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Un Chien Andalou

Director: Luis Buñuel
Year: 1929
Runtime: 21 min
Source: Youtube

Notable For: Being the most famous Surrealist film, as well as the first film by the great Luis Buñuel, which he co-wrote with Salvador Dali.  It's also one of the most referenced silent works, with clear parallels to the modern dream sequence as well as the entire oeuvre of David Lynch.  It's one of the most timeless films of the era.

Verdict:  Like any actual dream, it evades all critics, and though there's plenty of Freudian psychoanalysis to be done on the myriad of insane images, I doubt that would be ultimately fruitful.  That's not to say that I didn't heartily enjoy Un Chien Andalou - indeed I'll be thinking about it for a while - but given how prevalent its ideas are now, I'm not sure I would call it essential cinema like some of Buñuel's later works.

Best Paired With:  I suppose the obvious choice would be Pixies' Debaser, but who needs an excuse to listen to Doolittle again?  In the world of early abstract cinema, Un Chien Andalou is the id to Man With a Movie Camera's superego, and they would make for an interesting double feature. 
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