Movies you have to see to be know what people are talking about

..from an email DoryO wrote:

Basic American Cinematic Literacy?

Crap. This is harder than I thought. There's good movies that really aren't required to be able to "get the joke" in mainstream pop culture. But then there's dumb movies I wouldn't recommend like The Exorcist and Die Hard that you really should have some familiarity with. Here's my must-see list off the top of my head.

These are movies about which you'd say to someone, "Seriously? You haven't seen it? Are you kidding. Well, you have to."

A separate list is of movies I wouldn't recommend you have to see start to finish to get the idea. You'd only have to watch the trailer and read a review to be up to speed: Dirty Dancing, Top Gun, Caddyshack.

MANDATORY -- No excuses:

Gone With The Wind
It's A Wonderful Life
Psycho
Rear Window
Wizard of Oz
Casablanca
The Graduate
Star Wars
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (original)
Lord of the Rings trilogy
Blazing Saddles
Airplane
Annie Hall
When Harry Met Sally
Bull Durham
Some Like It Hot
Oklahoma
Singin' In The Rain
Sound of Music
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The Godfather Pts 1 & 2
Shrek
Finding Nemo
Pulp Fiction
Dr Strangelove
All About Eve
The Seven Year Itch
Rocky
Flashdance
Saturday Night Fever
American Graffiti
Fantasia
The Jerk
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Sunset Blvd
Fight Club
Apocalype Now
To Kill a Mockingbird
Monty Python & the Holy Grail
The Shining
The Princess Bride
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
A Christmas Story
Being John Malkovich