401. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

In January 1954, Francois Truffaut wrote a landmark essay on film criticism. Five years later, he put his theory into practice and cinema never been the same since.

The gangster genre is dominated by men, but in Martin Scorsese's The Irishman the most important position is held by a woman who utters barely a dozen words.

Rome Open City began filming as Auschwitz was liberated and Roberto Rossellini's film marks a crucial step in the creation of art in the wake of the Holocaust.

Puzzling audiences ever since it premiered at Cannes in 2001, David Lynch's dark masterpiece seems to address the abuse of women in the film industry.

With this modernist masterpiece, Michelangelo Antonioni told a story that abandoned its initial plot. Booed at Cannes, it paved the way for a new cinematic form.