...which 12 movies would you show to your students?

Let's say your target audience is the average 17-21 year old student, some of whom are actually interested in film and some of whom are not. Your purpose is to introduce students to filmic techniques/elements and give them a surface-level understanding/appreciation of film as an art.

How do you balance esoteric with accessible? How do you balance new with old? What genres would you include (noir? sci-fi? French new wave? animation?) Why would you select the films you did (editing? screenplay? mis-en-scene? lighting/color?)

I'm gonna think about this for a bit before coming up with my own list, but I'm interested to hear from y'all because you guys know more about film than I.

Sweet question! I'd have to say that above all balance is important, for every art film, there should be a mainstream film that still demonstrates film as an art form yet is not esoteric. Probably would go with a progression of film through time instead of through techniques or forms because you can see how things are kept even from the silent era.

Probably would go with Safety First!, Nosferatu, Casablanca, the Maltese Falcon, the Wizard of Oz, Giant, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Koyanaquatsi, Apocalypse Now, Manhunter, Jurassic Park, and Memento.

The Dark Knight would be the only curriculum necessary! Haven't you been keeping up with the thread count?!?

Space Chimps then I would take them to a preview screening double feature of The House Bunny and Beverly Hills Chihuahua

12 movies only? Tough to cover film history...

Metropolis
Passion of Joan of Arc
Grand Illusion
Citizen Kane
Notorious
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The Bicycle Thief
Rashomon
Sunset Blvd.
Wages of Fear
Bonnie and Clyde
Chinatown

Lay it on 'em thick from the start and weed out the ones just there to "watch movies". And they can watch anything newer on their own, or take higher level courses.

Wait, what am I thinking? When they all get there, start up The Thing by John Carpenter and yell "it's a trap!"

Are you teaching a class?

I think it would be important to play films and then play them again with commentaries. IMO, commentaries are far more educational and relevant than any film class I've taken. I would show something classic followed up by something new. I wouldn't want students to get the impression that only old movies are great.

Noir? Perhaps the Third Man or Double Indemnity...followed up by The Limey. Granted, it's not really noir, but it's a murder mystery.

French New Wave? Probably A Bout de Souffle...followed up by Punch Drunk Love, maybe?

Italian Neo-Realism -my favorite genre...lots of De Sica...can't think of anything right now but there are tons of realistic day-to-day films.

Sci-fi? Solaris, because it's the greatest sci-fi film of all-time followed up by Children of Men.

I'd also dive into different movements...like silent to talkies to color to cinemascope to 3-D.

In addition to the technical side of it, I think it's important to talk about different styles in directing and acting (see Marlon Brando). Some of the kids in Intro to Film will be inevitably be interested in becoming filmmakers one day.

It's important to split up classics with modern films. It's not hard there are tons of great films being made nowadays.

I think I'd switch out of that class faster than you can say "Meet Dave."

BICYCLE THIEF
CITY LIGHTS
THE GODFATHER PART II
GONE WITH THE WIND
SHANE
SUPERMAN (my indulgence)
SEVEN SAMURAI
MANHATTAN
FANNY AND ALEXANDER
APOCALYPSE NOW

A film class? No. I'm a student minoring in film so I've taken a few film classes and I was curious to see what everybody else would say.

I love film and have a couple ideas for short films I would like to make (recently, Godard has been an inspiration to me), but I don't ever see myself entering the film business, realistically. I would like to be a high school math teacher for a living, and the idea occurred to me during lunch today that maybe as a high school teacher I could start an "Intro to Film" class as well. Now that I think about it, though, a high school class would be year-long and would offer opportunity for more than 12 films.

no particular order
2001
Citizen Kane
There Will Be Blood
the Third Man
The Good the Bad and the Ugly
On the Waterfront
12 Angry Men
Rashomon
Hoop Dreams
All The Presidents Men
City of God
psycho

Definitely. I would take the class to see Dark Knight and then Dark Knight in IMAX. Then open up the class for discussion. It should last the whole quarter.

I'll just use all the films I watched in my beginning film class...

The Freshman
Singin' in the Rain
Gone with the Wind
Citizen Kane
Amelie
The Graduate
The Godfather
The Bourne Identity
Chaplin

JAMES BOND movies.
The title song, score, action, babes, humor, sexiness, editing style and opening credits.

