The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail (1971) – the wan Hitchcockian
echoes only slightly elevate Martino’s under-engaging, zest-challenged giallo
Call Jane (2022) – Nagy’s film
could hardly fail to be of interest, but is far more bland and cursory than the
charged material deserves
Love New and Old (1961) – Shinoda’s meeting of generational,
romantic and stylistic conflicts becomes steadily more persuasive and complex
Two Evil Eyes (1990) – Argento’s freewheelingly
possessed creation wins out over Romero’s more straightforward comeuppance
narrative
Black River (1957) – Kobayashi’s potent immersion into the dankly
virtue-strangling landscape of post-war desperation, corruption & venality
Censor (2021) – Bailey-Bond’s film, if a little overrated, draws with
imaginative exactitude on video-nasty history, aesthetic and paranoia
The Big Fix (1978) – Kagan’s breezily complicated drama goes down
easily enough, even while pushing the curdled idealism a bit too heavily
The Son of the White Mare (1981) – Jankovics’ limit-busting
animation is visually astounding, without likely evoking much engaged passion
Q Planes (1939) – Whelan’s fast-talking drama seems endearingly proto-Bondian
in various ways, elevated by the invaluable Richardson
The Girl Without Hands (2016) – Laudenbach’s convention-rejecting animation
is beautifully evocative, and often amusingly earthy too
Billion Dollar Brain (1967) – the third Harry Palmer movie has a
modest amount of snap, with notes of future Russell-ian expansiveness
ABC Africa (2001) – Kiarostami’s film makes consistently
unexpected and pleasing choices, while gently questioning its own ethical
soundness
Countess Dracula (1971) – Sasdy’s uninteresting,
horror-and-fun-starved Hammer horror, its plotting and characterization
threadbare
Kill Boksoon (2023) – Byun’s sleek
concoction is relatively imaginative and impressive, but elicits little in the
way of deeper engagement
Watch on the Rhine (1943) – the material’s basic strength comes
through despite Shumlin’s often stiff, not particularly clear-headed filming
Diary for my Father and Mother (1990) – Meszaros’ deeply personal
trilogy closure, seeped in a nation’s injustices & thwarted possibilities
Don’t Bother to Knock (1952) – Baker’s drama would rank only as
forgettably adequate, if not for the fascinatingly unsettling Monroe
Dorian Gray in the Mirror… (1984) – another weirdly arresting
Ottinger mega-fantasia, (relatively!) grounded in satirical tabloid media
Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978) – Kotcheff’s
silly brew is at best mildly funny, in a low-flavor, bland-diet kind of way
La pupille (2022) – Rohrwacher’s short film deftly laces its
sweetly eccentric tale with strands of tangible poverty and deprivation
The Risk (1960) – the Boultings’ knowingly drab treatment of big
subject matter at least taps the constrained, fearful Britain of its time
The Dust of Time (2008) – Angelopoulos’ late work is rather labored and uneasy, but conveys the
heavy, shifting toll of exile and upheaval
Safe in Hell (1931) – Wellman’s horny melodrama punches through
various modes of seaminess, arriving at a not-too-cloying ultimate virtue
The Wild Goose Lake (2019) – Diao’s drama sustains a terrific
amped-up fatalism, with too many visual and other highpoints to keep track of
Once is Not Enough (1975) – Green’s studiously unenjoyable Susann
adaptation lacks any kind of creative grace notes or self-awareness
The Falls (2021) – Chung’s family-oriented but thematically
wide-ranging, sleekly elegant expression of Covid-driven recalibration
Track of the Cat (1954) – Wellman’s overstated yet somehow
indelible meeting of tensions & settings, domestic toxicity seeping into
the snow
Meetin’ WA (1986) – Godard’s enjoyably bemused exchange with
Allen; framed, edited and supplemented with an array of digressive mischief
Hook, Line and Sinker (1969) – Marshall’s last film ranks among
the more drained and depressed of Lewis’s comedies, or maybe of anyone’s
Searching for Ingmar Bergman (2018) – von Trotta’s survey teems
with great, personal material, albeit without breaking too much new ground
Black Caesar (1973) – Cohen’s drama has its gleefully ragged
aspects of course, but also much cultural and social despair-tinged potency
Night Train (2007) – Diao’s fine modern quasi-noir tracks the
desperate human detritus of a physically and systemically crushing society
Ziegfeld Girl (1941) – Leonard/Berkeley’s musical has plenty going
on, with some intermittent snap, but seldom rises to a very great height
Egomania: Island Without Hope (1986) – Schlingensief drinks with
lusty insatiability from the turbulent reservoir of cinematic vampirism
A Star is Born (1954) – Cukor’s grand classic sits at some kind of
Hollywoodian apex, its two great stars electrifyingly impactful
Inside (2023) – Katsoupis’ sumptuously visualized film nails its
wrecking-ball-type pleasures, not least Dafoe’s magnificent self-trashing
Another Man, Another Chance (1977) – an unfairly forgotten epic,
teeming with memorable scenes, notwithstanding various Lelouchian oddities
subUrbia (1996) – Linklater’s feel for underachieving lives &
communities is peerless, even when applied to increasingly overwound material
Elvira Madigan (1967) – the unchallenging prettiness of
Widerberg’s doomed rebellion keeps you mainly at an emotionally unvarying
distance
Belfast (2021) – Branagh’s quasi-memoir adheres steadfastly,
sometimes clumsily, to clapped-out notions of important and stirring filmmaking
Four Around the Woman (1921) – an early Langian vision
of class-crossing crime and desire, limited by a lumbering central narrative
The Mosquito Coast (1986) – Weir’s adaptation supports a lively
merits-of-book-to-film dialogue, while mostly failing on its own terms
Jungle Holocaust (1977) – much about the film is sketchy or
dubious, but Deodato often enough sustains a brutal, overwhelming immediacy
Tesla (2020) – Almereyda’s film, only notionally functional as
biography, largely succeeds in expressing its subject’s near-cosmic otherness
Aar Paar (1954) – Dutt’s film isn’t particularly distinctive in
any respect, but solidly delivers the expected genre-spanning ups and downs
From the Journals of Jean Seberg (1995) – Rappaport’s flat-out
fascinating, tragically haunted memoriam, analysis, extrapolation, and more
The Hunt (1966) – Saura’s heat, guns and booze-saturated early
drama is an indelible study of end-of-its-tether masculinity quasi-friendship
Nope (2022) – Peele’s most simply conceived film to date in some
ways, but also his most expansively well-textured and allusively executed
Rockers (1978) – Bafaloukos’ force-of-nature ride through Jamaican
culture & hustle leaves one wanting more in most respects, but never mind
The Fan (1981) – Bianchi marshals enough Bacall-centric Broadway
glitz and chatter to make the unimaginative slasher stuff almost tolerable
La Habanera (1937) – Sirk’s energetic blend of
exoticism, marriage melodrama and scientific threat hardly indicates the lush
glories to come
Air (2023) – Affleck makes it all as comfortable as, well, an old
shoe; dramatic tension and revelation not really being the focus here
The Sinner (1951) – Forst’s then-scandalous melodrama has a few
flashes of racy inspiration, but more often feels oddly under-engaged
Crash (1996) – with time, Cronenberg’s highly singular film seems
not so much provocative as almost quaintly, desperately one-track-minded
A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die (1972) – inherently rather basic
stuff, but Valerii keeps it tight and mean and physically well-realized
The Cathedral (2021) – D’Ambrose’s unique distillation of complex
family history engages most stimulatingly with the vicissitudes of memory
Our Marriage (1962) – Shinoda’s concise drama incorporates a
satisfying range of socially- and financially-conscious exploration and tension
The Funhouse (1981) – Hooper doesn’t provide the strongest
thematic or emotional core, but he certainly keeps the eyes amply occupied
The Thick-Walled Room (1956) – an exactingly major, seemingly
all-seeing Kobayashi excavation of lingeringly politicized post-war injustice
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022) – Poitras’ moving tapestry
of experience, centered on Goldin’s almost unprocessably meaningful life
L’argent des autres (1978) – de Chalonge satisfyingly, if not
always too excitingly, navigates the film’s financial and ethical complexities
Friendship’s Death (1987) – the physical restrictions of Wollen’s
film spawn conceptual multitudes, and a haunting predictive eloquence
Dumbo (1941) – not the only Disney classic in which one goes
through the banal bits for the sake of the near-inexplicably strange ones
Infinity Pool (2023) –
Cronenberg’s serially rebooting, joylessly disorienting creation crafts a whole
new kind of grueling pitilessness
Kuroneko (1968) – Shindo’s meeting of real and spirit worlds ranks
among the most consistently striking of cinematic ghost stories
Poetic Justice (1993) –
Singleton’s loosely-conceived drama maintains a likeably varied energy, but seldom
feels very sturdy or credible
Mahogany (1975) – Gordy’s fashion-world opus lacks for both design
and craftsmanship, partially compensated for by Ross and the bling
All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) – Berger’s handling is
sufficiently vivid to surmount various aspects of excess and over-familiarity
High Noon (1952) – Zinnemann’s Western is dramatically far thinner
and its allegory far less penetrating than its inflated reputation
Women (1985) – Kwan’s chronicle of bumpy relationships goes down
very easily, but is recurringly laced with a keen sense of pain and anxiety
Lord Jim (1965) – notwithstanding the layered Conradian
intentions, Brooks allows inauthentically exotic adventurism to swamp all else
The Troubles We’ve Seen (1994) – Ophuls’ underseen, at times
stimulatingly peculiar study remains near-inexhaustibly fascinating &
relevant
From Noon Till Three (1976) – perhaps Bronson’s most genial star
outing, at the centre of Gilroy’s charming pitting of myth and reality
The Box (2021) – Vigas’ penetratingly sparsely-crafted exploration
of economic exploitation’s ever-renewing societal and psychic toll
She Done Him Wrong (1933) – West’s one-track otherness isn’t
particularly well-facilitated by the stodgy clutter of Sherman’s melodrama
Sweet Hours (1982) – one of Saura’s less satisfying films, its
interrogation of memory overly labored and its psychology superficial
The Phenix City Story (1955) – Karlson’s earnest classic hardly
avoids artifice & over-simplification, but still brutally connects at times
Martin Eden (2019) – Marcello’s near-thrilling adaptation,
propelled by ceaseless intellectual and cinematic vitality and engagement
Capricorn One (1978) – Hyams short-changes the concept’s darker
possibilities and implications, but delivers some lively writing and casting
Hit the Road (2021) – the varied serio-comedy of Panahi’s
resourcefully simple set up gradually accumulates in cosmic & earthly
implication
The Small Back Room (1949) – Powell/Pressburger’s customarily
alert drama has some memorable set-pieces, but a rather rushed-feeling finale
The Invisible Frame (2009) – Beatt’s simple concept fruitfully
represents & reflects on the persistence of a superficially-erased
history
Doppelganger (1969) – the film has
lots of typically likeable Gerry Anderson trappings, but falls narratively and
conceptually short
The Funeral (1984) – Itami’s painstaking, drolly ambiguous
examination of ritual and ceremony is perhaps his most well-calibrated work
On a Clear Day… (1970) – Minnelli mostly fails to marshal the
problematic material, and yet much about the film is stubbornly beguiling
Vortex (2021) – Noe’s is an imposing & gripping creation,
although always conditioned by its aesthetically & sociologically rarified
choices
Look Back in Anger (1958) – Richardson’s is one of the more faded
of the “angry young man” cycle, now seeming drably contrived and flailing
Night Across the Street (2012) – one willingly submits to the
masterly unmappable contours of Ruiz’s warmly finality-embracing late film
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) – Mamoulian’s fine filming has some
sensational inventiveness and an acute sense of unbalanced carnality
52 Pick Up (1986) – Frankenheimer handles the sleazy manipulations
with some expertise, but that only makes it all even less enjoyable
Someone Behind the Door (1971) – Gessner’s small-scale study in
