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Luc Haasbroek is a writer and videographer from Durban, South Africa. He has been writing professionally about pop culture for eight years. Luc's areas of interest are broad: he's just as passionate about psychology and history as he is about movies and TV. He's especially drawn to the places where these topics overlap.
Luc is also an avid producer of video essays and looks forward to expanding his writing career. When not writing, he can be found hiking, playing Dungeons & Dragons, hanging out with his cats, and doing deep dives on whatever topic happens to have captured his interest that week.
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Trying to define a single canon for a century of cinema is an impossible task. No taste is the same, and countless genres have produced equally countless triumphs of the big screen. And yet, some films rise above movements, eras, and fashions. They transcend their moment, going on to change the language and indeed the very fabric of film itself.
With this in mind, this list ranks ten masterpieces that have reshaped the medium over the last century. Whether through radical formal innovation, emotional precision, mythic storytelling power, or simply an abundance of energy, the titles below all left a lasting imprint on the medium, earning their spot in the cinematic pantheon.
10 ‘The Passion of Joan of Arc’ (1928)
Image via Gaumont"Yes, my voices were of God." The Passion of Joan of Arc is one of the defining movies by Carl Theodor Dreyer, the godfather of Danish cinema. It's also one of the most spiritually overwhelming films ever made. It focuses on the trial and execution of Joan of Arc, focusing almost entirely on her interrogation by church officials. Rather than staging grand battles or historical spectacle, Dreyer strips the story down to faces, especially Maria Falconetti’s, who delivers an extraordinary lead performance. Her micro-expressions and subtle eye movements convey so much.
The plot itself unfolds through relentless questioning, theological traps, and quiet moments of suffering, all rendered through radical close-ups and stark, expressionistic framing. It could've come across as a dry history lesson, but the movie's emotional directness makes it timeless. Joan’s faith, fear, defiance, and grace are communicated without artifice or sentimentality, in a way that still resonates now, collapsing the distance between her and us.
9 ‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994)
"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides…" Tarantino’s breakout masterpiece detonated like a cultural bomb in the mid-1990s, permanently altering the rhythm and attitude of modern cinema. It's a time-twisting tale of hitmen debating hamburgers, a boxer on the run, a mob wife in danger, and small-time crooks whose plans unravel spectacularly. The dialogue is effortlessly cool and frequently hilarious, almost all of it quotable. Indeed, practically every scene in this movie has become iconic.
While the performances and soundtrack are full of life, Pulp Fiction is also fascinating in the way that it references countless movies and TV shows, borrowing quotes and narrative beats, and camera moves from scores of existing films. The whole thing is shot through with a postmodern irony based on QT's deep knowledge of cinema, yet Pulp Fiction never loses its emotional impact or collapses into an empty work of pastiche. Arguably, no one has quite perfected this mixture ever again.
8 ‘Tokyo Story’ (1953)
Image via Shochiku"Isn’t life disappointing?" Tokyo Story is one of the few films that manages to be simultaneously quiet and devastating. The plot is simple: an elderly couple (played by Chishū Ryū and Chieko Higashiyama) travels from their small coastal town to visit their grown children in Tokyo, only to discover that modern life has left little room for them. There is no villain in their story, no dramatic confrontation, no melodrama. Instead, director Yasujirō Ozu, titan of Japanese cinema, observes everyday interactions with patient, low-angle compositions, and precise emotional restraint.
This approach turns the movie into a meditation on generational drift, the passage of time, and the quiet loneliness that comes with aging. Nothing is exaggerated because there's no need. The heartbreak of Tokyo Story arrives softly, accumulating through silences, glances, and moments of unspoken regret. It remains one of cinema’s most humane achievements, a clear, compassionate statement on the sadness of ordinary life.
7 ‘Vertigo’ (1958)
Image via Paramount Pictures
"It’s a disease, a sickness." It's hard to choose a favorite from Alfred Hitchcock's formidable filmography, but one can certainly make a case for Vertigo. While dressed in the trappings of a typical thriller, it's really a full-on psychological labyrinth, a film that grows stranger and more unsettling with every viewing. James Stewart leads the cast as Scottie Ferguson, a retired detective suffering from acrophobia, who becomes obsessed with a mysterious woman (Kim Novak) he’s been hired to follow.
Here, Hitchcock uses color, camera movement, and music to trap the audience inside Scottie’s spiraling psyche. Alongside the entertaining genre elements, Vertigo also offers a commentary on looking, on remaking others to fit one's own fantasy. Ultimately, this movie is many things at once: a love story poisoned by obsession, a thriller that condemns its protagonist, and a film about cinema itself. No wonder they call Hitchcock the Master of Suspense.
6 ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ (1962)
Image via Columbia Pictures"The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts." David Lean’s epic biopic tells the story of T.E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole), a British officer who becomes a mythic figure during the Arab Revolt of World War I. The film is famous for its scale (it was shot across vast desert landscapes in Super Panavision), but its greatness arguably lies in its psychological complexity. Lawrence begins as an idealistic outsider, intoxicated by the romance of war and self-invention, before confronting the moral cost of violence and imperial ambition.
