Journey to the Shore

September 30, 2016March 28, 2021Ryan Swen Reviews Leave a comment

***1/2 (Excellent)

Journey to the Shore could have gone in radically different directions with its intriguing premise, that of ghosts who appear to be humans for all intents and purposes. But Kiyoshi Kurosawa chooses the most counterintuitive and difficult of them all: the romantic drama. The film stays solidly grounded in the relationship between the two main characters, Mizuki (Eri Fukatsu) and Yusuke (Tadanobu Asano), using it as the basis for the more eerie or “genre” elements that Kurosawa occasionally hints at. But even in this regard, the romantic aspects are consistently elided; though the ghosts seem to have the exact same physiology as regular people, Mizuki and Yusuke almost never touch throughout the narrative, instead conveying their romance through discussions of the past, when the two were married before Yusuke’s death, and longing glances as their subdued chemistry shines through.

From the very beginning, Journey to the Shore is clearly playing by completely different rules, refusing to conform to any familiar narrative structure. After a short scene introducing Mizuki teaching piano to a young girl that will not be seen again, Yusuke shows up in her apartment without warning, having been gone for three years. Only as the scene goes along does the viewer learn that Yusuke has been dead (a fact unknown to Mizuki) and reincarnated, but it is left unexplained why Mizuki reacts with such composure. Indeed, the opening of the film is suggested to be a dream for a few moments after the couple’s reunion, an otherwise superfluous occurrence that reinforces the odd, unpredictable nature of the film.

Otherwise, Journey to the Shore proceeds in a relatively straightforward manner, staying with its two main characters as it adopts an almost episodic, road-trip style structure. For the most part, the movie revolves around a handful of extended encounters with people connected in various ways to Yusuke, all of whom he met after he became a corporeal ghost. Kurosawa never reveals their true state of being (whether it be alive or dead) until after their initial introductions, aligning his film’s viewpoint squarely with Mizuki and doling out information about the nature of the afterlife in pieces. Perhaps not coincidentally, some of the most powerful scenes in the film come at the climax of these individual encounters—one of Kurosawa’s greatest strengths in this movie is the skill with which he slowly builds the emotion of a section, unleashing it in one scene, then letting it recede during a short traveling sequence before escalating once more, matched by his impeccable use of long shots.

After a rather unexpected rupture at just past the halfway point, the rest of the film takes place in a village where Yusuke taught for a while and became acquainted with most of the inhabitants. The supernatural aspects here are most apparent, featuring a hole where the dead purportedly pass from the underworld to humanity (an idea shot down by Yusuke) and a conversation between Mizuki and her dead father, but Kurosawa ultimately leaves this all behind, focusing on the love of the central couple before things must inevitably come to an end. It is, in the end, an unbearably romantic movie, reserved but inexorable, and above all beguiling in the most mysterious and wonderful way.

Published Pieces

September 28, 2016May 13, 2024Ryan Swen Lists

The pieces I have published, categorized in reverse chronological order.

Podcast Appearances

Criterion

Entry on Chang Chen to the feature on Wong Kar-wai actors

Film Comment

Ballot for the best films of 2023
Ballot for the best films of 2022

Reverse Shot

Entries on The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin) and Wife of a Spy for the 2021 Two Cents feature
Entry on Yourself and Yours for the 2020 Two Cents feature

Los Angeles Film Critics Association

Program essay for The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin).

Slant Magazine

Ballot for the best films of 2023
Ballot for the best films of 2022

Seattle Screen Scene

Participated in the 2020 in Review
Participated in the 2019 in Review
Participated in the Best of 2018
The Frances Farmer Show podcast episode on SIFF 2018
The Frances Farmer Show podcast episode on SIFF 2017: Part 1 2
Participated in the 2016 Year in Review: Part 1 2 3 4

The Film Stage

Entry on Walk Up for the top 50 films of 2023
Entry on Drive My Car for the top 50 films of 2021
Entries on The Last City and There are not thirty-six ways of showing a man getting on a horse. for the best undistributed films of 2020
Entries on I Was at Home, But… and Martin Eden for the top 50 films of 2020
Entry on Tallie Medel in Fourteen for the best performances of 2020
Entry on Martin Eden for the best cinematography of 2020
Entries on The Girl and the Spider and Last Night in Soho for the most anticipated of 2020
Entries on An Elephant Sitting Still, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, and Transit for the best cinematography of 2019
Entries on Asako I & II and La Flor for the top 50 films of 2019
Contributed entires on Asako I & II, La Flor, Grass, and Too Late to Die Young for the most overlooked of 2019
Entries on Laura Paredes, Pilar Gamboa, Elisa Carricajo, and Valeria Correa in La Flor; Franz Rogowski in Transit; and Zhao Tao in Ash Is Purest White for the best performances of 2019
Entries on Ahmed, Roubaix, a Light, To the Ends of the Earth, The Daughters of Fire, and Zombi Child for the most anticipated of 2019
Entry on Meinhard Neumann in Western for the best performances of 2018
Entries on The Day After and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs for the top 50 films of 2018
Entries on En el Séptimo Día and The Wild Boys for the most overlooked of 2018
Entry on The Ballad of Buster Scruggs for the best cinematography of 2018
Entry on Bisbee ’17 for the best documentaries of 2018
Entry on The Wild Boys for the best debut features of 2018
Entries on On the Beach at Night Alone, The Work, and Faces Places for the top 50 films of 2017
Entries on Kim Min-hee in On the Beach at Night Alone and Adam Sandler in The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) for the best performances of 2017
Entries on The Human Surge, Princess Cyd, The Son of Joseph, Thirst Street, and Harmonium for the most overlooked of 2017
Entry on Good Time for the best cinematography of 2017
Entry on The Human Surge for the best debut features of 2017
Entries on Escapes and Starless Dreams for the best documentaries of 2017
Entry on a 120 BPM/The Post double feature for 2017
Entry on the Criterion Othello disc for the 2017 holiday gift guide
Entries on Caniba and Manhunt for this Fall 2017 festival preview
Entries on Wonder Wheel and Thelma for this Fall 2017 releases preview
Transcribed this Todd Haynes interview at Locarno
Transcribed this William Oldroyd interview about Lady Macbeth
Transcribed this Demetri Martin interview about Dean

MUBI Notebook

Entry on The Woman Who Ran and Beijing Watermelon for the fantasy double features of 2020

Filmmaker Magazine

In Review Online

Walk Up and in water for the top 10 films of 2022
The Fabelmans for the top 25 films of 2022

Screen Slate

Ballots for the best movies of 2023
Ballots for the best movies of 2022
Ballots for the best movies of 2021

Hyperallergic

Entry on The Image Book for the top 12 documentaries and experimental films of 2019
Entry on An Elephant Sitting Still for the top 15 feature films of 2019

BFI

Primer about Hollis Frampton

The Hobbyhorse

Ultra Dogme

Corresponded with Patrick Preziosi on Wife of a Spy

Frameland

Northwest Film Forum Program Descriptions

On Her Shoulders
Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Love, Cecil
The Day After
Looking at the Stars
Claire’s Camera
Zama
Legend of the Mountain
Western
12 Days
Helped program and wrote catalog descriptions for the experimental shorts program at the 2017 Local Sightings Film Festival

Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television

Book review of Kelly Reichardt (originally written for class, also published in print)

Brooklyn Magazine Film Section

From the Other Side
In the Heat of the Sun
Hi, Mom!
Meek’s Cutoff
The Devils
The Keep
Contributed to the Ten Best Music Moments of 2016
Contributed to the Ten Best Scenes of 2016
Contributed to the Ten Best Performances of 2016
Days of Being Wild
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Manhunter
The Battle of Algiers

Sentient.Art.Film.

Some Divine Wind as part of the My Sight Is Lined With Visions program

Scarecrow Blog

The 89th Academy Awards Best Picture Nominees
Paris, Texas (and Harry Dean Stanton)
The Straight Story
Fargo

Muriel Awards

Heat
Transit
The editing of The Other Side of the Wind
Night and Fog
On the Beach at Night Alone
The ensemble of Lady Bird
The Battle of Algiers
Cameraperson
Lily Gladstone in Certain Women

Our Little Sister

September 24, 2016March 28, 2021Ryan Swen Reviews Leave a comment

***1/2 (Excellent)

It is always an interesting case when the original and English titles of a film differ, and the ones corresponding to Our Little Sister are especially instructive. While the English title puts an emphasis on both the eponymous character, Suzu, and the three sisters that perhaps form the emotional core of the movie, the original Japanese title, Umimachi Diary (the name of the manga that the film is based on), is even more illuminating. Umimachi means seaside town, and of course seafood and boats play a not-insignificant part in the narrative, but what really interests is the pointed inclusion of “diary” (spelled out on screen, as in the original manga). The film does not adopt the day-by-day approach suggested by this word, taking place over the course of a year, but there is an unmistakeable intimacy that feels as if the viewer is reading a diary written in tandem by these four charming young women, one that is willing to go into minute detail on the most seemingly insignificant of events. The days may pass with abandon, but nothing seems too frivolous to cherish and preserve.

Our Little Sister concerns itself with a great deal of human interactions, and the one that embeds itself in the film’s core is the unshakeable bond of the four sisters. Thankfully, Kore-eda pointedly resists creating conflict (of almost any kind in the film, but especially here) between the three sisters and Suzu, as they quickly adopt and care for her with nothing but deep genuine love—though at one point Sachi (the oldest sister) is accused of adopting her for ulterior motives, it is evident that this is hardly the case. Much of the joy of the film is in observing how various configurations of the four pinball off of each other. There is a remarkable and irrepressible chemistry that exists between all of the actresses that seems to rise to the surface in almost every occasion, whether it be a playful argument, an explanation of an old custom, or idle chatter at mealtime.

As many have noted, in both praise and derision, Our Little Sister is an extraordinarily nice film; there is almost no conflict to speak of, and the one scene that does devolve into an actual confrontation is quickly followed by a pleasing resolution. But at least for me, this is a merit, all the better to immerse the viewer into the atmosphere of Kamakura. Kore-eda’s style is ideal for this feeling, using careful, slowly moving medium shots and precise to cover all of his subjects and subtly changing his method for the ever-so-slightly more important areas—the confrontation is shot in a sharply edited and direct way, a ride through a tunnel of cherry blossoms is in slow-motion.

And through it all, the unmistakeable idea of heritage is preserved. Kore-eda is clearly optimistic about the past as it becomes further and further from the present, as the sisters continually talk about the people they had loved and lost and dutifully perform rituals with sincerity. The continually rotating supporting cast carries this torch as well; only a few persist throughout and many only appear for a few scenes, but there is a sense that, even as society becomes more and more modern (a cell phone here, a pair of jeans there), things will stay the same for the better.

It goes without saying that all four actresses are superb, but it is worth noting that each fulfills a clear-cut role and never strays far from it. Sachi (Haruka Ayase, in a remarkably empathetic performance) is the lead, if such a distinction can be applied to an ensemble film, and she is a kind of emotional anchor—as the least mercurial and oldest of the sisters, she frequently serves as the mother and carries the strongest connection to the house in which they all live in, even to the point of denouncing their estranged mother for the suggestion of selling it. A kind of middle ground between Sachi and the two younger sisters, Yoshino (a wonderfully down-to-earthMasami Nagasawa) is one of the trickiest characters to fully grasp, even though the movie begins with her character, establishing her as a sort of audience surrogate. Chika (Kaho, perhaps the best performance) is immensely joyous, an absolute pleasure to watch as she somehow manages to be even more nice than the film surrounding her. And the catalyst of the film, Suzu (played by Suzu Hirose with magnetic charm) handles herself with poise—though she is perhaps not the most mature of the sisters, as the other three claim, she is undoubtedly grown-up, though she still is clearly a young girl going through the standard ups and downs of a teenager’s life.

Of course, even after a not inconsiderable amount of scenes that could conceivably serve as endings, the film concludes with the sisters together. Our Little Sister is sweet to the end, like the plum wine that conjures up a surprising amount of meanings throughout the movie (comedy, a connection to the past, a gesture of reconciliation), but it never once becomes saccharine. Kore-eda believes in his characters too much, imbuing them with so much life, to ever be anything but genuine, and in doing so he brings the viewer along, making them believe in Sachi, Yoshino, Chika, and Suzu.

Brian De Palma Wrap-Up

September 24, 2016December 31, 2016Ryan Swen Musings Leave a comment

A Brian De Palma Ranking

Passion
Carlito’s Way
Femme Fatale
Body Double
Blow Out
Casualties of War
Carrie
Phantom of the Paradise
Dressed to Kill
Scarface
Snake Eyes
Raising Cain
Sisters
Mission: Impossible
The Black Dahlia
Greetings
The Fury
Obsession
Home Movies
The Untouchables
Mission to Mars
Dionysus in ’69
Hi, Mom!
Murder à la Mod
The Bonfire of the Vanities
Redacted
Get to Know Your Rabbit
The Wedding Party
Wise Guys

Top Ten De Palma Performances

1. Al Pacino, Carlito’s Way
2. Michael J. Fox, Casualties of War
3. Sissy Spacek, Carrie
4. Noomi Rapace, Passion
5. Nicolas Cage, Snake Eyes
6. John Travolta, Blow Out
7. William Finley, Phantom of the Paradise
8. Gerrit Graham, Home Movies
9. Antonio Banderas, Femme Fatale
10. Tom Hanks, The Bonfire of the Vanities

A Few Scattered Thoughts on the “Master of the Macabre”

To the average cinephile, De Palma is most known for his cynicism and, in his most famous film Blow Out, a perversely nihilistic sensibility. Yet this is probably not an accurate viewpoint: of his 29 films (to date), only 4 have unambiguously tragic and saddening endings, though it is perhaps not a surprise that most of them are among his greatest works (an argument could also be made for Scarface):

Carlito’s Way
Blow Out
Phantom of the Paradise
Redacted

By comparison, no less than 15 De Palma films have more or less happy endings:

Femme Fatale
Body Double
Casualties of War (despite tinged with sadness)
Snake Eyes
Mission: Impossible
The Black Dahlia (shockingly, given the absolute sordidness that had immediately preceded it)
The Fury (again, debateable)
Obsession
Home Movies
The Untouchables
Mission to Mars
Dionysus in ’69 (cheating, but it counts)
The Bonfire of the Vanities
Get to Know Your Rabbit
Wise Guys

and the rest of the films fall into either ambiguity or a gleeful twist. It is perhaps most accurate to classify De Palma as a filmmaker who is perfectly willing to give his characters a happy ending, even if it comes abruptly, so long as he puts them through absolute hell first.

De Palma is also known for his meditations on the image, and so here is the list of his films that I believe contain something of this sort, whether it be in celluloid, flesh, or some other medium.

Passion
Carlito’s Way
Femme Fatale
Body Double
Blow Out
Casualties of War (if you count the girl on the subway)
Phantom of the Paradise
Snake Eyes
The Black Dahlia
Greetings
Home Movies
Murder à la Mod
Redacted

The Glass Shield

September 16, 2016March 28, 2021Ryan Swen Reviews Leave a comment

***1/2 (Excellent)

The most dangerous trap a filmmaker can fall into while making a movie concerned with racism is losing a sense of balance. Whether it be stacking the deck in favor of the black community by making the white people little more than caricatures, or treating the white people with too much ambivalence, a lack of balance can and will destroy any sense of true meaning and consideration behind the film’s craft and message. So it is immensely gratifying to see the triumph of The Glass Shield, a film that carefully creates its environment to issue a condemnation of police corruption while elucidating how all involved, to some degree, contribute to this climate for good and ill.

The main gambit that The Glass Shield uses is that it is not truly about the protagonist, Deputy J.J. Johnson (Michael Boatman) at all. Though he is the most active force throughout the movie, after the first act or so Burnett largely breaks from his viewpoint, moving to focus on the main narrative: the trial of Teddy Woods (Ice Cube), a man who has been purposefully and wrongly charged with the murder of a white woman. But this first act is vital in its lucid development of the police force and its effect on J.J., laying out his indoctrination as a domino-like series of events. Crucially, the film quickly drops any attempts to make J.J. a clear, defined martyr or a perfect individual. He is shown as perfectly willing to initially become a better and more efficient individual, subjugating himself to the corrupt machine. Boatman’s performance also undergoes a metamorphosis, as the perpetually smiling rookie becomes a serious man before the viewer can even register the change.

But as mentioned before, this is much more than the story of J.J. Johnson, and the surprisingly robust supporting cast is weaved seamlessly into the narrative. Burnett manages a wide assortment of narrative strands, sometimes teasing out each one in small fragments that, at first blush, seem entirely disconnected. Most notably, the character of Deputy Deborah Fields (Lori Petty in a confident performance) acts as an unexpected corollary to the film’s focus on racism, illustrating how the police environment is a place of widespread discrimination as well as providing a strong, caring ally in Johnson’s investigation. In the court, the defense lawyer James Locket (Bernie Casey) and Justice Lewis (Natalija Nogulich) are perhaps the most morally good of the main characters, both dedicated to their professions with no small sense of professionalism and fairness.

Aside from the comic book opening that illustrates Johnson’s idyllic fantasies of being a police officer and some noticeable forward tracking shots, Burnett’s approach is relatively simple here, albeit stunningly shot by Elliot Davis. The Glass Shield is largely in tight close-ups that never feel suffocating, heightening the intensity while still remaining balanced with some of the incredible silhouette-esque shots that Burnett sprinkles throughout. Special attention is paid to the camera angles, which consistently look up at the authority figures, whether they be the higher ranking police officers or the people of the court.

The Glass Shield is by no means a noir, as it is perhaps too spread across various points of view to create a true sense of paranoia and distrust (especially in the scenes that follow minor characters). But it is unflinching in how it both shows the nastiness of the antagonists, which is conveyed often through a single word or phrase in their conversations, as well as their human side, most notably a birthday celebration and the attempts to save the life of one of their own. In the end, the film ends on a melancholic note, yet one with a sufficient and cathartic amount of hope. The Glass Shield never once steps wrong in its pursuit of a certain brand of truth.

2016 Viewing Log

September 14, 2016September 5, 2021Ryan Swen Lists Tags: log, viewing

January
+Heat (1995, Michael Mann) – 8.4 [up from 8.3]
+Yi Yi (2000, Edward Yang) – 9.3 [same]
Carol (2015, Todd Haynes) DP – 8.3
+Carol (2015, Todd Haynes) DP – 8.4 [up from 8.3]
The Big Short (2015, Adam McKay) DP – 2.8
+The Social Network (2010, David Fincher) – 7.6 [up from ~6.9]
+Reservoir Dogs (1992, Quentin Tarantino) – 5.5 [down from ~7.4]
+Birdman, or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014, Alejandro González Iñárritu) – 3.5 [down from 6.0]
The Revenant (2015, Alejandro González Iñárritu) DP – 3.5
+The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964, Jacques Demy) – 8.9 [same]
+Being John Malkovich (1999, Spike Jonze) – 6.6 [down from ~7.1]
+Adaptation (2002, Spike Jonze) – 6.6 [down from ~7.0]
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, Michel Gondry) – 7.6
Synecdoche, New York (2008, Charlie Kaufman) – 4.6
Anomalisa (2015, Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson) DP – 4.8
+The Revenant (2015, Alejandro González Iñárritu) DP – 3.7 [up from 3.5]
World of Tomorrow (2015, Don Hertzfeldt)
Coraline (2009, Henry Selick) – 5.2
Steve Jobs (2015, Danny Boyle) – 5.9
+Pulp Fiction (1994, Quentin Tarantino) – 6.8 [down from ~7.5]
Jackie Brown (1997, Quentin Tarantino) – 6.8
Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003, Quentin Tarantino) – 6.4
Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2003, Quentin Tarantino) – 6.4
Death Proof (2007, Quentin Tarantino) – 7.8
Inglourious Basterds (2009, Quentin Tarantino) – 7.6
Django Unchained (2012, Quentin Tarantino) – 5.9
Room (2015, Lenny Abrahamson) DP – 4.8
The Hateful Eight (2015, Quentin Tarantino) DP – 7.2
The Battle of Brazil: A Video History (1996, Jack Mathews) – 5.1
Beasts of No Nation (2015, Cary Joji Fukunaga) – 3.4
Magic Mike XXL (2015, Gregory Jacobs) – 7.3
+Nightcrawler (2014, Dan Gilroy) – 6.0 [down from ~6.8]
The Forbidden Room (2015, Guy Maddin) – 7.9
+Blade Runner [Final Cut] (1982, Ridley Scott) – 9.0 [same]
+Blade Runner [Final Cut, Cinema Dissection] (1982, Ridley Scott) DP – 9.0 [same]
+Carol (2015, Todd Haynes) DP – 8.6 [up from 8.4]
Out 1: Noli me tangere (1971, Jacques Rivette) DP – 8.4
Frances Ha (2012, Noah Baumbach) – 6.4
Mistress America (2015, Noah Baumbach) – 7.5
Groundhog Day (1993, Harold Ramis) – 4.8
Blackhat (2015, Michael Mann) – 7.4
Bridge of Spies (2015, Steven Spielberg) – 6.8
The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015, Marielle Heller) – 6.0
45 Years (2015, Andrew Haigh) – 7.0
When Marnie Was There (2014, Hiromasa Yonebayashi) – 7.4
Clouds of Sils Maria (2014, Olivier Assayas) – 6.3

