What this is not: This is not my own personal assessment of the “best” or “greatest” or “most influential” movies ever made, or any categorization that pretends to objectivity.

What this is: These are the movies that I think about when I think about movies. If you want to know where I'm coming from as a critic and a movie fan, take a look at these movies. Many of these are the movies I've memorized, the movies I quote from all the time. Some of these are movies that haunt my nightmares. All are movies that warped my brain. Many could be called my favorite movies; many could be called my comfort movies. All of them have been a profound influence on me, for good or ill.

Why: This list grew out of a project I and my fellow members of Cinemarati put together years ago, our group canon. I have just [October 2006] updated the list with a few films from the early 2000s; most of the titles that dropped off the list were TV shows -- perhaps eventually I’ll put together a top 100 list of TV shows that I think about when I think about TV.