O’Toole’s performance charts that transformation with startling nuance, adding many layers and dimensions to the man. At the same time, Lawrence of Arabia takes a thoughtful approach to its themes of colonialism and empire. It uses spectacle to interrogate power rather than celebrate it, in a way that was ahead of its time. Even decades later, no epic has matched its combination of visual majesty and interior doubt.
5 ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968)
Image via Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer"I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that." 2001 is less a narrative film than a philosophical experience. So many big-brain ideas are touched on here: human evolution, the dangers of technology, and cosmic insignificance. It spans literal millennia, from prehistoric hominids discovering tools to astronauts confronting a mysterious artificial intelligence aboard a spacecraft. Dialogue is sparse, exposition minimal, and meaning deliberately ambiguous.
Then there are the visuals. Aesthetically, Stanley Kubrick dragged the entire sci-fi genre into a new era, pioneering techniques that would pave the way for later classics like Star Wars and Alien. 2001's depiction of space travel, in particular, remains astonishingly precise. Still, it's really the themes that cement the film's masterpiece status. 2001's true subject is humanity’s relationship with creation, both biological and technological. It was all radically ahead of its time, and more than fifty years later, these ideas still feel futuristic, alien, and overwhelming.
4 ‘Taxi Driver’ (1976)
Image via Columbia Pictures"Loneliness has followed me my whole life." Perhaps cinema's greatest character study, Taxi Driver plunges viewers into the fractured mind of Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), a lonely Vietnam vet drifting through the decaying streets of 1970s New York. Working nights as a cab driver, Travis grows increasingly unstable, disgusted by the city’s corruption and his inability to connect. The endpoint of his descent is shocking, explosive violence.
Here, Martin Scorsese and De Niro create one of the most disturbing portraits of masculinity and alienation ever put on screen. Crucially, the movie refuses to offer easy moral clarity. Travis is both victim and threat, shaped by trauma, isolation, and a society that fails to see him until it’s too late. For this reason, Taxi Driver remains painfully relevant, a mirror held up to the darkest corners of modern identity. It's an exploration not just of one person but of a whole psychological profile.
3 ‘Seven Samurai’ (1954)
Image via Toho"This is the nature of war." Seven Samurai is the blueprint for modern action storytelling, inspiring The Magnificent Seven and countless other imitators. The story follows a poor farming village that hires seven masterless samurai to defend them against bandits. Nearly every team-based action film made since owes a debt to this structure, from Westerns to superhero movies. But Kurosawa doesn't stop there. What could have been a simple adventure becomes an epic exploration of class, sacrifice, and collective struggle.
In particular, the movie places a huge focus on character. Kurosawa devotes time to each warrior, revealing their flaws, philosophies, and personal codes of honor. Philosophically, the movie is complex, too. For example, while the climactic battle is thrilling, it's also tragic. Kurosawa lingers on the cost of violence rather than its glory. In the end, Seven Samurai is both exhilarating and profoundly sad, a reminder that heroism is fleeting, and peace rarely belongs to those who fight for it.
2 ‘The Godfather’ (1972)
Image via Paramount Pictures"It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business." In so many ways, The Godfather redefined what a crime film could be. First of all, it broke ground by treating organized crime not as spectacle or pulp entertainment, but as the setting for an epic study of moral collapse. At its heart, the story charts Michael Corleone’s (Al Pacino) transformation from reluctant outsider to ruthless family patriarch. What elevates the film is its operatic seriousness: power is inherited, loyalty is conditional, and violence is intimate. It's practically Shakespearean.
As a result, Michael’s arc becomes one of the great tragic journeys in cinema, a portrait of moral compromise disguised as success. The acting across the board is some of the very best in movie history, with every performer rising to the challenge set by the script. Finally, on the directing side, Francis Ford Coppola's aesthetics deliver, too. His use of shadow, silence, and ritual gives the film a mythic gravitas. All in all, The Godfather remains a benchmark for narrative control, performance, and thematic depth.
1 ‘Citizen Kane’ (1941)
Image via RKO Radio Pictures"Rosebud." Citizen Kane is often cited as the greatest film ever made because it genuinely changed how movies function. Story-wise, it chronicles the life of media tycoon Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles, who also produced, directed, and co-wrote the screenplay) through fragmented recollections, beginning with his mysterious final word: "Rosebud." As journalists investigate its meaning, the film reconstructs Kane’s rise and fall from multiple perspectives. In the process, the movie comments on the impossibility of fully understanding a human life.
There is genuine emotional insight to be found here. Fundamentally, this seminal picture is a story about a man who gains the world and loses the ability to love. That said, Citizen Kane is highly regarded now mostly for its pioneering aesthetic. With it, Welles revolutionized cinematography, editing, sound design, and narrative structure (all before turning 26). Many of Citizen Kane's innovations seem almost invisible now, but that's because they have so thoroughly become a part of film grammar.
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