psychological manipulation doesn’t excite too much, convinces even less
Reality (2023) – Satter’s project
is a near-perfect meshing of form and content, engaging as a human story,
damning as a political one
Un homme de trop (1967) – Costa-Gavras provides much ambitious
action and confrontation, and yet the cumulative impact is strangely flat
Starship Troopers (1997) – the
astounding technical prowess of Verhoeven’s fantasy supports a mind-boggling
array of historical resonances
The Blazing Sun (1954) – Chahine’s intense melodrama rapidly
becomes over-extended, however empathetically rooted in sociological outrage
Dead for a Dollar (2022) – Hill’s old-style, overly
synthetic-feeling Western hardly matters much, but it’s done with pleasing
know-how
The Sinful Nuns of Saint Valentine (1974) – Grieco’s competent but
gusto-lacking effort doesn’t even much seem to relish the sinning nuns
The Fantasist (1986) – Hardy’s up-and-down Irish drama does best
when sinking into boozy eccentricity and abundant sexual repression
Youth of the Beast (1963) – Suzuki gives the film some major
visual pop, despite the constraints of a fairly standard gangland narrative
Cryptozoo (2021) – Shaw’s transporting flight of fancy tempers its
unbroken inventiveness with consistently adult seriousness of purpose
The Outlaw and his Wife (1918) – Sjostrom’s film grips and
impresses, without fully cinematically tapping the rebellious passion at its
core
Se7en (1995) – Fincher may overdo the portents of lurking hell,
but even on repeat viewings, the film leaves you genuinely chilled & shaken
The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (1978) – Trotta’s
progressive openness ventilates a potentially confining crime drama framework
Rye Lane (2023) – Allen-Miller’s other-side-of-London romance is
likeable enough, but too synthetic to tap anything approximating realism
The War of the Gargantuans (1966) – Honda’s monster movie tramples
through its shakily-crafted motions in consistently listless fashion
Last Night at the Alamo (1983) – Pennell’s often raucously funny,
deeply lived-in examination of low-level Texas myths and realities
Les grandes manoeuvres (1955) – Clair is on pretty sharp
directional form, but the material feels underexamined in various regards
Top Gun: Maverick (2022) – Kosinski’s movie taps and somewhat
reinvigorates old-fashioned mechanics with grand, defiantly superficial style
Aguirre, Wrath of God (1971) – Herzog, at his unnervingly daring
peak, feels as ever-present as the film’s unforgettably immersive imagery
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) – Cameron oversees some
terrifically muscular sequences, with some unimportant other stuff in between
A Flame at the Pier (1962) – Shinoda’s able if seldom too
surprising, hopelessness-suffused drama, a Japanese On the Waterfront of sorts
You People (2023) – Barris’ unconvincing culture-clash comedy is
disappointingly shallow, providing only sporadic laughs and little bite
Martin Roumagnac (1946) – Lacombe’s should-have-been-incendiary
pairing of Dietrich and Gabin too often falls flat, if not outright botched
Valley Girl (1983) – Coolidge’s film holds up best when
affectionately observing the central culture clash; otherwise it’s pretty
sketchy
Madame X: an Absolute Ruler (1978) – Ottinger’s at times
heavy-sailing odyssey does gradually elicit a sense of rewired, liberated
delight
Nightmare Alley (2021) – del Toro’s inertly handsome but hemmed-in
remake never seems remotely necessary, or very coherent on its own terms
Sissi – the Fateful Years of an Empress (1957) – Marischka moves
the story on, but doesn’t expand the series much in tonal or other respects
Dick Tracy (1990) – Beatty’s peculiar take on the old-time
material doesn’t really cohere, but provides all kinds of quirky pleasures
The Inheritance (1962) – a secondary Kobayashi drama, rather
overdoing the tangled venality, but working well as a sleekly cynical yarn
The Eternal Daughter (2022) – Hogg’s small but effective film
draws out the lurking eeriness and trauma folded within memory and creativity
Mr. Majestyk (1974) – a Bronson highlight (he just wants to get
the melons picked!), expertly shaped, seasoned and visualized by Fleischer
A Closed Book (2009) – one of Ruiz’s more conceptually accessible
films, for both lustily enjoyable better and rather rushed-feeling worse
The Suspect (1944) – Siodmak’s drama is elegantly and crisply
executed in all departments, leading to a nicely modulated conclusion
Petite maman (2021) – Sciamma’s lingering, elevating film applies
her finely-honed cinematic poise to a potentially eerily simple premise
China Doll (1958) – Borzage sustains the story’s idealistic core,
albeit one highly dependent on superficial exoticism and rickety plotting
Bubble Bath (1980) – Kovasznai’s one-of-a-kind animation admits
few visual constraints, while suggesting a primal desperation at its core
Brannigan (1975) – Hickox bludgeons noisily through the
Duke-goes-to-the-UK set-up with an impressive absence of any higher ambition
Donbass (2018) – straddling documentary and satire, Loznitsa’s
can’t-look-away film is shocking, disorienting and idealism-draining
Last Summer (1969) – Perry’s film ultimately amounts to less than
one hopes for, given its languidly effective, vulnerability-laced build-up
Bad Luck Banging… (2021) – yet another astounding Jude creation,
exhilarating even as it fairly comprehensively drains and depresses
Thirteen Women (1932) –
Archainbaud’s drama has several creepy, resentment-charged moments, standing
out from a rushed overall narrative
Full Moon in New York (1989) – one only wishes that Kwan’s
delicately wide-angle study of intertwining female experience had been longer
Lord Shango (1975) – the mythology feels somewhat arbitrary, but
Marsh and the performers sustain a feeling of anxious, bare-bones intensity
The Tsugua Diairies (2021) – Fazendeiro and Gomes craft a
near-ideal Covid-era balance of languid torpor and small-scale boundary-pushing
The River’s Edge (1957) – Dwan’s fine little thriller is visually
and narratively vivid at every turn, seeped in resentment and distrust
Ingrid Caven: Music and Voice (2012) – Bonello’s highly restrained
recording of an often electrifyingly challenging, unbound performance
30 is a Dangerous Age, Cynthia (1968) – McGrath’s variable film
certainly works hard, sporadically capturing Moore at his multi-faceted best
Petition (2009) – Zhao’s must-see record of perseverance against
institutional brutality and corruption rings a dark global warning bell
Coonskin (1974) – Bakshi’s exuberantly stereotype-embracing,
disconcertingly aesthetically coherent odyssey evokes a crazily mixed response
A Taxing Woman Returns (1988) – Itami’s sequel is spirited enough
on its own terms, but adds little to the first film’s themes and devices
Saludos Amigos (1942) – Disney’s complacent South American-themed
portmanteau is at least less grating than might have been anticipated
The Load (2018) – Glavonic’s tight concept allows haunting
glimpses of even a quasi-abstract war’s physical and existential
disorientations
The Harder they Fall (1956) – Robson and the cast punch home some
strong moments, within a nicely venal, if overly calculated narrative
Mountains of the Moon (1990) – Rafelson’s drama holds attention
well enough, but seldom feels very inspired, or historically reliable
The Killer Nun (1979) – Berruti is no Borowczyk, no Argento, etc.,
but cobbles together an adequately frantic mishmash of sex and trauma
Babylon (2022) – Chazelle’s crazy epic is wildly variable in
quality, tone, watchability, finesse, you name it, but well, it’s not nothing…
Mother Joan of the Angels (1961) – Kawalerowicz’s chillingly
well-calibrated vision leaves few points of earthly or spiritual certainty
I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987) – Rozema’s landmark Toronto
film treads lightly, but with hugely pleasurable, lingering impact
The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) – Epstein’s hauntingly
inspired silent telling sustains a heightened sense of near-inevitability
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) – Showalter slogs through the
material in just about the least imaginative, most irrelevant manner available
Attention, les enfants regardant (1978) – Leroy’s drama is seldom
surprising but completely watchable, not least for its use of Delon
Impulse (1990) – the Locke/Russell
pairing, intriguing in concept, yields an all-round unattractive,
psychologically shallow drama
Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) – Honda oversees a more urgent
narrative than many series entries, aided by some pleasingly whimsical touches
Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) – Miller’s improbably
successful, narratively and visually sumptuous fusion of form and content
Two Men and a Wardrobe (1957) – Polanski’s eerily well-done short
is a bitterly comic take on a cruel world’s thwarting of hope and optimism
Carbon Copy (1981) – Schultz’s lumpy satire, biting at times and
cringe-inducing at others, at least evades being watched with indifference
Laocoon & Sons (1975) – Ottinger/Blumenschein’s playfully
ruthless reconfiguration of cinematic structure and pleasure as we’ve known it
Licorice Pizza (2021) – Anderson applies his immense facility to
deceptively light ends, richly flavored with unforced behavioral mysteries
Love Circle (1969) – Griffi’s ambiguously psychosexual
complications maintain interest despite elements of stodginess and familiarity
Criminal Passion (1994) – Deitch ensures a general gender parity
in matters of eroticism and messy psychology, but not too much else of note
Titanic (1943) – Selpin’s filming generally hits the requisite
dramatic marks, while heavily emphasizing the capitalistic culpability angle
Empire of Light (2022) – Mendes’ astonishingly, bottomlessly
deficient drama at least offers a few points of vague nostalgic recognition
The Ballad of Orin (1977) – Shinoda’s chronicle tempers its
potential over-pristineness with a touching sensitivity to vulnerability
Grace Quigley (1984) – a few moments of relative emotional
authenticity aside, Harvey leadenly squanders Hepburn & the blackly comic
premise
Genocide (1968) – even making copious allowances, Nihonmatsu’s
speedily ramshackle apocalypse opus fails to unnerve to the intended degree
The Harder they Fall (2021) – Samuel’s never-dull Western is too
emotionlessly stylized to impress as meaningful genre revisionism/refresh
El vampire negro (1953) – Barreto’s ambitious, atmospheric
“M”-channeling drama achieves much of interest, despite its recurring
patchiness
An Awkward Sexual Adventure (2012) – Garrity’s comedy is no
overlooked masterpiece, but has enough good-natured raunch to inhabit its title
The Police are Blundering in the Dark (1975) – Colombo’s
poorly-integrated killer flick blunders also, albeit mainly in the sleazy light
Hustle (2022) – Zager’s movie works consistently well on its own
propulsive terms, but a bit more analytical cynicism wouldn’t have hurt
A Garibaldian in the Convent
(1942) – De Sica’s early film is lively and varied, while trivial in its
treatment of enmity and death
Blaze (1989) – Shelton simplifies the personal and political alike
almost to the point of idiocy, but Newman at least puts on a good show
So Sweet…So Perverse (1969) – Lenzi’s unimaginative narrative
never acquires much steam, leaving one subsiding on scraps of forced decadence
House of Gucci (2021) – Scott’s movie is at best handsomely dull
and often grating, with most of the actors at or near their all-time worst
Le navire Night (1979) – one of Duras’ most sumptuous works; a
film formed of pervasive absence and lack, and yet of sumptuous immediacy
Shortbus (2006) – one ultimately
feels a bit underserved by Mitchell’s film, despite its wondrous connectivity
and celebratory energy
Sissi – the Young Empress (1956) – Marischka’s sequel reshuffles
the first film’s elements, while boosting the humanity-eroding pageantry
The Northman (2022) – Eggers’ film is generally impressive, but
allows wanton over-aestheticization to overwhelm most other considerations
Fanny (1932) – the second in the Pagnol trilogy often feels
dawdling and histrionic, but one inevitably submits to its emotional high
points
Chameleon Street (1989) – Harris’ remarkably nimble, provocative
one-off – a scintillating character study loaded with broader implications
Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) – Fukuda’s poorly-executed, largely
