As soon as the textbooks close at the end of a long school year, my education does not necessarily end, for I spend a good portion of my summer educating myself in the art and history of film. A couple years ago I started to make lists of every movie I watched. One summer I made it to 150, another to about 200. This year was substantially less in my opinion. Some of you will be like, “That’s more movies than I watch in a year!” Well, that’s how I spent my summer, while also waking up at 6 am every day to go to work at good ol’ Walmart. Had I not worked full-time, the number I watched would have increased significantly. Anyway, I went through various phases over this summer. Over a couple weeks I finally was able to dive into my Alfred Hitchcock Collection Another week I watched all the best works of Mel Brooks

Yet there was one week in particular that I really enjoyed, and that is thanks to the Criterion Collection sale at Barnes and Nobles.

Over the course of 5 days, I watched 16 movies. First I ventured into the dark and symbolic works of Ingmar Bergman, with movies such as Summer with Monika, Summer Interlude, The Magician, Wild Strawberry’s and Smiles of a Summer Night. I had previous experience with Bergman, anxiously waiting for months to see The Seventh Seal, which is one of very few movies that I anticipated so much to see. I encourage anybody who likes foreign films or films that make you question bigger things to check out some of his beautiful films.

I then returned to Akira Kurosawa. I had watched Seven Samurai once before on a cold and cloudy summer day several years prior, and was absolutely bored out of my mind. But now I sat down, got a couple sodas, and watched the 3.5 hour epic, and I found it to be the masterpiece it is known to be. I then watched Rashomon, his first famous work, and was blown away too, even though I had already seen it before. Finally I watched Ran, one of his color masterpieces, and a re-imagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear. It has beautiful cinematography and sweeping landscapes. I highly recommend it.

The next day I ventured into some more foreign films, the first was Solaris, which is considered Russia’s answer to 2001: A Space Odyssey. I also watched Fellini’s Amarcord, full of bizarre and lovable residents in an Italian town before World War 2. That day I capped off with the Following, Christopher Nolan’s first film. It is black and white, and only 70 minutes, so if anybody wants to see one of the best directors of our time’s first works, it is well worth it.

On the final day of this little marathon, I watched Martin Scorsese’s controversial The Last Temptation of Christ, which features an incredible performance by Willem Dafoe. If you are atheist like I am, you will not find anything controversial about this film, if you are anything else, you might want to steer clear. Next up was David Fincher’s The Game, starring Michael Douglas and Sean Penn, which in my opinion does not stand up to Fight Club or The Social Network, but it is good nonetheless. Finally I watched the weird and original Being John Malkovich. Watching it makes me even more excited for Spike Jonze’s Her. Anyways, here is the full list of all I watched. Enjoy.

1. Man of Steel

2. Once Upon A Time In The West

3. Sunset Boulevard

4. Lives of Others

5. Now You See Me

6. Monster’s University

7. This is the End

8. Avatar

9. Sherlock Holmes 2

10. Barry Lyndon

11. City of God

12. Silver Linings Playbook

13. West Side Story

14. Funny People

15. Run Fatboy Run

16. The Proposition

17. National Treasure

18. National Treasure 2.

19. Coyote Ugly

20. 500 Days of Summer

21. Despicable Me 2

22. Blazing Saddles

23. Pirates of the Caribbean

24. Pirates of the Caribbean 2

25. Pirates of the Caribbean 3

26. Back to the Future

27. Back to the Future 2

28. Back to the Future 3

29. The Way Way Back

30. Twelve Chairs

31. World War Z

32. Young Frankenstein

33. Silent Movie

34. Jerry Maguire

35. High Anxiety

36. History of the World Pt. 1

37. Avengers

38. Space balls

39. To Be or Not to Be

40. Robin Hood Men in Tights

41. Saboteur

42. Rope

43. Pacific Rim

44. Shadow of a Doubt

45. Rear Window

46. The Man Who Knew Too Much

47. Vertigo

48. Elysium

49. Wreck It Ralph

50. North by Northwest

51. The Birds

52. Torn Curtain

53. Topaz

54. Kick Ass 2

55. Family Plot

56. Frenzy

57. Crazy Stupid Love

58. Safety Not Guaranteed

59. Summer Interlude

60. Summer with Monika

61. Smiles of a Summer Night

62. The Seventh Seal

63. Wild Strawberries

64. The Magician

65. The Spectacular Now

66. Rashomon

67. Seven Samurai

68. Ran

69. Solaris

70. Amarcord

71. The Following

72. Last Temptation of Christ

73. The Game

74. Being John Malkovich

75. Hunger

76. Oz the Great and Powerful

77. Midnight in Paris

78. To the Wonder

79. Thin Red Line

80. Marnie

81. Ted

82. The World’s End

83. Trouble with the Curve

84. Walkabout

85. A River Runs Through it

86. Star Trek Into Darkness

87. Once Upon a Time in America

88. Trance

89. Samsara

90. The Intouchables

91. Bergman Island

92. Man on the Moon

93. Premium Rush

94. Blue Jasmine

95. Harold and Kumar

96. American Psycho

I do apologize to those who wanted a quick way to access these on IMDB, like I normally would do, but unfortunately I do not have the time or patience to hyperlink each and every one.