A Cinema Supplement to Gioia's Humanities Program.
Or - 52 movies to watch before you die.
Nearly two years ago, Ted Gioia (aka TheHonest Broker), did us all a favor by outlining a “12-month self-paced immersive course in the humanities.” He has given us a gift. The list is a fantastic overview of the great works that made/make the world. Alongside his reading list (broken down in 52 weeks), he includes a weekly listening guide to walk you through great musical works of history, and each week has a suggestion towards some kind of visual art (painting, pottery, sculpture, etc.)
Recently, in an interview he did with Cheryl Drury over at Crack the Book, he mentioned:
If I had an extra week to the course, I wouldn’t add any books. Instead I’d focus on cinema.
This is the biggest gap in the program. I talk to young people who haven’t seen even the obvious films—The Godfather, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, etc. The whole notion of black-and-white movies is strange to them, and they view silent films as equivalent to cave paintings from prehistoric times.
Maybe the best solution would be to add one movie per week to the assignments—that would give us 52 films over the course of the year. We could cover a lot of territory that way, and the films would be a fun break from reading.
As a grateful beneficiary (and frequent recommender) of Ted’s previous work in the “12 month Immersive Course in Humanities,” I thought I’d take the liberty of answering the call to provide a cinema supplement to his excellent guide.1
What are my credentials for doing this? I worked through Ted’s course, re-reading many works I had been required to read in my graduate studies and discovering new works that I had neglected.
I hold an undergraduate and graduate degree in philosophy and I’m working on my PhD with a focus on contemporary pagan thought. Additionally, I am interested in film and passionate about practical ways to cultivate the life of the mind. I don’t have a film degree, but I am “omnivorously interested.”
Caveats:
I’ve kept this to films in the English language - with a few exceptions.
I have organized the list - like Gioia - chronologically. You could do a list like this and go out of your way to make cinema pairings that fit snugly with the course of reading and listening he has outlined. I did not take that approach. That being said, I was startled by how many weeks came together with a unique thematic congruence between suggested reading(s) and film.
If you think there is an essential film missing from this list - let me know in the comments. Truly, what follows is not sacred scripture. If I missed something you think is obvious, just say it. I am not omniscient and the world is big and beautiful.
Lastly, this should go without saying, but Ted Gioia has not endorsed this project or this list. He is not guilty by association, if anything, I am guilty for cozying up to his previous project. But Ted, if you do happen across this - keep up the great work.
Okay - just one more thing - if you watch any of these films with your phone in front of your face, you probably will not enjoy it. Just know, in that case, the problem is not the movie, it’s you and your relationship with your phone.
I will release a list of thirteen entries each week for the next four weeks - you can subscribe below to follow along.
Week One: City Lights (Dir. by Charlie Chaplin, 1931)
It’s fitting that Gioia’s Plato reading is supplemented by Chaplin’s City Lights. While Plato was not the formal beginning of western philosophy, he is certainly it’s earliest champion. The same holds for Chaplin. City Lights is not the first of Chaplin’s silent films, but it might be the greatest representative of the form.
You may say, “Aren’t black and white silent films boring?” Many in Chaplin’s day were ready to move on to the “talkies” (movies with sound) and this film is Chaplin’s way of defending that old cliche “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
Week Two: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937)
Interestingly enough, Homer’s Odyssey is paired with a cinematic voyage. The animation we have become indifferent to staggered original audiences. Snow White is the first full length animated film to be produced in color. Poseidon might have it out for Odysseus, but Snow White is trying to escape from the jealous Evil Queen.
The film is beautiful and perfect. Please stop trying to remake it.
Week Three: The Wizard of Oz (Dir. by Victor Fleming, 1939)
As Odysseus finds his way home, so does Dorothy. It’s a technicolor revolution in film making that blends music, comedy, and color with an exploration of fundamentally human themes (adventure, loss, friendship, grief, discovery). This film is essential.
An epic book paired with an epic film. Fitting.
Week Four: Citizen Kane (Dir. by Orson Welles, 1941)
Last week virtuous heroes returned home. This week, a man consumed by vice dies. Citizen Kane is an exploration of greed, power, and meaning released at a pivotal time in the life of the west (six months prior to the US entering WWII). It’s possible that this is the greatest pairing on the list: The Analects look to cultivate moral virtue and honor while Citizen Kane showcases their absence.
Want to have some fun? Put these two works in conversation with friends on the topic of “true masculinity.”
Week Five: Casablanca (Dir. by Michael Curtiz, 1942)
It’s a love story. It’s a war story. It’s a grief story. It’s a refugee story. It’s bold and beautiful. Somehow, it mocks the scourge of Nazism, while simultaneously demonstrating its intrusive horror. A friend once told me he thought Casablanca is the best movie ever made about jazz, that’s not about jazz at all.
Does it pair well with Gioa’s readings for this week? Well, Aristotle advocates an approach to virtue that is oriented towards the “mean.” True courage avoids both cowardice and rashness. I’ll let you be the judge, but my sense is that Rick Blaine (played by Humphrey Bogart) showcases a form of that kind of bravery. You certainly won’t have a bad time with this movie - and if you do - it’s almost assuredly your fault.