fun-starved entry in the series, any potential resonances by now flaccid
No Time to Die (2021) – Fukunaga’s handsomely fluid Bond film, as
restrained and variedly seasoned as can likely be expected from the series
Carmen Falls in Love (1952) – Kinoshita’s high-pitched sequel,
marked by bizarre directorial choices, rapidly exhausts the viewer
Dream Lover (1993) – Kazan’s suspicion-heavy but tone-deficient
drama hardly infiltrates one’s subsequent dreams, waking or otherwise
Pale Flower (1964) – Shinoda’s crime drama may be slightly
over-venerated, but maintains a sleekly unflappable mood of existential remove
Black Panther Wakanda Forever (2022) – Coogler’s sequel offers
much forgettably high-end grandeur, seasoned with persuasive melancholy
Ned Kelly (1970) – Richardson’s telling is respectable but seldom
too imaginative, not least in its literal-minded squandering of Jagger
Beauty and the Beast (2014) – Gans’ wantonly over-prettified
telling is serviceable enough, but devoid of much emotional connection
Key Largo (1948) – Huston and the cast keep things expertly
crackling within a confining set-up, with Bogart at his nuanced, watchful best
Diary for my Lovers (1987) – Meszaros’ full, constantly shifting
sequel makes for heavier viewing than its predecessor (not inaptly though)
The Horse Soldiers (1959) – Ford’s drama, soaked in the unbearable
frictions of civil war, falls somewhat short in too many key respects
Lost Illusions (2021) – Giannoli’s tremendously well-orchestrated,
slyly prophetic Balzac adaptation sweeps one along, almost to a fault
The Seven-Ups (1973) – D’Antoni’s drama is a respectable French
Connection adjunct, with generally comparable high-points and limitations
The Best Years of a Life (2019) – whatever its weaknesses,
Lelouch’s nostalgic reunion is a staggering pleasure for suitably aged
cinephiles
Safety Last! (1923) – the
nerve-wracking climax remains the clear highlight of Lloyd’s crisply performed
& presented, yet uninvolving comedy
Rouge (1987) – Kwan’s culturally contrasting ghost story is
utterly beguiling in all respects, beautifully inhabited by its actors
Rachel, Rachel (1968) – Newman
elevates the recessive (but choicely acted) material with surprisingly, even
morbidly tough-minded direction
The Worst Person in the World (2021) – Trier’s fine character
study achieves a high degree of imaginative, unforced verisimilitude
The Day of the Dolphin (1973) – one happily submits to the playful
core of Nichols’ film; not as much to the rushed sub-Pakula melodrama
The Grief of Others (2015) – Wang’s sensitive, creatively bold
drama achieves an unusual, sometimes eccentricity-tinged authenticity
Two-Faced Woman (1941) – Garbo’s last film lives down to its minor
reputation, the star ill at ease under Cukor’s ineffective direction
Virgin Stripped Bare by her Bachelors (2000) – Hong’s formal
mastery astutely facilitates his smoothly acute study of morphing exploitation
And Now Miguel (1953) – the simple focus of Krumgold’s scenically
empathetic quasi-documentary feels rather ominously fragile in retrospect
Heller Wahn (1983) – von Trotta’s study of symbiotic female
friendship is overly calculated at times, but laceratingly indicting at its
best
What’s Up, Doc? (1972) – Bogdanovich’s film perhaps gets more
classically cherishable as time goes on, and I’d say it gets funnier too
La verite (2019) – a graceful relatively minor Kore-eda film
overall, immensely elevated by impeccably cineaste-friendly attributes
One Way Passage (1932) – Garnett’s
fatalistic romance is limited by over-concision, but the absence-defined ending
lingers in one’s mind
Parallel Mothers (2021) – one of Almodovar’s most richly echoing
films, a multi-faceted joy to watch even when almost too tragic to bear
The Mind Benders (1963) –
Dearden’s unshowy approach to a sci-fi-type premise builds promisingly enough,
but then talkily fizzles out
Circumstance (2011) – Kesharvaz’s film feels overly calculated and
compressed at times, but rings sadly, outrage-inducingly true as a whole
The Blue Knight (1973) – Butler’s arrestingly-cast drama, though
plainly limited by network TV parameters, hits the mark pretty solidly
A Taxing Woman (1987) – Itami shows off his well-honed genre
smarts and narrative prowess, applied to unusual (and quite educational) ends
He Laughed Last (1956) – Edwards’ peculiarly plotted early film
doesn’t generate much laughter, maybe a mildly intrigued sense of blankness
Aferim! (2015) – Jude’s staggeringly well-realized historical
recreation, its unflinching engagement often verbally and morally draining
Presenting Lily Mars (1943) – Taurog’s inspiration-challenged,
often misjudged Garland vehicle at least offers a few musical highlights
Pink Floyd: the Wall (1982) – Parker and Scarfe bludgeon more than
they seduce, likely leaving you in no hurry to ever hear the album again
The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972) – nothing about Miraglia’s
colorfully tangled gallop through plot points and murders cuts very deeply
Last Night in Soho (2021) – Wright’s colorful, nerve-janglingly
propulsive (if inherently hollow) fantasia, packed with incidental pleasures
The Marked Eyes (1964) – Hossein’s drama doesn’t have much to it
beyond the two central women, but adequately sustains its evasive moodiness
Lost Highway (1997) – Lynch’s brilliantly uncrackable and
disturbed enigma, his structural and expressive mastery at their near-zenith
Wild Geese (1953) – Toyoda’s poignant tale of exploitation, marked
by a deeply sympathetic sense of economic and emotional insecurity
The Woman King (2022) – Prince-Bythewood’s drama impresses as
celebration of community, but too often falls short in much the same old ways
Extreme Private Eros (1974) – Hara’s essay film achieves a rare
sense of unscrubbed, ideology- and convention-defying self-exploration
Cat People (1982) – Schrader’s fascinating if of course amply
debatable remake viscerally pulsates with deviant sexuality and desire
Brainwashed (1960) – Oswald’s well-structured, physically and
psychologically hemmed-in drama expertly maintains its slow-burning tension
Scarborough (2021) – even in its missteps, Nakhai and Williamson’s
often heartbreakingly well-done social document grips and instructs
Marius (1931) – Pagnol’s
inevitability-heavy tale yields the kind of film you find lodged in the memory,
even if you’ve never seen it before
Amateur (1994) – the Hartley well started running dry pretty early
on, with little sense of purpose or revelation to the attitudinizing
In the Name of the Italian People (1971) – Risi’s punchily
enjoyable, optimism-challenged contrasting of personal and societal moralities
Sharp Stick (2022) – Dunham’s film might have been conceived as an
exercise, largely successfully achieved, in redeeming a dubious premise
Love at Sea (1964) – Gilles’ poignantly searching little film
glows with the love of Paris, of cinema, of its own sweet ephemerality
American Mary (2012) – despite inevitable excesses, the Soskas
enjoyably maintain the governing icky/sexy/life-choice-affirming vibe
Beautiful Days (1955) – Kobayashi’s absorbing tale of intertwined
lives, marked by existential & monetary post-war challenge & compromise
The Last Duel (2021) – Scott’s overdone, inauthentic artificiality
is far less structurally and thematically provocative than intended
Arrebato (1979) – Zulueta’s wildly singular must-see work may
possess a lifetime’s worth of vision, creative blood, and unifying conviction
Everyone Says I Love You (1996) –
Allen’s baggy musical easily passes the time, but mostly strikes you as a
clumsy, magic-deprived letdown
Waxworks (1924) – Leni’s silent semi-horror film has its stodgy
passages, but also some lasting expressionist highlights (the Ripper!)
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022) – a solidly flavourful and
nuanced telling, especially in its darker and more grotesque aspects
Carmen Comes Home (1951) – narratively trifling stuff even by
Kinoshita’s frequent standards, but of mild interest as a color milestone
Frantic (1988) – among Polanski’s more minor exercises, but with
good suspense mechanics, and ample points of tonal and visual interest
A Quiet Place to Kill (1970) – Lenzi’s paranoid drama offers
standard-issue plotting, scenery, and somnambulant acting (especially Baker)
Mass (2021) – Kranz’s fine-tuned, astutely-judged film is barely equal to the wasteland it
surveys, but then that’s largely the point
Kill! (1968) – Okamoto’s somewhat overly-prolonged Samurai opus is
stylishly sustained, but keeps within its knowingly derivative limits
Goodfellas (1990) – Scorsese’s overly affectionate,
under-contextualized show of force frustrates about as much as it muscularly
dazzles
Endless Desire (1958) – a fairly straightforward crime narrative
for Imamura, but bitingly well-done at every cynically grasping turn
Don’t Worry Darling (2022) – Wilde doesn’t fully realize on the
intriguing material, but enlivens the movie in various satisfyingly odd ways
Paper Moon (1973) – Bogdanovich’s period piece nicely hits all its
intended marks, although Tatum O’Neal’s Oscar now looks wildly generous
Cinema Paradiso (1988) – Tornatore’s extended version makes for
mostly soft viewing, peddling the most unanalytical, affectless nostalgia
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) – Minnelli’s classic is marvelously
sustained, not least for the persistent veins of threat and disruption
In the Aisles (2018) – Stuber patiently and astutely explores the
workplace as one’s primary structuring reality and point of connection
The Naked Truth (1957) – the darkly satiric concept and
high-potential casting deserve livelier and sharper direction than Zampi can
muster
Drive My Car (2021) – Hamaguchi’s extraordinarily rich and
satisfying exploration of the creation of meaning and connection in art and
life
99 and 44/100% Dead (1974) – one of Frankenheimer’s dullest and
most perplexing failures, misjudged whether assessed as satire or otherwise
Joan of Arc of Mongolia (1989) – Ottinger’s mash-up of grand
artificiality and sumptuous travelogue is improbably and winningly nurturing
The Appaloosa (1966) – Furie’s shambling border drama is pretty
minor, when not cringeworthy, but Brando’s low-key masochism makes the show
Wondrous Boccaccio (2015) – the well-seasoned Tavianis’ delicately
shaded anthology ultimately lands rather too fleetingly and familiarly
A Place in the Sun (1951) – Stevens’ tragic romance still
penetrates, particularly in its doomed longing to transcend class and privilege
Bergman Island (2021) – Hansen-Love’s film provides constant
stimulations and pleasures, but doesn’t connect as intimately as her best work
The Boys from Brazil (1978) – Schaffner’s heavy-handedness doesn’t
do much to engender a real sense of threat, but it has its moments
Tampopo (1985) – Itami’s peppy novelty, propelled by
quasi-Bunuelian structural fluidity and amusingly low-stakes Western-genre
riffing
Jewel Robbery (1932) – Dieterle’s
concise diversion sustains its air of cheerful high-life amorality (aided by
the laced cigarettes!)
Night and Day (2008) – happily hanging out in Paris, Hong wanders
smoothly through emotional, legal and other existentially liminal states
Written on the Wind (1956) – Sirk’s amazing compositions and
jagged psychological structures may leave one feeling personally destabilized
Transit (2018) – in a work of crystalline poise, Petzold
reinflates classic romantic structures with eerily contemporary anxieties &
threats
The Sting (1973) – Hill’s Oscar-winner is a handsome but largely
empty ride, declining to tap any possible profundity in its reality-bending
Summer Night…(1986) – offers passages of Wertmuller at her lyrical
best, outweighed by exhausting dollops of her multi-faceted worst
Hell’s Angels on Wheels (1967) –
Rush’s film has a few raucously amusing moments, but not much in the way of penetrating
perspective
Prayers for the Stolen (2021) – Huezo’s wrenching drama crafts an
almost unbearably convincing sense of endemic threat and thwarted beauty
Alice in Wonderland (1951) – Disney’s version is too peculiar and
literal to sustain the wonder, but has some sweetly trippy highpoints
Godard mon amour (2017) – Hazanavicius somehow converts aging film
buff catnip into improbably well-functioning character-based comedy
Wattstax (1973) – Stuart skillfully places the concert in its
complex social context (but, if anything, there’s not enough of the music!)