February
Blood Simple (1984, Joel & Ethan Coen) – 5.9
Raising Arizona (1987, Joel & Ethan Coen) – 7.4
Game Change (2012, Jay Roach) – 3.2
Miller’s Crossing (1990, Joel & Ethan Coen) – 6.0
+Barton Fink (1991, Joel & Ethan Coen) – 7.5 [same]
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994, Joel & Ethan Coen) – 5.0
+Fargo (1996, Joel & Ethan Coen) – 7.4 [~same]
+The Big Lebowski (1998, Joel & Ethan Coen) – 6.8 [down from ~7.4]
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000, Joel & Ethan Coen) – 5.9
The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001, Joel & Ethan Coen) – 7.3
Intolerable Cruelty (2003, Joel & Ethan Coen) – 7.2
The Ladykillers (2004, Joel & Ethan Coen) – 5.0
+Her (2013, Spike Jonze) – 6.5 [down from ~7.0]
Boy and the World (2013, Alê Abreu) DP – 5.9
+No Country for Old Men (2007, Joel & Ethan Coen) – 6.8 [down from ~7.2]
Burn After Reading (2008, Joel & Ethan Coen) – 7.0
Beauty and the Beast (1946, Jean Cocteau) DP – 7.3
Harold and Maude (1971, Hal Ashby) DP – 5.1
The Devils (1971, Ken Russell) 35mm – 8.6
The Witch: A New-England Folktale (2015, Robert Eggers) DP – 5.0
A Serious Man (2009, Joel & Ethan Coen) – 7.3
+True Grit (2010, Joel & Ethan Coen) – 6.5 [up from ~5.9]
Deadpool (2016, Tim Miller) – 3.8
Office (2015, Johnnie To) 3D – 6.2
+Inside Llewyn Davis (2013, Joel & Ethan Coen) – 7.4 [up from ~6.9]
Hail, Caesar! (2016, Joel & Ethan Coen) DP – 6.6
+It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012, Don Hertzfeldt) – 7.7 [down from 9.0]
+Carol (2015, Todd Haynes) DP – 8.6 [same]
+Steve Jobs (2015, Danny Boyle) – 5.8 [down from 5.9]
Hard Eight (1996, Paul Thomas Anderson) – 6.0
Boogie Nights (1997, Paul Thomas Anderson) – 6.8
+Magnolia (1999, Paul Thomas Anderson) – 7.0 [down from ~7.5]
+Punch-Drunk Love (2002, Paul Thomas Anderson) – 7.2 [up from 7.0]
The Blues Brothers (1980, John Landis) – 5.0
+There Will Be Blood (2007, Paul Thomas Anderson) – 7.4 [~same]
The Master (2012, Paul Thomas Anderson) – 7.5
Inherent Vice (2014, Paul Thomas Anderson) – 7.7
Son of Saul (2015, László Nemes) DP – 4.6

March
Only Yesterday (1991, Isao Takahata) DP – 6.2
The American Friend (1977, Wim Wenders) DP – 6.8
Mustang (2015, Deniz Gamze Ergüven) DP – 6.3
+Paris, Texas (1984, Wim Wenders) DP – 9.4 [same]
+Sans soleil (1983, Chris Marker) – 9.7 [~same]
Cloverfield (2008, Matt Reeves) – 5.6
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016, Dan Trachtenberg) DP – 5.8
Nosferatu [live score by Invincible Czars] (1922, F.W. Murnau) DP – 7.6
Embrace of the Serpent (2015, Ciro Guerra) DP – 4.9
World of Tomorrow (2015, Don Hertzfeldt)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015, Joss Whedon) – 5.8
+Inside Out (2015, Pete Docter) – 6.6
+Mad Max: Fury Road (2015, George Miller) – 7.8 [same]
+Phoenix (2014, Christian Petzold) – 8.2 [same]
+Easy Rider (1969, Dennis Hopper) – 6.0 [same]
Easy Rider (2012, James Benning) – 5.8
Godzilla (1954, Ishiro Honda) – 7.5
+Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens (2015, J.J. Abrams) – 7.0 [same]
Aloha (2015, Cameron Crowe) – 6.0
Ant-Man (2015, Peyton Reed) – 5.6
Cemetery of Splendour (2015, Apichatpong Weerasethakul) DP – 7.2
Ran (1985, Akira Kurosawa) DP – 8.2
The Cheat (1915, Cecil B. DeMille) – 5.1
Buena Vista Social Club (1999, Wim Wenders) DP – 6.0
Pina (2011, Wim Wenders) 3D – 6.9 [up from 6.5]
Until the End of the World [Director’s Cut] (1991, Wim Wenders) DP – 6.7

April
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016, Zack Snyder) DP – 7.1
Zootopia (2016, Byron Howard & Rich Moore & Jared Bush) DP – 5.3
The Public Enemy (1931, William A. Wellman) – 5.1
+The Terminator (1984, James Cameron) – 7.5 [up from ~7.4]
42nd Street (1933, Lloyd Bacon) – 5.9
+Hercules (1997, John Musker & Ron Clements) – 3.8 [down from ~5.2]
Midnight Special (2016, Jeff Nichols) DP – 5.7
Demolition (2015, Jean-Marc Vallée) DP – 5.9
+The Hateful Eight [Roadshow Version] (2015, Quentin Tarantino) 70mm – 7.1 [down from 7.2]
+Ex Machina (2015, Alex Garland) – 5.3 [same]
+The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967, Jacques Demy) – 8.9 [same]
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939, Frank Capra) – 6.0
+The 400 Blows (1959, François Truffaut) – 8.7 [same]
Green Room (2015, Jeremy Saulnier) DP – 5.9
No Home Movie (2015, Chantal Akerman) DP – 5.3
Francofonia (2015, Alexander Sokurov) DP – 5.5
I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman (2015, Marianne Lambert) DP – 5.8
April and the Extraordinary World (2015, Christian Desmares & Franck Ekinci) DP – 5.7
+Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2015, Zack Snyder) DP – 7.0 [down from 7.1]
The Jungle Book (2016, Jon Favreau) 3D – 5.3
Everybody Wants Some!! (2016, Richard Linklater) DP – 6.9
+Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz) – 7.8 [up from ~6.9]
+The Big Short (2015, Adam McKay) – 3.0 [up from 2.8]
My Golden Days (2015, Arnaud Desplechin) DP – 7.5
Güeros (2014, Alonso Ruizpalacios) DP – 6.2
Chantal Akerman, From Here (2010, Gustavo Beck & Leonardo Ferreira) DP – 6.0
The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan) DP – 4.9

May
D’Est (1993, Chantal Akerman) DP – 7.2
+My Golden Days (2015, Arnaud Desplechin) DP – 7.9 [up from 7.5]
Là-bas (2006, Chantal Akerman) DP – 5.8
Purple Rain (1984, Albert Magnoli) DP – 5.5
Bataan (1943, Tay Garnett) – 5.3
+Persona (1966, Ingmar Bergman) – 9.4 [same]
Song of Lahore (2015, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy & Andy Schocken) – 4.7
Shaun of the Dead (2004, Edgar Wright) – 7.0
Captain America: Civil War (2016, Anthony & Joe Russo) DP – 5.8
+Green Room (2015, Jeremy Saulnier) DP – 5.9 [same]
Hot Fuzz (2007, Edgar Wright) – 7.1
Thief (1981, Michael Mann) – 8.2
The Keep (1983, Michael Mann) – 6.7
Manhunter (1986, Michael Mann) – 8.8
Mildred Pierce (1945, Michael Curtiz) – 7.2
The World’s End (2013, Edgar Wright) – 7.3
Daydreaming (2016, Paul Thomas Anderson) 35mm
High-Rise (2015, Ben Wheatley) DP – 5.3
The Last of the Mohicans (1992, Michael Mann) – 7.3
+Heat (1995, Michael Mann) – 9.0 [up from 8.4]
The Insider (1999, Michael Mann) – 8.1
Ali (2001, Michael Mann) – 7.6
No Way Out (1950, Joseph L. Mankiewicz) – 5.5
Collateral (2004, Michael Mann) – 7.2
Café Society (2016, Woody Allen) SIFF, DP – 5.7
Miami Vice (2006, Michael Mann) – 8.7
Sunset Song (2015, Terence Davies) SIFF, DP – 7.2
Public Enemies (2009, Michael Mann) – 8.6
A Bigger Splash (2015, Luca Guadagnino) DP – 6.1
+Blackhat (2015, Michael Mann) – 7.5 [up from 7.4]
Chimes at Midnight (1965, Orson Welles) SIFF, DP – 7.0
High Noon (1952, Fred Zinnemann) – 5.1
Belladonna of Sadness (1973, Eiichi Yamamoto) DP – 6.6
+The Night of the Hunter (1955, Charles Laughton) – 9.0 [same]
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016, Bryan Singer) DP – 5.8
The Nice Guys (2016, Shane Black) DP – 5.9

June
Cameraperson (2016, Kirsten Johnson) SIFF, DP – 7.2
The Lobster (2015, Yorgos Lanthimos) DP – 5.9
Keanu (2016, Peter Atencio) DP – 4.9
Love & Friendship (2016, Whit Stillman) DP – 6.6
+Singin’ in the Rain (1952, Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly) – 7.8 [down from ~8.2]
Money Monster (2016, Jodie Foster) DP – 4.9
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016, Nicholas Stoller) DP – 5.4
Dragon Inn (1967, King Hu) SIFF, DP – 7.2
Mountains May Depart (1967, Jia Zhangke) SIFF, DP – 6.1
Now You See Me 2 (2016, Jon M. Chu) DP – 3.4
+Mulholland Drive (2001, David Lynch) – 9.8 [same]
+Sicario (2015, Denis Villeneuve) – 7.4 [same]
The Silence of the Lambs (1991, Jonathan Demme) – 6.9
John Wick (2014, Chad Stahelski and David Leitch) – 7.2
L for Leisure (2014, Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn) – 7.1
Blondes in the Jungle (2009, Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn) – 6.4
House of Wax (2005, Jaume Collet-Serra) – 6.2
Orphan (2009, Jaume Collet-Serra) – 6.9
Unknown (2011, Jaume Collet-Serra) – 6.4 [up from ~5.6]
Non-Stop (2014, Jaume Collet-Serra) – 7.3
Run All Night (2015, Jaume Collet-Serra) – 6.3
Das Boot [Director’s Cut] (1981, Wolfgang Petersen) – 5.9
Only God Forgives (2013, Nicolas Winding Refn) – 2.9

July
+Mission: Impossible (1996, Brian De Palma) – 6.7 [up from ~6.1]
The Untouchables (1987, Brian De Palma) – 6.3
Sisters (1973, Brian De Palma) – 6.9
Carrie (1976, Brian De Palma) – 7.4
+The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964, Jacques Demy) – 8.9 [same]
The Gang’s All Here (1943, Busby Berkeley) – 7.6
Actress (2014, Robert Greene) – 6.2
Holy Motors (2012, Leos Carax) – 7.5
Kate Plays Christine (2016, Robert Greene) – 7.2
True Lies (1994, James Cameron) – 5.8
Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party (2015, Stephen Cone) – 6.6
Murder à la Mod (1967, Brian De Palma) – 5.1
The Wedding Party (1969, Brian De Palma) – 4.2
Greetings (1968, Brian De Palma) – 6.2
Phantom of the Paradise (1974, Brian De Palma) – 7.2
Hi, Mom! (1970, Brian De Palma) – 5.1
A Brighter Summer Day (1991, Edward Yang) – 9.5
Dionysus in ’69 (1970, Brian De Palma) – 5.6

August
Sing Street (2016, John Carney) – 5.7
Eye in the Sky (2015, Gavin Hood) – 5.4
+Aloha (2015, Cameron Crowe) – 7.0 [up from 6.0]
Home Movies (1980, Brian De Palma) – 6.0
A Train Arrives at the Station (2016, Thom Andersen)
Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972, Brian De Palma) – 4.6
Obsession (1976, Brian De Palma) – 6.1
Dressed to Kill (1980, Brian De Palma) – 7.1
Scarface (1983, Brian De Palma) – 7.1
Blow Out (1981, Brian De Palma) – 7.7
South (1999, Chantal Akerman) – 6.3
From the Other Side (2002, Chantal Akerman) – 7.0
+Blow Out (1981, Brian De Palma) [same]
Trust (1990, Hal Hartley) – 8.9
Zatoichi (2003, Takeshi Kitano) – 6.4
+Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, Ang Lee) – 8.0 [up from ~7.8]
+Blackhat (2015, Michael Mann) – 7.5 [same]
Joint Security Area (2000, Park Chan-wook) – 6.0
Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies (1987, Steven & Timothy Quay)
Looper (2012, Rian Johnson) – 6.9
The Comb (1990, Steven & Timothy Quay)
+Sans soleil (1983, Chris Marker) – 9.7 [same]
De Artificiali Perspectiva, or Anamorphosis (1993, Steven & Timothy Quay)
In Absentia (2000, Steven & Timothy Quay)
River of Grass (1994, Kelly Reichardt) – 7.0
Old Joy (2006, Kelly Reichardt) – 7.2
Blue Ruin (2013, Jeremy Saulnier) – 5.8
Wendy and Lucy (2008, Kelly Reichardt) – 7.6
Amuse-guele # 1: “Digital Destinies” (2012, Gina Telaroli)
Meek’s Cutoff (2010, Kelly Reichardt) – 8.3

September
The Invitation (2015, Karyn Kusama) – 5.9
Night Moves (2013, Kelly Reichardt) – 6.8
The Fury (1978, Brian De Palma) – 6.5
Jason Bourne (2016, Paul Greengrass) DP – 5.2
Wise Guys (1986, Brian De Palma) – 2.4
Casualties of War (1989, Brian De Palma) – 7.6
The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990, Brian De Palma) – 4.9
Carlito’s Way (1993, Brian De Palma) – 8.9
Raising Cain (1992, Brian De Palma) – 6.9
Chungking Express (1994, Wong Kar-wai) – 9.0
Days of Being Wild (1990, Wong Kar-wai) – 8.1
Body Double (1984, Brian De Palma) – 8.0
Femme Fatale (2002, Brian De Palma) – 8.2
Bad Seed (1934, Billy Wilder and Alexander Esway) – 5.6
The Glass Shield (1994, Charles Burnett) – 6.6
+Mountains May Depart (2015, Jia Zhangke) – 7.2 [up from 6.1]
House of Little Deaths (2016, Scout Tafoya) – 4.9
SPL II: A Time for Consequences (2015, Soi Cheang) – 7.1
Snake Eyes (1998, Brian De Palma) – 6.9
Mission to Mars (2000, Brian De Palma) – 5.6
The Black Dahlia (2006, Brian De Palma) – 6.4
Redacted (2007, Brian De Palma) – 4.6
Passion (2012, Brian De Palma) – 8.8
Our Little Sister (2015, Hirokazu Kore-eda) – 6.3
Journey to the Shore (2015, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) – 6.1
Fish Tank (2009, Andrea Arnold) – 5.5
American Honey (2016, Andrea Arnold) DP – 5.2
Broadway by Light (1958, William Klein)
Suicide Squad (2016, David Ayer) DP – 1.9
Kubo and the Two Strings (2016, Travis Knight) DP – 6.5
Don’t Breathe (2016, Fede Alvarez) DP – 6.1
Hell or High Water (2016, David Mackenzie) DP – 6.2
Sully (2016, Clint Eastwood) DP – 7.2
De Palma (2015, Noah Baumbach & Jake Paltrow) – 6.5
+Cameraperson (2016, Kirsten Johnson) DP – 8.1 [up from 7.2]
Los Sures (1984, Diego Echeverria) – 5.8

October
+The Night of the Hunter (1955, Charles Laughton) DP – 9.3 [up from 9.0]
The Shallows (2016, Jaume Collet-Serra) – 7.0
Something Between Us (2015, Jodie Mack)
+The Shallows (2016, Jaume Collet-Serra) – 7.0 [same]
O.J.: Made in America (2016, Ezra Edelman) – 7.7
The Distance (2014, Sergio Caballero) – 5.3
+Mistress America (2015, Noah Baumbach) – 8.2 [up from 7.5]
The Day He Arrives (2011, Hong Sang-soo) – 7.3
In Another Country (2012, Hong Sang-soo) – 6.7
Right Now, Wrong Then (2015, Hong Sang-soo) – 7.2
Krivina (2012, Igor Drljaca) – 5.4
Fe26 (2014, Kevin Jerome Everson)
Mad Ladders (2015, Michael Robinson)
+Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, Michel Gondry) – 7.6 [same]
The Sky Trembles and the Earth is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers (2015, Ben Rivers) – 5.1
Regal (2015, Karissa Hahn)
Now: End of Season (2015, Ayman Nahle)
Cilaos (2016, Camilo Restrepo)
Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids (2016, Jonathan Demme) – 7.1
Lemonade (2016, Kahlil Joseph and Beyoncé Knowles Carter) – 6.0
Possession (1981, Andrzej Zulawski) – 8.1
On the Silver Globe (1988, Andrzej Zulawski) DP – 5.1
Shin Godzilla (2016, Hideaki Anno) DP – 7.0
Deepwater Horizon (2016, Peter Berg) DP – 5.3
The Magnificent Seven (2016, Antoine Fuqua) DP – 5.2
Certain Women (2016, Kelly Reichardt) DP – 7.2
Foyer (2016, Ismaïl Bahri)
Indefinite Pitch (2016, James N. Kienitz Wilkins)
Afterschool (2008, Antonio Campos) – 6.9
Simon Killer (2012, Antonio Campos) – 4.9
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, Don Siegel) – 6.7
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002, Park Chan-wook) – 6.2
Oldboy (2003, Park Chan-wook) – 7.1
Kwaku Anase (2013, Akosua Adoma Owusu)
Lady Vengeance (2005, Park Chan-wook) – 7.1
The Handmaiden (2016, Park Chan-wook) DP – 7.8
The Heart of the World (2000, Guy Maddin)

November
Moonlight (2016, Barry Jenkins) DP – 6.4
The Fighter (2010, David O. Russell) – 5.6
+Kate Plays Christine (2016, Robert Greene) DP – 7.2 [same]
Tower (2016, Keith Maitland) DP – 6.6
+The Handmaiden (2016, Park Chan-wook) DP – 7.8 [same]
Arrival (2016, Denis Villeneuve) DP – 6.2
You Can Count on Me (2000, Kenneth Lonergan) – 7.2
Meet the Patels (2014, Geeta V. Patel & Ravi V. Patel) – 4.8
Margaret (2011, Kenneth Lonergan) – 7.9
+Margaret [Extended Cut] (2011, Kenneth Lonergan – 8.3 [Theatrical Cut: 7.9]
Titicut Follies (1967, Frederick Wiseman) 35mm – 6.0
High School (1968, Frederick Wiseman) 35mm – 6.2
Hospital (1970, Frederick Wiseman) 35mm – 6.1
Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience (2016, Terrence Malick) DP – 5.9
Doctor Strange (2016, Scott Derrickson) DP – 5.8
Hacksaw Ridge (2016, Mel Gibson) DP – 5.8
The Neon Demon (2016, Nicolas Winding Refn) – 3.5
La La Land (2016, Damien Chazelle) DP – 5.1
13th (2016, Ava DuVernay) – 4.9
Two Days, One Night (2014, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne) – 7.6
Dead Slow Ahead (2015, Mauro Herce) DP – 6.1
Creepy (2016, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) DP – 7.1
Allied (2016, Robert Zemeckis) DP – 6.4
I Am Not Madame Bovary (2016, Feng Xiaogang) DP – 6.2
+Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience (2016, Terrence Malick) DP – 6.0 [up from 5.9]
Rules Don’t Apply (2016, Warren Beatty) DP – 6.1
Viva (2007, Anna Biller) – 5.6
The Love Witch (2016, Anna Biller) 35mm – 6.1
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (2016, Ang Lee) DP – 5.2

December
+Sing Street (2016, John Carney) – 5.5
Manchester By The Sea (2016, Kenneth Lonergan) DP – 8.1
The Edge of Seventeen (2016, Kelly Fremon Craig) DP – 7.1
Neruda (2016, Pablo Larraín) – 6.1
The Fits (2015, Anna Rose Holmer) – 5.8
Wavelength (1967, Michael Snow) 16mm – 8.8
To Lavoisier, Who Died in the Reign of Terror (1991, Michael Snow) 16mm – 7.0
+Love & Friendship (2016, Whit Stillman) – 7.0
Nocturnal Animals (2016, Tom Ford) DP – 4.9
Krisha (2015, Trey Edward Shults) – 5.0
Things To Come (2016, Mia Hansen-Løve) – 7.2
Jackie (2016, Pablo Larraín) DP – 4.6
In the Shadow of Women (2015, Philippe Garrel) – 6.6
Aquarius (2016, Kleber Mendonça Filho) – 7.1
The Treasure (2015, Corneliu Porombuiu) – 6.3
Knight of Cups (2015, Terrence Malick) – 6.1
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016, David Yates) DP – 5.5
Fences (2016, Denzel Washington) DP – 5.7
Assassin’s Creed (2016, Justin Kurzel) DP – 4.3
Inner Workings (2016, Leo Matsuda) DP
Moana (2016, John Musker & Ron Clements) DP – 5.8
+Manchester By The Sea (2016, Kenneth Lonergan) DP – 8.1 [same]
Rogue One (2016, Gareth Edwards) DP – 6.4
Elle (2016, Paul Verhoeven) DP – 7.3
+It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra) 35mm – 7.9 [down from ~8.1]
Cosmos (2015, Andrzej Zulawski) – 4.4
Lion (2016, Garth Davis) DP – 4.8
Passengers (2016, Morten Tyldum) DP – 4.9
The Academy of Muses (2015, José Luis Guerín) – 6.2
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016, Akiva Schaffer & Jorma Taccone) – 6.0
Aferim! (2015, Radu Jude) – 6.1
Weiner (2016, Josh Kriegman & Elyse Steinberg) – 6.4

Mildred Pierce

September 13, 2016March 28, 2021Ryan Swen Reviews Leave a comment

**** (Great)

It is perhaps tempting to name Mildred Pierce strictly as a film noir. Based on the novel of the same name by James M. Cain, one of the progenitors of hard-boiled crime fiction, and shot in gloriously shadowy black-and-white, it rightly bears the hallmarks of that most hallowed of film styles. Yet it feels like something more, owing as much to melodrama as to noir in the hands of Michael Curtiz while still remaining refreshingly down-to-earth. More than anything, it is a devastating blend, using each genre’s strengths in order to develop its wrenching tale of a woman undone by the people around her, fatalistic yet hopeful.

