Where to Stream the 100 Best Films of All Time from the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound Critics’ Poll

Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family’s overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter’s interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.

Eager to find a better life abroad, a Senegalese woman becomes a mere governess to a family in southern France, suffering from discrimination and marginalization.

As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.

In France of the late 19th century, the wife of a wealthy general, the Countess Louise, sells the earrings her husband gave her on their wedding day to pay off debts; she claims to have lost them. Her husband quickly learns of the deceit, which is the beginning of many tragic misunderstandings, all involving the earrings, the general, the countess, & her new lover, the Italian Baron Donati.

In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage’s warning against seeking to profit from warfare. Genjuro’s pursuit of both riches and the mysterious Lady Wakasa, as well as Tobei’s desire to become a samurai, run the risk of destroying both themselves and their wives, Miyagi and Ohama.

Facing unemployment, dwindling savings, and an uncertain future, the Kim family discovers a possible way out of their troubles thanks to the wealthy and glamorous Park family. What follows is a tense, funny, and moving story about ambition, jealousy, and class warfare.

This brilliant film won 4 Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director (Bong Joon-ho), Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film.

Don’t be spooked by the subtitles. You will love this movie.

Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and their son Danny, must live isolated from the rest of the world for the winter. But they aren’t prepared for the madness that lurks within.

Stanley Kubrick’s classic spin on a Stephen King story has been hugely influential since its release, though King has been consistently critical of the adaptation.

Poor Shelley Duvall had a horrific experience during filming. According to the “Guinness Book of Records,” Kubrick demanded to reshoot the scene where she goes down the stairs with the baseball bat 127 times. She became so stressed during filming that her hair began falling out.

Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria. They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run.

Clean-cut Jeffrey Beaumont realizes his hometown is not so normal when he discovers a human ear in a field, the investigation soon catapulting him toward a disturbed nightclub singer and a drug-addicted sadist.

A mysteriously linked pair of young women find their daily lives pre-empted by a strange boudoir melodrama that plays itself out in a hallucinatory parallel reality. An undisputed classic of the French New Wave, Jacques Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating is a delightful movie about the spiritual journey of a pair of young women, told with a playful approach to the cinematic form. A masterpiece of cinematic creativity, Rivette, the same mind behind 1969’s L’amour fou, effortlessly draws the viewer into the whimsical world of the titular protagonists.

A bumbling tramp desires to build a home with a young woman, yet is thwarted time and time again by his lack of experience and habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time..

Inhabitants of a small village in Hungary deal with the effects of the fall of Communism. The town’s source of revenue, a factory, has closed, and the locals, who include a doctor and three couples, await a cash payment offered in the wake of the shuttering. Irimias, a villager thought to be dead, returns and, unbeknownst to the locals, is a police informant. In a scheme, he persuades the villagers to form a commune with him.

In medieval Japan, a woman and his children journey to find the family’s patriarch, who was exiled years before.

A young girl, Chihiro, becomes trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free her family.

This deceptively simple tale of a bored English couple travelling to Italy to find a buyer for a house inherited from an uncle is transformed by Roberto Rossellini into a passionate story of cruelty and cynicism as their marriage disintegrates around them.

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city’s mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

In this classic drama, Vicky Page is an aspiring ballerina torn between her dedication to dance and her desire to love. While her imperious instructor, Boris Lermontov, urges to her to forget anything but ballet, Vicky begins to fall for the charming young composer Julian Craster. Eventually Vicky, under great emotional stress, must choose to pursue either her art or her romance, a decision that carries serious consequences.

An expansive Russian drama, this film focuses on the life of revered religious icon painter Andrei Rublev. Drifting from place to place in a tumultuous era, the peace-seeking monk eventually gains a reputation for his art. But after Rublev witnesses a brutal battle and unintentionally becomes involved, he takes a vow of silence and spends time away from his work. As he begins to ease his troubled soul, he takes steps towards becoming a painter once again.

In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.

If you’ve never seen it, now is the time! It’s one of the best scripts ever, filled with quotable lines, fantastic supporting performances, and one of the most famous endings in movie history.

The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.

In 1902, an African-American family living on a sea island off the coast of South Carolina prepares to move to the North.

Episodic journey of journalist Marcello who struggles to find his place in the world, torn between the allure of Rome’s elite social scene and the stifling domesticity offered by his girlfriend, all the while searching for a way to become a serious writer.

A film projectionist longs to be a detective, and puts his meagre skills to work when he is framed by a rival for stealing his girlfriend’s father’s pocketwatch.

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre. The film had an incredible impact on the development of cinema and is a masterful example of montage editing.

A philistine in the art film business, Jeremy Prokosch is a producer unhappy with the work of his director. Prokosch has hired Fritz Lang to direct an adaptation of “The Odyssey,” but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb at the box office, he brings in a screenwriter to energize the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.