The Green, Green Grass of Home (1982) – Hou’s early film is a
thoroughly winning human document, notable for its environmental concern
The Set-Up (1949) – one of Wise’s most satisfying pictures, dense
in bleakly amused human observation and incisive cinematic smarts
I Do Not Care if…(2018) – a film of sensational, morphing
relevance, driven by Jude’s torrential cinematic energy and intellectual
dexterity
Summer Stock (1950) – Walters oversees some lasting peaks of the
musical genre, pushing through a framework of extreme ramshackle corniness
Outland (1981) – Hyams executes the misconceived
High-Noon-in-space concept in tonally dour, visually drab, all-round
unstimulating fashion
Hunter in the Dark (1979) – an epically layered, fragility-laced
narrative, overseen by Gosha with impressively varying compositional flair
Amsterdam (2022) – Russell’s unfairly ignored film is staggeringly
flawed for sure, yet fascinating in its ambition, choices and resonances
Golden Eyes (1968) – Fukuda’s follow-up to Ironfinger doesn’t
quite match the original’s peppily twisting energy, but it’s enough to get by
Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986) – Mazursky’s facile comedy,
largely disconnected from the real world, is a clear marker of decline
A Day in Court (1954) – Steno’s linked vignettes are brightly
enough done, laced with an acerbic sense of the system’s puffed-up absurdities
West Side Story (2021) – the all-round craftsmanship astounds,
& the film does have some bite, while bearing too little contemporary
urgency
Death Walks on High Heels (1971) – by the standards of such
twisting, tilltating thrillers, Ercoli handles it all with nice, nasty
zippiness
Heart of Midnight (1988) –
Chapman’s tinny-feeling journey through sleaze and trauma falls short visually,
and on just about every level
The Baker’s Wife (1938) – Pagnol’s
affectionate, leisurely observation feels over-indulgently uncritical now, but
not without its rewards
The Menu (2022) – Mylod’s elegantly dark comedy is imaginative and
well-handled, although all too easy to swallow, digest and move on from
Baaz (1953) – Dutt’s tale of female-led rebellion is stirring
enough, despite much cursory storytelling and frequently rickety visualization
Jungle Fever (1991) – Lee’s over-extended drama is deeply, even
wantonly, flawed, and also of course mesmerizingly stimulating and riveting
Goodbye CP (1972) – Hara’s documentary observes cerebral palsy
with sympathetic realism, unsentimentally demanding the viewer’s observance
Red Rocket (2021) – Baker’s sympathetically disreputable,
sociologically exacting high-concept comedy is grandly entertaining throughout
Spring Dreams (1960) – Kinoshita’s tragi-farce covers a lot of
narrative, tonal and thematic ground, none of it completely satisfactorily
Aria (1987) – a somewhat goofy anthology project, hardly conducive
to opera appreciation, but with ample variety and general panache
Sissi (1955) – Marischka’s opulent romance doesn’t challenge or
critique on any level, but draws well on the young Schneider’s happy energy
The Inheritance (2020) – drawing on respectfully tended cultural
and local roots, Asili crafts a thrillingly tangible form of presentness
The Castle of Sand (1974) – Nomura’s for a while seemingly
overly-sprawling investigation yields a final stretch of considerable grandeur
Digging for Fire (2015) – Swanberg’s tale of marital renewal finds
room for actors and situations to breathe, despite much over-tidiness
Prison (1949) – Bergman’s self-reflective hell-on-earth drama is
somewhat over-extended, but always mesmerizingly ambitious and committed
White Noise (2022) – Baumbach’s stylistically all-stops-out
existential investigation is improbably satisfying, even in its odder aspects
Sincerity (1953) – the title barely captures the well-worked
weepiness quotient of Kobayashi’s class-conscious story of personal awakening
The Garden (1990) – Jarman’s astounding film feels torn from all
corners of a despairing, furious, ecstatic, helplessly expressive psyche
The Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (1970) – after a zippy initial
opening up, Lumet respectably works through Williams’ toxicity-infused play
Deception (2021) – Desplechin’s Roth adaptation is often
exquisite, but by its nature eschews the rapturous tumbling energy of his best
work
Woman of Straw (1964) – Dearden’s
drama trudges through its suspense-starved plot with unaccountable dourness,
the actors not helping much
La flor (2018) – astonishingly enough, Llinas’ staggering creation
stimulates and rewards in generous proportion to its ultra-epic length
The Mad Miss Manton (1938) – Jason’s ponderous comedy-mystery
doesn’t do much with its stars, and is sadly short on inspired madness
Diary for my Children (1984) – Meszaros’ absorbing personal and
social document, exploring self-determination in the face of regimentation
The Molly Maguires (1970) – Ritt’s physically imposing,
brute-force drama, righteously drawing on the eternal exploitation of the
powerless
Great Freedom (2021) – Meise’s absorbing, moving, narratively and
psychologically provocative study of institutionalization and its toll
Lonelyhearts (1958) – Donehue’s drama isn’t fully achieved, but
has some eloquently searching patches, & the mesmerizingly vulnerable Clift
In Between Days (2006) – Kim’s intimate, unprettified study of
immigrant experience channels some quietly mundane, too-seldom-told truths
To Sir, With Love (1967) – Clavell papers over the patchily
underdone narrative with a thin veneer of dignity and social conscience
My Worst Nightmare (2011) – when not gratingly predictable,
Fontaine’s comedic meeting of opposites is unconvincing and underdeveloped
Jabberwocky (1977) – the silly comedy often only gets in the way
of Gilliam’s impressively detailed visual and logistical imagination
The Moon in the Gutter (1983) – Beineix generates some strangely
lingering images & moments, notwithstanding the rather heavygoing narrative
The Maltese Falcon (1941) – the classic status of Huston’s debut
is a little generous, notwithstanding some cracking presences and exchanges
Court (2014) – Tamhane’s depressingly well-done, class-attuned
dissection of India’s grindingly unfit-for-modern-purposes judicial system
American Guerilla in the Philippines (1950) – Lang’s relentless,
atypically sun-baked chronicle of entrapment and existential isolation
H Story (2001) – Suwa’s reflection on representation and
engagement is never uninteresting, but most beguiling when at its loosest
The Killer Elite (1975) – Peckinpah’s lumpy drama is disarmingly
rambling and eccentric in some respects, murky and disengaged in others
Seven Women, Seven Sins (1986) – an energetic themed anthology of
satisfyingly varying peculiarity, if expectedly limited overall coherence
A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929) – Asquith’s silent film blends social
comedy and stark thriller with sustained skill and imaginative fluidity
Psychokinesis (2018) – Yeon’s silly quasi-superhero movie, far
inferior to his Train to Busan, is mostly just a cursory waste of resources
The Computer wore Tennis Shoes (1969) – a weak, low-conviction
Disney entry that achieves little on its own terms, let alone anyone else’s
Where does your Hidden Smile Lie? (2001) – Costa’s mesmerizing,
often revelatory study of the tetchily exacting journey toward sublimity
Foxy Brown (1974) – the opening credits and the occasional defiant
flourish aside, Hill’s stilted effort doesn’t provide much to savor
And the Ship Sails On (1983) – Fellini’s spectacle sadly lacks
much ongoing relevance, whatever one’s taste for its grand artificiality
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) – Lean’s epic now seems more
calculated and less seeped in madness than the popular memory maintains
Scarred Hearts (2016) – Jude’s robust, empathetic chronicle of
illness and slow decline, worthy of the defiant life force at its centre
In the Good Old Summertime (1949) – Leonard’s pleasant enough but
distinctly underpowered (musically and otherwise) Garland vehicle
The French Dispatch (2021) – Anderson’s oddly Greenaway-evoking
creation is almost oppressively breathtaking, only fitfully passion-forming
Death Smiles on a Murderer (1973) – d’Amato’s slack supernatural
shocker ultimately acquires some kind of shape, but never amounts to much
A Chorus Line (1985) – Attenborough doesn’t do so badly, but the
material inherently and stiffly resists any worthwhile cinematic treatment
Shozo, a Cat and Two Women (1956) – the climactic stubborn
bleakness of Toyoda’s comedy surmounts its trifling and over-protracted aspects
Rifkin’s Festival (2020) – another minimal-effort,
lost-in-the-past Allen work, playing more engagingly than it might have (but
not by much)
Death Laid an Egg (1968) – Questi’s must be one of the most
chicken-centric movies ever, and is quite a heady mix even aside from that
Silent Britain (2006) – Thompson/Sweet’s survey is enormously
informative and persuasive, no matter its tonal and scholarly shortcomings
Eye in the Labyrinth (1972) – Caiano’s horror mystery keeps things
lively and modestly unpredictable, but the overall effect is a bit thin
Crimes of the Future (2022) – Cronenberg’s amazing,
implication-heavy film, if perhaps overly hermetic, astounds and chills
throughout
Stolen Desire (1958) – Imamura’s full-to-bursting debut has a
striking, ribald energy and an enjoyably pragmatic view of human behaviour
Trust (1990) – Hartley’s bumpy
journey toward self-actualization is one of his best-realized works, while
hardly evoking deep affection
The Portrait (1948) – Kinoshita’s genial drama isn’t a major work,
but packs a varied range of human dynamics into its brief running time
Mogul Mowgli (2021) – Tariq and Ahmed’s case history draws on
rich, sometimes harrowing layers of personal and cultural past and present
Sword of the Beast (1965) – Gosha sets out the tangled
motivations, allegiances and inner burdens with admirable, body-count-heavy
clarity
Quartet (1981) – Ivory’s film is well-modulated and artfully
withholding, but you mostly watch with a feeling of blankly respectful distance
Une Parisienne (1957) – Boisrond’s slightly-better-than-average
Bardot-showcasing comedy at least doesn’t dawdle (except when ogling…)
Relic (2020) – James’ use of horror devices and tropes ultimately
yields a remarkable representation of fraught generational bonding
Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) – a bright and zippy,
environmentally-charged entry in the series, worth it for the groovy opening
credits alone
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) – Spielberg’s film seems at
times oddly simple, yet at others near-crazy in its conceptual grandeur
Ironfinger (1965) – Fukuda’s gadget-heavy, jauntily
location-hopping quasi-Bond concoction is well-done in its unimportantly breezy
fashion
Candyman (2021) – DaCosta stylishly maintains a pointed sense of
multi-faceted contemporary relevance, even as narrative overload sets in
Summer Interlude (1951) – Bergman’s early-ish work is totally
involving on its own terms, and dotted with glimpses of the heights to come
The Fugitive (1993) – Davis’
stretched drama benefits from sustained logistical prowess, and the patina of
single-minded intelligence
Sisters of the Gion (1936) – one
of Mizoguchi’s most concentrated, thorough and lacerating studies of engrained
societal exploitation
Beans (2020) – despite various points of excessive tidiness,
Deer’s melding of the personal and political is instructionally empathetic
Il bell’Antonio (1960) – Bolognini and Pasolini’s impeccably
crafted subversion of patriarchal structures, assumptions and hypocrisies
The Intern (2015) – Meyers does pretty well by the appealing
concept, even if sentimentality and idealism gradually pushes out most else
A Street of Love and Hate (1959) – Oshima develops the fable-like
core premise with incisively unsentimental clarity and social awareness
Glass Onion (2022) – there’s much pleasure in Johnson’s
super-well-worked creation, although of course not so much broader implication
Shall We Go to Your Place…(1973) - Hallstrom’s well-observed
hook-up journal is as much fun as any of his (far) more polished later works
Gorky Park (1983) – Apted’s drama doesn’t spark any great
reaction, but then, national joylessness and drabness seem to be largely the
point
Douce violence (1962) – Pecas’ sex drama has a few diverting,
sadism-laced sequences, but for the most part it’s undistinguished stuff
4.44 Last Day on Earth (2011) – a near-perfect vessel for
Ferrara’s tumultuously restless existential questing and experiential gleaning
Stakeout (1958) – Nomura’s impressive film, built on a top-notch
suspenseful set-up, steers in surprisingly quiet, humane directions
The Sparks Brothers (2021) – Wright’s utterly enjoyable,
eye-opening survey, well balanced between explication and wryly reverent
distance
The Hired Hand (1971) – Fonda’s finely-crafted, often superbly
visualized Western, its unshowy realism tinted by a sense of
predestination
The Home and the World (1984) – Ray’s blending of personal &
political is somewhat over-isolated, but executed with exquisite, seasoned care
For Me and My Gal (1942) – Berkeley’s relatively unshowy,
expertly-controlled musical contrasts vaudeville strivings and wartime
upheavals
Karaoke Girl (2013) – Vichit-Vadakan’s perhaps overly discreet but
absorbing chronicle of young female migration, adaptation and illusion
Wavelength (1967) – Snow’s (not boring!) landmark marries the
infallibly all-seeing & the tangibly hands-on, even with traces of wry
humour
Gabrielle (2005) – Chereau’s audaciously inspired dissection of
marriage as personal and social construct is a success on every level
Don’t Play Us Cheap (1972) – van Peebles’ wildly iconoclastic,
utterly resistance-busting celebration of Black resilience and joyousness
Lili Marleen (1981) – even if not among Fassbinder’s best, an
enthralling mesh of Nazi-era ambiguities (of actions, motivations, impacts…)
Thunderbolt (1929) – Sternberg partially reworks the silent
Underworld in a more stylistically restrained, still meatily enjoyable manner
Theo & Hugo… (2016) – Martineau/Ducastel’s quite winning
nocturnal mini-odyssey spans unbound carnality, giddy idealism, stark realities
All About Eve (1950) – Mankiewicz’s breathtaking dialogue still
sweeps one along, but at an elegantly-maintained, well-upholstered distance
No Place Like Home (2006) – Henzell’s likeable if
bumpily-assembled Jamaican odyssey, contrasting manufactured illusions and
lived realities
THX 1138 (1971) – Lucas’ debut has a conventional overall
trajectory, but an astounding wealth of well-worked social & technological
detail
The Movement of Things (1985) – Serra’s near-revelatory,
deeply-present observance of (surely imperiled) lives, rhythms and rituals
The League of Gentlemen (1960) –
Dearden’s fairly standard heist film, mildly elevated by military affectations
& a few disreputable edges
Pulse (2001) – perhaps Kurosawa’s most lastingly threatening
vision, evading simple explication, but ultimately chillingly all-encompassing
Easter Parade (1948) – Walters’ musical is bright and tuneful, but
the plotting and much else are perfunctory even by genre standards
Jeanne (2019) – the inexhaustibly shifting Dumont expands the
corpus of Jeanne d’Arc cinema in startlingly diverse and elevating fashion
Madame Claude (1977) – Jaeckin’s mixture of soft core and
skullduggery has plenty of intriguing raw elements, but limited overall spark
Zeros and Ones (2021) – Ferrara more or less viably positions the
pandemic-era as a murkily causation- and coherence-dissolving meltdown
Emotion (1966) – Obayashi’s wildly energetic early short film
exudes the joy of collaborative cinema-making, at a giddy moment in time
A Different Image (1982) – Larkin’s lightly expressed but
steel-willed, wide-angle assertion of Black woman as self-determined subject
The Snow Flurry (1959) – Kinoshita’s sensitive but not
particularly notable, structurally over-extended study of loss and its long
aftermath
Limbo (2020) – Sharrock’s deadpan premise and remote setting
inherently entails a somewhat one-note (but consistently appealing) movie
The Demon (1978) – Nomura’s sad, incisive treatment of scalding
family dynamics, rooted in parental inadequacy and financial hopelessness
In the Family (2011) – the naturalism of Wang’s patient
story-telling sometimes wavers a bit, but overall it wears its length
intelligently
The Witches (1967) – a pleasingly odd anthology, most notable for
Pasolini’s segment and for a highly uncharacteristic Clint Eastwood!
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) – McDonagh’s well-acted,
considerate (if generally overpraised) movie ably works its odd central premise
Battleship Potemkin (1925) – Eisenstein’s tangibly powerful cinema
still reverberates, even if as a cinematic road not often now traveled
Evil Under the Sun (1982) – Hamilton’s pedestrian mystery doesn’t
even film the sun with style, let alone sink intelligently into the evil
Spiritual Kung Fu (1978) – much of Wei Lo’s fluctuating, often
goofy actioner is simply Jackie Chan on display, so that’s good enough!
Let Them All Talk (2020) – Soderbergh expertly sustains a lightly
intelligent air, showcasing actors and locations with equal aplomb
Son of Godzilla (1967) – Fukuda’s peppy entry in the series has
some colourful monster action and a passable patina of “serious” science
Collective: Unconscious (2016) – a strongly-conceived,
no-weak-link compilation film; Baldwin’s segment particularly lingers in the
mind
This Can’t Happen Here (1950) –
Bergman’s lurching allegorical thriller may be his most peculiarly misconceived
and unrewarding work
The Humans (2021) – Karem’s strong filming of his genre-expanding
existential investigation, done with tremendous visual & spatial assurance
The Scar (1976) – Kieslowski’s politically and existentially
provocative film, set in the draining shadow of runaway industrialization
Love Jones (1997) – much about Witcher’s film remains irresistible
(that soundtrack!), although the minor classic status is a bit overstated
Assassination (1964) – Shinoda’s narrative complexity and shifting
technique draw (largely productively) on Japan’s draining modern history
Zola (2020) – Bravo realizes the oddball material with an
imaginatively optimal combination of discipline, reflection and digression
Breakfast for Two (1937) – Santell’s comedy doesn’t really hang
together, but has a few choice sequences, and the actors, and the dog!
