The book "The A List" from 2002 or so, edited by Jay Carr, is also a very solid list that includes some more off the beaten path suggestions, and includes foreign film, unlike the AFI lists (for obvious reasons).

Also, the Criterion Collection is another great set to work through. They cover a wide range of movies, ranging from true classics to unheralded oddities, but everything they put out is worth a viewing.

A great resource for anyone trying to expose themselves to more movies is listsofbests.com. It is a website that aggregate's lists (books, movies, music, etc...) and keeps track of your progress across all of them. For example if you are going through the Top 100 AFI and the first 100 of Roger Ebert's Great Movies and you just watched Citizen Kane, when you log that movie, the site will check that film off of both of your lists. It has a lot of the famous one's you may be familiar with (Time, AFI) and you can create your own lists or make a copy of one you can not find on the site. It is impossible to recommend this site enough.

"No, this is not the equivalent of an MFA from NYU or USC."

How close are you to accreditation? Only half kidding.

Thanks for doing this. Your blog is already one heck of a resource. With Deep Focus you are laying the groundwork for the ultimate writer's companion. Excited to be along for the ride. Can't wait to see what DF looks like in 10 years.

Out of the roughly 300 movies on the combined lists I have not seen about 50 of them. I have some work ahead of me! Most of the movies I've missed are from the 1930s and 1940s apparently. If we added the Criterion Collection to the mix there would be plenty more I'd have to watch as well. What a disaster. I have to watch great movies. It's such a chore!

I've seen most of these, but not really studied more than a few.

I guess 25 days is gobbled up with commercials, so time's a wasting!

There's probably a lot of overlap, but Scorcese's list is great too. http://www.fastcocreate.com/1679472/martin-scorseses-film-school-the-85-films-you-need-to-see-to-know-anything-about-film