Week Six: It’s a Wonderful Life (Dir. by Frank Capra, 1946)
Aristotle wants his students to discover the good life. George Bailey is looking as well. Like I said at the top, this list wasn’t built to insure perfect thematic pairings, but we just keep hitting them. As you read Plato’s exploration of love in the Symposium, you watch one of the greatest cinematic explorations of love and meaning we’ve received. The master works, across disciplines and genres, resonate so powerfully because they are touching tectonic themes and questions. The film also serves as our representative on this list for the “holiday film” genre, which is home to some of the best and worst movies ever made.
Anyways, this film is perfect. Jimmy Stewart is an American institution. Viewing it should be part of the American citizenship process.
Week Seven: Singin’ in the Rain (Dir. by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, 1952)
My wife and I recently showed this movie to our nine year old daughter. She adored it. The movie has no CGI, no animation, and no children, but it’s terribly fun. The movie is deeply human. The dancing is centerstage and wonderful. People, real people, are everywhere. The film is full of faces. Gene Kelly shines throughout. In Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, he writes, “Freedom is obedience to self-formulated rules.”
Singin in the Rain plays within its own bounds. It embraces song, dance, and screen in order to showcase the vibrancy of real people moving with one another. It’s not quite a peanut butter and jelly pairing between this film and the Epic of Gilgamesh (Gioia’s suggested reading for Week Six), but you may find it an appetizing palate cleanser.
Week Eight: Seven Samurai (Dir. by Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
Do not let this film’s length dissuade you. The movie rushes along quite well, and if you put your phone down and pay attention, you will be engulfed by the magnitude of it. A handful of these weeks are bulky and week eight might be the heftiest. Kurosawa is a master of film. There is no debate. The movie is visually stunning and the story is a gripping account of vulnerability, heroic virtue, and the cost of good in the face of evil. It is famously the inspiration for the western The Magnificent Seven.
Speaking of westerns…
Week Nine: The Searchers (Dir. by John Ford, 1956)
We could not have made this list without a John Wayne film. The Searchers is not the most popular western. It’s honest and realistic in a way that makes viewers of the film (and fans of the genre) uncomfortable. But it is a magnificent movie. And, oh boy, does it pair well with reading Ecclesiastes. The teacher of that Old Testament book is doing what Peter Kreeft calls “philosophy in the dark.” The Searchers is a movie that does a “western” in the dark.
Ted recently wrote of his growing appreciation for the western. A genre that seems to grow on folks the more they suffer weariness with the world as it is. Peter Kreeft once wrote, “Ecclesiastes is the question to which the rest of the Bible is the answer.” The Searchers is a film that leaves its viewers with questions in search of an answer.
Week Ten: The Seventh Seal (Dir. by Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
And, would you look at that, we have a proposed answer to the questions from last week. I promise you I’m not going out of my way to force these. The Seventh Seal is possibly one of the greatest “Christian” films ever made. This movie will feel strange for modern viewers. Gird your loins. It is a movie about death, the existential dread in the face of death, and God. It is not a rosy affair, but neither is life, particularly for knights returning home from the crusades (the setting of this film).
Pairing this film with Gioia’s assorted Greek tragedies and the blues is very nearly perfect. If you went to a bar that was playing Blind Willy Johnson’s “Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground” while scenes from The Seventh Seal were projected onto a brick wall, it would be the coolest bar you’d ever visited. And the trippiest.
Week 11: Vertigo (Dir. by Alfred Hithcock, 1958)
Everyone has a favorite Hitchcock film. And they all think their favorite is his best. I’m no different. Vertigo won’t feel terrifying to those who enjoy the “shock factor” of contemporary thrillers, but the movie is a reckoning with fear.
But you know what might have helped Hitchcock? Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Hey Al, “Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”
Week 12: Ben-Hur (Dir. by William Wyler, 1959)
We are still among the Romans, but if last week was their best, we are now encountering some of their worst. This week, one of the characters from the readings actually shows up in the film! There is a wondering rabbi that keeps popping up throughout the film, his presence in the “background” overshadows the entire film. That’s on purpose. Ben-Hur is a revolution in filmmaking, a truly massive Hollywood epic, and another contender for the best “Christian” film ever made.
Week 13: Rio Bravo (Dir. by Howard Hawks, 1959)
Is this the first time in history someone might read the Quran and watch Rio Bravo in the same day? It is very likely. My grandpa loved this film. I am pretty confident he never read any of the Surahs in the Quran, but he could quote whole scenes from this movie.
If The Searchers was a cruel and serious look at the grittiness of the west, this movie is the sweet to the previous entry’s sour. Rio Bravo is the type of movie that you imagine when someone says “western.” And that’s why it is important to watch. Plus, it’s a blast.
Will you be able to connect it to the Sufi poetry of Rumi? If you do, please tag me in your Substack post because I’d love to read it.
If you’d like to discover films 14-26, the next installment, you can click here.
As always, this newsletter is offered free in large part, thanks to those who support my writing by buying a copy of one of my books: Home with God: Our Union with Christ (B&H, 2025), Formed for Fellowship: Becoming what you Behold (B&H, 2025), or the Dragon Slayer and His Super Special Suit (B&H Kids, 2026). All are available wherever books are sold - or upon request - at your local library.
Please note: Ted did not call me. In my work here, I am both Jim Gordon turning on the “Bat signal” and Batman answering it.
This is a great idea! I would add 1927 Metropolis (full reconstructed version).
Chaplin but no Keaton? Really?