I Wish I Knew (2010) – Jia’s typically graceful engagement with
Shanghai, as cinematic myth, as visual wonder, as often-brutal lived reality
March or Die (1977) – Richards’ French Foreign Legion drama is a
peculiar, if often impressively realized, meshing of moods and registers
Light Years Away (1981) – Tanner’s scenic, eccentric contrivance
is hardly his most meaningful work, but it’s oddly cherishable even so
Carry on Regardless (1961) – a
barely carrying-on early series entry, mostly just one under-developed, flatly
handled bit after another
The Happiest Girl in the World (2009) – Jude’s irresistible set-up
facilitates a poignant character study amid ample deadpan humour
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) – Crichton oversees a most
highly-functioning comic machine, in which realities are only passingly
glimpsed
Chez Jolie Coiffure (2018) – Mbakam’s well-observed study of
displaced community, insecurity and struggle never far beneath the surface
Tracks (1976) – arguably Jaglom’s most impactful film, his
trademark conviviality yielding to reality-bending Vietnam-era paranoia
Passion (1982) – a work of stunning, ever-pivoting Godardian
craft, crackling with disillusionment at its own visual sumptuousness
The Criminal (1960) – a highly
superior crime drama, elevated through Losey’s dynamic feel for space,
behavior, and broader implication
Cargo 200 (2007) – Balabanov’s missive from a cesspit-like Russia,
all the more depressing for its formidable creative and formal strengths
Moontide (1942) – Mayo’s memorably-cast coastal romance doesn’t
generally excel, but sustains an often lovely mood of threatened aspiration
Barrage (2017) – Schroeder’s largely unexceptional tale of
tentative reconciliation, at its strongest when tapping into underlying traumas
Russian Roulette (1975) – Lombardo finds small ways to rise above
the general pedestrianism, delivering a striking downtown Vancouver climax
Santa Sangre (1989) – Jodorowsky, in full showman mode, never
crafts a dull scene, nor (luridness aside) a particularly penetrating one
Stereo (1969) – Cronenberg’s early film explores a bracingly
strange, droll, cerebral and concept-heavy (if not yet fully navigated) space
Merci pour le chocolat (2000) – among Chabrol’s thinner works,
notwithstanding its elegant toying with familial definitions and boundaries
The Crowd Roars (1932) – Hawks’ early racing car movie delivers
well enough on the action, but is under-developed in most key respects
I Saw the Devil (2010) – Kim’s extended showdown is never dull,
but it’s unedifyingly driven by relentless contrivance and wanton nastiness
Cooley High (1975) – Schultz’s engaging slice of life, focusing
less on big laughs and set-ups than on challenged character and community
Tenue de Soiree (1986) – one submits to Blier’s aggressively
assumption-baiting farce with amazement, and at least some form of respect
The Story of a Three Day Pass (1967) – the matchless Van Peebles
channels Black experience, identity and insecurity with undiminished verve
Afternoon (2015) – a small delight, with Tsai’s unhurried formal
simplicity facilitating a funny, revealing portrait of mutual dependency
Native Son (1951) – Chenal’s adaptation sustains a strong vein of
brutalized authenticity, notwithstanding structural and other weaknesses
Bright Future (2002) – Kurosawa’s evasively ambiguous parable of
modern directionless is hauntingly effective, with an oddly beautiful core
Radio On (1979) – Petit’s movie engages in unique (albeit heavily
Wenders-enthused) manner with a fraying Britain’s bottomless confusions
You Will Die at Twenty (2019) – Alala’s absorbingly imagined and
realized expression of mystical indoctrination and its consequences
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) – Neame’s mannered drama
excessively prioritizes Smith’s performance, over almost all else of interest
I Want to Go Home (1989) – Resnais’ peculiar mix of elements and
references is ultimately rewarding, if often rather grating along the way
The Harvey Girls (1946) – Sidney delivers a few lasting musical
highlights, without seemingly trying to impose much stylistic or tonal unity
Happy Hour (2015) – one could almost limitlessly observe
Hamaguchi’s painstakingly realized world, continually reconsidering &
recalibrating
Drive, He Said (1971) – Nicholson’s absorbing directorial debut
draws acutely and imaginatively on its people, place and social context
Daratt (2006) – Haroun acutely sifts the complexities of revenge
and reconciliation through suspensefully intertwining characterizations
The Love Bug (1968) – Stevenson’s blithely disbelief-suspending,
solidly-staged bit of silliness holds up better than might be expected
The Wonder (2022) – Lelio’s carefully considered adaptation is
mostly satisfying, without transcending its inherent literary artificiality
Le jour se leve (1939) – Carne’s fatalistic landmark, with Gabin
at his best, retains its exquisitely crafted, societally pessimistic grip
Rare Beasts (2019) – Piper’s
distinctively intelligently debut provides a coherently off-kilter take on life
& love & the whole f-ing thing
Benilde or the Virgin Mother (1975) – one of de Oliveira’s most
accessible films, crafting an enthralling space of mystery and inquiry
The Father (2020) – Zeller crafts one of the most indelible recent
actor-driven films, formally remarkable and at times sadly frightening
The Return of Ringo (1965) – Tessari’s crisply conceived and
relishingly executed reboot/sequel improves on its flatter predecessor
Cop (1988) – the strained and grotesque aspects of the central
narrative rather undermine Harris’ spiky facility with character and mood
Les dragueurs (1959) – Mocky offsets the relentless skirt-chasing
with sometimes poignant casting and sufficient emotional flavour
C’mon C’mon (2021) – despite (or because of) its empathetic
strengths, Mills’ under-involving film often feels like enforced therapy
Silence (1971) – Shinoda’s pained chronicle of faith and
persecution engages no less fully and directly than Scorsese’s later telling
Voyage of Time (2016) – a somewhat typically unsatisfying
latter-day Mallick, ravishing the eye more fully than the ear or intellect
Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (1968) – Sato throws in enough
incident, spectacle and topical charge to surmount the often shaky execution
Minari (2020) – Chung’s film is rather too formulaic (not least
Youn’s Oscar-bait character), but has an attentively pleasantly way about it
Marriage in the Shadows (1947) –
whatever its deficiencies, Maetzig’s melodrama carries an immense, even
overpowering historical immediacy
Green Card (1990) – Weir’s comedy
eschews any hints of significance, but the well-matched actors and sustained
amiability put it across
A Night Full of Rain (1978) – Wertmuller’s tone-deaf study of a
turbulent relationship makes for monotonously unrewarding viewing
Everything Everywhere all at Once (2022) – the Daniels’
imaginative tour de force is overwhelmingly impressive, and underwhelmingly
trite
Night and Fog in Japan (1960) – Oshima’s dissection of complacency
& culpability, at once intellectually exacting & cinematically
liberating
Siberia (2019) – despite its unyielding and unreadable aspects,
Ferrara’s odyssey sustains a strangely moving sense of questing penance
White Paradise (1924) – Lamac’s silent melodrama moves through
various modes with appealing, if not always perfectly controlled, enthusiasm
French Exit (2020) – Jacobs’ oddity doesn’t ultimately amount to
that much, but is sufficiently unpredictable and consistently likeable
Ai no corrida (1976) – at once emptying & exhilarating,
Oshima’s is one of cinema’s most sustained studies of extreme, desperate
sexuality
Sitting Ducks (1980) – Jaglom’s amiable but entirely unpersuasive
comedy feels largely lazy and trivial in the wake of his preceding Tracks
Change of Life (1966) – an evocative study of personal and
economic fragility, if the slightly more mannered of Rocha’s two fine early
works
Summer of Soul (2021) – an animating gift from the archival gods,
more than satisfactorily curated and contextualized by Questlove
Santa Claus (1959) – Cardona’s dawdling, distanced-feeling
celebration does have the occasional touching or pleasingly whimsical moment
The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson (2015) – Temple pulls out a few too
many visual stops at times, but Wilko is unmatchable value for money
The Most Beautiful Wife (1970) – a potentially rich and bitingly
comic battle of the sexes, handled rather too straightforwardly by Damiani
Sylvie’s Love (2020) – Ashe’s period romance doesn’t hit any huge
heights, but is unassumingly and progressively pleasurable throughout
Night of the Bloody Apes (1969) – Cordona’s aggressively poor,
barely-even-trying monster rampage doesn’t get the simplest thing right
A Stranger Among Us (1992) – Lumet’s well-honed judgment deserts
him for long stretches here, with unconvincing, if not eye-rolling, results
An Old Gangster’s Molls (1927) – Innemann’s silent comedy,
forgivably overstuffed at times, motors along in happily try-anything style
The Good Nurse (2022) – Lindholm’s overly tidy and linear drama is
fairly well-attuned to human fragility, but distinctly short on surprises
The Debut (1977) – Van Brakel’s vital, even-handed study of a
transgressive relationship, deeply attuned to youthful impulse and sensation
Fourteen (2019) – Sallitt’s film feels truthful & lived-in at
every turn, with a beautifully crafted sense of personal shifts &
evolutions
Les abysses (1963) – Papatakis doesn’t so much depict as ferally
seep us in the madness-inducing wretchedness of domestic power structures
Falling in Love (1984) – Grosbard’s reticent drama is immeasurably
lifted by, and utterly rewatchable for, the astounding star pairing
To Joy (1950) – Bergman’s early
film has its conventional aspects, but its emotional core is often ruthlessly
unsentimental and surprising
Worth (2020) – Colangelo’s empathetic treatment is more than
respectable, but (probably inevitably) skips over much substance and complexity
Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970) – Perry’s study is artfully
excruciating on several levels, with an oddly haunting sense of futility
Angels Wear White (2017) – Qu’s incisively sad, hope-challenged
film thoroughly dissects the commodification and exploitation of young women
High Sierra (1941) – Walsh’s classic of contrasting spaces,
registers and moralities; a near-peak for Bogart, and for cinematic canines
Time and Judgement (1988) – Shabazz’s deeply personal, expressive
journey through Black history, its prophecies seeming partly poignant now
A Man for All Seasons (1966) – Zinnemann’s unstirringly
respectable study of principle gains modest resonance in an age of alternative
facts
This is Not a Burial…(2019) – Mosese’s tale of resistance,
suffused in steely urgency, deeply of (yet unconstricted by) its time and place
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) – Spielberg’s vision
elicits lasting affection, for all its rigged build-up and pumped-up wonder
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021) – the short-story format
rather limits the possibilities of Hamaguchi’s patiently immersive explorations
Decision at Sundown (1957) – a second-tier Boetticher/Scott
Western, perhaps most notable for its expectation-defying final moments
Train to Busan (2016) – Yeon’s isn’t the most thematically rich of
zombie flicks, but hardly makes a wrong move on its own propulsive terms
Saturday Night and Sunday… (1960) – Reisz’s enduring blast of
futile anger in the face of the inevitable, with Finney a mesmerizing centre
The Milk of Sorrow (2009) – Llosa’s small miracle of a film
provides countless penetrating moments, underpinned by lingering trauma
Lovin’ Molly (1974) – a lesser-known but likeable Lumet work,
charting the gently transgressive structures underlying small-scale lives
The Perfect Candidate (2019) – Al-Mansour’s study in determination
hardly lacks for sharp truths, but unfolds a bit too tidily and brightly
Lights of New York (1928) – Foy’s early talkie holds up
respectably enough, occasionally pushing (modestly) past the merely workmanlike
Blind Chance (1987) – reaching far above gimmickry, Kieslowski
pessimistically surveys and analyzes Poland’s corroding complexities
Hell in the Pacific (1968) – Boorman and two ideally committed
stars generate a satisfyingly propulsive, muscularly executed enigma
The Third Murder (2017) – the courtroom genre isn’t best suited to
Koreeda’s skills, rendering the reflective ambiguities overly artificial
A Safe Place (1971) – Jaglom’s peculiar debut at least intrigues
as a formal and tonal experiment, with flashes of greater magic
Ils (2006) – Moreau/Palud’s supposedly fact-based terror exercise
feels thin and fake, seldom jolting in its rhythms, tactics or reveals
The Clock (1945) – Minnelli’s utterly captivating, highly
idealistic but wisely nuanced romance, with Garland at her most transfixing
Creepy (2016) – not Kurosawa’s most persuasive or resonantly
implicative narrative, but of course compulsively watchable all the same
What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966) – Edwards’ conceptually
amazing comedy is among his richest and most penetratingly-realized
The Photograph (1986) – Papatakis’ tense, stark fable, propelled
by the futile dreaming of the relentlessly toiling, marginalized exile
Let Me Die a Woman (1977) – Wishman’s peculiar “documentary,” in
its way sincere and progressive, while also helplessly stilted and prurient
About Endlessness (2019) – Andersson applies his weird but
apparently inexhaustible aesthetic to all that obscures our sense of
possibility
Ace in the Hole (1951) – Wilder’s conceptually evergreen film is a
frequent logistical knock-out, but stumbles over the climactic turnaround
Porto of my Childhood (2001) – de Oliveira’s alchemical film of
memory and loss, at once alluringly accessible and uncommunicably personal
Boom (1968) – the hectoring heaviness of Losey’s notorious,
exotically disembodied spectacle perhaps makes it too easily dismissible
overall
Jeanette (2017) – Dumont’s often (no surprise) quirky instincts
create an oddly productive tension with the film’s visual & narrative
purity
The Visitors (1972) – the film is effective enough on its own
coarsely sparse terms, but one would strain to find Kazan’s signature on it
Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love (2008) – an eye- &
ear-filling, if inevitably selective, spotlight on a towering performer &
presence
Discontent (1916) – Weber &
Siegler’s compact morality tale is pretty straightforward, but crisply and
often amusingly observed & executed
Grigris (2013) – Haroun’s story of
urban survival beautifully explores modern dualities, yielding a strongly
communal, woman-driven outcome
The Innocents (1961) – a work of polished distance and artful
ambiguity, but quivering with deeply-felt corruption-induced anxiety
Mass Appeal (1984) – Jordan’s study of generational Catholic
