Gillo Pontecorvo's Battle of Algiers and Federico Fellini's Otto e mezzo (8 1/2) were two of the films picked in a British Film Institute poll as worthy of being passed down to future generations.
For its 75th anniversary, the BFI asked 75 cinema figures to name the work that would resonate down the years.
Few films received more than one nomination, and Pontecorvo's 1966 masterpiece was one of them.
It was picked by producer Rebecca O'Brien, the woman behind nine of Ken Loach's films, and writer and director Paul Greengrass of The Bourne Supremacy and United 93 fame.
In a video interview on the BFI website, Greengrass said ''the reason it will endure is that it's essentially about change''.
O'Brien called it ''the best anti-war film I've ever seen''.
Otto e mezzo was picked by Canadian actress Lisa Ray, acclaimed for her portrayal of one of Deepa Mehta's ostracised widows in his 2005 film Water.
She told the FTI that Fellini's 1963 work ''shows us how everything is just the play of shadows and memories and desires''.