It perhaps goes without saying that the most noir-inflected scenes in Mildred Pierce are confined to the framing scenes. Jarringly, the film begins in medias res at the film’s very end, and while this is perhaps a concession to the conventions of noir, it conveniently allows for Joan Crawford’s superb, part-satisfied-part-wistful narration to supplement the story—the film’s tone isn’t the most consistent, and the narration helps to smooth over and remind the viewers of the tragic conclusion to come. In tandem, the police station where Mildred relates her “confession” is almost preposterously shadowy, complete with a glaring lamp, shuttered windows, and a haze of cigarette smoke, which only makes the fade back to the past more astonishing.

The mood of Mildred Pierce quickly pivots to a much more sunny, and perhaps more emotionally involved tenor, following Mildred from practically the moment that she makes the pivotal decision of her life—separating from her husband Bert (played by an admirably stolid Bruce Bennett). The shadows from the aftermath of a crime are replaced with a sunny, domestic situation, but if anything the emotions and broiling tension are accentuated. Even here, the narrative begins at the end of one stage of life, but Mildred’s character seems almost fully formed from the start, such is the magnetism of Crawford’s confidence and poise.

Crucially, Mildred is conceived as a remarkably well-rounded character, possessing in equal amounts ambition, care, and a strong work ethic. Despite her pampering of her daughters, especially Veda, she is never blind, and works as a waitress even while Veda disparages the profession in order to support them all. But the filmmakers take care to show that, no matter how successful she gets as an improbably profitable restaurant owner, she will never achieve a true sense of happiness; her two marriages fall apart, Veda looks down on her mother and her work while becoming more and more ingrained with the upper class, and she eventually has to compromise her own principles to satisfy Veda, sending her life into a downward spiral.

All of this isn’t necessarily novel, but what distinguishes Mildred Pierce is the cumulative force that imparts practically every single scene with a sense of importance. As mentioned before, the voiceover plays a large part in sustaining the momentum of the film, but the two most important parts are the performances of Crawford and Ann Blyth as Veda. The two clash frequently, but the relationship becomes almost one-sided as it is clear Mildred cares about Veda more than anything in the world, a fact which Veda exploits. The film is fundamentally about a daughter’s betrayal of her mother, and Blyth is as cruel as Crawford is desperate, a potent combination that comes to a head in the devastating climax.

Mildred Pierce is a film of power, more concerned with emotions than anything else, but nevertheless everything in the film is done to perfection. After the narrative inevitably boils over, it ends on a note of surprising optimism: Mildred and Bert silhouetted against a glistening skyline. The world is theirs, though the shadows still linger.

Manhunter

September 10, 2016March 28, 2021Ryan Swen Reviews Leave a comment

***** (Masterpiece)

If one had to choose the trait that defines all of Michael Mann’s oeuvre, it would very likely be his dedication to depicting professionalism, whether it be that of DEA agents in Miami Vice, master thieves and the LAPD in Heat, or even the Nazi military in The Keep. Manhunter is very likely the apex of this ethos, a compact film where nothing is wasted in depicting both the thrills and frustrations of the chase, matched by Mann’s impeccable perfection. It is Mann’s most perfect film, a cold, gleaming diamond burnished by the highest craftsmanship possible, yet, especially in the development of Francis Dollarhyde, there is something more, a genuine beating heart that only serves to accentuate the power of this truly consummate film.

Manhunter‘s first two scenes provide a look into the impulses that will drive the images to follow. The first is a shakily filmed, low-res affair that looks akin to a home movie, moving up to the bedroom of a darkness-shrouded house. Underscored by shimmering synth music, it ends in ambiguity as the title card blazes onto the screen. The second scene, after the opening credits, is much more indicative of the overall style of the film, staged in immaculate frames by Spinotti’s incredible cinematography that, after the initial shot, takes place in relatively simple shot-reverse-shot. Yet, despite the charge of the dialogue that manifests itself throughout the film, it and the next few scenes are set in an idyllic location, a sunny beach house removed from the perils of the city and of suburbia. Manhunter seeks to unite these two extreme contrasts, taking place largely in cramped, dark locations but shot using intense, immaculate medium shots.

Much of the pleasure in viewing Manhunter is observing the pieces come together, as Will Graham and his associates calmly but urgently search for clues to capture Fracis Dollarhyde, alias The Tooth Fairy. From lab work to viewing home videos by the deceased families to visiting the homes, Graham observes all, voicing his deductions in an analytical but never detached voice, conveyed by an intensely committed and forceful performance by William Petersen that remains consistently mesmerizing both in stasis and in motion. In turn, Mann observes Graham and company with the eye of a lab worker, using an extraordinary amount of camera angles (but preferring straight-on, slightly off-center compositions) to capture every aspect of the investigation. He withholds nothing, lying in wait to accentuate every development with minute curiosity, often providing quick close-ups on various objects including photographs, documents, and especially the home movies in order to emphasize the tactile, vital nature of these items towards the investigation (epitomized in the brilliant forensic scene with Dollarhyde’s letter).

Of course, Manhunter is perhaps best known for being the first Hannibal Lector (or “Lecktor” here) movie. But his appearance is both well-integrated yet subtly set aside from the rest of the film. He is far more divorced from the action here than in The Silence of the Lambs, and there’s no doubt here that Brian Cox is very much a supporting character, but his menace is clear and apparent, though he only appears in three short scenes, two of which are within the first third of the film and only one in person with Graham. Lecktor is encased in a spotless white cell, itself housed in a building seemingly made entirely out of glass and white blocks. The color of white is robbed of all of its innocuous connotations and replaced with a sickening, overbearing feeling that Lecktor seems to harness with his dismissive sneer, forcing Graham to run out of the building to regain his composure. His forbidding sense of calm extends to Cox’s use of body language: even though he’s always sitting he seems to be hunched over Graham, his eyes glaring hungrily as he dissects him verbally.

By the steady pace and continual suspense of the first two-thirds or so, Mann could have continued in the procedural vein for the entirety of Manhunter, but he decides to make a daring and quite possibly more successful gambit. First, he upstages the investigation in spectacular fashion, using Lecktor to introduce both a suddenly urgent menace and to flesh out Graham’s relationship with his family more, in a series of truly touching conversations that enhance his core humanity even in the face of so much bloodshed. But then, after an intense monologue by Graham staring at his rain-soaked reflection, the film suddenly switches to the perspective of Dollarhyde, who had been heretofore seen only briefly, albeit in an extraordinarily creepy introduction. As the Tooth Fairy, Noonan is both an imposing and astonishingly uncertain presence, as his killer channels his considerable awkwardness into bloodlust, his obsession with William Blake’s The Great Red Dragon paintings offering some way of escape. Graham appears sparingly in these parts, allowing Mann to craft a strangely primal romance between Dollarhyde and his blind co-worker Reba. From the strangely soothing appearance of a drugged tiger to one of the only displays of emotion on his part, Noonan makes this seemingly disconnected section work, connecting his character to Graham’s displays of affection for his own family while still remaining distant.

Of course, this section can’t last forever, and after perhaps the two most startling moments in the film (an imagined kiss that is scorchingly backlit and set improbably to The Prime Movers’ “Strong As I Am” and a shocking vision of one of the deceased women with her eyes and mouth replaced with blank spots looking at Graham), Manhunter resumes its procedural mode for a short while before the final confrontation at Dollarhyde’s home. At this final scene, scored supremely to “In-A-Gadda-Vida” by Iron Butterfly, the film seems as if it shatters into pieces with the window that Graham jumps through, blatantly using slow motion and jump cuts (often to events that had taken just seconds before) in order to create a sense of disorientation. The action itself is quick and straightforward, but it feels punchier, more brutal this way.

Manhunter‘s magnificence is difficult to describe, as it and all of Mann’s films work best in the moment, as they carry off the viewer in their sensual pleasures, but the best way is to talk about the feeling aroused in the viewer at the end of the film. It is one of irrepressible catharsis, as Graham finally gets what he saw in the vision in roughly the middle of the film. As he stares out into the ocean with his family, he and the viewer feel relief, with Red 7’s “Heartbeat” soaring and the sunniness shines over all. It is an affirmation that there is some semblance of good, and if it is one of Mann’s most unambiguously positive endings, it comes only after a dark, immersive plunge into the chase and all that comes with it. That is the Mann ethos, and it comes in its purest, most perfect form in Manhunter.

Cameraperson

September 8, 2016March 28, 2021Ryan Swen Reviews Leave a comment

**** (Great)

When I first heard about the significant buzz surrounding Cameraperson, it seemed heavily reminiscent of Sans soleil, Chris Marker’s 1983 magnum opus that I regard as the greatest film I’ve ever seen. The description, detailing how it was comprised of outtakes from various documentaries all shot by the same cameraperson, Kirsten Johnson, was intriguing, only slightly removed from the other film’s freewheeling examination of the human condition and memory using footage shot mostly in Tokyo, Guinea-Bissau, and San Francisco. But it took me more than half the runtime to realize that the film is not Sans soleil, and that it was just one of the many, many aspects that makes Cameraperson the stunning, quietly revolutionary work that it is.

It begins in a manner that both boldly announces its intentions and introduces the sensitive intimacy that defines the film to come. After an opening intertitle that describes the following images as Johnson’s memoir of sorts, with the striking line “These are the images that have marked me”, Johnson cuts to footage of a Bosnian shepherd on horseback leading sheep. Without context, this shot in and of itself holds little tangible meaning, but Johnson (in the moment, as the cinematographer) unexpectedly breaks the camera’s line of sight, plucking a few blades of grass out of the way so she can better capture the sheep trundling down the path next to her. This, coupled with the next shot, as Johnson first gasps at a lightning strike she is filming and then sneezes, are perhaps the clearest sign of Johnson’s presence in actively changing the shot, but they come significantly just before the title card.

Johnson’s primary concern in both the construction of Cameraperson and in her general cinematography seems to be one of sensitivity. Even though the most apparent signs of Johnson’s presence off-screen (for example, in the aforementioned shot changes) are confined to the first half, the viewer never loses sight of her active role in crafting the situations she is in. From her incisive but gentle questions to the often intimate framings, Johnson never gets so close as to be intrusive but always maintains the exact level of remove that is required, both in the footage she shot on assignment in some of the most traumatized regions of the world and in the “home movies” of the most seemingly inconsequential occurrences in day-to-day life.

Here, perhaps, is the greatest point of divergence with Sans soleil, which conducts its dialogue with its subjects entirely through visual means. Marker seems to reject an overtly personal bent, seeking to diminish his directorial presence in favor of offering his vision of the world, whereas Johnson seeks to strike a more tenuous balance. Of course, there are many other differences. For starters, Sans soleil utilizes an extensive narration, supposedly made of letters written by a separate filmmaker. The letters (written in actuality by Marker) in turn both establish a level of remove and a partial explanation of the sometimes inexplicable images that are appearing on the screen. Cameraperson, on the other hand, forgoes this tactic. Though the images are never remotely abstract, Johnson never feels beholden to explain the context or even the original purpose of the footage, instead putting an intertitle stating the location where the footage was shot and the occasional chyron with the name and occupation of the person being interviewed. For me, this idea took some time getting used to. As I was expecting the whirlwind of information in Sans soleil, I felt slightly alienated by the stop-and-start rhythm of images that at first glance seemed to be banal and “ordinary”, and the locations seemed too disparate for Johnson to return to (in contrast to the localized repetitions of Marker’s film).

But Johnson is operating in an entirely different mode of communication, one of astonishing patience and power. Aside from two essentially stand-alone montages, one of people walking and the other a stunning display of sites of massacres and murders from around the world, including such disparate locations as Ground Zero, a church in Rwanda, a school in Bosnia, and a truck in Texas, Johnson sticks to the vignettes of footage that, in some way, all come back to the idea of the shared humanity and its effect on the cameraperson. Johnson never lets the overarching themes become apparent, but in the little moments that rise out of everyday life, such as Jacques Derrida commenting on her tripping as she is filming him, or her capturing a sudden snowfall while she is shooting a woman whose mother killed herself, she makes it clear that the cameraperson is human, and that it is in some way her responsibility to capture humanity not as it should be, but as it is.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the home videos of both Johnson’s children and her mother, who died of Alzheimer’s. In this showing of people both at the beginning and at the end of their lives, she makes a statement that is at once both universal and personal, and ties it back to other footage that surrounds it. For instance, she implicitly connects footage of a Golden Gloves boxer being comforted by his mother (one of the most notable examples of Johnson returning to footage) to her mother brushing Johnson’s hair in the only moment where she can be seen on camera.

However, what may be the most striking is the extraordinary breadth of life that Johnson has captured. From a lecture in Queens to a Michael Moore interview to a premature baby being born in Nigeria, the subject matter and tone frequently change in a single edit, but the unmistakable vitality that Johnson brings out of her subjects and images remains constant. Johnson most frequently returns to a family in Bosnia that is recovering after the war there, and emphasizes both the injustice that has been done and the family’s will to live on. Cameraperson is an optimistic film that never shies away from the truth, and throughout, Johnson’s will to document is paramount. It is a noble thing to document all of this life experience, and the skill with which Johnson and editor Nels Bangerter have constructed this supremely monumental film is evident in every transition, every moment. Cameraperson is a great film in every sense of the word, and one that I’ll be grappling with for years to come.

Films by Release Year

September 3, 2016May 14, 2024Ryan Swen Lists

Decades: 2020s, 2010s, 2000s, 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, 1960s, 1950s, 1940s, 1930s, 1920s, Pre-1920s

A version of this without films released more than two years after their premiere year.
A version of this with only films released more than two years after their premiere year.
The feature films I have seen that have not received a US commercial release.

2024

The End of Evangelion (1997, Anno Hideaki)
The Beast (2023, Bertrand Bonello)
Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (2023, Radu Jude)
Evil Does Not Exist (2023, Hamaguchi Ryusuke)
Music (2023, Angela Schanelec)
The Human Surge 3 (2023, Eduardo Williams)
Close Your Eyes (2023, Víctor Erice)
In Our Day (2023, Hong Sang-soo)
The Shadowless Tower (2023, Zhang Lu)
Eureka (2023, Lisandro Alonso)
Here (2023, Bas Devos)
Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023, Phạm Thiên Ân)
Coma (2022, Bertrand Bonello)
The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed (2023, Joanna Arnow)
Hit Man (2023, Richard Linklater)
Pictures of Ghosts (2023, Kleber Mendonça Filho)
Between the Temples (2024, Nathan Silver)
Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus (2023, Sora Neo)
Mambar Pierrette (2023, Rosine Mbakam)
AGGRO DR1FT (2023, Harmony Korine)
Dream Team (2024, Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn)
Challengers (2024, Luca Guadagnino)
Gasoline Rainbow (2023, Bill & Turner Ross)
Only the River Flows (2023, Wei Shujun)
Last Things (2023, Deborah Stratman)
Coconut Head Generation (2023, Alain Kassanda)
I Saw the TV Glow (2024, Jane Schoenbrun)
Dune: Part Two (2024, Denis Villeneuve)
Stress Positions (2024, Theda Hammel)
The Tuba Thieves (2023, Alison O’Daniel)
Kneecap (2024, Rich Peppiatt)
Fairytale (2022, Alexander Sokurov)
Love Lies Bleeding (2024, Rose Glass)
The People’s Joker (2022, Vera Drew)
Drive-Away Dykes (2024, Ethan Coen)
Dìdi (2024, Sean Wang)
Ibelin (2024, Benjamin Ree)

2023

Walk Up (2022, Hong Sang-soo)
Pacifiction (2022, Albert Serra)
Showing Up (2022, Kelly Reichardt)
Anatomy of a Fall (2023, Justine Triet)
May December (2023, Todd Haynes)
Fallen Leaves (2023, Aki Kaurismäki)
Afire (2023, Christian Petzold)
De Humani Corporis Fabrica (2022, Véréna Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor)
Youth (Spring) (2023, Wang Bing)
Asteroid City (2023, Wes Anderson)
Trenque Lauquen (2022, Laura Citarella)
in water (2023, Hong Sang-soo)
The Delinquents (2023, Rodrigo Moreno)
Ferrari (2023, Michael Mann)
Menus-Plaisirs—Les Troisgros (2023, Frederick Wiseman)
How Do You Live? (2023, Miyazaki Hayao)
Occupied City (2023, Steve McQueen)
The Adults (2023, Dustin Guy Defa)
Still Film (2023, James N. Kienitz Wilkins)
Queens of the Qing Dynasty (2022, Ashley McKenzie)
Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One (2023, Christopher McQuarrie)
Priscilla (2023, Sofia Coppola)
La chimera (2023, Alice Rohrwacher)
All of Us Strangers (2023, Andrew Haigh)
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. (2023, Kelly Fremon Craig)
Rewind & Play (2022, Alain Gomis)
Stonewalling (2022, Huang Ji & Otsuka Ryuji)
Mad Fate (2023, Soi Cheang)
The Zone of Interest (2023, Jonathan Glazer)
The Sweet East (2023, Sean Price Williams)
The Killer (2023, David Fincher)
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023, Martin Scorsese)
John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023, Chad Stahleski)
Saturn Bowling (2022, Patricia Mazuy)
Matter Out of Place (2022, Nikolaus Geyrhalter)
Remembering Every Night (2022, Kiyohara Yui)
Return to Dust (2022, Li Ruijun)
Nobody’s Hero (2022, Alain Guiraudie)
Human Flowers of Flesh (2022, Helena Wittmann)
Dry Ground Burning (2022, Joana Pimenta & Adirley Queirós)
Godzilla Minus One (2023, Yamazaki Takashi)
Will-o’-the-Wisp (2022, João Pedro Rodrigues)
Petite Solange (2021, Axelle Ropert)
Passion (2008, Hamaguchi Ryusuke)
Our House (2017, Kiyohara Yui)
Happer’s Comet (2022, Tyler Taormina)
Past Lives (2023, Celine Song)
Barbie (2023, Greta Gerwig)
A Woman Escapes (2022, Sofia Bohdanowicz & Burak Çevik & Blake Williams)
Knock at the Cabin (2023, M. Night Shyamalan)
Full River Red (2023, Zhang Yimou)
Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023, Karan Johar)
The Taste of Things (2023, Trần Anh Hùng)
The Holdovers (2023, Alexander Payne)
Poor Things (2023, Yorgos Lanthimos)
Passages (2023, Ira Sachs)
Maestro (2023, Bradley Cooper)
Fremont (2023, Babak Jalali)
Perfect Days (2023, Wim Wenders)
Enys Men (2022, Mark Jenkin)
Oppenheimer (2023, Christopher Nolan)
Skinamarink (2022, Kyle Edward Ball)
Anselm (2023, Wim Wenders)
Tótem (2023, Lila Avilés)
Bottoms (2023, Emma Seligman)
American Fiction (2023, Cord Jefferson)
A Thousand and One (2023, A. V. Rockwell)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023, Joaquim Dos Santos & Kemp Powers & Justin K. Thompson)
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023, James Mangold)
Talk to Me (2022, Danny & Michael Philippou)