church conflict is far too glib and bland for anything to stick or penetrate
All Screwed Up (1974) – among Wertmuller’s best films, its teeming
untidiness expressing modern life’s ceaseless traps and shortfalls
News of the World (2020) – Greengrass’ drama is rather
conventionally impressive, but with no shortage of biting contemporary
resonance
Berlin-Alexanderplatz (1931) – Jutzi’s potently condensed version
provides great comparative viewing, with sensational on-location shooting
Malcolm X (1992) – Lee’s vital, daring epic is still high-impact
viewing, its relevance and urgency shifting but perpetually undiminished
Les amities particulieres (1964) – within its constraints,
Delannoy’s study of idealized same-sex love is relatively direct and moving
Night Raiders (2021) – Goulet injects some cultural and conceptual
distinctiveness, but not enough to transcend familiar dystopian weariness
Brother Carl (1971) – for all its weaknesses, Sontag’s tale of
dysfunction and transcendence has a strangely lingering cumulative effect
Saint Maud (2019) – Glass’s
anxiety-ridden modern horror is smartly crafted throughout, with more than a few flat-out awesome moves
Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956) – a capably straight-faced
Americanization, but thematically & tonally diluted from Honda’s original
The World to Come (2020) – Fastvold’s film is strong in all
respects, with great attention to behavioural, visual and structural detail
Girl at the Window (1961) – Emmer’s undersung, structurally
memorable, culturally astute chronicle accumulates surprising existential
weight
Green Ice (1981) – Day’s would-be drama leaves about as little
impact as cinematically possible, aided by utterly lazy lead performances
Gang War in Milan (1973) – Lenzi keeps the high-activity narrative
moving, but it’s almost entirely as generic & surprise-free as its title
Apollo 10 ½ (2022) – Linklater’s dream-laced, reference-packed
family memoir makes for utterly (arguably excessively) captivating viewing
J’accuse (1938) – Gance’s bombastically imagined film fascinates
and compels, even as it marches on into simplistic self-congratulation
Appropriate Behavior (2014) – Akhavan’s well-judged, quite
wide-ranging comedy, propelled by a pleasing sense of multi-faceted exploration
The Green Years (1963) – Rocha’s wondrous, socially-grounded
delicacy ultimately yields to a shocking, almost Bressonian conclusion
Promising Young Woman (2020) – Fennell’s astute and stimulating
film nails its strategies, even if one has a few reservations about them
The Mansion of Madness (1973) – Moctezuma’s chaotic drama provides
some bizarre grandeur, with great dollops of interspersed clumsiness
Someone to Love (1987) – essential viewing for Frishberg and
Welles, whatever one’s assessment of Jaglom’s formal and tonal mannerisms
Nazarin (1959) – Bunuel’s remarkably sustained, slyly balanced
allegory, albeit perhaps not among his most vibrantly pleasurable works
The Green Knight (2021) – Lowery’s telling is structurally and
visually captivating at its best, rising above some relative dull patches
The Sun’s Burial (1960) – Oshima’s early exercise in socially
conscious nihilism, visually and narratively arresting at every corrosive turn
Domino (2019) – De Palma’s thrilling cinematic skills aren’t
snuffed out yet, but have seldom felt as callously or indifferently deployed
The Sicilian Connection (1972) – Baldi’s drug-trade procedural is
solid enough, in a mostly unexciting, sometimes haphazard-feeling way
In the Cut (2003) – Campion’s
riskily vivid, darkly sexy genre piece pulsates with unconventional stylings,
resonances and emphases
Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937) – Yamanaka’s deceptive study of
community and honour lingers not least for its climactic cheerlessness
Nomadland (2020) – Zhao’s film is a virtuous but overly fragmented
and depoliticized window on an admittedly barely explicable world
The Hero (1966) – Ray’s study of a
disaffected film star is engrossingly detailed, while illustrating his work’s
occasional insularity
One More Time with Feeling (2016) – Dominik is a worthy (if
inevitably rather submissive) chronicler of Cave’s personal & artistic
evolution
The Scarlet Letter (1973) – Wenders’ not entirely successful
version does vividly draw on America’s formative hypocrisies and contradictions
Causeway (2022) – Neugebauer’s small-scale but overly calculated,
straightforwardly acted drama doesn’t amount to much on any level
Thirst (1949) – a structurally and
psychologically challenging Bergman, perhaps his strongest early film, infested
with existential crisis
She Hate Me (2004) – Lee’s messy film doesn’t really pull its
diverse elements into shape, but it’s oddly engaging and (mostly) rewarding
Cemetery without Crosses (1969) – Hossein’s bleak Western largely
realizes the title’s haunting promise, although not without some strain
Let Him Go (2020) – Bezucha’s well-cast journey into familial
nightmare largely sustains a fine line between sensitivity and grotesqueness
A Woman Like Eve (1979) – Van Brakel’s shockingly under-celebrated
film comprehensively questions prevailing social and sexual assumptions
The Personal History of David
Copperfield (2019) – Iannucci’s wonderfully canny, affirmative adaptation is
consistent light-footed pleasure
Do Bigha Zamin (1953) – Roy’s drama of fruitless striving
increasingly impresses and chills as its full clarity of purpose becomes
apparent
Shoplifters of the World (2021) – remove the Smiths and Kijak’s
engaging little movie wouldn’t amount to much, but hey, you don’t need to!
Ceiling (1962) – Chytilova’s early short film has her uniquely
recognizable sense of play, with its underlying interrogative seriousness
Fat Man and Little Boy (1989) – Joffe’s drama falls oddly flat,
half-heartedly ticking off the minimum narrative and moral ingredients
Gloria Mundi (1976) – Papatakis’ almost frighteningly high-pitched
drama of art and politics, savagely contemptuous of bourgeois pretensions
Alex Wheatle (2020) – an absorbing
personal & social history, albeit probably the least relatively imposing of
the wondrous Small Axe series
Pinocchio (1940) – Disney’s objectively bizarre classic holds the
panderingly sweet & the deeply sinister in eternally finely-honed balance
To the Ends of the Earth (2019) – Kurosawa’s beguiling, observant
odyssey charts a culture-crossing path to (relative) female empowerment
The Sea Gull (1968) – Lumet’s Chekhov adaptation is worthy and
absorbing, while lacking much individual cinematic identity or presence
Woman on the Beach (2006) – Hong effects a unique marriage of
straightforwardness and mystery, mesmerizing in every shift and detail
Firepower (1979) – Winner’s action romp is comprehensively
misjudged and overdone from start to end, with clueless use of its high-end
cast
Thelma (2017) – Trier’s attraction to such fanciful material is
rather unclear throughout, despite his evident skill and thoughtfulness
Tea and Sympathy (1956) – Minnelli’s study of non-conformity as
threat and disruption is, at least, richly analyzable in its hemmed-in-ness
DNA (2020) – Maiwenn’s examination of origins & becoming is
fairly modest, but much lifted by well-observed ,conflict-ridden family
dynamics
The Learning Tree (1969) – one might have forgotten the extent of
bitterness, suffering and sin folded into Parks’ bucolically-titled drama
Boris sans Beatrice (2016) – Cote’s slyly-sculptured, sometimes
inscrutably playful deployment of class- and power-based narratives
The Grasshopper (1970) – Paris’ never-dull chronicle of ups &
downs bumpily combines relative progressiveness with much shallow contrivance
24 City (2008) – the perhaps all-seeing Jia once again arranges
personal and collective story arcs into mysteriously beautiful formation
The Haunted House (1921) – Keaton’s short lets loose a truly
impressive volume of gags, without rivaling his most coherent or elevated work
Leto (2018) – Serebrennikov’s
inspired, vital dive into the 80’s Soviet rock scene is a galvanizing
historical/cultural perspective-changer
The Swimmer (1968) – the intriguing concept and Lancaster’s
poignant presence generally surmount Perry’s frequently overdone direction
In Search of Famine (1981) – Sen’s richly ambitious engagement
with the moral complexities and obligations of historical filmmaking
Bronco Bullfrog (1970) – an appealing if mostly minor exploration
of low-option lives, elevated by Platts-Mills’ taciturn romantic fatalism
After the Storm (2016) – Koreeda’s
reflection on becoming & being is as finely calibrated as usual, but modest
both in conception & impact
Five Graves to Cairo (1943) – Wilder’s under-sung early work
effectively navigates its tense, morally-charged physical and narrative space
Still Life (2006) – Jia’s astounding marshaling of an almost
incomprehensible modern history, a work of vast (& at times playful)
witnessing
Candy (1968) – Marquand’s colourful comic odyssey hardly forms a
satisfying whole, but at least you’re never waiting long for the next thing
The Halt (2019) – Diaz’s deeply
relevant vision of darkness is relatively accommodating in some ways,
overwhelmingly forbidding in others
Absolution (1978) – Page/Shaffer’s study of Catholic school
manipulation and anguish is capably enough handled, while in no way excelling
Visit, or Memories and Confessions (1982) – de Oliveira’s
long-hidden, poignantly tranquil document gracefully combines testimony &
reverie
Island in the Sun (1957) – Rossen’s lushly race-anxiety-infused
colonial melodrama is, at least, almost infinitely susceptible to analysis
Stray (2020) – Lo provides ample empathetic pleasure for
dog-centric viewers; the returns for others are likely a little more limited
The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) – Stevenson’s comedy holds up
pleasantly enough, while hardly putting the core concept to optimal use
Homo Sapiens (2016) – the terrible
beauty of Geyrhalter’s witnessing of abandonment and decay acts as memorial,
indictment and premonition
An Unmarried Woman (1978) – Mazursky’s appealingly lived-in film
has some idealized and overdone aspects, but contains much that connects
Alcarras (2022) – Simon explores threatened physical &
emotional topographies with equally memorable, socially-charged assurance &
finesse
Honor Among Lovers (1931) – a
fine, lesser-known example of Arzner’s pioneering intelligence, focusing on
personal and professional ethics
Mind Game (2004) – Yuasa’s wildly
unbound (and yet so delectably delicate and psychologically loaded) animation
is an absolute trippy rush
The Great Escape (1963) – Sturges’ drama has too much cursory
storytelling and characterization to remotely merit its classic status
New Order (2020) – Franco’s high-intensity vision is harrowingly
accomplished at times, and productively debatable overall at the very least
Alex and the Gypsy (1976) – Korty’s bumpy romance makes one
aggressively inexplicable choice after another, with keenly unenjoyable results
Sunset (2018) – Nemes’
outstandingly unpredictable study of historical turbulence, often hypnotically
unprecedented both in style & content
The Westerner (1940) – Wyler’s well-balanced, forgivably
history-bending, often memorably visualized drama, boosted by peak star
charisma
I’m Your Man (2021) – Schrader’s lightly comic investigation is
enjoyable viewing, while mostly skimming over its broader implications
The Lost Man (1969) – Aurthur’s drama is spirited enough when
channeling righteous anger and action, but dissipates toward the end
Tom of Finland (2017) –
Karukoski’s biopic is solid stuff, although less formally and visually daring
than the subject might have allowed
The Squeeze (1977) – Apted and the actors squeeze plenty out of
the material, while tending to the prevailing disreputable atmosphere
Epicentro (2020) – Sauper’s musings get a little strained at
times, but even so help render his study of Cuba constantly fresh & unexpected
Park Row (1952) – one of Fuller’s most vital films, propelled by a
passionate fusion of form, content, and directorial identification
As Tears go By (1988) – brasher
than Wong’s later works, but dotted with early signs of his irresistible,
searching lightness of spirit
Let’s Make Love (1960) – Cukor’s over-extended comedy endures
better than it should, mostly of course for its sensational Monroe moments
Flee (2021) – Rasmussen’s considered use of animation both
(necessarily) conceals and penetrates, yielding a rich, forceful testimony
Deadly Strangers (1975) – Hayers’ low-finesse thriller isn’t
exactly dull, but labors heavily on its way to its epically predictable “twist”
State Funeral (2019) – viewed in
an age of right-wing cults, Loznitsa’s magnificent assembly almost plays as
warning-laden horror-comedy
Stagecoach (1939) – a lasting pleasure (albeit an easy one), with
Ford’s multi-faceted finesse surmounting various less elevated aspects
Apples (2020) – Nikou’s wry, composed comedy falls prey to a sense
of diminishing returns, despite its potentially sinister intimations
Twisted Nerve (1968) – Boulting’s manipulatively nasty drama works
well enough overall, frequent eye-rolling pretensions notwithstanding
Ripley’s Game (2002) – Cavani’s is
perhaps not in the top rank of Highsmith films, but it’s a well-judged, elegant
yarn on its own terms
Convoy (1978) – Peckinpah’s messy spectacle, not without a certain
brute-force beauty, gains oddly in resonance in warped Trumpian times
Cette maison (2022) – Charles’
oddly haunting, if not entirely stumble-free, meeting of commemoration &
speculation, tragedy & celebration
The Dumb Girl of Portici (1916) –
Weber’s costume drama is certainly notable, but lacks the penetrating quality
of her best surviving works
A Woman’s Life (2016) – Brise’s
somberly hypnotic, finely etched study of a vibrant life force slowly ground
down by patriarchal lies
The Sundowners (1960) – Zinnemann’s blandly episodic drama has
little feel for the country, even less for the itinerant lives within it
The Words and Days…(2020) – Edstrom/Winter’s quietly
paradigm-shifting study, transporting largely in proportion to its eight-hour
duration
Executive Suite (1954) – Wise’s business world machinations still
strike the occasional chord, when not reduced to mere speechifying
Judgement (1999) – Park’s drolly morality- and
identity-questioning, apocalypse-tinged short film is as satisfying as much of
his major work
Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979) – Silver deftly explores an unusual
central dynamic, drawing out the joy and pain of romantic preoccupation
Lingui (2021) – Haroun’s drama is hardly lacking in interest or
impact, but feels less fully developed and immediate than his best work
A Taste of Honey (1961) – Richardson’s drama lurches around rather
grotesquely, seldom now seeming very emotionally or socially truthful
Senorita (2011) – Sandoval crafts
a compellingly honest human document, despite a recurring feeling of excessive
narrative artifice
Nightmare Alley (1947) – Goulding’s floridly eventful drama
doesn’t quite fully realize its various dark potentialities (hence, remake!)
