1) Lost Highway, directed by David Lynch. Released in 1997, this neo-noir psychological thriller tells the tale of a maniacal saxophonist who murders his wife and her lover.

2) Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, also directed by David Lynch. Released in 1992 as a follow-up to the successful cult television series Twin Peaks.

3) Prospero’s Books, directed by Peter Greenaway. Released in 1991, this surrealist fantasy flick is a vivid surrealist retelling of the works of Shakespeare.

4) Drawing Restraint 9. Directed by Matthew Barney and released in 2006, this story unfolds aboard a Japanese whaling vessel and exploits the director’s love of shock art.

5) The Tulse Luper Suitcases: Part 1 – The Moab Story. Directed by Peter Greenaway and released in 2003, the film is the first in a series following title character Tulse Henry Purcel Luper through a string of absurd, unrelated events.

The French New Wave, a movement that began with a group of directors in the 1950s and 1960s, produced a lot of the films we revere as the classic French art films.

Last Tango in Paris, starring Marlon Brando, is one of the most memorable to American audiences. There is overt sexual activity in this film, and it resonated with American audiences. People were ready to start letting go of their sexual inhibitions.

Belle du Jour was a surrealist film with many vivid sexual fantasies.

Going Places, another film from the 1970s, is about two friends that go on a wild romp through the French countryside and have many engrossing sexual experiences.

Lily Says, a more contemporary art film, has some acts of sexual activity in public, but it is all under the clothes.

Exterminating Angels is another film from France about exhibitionism.

8 1/2, Age Tendre et Sexes Droits, Anges et Demons, C’es la Vie!, and Crash Toujours are five others that top the list.

John Huston was probably the first director of the genre, with the first such movie being “The Maltese Falcon” 1941). Huston studied abroad in Paris and worked as a painter there in his early years, and he applied the visual techniques he had learned to his directing: He would sketch his scenes on paper and then carefully frame the characters during shooting time. He also created films as they were shot, rather than use post-production editing.

Otto Preminger both produced and (after he was allowed to fire the director) directed “Laura” in 1944, a movie based on Vera Caspary’s novel. He felt that the story needed revising, so he offered to rewrite it with the author. And he refused to cast the actor who had played Jack the Ripper for the villain, feeling that the audience would suspect the latter character too early.

Jules Dassin directed “Brute Force,” notorious for its level of violence, and “Thieves’ Highway,” which accurately showed the vibrant fruit and produce market of San Francisco.

1. The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927): Hitchcock’s third silent film introduces many of his favorite themes, all intertwined in the story of an innocent man accused of being a serial killer. Hitchcock’s attention to psychoanalytic themes can be seen here, and the film has been so influential that it’s inspired four adaptations.
2. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934): Hitchcock made this film twicethe 1934 original and a 1956 adaptation with James Stewart. While you should obviously see both, this first one represents another step forward for Hitchcock. A British couple befriends a foreigner only to find out that he’s a spy. After he’s killed, the assassins target the couple themselves.
3. Rebecca (1940): Hitchcock’s only Best Picture win is the gothic tale of a newlywed couple haunted by the man’s first wife. Hitchcock shows what he can do with just a few main characters, and draws out star performances from Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, and Judith Anderson.
4. Strangers on a Train (1951): As America settled into suburban life, Hitchcock’s adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel showed that dark forces still roiled beneath the surfacejust as he would do again in Psycho. Two men meeting on a train plot the perfect murders, revealing their true inner selves.
5. Frenzy (1972): Hitchcock’s second-to-last film, and his first after returning to London, is almost a perfect summation of his career, hearkening back to earlier films like The Lodger and Psycho. Again, an innocent man is accused of murder, while the real killer plots his next move. Beautifully shot and expertly directed, the film is a fitting capstone to a career spanning half a century.