I was asked to do this by a friend on facebook, and having done it. It seems silly not to share more widely: So here it goes:

1. Tokyo Story (Yasujirô Ozu, Japan, 1953):My first choice, almost always my first choice, and what I measure so much of cinema against is Ozu’s Tokyo Story. I always break up at the end: the kindness, the resignation, the understanding, the wisdom: the mixture of motivations and feelings, so beautifully evoked within a liminal zone where things are not stated but clearly understood; and expressed  in a way that makes it feel true and beautiful but also mysterious. Plus I just love looking at Setsuko Hara.