2022

The Novelist’s Film (2022, Hong Sang-soo)
Hanagatami (2017, Obayashi Nobuhiko)
EO (2022, Jerzy Skolimowski)
The Fabelmans (2022, Steven Spielberg)
Il buco (2021, Michelangelo Frammartino)
A New Old Play (2021, Qiu Jiongjiong)
One Fine Morning (2022, Mia Hansen-Løve)
Crimes of the Future (2022, David Cronenberg)
RRR (2022, S. S. Rajamouli)
Decision to Leave (2022, Park Chan-wook)
Face (2009, Tsai Ming-liang)
The Girl and the Spider (2021, Ramon and Silvan Zürcher)
In Front of Your Face (2021, Hong Sang-soo)
TÁR (2022, Todd Field)
Stars at Noon (2022, Claire Denis)
Introduction (2021, Hong Sang-soo)
Nope (2022, Jordan Peele)
White Noise (2022, Noah Baumbach)
El gran movimiento (2021, Kiro Russo)
Fabian, or Going to the Dogs (2021, Domink Graf)
Saint Omer (2022, Alice Diop)
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022, James Cameron)
The Cathedral (2021, Ricky D’Ambrose)
Casting Blossoms to the Sky (2012, Obayashi Nobuhiko)
Return to Seoul (2022, Chou Davy)
Benediction (2021, Terence Davies)
Armageddon Time (2022, James Gray)
Los conductos (2020, Camilo Restrepo)
Wood and Water (2021, Jonas Bak)
Onoda (2021, Arthur Harari)
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022, Laura Poitras)
Ahed’s Knee (2021, Nadav Lapid)
Both Sides of the Blade (2022, Claire Denis)
Riotsville, U.S.A. (2022, Sierra Pettengill)
Expedition Content (2020, Ernst Karel & Veronika Kusumaryati)
A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021, Payal Kapadia)
Aftersun (2022, Charlotte Wells)
Electra, My Love (1974, Jancsó Miklós)
Hit the Road (2021, Panah Panahi)
Amsterdam (2022, David O. Russell)
Belle (2021, Hosoda Mamoru)
A Couple (2022, Frederick Wiseman)
Ambulance (2022, Michael Bay)
Rock Bottom Riser (2021, Fern Silva)
Top Gun: Maverick (2022, Joseph Kosinski)
Free Chol Soo Lee (2022, Eugene Yi & Julie Ha)
Glass Onion (2022, Rian Johnson)
Call Jane (2022, Phyllis Nagy)
Mija (2022, Isabel Castro)
Terra Femme (2021, Courtney Stephens)
Triangle of Sadness (2022, Ruben Östlund)
Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022, George Miller)
Seven Weeks (2014, Obayashi Nobuhiko)
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021, Jane Schoenbrun)
The Batman (2022, Matt Reeves)
Happening (2021, Audrey Diwan)
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022, Martin McDonagh)
Bones and All (2022, Luca Guadagnino)
God’s Creatures (2022, Saela Davis & Anna Rose Holmer)
Jujutsu Kaisen 0 (2022, Park Sung-hoo)
Something in the Dirt (2022, Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead)
Dear Mr. Brody (2021, Keith Maitland)
A Love Song (2022, Max Walker-Silverman)
Three Minutes: A Lengthening (2021, Bianca Stigter)
Casablanca Beats (2021, Nabil Ayouch)
Close (2022, Lukas Dhont)
Athena (2022, Romain Gavras)
Framing Agnes (2022, Chase Joynt)
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022, Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert)
Elvis (2022, Baz Luhrmann)
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (2022, Alejandro González Iñárritu)
The Whale (2022, Darren Aronofsky)
Babylon (2022, Damien Chazelle)

2021

Drive My Car (2021, Hamaguchi Ryusuke)
Memoria (2021, Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Duelle (une quarantaine) (1976, Jacques Rivette)
Tale of Cinema (2005, Hong Sang-soo)
Days (2020, Tsai Ming-liang)
What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (2021, Alexandre Koberidze)
The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin) (2020, C. W. Winter & Anders Edström)
The Woman Who Ran (2020, Hong Sang-soo)
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021, Hamaguchi Ryusuke)
Annette (2021, Leos Carax)
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021, Radu Jude)
Beginning (2020, Dea Kulumbegashvili)
West Side Story (2021, Steven Spielberg)
Wife of a Spy (2020, Kurosawa Kiyoshi)
Malmkrog (2020, Cristi Puiu)
Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (2000, Hong Sang-soo)
France (2021, Bruno Dumont)
Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream (2019, Frank Beauvais)
Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (2021, Anno Hideaki)
Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue (2020, Jia Zhangke)
The Disciple (2020, Chaitanya Tamhane)
Procession (2021, Robert Greene)
Licorice Pizza (2021, Paul Thomas Anderson)
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021, Joel Coen)
Labyrinth of Cinema (2019, Obayashi Nobuhiko)
Red Rocket (2021, Sean Baker)
The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (2021, Wes Anderson)
Benedetta (2021, Paul Verhoeven)
The Velvet Underground (2021, Todd Haynes)
The Power of the Dog (2021, Jane Campion)
The Power of Kangwon Province (1998, Hong Sang-soo)
Fauna (2020, Nicolás Pereda)
Notturno (2020, Gianfranco Rosi)
The Souvenir Part II (2021, Joanna Hogg)
The Metamorphosis of Birds (2020, Catarina Vasconcelos)
Parallel Mothers (2021, Pedro Almodóvar)
Isabella (2020, Matías Piñeiro)
Arrebato (1979, Iván Zulueta)
The Inheritance (2020, Ephraim Asili)
Monster Hunter (2020, Paul W. S. Anderson)
Cry Macho (2021, Clint Eastwood)
El Planeta (2021, Amalia Ulman)
The Witches of the Orient (2021, Julien Faraut)
Two Lottery Tickets (2016, Paul Negoescu)
The Salt of Tears (2020, Philippe Garrel)
Petite Maman (2021, Céline Sciamma)
Her Socialist Smile (2020, John Gianvito)
małni—towards the ocean, towards the shore (2020, Sky Hopinka)
Undine (2020, Christian Petzold)
The Card Counter (2021, Paul Schrader)
The American Sector (2020, Courtney Stephens & Pacho Velez)
Zeros and Ones (2021, Abel Ferrara)
Nobody (2021, Ilya Naishuller)
Bergman Island (2021, Mia Hansen-Løve)
The Worst Person in the World (2021, Joachim Trier)
Cliff Walkers (2021, Zhang Yimou)
No Sudden Move (2021, Steven Soderbergh)
Anne at 13,000 Feet. (2019, Kazik Radwanski)
The Matrix Resurrections (2021, Lana Wachowski)
Titane (2021, Julia Ducournau)
I Was a Simple Man (2021, Christopher Makoto Yogi)
Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (2020, Horvát Lili)
Dune: Part One (2021, Denis Villeneuve)
Eternals (2021, Chloé Zhao)
Ema (2019, Pablo Larraín)
Wrath of Man (2021, Guy Ritchie)
Old (2021, M. Night Shyamalan)
Shiva Baby (2020, Emma Seligman)
Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse (2021, Stefano Sollima)
The Woman in the Window (2021, Joe Wright)
The Courier (2020, Dominic Cooke)
The Green Knight (2021, David Lowery)
The Last Vermeer (2019, Dan Friedkin)
Spencer (2021, Pablo Larraín)
Pig (2021, Michael Sarnoski)
Life in a Day 2020 (2021, Kevin Macdonald)

2020

Yourself and Yours (2016, Hong Sang-soo)
The Hole (1998, Tsai Ming-liang)
Martin Eden (2019, Pietro Marcello)
Hill of Freedom (2014, Hong Sang-soo)
Made in Hong Kong (1997, Fruit Chan)
To the Ends of the Earth (2019, Kurosawa Kiyoshi)
I Was at Home, But… (2019, Angela Schanelec)
Fourteen (2019, Dan Sallitt)
Raining in the Mountain (1979, King Hu)
Heimat Is a Space in Time (2019, Thomas Heise)
Vitalina Varela (2019, Pedro Costa)
The Traitor (2019, Marco Bellocchio)
Zombi Child (2019, Bertrand Bonello)
The Grand Bizarre (2018, Jodie Mack)
First Cow (2019, Kelly Reichardt)
The Whistlers (2019, Corneliu Porumboiu)
Lovers Rock (2020, Steve McQueen)
Ghost Tropic (2019, Bas Devos)
Tesla (2020, Michael Almereyda)
The August Virgin (2019, Jonás Trueba)
Liberté (2019, Albert Serra)
Bacurau (2019, Kleber Mendonça Filho & Juliano Dornelles)
The Wild Goose Lake (2019, Diao Yinan)
City Hall (2020, Frederick Wiseman)
Sibyl (2019, Justine Triet)
Red, White and Blue (2020, Steve McQueen)
Education (2020, Steve McQueen)
I Wish I Knew (2010, Jia Zhangke)
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (2020, Bill & Turner Ross)
Mangrove (2020, Steve McQueen)
On the Rocks (2020, Sofia Coppola)
Young Ahmed (2019, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
A Girl Missing (2019, Fukada Koji)
Ham on Rye (2019, Tyler Taormina)
Fire Will Come (2019, Óliver Laxe)
Time (2020, Garrett Bradley)
Alex Wheatle (2020, Steve McQueen)
Collective (2019, Alexander Nanau)
Da 5 Bloods (2020, Spike Lee)
Nomadland (2020, Chloé Zhao)
Mercury in Retrograde (2017, Michael Glover Smith)
Dick Johnson Is Dead (2020, Kirsten Johnson)
MS Slavic 7 (2019, Sofia Bohdanowicz and Deragh Campbell)
Wasp Network (2019, Olivier Assayas)
Sunrise/Sunset (2019, Jong Ougie Pak)
Let Them All Talk a.k.a. The Fall of 2019 (2020, Steven Soderbergh)
Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020, Eliza Hittman)
The Midnight Sky (2020, George Clooney)
Lingua Franca (2019, Isabel Sandoval)
Mank (2020, David Fincher)
Sound of Metal (2019, Darius Marder)
Tenet (2020, Christopher Nolan)
Greenland (2020, Ric Roman Waugh)
Minari (2020, Lee Isaac Chung)
I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020, Charlie Kaufman)
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020, Aaron Sorkin)
WW84 (2020, Patty Jenkins)
Hamilton (2020, Thomas Kail)
Mulan (2020, Niki Caro)

2019

La Flor (2018, Mariano Llinás)
Asako I & II (2018, Hamaguchi Ryusuke)
Transit (2018, Christian Petzold)
Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2018, Bi Gan)
Grass (2018, Hong Sang-soo)
The Fate of Lee Khan (1973, King Hu)
Ash Is Purest White (2018, Jia Zhangke)
Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019, Quentin Tarantino)
Parasite (2019, Bong Joon-ho)
High Life (2018, Claire Denis)
Police Story (1985, Jackie Chan)
An Elephant Sitting Still (2018, Hu Bo)
Synonyms (2019, Nadav Lapid)
In My Room (2018, Ulrich Köhler)
Uncut Gems (2019, Josh & Benny Safdie)
I Heard You Paint Houses (2019, Martin Scorsese)
Her Smell (2018, Alex Ross Perry)
The Image Book (2018, Jean-Luc Godard)
Equation to an Unknown (1980, Dietrich de Velsa)
Marriage Story (2019, Noah Baumbach)
Hotel by the River (2018, Hong Sang-soo)
“I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians” (2018, Radu Jude)
Non-Fiction (2018, Olivier Assayas)
Little Women (2019, Greta Gerwig)
Too Late to Die Young (2018, Dominga Sotomayor)
What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? (2018, Roberto Minervini)
A Hidden Life (2019, Terrence Malick)
Pain and Glory (2019, Pedro Almodóvar)
The World Is Full of Secrets (2018, Graham Swon)
3 Faces (2018, Jafar Panahi)
Ad Astra (2019, James Gray)
Better Days (2019, Derek Tsang)
Richard Jewell (2019, Clint Eastwood)
Atlantics (2019, Mati Diop)
Knives Out (2019, Rian Johnson)
Dark Waters (2019, Todd Haynes)
The White Storm 2: Drug Lords (2019, Herman Yau)
Motherless Brooklyn (2019, Edward Norton)
The Dead Don’t Die (2019, Jim Jarmusch)
John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum (2019, Chad Stahelski)
The Souvenir (2019, Joanna Hogg)
Us (2019, Jordan Peele)
Ray & Liz (2018, Richard Billingham)
The Competition (2016, Claire Simon)
Police Story 2 (1988, Jackie Chan)
Diamantino (2018, Gabriel Abrantes & Daniel Schmidt)
High Flying Bird (2019, Steven Soderbergh)
The Wandering Soap Opera (2017, Raúl Ruiz & Valeria Sarmiento)
Feast of the Epiphany (2018, Michael Koresky & Jeff Reichert & Farihah Zaman)
Domino (2019, Brian De Palma)
The Plagiarists (2019, Peter Parlow)
A Faithful Man (2018, Louis Garrel)
The Load (2018, Ognjen Glavonić)
Two Plains & a Fancy (2018, Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn)
Relaxer (2018, Joel Potrykus)
Diane (2018, Kent Jones)
Gemini Man (2019, Ang Lee)
Climax (2018, Gaspar Noé)
Knife + Heart (2018, Yann Gonzalez)
Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy (2018, Yuen Woo-ping)
Conjuring the Rolling Thunder Re-vue (2019, Martin Scorsese)
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019, J. J. Abrams)
Ready or Not (2019, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett)
Happy Death Day 2U (2019, Christopher Landon)
Glass (2019, M. Night Shyamalan)
Honeyland (2019, Tamara Kotevska & Ljubomir Stefanov)
21 Bridges (2019, Brian Kirk)
Toy Story 4 (2019, Josh Cooley)
Alita: Battle Angel (2019, Robert Rodriguez)
Avengers: Endgame (2019, Anthony & Joe Russo)
Under the Silver Lake (2018, David Robert Mitchell)
Crawl (2019, Alexandre Aja)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019, Céline Sciamma)
The Lighthouse (2019, Robert Eggers)
The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers & Kathleen Hepburn)
Grave of the Fireflies (1988, Takahata Isao)
6 Underground (2019, Michael Bay)
The Farewell (2019, Lulu Wang)
Joker (2019, Todd Phillips)
Shadow (2018, Zhang Yimou)
Sunset (2018, László Nemes)
Hustlers (2019, Lorene Scafaria)
Midsommar (2019, Ari Aster)
In Fabric (2018, Peter Strickland)
Booksmart (2019, Olivia Wilde)
Jojo Rabbit (2019, Taika Waititi)

2018

Legend of the Mountain (1979, King Hu)
The Day After (2017, Hong Sang-soo)
The Other Side of the Wind (2018, Orson Welles)
First Reformed (2017, Paul Schrader)
Claire’s Camera (2017, Hong Sang-soo)
Cold Water (1994, Olivier Assayas)
Classical Period (2018, Ted Fendt)
Mission: Impossible—Fallout (2018, Christopher McQuarrie)
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018, Joel & Ethan Coen)
Bisbee ’17 (2018, Robert Greene)
Unfriended: Dark Web (2018, Stephen Susco)
Zama (2017, Lucrecia Martel)
Burning (2018, Lee Chang-dong)
Monrovia, Indiana (2018, Frederick Wiseman)
Let the Sunshine In (2017, Claire Denis)
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018, Barry Jenkins)
Before We Vanish (2017, Kurosawa Kiyoshi)
Western (2017, Valeska Grisebach)
Happy as Lazzaro (2018, Alice Rohrwacher)
Isle of Dogs (2018, Wes Anderson)
Golden Exits (2017, Alex Ross Perry)
The Mule (2018, Clint Eastwood)
Support the Girls (2018, Andrew Bujalski)
A Star Is Born (2018, Bradley Cooper)
Mrs. Hyde (2017, Serge Bozon)
The House That Jack Built (2018, Lars von Trier)
Welcome to Marwen (2018, Robert Zemeckis)
PROTOTYPE (2017, Blake Williams)
The Great Silence (1968, Sergio Corbucci)
The Rise and Fall of a Small Film Company (1986, Jean-Luc Godard)
Good Manners (2017, Juliana Rojas & Marco Dutra)
Ismael’s Ghosts (2017, Arnaud Desplechin)
The Commuter (2018, Jaume Collet-Serra)
Infinite Football (2018, Corneliu Porumboiu)
Notes on an Appearance (2018, Ricky D’Ambrose)
BlacKkKlansman (2018, Spike Lee)
Roma (2018, Alfonso Cuarón)
Lover for a Day (2017, Philippe Garrel)
Suspiria (2018, Luca Guadagnino)
The Rider (2017, Chloé Zhao)
The Great Buddha+ (2017, Huang Hsin-yao)
The Great Pretender (2018, Nathan Silver)
Shoplifters (2018, Koreeda Hirokazu)
The Favourite (2018, Yorgos Lanthimos)
Den of Thieves (2018, Christian Gudegast)
Cold War (2018, Paweł Pawlikowski)
Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018, RaMell Ross)
Gemini (2017, Aaron Katz)
Caniba (2017, Véréna Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor)
The Green Fog (2017, Guy Maddin & Evan Johnson & Galen Johnson)
Game Night (2018, John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein)
The 15:17 to Paris (2018, Clint Eastwood)
Ready Player One (2018, Steven Spielberg)
Black Panther (2018, Ryan Coogler)
Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018, Peyton Reed)
The Wild Boys (2017, Bertrand Mandico)
Sorry to Bother You (2018, Boots Riley)
Scarred Hearts (2016, Radu Jude)
Let the Corpses Tan (2017, Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani)
Milla (2017, Valérie Massadian)
Maison du bonheur (2017, Sofia Bohdanowicz)
Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun? (2017, Travis Wilkerson)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018, Bob Persichetti & Peter Ramsey & Rodney Rothman)
Minding the Gap (2018, Bing Liu)
Unsane (2018, Steven Soderbergh)
24 Frames (2017, Abbas Kiarostami)
En el Séptimo Día (2017, Jim McKay)
Electro-Pythagoras: A Portrait of Martin Bartlett (2016, Luke Fowler)
Incredibles 2 (2018, Brad Bird)
Cam (2018, Daniel Goldhaber)
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018, Ron Howard)
The Guilty (2018, Gustav Möller)
Widows (2018, Steve McQueen)
The Old Man & the Gun (2018, David Lowery)
Ava (2017, Sadaf Foroughi)
Memoir of War (2017, Emmanuel Finkiel)
Avengers: Infinity War (2018, Anthony & Joe Russo)
The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018, Desiree Akhavan)
Werewolf (2016, Ashley McKenzie)
Leave No Trace (2018, Debra Granik)
First Man (2018, Damien Chazelle)
Orders (2017, Eric Marsh & Andrew Stasiulis)
The Land of Steady Habits (2018, Nicole Holofcener)
On Her Shoulders (2018, Alexandria Bombach)
Shirkers (2018, Sandi Tan)
A Bread Factory—Part Two: Walk With Me a While (2018, Patrick Wang)
A Bread Factory—Part One: For the Sake of Gold (2018, Patrick Wang)
Love, Cecil (2017, Lisa Immordino Vreeland)
12 Days (2017, Raymond Depardon)
Madeline’s Madeline (2018, Josephine Decker)
Saving Brinton (2017, Tommy Haines & John Richard & Andrew Sherburne)
Hereditary (2018, Ari Aster)
People’s Republic of Desire (2018, Wu Hao)
Eighth Grade (2018, Bo Burnham)
Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc (2017, Bruno Dumont)
Searching (2018, Aneesh Chaganty)
You Were Never Really Here (2017, Lynne Ramsay)
Vice (2018, Adam McKay)
Crazy Rich Asians (2018, Jon M. Chu)
Le Redoutable (2017, Michel Hazanavicius)