Once Upon A Time In The West
Kwaidan
Do The Right Thing
There Will Be Blood
Magnolia
A Clockwork Orange
Paris, Texas
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Citizen Kane
Amores Perros
JFK
Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind

I taught a high school film/media literacy class, but 12 films is a lot. I used:

A Trip to the Moon
The General
M
The Third Man
M*A*S*H
Chinatown

Using sex to corrupt the moral purity of our innocent children

I think this curriculum would give a fairly good overview for a kid who knows very little about film history. The films chosen would give ample opportunity to discuss the artistic, technological, social, and political climate in which the film was made.

Most are films (aside from The Wizard of Oz) that a typical person in their late teens/early-20s hasn't seen, so they'd have to pay better attention to the film and class discussions.

Film 1:
Edison Kinetoscope Shorts
The Great Train Robbery
La Voyage dans la Lune

Film 2:
Man With a Movie Camera (clips)
The Battleship Potemkin (clips)
The Birth of a Nation (clips)
The Jazz Singer (clips)

Film 3:
Metropolis

Film 4:
The Wizard of Oz

Film 5:
Citizen Kane

Film 6:
The Bicycle Thief

Film 7:
North by Northwest

Film 8:
Breathless

Film 9:
2001: A Space Odyssey

Film 10:
Network

Film 11:
Roger & Me

Film 12:
Do the Right Thing

Ah, but no nudity. A beautiful woman in a bathing suit or sexy dress. And that's the trick of good taste and talent. Unlike a rap video.

I sense idealism that has not yet been (repeatedly) stepped on by the brutal realities of higher education...

Most "intro to film" classes are listed as "general education" courses. In practical terms, this means that about 20-30% of your enrollment are film/media majors, and the rest--typically--just saw "film" in the course schedule and thought it would be a blow-off class ("We're just gonna be watching movies, right?"). So, assuming a class size of 30 students (although it is not at all uncommon for such intro courses to have enrollment cap of up to 200, depending on the institution), you are dealing with a group of about 20 people for whom The Dark Knight is the pinnacle of cinematic achievement. (I mean, come on, it's a good movie, but we're talking about 100+ years of film history...)

So:
a) anything silent... boring.
b) anything in b/w... boring.
c) anything pre-1988... old and boring.
d) anything foreign... incomprehensible and boring (doubly boring if subtitled).
e) anything non-action or non-comedy... boring.

...and it goes on like this. Sure, at some point every budding film instructor thinks that exposing students to challenging, obscure works will force them to pay attention. Well, guess what? It won't. The only item on this list your typical 20-year-old would possibly not sleep through is North by Northwest, but no guarantees, really.

Don't get me wrong. It's a good list. I use one very much like it myself. But that bit about paying attention kinda cracked me up.

That's why you play Irreversible for your students.

In other words, just stick to titles released on Blu-ray Disc (no imports though).

f) anything that violates chronological narrative progression... whaaaaa...?

Yeah, good luck trying to convince your department to invest in a hi-def projection setup...

Start with:

A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies

It's 4 hrs, covers the history of films. Essential imo, it's what we watched. Obviously it doesn't cover foreign film history though, which should probably be touched on as well.

I always started with The Player, because it's so metacinematic.

I did the Three Colors trilogy, to explore an auteur in depth.

Let's see, what else. Vertigo, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Rules of the Game, Mon Oncle, The Hidden Fortress, Run Lola Run, The Big Sleep.

I also paired up films in different classes. I did the two versions of The Vanishing, paired up Wild Strawberries with Deconstructing Harry, and one other pairing I can't remember.

I also did a couple of novel into film units. One was Goldfinger, which worked well. Less successful was The Woman and the Puppet and That Obscure Object of Desire.

It was a 200-level course, met four hours a week. I would have shown less films if I could have, but the students had very little experience watching films, so I needed to hit them with as much as I could.

Oh, and I did a few documentary shorts (a couple by Kieslowski, to use with Three Colors) and some animated shorts--Warner Brothers, Wallace and Gromit, etc.

1. A Trip To the Moon
2. The Great Train Robbery
3. Birth of a Nation
4. The Gold Rush
5. Sunrise
6. M
7. The Rules of the Game
8. Citizen Kane
9. Open City
10. Breathless
11. 2001: A Space Odyssey
12. The Conformist