Which movie hooked you on film as an art?

Sometimes average films are quite watchable...they can be good rainy afternoon or late at night films. 

"Black Narcissus" and "The Red Shoes" for color films and the 1946 "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Night of the Hunter" for black and white films.

For me it was Doctor Zhivago. I couldn't believe it, years later, when I found out that it was actually filmed in Spain !!

Great to read that London. I am not from England or Uk but I also used to refer to movies as "pictures" in my childhood. The term for movie theatre that I used to use was "cinema hall". I Remember an incidence when I was class 10th. I took about 11 boys from my class to cinema hall directly after the school. When we reached the cinema hall I saw some of our seats were already taken by other people. Full with my boyish energy I charged at them for being so stupid as to take our seat. I kicked them out and also called them illiterate idiots. A few minutes later they came back with the ticket collector and the ticket collector asked us to leave the theatre immediately. The reason being that the guy who had bought the tickets for me didn't understand the difference between noon show and matinee show. Well....This was a total humiliation for me and the other 10 boys. But this was a small town so we had other means. We bribed the ticket collector to install extra chairs for us. So ticket collector put some chairs in what you can call the walking area to everyone's chagrin. But I considered myself victorious at last and we enjoyed the movie. But the happiness was short lived as next day in the morning assembly Father Joseph called me on stage (it was a Catholic school) and announced in front of entire school that I was the gang leader who was corrupting the other boys. I got caned in front of entire school.

I agree with you on both films, spiderwort

I didn‘t know that you‘re a director. 

WOW, I admire that. I‘ve seen some documentaries about directors. Everything that has to do with filmmaking will always remain a closed book to me.

...my Dad was a professional photographer and I acquired a strong attraction for photography as art. An example is Orson Welles film "Citizen Kane" which is a groundbreaking film regarding cinematography. "Kane" is like a carefully composed set of stills strung together to make up a cinematic masterpiece. Later films like "Russian Ark" and "Koyanisqattsi" strongly affected my appreciation for cinema as an art form.

Previous posters here indicated that much of what is put to film is mediocre, and I agree with that sentiment.