2017

Taipei Story (1985, Edward Yang)
Nocturama (2016, Bertrand Bonello)
On the Beach at Night Alone (2017, Hong Sang-soo)
The Human Surge (2016, Eduardo Williams)
Daughter of the Nile (1987, Hou Hsiao-hsien)
Downsizing (2017, Alexander Payne)
Princess Cyd (2017, Stephen Cone)
Faces Places (2017, Agnès Varda & JR)
Good Time (2017, Josh & Benny Safdie)
By the Time It Gets Dark (2016, Anocha Suwichakornpong)
Phantom Thread (2017, Paul Thomas Anderson)
Personal Shopper (2016, Olivier Assayas)
The Work (2017, Jairus McLeary and Gethin Aldous)
Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (2017, S. S. Rajamouli)
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016, Paul W. S. Anderson)
Lady Bird (2017, Greta Gerwig)
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017, Noah Baumbach)
120 BPM (Beats per Minute) (2017, Robin Campillo)
Marjorie Prime (2017, Michael Almereyda)
The Son of Joseph (2016, Eugène Green)
Call Me by Your Name (2017, Luca Guadagnino)
The Post (2017, Steven Spielberg)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017, Rian Johnson)
Hermia & Helena (2016, Matías Piñeiro)
Chung Kuo—China (1972, Michelangelo Antonioni)
The Lost City of Z (2016, James Gray)
A Quiet Passion (2016, Terence Davies)
The Unknown Girl (2016, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017, Chad Stahelski)
The Florida Project (2017, Sean Baker)
Get Out (2017, Jordan Peele)
i hate myself (2013, Joanna Arnow)
Ex Libris—The New York Public Library (2017, Frederick Wiseman)
Wonderstruck (2017, Todd Haynes)
Song to Song (2017, Terrence Malick)
The Ornithologist (2016, João Pedro Rodrigues)
Starless Dreams (2016, Mehrdad Oskouei)
Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017, S. Craig Zahler)
Person to Person (2017, Dustin Guy Defa)
Girls Trip (2017, Malcolm D. Lee)
Last Flag Flying (2017, Richard Linklater)
Escapes (2017, Michael Almereyda)
Logan Lucky (2017, Steven Soderbergh)
Your Name. (2016, Shinkai Makoto)
Kékszakállú (2016, Gastón Solnicki)
Rat Film (2016, Theo Anthony)
In Transit (2015, Albert Maysles & Lynn True & David Usui & Nelson Walker & Ben Wu)
Mimosas (2016, Óliver Laxe)
Thirst Street (2017, Nathan Silver)
The Death of Louis XIV (2016, Albert Serra)
Staying Vertical (2016, Alain Guiraudie)
My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea (2016, Dash Shaw)
The Other Side of Hope (2017, Aki Kaurismäki)
The Beguiled (2017, Sofia Coppola)
Mudbound (2017, Dee Rees)
Félicité (2017, Alain Gomis)
Alien: Covenant (2017, Ridley Scott)
Baby Driver (2017, Edgar Wright)
Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016, Bill Morrison)
Split (2016, M. Night Shyamalan)
A Cure for Wellness (2016, Gore Verbinski)
Okja (2017, Bong Joon-ho)
The Future Perfect (2016, Nele Wohlatz)
Bronx Gothic (2017, Andrew Rossi)
The Square (2017, Ruben Östlund)
4 Days in France (2016, Jérôme Reybaud)
Wonder Wheel (2017, Woody Allen)
Harmonium (2016, Fukada Koji)
Graduation (2016, Cristian Mungiu)
Last Men in Aleppo (2017, Feras Fayyad)
Blade Runner 2049 (2017, Denis Villeneuve)
Thelma (2017, Joachim Trier)
All the Money in the World (2017, Ridley Scott)
Dunkirk (2017, Christopher Nolan)
Jane (2017, Brett Morgen)
After the Storm (2016, Koreeda Hirokazu)
Columbus (2017, Kogonada)
Spettacolo (2017, Jeff Malmberg & Chris Shellen)
The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki (2016, Juho Kuosmanen)
The Great Wall (2016, Zhang Yimou)
A Ghost Story (2017, David Lowery)
Happy Death Day (2017, Christopher Landon)
Coco (2017, Lee Unkrich)
Casting JonBenet (2017, Kitty Green)
The Fate of the Furious (2017, F. Gary Gray)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017, James Gunn)
Beach Rats (2017, Eliza Hittman)
The Lego Batman Movie (2017, Chris McKay)
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017, Martin McDonagh)
The Shape of Water (2017, Guillermo del Toro)
Raw (2016, Julia Ducournau)
Atomic Blonde (2017, David Leitch)
The Big Sick (2017, Michael Showalter)
Cézanne et moi (2016, Danièle Thompson)
The Void (2016, Jeremy Gillespie & Steven Kostanski)
Wind River (2017, Taylor Sheridan)
The Disaster Artist (2017, James Franco)
Kong: Skull Island (2017, Jordan Vogt-Roberts)
Ingrid Goes West (2017, Matt Spicer)
Wonder Woman (2017, Patty Jenkins)
Logan (2017, James Mangold)
Gook (2017, Justin Chon)
As You Are (2016, Miles Joris-Peyrafitte)
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017, Yorgos Lanthimos)
I, Tonya (2017, Craig Gillespie)
mother! (2017, Darren Aronofsky)

2016

A Touch of Zen (1971, King Hu)
Dragon Inn (1967, King Hu)
Mountains May Depart (2015, Jia Zhangke)
Terrorizers (1986, Edward Yang)
Cemetery of Splendor (2015, Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Silence (2016, Martin Scorsese)
Right Now, Wrong Then (2015, Hong Sang-soo)
Toni Erdmann (2016, Maren Ade)
Only Yesterday (1991, Takahata Isao)
Happy Hour (2015, Hamaguchi Ryusuke)
Elle (2016, Paul Verhoeven)
SPL II: A Time for Consequences (2015, Soi Cheang)
Cameraperson (2016, Kirsten Johnson)
Manchester by the Sea (2016, Kenneth Lonergan)
Kaili Blues (2015, Bi Gan)
Afternoon (2015, Tsai Ming-liang)
Certain Women (2016, Kelly Reichardt)
My Golden Days (2015, Arnaud Desplechin)
The Handmaiden (2016, Park Chan-wook)
Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party (2015, Stephen Cone)
Kate Plays Christine (2016, Robert Greene)
O.J.: Made in America (2016, Ezra Edelman)
Things to Come (2016, Mia Hansen-Løve)
Sunset Song (2015, Terence Davies)
Creepy (2016, Kurosawa Kiyoshi)
Aquarius (2016, Kleber Mendonça Filho)
Shin Godzilla (2016, Anno Hideaki and Higuchi Shinji)
The Edge of Seventeen (2016, Kelly Fremon Craig)
20th Century Women (2016, Mike Mills)
In the Shadow of Women (2015, Philippe Garrel)
The Other Side (2015, Roberto Minervini)
I Am Not Madame Bovary (2016, Feng Xiaogang)
The Shallows (2016, Jaume Collet-Serra)
Sully (2016, Clint Eastwood)
Everybody Wants Some!! (2016, Richard Linklater)
Moonlight (2016, Barry Jenkins)
Love & Friendship (2016, Whit Stillman)
Paterson (2016, Jim Jarmusch)
Allied (2016, Robert Zemeckis)
I Am Not Your Negro (2016, Raoul Peck)
Julieta (2016, Pedro Almodóvar)
Fire at Sea (2016, Gianfranco Rosi)
Lost and Beautiful (2015, Pietro Marcello)
Tower (2016, Keith Maitland)
Rules Don’t Apply (2016, Warren Beatty)
Kubo and the Two Strings (2016, Travis Knight)
Three (2016, Johnnie To)
The Illinois Parables (2016, Deborah Stratman)
Knight of Cups (2015, Terrence Malick)
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016, Akiva Schaffer & Jorma Taccone)
The Mermaid (2016, Stephen Chow)
The Treasure (2015, Corneliu Porumboiu)
Café Society (2016, Woody Allen)
Belladonna of Sadness (1973, Yamamoto Eiichi)
Hail, Caesar! (2016, Joel & Ethan Coen)
Rogue One (2016, Gareth Edwards)
Our Little Sister (2015, Koreeda Hirokazu)
The Academy of Muses (2015, José Luis Guerín)
Weiner (2016, Josh Kriegman & Elyse Steinberg)
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016, Zack Snyder)
Hell or High Water (2016, David Mackenzie)
Arrival (2016, Denis Villeneuve)
Aferim! (2015, Radu Jude)
Valley of Love (2015, Guillaume Nicloux)
De Palma (2015, Noah Baumbach & Jake Paltrow)
Always Shine (2016, Sophia Takal)
The Love Witch (2016, Anna Biller)
Neruda (2016, Pablo Larraín)
Don’t Breathe (2016, Fede Álvarez)
Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience (2016, Terrence Malick)
Green Room (2015, Jeremy Saulnier)
The Invitation (2015, Karyn Kusama)
The Lobster (2015, Yorgos Lanthimos)
Indignation (2016, James Schamus)
Moana (2016, John Musker & Ron Clements)
The Fits (2015, Anna Rose Holmer)
The Nice Guys (2016, Shane Black)
Là-bas (2006, Chantal Akerman)
Los Sures (1984, Diego Echeverria)
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016, Dan Trachtenberg)
Hacksaw Ridge (2016, Mel Gibson)
I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman (2015, Marianne Lambert)
I, Daniel Blake (2016, Ken Loach)
Mekong Hotel (2012, Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
A Bigger Splash (2015, Luca Guadagnino)
April and the Extraordinary World (2015, Christian Desmares & Franck Ekinci)
Fences (2016, Denzel Washington)
Midnight Special (2016, Jeff Nichols)
Demolition (2015, Jean-Marc Vallée)
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016, David Yates)
Sing Street (2016, John Carney)
Francofonia (2015, Alexander Sokurov)
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016, Nicholas Stoller)
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016, Bryan Singer)
Captain America: Civil War (2016, Anthony & Joe Russo)
No Home Movie (2015, Chantal Akerman)
Doctor Strange (2016, Scott Derrickson)
Deepwater Horizon (2016, Peter Berg)
High-Rise (2015, Ben Wheatley)
Zootopia (2016, Byron Howard & Rich Moore)
The Jungle Book (2016, Jon Favreau)
American Honey (2016, Andrea Arnold)
The Magnificent Seven (2016, Antoine Fuqua)
Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016, Taika Waititi)
Jason Bourne (2016, Paul Greengrass)
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (2016, Ang Lee)
Eye in the Sky (2015, Gavin Hood)
Nerve (2016, Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman)
The Witch: A New-England Folktale (2015, Robert Eggers)
Krisha (2015, Trey Edward Shults)
Passengers (2016, Morten Tyldum)
A Monster Calls (2016, J. A. Bayona)
Embrace of the Serpent (2015, Ciro Guerra)
The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan)
Money Monster (2016, Jodie Foster)
Keanu (2016, Peter Atencio)
Nocturnal Animals (2016, Tom Ford)
13th (2016, Ava DuVernay)
Lion (2016, Garth Davis)
La La Land (2016, Damien Chazelle)
Jackie (2016, Pablo Larraín)
Christine (2016, Antonio Campos)
Live by Night (2016, Ben Affleck)
Cosmos (2015, Andrzej Żuławski)
Assassin’s Creed (2016, Justin Kurzel)
On the Silver Globe (1988, Andrzej Żuławski)
Hidden Figures (2016, Theodore Melfi)
Deadpool (2016, Tim Miller)
Don’t Think Twice (2016, Mike Birbiglia)
The Neon Demon (2016, Nicolas Winding Refn)
Now You See Me 2 (2016, Jon M. Chu)
Swiss Army Man (2016, Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert)
Suicide Squad (2016, David Ayer)

2015

Out 1: Noli me tangere (1971, Jacques Rivette)
The Assassin (2015, Hou Hsiao-hsien)
Carol (2015, Todd Haynes)
Blackhat (2015, Michael Mann)
Phoenix (2014, Christian Petzold)
Horse Money (2014, Pedro Costa)
Jauja (2014, Lisandro Alonso)
The Princess of France (2014, Matías Piñeiro)
Mistress America (2015, Noah Baumbach)
Rebels of the Neon God (1992, Tsai Ming-liang)
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015, George Miller)
Saint Laurent (2014, Bertrand Bonello)
Aloha (2015, Cameron Crowe)
Two Shots Fired (2014, Martín Rejtman)
L for Leisure (2014, Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn)
Experimenter: The Stanley Milgram Story (2015, Michael Almereyda)
Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation (2015, Christopher McQuarrie)
Beloved Sisters (2014, Dominik Graf)
Clouds of Sils Maria (2014, Olivier Assayas)
Magic Mike XXL (2015, Gregory Jacobs)
The Mend (2014, John Magary)
P’tit Quinquin (2014, Bruno Dumont)
Queen of Earth (2015, Alex Ross Perry)
Office (2015, Johnnie To)
The Forbidden Room (2015, Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson)
When Marnie Was There (2014, Yonebayashi Hiromasa)
Heaven Knows What (2014, Josh & Benny Safdie)
The Walk (2015, Robert Zemeckis)
The Hateful Eight (2015, Quentin Tarantino)
Bridge of Spies (2015, Steven Spielberg)
Baahubali: The Beginning (2015, S. S. Rajamouli)
Unfriended (2014, Leo Gabriadze)
Buzzard (2014, Joel Potrykus)
Sicario (2015, Denis Villeneuve)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015, J. J. Abrams)
Stinking Heaven (2015, Nathan Silver)
Results (2015, Andrew Bujalski)
Field Niggas (2015, Khalik Allah)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015, Joss Whedon)
Run All Night (2015, Jaume Collet-Serra)
Creed (2015, Ryan Coogler)
Tangerine (2015, Sean Baker)
45 Years (2015, Andrew Haigh)
Mustang (2015, Denis Gamze Ergüven)
Inside Out (2015, Pete Docter)
James White (2015, Josh Mond)
The Martian (2015, Ridley Scott)
Güeros (2014, Alonso Ruizpalacios)
Spotlight (2015, Tom McCarthy)
Brooklyn (2015, John Crowley)
The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015, Marielle Heller)
Joy (2015, David O. Russell)
The Duke of Burgundy (2014, Peter Strickland)
Steve Jobs (2015, Danny Boyle)
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 2 (2015, Francis Lawrence)
Boy and the World (2013, Alê Abreu)
Everest (2015, Baltasar Kormákur)
Trainwreck (2015, Judd Apatow)
Ant-Man (2015, Peyton Reed)
It Follows (2014, David Robert Mitchell)
What We Do in the Shadows (2014, Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi)
Ex Machina (2014, Alex Garland)
Love & Mercy (2014, Bill Pohlad)
Straight Outta Compton (2015, F. Gary Gray)
Furious 7 (2015, James Wan)
Room (2015, Lenny Abrahamson)
Anomalisa (2015, Charlie Kaufman)
Meet the Patels (2014, Geeta V. Patel & Ravi V. Patel)
The Wolfpack (2015, Crystal Moselle)
Song of Lahore (2015, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy & Andy Schocken)
Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015, Brett Morgen)
Spectre (2015, Sam Mendes)
Son of Saul (2015, László Nemes)
The Gift (2015, Joel Edgerton)
Chi-Raq (2015, Spike Lee)
Macbeth (2015, Justin Kurzel)
The Revenant (2015, Alejandro González Iñárritu)
Black Mass (2015, Scott Cooper)
In the Heart of the Sea (2015, Ron Howard)
Beasts of No Nation (2015, Cary Joji Fukunaga)
The Danish Girl (2015, Tom Hooper)
The Big Short (2015, Adam McKay)
Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014, Matthew Vaughn)
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon)

2014

Stray Dogs (2013, Tsai Ming-liang)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014, Wes Anderson)
Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2 (2014, Johnnie To)
Manakamana (2013, Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez)
Inherent Vice (2014, Paul Thomas Anderson)
Goodbye to Language (2014, Jean-Luc Godard)
Gone Girl (2014, David Fincher)
Listen Up Philip (2014, Alex Ross Perry)
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013, Takahata Isao)
Boyhood (2014, Richard Linklater)
Two Days, One Night (2014, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
The Strange Little Cat (2013, Ramon Zürcher)
Stranger by the Lake (2013, Alain Guiraudie)
Coherence (2013, James Ward Byrkit)
The Immigrant (2013, James Gray)
Non-Stop (2014, Jaume Collet-Serra)
John Wick (2014, Chad Stahelski and David Leitch)
Exhibition (2013, Joanna Hogg)
Snowpiercer (2013, Bong Joon-ho)
Actress (2014, Robert Greene)
Under the Skin (2013, Jonathan Glazer)
Night Moves (2013, Kelly Reichardt)
Whiplash (2014, Damien Chazelle)
Archipelago (2010, Joanna Hogg)
Nightcrawler (2014, Dan Gilroy)
Chantal Akerman, From Here (2010, Gustavo Beck & Leonardo Ferreira)
Edge of Tomorrow (2014, Doug Liman)
The Lego Movie (2014, Phil Lord & Chris Miller)
Unrelated (2007, Joanna Hogg)
Interstellar (2014, Christopher Nolan)
Blue Ruin (2013, Jeremy Saulnier)
Locke (2013, Steven Knight)
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014, James Gunn)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014, Anthony & Joe Russo)
Foxcatcher (2014, Bennett Miller)
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014, Bryan Singer)
Selma (2014, Ava DuVernay)
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 1 (2014, Francis Lawrence)
Big Hero 6 (2014, Don Hall & Chris Williams)
Fury (2014, David Ayer)
The Imitation Game (2014, Morten Tyldum)
Birdman, or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014, Alejandro González Iñárritu)
The Theory of Everything (2014, James Marsh)
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014, Marc Webb)

2013

Like Someone in Love (2012, Abbas Kiarostami)
The Grandmaster (2013, Wong Kar-wai)
The Wind Rises (2013, Miyazaki Hayao)
Drug War (2012, Johnnie To)
Leviathan (2012, Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel)
Before Midnight (2013, Richard Linklater)
Frances Ha (2012, Noah Baumbach)
Bastards (2013, Claire Denis)
Passion (2012, Brian De Palma)
You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet (2012, Alain Resnais)
The Unspeakable Act (2012, Dan Sallitt)
To the Wonder (2012, Terrence Malick)
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013, Joel & Ethan Coen)
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013, Martin Scorsese)
A Touch of Sin (2013, Jia Zhangke)
Computer Chess (2013, Andrew Bujalski)
Viola (2012, Matías Piñeiro)
The Act of Killing (2012, Joshua Oppenheimer)
The World’s End (2013, Edgar Wright)
The Bling Ring (2013, Sofia Coppola)
12 Years a Slave (2013, Steve McQueen)
Gravity (2013, Alfonso Cuáron)
Her (2013, Spike Jonze)
Upstream Color (2013, Shane Carruth)
Captain Phillips (2013, Paul Greengrass)
Stories We Tell (2012, Sarah Polley)
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013, Francis Lawrence)
Spring Breakers (2012, Harmony Korine)
Pacific Rim (2013, Guillermo del Toro)
American Hustle (2013, David O. Russell)
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013, J. J. Abrams)
Frozen (2013, Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee)
Simon Killer (2012, Antonio Campos)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013, Peter Jackson)
Iron Man 3 (2013, Shane Black)
Man of Steel (2013, Zack Snyder)
Elysium (2013, Neill Blomkamp)
The Heat (2013, Paul Feig)
World War Z (2013, Marc Forster)
Monsters University (2013, Dan Scanlon)
The Wolverine (2013, James Mangold)
Now You See Me (2013, Louis Leterrier)
Thor: The Dark World (2013, Alan Taylor)
Olympus Has Fallen (2013, Antoine Fuqua)
Despicable Me 2 (2013, Pierre Coffin & Chris Renaud)
Only God Forgives (2013, Nicolas Winding Refn)

2012

The Day He Arrives (2011, Hong Sang-soo)
Pom Poko (1994, Takahata Isao)
In Another Country (2012, Hong Sang-soo)
Tabu (2012, Miguel Gomes)
Oki’s Movie (2010, Hong Sang-soo)
This Is Not a Film (2011, Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb)
The Kid With a Bike (2011, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
Lincoln (2012, Steven Spielberg)
Moonrise Kingdom (2012, Wes Anderson)
We Won’t Grow Old Together (1972, Maurice Pialat)
Holy Motors (2012, Leos Carax)
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012, Paul W. S. Anderson)
The Master (2012, Paul Thomas Anderson)
The Color Wheel (2011, Alex Ross Perry)
Barbara (2012, Christian Petzold)
The Loneliest Planet (2011, Julia Loktev)
Cosmopolis (2012, David Cronenberg)
The Wise Kids (2011, Stephen Cone)
It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012, Don Hertzfeldt)
Django Unchained (2012, Quentin Tarantino)
Cloud Atlas (2012, Lana & Lilly Wachowski & Tom Tykwer)
Prometheus (2012, Ridley Scott)
Skyfall (2012, Sam Mendes)
Battle Royale (2000, Fukasaku Kinji)
Dredd (2012, Pete Travis)
Argo (2012, Ben Affleck)
Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011, David Gelb)
Life of Pi (2012, Ang Lee)
Looper (2012, Rian Johnson)
The Dark Knight Rises (2012, Christopher Nolan)
The Avengers (2012, Joss Whedon)
Zero Dark Thirty (2012, Kathryn Bigelow)
The Hunger Games (2012, Gary Ross)
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012, Peter Jackson)
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012, Marc Webb)
Les Misérables (2012, Tom Hooper)
The Words (2012, Brian Klugman & Lee Sternthal)

2011

A Brighter Summer Day (1991, Edward Yang)
Mysteries of Lisbon (2010, Raúl Ruiz)
The Tree of Life (2011, Terrence Malick)
Certified Copy (2010, Abbas Kiarostami)
Meek’s Cutoff (2010, Kelly Reichardt)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010, Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Margaret (2011, Kenneth Lonergan)
House of Tolerance (2011, Bertrand Bonello)
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011, David Fincher)
Historias Extraordinarias (2008, Mariano Llinás)
Film Socialisme (2010, Jean-Luc Godard)
Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (2009, Anno Hideaki)
Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol (2011, Brad Bird)
Melancholia (2011, Lars von Trier)
Pina (2011, Wim Wenders)
Unknown (2011, Jaume Collet-Serra)
The Arbor (2010, Clio Barnard)
Impolex (2009, Alex Ross Perry)
Midnight in Paris (2011, Woody Allen)
A Separation (2011, Asghar Farhadi)
Moneyball (2011, Bennett Miller)
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010, Werner Herzog)
Hugo (2011, Martin Scorsese)
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011, Guy Ritchie)
Pariah (2011, Dee Rees)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011, Tomas Alfredson)
The Artist (2011, Michel Hazanavicius)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011, David Yates)
Ip Man 2 (2010, Wilson Yip)
Bridesmaids (2011, Paul Feig)
X-Men: First Class (2011, Matthew Vaughn)
Drive (2011, Nicolas Winding Refn)
War Horse (2011, Steven Spielberg)
Life in a Day (2011, Kevin Macdonald)
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011, Joe Johnston)
Thor (2011, Kenneth Branagh)