Emmi Kurowski, a cleaning lady, is lonely in her old age. Her husband died years ago, and her grown children offer little companionship. One night she goes to a bar frequented by Arab immigrants and strikes up a friendship with middle-aged mechanic Ali. Their relationship soon develops into something more, and Emmi’s family and neighbors criticize their spontaneous marriage. Soon Emmi and Ali are forced to confront their own insecurities about their future.

A mute Scottish woman arrives in colonial New Zealand for an arranged marriage. Her husband refuses to move her beloved piano, giving it to neighbor George Baines, who agrees to return the piano in exchange for lessons. As desire swirls around the duo, the wilderness consumes the European enclave.

After a string of abusive relationships, Wanda abandons her family and seeks solace in the company of a petty criminal.

Advertising man Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.

An Irish rogue uses his cunning and wit to work his way up the social classes of 18th century England, transforming himself from the humble Redmond Barry into the noble Barry Lyndon.

Near a gray and unnamed city is the Zone, a place guarded by barbed wire and soldiers, and where the normal laws of physics are victim to frequent anomalies. A stalker guides two men into the Zone, specifically to an area in which deep-seated desires are granted.

Unemployed Antonio is elated when he finally finds work hanging posters around war-torn Rome. However on his first day, his bicycle—essential to his work—gets stolen. His job is doomed unless he can find the thief. With the help of his son, Antonio combs the city, becoming desperate for justice.

A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.

A small-time thief steals a car and impulsively murders a motorcycle policeman. Wanted by the authorities, he attempts to persuade a girl to run away to Italy with him.

In this sound-era silent film, a tramp falls in love with a beautiful blind flower seller.

Capricious small-town girl Juliette and barge captain Jean marry after a whirlwind courtship, and she comes to live aboard his boat, L’Atalante. As they make their way down the Seine, Jean grows weary of Juliette’s flirtations with his all-male crew, and Juliette longs to escape the monotony of the boat and experience the excitement of a big city. When she steals away to Paris by herself, her husband begins to think their marriage was a mistake.

A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.

At the end of the 18th century, a female painter is hired to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman. But there are a couple of problems: the woman doesn’t want to get married and she doesn’t want to pose for a painting. What follows is a masterpiece of cinema. The painter studies her subject and her subject studies back.

The film draws the two women closer and closer before the inevitable separation. And through the prism of art (paintings, music, and even mythological stories), we see the relationship change, even after it’s finished.

The movie will churn up your old lost loves and force you to reexamine them. “Do all lovers feel they’re inventing something?” one character asks. If there’s a better way to describe falling in love, we haven’t heard it.

Trust the critics and take the leap. This is one film you shouldn’t miss.

Two teenage girls embark on a series of destructive pranks in which they consume and destroy the world around them.

In Depression-era West Virginia, a serial-killing preacher hunts two young children who know the whereabouts of a stash of money.

Salvatore “Sal” Fragione is the Italian owner of a pizzeria in Brooklyn. A neighborhood local, Buggin’ Out, becomes upset when he sees that the pizzeria’s Wall of Fame exhibits only Italian actors. Buggin’ Out believes a pizzeria in a black neighborhood should showcase black actors, but Sal disagrees. The wall becomes a symbol of racism and hate to Buggin’ Out and to other people in the neighborhood, and tensions rise.

Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry — that is, until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon, she will likely remain alone for the rest of her life. When Noriko resists Masa’s matchmaking, Shukichi is forced to deceive his daughter and sacrifice his own happiness to do what he believes is right.

A samurai answers a village’s request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.

A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer. The time they spend together only strengthens the crushing realization that one does not exist.

A woman returning home falls asleep and has vivid dreams that may or may not be happening in reality. Through repetitive images and complete mismatching of the objective view of time and space, her dark inner desires play out on-screen.

Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.

Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.

Often cited as one of the greatest movies ever made, “The Godfather” is endlessly rewatchable and endlessly quotable. Francis Ford Coppola created a masterpiece with an unforgettable cast: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, John Cazale, and Diane Keaton.

The film won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor (Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay (for Mario Puzo and Coppola). From the first line (“I believe in America”) to the last image of a closing door, this movie is a phenomenon.

In 1927 Hollywood, a silent film production company and cast make a difficult transition to sound.

If you have never seen this musical classic, be aware that there is so much more than singing and dancing. It’s a truly funny takedown of Hollywood, and it still holds up almost 70 years later! Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor make this film a phenomenon.

Blonde Betty Elms has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia. Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman’s identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project.

Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world’s most advanced super computer.

This brilliant Stanley Kubrick film takes us from the dawn of humanity to the possible future beyond the Earth. Its startling special effects still dazzle audiences. The British Film Institute polled 480 directors in 2022 and they chose “2001” as the greatest film ever made.

The immobile, calculating HAL 9000 was rated the 13th greatest villain in movie history by the American Film Institute.

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don’t have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.

A retired San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend’s wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.

This classic Hitchcock story of obsession stars Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. It was cited as the greatest film ever made in the British Film Insitute’s Sight and Sound critics’ poll of 2012.