Letterboxd Top 250 #6 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 19Bande à part1964 · Jean-Luc Godard1.39
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1964 #1 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films · Criterion Collection spine #174
- 20Weekend1967 · Jean-Luc Godard1.32
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1967 #3 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1969 #4 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 21Shoot the Piano Player1960 · François Truffaut1.12
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1960 #4 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1963 #9 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 22Aguirre, the Wrath of God1972 · Werner Herzog1.10
Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #118 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1983 #9 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 23Umberto D.1952 · Vittorio De Sica1.05
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1962 #7 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films · Letterboxd Top 250 #217
- 24Rome, Open City1945 · Roberto Rossellini1.04
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1950 #4 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films · Vatican film list
- 25Rocco and His Brothers1960 · Luchino Visconti1.00
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1961 #4 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films · Letterboxd Top 250 #129
- 26Nosferatu1922 · F. W. Murnau0.97
Sight & Sound 2022 critics' poll #196 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films · Vatican film list
- 27Death by Hanging1968 · Nagisa Ōshima0.89
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (Japanese) 1968 #3 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films · Criterion Collection spine #798
- 28The Marriage of Maria Braun1979 · Rainer Werner Fassbinder0.88
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1980 #6 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films · Criterion Collection spine #204
- 29Before the Revolution1964 · Bernardo Bertolucci0.86
Cahiers du Cinéma annual top 10 1968 #2 · Scorsese's 39 essential foreign films
- 30Napoléon1927 · Abel Gance0.83
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.