2010

World on a Wire (1973, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
The Ghost Writer (2010, Roman Polański)
The Strange Case of Angelica (2010, Manoel de Oliveira)
House (1977, Obayashi Nobuhiko)
Sweetgrass (2009, Ilisa Barbash & Lucien Castaing-Taylor)
Mother (2009, Bong Joon-ho)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010, Edgar Wright)
The Social Network (2010, David Fincher)
Unstoppable (2010, Tony Scott)
Mundane History (2009, Anocha Suwichakornpong)
Trash Humpers (2009, Harmony Korine)
White Material (2009, Claire Denis)
Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010, Paul W. S. Anderson)
True Grit (2010, Joel & Ethan Coen)
Toy Story 3 (2010, Lee Unkrich)
Dogtooth (2009, Yorgos Lanthimos)
Winter’s Bone (2010, Debra Granik)
Inside Job (2010, Charles Ferguson)
Inception (2010, Christopher Nolan)
Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010, Banksy)
Ip Man (2008, Wilson Yip)
The Fighter (2010, David O. Russell)
Fish Tank (2009, Andrea Arnold)
3 Idiots (2009, Rajkumar Hirani)
The King’s Speech (2010, Tom Hooper)
Tangled (2010, Nathan Greno & Byron Howard)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (2010, David Yates)
Despicable Me (2010, Pierre Coffin & Chris Renaud)
C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005, Jean-Marc Vallée)
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010, Michael Apted)
The A-Team (2010, Joe Carnahan)
Iron Man 2 (2010, Jon Favreau)
Mao’s Last Dancer (2009, Bruce Beresford)
The Karate Kid (2010, Harold Zwart)
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010, David Slade)
Extraordinary Measures (2010, Tom Vaughn)

2009

Night and Day (2008, Hong Sang-soo)
35 Shots of Rum (2008, Claire Denis)
The Headless Woman (2008, Lucrecia Martel)
Tokyo Sonata (2008, Kurosawa Kiyoshi)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009, Wes Anderson)
24 City (2008, Jia Zhangke)
Public Enemies (2009, Michael Mann)
Inglourious Basterds (2009, Quentin Tarantino)
Liverpool (2008, Lisandro Alonso)
Two Lovers (2008, James Gray)
Orphan (2009, Jaume Collet-Serra)
Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (2007, Anno Hideaki)
Afterschool (2008, Antonio Campos)
The Beaches of Agnès (2008, Agnès Varda)
A Serious Man (2009, Joel & Ethan Coen)
Duplicity (2009, Tony Gilroy)
The Hurt Locker (2008, Kathryn Bigelow)
Star Trek (2009, J. J. Abrams)
Up (2009, Pete Docter)
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009, Tony Scott)
Coraline (2009, Henry Selick)
Red Cliff (2008, John Woo)
Sherlock Holmes (2009, Guy Ritchie)
Avatar (2009, James Cameron)
Taken (2008, Pierre Morel)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009, David Yates)
Gamer (2009, Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor)
Bronson (2008, Nicolas Winding Refn)
Up in the Air (2009, Jason Reitman)
Invictus (2009, Clint Eastwood)
Angels & Demons (2009, Ron Howard)
Michael Jackson’s This Is It (2009, Kenny Ortega)
17 Again (2009, Burr Steers)
The Soloist (2009, Joe Wright)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009, Gavin Hood)
(500) Days of Summer (2009, Marc Webb)
Bride Wars (2009, Gary Winick)
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009, Michael Bay)

2008

Still Life (2006, Jia Zhangke)
La France (2007, Serge Bozon)
Speed Racer (2008, Lana & Lilly Wachowski)
Woman on the Beach (2006, Hong Sang-soo)
Wendy and Lucy (2008, Kelly Reichardt)
As Tears Go By (1988, Wong Kar-wai)
The Exiles (1961, Kent Mackenzie)
My Blueberry Nights (2007, Wong Kar-wai)
Profit motive and the whispering wind (2007, John Gianvito)
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007, Cristian Mungiu)
Burn After Reading (2008, Joel & Ethan Coen)
WALL-E (2008, Andrew Stanton)
The Dark Knight (2008, Christopher Nolan)
Iron Man (2008, Jon Favreau)
Viva (2007, Anna Biller)
Cloverfield (2008, Matt Reeves)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008, Steven Spielberg)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008, David Fincher)
Synecdoche, New York (2008, Charlie Kaufman)
Flash Point (2007, Wilson Yip)
Bolt (2008, Chris Williams & Byron Howard)
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008, Andrew Adamson)
The Forbidden Kingdom (2008, Rob Minkoff)
Quantum of Solace (2008, Marc Forster)
Hancock (2008, Peter Berg)
27 Dresses (2008, Anne Fletcher)
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008, Rob Cohen)
The Express (2008, Gary Fleder)
Twilight (2008, Catherine Hardwicke)
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008, Dave Filoni)
Jumper (2008, Doug Liman)

2007

Syndromes and a Century (2006, Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Election 2 (2006, Johnnie To)
Zodiac (2007, David Fincher)
There Will Be Blood (2007, Paul Thomas Anderson)
Ten Skies (2004, James Benning)
Los muertos (2004, Lisandro Alonso)
I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone (2006, Tsai Ming-liang)
Exiled (2006, Johnnie To)
Michael Clayton (2007, Tony Gilroy)
The Wayward Cloud (2005, Tsai Ming-liang)
Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007, Joe Swanberg)
The Host (2006, Bong Joon-ho)
Election (2005, Johnnie To)
The Darjeeling Limited (2007, Wes Anderson)
Day Night Day Night (2006, Julia Loktev)
Hot Fuzz (2007, Edgar Wright)
No Country for Old Men (2007, Joel & Ethan Coen)
Persepolis (2007, Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud)
Resident Evil: Extinction (2007, Russell Mulcahy)
Lust, Caution (2007, Ang Lee)
Ratatouille (2007, Brad Bird)
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007, Paul Greengrass)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007, David Yates)
Spider-Man 3 (2007, Sam Raimi)
National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007, Jon Turteltaub)
Redacted (2007, Brian De Palma)
Live Free or Die Hard (2007, Len Wiseman)
Blades of Glory (2007, Will Speck & Josh Gordon)
Stardust (2007, Matthew Vaughn)
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007, Gore Verbinski)
Rush Hour 3 (2007, Brett Ratner)
The Great Debaters (2007, Denzel Washington)
Mr. Bean’s Holiday (2007, Steve Bendelack)
Shrek the Third (2007, Chris Miller)
Transformers (2007, Michael Bay)
The Game Plan (2007, Andy Fickman)
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007, Tim Story)
The Golden Compass (2007, Chris Weitz)
The Last Mimzy (2007, Bob Shaye)
Evan Almighty (2007, Tom Shadyac)
Southland Tales (2006, Richard Kelly)
Lars and the Real Girl (2007, Craig Gillespie)

2006

Miami Vice (2006, Michael Mann)
Inland Empire (2006, David Lynch)
L’Enfant (2005, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
Sátántangó (1994, Tarr Béla)
Army of Shadows (1969, Jean-Pierre Melville)
Deja Vu (2006, Tony Scott)
Marie Antoinette (2006, Sofia Coppola)
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005, Cristi Puiu)
Old Joy (2006, Kelly Reichardt)
Breaking News (2004, Johnnie To)
Woman Is the Future of Man (2004, Hong Sang-soo)
Lady Vengeance (2005, Park Chan-wook)
Children of Men (2006, Alfonso Cuarón)
The Devil Wears Prada (2006, David Frankel)
The Black Dahlia (2006, Brian De Palma)
Casino Royale (2006, Martin Campbell)
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006, Guillermo del Toro)
The Prestige (2006, Christopher Nolan)
The Departed (2006, Martin Scorsese)
Mission: Impossible III (2006, J. J. Abrams)
Curse of the Golden Flower (2006, Zhang Yimou)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006, Gore Verbinski)
Happy Feet (2006, George Miller)
Cars (2006, John Lasseter)
Night at the Museum (2006, Shawn Levy)
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006, Brett Ratner)
Monster House (2006, Gil Kenan)
The Da Vinci Code (2006, Ron Howard)
Eragon (2006, Stefan Fangmeier)

2005

Tropical Malady (2004, Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
2046 (2004, Wong Kar-wai)
Café Lumière (2003, Hou Hsiao-hsien)
Pulse (2001, Kurosawa Kiyoshi)
Throw Down (2004, Johnnie To)
Kung Fu Hustle (2004, Stephen Chow)
The New World (2005, Terrence Malick)
The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear (2004, Adam Curtis)
The World (2004, Jia Zhangke)
The Century of the Self (2002, Adam Curtis)
Caché (2005, Michael Haneke)
Memories of Murder (2003, Bong Joon-ho)
L’Intrus (2004, Claire Denis)
Oldboy (2003, Park Chan-wook)
The Squid and the Whale (2005, Noah Baumbach)
Brokeback Mountain (2005, Ang Lee)
Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith (2005, George Lucas)
Eros (2004, Wong Kar-wai/Steven Soderbergh/Michelangelo Antonioni)
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002, Park Chan-wook)
Joint Security Area (2000, Park Chan-wook)
Funny Ha Ha (2002, Andrew Bujalski)
House of Wax (2005, Jaume Collet-Serra)
Mysterious Skin (2004, Gregg Araki)
King Kong (2005, Peter Jackson)
Batman Begins (2005, Christopher Nolan)
Pride & Prejudice (2005, Joe Wright)
Serenity (2005, Joss Whedon)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005, Mike Newell)
March of the Penguins (2005, Luc Jacquet)
Cinderella Man (2005, Ron Howard)
Ong-Bak (2003, Prachya Pinkaew)
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005, Andrew Adamson)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005, Tim Burton)
Madagascar (2005, Eric Darnell & Tom McGarth)
Layer Cake (2004, Matthew Vaughn)
Zathura (2005, Jon Favreau)
Fantastic Four (2005, Tim Story)
Are We There Yet? (2005, Brian Levant)

2004

Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003, Tsai Ming-liang)
Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003, Thom Andersen)
Days of Being Wild (1990, Wong Kar-wai)
Before Sunset (2004, Richard Linklater)
Blissfully Yours (2002, Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Hero (2002, Zhang Yimou)
Vera Drake (2004, Mike Leigh)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, Michel Gondry)
Collateral (2004, Michael Mann)
Shaolin Soccer (2001, Stephen Chow)
Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004, Quentin Tarantino)
The Incredibles (2004, Brad Bird)
House of Flying Daggers (2004, Zhang Yimou)
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004, Wes Anderson)
Primer (2004, Shane Carruth)
Shaun of the Dead (2004, Edgar Wright)
S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2003, Panh Rithy)
Tarnation (2003, Jonathan Caouette)
The Five Obstructions (2003, Jørgen Leth & Lars von Trier)
Zatoichi (2003, Kitano Takeshi)
Infernal Affairs (2002, Andrew Lau & Alan Mak)
Million Dollar Baby (2004, Clint Eastwood)
Spider-Man 2 (2004, Sam Raimi)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004, Alfonso Cuarón)
The Bourne Supremacy (2004, Paul Greengrass)
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004, Alexander Witt)
The Ladykillers (2004, Joel & Ethan Coen)
Ray (2004, Taylor Hackford)
Mean Girls (2004, Mark Waters)
The Dreamers (2003, Bernardo Bertolucci)
National Treasure (2004, Jon Turteltaub)
Shrek 2 (2004, Andrew Adamson & Kelly Asbury & Conrad Vernon)
The Final Cut (2004, Omar Naim)
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004, Adam McKay)
The Day After Tomorrow (2004, Roland Emmerich)
DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story (2004, Rawsom Marshall Thurber)
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004, Brad Silberling)
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004, Garry Marshall)
Super Size Me (2004, Morgan Spurlock)

2003

Platform (2000, Jia Zhangke)
Millennium Mambo (2001, Hou Hsiao-hsien)
Lost in Translation (2003, Sofia Coppola)
Friday Night (2002, Claire Denis)
Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003, Quentin Tarantino)
Unknown Pleasures (2002, Jia Zhangke)
From the Other Side (2002, Chantal Akerman)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003, Peter Jackson)
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001, Watanabe Shinichiro)
The Matrix Reloaded (2003, Lana & Lilly Wachowski)
The School of Rock (2003, Richard Linklater)
Intolerable Cruelty (2003, Joel & Ethan Coen)
Finding Nemo (2003, Andrew Stanton)
The Matrix Revolutions (2003, Lana & Lilly Wachowski)
X2 (2003, Bryan Singer)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003, Gore Verbinski)
The Italian Job (2003, F. Gary Gray)
Big Fish (2003, Tim Burton)
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003, Tim Johnson & Patrick Gilmore)
Freaky Friday (2003, Mark Waters)
Phone Booth (2002, Joel Schumacher)
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003, Jonathan Mostow)
Bruce Almighty (2003, Tom Shadyac)
Holes (2003, Andrew Davis)
The Haunted Mansion (2003, Rob Minkoff)

2002

Spirited Away (2001, Miyazaki Hayao)
Femme Fatale (2002, Brian De Palma)
What Time Is It There? (2001, Tsai Ming-liang)
All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001, Iwai Shunji)
Hush! (2001, Hashiguchi Ryosuke)
Trouble Every Day (2001, Claire Denis)
Punch-Drunk Love (2002, Paul Thomas Anderson)
Minority Report (2002, Steven Spielberg)
Far From Heaven (2002, Todd Haynes)
Catch Me If You Can (2002, Steven Spielberg)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002, Peter Jackson)
Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones (2002, George Lucas)
A Grin Without a Cat (1977, Chris Marker)
Russian Ark (2002, Alexander Sokurov)
Jackass: The Movie (2002, Jeff Tremaine)
Gangs of New York (2002, Martin Scorsese)
Resident Evil (2002, Paul W. S. Anderson)
Adaptation. (2002, Spike Jonze)
Spider-Man (2002, Sam Raimi)
Lilo & Stitch (2002, Chris Sanders & Dean DeBlois)
The Bourne Identity (2002, Doug Liman)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002, Chris Columbus)
Happy Times (2000, Zhang Yimou)
Equilibrium (2002, Kurt Wimmer)
Return to Never Land (2002, Robin Budd)
Ice Age (2002, Chris Wedge)
The Quiet American (2002, Phillip Noyce)
Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002, Phillip Noyce)
Scooby-Doo (2002, Raja Gosnell)

2001

Mulholland Dr. (2001, David Lynch)
In the Mood for Love (2000, Wong Kar-wai)
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001, Steven Spielberg)
Cure (1997, Kurosawa Kiyoshi)
The River (1997, Tsai Ming-liang)
La Ciénaga (2001, Lucrecia Martel)
Waking Life (2001, Richard Linklater)
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001, Wes Anderson)
Ali (2001, Michael Mann)
The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001, Joel & Ethan Coen)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001, Peter Jackson)
Mysterious Object at Noon (2000, Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Ocean’s Eleven (2001, Steven Soderbergh)
Memento (2000, Christopher Nolan)
Monsters, Inc. (2001, Pete Docter)
Sexy Beast (2000, Jonathan Glazer)
Lumumba (2000, Raoul Peck)
Shrek (2001, Andrew Adamson & Vicky Jenson)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001, John Cameron Mitchell)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001, Chris Columbus)
The Road Home (1999, Zhang Yimou)
Rush Hour 2 (2001, Brett Ratner)
Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001, Kirk Wise & Gary Trousdale)
The Princess Diaries (2001, Garry Marshall)
Osmosis Jones (2001, Peter Farrelly & Bobby Farrelly)

2000

A One and a Two… (2000, Edward Yang)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, Ang Lee)
Beau Travail (1999, Claire Denis)
Gohatto (1999, Oshima Nagisa)
Drunken Master II (1994, Lau Kar-leung)
Bamboozled (2000, Spike Lee)
The Emperor’s New Groove (2000, Mark Dindal)
Hamlet (2000, Michael Almereyda)
You Can Count on Me (2000, Kenneth Lonergan)
Pola X (1999, Leos Carax)
Mission to Mars (2000, Brian De Palma)
Dancer in the Dark (2000, Lars von Trier)
Mission: Impossible II (2000, John Woo)
Unbreakable (2000, M. Night Shyamalan)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000, Joel & Ethan Coen)
Gladiator (2000, Ridley Scott)
But I’m a Cheerleader (1999, Jamie Babbit)
X-Men (2000, Bryan Singer)
Fantasia/2000 (1999, Don Hahn/Pixote Hunt/Hendel Butoy/Eric Goldberg/James Algar/Francis Glebas/Paul Brizzi/Gaëtan Brizzi)
American Psycho (2000, Mary Harron)
Cast Away (2000, Robert Zemeckis)
Shower (1999, Zhang Yang)
Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000, Dominic Sena)
Dinosaur (2000, Ralph Zondag & Eric Leighton)
Bring It On (2000, Peyton Reed)
Remember the Titans (2000, Boaz Yakin)
Battlefield Earth (2000, Roger Christian)

1999

Close-Up (1990, Abbas Kiarostami)
Eyes Wide Shut (1999, Stanley Kubrick)
The Insider (1999, Michael Mann)
The Matrix (1999, Lana & Lilly Wachowski)
Princess Mononoke (1997, Miyazaki Hayao)
Rosetta (1999, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
New Rose Hotel (1998, Abel Ferrara)
eXistenZ (1999, David Cronenberg)
Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace (1999, George Lucas)
The Straight Story (1999, David Lynch)
Magnolia (1999, Paul Thomas Anderson)
Toy Story 2 (1999, John Lasseter)
Being John Malkovich (1999, Spike Jonze)
Buena Vista Social Club (1999, Wim Wenders)
Fight Club (1999, David Fincher)

1998

Comrades: Almost a Love Story (1996, Peter Chan)
The Thin Red Line (1998, Terrence Malick)
Taste of Cherry (1997, Abbas Kiarostami)
Fallen Angels (1995, Wong Kar-wai)
Rushmore (1998, Wes Anderson)
The Celebration (1998, Thomas Vinterberg)
Belly (1998, Hype Williams)
Knock Off (1998, Tsui Hark)
Snake Eyes (1998, Brian De Palma)
Mr. Nice Guy (1997, Sammo Hung)
Saving Private Ryan (1998, Steven Spielberg)
The Big Lebowski (1998, Joel & Ethan Coen)
Ronin (1998, John Frankenheimer)
The Mask of Zorro (1998, Martin Campbell)
Mulan (1998, Barry Cook & Tony Bancroft)
The Prince of Egypt (1998, Brenda Chapman & Steve Hickner & Simon Wells)
Rush Hour (1998, Brett Ratner)
A Bug’s Life (1998, John Lasseter)
The Parent Trap (1998, Nancy Meyers)
The Hanging Garden (1997, Thom Fitzgerald)

1997

Happy Together (1997, Wong Kar-wai)
Lost Highway (1997, David Lynch)
Irma Vep (1996, Olivier Assayas)
Face/Off (1997, John Woo)
The Sweet Hereafter (1997, Atom Egoyan)
Starship Troopers (1997, Paul Verhoeven)
Underground (1995, Emir Kusturica)
Gummo (1997, Harmony Korine)
Nénette et Boni (1996, Claire Denis)
Double Team (1997, Tsui Hark)
Titanic (1997, James Cameron)
Jackie Brown (1997, Quentin Tarantino)
Boogie Nights (1997, Paul Thomas Anderson)
Hard Eight (1996, Paul Thomas Anderson)
The Watermelon Woman (1996, Cheryl Dunye)
Fire (1996, Deepa Mehta)
Gattaca (1997, Andrew Niccol)
Air Force One (1997, Wolfgang Petersen)
Contact (1997, Robert Zemeckis)
Anastasia (1997, Don Bluth & Gary Goldman)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997, Steven Spielberg)
Good Will Hunting (1997, Gus Van Sant)
Hercules (1997, John Musker & Ron Clements)
Batman & Robin (1997, Joel Schumacher)

1996

Chungking Express (1994, Wong Kar-wai)
La Cérémonie (1995, Claude Chabrol)
Ashes of Time (1994, Wong Kar-wai)
Vive L’Amour (1994, Tsai Ming-liang)
Secrets & Lies (1996, Mike Leigh)
Mission: Impossible (1996, Brian De Palma)
Breaking the Waves (1996, Lars von Trier)
Fargo (1996, Joel & Ethan Coen)
Bound (1996, Lana & Lilly Wachowski)
Bottle Rocket (1996, Wes Anderson)
Ghost in the Shell (1995, Oshii Mamoru)
Hamlet (1996, Kenneth Branagh)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996, Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise)
William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet (1996, Baz Luhrmann)
The Rock (1996, Michael Bay)
Space Jam (1996, Joe Pytka)
Matilda (1996, Danny DeVito)

1995

Heat (1995, Michael Mann)
Strange Days (1995, Kathryn Bigelow)
The Bridges of Madison County (1995, Clint Eastwood)
Safe (1995, Todd Haynes)
Before Sunrise (1995, Richard Linklater)
Clueless (1995, Amy Heckerling)
I Am Cuba (1964, Mikhail Kalatozov)
Hyenas (1992, Djibril Diop Mambéty)
River of Grass (1994, Kelly Reichardt)
The Glass Shield (1994, Charles Burnett)
Toy Story (1995, John Lasseter)
Die Hard With a Vengeance (1995, John McTiernan)
I Can’t Sleep (1994, Claire Denis)
Lessons of Darkness (1992, Werner Herzog)
Devil in a Blue Dress (1995, Carl Franklin)
Pocahontas (1995, Mike Gabriel & Eric Goldberg)
Apollo 13 (1995, Ron Howard)
Balto (1995, Simon Wells)
Crimson Tide (1995, Tony Scott)
Pushing Hands (1991, Ang Lee)
Braveheart (1995, Mel Gibson)
Jumanji (1995, Joe Johnston)
Batman Forever (1995, Joel Schumacher)

