This is partially inspired by @UsedJavelin's thread about Seven Samurai.
I watched a lot of the Western "film canon" when I was younger, and lately I've just been craving some good "artistic" movie content. But I don't trust the :reddit-logo: crowd nor the letterboxd nerds for serious recommendations, so I turn the question to my comrades
I haven't seen everything he made but I really like Orson Welles work both as an actor and director
Citizen Kane is obviously his most famous work but my favorite is the movie Black Magic which he starred in as a villainous protagonist who attempts to usurp the throne from the King of France via fomenting revolution
There are a lot of elements that clearly influenced more famous films later on even if the movie itself is fairly obscure, the final sword fight scene really felt like a fight between jedi in Star Wars in some ways
Aside from that, anything by Kubrick
Recently watched the Third Man which features Orson Welles and its a really good noir film.
I've got a very very specific soft spot for films that take a moment in time and space like allied controlled Vienna and set a story in it while not necessarily being "about" that moment, but still having it affect everything about the story. So you get shit like military police squads where France, Britain, America and the USSR have to be equally represented, or the particulars of which area of Austria is controlled by which nation being relevant.
Also the music is entirely jaunty zither tunes which is a very strange choice but memorable.
Is it weird that I think Orson Welles may be Jack Black's biological father? They look so alike