Uppercase Print (2020) – another super-stimulating Jude work, its
implications by no means consigned to the (almost hilariously drab) past
The Tamarind Seed (1974) – Edwards executes the seldom-surprising,
dispassionately-acted material with counterproductively distanced skill
Repentance (1984) – Abuladze’s satire isn’t without its heavygoing
aspects, but carries overall a laceratingly imaginative, possessed force
Comanche Station (1960) – the terrific Boetticher-Scott series
culminates at its most starkly minimal and, ultimately, near-transcendent
The African Desperate (2022) – Syms’ fiercely intelligent and
singular experiential blast is surely one of the strongest recent debuts
Yoshiwara (1937) – Ophuls’ culture-spanning romance has its
uneasily dated aspects, but the fragile, doomed delight at its centre endures
The Burnt Orange Heresy (2019) –
Capotondi’s take on art world ambiguities is elegantly if rather too archly
done; the cast certainly helps
Lumiere (1976) – Moreau’s elegant study of friendship among female
actors, its form elegantly open-ended, as light always slowly shifts
Shiva Baby (2020) – Seligman satisfyingly infiltrates a fairly
standard set-up with multiple strands of dread and anxiety, even of terror
Is Paris Burning? (1966) – Clement’s rather bland epic dissipates
its energy across star-laden vignettes, lacking sufficient overall force
Love Affair (1994) – Caron’s remake is overdone in some ways,
hardly done at all in others, far too dependent on its theoretical star power
Godzilla Raids Again (1955) – Oda’s sequel builds rather weakly
and diffusively on the original, leaving a mostly deflated aftertaste
Old (2021) – the material mostly fizzles in Shyamalan’s heavy
hands, yielding little suspense, tonal variation, or intellectual stimulation
Tauw (1970) – Sembene’s short (yet immense) film summarizes a
nation’s devastating absence of social infrastructure & individual
possibility
Lucky Life (2010) – Chung’s measured reflection on loss and
endurance perhaps isn’t a major work, but leaves a gently haunting aftermath
Rabindranath Tagore (1961) – Ray’s
too often just superficially informative summary illustrates the occasional
limitations of his craft
Still Processing (2020) – relative
to its brief running time, Romvari’s deeply personal film is astoundingly
wide-ranging and fulfilling
L’inhumaine (1924) – L’Herbier’s silent classic is a feast of
eye-filling design, narrative audacity and instinctive cinematic know-how
Urgh! A Music War (1981) – or indeed Whoa!, as Burbridge races
through the highlights (Klaus Nomi, Steel Pulse) and the forgettable alike
Un homme qui dort (1974) – Perec/Queysanne’s study of withdrawal
holds alienation and engagement in singularly heightened equilibrium
Men (2022) – Garland’s distinctive expression of trauma and
reconciliation has its elements of weirdo, take it or leave it tour-de-force
Layer Cake (1968) – Wajda’s big-question-crammed short comedy is
certainly energetic, although the ultimate impact is fairly fleeting
I Care a Lot (2019) – Blakeson
disappointingly squanders a terrifying real-life premise with tedious gangster
crap and other excesses
Bezhin Meadow (1937) – the fragmented remains of Eisenstein’s lost
film suggest both forceful inspiration and aesthetic repetition
Falling (2020) – Mortensen works
small, satisfying variations on largely familiar territory, occasionally
unlocking something unnerving
The Prostitutes of Lyon Speak (1975) – Roussopoulos’s minimally
intermediated record is both sociologically specific and bleakly timeless
Heat and Dust (1983) – Ivory’s ambitious film is (to say the
least) interesting on all levels, but makes an oddly limited cumulative impact
A Bagful of Fleas (1962) – Chytilova’s early short film is a
bubbling, limitation-busting assertion of feminine experience and perspective
King Richard (2021) – Green’s film doesn’t total to much more than
the sum of its biographical parts, but it’s warmly likeable throughout
En cas de malheur (1958) – a somewhat peculiarly judged
Autant-Lara drama, but near-compulsive viewing if only for the Bardot-Gabin
teaming
Lilting (2014) – Khaou’s study of loss and acceptance is modestly
scaled, but with a delicately impactful emotional and cultural breadth
One Day Before the Rainy Season (1971) – Kaul’s masterly tale of
longing & separation sustains a quite extraordinary formal & tonal
delicacy
The Devil all the Time (2020) –
Campos delivers little more than an indigestibly lurid absurdity, marked by
extensive actorly slumming
Mandabi (1968) – Sembene’s all-seeing study of a society
overwhelmed by need and incapacity leaves one astounded, drained and humbled
Lair of the White Worm (1988) – Russell puts across his creation,
about as absurd as England itself, with magnificently disarming conviction
A Story of Floating Weeds (1934) – Ozu’s beautiful tale of absence
and acceptance lies among the most precisely eloquent of silent films
Emily the Criminal (2022) – Ford’s film is absorbing at its most
socially grounded, dropping off a bit as the dramatic stakes escalate
Ticket of no Return (1979) – Ottinger’s wondrously outré, boozy
fantasy of female self-expression, built on serious social underpinnings
The Changeling (1980) – Medak and Scott give the dubious narrative
a solid veneer of class, but it’s inherently beneath them (and us)
Thanos and Despina (1967) – Papatakis’ unbound quasi-romance
becomes a scorching Grecian microcosm, madness & liberation all but
inseparable
Supernova (2020) – Macqueen’s
relationship study is respectably touching, but it’s a small film in every
respect (barring the title)
Boyfriend in Sight (1954) – Berlanga’s peppy youth-in-revolt
comedy gradually reveals a quite expansively skeptical satirical bite
Sound of Metal (2019) – Marder’s
film is often technically and empathetically enthralling, even if in some ways
too conventionally shaped
The Wasps are Here (1978) – much of Pathiraja’s study is fairly
elemental, but with ample fine points of visual and sociological observation
Dune (2021) – Villeneuve’s control and judgment increasingly
impress as the film escalates, and moves past the initial hollow grandeur
La piscine (1969) – Deray’s abiding if modestly over-venerated,
languidly gleaming drama, elevated by shards of masculine vulnerability
High Season (1987) – Peploe’s tonal and thematic mix doesn’t fully
cohere or rise, but one appreciates the rather odd nature of its ambition
La revue des revues (1927) – the (mostly mild) interest value of
the recorded performances barely surmounts the narrative & visual flatness
Tenet (2020) – a long string of
expensively fleeting virtues, rendered mostly off-putting through Nolan’s
humourless self-absorption
L’uomo senza memoria (1974) – Tessari’s amnesia-driven drama falls
short in too many respects, but has its blood-spattering high points
The Hard Stop (2015) – Amponsah’s humanely outraged film, a deeply
and vividly personal perspective on a gapingly unjust national wound
Signs of Life (1968) – Herzog’s feature debut remains haunting,
for the stubborn, parched beauty of its vision of symbolic self-obliteration
Catherine Called Birdy (2022) – Dunham’s chirpy, nice-looking film
is so thinly tethered to reality that it might as well be set on the moon
Kuhle Wampe (1932) – Brecht/Dudow’s engagement with societal
shortfall exerts a sensationally confident intellectual and cinematic grip
Mommie Dearest (1981) – a major failure by Perry, with little
sense of analytical prowess, critical distance, or basic wit and imagination
Visions of Eight (1973) – a
variable, seldom entirely bland, seldom transcendent Olympic anthology:
Zetterling’s segment probably takes gold
Miss Juneteenth (2020) – Peoples’
film is a pleasing observance of regrets and economic realities, but too
constrained to hit major heights
All my Good Countrymen (1969) –
Jasny’s beautifully measured, accumulatingly indicting study of
ideology-ruptured lives, land and community
Motherless Brooklyn (2019) –
Norton’s adaptation must have had terrific potential, but much of it ends up
heavy-footed and flavourless
La bestia debe morir (1952) – Barreto’s drama is more propulsive
and less piercing than Chabrol’s (overall superior filming) of the material
Spencer (2021) – Larrain holds mystery, deconstruction, wish
fulfilment, psychological horror, fantasy and more in mesmerizing equilibrium
Maso et Miso vont en bateau (1975)
– a sensational collective repositioning of a jaw-droppingly misogyny- and
complacency-riddled TV show
Stardust Memories (1980) – Allen’s elegantly self-examining comedy
now seems to foretell the receding creative horizons of his later years
A Pistol for Ringo (1965) –
Tessari’s briskly twisting drama largely lacks the edge, dazzle or subtext of
the Italian Western highpoints
The Nest (2020) – Durkin’s
excavation of familial rot provides some classic throwback-type pleasures, its
time and place perfectly judged
The Bank Dick (1940) – Fields’ brilliant, oddly lonely brand of
otherness hits its zenith in Cline’s irresistible, reality-bending vehicle
The Children Act (2017) – Eyre’s film leaves a fairly reticent
impression, despite much thematic interest, and the indispensable Thompson
May Morning (1970) – Liberatore’s
authenticity-stressing university chronicle ends up as a peculiar, but not
unseductive, time capsule
Blonde (2022) – Dominik’s project makes for overly heavy viewing,
obscuring its resourceful playing with image-making and representation
Devi (1960) – Ray’s tale of
idolatory and delusion makes a rather remotely cloistered impact, despite
elements of implied social criticism
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007) – Lumet’s last film is a
near-inspired drama of unraveling, propelled by some crackerjack acting
The Masseurs and a Woman (1938) – Shimizu’s unusual study
possesses an exquisite sense of vulnerability, longing and pervasive absence
Education (2020) – one of the
smaller-scale Small Axe films, and one of the most straightforwardly moving,
outrage-provoking and inspiring
Borsalino (1970) – Deray’s
eventful period gangster film never acquires sufficient heft or character,
rather limiting its two great stars
Greed (2019) – Winterbottom’s satiric skewering of capitalist
excess is over-stuffed and ungainly, but knowingly and mostly fruitfully so
Death Rides a Horse (1967) –
notwithstanding Morricone’s all-out score, Sollima’s intense revenge Western
falls in the middle of the pack
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) – Coen’s reading is at the very
least respectable, with various points of visual and actorly excellence
Wedding Ring (1950) – Kinoshita’s tale of suppressed attraction is
sensitively done, but the overall trajectory is fairly commonplace
Maeve (1981) – Murphy’s amazing film, impacting equally as
historical record, intimate portrait and philosophical/political reflection
Faro Document 1979 (1979) –
Bergman’s island record, rather conventional in some ways, but marked by the
personal depth of his engagement
Black Bear (2020) – Levine dives
into creativity and human connection in all their wondrous, sexy,
destabilizing, addictive slipperiness
Help! (1965) – the musical numbers aside, the Beatles (maybe
excepting Ringo) end up rather lost amid Lester’s distancing inventiveness
A Season in France (2017) – Haroun’s fine study of crushing
immigrant experience, suffused with the sadness of squandered human capacity
The Pirate (1948) – not Minnelli’s warmest or most psychologically
acute film, yet near rapture-inducing in its ravishing artificiality
France (2021) – Dumont’s productively alluring semi-satire holds
superficial transparency and conditioned inscrutability in fine balance
A Bridge too Far (1977) – Attenborough’s most watchable film
embeds impressive set-pieces within broader strategic and moral failure
Francisca (1981) – a major example
of de Oliveira’s fluidly rigorous sense of cinema, singularly blending
interiority and expansiveness
The Day of the Jackal (1973) – Zinnemann’s largely empty suspense
film, propelled by a near-bottomless succession of show-me moments
The Trouble with Being Born (2020) – Wollner’s haunting
“anti-Pinocchio” is a deeply-considered meditation on identity and morality
5 Fingers (1952) – the indispensable Mason aside, Mankiewicz’s
blandly authenticity-seeking espionage drama offers little of particular note
Dziga and his Brothers (2002) – Tsymbal’s too-brief overview goes
little beyond scratching the (albeit abidingly thrilling) surface
Paris Blues (1961) – Ritt’s horribly overwritten drama has the
