Classic Film and Television Home Page
This list contains outstanding American feature length films, each one by a different director (with a few exceptions). The films are arranged chronologically.
I tried to make sure the list was full of comedies, musicals, thrillers and science fiction films, unlike many such lists.
Tillie's Punctured Romance (Mack Sennett, 1914)
The Hypocrites (Lois Weber, 1915)
Alias Jimmy Valentine (Maurice Tourneur, 1915)
Intolerance (D.W. Griffith, 1916)
Tom Sawyer (William Desmond Taylor, 1917)
Daddy-Long-Legs (Marshall Neilan, 1919)
The Mark of Zorro (Fred Niblo, 1920)
Within Our Gates (Oscar Michaux, 1920)
Outside the Law (Tod Browning, 1921)
Camille (Ray C. Smallwood, 1921)
The Ace of Hearts (Wallace Worsley, 1921)
Miss Lulu Bett (William de Mille, 1921)
Robin Hood (Alan Dwan, 1922)
The Toll of the Sea (Chester M. Franklin, 1922)
Beyond the Rocks (Sam Wood, 1922)
The Young Rajah (Phil Rosen, 1922)
The Covered Wagon (James Cruze, 1923)
Beau Brummel (Harry Beaumont, 1923)
Scaramouche (Rex Ingram, 1923)
Souls for Sale (Rupert Hughes, 1923)
Our Hospitality (Buster Keaton, Jack Blystone, 1923)
Sherlock, Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924)
Girl Shy (Fred Newmeyer, Sam Taylor, 1924)
Greed (Erich von Stroheim, 1924)
The Gold Rush (Charlie Chaplin, 1925)
The Big Parade (King Vidor, 1925)
Tumbleweeds (King Baggott, 1925)
The Rag Man (Edward F. Cline, 1925)
Hands Up! (Clarence Badger, 1926)
The Bat (Roland West, 1926)
Sunrise (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1927)
West Point (Eddie Sedgwick, 1928)
The Kiss (Jacques Feyder, 1929)
Thunderbolt (Josef von Sternberg, 1929)
Shooting Straight (George Archainbaud, 1930)
Union Depot (Alfred E. Green, 1931)
Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg, 1932)
Horse Feathers (Norman Z. MacLeod, 1932)
Lady Killer (Roy Del Ruth, 1933)
The Black Cat (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1934)
Cleopatra (Cecil B. De Mille, 1934)
One Night of Love (Victor Schertzinger, 1934)
We Live Again (Rouben Mamoulian, 1934)
The Mystery of Mr. X (Edgar Selwyn, 1934)
Phantom Empire (Otto Brower, B. Reeves Eason, 1935)
Fury (Fritz Lang, 1936)
Swingtime (George Stevens, 1936)
Double Wedding (Richard Thorpe, 1937)
The Great Garrick (James Whale, 1937)
History is Made at Night (Frank Borzage, 1937)
Parnell (John M. Stahl, 1937)
The Man Who Found Himself (Lew Landers, 1937)
The Patient in Room 18 (Bobby Connolly, Crane Wilbur, 1938)
California Frontier (Elmer Clifton, 1938)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra, 1939)
The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)
The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940)
His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940)
Fantasia (Ben Sharpsteen, 1940)
Seven Sinners (Tay Garnett, 1940)
Swamp Water (Jean Renoir, 1941)
I Wake Up Screaming (H. Bruce Humberstone, 1941)
Sullivan's Travels (Preston Sturges, 1942)
True To Life (George Marshall, 1942)
Now, Voyager (Irving Rapper, 1942)
I Married a Witch (René Clair, 1942)
It Started With Eve (Henry Koster, 1943)
Ministry of Fear (Fritz Lang, 1943)
The Gang's All Here (Busby Berkley, 1943)
Going My Way (Leo McCarey, 1944)
Mr. Skeffington (Vincent Sherman, 1944)
Golden Earrings (Mitchell Leisen, 1947)
The Exile (Max Ophuls, 1947)
Magick Lantern Cycle (Kenneth Anger, 1947-1969)
Letter From an Unknown Woman (Max Ophuls, 1948)
He Walked By Night (Anthony Mann, 1948)
The Street With No Name (William Keighley, 1948)
White Heat (Raoul Walsh, 1949)
Intruder in the Dust (Clarence Brown, 1949)
Criss Cross (Robert Siodmak, 1949)
The Lawless (Joseph Losey, 1950)
Stars in My Crown (Jacques Tourneur, 1950)
Panic in the Streets (Elia Kazan, 1950)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951)
Pat and Mike (George Cukor, 1952)
Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, 1952)
On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, 1952)
Julius Caesar (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1953)
Crime Wave (André De Toth, 1953)
Private Hell 36 (Don Siegel, 1954)
The Big Combo (Joseph H. Lewis, 1955)
The Phenix City Story (Phil Karlson, 1955)
Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955)
This Island Earth (Joseph M. Newman, 1955)
Seven Men From Now (Budd Boetticher, 1956)
Giant (George Stevens, 1956)
Forbidden Planet (Fred Wilcox, 1956)
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter (Frank Tashlin, 1957)
The Incredible Shrinking Man (Jack Arnold, 1957)
A Time to Love and a Time to Die (Douglas Sirk, 1958)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)
Merry Andrew (Michael Kidd, 1958)
Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1959)
Dog Star Man (Stan Brakhage, 1959-1963)
Night Tide (Curtis Harrington, 1960)
The Flower Thief (Ron Rice, 1960)
Sergeant Rutledge (John Ford, 1960)
The Dick Van Dyke Show (Carl Reiner, 1960)
