The opening sequence of Buñuel’s first film contains one of the most indelible images, and most primal “cuts”, in film history—the chillingly tranquil slicing of an eyeball with a razor blade. From there, Buñuel and collaborator Salvador Dalí use a Surrealist version of narrative to thread together sequences involving a heterosexual couple, a disembodied hand and a rotting carcass inside a piano. “The way I see it," observed Buñuel, "the film is nothing more than a public call to murder.” – DP

Realizing his goal of enraging fascists, Catholics, the bourgeoisie, and his general audience in this follow-up to Un Chien Andalou, Buñuel proved too radical this time for even Salvador Dali, who quickly distanced himself from this explosive cinematic revolution. Slyly beginning as an innocuous documentary on scorpions, this surreal masterpiece evolves into a love story in which the lovers are routinely blocked from realizing their love by the complexes of society and their own psyches. Even more miraculous that it was one of the earliest sound films—and incidentally, the first to use interior dialogue—L’Age d’Or is a decadent, jarring Freudian dreamscape that has maintained its horror, eroticism and taboo—provoking on planes both conscious and subconscious. – BG