If you die before seeing these movies, it’s safe to say you’ve wasted your life.

By Adam Goetz

Pulp Fiction: Quentin Tarantino puts honest people into unlikely situations while playing around with chronology in this landmark film. The dialogue between the killers and thieves give them an undeniable human quality that disassociates them from their actions and inevitably creates audience sympathy.

The Cell: Tarsem Singh does an amazing job of creating a believable representation of a killer’s skewed perception of the world. The twisted cinematography, elaborate sets and warped costumes made this film both beautiful and disturbing.

Fight Club/Seven: David Fincher is simply one of the best directors out there. Both these movies carry a powerful social message that was illustrated with flawless precision on all levels. The extremely dark and unsettling images were used to challenge the classic Hollywood formula and solidify his esoteric disposition.

Moulin Rouge: Baz Luhrmann has a way of ambushing audiences with images and concurrent symbolic music that leaves a definite impression. His use of familiar contemporary music to develop his love story was a truly unique variation on the genre.

Cast Away: A combination of great direction and great acting make this movie a strangely entertaining experience despite its length and subject matter. When an actor like Tom Hanks can captivate his audience for over an hour with nothing more than a volleyball, you know he deserves every Oscar he gets.

Memento: This provocative and slightly confusing movie by Christopher Nolan is unmatched in its originality and style. The film forces us to explore the connectivity that we all use to recall memories by tracing the plot developments backwards in ten-minute increments.

Desparado: Robert Rodriguez perfected the choreography that accompanied every shootout scene in this movie and combined it with just enough suspense to keep you interested in the story.

Requiem For A Dream: This movie is truly a work of art. Darren Aronofsky uses a variety of filming and editing techniques to evoke a desperate and disconcerting reaction that culminates at a fever pitch in the final five minutes of the movie.

Tombstone: Simply the best western I have ever seen. It combined a perfect atmosphere and gritty characters into a plot that led to a historic climax.

Tommy Boy: I love this movie. It is a great “feel good” comedy that showcases some of the best slapstick humour and a perfect one-two punch with David Spade and Chris Farley. You can’t recreate the chemistry these guys had together (although they did try) and the textbook delivery of every punchline still makes me laugh after countless viewings.

American Beauty: This is the best character driven movie I have ever seen. The acting performances were amazing and the story itself explored a range of suburban disorders with an intriguing dark comedy approach.

Clerks: One of the best debut films ever. Director Kevin Smith used nothing more than intelligent conversation that centers around two store clerks who manage to contort any issue into something extremely complex. It was also the birth of the comedic Jay and Silent Bob mascots that have been celebrated in all of his movies.

Run Lola Run: An interesting German film that challenges ideas of fate and destiny in a very formalistic manner. The same time frame is played out with different obstacles and outcomes for each scenario, while still maintaining a certain level of continuity between them just to get the viewer thinking.

Trainspotting: A combination of characters, style and subject matter make this another disturbing film with a message. The morbid sense of humour and the distinct characters in this movie really set it apart from all the Hollywood trash.

Amelie: Possibly one of the greatest love stories ever written. Actress Audrey Tautou falls through a string of strange events in which she follows the love of her life, a boy who works in a porn shop, and then pieces together ripped up pictures from a train station photo booth. It’s the nuances that make this movie.