1994

The Devil, Probably (1977, Robert Bresson)
To Live (1994, Zhang Yimou)
Pulp Fiction (1994, Quentin Tarantino)
Three Colors: White (1994, Krzysztof Kieślowski)
Speed (1994, Jan de Bont)
True Lies (1994, James Cameron)
Clear and Present Danger (1994, Phillip Noyce)
Go Fish (1994, Rose Troche)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994, Frank Darabont)
Vanya on 42nd Street (1994, Louis Malle)
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994, Joel & Ethan Coen)
Forrest Gump (1994, Robert Zemeckis)
The Lion King (1994, Roger Allers & Rob Minkoff)

1993

My Neighbor Totoro (1988, Miyazaki Hayao)
Hard-Boiled (1992, John Woo)
Naked (1993, Mike Leigh)
The Long Day Closes (1992, Terence Davies)
Once Upon a Time in China II (1992, Tsui Hark)
Carlito’s Way (1993, Brian De Palma)
Dazed and Confused (1993, Richard Linklater)
Schindler’s List (1993, Steven Spielberg)
Three Colors: Blue (1993, Krzysztof Kieślowski)
The Piano (1993, Jane Campion)
Nitrate Kisses (1992, Barbara Hammer)
Jurassic Park (1993, Steven Spielberg)
True Romance (1993, Tony Scott)
The Wedding Banquet (1993, Ang Lee)
Groundhog Day (1993, Harold Ramis)
The Story of Qiu Ju (1992, Zhang Yimou)
Baraka (1992, Ron Fricke)
Sleepless in Seattle (1993, Nora Ephron)
Much Ado About Nothing (1993, Kenneth Branagh)
Falling Down (1993, Joel Schumacher)
Léolo (1992, Jean-Claude Lauzon)

1992

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992, David Lynch)
Once Upon a Time in China (1991, Tsui Hark)
Unforgiven (1992, Clint Eastwood)
Malcolm X (1992, Spike Lee)
The Last of the Mohicans (1992, Michael Mann)
Deep Cover (1992, Bill Duke)
Simple Men (1992, Hal Hartley)
Andrei Rublev (1966, Andrei Tarkovsky)
Basic Instinct (1992, Paul Verhoeven)
Raise the Red Lantern (1991, Zhang Yimou)
Raising Cain (1992, Brian De Palma)
No Fear, No Die (1990, Claire Denis)
La Paloma (1974, Daniel Schmid)
Candyman (1992, Bernard Rose)
Daughters of the Dust (1991, Julie Dash)
Batman Returns (1992, Tim Burton)
A Few Good Men (1992, Rob Reiner)
Reservoir Dogs (1992, Quentin Tarantino)
Patriot Games (1992, Phillip Noyce)
Aladdin (1992, John Musker & Ron Clements)
Lorenzo’s Oil (1992, George Miller)

1991

Trust (1990, Hal Hartley)
The Killer (1989, John Woo)
Barton Fink (1991, Joel & Ethan Coen)
Until the End of the World (1991, Wim Wenders)
The Double Life of Veronique (1991, Krzysztof Kieślowski)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991, James Cameron)
Ju Dou (1990, Zhang Yimou & Yang Fengliang)
Paris Is Burning (1990, Jennie Livingston)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991, Jonathan Demme)
Europa Europa (1990, Agnieszka Holland)
JFK (1991, Oliver Stone)
Beauty and the Beast (1991, Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise)

1990

The Unbelievable Truth (1989, Hal Hartley)
Wild at Heart (1990, David Lynch)
Total Recall (1990, Paul Verhoeven)
GoodFellas (1990, Martin Scorsese)
Akira (1988, Otomo Katsuhiro)
To Sleep With Anger (1990, Charles Burnett)
The Nasty Girl (1990, Michael Verhoeven)
Back to the Future Part III (1990, Robert Zemeckis)
American Boy: A Portrait of Steven Prince (1978, Martin Scorsese)
Miller’s Crossing (1990, Joel & Ethan Coen)
The Hunt for Red October (1990, John McTiernan)
Die Hard 2 (1990, Renny Harlin)
The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990, Brian De Palma)
Home Alone (1990, Chris Columbus)

1989

Peking Opera Blues (1986, Tsui Hark)
Do the Right Thing (1989, Spike Lee)
4 Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (1987, Éric Rohmer)
Casualties of War (1989, Brian De Palma)
36 Fillette (1988, Catherine Breillat)
Miracle Mile (1988, Steve De Jarnatt)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989, Steven Spielberg)
Chocolat (1988, Claire Denis)
sex, lies, and videotape (1989, Steven Soderbergh)
Back to the Future Part II (1989, Robert Zemeckis)
Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986, Miyazaki Hayao)
When Harry Met Sally… (1989, Rob Reiner)
Batman (1989, Tim Burton)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989, Stephen Hopkins)
The Little Mermaid (1989, John Musker & Ron Clements)
Glory (1989, Edward Zwick)
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989, Jeremiah Chechik)

1988

Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (1978, Chantal Akerman)
Die Hard (1988, John McTiernan)
Wings of Desire (1987, Wim Wenders)
The Thin Blue Line (1988, Errol Morris)
Violence at Noon (1966, Oshima Nagisa)
Red Sorghum (1988, Zhang Yimou)
The Land Before Time (1988, Don Bluth)
Rain Man (1988, Barry Levinson)
Big (1988, Penny Marshall)
Shoot to Kill (1988, Roger Spottiswoode)

1987

Ishtar (1987, Elaine May)
The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (1978, Raúl Ruiz)
RoboCop (1987, Paul Verhoeven)
Raising Arizona (1987, Joel & Ethan Coen)
Class Relations (1984, Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet)
Sign “O” the Times (1987, Prince)
Full Metal Jacket (1987, Stanley Kubrick)
The Princess Bride (1987, Rob Reiner)
Predator (1987, John McTiernan)
Tampopo (1985, Itami Juzo)
The Untouchables (1987, Brian De Palma)
Maurice (1987, James Ivory)
Barravento (1962, Glauber Rocha)
River’s Edge (1986, Tim Hunter)
Good Morning, Vietnam (1987, Barry Levinson)

1986

Blue Velvet (1986, David Lynch)
Manhunter (1986, Michael Mann)
The Green Ray (1986, Éric Rohmer)
Something Wild (1986, Jonathan Demme)
Round Midnight (1986, Bertrand Tavernier)
Aliens (1986, James Cameron)
Big Trouble in Little China (1986, John Carpenter)
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985, Stephen Frears)
Trouble in Mind (1985, Alan Rudolph)
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986, John Hughes)
Desert Hearts (1985, Donna Deitch)
Top Gun (1986, Tony Scott)
Wise Guys (1986, Brian De Palma)

1985

Ran (1985, Kurosawa Akira)
Back to the Future (1985, Robert Zemeckis)
Day of the Dead (1985, George A. Romero)
Brazil (1985, Terry Gilliam)
After Hours (1985, Martin Scorsese)
Night and Fog in Japan (1960, Oshima Nagisa)
Witness (1985, Peter Weir)
Commando (1985, Mark L. Lester)
Blood Simple (1984, Joel & Ethan Coen)
The Breakfast Club (1985, John Hughes)
Rocky IV (1985, Sylvester Stallone)

1984

L’Argent (1983, Robert Bresson)
Stop Making Sense (1984, Jonathan Demme)
Paris, Texas (1984, Wim Wenders)
Choose Me (1984, Alan Rudolph)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984, Steven Spielberg)
Dune (1984, David Lynch)
The Terminator (1984, James Cameron)
Bless Their Little Hearts (1983, Billy Woodberry)
Body Double (1984, Brian De Palma)
Gremlins (1984, Joe Dante)
Cruel Story of Youth (1960, Oshima Nagisa)
Repo Man (1984, Alex Cox)
Amadeus (1984, Miloš Forman)
A Bigger Splash (1973, Jack Hazan)
Ghostbusters (1984, Ivan Reitman)
Purple Rain (1984, Albert Magnoli)
The Karate Kid (1984, John G. Avildsen)

1983

Sunless (1983, Chris Marker)
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975, Chantal Akerman)
Videodrome (1983, David Cronenberg)
Boat People (1982, Ann Hui)
Pauline at the Beach (1983, Éric Rohmer)
Testament (1983, Lynne Littman)
The Keep (1983, Michael Mann)
Born in Flames (1983, Lizzie Borden)
Possession (1981, Andrzej Żuławski)
Koyaanisqatsi (1982, Godfrey Reggio)
The Traveling Players (1975, Theodoros Angelopoulos)
Return of the Jedi (1983, Richard Marquand)
Camera Buff (1979, Krzysztof Kieślowski)
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983, Oshima Nagisa)
The Constant Factor (1980, Krzysztof Zanussi)
Scarface (1983, Brian De Palma)

1982

Blade Runner (1982, Ridley Scott)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982, Steven Spielberg)
Stalker (1979, Andrei Tarkovsky)
Poltergeist (1982, Tobe Hooper)
The Thing (1982, John Carpenter)
Veronika Voss (1982, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
The Conductor (1980, Andrzej Wajda)
Mad Max 2 (1981, George Miller)
Without Anesthesia (1978, Andrzej Wajda)
Special Treatment (1980, Goran Paskaljević)
Das Boot (1981, Wolfgang Petersen)
La commare secca (1962, Bernardo Bertolucci)
First Blood (1982, Ted Kotcheff)
Tootsie (1982, Sydney Pollack)
Rocky III (1982, Sylvester Stallone)
Annie (1982, John Huston)

1981

India Song (1975, Marguerite Duras)
The Aviator’s Wife (1981, Éric Rohmer)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, Steven Spielberg)
Thief (1981, Michael Mann)
Blow Out (1981, Brian De Palma)
The Last Metro (1980, François Truffaut)
Like a Turtle on Its Back (1978, Luc Béraud)
Made in U.S.A (1966, Jean-Luc Godard)
Confidence (1980, Szabó István)
The Lady Without Camelias (1953, Michelangelo Antonioni)
Land of Silence and Darkness (1971, Werner Herzog)
Camouflage (1977, Krzysztof Zanussi)
The Wobblies (1979, Stewart Bird & Deborah Shaffer)
Chariots of Fire (1981, Hugh Hudson)
Illustrious Corpses (1976, Francesco Rosi)
The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (1980, Connie Field)
Gallipoli (1981, Peter Weir)

1980

Eraserhead (1977, David Lynch)
Kagemusha (1980, Kurosawa Akira)
Floating Clouds (1955, Naruse Mikio)
In a Year With 13 Moons (1978, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Every Man for Himself (1980, Jean-Luc Godard)
The Shining (1980, Stanley Kubrick)
Wise Blood (1979, John Huston)
Cruising (1980, William Friedkin)
Loulou (1980, Maurice Pialat)
The Empire Strikes Back (1980, Irvin Kershner)
Raging Bull (1980, Martin Scorsese)
The Left-Handed Woman (1978, Peter Handke)
Dressed to Kill (1980, Brian De Palma)
The Elephant Man (1980, David Lynch)
The Middleman (1976, Satyajit Ray)
Melvin and Howard (1980, Jonathan Demme)
Gates of Heaven (1978, Errol Morris)
Bye Bye Brazil (1979, Carlos Diegues)
Home Movies (1980, Brian De Palma)
L’Âge d’or (1930, Luis Buñuel)
Angi Vera (1978, Gabór Pál)
My Brilliant Career (1979, Gillian Armstrong)
Best Boy (1979, Ira Wohl)
Mad Max (1979, George Miller)
It’s My Turn (1980, Claudia Weill)
The Blues Brothers (1980, John Landis)
The Apple Game (1977, Věra Chytilová)

1979

The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Apocalypse Now (1979, Francis Ford Coppola)
Peeping Tom (1960, Michael Powell)
The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (1979, Chuck Jones)
Remember My Name (1978, Alan Rudolph)
Alien (1979, Ridley Scott)
The Green Room (1978, François Truffaut)
The Black Stallion (1979, Carroll Ballard)
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979, Werner Herzog)
Tent of Miracles (1977, Nelson Pereira dos Santos)
Despair (1978, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
The Shout (1978, Jerzy Skolimowski)
The Muppet Movie (1979, James Frawley)
La luna (1979, Bernardo Bertolucci)
Love on the Run (1979, François Truffaut)
With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women’s Emergency Brigade (1978, Lorraine Gray)
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975, Peter Weir)
Newsfront (1978, Phillip Noyce)
The Europeans (1979, James Ivory)
Rocky II (1979, Sylvester Stallone)

1978

Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974, Jacques Rivette)
Perceval le Gallois (1978, Éric Rohmer)
Days of Heaven (1978, Terrence Malick)
Dawn of the Dead (1978, George A. Romero)
Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (1978, Bertrand Blier)
Halloween (1978, John Carpenter)
Killer of Sheep (1977, Charles Burnett)
Dossier 51 (1978, Michel Deville)
A Geisha (1953, Mizoguchi Kenji)
Girlfriends (1978, Claudia Weill)
Violette Nozière (1978, Claude Chabrol)
Italianamerican (1974, Martin Scorsese)
A Doll’s House (1973, Joseph Losey)
Women (1977, Mészáros Márta)
The Fury (1978, Brian De Palma)
Riddles of the Sphinx (1977, Laura Mulvey & Peter Wollen)
The Deer Hunter (1978, Michael Cimino)
A Wedding (1978, Robert Altman)
Autumn Sonata (1978, Ingmar Bergman)
Bloodbrothers (1978, Robert Mulligan)
Jaws 2 (1978, Jeannot Szwarc)

1977

F for Fake (1973, Orson Welles)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977, Steven Spielberg)
Providence (1977, Alain Resnais)
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975, Pier Paolo Pasolini)
Dersu Uzala (1975, Kurosawa Akira)
Annie Hall (1977, Woody Allen)
In the Realm of the Senses (1976, Oshima Nagisa)
That Obscure Object of Desire (1977, Luis Buñuel)
The American Friend (1977, Wim Wenders)
Star Wars (1977, George Lucas)
Suspiria (1977, Dario Argento)
One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977, Agnès Varda)
Harlan County U.S.A. (1976, Barbara Kopple)
The Man Who Loved Women (1977, François Truffaut)
Alice in the Cities (1974, Wim Wenders)
Padre Padrone (1977, Paolo & Vittorio Taviani)
Between the Lines (1977, Joan Micklin Silver)
Ossessione (1943, Luchino Visconti)
Short Eyes (1977, Robert M. Young)
Roseland (1977, James Ivory)
The Lacemaker (1977, Claude Goretta)
Conversation Piece (1974, Luchino Visconti)
1900 (1976, Bernardo Bertolucci)
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972, Werner Herzog)
Citizens Band (1977, Jonathan Demme)
The Wonderful Crook (1975, Claude Goretta)
Heart of Glass (1976, Werner Herzog)
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977, John Lounsbery & Wolfgang Reitherman)

1976

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
The Marquise of O… (1976, Éric Rohmer)
Taxi Driver (1976, Martin Scorsese)
The Spirit of the Beehive (1973, Víctor Erice)
All the President’s Men (1976, Alan J. Pakula)
Carrie (1976, Brian De Palma)
La Chienne (1931, Jean Renoir)
Fox and His Friends (1975, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Sérail (1976, Eduardo de Gregorio)
Mikey and Nicky (1976, Elaine May)
Small Change (1976, François Truffaut)
Grey Gardens (1975, Albert & David Maysles & Ellen Hovde & Muffie Meyer)
Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 (1976, Alain Tanner)
The Memory of Justice (1976, Marcel Ophuls)
Car Wash (1976, Michael Schultz)
Kings of the Road (1976, Wim Wenders)
Solaris (1972, Andrei Tarkovsky)
Rocky (1976, John G. Avildsen)
Network (1976, Sidney Lumet)
Obsession (1976, Brian De Palma)
A Star Is Born (1976, Frank Pierson)

1975

Moses and Aaron (1975, Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet)
Nashville (1975, Robert Altman)
Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg)
Lancelot du Lac (1974, Robert Bresson)
La Rupture (1970, Claude Chabrol)
Just Before Nightfall (1971, Claude Chabrol)
The Passenger (1975, Michelangelo Antonioni)
Female Trouble (1974, John Waters)
Barry Lyndon (1975, Stanley Kubrick)
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974, Werner Herzog)
Xala (1975, Ousmane Sembène)
The Middle of the World (1974, Alain Tanner)
The Story of Adèle H. (1975, François Truffaut)
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975, Volker Schlöndorff & Margarethe von Trotta)
Distant Thunder (1973, Satyajit Ray)
Smile (1975, Michael Ritchie)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975, Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones)
Hearts of the West (1975, Howard Zieff)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975, Sidney Lumet)
Black Moon (1975, Louis Malle)

1974

The Mother and the Whore (1973, Jean Eustache)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974, Tobe Hooper)
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Death by Hanging (1968, Oshima Nagisa)
Badlands (1973, Terrence Malick)
Charulata (1964, Satyajit Ray)
The Conversation (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
Stavisky… (1974, Alain Resnais)
Chinatown (1974, Roman Polański)
The Ceremony (1971, Oshima Nagisa)
A Woman Under the Influence (1974, John Cassavetes)
The Phantom of Liberty (1974, Luis Buñuel)
Phantom of the Paradise (1974, Brian De Palma)
Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972, Jonas Mekas)
Daisy Miller (1974, Peter Bogdanovich)
Lucía (1968, Humberto Solás)
Dodes’ka-den (1970, Kurosawa Akira)
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974, Joseph Sargent)
Partner. (1968, Bernardo Bertolucci)
The Godfather Part II (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)
Lacombe Lucien (1974, Louis Malle)
The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short (1966, André Delvaux)
Old-Fashioned Woman (1974, Martha Coolidge)

1973

An Autumn Afternoon (1962, Ozu Yasujiro)
PlayTime (1967, Jacques Tati)
Late Autumn (1960, Ozu Yasujiro)
Days and Nights in the Forest (1970, Satyajit Ray)
Memories of Underdevelopment (1968, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea)
Mean Streets (1973, Martin Scorsese)
Tout va bien (1972, Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin)
Day for Night (1973, François Truffaut)
Pink Flamingos (1972, John Waters)
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973, Sam Peckinpah)
The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Red Psalm (1972, Jancsó Miklós)
Sisters (1972, Brian De Palma)
Love (1971, Makk Károly)
The Adversary (1970, Satyajit Ray)
Charley Varrick (1973, Don Siegel)
Last Tango in Paris (1972, Bernardo Bertolucci)
American Graffiti (1973, George Lucas)
Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (1969, Oshima Nagisa)
The Spider’s Stratagem (1970, Bernardo Bertolucci)
Kid Blue (1973, James Frawley)
Happiness (1935, Aleksandr Medvedkin)
Enter the Dragon (1973, Robert Clouse)
Theatre of Blood (1973, Douglas Hickox)
Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972, Brian De Palma)

1972

Late Spring (1949, Ozu Yasujiro)
Two English Girls (1971, François Truffaut)
Tokyo Story (1953, Ozu Yasujiro)
L’Amour fou (1969, Jacques Rivette)
Je t’aime, je t’aime (1968, Alain Resnais)
Avanti! (1972, Billy Wilder)
The Heartbreak Kid (1972, Elaine May)
Love in the Afternoon (1972, Éric Rohmer)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972, Luis Buñuel)
Four Nights of a Dreamer (1971, Robert Bresson)
The Sorrow and the Pity (1969, Marcel Ophuls)
Junior Bonner (1972, Sam Peckinpah)
Ulzana’s Raid (1972, Robert Aldrich)
A Sense of Loss (1972, Marcel Ophuls)
Cabaret (1972, Bob Fosse)
Images (1972, Robert Altman)
The Godfather (1972, Francis Ford Coppola)
Le Samouräi (1967, Jean-Pierre Melville)
The King of Marvin Gardens (1972, Bob Rafelson)
Prime Cut (1972, Michael Ritchie)
Heat (1972, Paul Morrissey)
Play It As It Lays (1972, Frank Perry)
The Assassination of Trotsky (1972, Joseph Losey)
Family Life (1971, Ken Loach)
Bad Company (1972, Robert Benton)

1971

A New Leaf (1971, Elaine May)
La Collectionneuse (1967, Éric Rohmer)
Claire’s Knee (1970, Éric Rohmer)
Eyes Do Not Want to Close at All Times (1970, Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet)
Punishment Park (1971, Peter Watkins)
Le Boucher (1970, Claude Chabrol)
The Devils (1971, Ken Russell)
The Crucified Lovers (1954, Mizoguchi Kenji)
The Conformist (1970, Bernardo Bertolucci)
Dirty Harry (1971, Don Siegel)
Deep End (1970, Jerzy Skolimowski)
The Nun (1966, Jacques Rivette)
Une femme douce (1969, Robert Bresson)
The Last Picture Show (1971, Peter Bogdanovich)
Double Suicide (1969, Shinoda Masahiro)
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971, Robert Altman)
Wanda (1970, Barbara Loden)
The Decameron (1971, Pier Paolo Pasolini)
Klute (1971, Alan J. Pakula)
W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (1971, Dušan Makavejev)
Murmur of the Heart (1971, Louis Malle)
The Debut (1970, Gleb Panfilov)
Bed and Board (1970, François Truffaut)
Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970, Werner Herzog)
Walkabout (1971, Nicolas Roeg)
Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971, Melvin Van Peebles)
The Garden of Delights (1970, Carlos Saura)
A Safe Place (1971, Henry Jaglom)
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971, Mel Stuart)
Harold and Maude (1971, Hal Ashby)
A Clockwork Orange (1971, Stanley Kubrick)
Black Peter (1964, Miloš Forman)
Born to Win (1971, Ivan Passer)

