One of my favorite podcasts, Cinecast, runs through various marathons where they examine a genre of films with five representative samples. It’s a bit fun, because they listen a lot to viewer feedback, and their chosen samples are always subject to some listener controversy.
I liked their marathon on Westerns (although Kevin recommended The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly over their choice A Fistful of Dollars–thanks to him, I’ve got the DVD now). Right now, they’re doing Hitchcock. An obvious choice of film study, but these guys make it fresh. I’ve always wanted to see Notorious, but I tend to find North By Northwest on TV instead (one of my favorites, at least).
At any rate, if you ever want to look at the marathons and “play along at home,” here’s the Cinecast marathon link. And here’s the link to the podcast, if you have iTunes (it’s all free, so why not?).