Homicidal (William Castle, 1961)
The Pit and the Pendulum (Roger Corman, 1961)
Lilies of the Field (Ralph Nelson, 1963)
Flaming Creatures (Jack Smith, 1963)
Shock Corridor (Samuel Fuller 1963)
The Outer Limits: The Forms of Things Unknown (Gerd Oswald, 1964)
Bunny Lake is Missing (Otto Preminger, 1965)
The Trouble With Angels (Ida Lupino, 1965)
What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (Blake Edwards, 1966)
Fahrenheit 451 (François Truffaut, 1966)
Doctor, You've Got to be Kidding (Peter Tewksbury, 1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967)
Annie Get Your Gun (Clark Jones, Jack Sydow, 1967)
Star Trek (Joseph Pevney, 1966-1968) (Pevney did 14 of the best episodes)
Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)
Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Tarzan: The Four O'Clock Army (Alex Nichol, 1968)
The Immortal Story (Orson Welles, 1968)
Run a Crooked Mile (Gene Levitt, 1969)
The Andersonville Trial (George C. Scott, 1970)
Incident in San Francisco (Don Medford, 1970)
Zabriskie Point (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1970)
WR: Mysteries of the Organism (Dusan Makavejev, 1971)
Two Lane Blacktop (Monte Hellman, 1971)
Support Your Local Gunfighter (Burt Kennedy, 1971)
Avanti! (Billy Wilder, 1972)
Junior Bonner (Sam Peckinpah, 1972)
A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavetes, 1974)
The Questor Tapes (Richard A. Colla, 1974)
The Nickel Ride (Robert Mulligan, 1975)
Three Women (Robert Altman, 1977)
Providence (Alain Resnais, 1977)
Ishi: The Last of His Tribe (Robert Ellis Miller, 1978)
Melvin and Howard (Jonathan Demme, 1980)
Grease 2 (Patricia Birch, 1982)
The Year of Living Dangerously (Peter Weir, 1982)
Tron (Steve Lisberger, 1982)
Don't Cry, Its Only Thunder (Peter Werner, 1982)
My Favorite Year (Richard Benjamin, 1982)
Tex (Tim Hunter, 1982)
Valley Girl (Martha Coolidge, 1983)
Eddie and the Cruisers (Martin Davidson, 1983)
Zelig (Woody Allen, 1983)
Places in the Heart (Robert Benton, 1984)
Streets of Fire (Walter Hill, 1984)
Romancing the Stone (Robert Zemeckis, 1984)
Dreamscape (Joseph Ruben, 1984)
Mask (Peter Bogdanovich, 1985)
Tuff Turf (Fritz Kiersch, 1985)
Misfits of Science (James D. Parriott, 1985)
Maurice (James Ivory, 1986)
Parting Glances (Bill Sherwood, 1986)
Off Beat (Michael Dinner, 1986)
Good Morning, Babylon (Taviani Brothers, 1987)
Student Exchange (Mollie Miller, 1987)
Back to the Beach (Lyndall Hobbs, 1987)
La Bamba (Luis Valdez, 1987)
Mannequin (Michael Gotlieb, 1987)
Hairspray (John Waters, 1988)
Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988)
Field of Dreams (Phil Alden Robinson, 1989)
Dances With Wolves (Kevin Costner, 1990)
Ghost (Jerry Zucker, 1990)
Peacemaker (Kevin S. Tenney, 1990)
Don't Tell Her It's Me (Malcolm Mowbray, 1990)
Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, 1991)
The Rocketeer (Joe Johnston, 1991)
True Identity (Charles Lane, 1991)
Beauty and the Beast (Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise, 1991)
Salmonberries (Percy Adlon, 1991)
Zebrahead (Anthony Drazan, 1992)
Thunderheart (Michael Apted, 1992)
Sister Act (Emile Ardolino, 1992)
Baraka (Ron Fricke, 1992)
Swing Kids (Thomas Carter, 1993)
Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey (Steven M. Martin, 1993)
Guarding Tess (Hugh Wilson, 1994)
Hackers (Iain Softley, 1995)
Ghosts of Mississippi (Rob Reiner, 1996)
Amistad (Steven Spielberg, 1997)
Kundun (Martin Scorsese, 1997)
Red Corner (Jon Avnet, 1997)
In & Out (Frank Oz, 1997)
Isamu Noguchi: Stones and Paper (Hiro Narita, 1997)
Big Monday (Michael T. Rehfield, 1998)
New Rose Hotel (Abel Ferrara, 1998)
The Rat Pack (Rob Cohen, 1998)
Pleasantville (Gary Ross, 1998)
My Date With the President's Daughter (Alex Zamm, 1998)
Big Daddy (Dennis Dugan, 1999)
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (Jim Jarmusch, 1999)
Hit and Runway (Christopher Livingston, 1999)
Man of the Century (Adam Abraham, 1999)
Before Night Falls (Julian Schnabel, 2000)
The Color of Friendship (Kevin Hooks, 2000)
The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (Aviva Kempner, 2000)
Songcatcher (Maggie Greenwald, 2000)
Unbowed (Nanci Rossov, 2000)
All Over the Guy (Julie Davis, 2001)
Shrek (Andew Adamson, Vicky Jenson, 2001)
Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002)
Unconditional Love (P. J. Hogan, 2002)
Stuck On You (Bobby and Peter Farrelly, 2003)
Fahrenheit 9/11 (Michael Moore, 2004)
Primer (Shane Carruth, 2004)
All the Ships at Sea (Dan Sallitt, 2004)
Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)
Because of Winn-Dixie (Wayne Wang, 2005)
Guess Who (Kevin Rodney Sullivan, 2005)
Homecoming (Joe Dante, 2005)
Mardi Gras: Made in China (David Redmon, 2005)
An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim, 2006)
Superman Returns (Bryan Singer, 2006)
High School Musical (Kenny Ortega, 2006)