Kurasawa - Great but not that great. Get a grip and stop reading Sight and Sound. Kurasawa was a western art student and the script-writer for Seven Samurai and Rashomon is a self-confessed western fan, with Stagecoach (John Wayne 1939) being a favourite. An overbearing obsession with mythical samurai.
For a real pseud feeling, catch any Murnau (esp. Der Letze Mann, Die Zwolfte Stunde (Nosferatau with sound),Sunrise and Faust. Or try Jean Vigo (only 4/5 films and you could be a completist pseud). Or Eisenstein, you can really wow the Sight and Sound crowd with a knowledge of his films. For an 'A' in cinema appreciation mention 'Le Salaire de la Peur' ('Wages of Fear') a superb thriller with a shock round every corner ( aka bump in the road).
With regard to other posts,'M' absolutely one of the best. Watch Hitchcock's 'The Lodger' for a similar feel. '39 Steps' the best 81 minutes you will spend but, watch out, for very inferior remakes. 'Cat People' very watchable and very ahead of its time. 'Thief of Baghdad' is stunning (1940 Korda version). But, Sabu great, very debatable.
List off the top of my head, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Cabaret, Grapes of Wrath, North By Northwest, Rebecca, Singin' in the Rain, 42nd Street, High Noon, Adventures of Robin Hood. Almost all old fashioned Hollywood-studio films, with more entertainment per minute than pseudo-intellectual, auteur-driven, Cahiers du Cinema-loving entertainment crushing Truffaut, Godard, Herzog et al.
I could mention Lean, Hitchcock, Capra, Ford, Curtiz, Sturges(Preston), Walsh, Zinnemann, Lubitsch, Cukor amongst many others who espoused entertainment not self-serving self-agrandisement, and (nearly) all who valued plotting, scripting, storytelling over meaning and 'vision'.