Try as it might, Netflix's 'Recommended For You' function just doesn't cut the mustard. After all, there are only so many times it can suggest Bratz: The Movie before you start to feel hopelessly misunderstood.
What you need, our indecisive friend, is some prime movie picks from the greatest directors of all-time, including Marty Scorsese, Woody Allen and Quentin Tarantino.
If they can't lead you down the right path, no one can…
Stanley Kubrick
I Vitelloni (Fellini, 1953)
Wild Strawberries (Bergman, 1957)
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Huston, 1948)
City Lights (Chaplin, 1931)
Henry V (Olivier, 1944)
La notte (Antonioni, 1961)
The Bank Dick (Fields, 1940)
Roxie Hart (Wellman, 1942)
Hell's Angels (Hughes, 1930)
Woody Allen
The 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959)
8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)
Amarcord (Fellini, 1972)
The Bicycle Thieves (de Sica, 1948)
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Bunuel, 1972)
Grand Illusion (Renoir, 1937)
Paths of Glory (Kubrick, 1957)
Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950)
The Seventh Seal (Bergman, 1957)
Francis Ford Coppola
The Apartment (Wilder, 1960)
Ashes and Diamonds (Wajda, 1958)
The Bad Sleep Well (Kurosawa, 1960)
The Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler, 1946)
I Vitelloni (Fellini, 1953)
The King of Comedy (Scorsese, 1983)
Raging Bull (Scorsese, 1980)
Singin' in the Rain (Donen/Kelley, 19510)
Sunrise (Murnau, 1927)
Yojimbo (Kurosawa, 1961)
Quentin Tarantino
Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
The Bad News Bears (Ritchie, 1976)
Carrie (de Palma, 1976)
Dazed and Confused (Linklater, 1993)
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (Leone, 1966)
The Great Escape (Sturges, 1963)
His Girl Friday (Hawkes, 1939)
Jaws (Spielberg, 1975)
Pretty Maids All in a Row (Vadim, 1971)
Rolling Thunder (Flynn, 1977)
Sorcerer (Friedkin, 1977)
Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976)
Edgar Wright
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
An American Werewolf in London (Landis, 1981)
Carrie (de Palma, 1976)
Dames (Enright/Berkeley, 1934)
Don't Look Now (Roeg, 1973)
Duck Soup (McCarey, 1933)
Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)
Raising Arizona (Coen, 1987)
Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976)
The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969)
Guillermo del Toro
8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)
La Belle et la Bete (Cocteau, 1946)
Frankenstein (Whale, 1931)
Freaks (Browning, 1932)
Goodfellas (Scorsese, 1990)
Greed (von Stroheim, 1925)
Los Olvidados (Bunuel, 1950)
Modern Times (Chaplin, 1936)
Nosferatu (Murnau, 1922)
Shadow of a Doubt (Hitchcock, 1943)
Christopher Nolan
The Hit (Frears, 1984)
Twelve Angry Men (Lumet, 1957)
The Thin Red Line (Malick, 1998)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Lang, 1933)
Bad Timing (Roeg, 1980)
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (Oshima, 1983)
For All Mankind (Reinert, 1989)
Koyaanisqatsi (Reggio, 1983)
Mr. Arkadin (Welles, 1955)
Greed (von Stroheim, 1925)
Martin Scorsese
001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)
Ashes and Diamonds (Wadja, 1958)
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
The Leopard (Visconti, 1963)
Paisa (Rossellini, 1946)
The Red Shoes (Powell/Pressburger, 1948)
The River (Renoir, 1951)
Salvatore Giuliano (Rosi, 1962)
The Searchers (Ford, 1956)
Ugetsu Monogatari (Kenji, 1953)
Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
Steve McQueen
The Battle of Algiers (1966, Gillo Pontecorvo)
Zero de Conduite (1933, Jean Vigo)
La Regle du Jeu (1939, Jean Renoir)
Tokyo Story (1953, Yasujiro Ozu)
Couch (1964, Andy Warhol)
Le Mepris (1963, Jean-Luc Godard)
Beau Travail (1998, Claire Denis)
Once Upon a Time in America (1984, Sergio Leone)
The Wages of Fear (1953, Henri-Georges Clouzot)
Do the Right Thing (1989, Spike Lee)
This story originally appeared on Esquire.co.uk.
* Minor edits have been made by the Esquiremag.ph editors.
