I'm often asked, especially because I have worked with small opera companies 
both as singer and crew where most of the people are voice majors and have a 
standard repertoire of familiarity, what films make up the basic curriculum, and 
I generally say that aside from _Citizen Kane_ that there really is not one, and 
then generally shock saying that I have never seen _Gone with the Wind_ in its 
entirety.  It doesn't seem like a favorite film to teach in the film studies 
community. 
 
After _Citizen Kane_, it seems to me that _Triumph of the Will_ and _Breathless_ 
are tops, followed perhaps by _Bicycle Thieves_, _2001:  A Space Odyssey_, and 
_Yojimbo_. 
 
Am I far off the mark here?  I'm not a professor yet--I'm looking into Ph.D. 
programs. 
 

--
Scott Andrew Hutchins

http://web.archive.org/web/20050304105837/mywebpages.comcast.net/scottandrewh/ [archive site; not currently active]
http://www.myspace.com/4637382
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Scottandrewhutchins
http://Cinemopera.dvdaf.com
http://akas.imdb.com/name/nm0003149/

"Those who had been successful adapted themselves to the world around them, had bent their greater mental powers into the pattern of acceptable action.  And this dulled their usefulness, limited their capacity, hedged their ability with restrictions set up to fit less extraordinary people."  -- Clifford D. Simak, "Census" (1944)

----
Learn to speak like a film/TV professor! Listen to the ScreenLex
podcast:
http://www.screenlex.org