1970

Au hasard Balthazar (1966, Robert Bresson)
My Night at Maud’s (1969, Éric Rohmer)
The Taking of Power by Louis XIV (1966, Roberto Rossellini)
Mouchette (1967, Robert Bresson)
Boy (1969, Oshima Nagisa)
The End of Summer (1961, Ozu Yasujiro)
Destroy, She Said (1969, Marguerite Duras)
The Wild Child (1970, François Truffaut)
2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967, Jean-Luc Godard)
One Plus One (1968, Jean-Luc Godard)
Tristana (1970, Luis Buñuel)
Le Gai Savoir (1969, Jean-Luc Godard)
Pasazerka (1963, Andrzej Munk)
L’Enfance nue (1968, Maurice Pialat)
Mandabi (1968, Ousmane Sembène)
The Joke (1969, Jaromil Jireš)
Kes (1969, Ken Loach)
Five Easy Pieces (1970, Bob Rafelson)
Raven’s End (1963, Bo Widerberg)
Zabriskie Point (1970, Michelangelo Antonioni)
Dionysus in ’69 (1970, Brian De Palma)
Hi, Mom! (1970, Brian De Palma)
The Aristocats (1970, Wolfgang Reitherman)
The Christine Jorgensen Story (1970, Irving Rapper)
The Boys in the Band (1970, William Friedkin)

1969

Sansho the Bailiff (1954, Mizoguchi Kenji)
Pierrot le Fou (1965, Jean-Luc Godard)
Lola Montès (1955, Max Ophuls)
Not Reconciled (1965, Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet)
Black Girl (1966, Ousmane Sembène)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968, Sergio Leone)
The Immortal Story (1968, Orson Welles)
La Chamade (1968, Alain Cavalier)
Simon of the Desert (1965, Luis Buñuel)
The Red and the White (1967, Jancsó Miklós)
Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968, Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet)
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969, Paul Mazursky)
The Round-Up (1966, Jancsó Miklós)
Ådalen 31 (1969, Bo Widerberg)
Walkover (1965, Jerzy Skolimowski)
Oh! What a Lovely War (1969, Richard Attenborough)
Lions Love (1969, Agnès Varda)
Six in Paris (1964, Jean Douchet/Jean Rouch/Jean-Daniel Pollet/Éric Rohmer/Jean-Luc Godard/Claude Chabrol)
Duet for Cannibals (1969, Susan Sontag)
Stolen Kisses (1968, François Truffaut)
Model Shop (1969, Jacques Demy)
Easy Rider (1969, Dennis Hopper)
Les Créatures (1966, Agnès Varda)
Intimate Lighting (1965, Ivan Passer)
The Wedding Party (1969, Brian De Palma & Wilford Leach & Cynthia Munroe)

1968

The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967, Jacques Demy)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Stanely Kubrick)
Week-end (1967, Jean-Luc Godard)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966, Sergio Leone)
Red Beard (1965, Kurosawa Akira)
Night of the Living Dead (1968, George A. Romero)
Le Départ (1967, Jerzy Skolimowski)
Targets (1968, Peter Bogdanovich)
Rosemary’s Baby (1968, Roman Polański)
Far From Vietnam (1967, Jean-Luc Godard & Joris Ivens & William Klein & Claude Lelouch & Chris Marker & Alain Resnais & Agnès Varda)
Belle de jour (1967, Luis Buñuel)
Les Carabiniers (1963, Jean-Luc Godard)
Samurai Rebellion (1967, Kobayashi Masaki)
The Boston Strangler (1968, Richard Fleischer)
La Chinoise (1967, Jean-Luc Godard)
Les Biches (1968, Claude Chabrol)
The Firemen’s Ball (1967, Miloš Forman)
Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator (1967, Dušan Makavejev)
Faces (1968, John Cassavetes)
Accattone (1961, Pier Paolo Pasolini)
Identification Marks: None (1964, Jerzy Skolimowski)
Greetings (1968, Brian De Palma)
Fists in the Pocket (1965, Marco Bellocchio)
Hunger (1966, Henning Carlsen)
Young Törless (1966, Volker Schlöndorff)
Capricious Summer (1968, Jiří Menzel)
Romeo and Juliet (1968, Franco Zeffirelli)
Murder à la Mod (1968, Brian De Palma)
A Report on the Party and the Guests (1966, Jan Němec)

1967

The Battle of Algiers (1966, Gillo Pontecorvo)
Persona (1966, Ingmar Bergman)
The War Game (1965, Peter Watkins)
Point Blank (1967, John Boorman)
Portrait of Jason (1967, Shirley Clarke)
The Koumiko Mystery (1965, Chris Marker)
The War Is Over (1966, Alain Resnais)
The Exterminating Angel (1962, Luis Buñuel)
The Graduate (1967, Mike Nichols)
Dont Look Back (1967, D. A. Pennebaker)
The Burmese Harp (1956, Ichikawa Kon)
The Big City (1963, Satyajit Ray)
Le Petit Soldat (1963, Jean-Luc Godard)
Chimes at Midnight (1966, Orson Welles)
Elvira Madigan (1967, Bo Widerberg)
The Hunt (1966, Carlos Saura)
The Hawks and the Sparrows (1966, Pier Paolo Pasolini)
She and He (1963, Hani Susumu)
Three (1965, Aleksandar Petrović)
Titicut Follies (1967, Frederick Wiseman)
Father (1966, Szabó István)
Daisies (1966, Věra Chytilová)
The Jungle Book (1967, Wolfgang Reitherman)

1966

Gertrud (1964, Carl Th. Dreyer)
The Gospel According to Matthew (1964, Pier Paolo Pasolini)
Good Morning (1959, Ozu Yasujiro)
Tokyo Olympiad (1965, Ichikawa Kon)
Le Bonheur (1965, Agnès Varda)
Seconds (1966, John Frankenheimer)
Blowup (1966, Michelangelo Antonioni)
The Brig (1964, Jonas Mekas)
Le Joli Mai (1962, Chris Marker & Pierre Lhomme)
Masculin féminin (1966, Jean-Luc Godard)
Hamlet (1964, Grigori Kozintsev)
Band of Outsiders (1964, Jean-Luc Godard)
Loves of a Blonde (1965, Miloš Forman)
The Shameless Old Lady (1965, René Allio)
Shakespeare Wallah (1965, James Ivory)
King & Country (1964, Joseph Losey)
Sandra (1965, Luchino Visconti)

1965

The Love Eterne (1963, Li Han-hsiang)
A Married Woman (1964, Jean-Luc Godard)
Alphaville (1965, Jean-Luc Godard)
Red Desert (1964, Michelangelo Antonioni)
The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962, Robert Bresson)
Chronicle of a Summer (1961, Jean Rouch & Edgar Morin)
Life Upside Down (1964, Alain Jessua)
Before the Revolution (1964, Bernardo Bertolucci)
Mickey One (1965, Arthur Penn)
Diary of a Chambermaid (1964, Luis Buñuel)
The Sound of Music (1965, Robert Wise)
Nobody Waved Good-bye (1964, Don Owen)

1964

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964, Jacques Demy)
Le Trou (1960, Jacques Becker)
Woman in the Dunes (1964, Teshigahara Hiroshi)
Marnie (1964, Alfred Hitchcock)
Nothing But a Man (1964, Michael Roemer)
The Servant (1963, Joseph Losey)
Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945, Robert Bresson)
Bay of Angels (1963, Jacques Demy)
The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936, Jean Renoir)
Harakiri (1962, Kobayashi Masaki)
I fidanzati (1963, Ermanno Olmi)
A Woman Is a Woman (1961, Jean-Luc Godard)
The Cool World (1963, Shirley Clarke)
Contempt (1963, Jean-Luc Godard)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, Stanley Kubrick)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964, Richard Lester)
Goldfinger (1964, Guy Hamilton)
Fail-Safe (1964, Sidney Lumet)
Alone Across the Pacific (1963, Ichikawa Kon)
Lilith (1964, Robert Rossen)
Salvatore Giuliano (1962, Francesco Rosi)

1963

Muriel, or the Time of Return (1963, Alain Resnais)
High and Low (1963, Kurosawa Akira)
The Birds (1963, Alfred Hitchcock)
Vivre sa vie (1962, Jean-Luc Godard)
Pickpocket (1959, Robert Bresson)
The Bad Sleep Well (1960, Kurosawa Akira)
Knife in the Water (1962, Roman Polański)
Ivan’s Childhood (1962, Andrei Tarkovsky)
Winter Light (1963, Ingmar Bergman)
8½ (1963, Federico Fellini)
Dr. No (1962, Terence Young)
Hallelujah the Hills (1963, Adolfas Mekas)
All the Way Home (1963, Alex Segal)
The Sword in the Stone (1963, Wolfgang Reitherman)

1962

Last Year at Marienbad (1961, Alain Resnais)
Lola (1961, Jacques Demy)
L’eclisse (1962, Michelangelo Antonioni)
Cléo From 5 to 7 (1962, Agnès Varda)
Paris Belongs to Us (1961, Jacques Rivette)
Jules et Jim (1962, François Truffaut)
Lolita (1962, Stanley Kubrick)
Mr. Arkadin (1955, Orson Welles)
Yojimbo (1961, Akira Kuorsawa)
Viridiana (1961, Luis Buñuel)
La notte (1961, Michelangelo Antonioni)
Shoot the Piano Player (1960, François Truffaut)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean)

1961

Breathless (1960, Jean-Luc Godard)
L’avventura (1960, Michelangelo Antonioni)
West Side Story (1961, Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins)
Shadows (1959, John Cassavetes)
Throne of Blood (1957, Kurosawa Akira)
La dolce vita (1960, Federico Fellini)
Elevator to the Gallows (1958, Louis Malle)
One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961, Wolfgang Reitherman & Hamilton Luske & Clyde Geronimi)

1960

Hiroshima mon amour (1959, Alain Resnais)
Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock)
The Apartment (1960, Billy Wilder)
Apur Sansar (1959, Satyajit Ray)
The Bellboy (1960, Jerry Lewis)
Ikiru (1952, Kurosawa Akira)
Spartacus (1960, Stanley Kubrick)
The Virgin Spring (1960, Ingmar Bergman)

1959

Rio Bravo (1959, Howard Hawks)
Imitation of Life (1959, Douglas Sirk)
The 400 Blows (1959, François Truffaut)
North by Northwest (1959, Alfred Hitchcock)
Le Beau Serge (1958, Claude Chabrol)
Drunken Angel (1948, Kurosawa Akira)
Aparajito (1956, Satyajit Ray)
The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1959, Kobayashi Masaki)
Wild Strawberries (1957, Ingmar Bergman)
Sleeping Beauty (1959, Clyde Geronimi)
Some Like It Hot (1959, Billy Wilder)

1958

Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)
Touch of Evil (1958, Orson Welles)
Pather Panchali (1955, Satyajit Ray)
The Seventh Seal (1957, Ingmar Bergman)

1957

A Man Escaped (1956, Robert Bresson)
Sweet Smell of Success (1957, Alexander Mackendrick)
Forty Guns (1957, Samuel Fuller)
Paths of Glory (1957, Stanley Kubrick)

1956

Seven Samurai (1954, Kurosawa Akira)
The Wrong Man (1956, Alfred Hitchcock)
Godzilla (1954, Honda Ishiro)
All That Heaven Allows (1955, Douglas Sirk)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956, Alfred Hitchcock)
Awaara (1951, Raj Kapoor)
The Searchers (1956, John Ford)
The Killing (1956, Stanley Kubrick)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, Don Siegel)

1955

The Night of the Hunter (1955, Charles Laughton)
Journey to Italy (1954, Roberto Rossellini)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955, Nicholas Ray)
The Long Gray Line (1955, John Ford)
Moonfleet (1955, Fritz Lang)
Artists and Models (1955, Frank Tashlin)
Othello (1951, Orson Welles)
Kiss Me Deadly (1955, Robert Aldrich)
To Catch a Thief (1955, Alfred Hitchcock)
Lady and the Tramp (1955, Hamilton Luske & Clyde Geronimi & Wilfred Jackson)
Killer’s Kiss (1955, Stanley Kubrick)

1954

Johnny Guitar (1954, Nicholas Ray)
Rear Window (1954, Alfred Hitchcock)
A Star Is Born (1954, George Cukor)
Diary of a Country Priest (1951, Robert Bresson)
The Saga of Anatahan (1953, Josef von Sternberg)
Ugetsu Monogatari (1953, Mizoguchi Kenji)
The Golden Coach (1952, Jean Renoir)
La Ronde (1950, Max Ophuls)
Magnificent Obsession (1954, Douglas Sirk)
Europa ’51 (1952, Roberto Rossellini)
On the Waterfront (1954, Elia Kazan)
Knave of Hearts (1954, René Clément)

1953

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953, Howard Hawks)
The Big Heat (1953, Fritz Lang)
I Confess (1953, Alfred Hitchcock)
Peter Pan (1953, Hamilton Luske & Clyde Geronimi & Wilfred Jackson)

1952

The Quiet Man (1952, John Ford)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952, Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly)
The Lusty Men (1952, Nicholas Ray)
Los olvidados (1950, Luis Buñuel)
Les Enfants Terribles (1950, Jean-Pierre Melville)
High Noon (1952, Fred Zinnemann)

1951

Rashomon (1950, Kurosawa Akira)
The Tall Target (1951, Anthony Mann)
An American in Paris (1951, Vincente Minnelli)
The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947, Preston Sturges)
Strangers on a Train (1951, Alfred Hitchcock)
Alice in Wonderland (1951, Clyde Geronimi & Hamilton Luske & Wilfred Jackson)

1950

The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir)
A Day in the Country (1936, Jean Renoir)
The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed)
All About Eve (1950, Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
Sunset Blvd. (1950, Billy Wilder)
Angels of Sin (1943, Robert Bresson)
Cinderella (1950, Wilfred Jackson & Hamilton Luske & Clyde Geronimi)
No Way Out (1950, Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

1949

The Heiress (1949, William Wyler)
A Letter to Three Wives (1949, Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
Bicycle Thieves (1948, Vittorio De Sica)
I Shot Jesse James (1949, Samuel Fuller)
Enamorada (1946, Emilio Fernández)
Act of Violence (1949, Fred Zinnemann)

1948

Letter From an Unknown Woman (1948, Max Ophuls)
Fort Apache (1948, John Ford)
The Red Shoes (1948, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)
Berlin Express (1948, Jacques Tourneur)
Rope (1948, Alfred Hitchcock)
T-Men (1947, Anthony Mann)

1947

Out of the Past (1947, Jacques Tourneur)
Daisy Kenyon (1947, Otto Preminger)
L’Atalante (1934, Jean Vigo)
Beauty and the Beast (1946, Jean Cocteau)
Zero for Conduct (1933, Jean Vigo)

1946

Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock)
The Big Sleep (1946, Howard Hawks)
Canyon Passage (1946, Jacques Tourneur)
Brief Encounter (1945, David Lean)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, Frank Capra)
Rome, Open City (1945, Roberto Rossellini)
The Locket (1946, John Brahm)
Gilda (1946, Charles Vidor)

1945

The Clock (1945, Vincente Minnelli)
Mildred Pierce (1945, Michael Curtiz)
Detour (1945, Edgar G. Ulmer)
My Name Is Julia Ross (1945, Joseph H. Lewis)

1944

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944, Vincente Minnelli)
Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder)
Laura (1944, Otto Preminger)

1943

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933, Fritz Lang)
The Seventh Victim (1943, Mark Robson)
I Walked With a Zombie (1943, Jacques Tourneur)
Casablanca (1942, Michael Curtiz)
The Gang’s All Here (1943, Busby Berkeley)
The Leopard Man (1943, Jacques Tourneur)
Heaven Can Wait (1943, Ernst Lubitsch)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943, Alfred Hitchcock)
Bataan (1943, Tay Garnett)

1942

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, Orson Welles)
Cat People (1942, Jacques Tourneur)
Bambi (1942, David Hand)
Quiet Please, Murder (1942, John Larkin)

1941

Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
Dumbo (1941, Ben Sharpsteen)
Suspicion (1941, Alfred Hitchcock)
The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941, Victor Fleming)

1940

His Girl Friday (1940, Howard Hawks)
Pinocchio (1940, Ben Sharpsteen & Hamilton Luske)
Fantasia (1940, Ben Sharpsteen/Samuel Armstrong/James Algar/Bill Roberts & Paul Satterfield/Ford Beebe, Jr. & Jim Handley & Hamilton Luske/Norm Ferguson & T. Hee/Wilfred Jackson)
Rebecca (1940, Alfred Hitchcock)
Stranger on the Third Floor (1940, Boris Ingster)

1939

Only Angels Have Wings (1939, Howard Hawks)
Stagecoach (1939, John Ford)
The Wizard of Oz (1939, Victor Fleming)
The Women (1939, George Cukor)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939, Frank Capra)
Jamaica Inn (1939, Alfred Hitchcock)

1938

The Story of a Cheat (1936, Sacha Guitry)
The Lady Vanishes (1938, Alfred Hitchcock)
Holiday (1938, George Cukor)
Grand Illusion (1937, Jean Renoir)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937, David Hand)

1937

The Awful Truth (1937, Leo McCarey)
Sabotage (1936, Alfred Hitchcock)
Make Way for Tomorrow (1937, Leo McCarey)
A Star Is Born (1937, William A. Wellman)

1936

Fury (1936, Fritz Lang)
Sylvia Scarlett (1935, George Cukor)
Toni (1935, Jean Renoir)
Allá en el Rancho Grande (1936, Fernando de Fuentes)

1935

Ruggles of Red Gap (1935, Leo McCarey)
The 39 Steps (1935, Alfred Hitchcock)

1934

Fantômas (1932, Fejős Pál)

1933

M (1931, Fritz Lang)
Only Yesterday (1933, John M. Stahl)
Liebelei (1933, Max Ophuls)
Design for Living (1933, Ernst Lubitsch)
Marius (1931, Alexander Korda)
42nd Street (1933, Lloyd Bacon)

1932

Shanghai Express (1932, Josef von Sternberg)
Trouble in Paradise (1932, Ernst Lubitsch)
Scarface (1932, Howard Hawks)
Blonde Venus (1932, Josef von Sternberg)
The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932, Charles Brabin)
The Sign of the Cross (1932, Cecil B. DeMille)

1931

Dishonored (1931, Josef von Sternberg)
City Lights (1931, Charles Chaplin)
Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931, F. W. Murnau)
Frankenstein (1931, James Whale)
The Public Enemy (1931, William A. Wellman)

1930

Morocco (1930, Josef von Sternberg)
Earth (1930, Alexander Dovzhenko)
The Big Trail (1930, Raoul Walsh)
The Blue Angel (1930, Josef von Sternberg)

1929

Spione (1928, Fritz Lang)
Napoléon (1927, Abel Gance)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, Carl Th. Dreyer)
Man With a Movie Camera (1929, Dziga Vertov)
Nosferatu (1922, F. W. Murnau)
Applause (1929, Rouben Mamoulian)
Thunderbolt (1929, Josef von Sternberg)

1928

The Docks of New York (1928, Josef von Sternberg)
Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928, Charles Reisner and Buster Keaton)
The Wedding March (1928, Erich von Stroheim)
Show People (1928, King Vidor)
The Circus (1928, Charles Chaplin)

1927

The General (1926, Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927, F. W. Murnau)
Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922, Fritz Lang)
Metropolis (1927, Fritz Lang)
It (1927, Clarence Badger)

1926

Battleship Potemkin (1925, Sergei Eisenstein)
Silence (1926, Rupert Julian)

1925

Seven Chances (1925, Buster Keaton)
The Merry Widow (1925, Erich von Stroheim)
The Miracle of the Wolves (1924, Raymond Bernard)

1924

Greed (1924, Erich von Stroheim)
Sherlock Jr. (1924, Buster Keaton)
The Thief of Bagdad (1924, Raoul Walsh)
HE Who Gets Slapped (1924, Victor Sjöström)
The Marriage Circle (1924, Ernst Lubitsch)

1923

Safety Last! (1923, Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor)

1922

Nanook of the North (1922, Robert J. Flaherty)

1921

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, Robert Wiene)

1920

Tih-Minh (1918, Louis Feuillade)

1918

Mickey (1918, F. Richard Jones & James Young)

1916

Les Vampires (1915, Louis Feuillade)

1915

The Birth of a Nation (1915, D. W. Griffith)
The Cheat (1915, Cecil B. DeMille)

1914

Fantômas (1913, Louis Feuillade)

1913

The Last Days of Pompeii (1913, Mario Caserini & Eleuterio Rodolfi)

Miscellaneous

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A Few Scattered Thoughts on the “Master of the Macabre”