actors mostly at their worst, and even short-changes you on Ellington’s music
Bardo (2022) – for all that’s stubborn, trifling and grotesque
about Inarritu’s greedy opus, it holds the attention, and rewards it
Dracula (1979) – a few visual flourishes aside, Badham ticks off
the requisite plot elements in dutifully dull, at times barely-alive manner
L’atelier (2017) – Cantet’s
massively watchable drama stimulates & disturbs, even while leaving a sense
of incompleteness & over-idealism
Suspense (1913) – Weber’s brief
but highly assured prototypical woman-in-peril film remains both narratively
and cinematically riveting
Isabella (2020) – Pineiro’s brief running time contains multitudes
of gracefully ambiguous camaraderie and competition, creativity and doubt
Arabesque (1966) – Donen’s relentlessly superficial caper, almost
poignantly inadequate in its “Hitchcockian” aspirations and contrivances
Freak Orlando (1981) – Ottinger’s
super-queered spectacle elicits much conceptual admiration, but often feels
like being lost at the circus
Lucky Lady (1975) – Donen gets bogged down in hollow spectacle,
allowing too little sense of
overall purpose, style or (least of all) fun
Rien a foutre (2021) – Lecoustre and Marre’s astutely tuned-in
workplace study, convincingly laced with contemporary existential drift
Buchanan Rides Alone (1958) – probably the shallowest &
weakest of the Boetticher/Scott Westerns, narratively cluttered & tonally
uncertain
Labyrinth of Cinema (2019) –
Obayashi’s exuberantly singular last film unceasingly (albeit weirdly) reboots,
extends & interrogates itself
A Kind of Loving (1962) – in their enjoyably desultory way,
Schlesinger’s human dynamics now feel over-stylized, & ultimately overly
hopeful
There is No Evil (2020) – Rasoulof’s film has impressive moral
force, while not entirely avoiding narrative and tonal predictability
Catch-22 (1970) – Nichols’ film is a frequent logistical marvel,
in the cause of confoundingly insufficient intellectual or comedic purpose
Poulet au vinaigre (1985) – far
from Chabrol’s best work, dawdling in some respects and rushing through others,
for a lumpy overall impact
The Lady from Shanghai (1948) – Welles’ indelibly peculiar drama,
alluring in all respects, ranks among his most fully-realized notions
The Swimmers (2022) – however based in reality, El Hosaini’s
glossily calculated treatment feels unconvincingly and unmovingly synthetic
The World of Suzie Wong (1960) – the copious travelogue virtues
aside, Quine’s flat drama now hardly seems worth seriously critiquing
Suburban Birds (2018) – Qiu’s
pensively charming, gently time-bending exploration of China’s ever-evolving
denaturization and distanciation
Bone (1972) – Cohen’s daringly inspired debut startles, exposes,
challenges and destabilizes at every relishingly visualized turn
Riders of Justice (2020) – Jensen’s super-enjoyable saga goes
robustly over-the-top, while seeming improbably thoughtful on multiple levels
The Daughter of Dawn (1920) – Myles’ indigenous drama is largely
unshowy storytelling, but enormously buoyed by collaborative authenticity
Wolf’s Hole (1987) – Chytilova gives the generic material some
visual and allegorical vitality, but it still falls far below her capacities
Gunn (1967) – Edwards’ film version systematically undercuts &
weirdifies its genre mechanics, even as it discharges them with polished cool
Feast (2021) – Leyendekker’s formally & stylistically
formidable film engages its real-life source material with startling
adventurousness
Love and Bullets (1979) – Rosenberg’s low-excitement action film
has some nice scenery, but not enough love (or even enough bullets)
A Girl Missing (2019) – Fukada crafts an alluring narrative and
surrounding structural mystery, although the ultimate impact is fairly muted
Paths of Glory (1957) – a flawed but inescapable reference point
in the cinema of wartime morality, indelible at its most Kubrickian
Dear Comrades! (2020) – Konchalovsky’s strong film overemphasizes
personal over collective experience, but stimulates at every turn
Flower Drum Song (1961) – Koster’s constrained film does well
enough by the music and choreography, but much else is dated and/or debatable
La vallee fantome (1987) – another bracingly unpredictable,
thematically & geographically expansive reverie from the sadly undersung
Tanner
Cross of Iron (1977) – Peckinpah’s war drama lacks the precision
of his best work, but steadily grows in smoldering, sickened forcefulness
Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022) – Bhansali’s scrubbed and idealized
telling has amply winning heart-in-the-right-place momentum and charisma
The Razor’s Edge (1946) – Goulding’s uninspired adaptation
prioritizes tedious melodrama over the supposedly central philosophical inquiry
Barbara (2017) – Amalric’s bewitching exercise in evocation and
representation, at once scintillatingly present and elegantly elusive
The First Time (1969) – Neilson’s horny-teenagers/Jackie-Bisset
flick isn’t so bad on its own terms, but they’re not the most elevated terms
Wife of a Spy (2020) – Kurosawa’s delectable historical drama
gradually eliminates almost any points of personal or national certainty
Plaza Suite (1971) – Hiller’s overly faithful filming of Neil
Simon’s play is, at best, little more than a tolerably dated museum exhibit
Emporte-moi (1999) – Pool’s warm film is rather thin at times, but
benefits from its various points of cultural and personal specificity
Twentieth Century (1934) – an ever-reliable, grandly acted
pleasure, even if not quite equaling the depth and range of Hawks’ greatest
works
Hive (2021) – the film has inherent anthropological interest, but
Basholli’s narrative and cinematic instincts are overly superficial
The Lion in Winter (1968) – Harvey’s mostly heavy-footed filming
of Goldman’s endlessly twisting archness gets tedious long before the end
Beanpole (2019) – Balagov’s arrestingly visualized,
trauma-suffused study of post-war adjustment, marked by startling psychology
& behaviour
The Song Remains the Same (1976) – an often eccentric,
overreaching but have-to-see-once-if-you-care-at-all-about-Led Zeppelin concert
movie
Quo Vadis, Aida? (2020) – Zbanic’s propulsive narrative bears
witness to an almost unbearable weight of moral and individual failure
Cry Terror! (1958) – Stone’s hard-driving thriller has plenty of
great sequences, and a cracking cast, but ultimately disappoints a bit
Apparition (2012) – Sandoval’s small but haunting study sets out
the futility of idealized religion in the face of political brutality
The Naked Edge (1961) – a sad use of Cooper in his last film, cast
adrift by Anderson’s cluelessly over-emphatic notion of suspense
Decision to Leave (2022) – Park’s best film to date occupies and
ventilates its chosen genre with staggering control and imaginative panache
Cold Sweat (1970) – Young’s no-nonsense drama is at least cleanly
done, benefiting mightily from a bizarrely classy cast (Liv Ullmann!)
IP5… (1992) – a mostly uncomfortable, mysticism-tinged amalgam of
disparate elements, embodying the ebbing of Beineix’s creative energy
Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) – not Ford’s emotionally or
thematically richest film, but one filled with ravishingly painterly
compositions
The Swarm (2020) – Philippot’s well-ordered but limited quasi-horror
falls rather short, whether narratively, thematically or emotionally
Grand Prix (1966) – Frankenheimer oversees a solid all-stops-out
spectacle, seasoned with a requisite amount of melodrama and inner turmoil
The Body Remembers…(2019) – Hepburn and Tailfeathers’ deceptively
simple film surveys a riveting myriad of personal and cultural imbalances
Still Life (1974) – Saless’ moving, unadorned examination of
institutional indifference to small lives is resonant even in its limitations
Boiling Point (2021) – Barantini’s movie is super-entertaining,
even if it feels more like a bunch of flashy appetizers than a balanced meal
Todo un caballero (1947) – Delgado’s modestly refreshing film
places its central courtroom drama in laconically amused, reflective context
The Couch Trip (1986) – Ritchie’s shoddy comedy is a head-shaking
low point for most concerned, the genial Akroyd partially excepted
La viaccia (1961) – Bolognini’s
undernoted film, the central romance gradually overshadowed by a pessimistic
dissection of venal capitalism
The Midnight Sky (2020) –
Clooney’s end-of-the-world drama intrigues for its melancholy recessiveness,
despite some exasperating elements
Be Pretty and Shut Up! (1976) -
Seyrig’s likably inelegant, sometimes eccentrically assembled testimonies
remain amply worthwhile overall
The Last Face (2016) – Penn attempts an ambitious fusion of
registers and intents, but mostly only undermines the film’s primary strengths
Godzilla (1954) – Honda’s cheesy mayhem is diverting enough, but
it’s the persistent nuclear-age anxiety and moroseness that lingers
Dog (2022) – Tatum/Carolin’s movie is supple enough, but with few
narrative or sociological surprises, and even fewer emotional ones
The Confrontation (1969) – with almost
Demy-evoking fluidity, Jancso challengingly represents a fraught modern history
of corroded idealism
Harry & Son (1984) – Newman’s story of age and anxiety
maintains a warm amiability, at the cost of pulling its social and emotional
punches
La grande bouffe (1973) –
Ferreri’s opera of imploding potency carries a weird, determined majesty, even
if of a mostly alienating timbre
Ammonite (2020) – Lee’s drama feels overly dour at times, but
grips for its alertness to class complexities & its multi-faceted
physicality
Enthusiasm (1930) – Vertov’s escalating submissiveness in the face
of industrial fervour seems tragically infused now with pending decline
Just Mercy (2019) – whatever its points of over-familiarity,
Cretton’s focused study is frequently enormously and righteously moving
The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse
(1960) – Lang’s massively enjoyable final film brings classic intrigues &
threats into a new technological age
Cry Macho (2021) – Eastwood knowingly undermines the apparent road
thriller premise, taking things slow and small and rather sweet
Property is no Longer a Theft
(1973) – Petri’s acidicly unbending deconstruction of capitalism grows more
discouragingly relevant overall
Chinese Boxes (1984) – Petit’s tersely-expressed, often amusingly
withholding drama, built around layers of narrative and moral absence
Falbalas (1945) – Becker deftly evokes the setting in all its
hectically layered complexity, even as the narrative becomes a bit overwrought
Possessor (2020) – Cronenberg’s
creepy premise makes for rather narrow, but quite thematically fruitful,
emotionally pained viewing
Zero Focus (1961) – Nomura’s
rather too flatly revelation-heavy investigation is at least quite moving in
its melancholy arrival point
Thirst Street (2017) – Silver’s amusing, unpredictable
cross-cultural study of personal unraveling makes a satisfying if modest
impression
Letter from Paris (1976) –
Borowczyk’s noisily deglamorized portrait may be sort of a one-joke movie, but
in its way a life-affirming one
After Yang (2022) – Kogonoda’s is among the most suggestively
delicate of high-concept futuristic films, sometimes to a wistful fault
Poem of the Sea (1958) – Solntseva’s painterly but probing film
constantly elevates and surprises, transcending its ideological constraints
Extremities (1986) – Young’s film of Mastrosimone’s play provides
too little serious examination, but is certainly nerve-jangling at times
The Whip and the Body (1963) –
Bava’s horror film well sustains its mood of heavy foreboding, supplemented by
flashes of relishing sadism
Wendy (2020) – Zeitlin’s expansively imaginative sensibility is
highly appealing, even if the film is often as confounding as it is magical
Come Have Coffee with Us (1970) –
Lattuada’s musty, predictably under-examined sex comedy never works up much
narrative or erotic energy
First Cow (2019) – Reichardt’s small treasure of a film, told with
her customary all-round finesse and exquisite attention to detail
The Dybbuk (1937) – one submits willingly (if not always without
difficulty) to Waszynski’s exacting stylistic, mythic and tonal severity
The Card Counter (2021) – one of Schrader’s major works,
constantly surprising, yet suffused in lonely, quasi-ritualistic inevitability
The Holy Man (1965) – Ray’s minor
tale of exploitation and gullibility is rather overdone in some ways and
under-developed in others
Who is Bernard Tapie? (2001) – Zenovich places packaged biography
within an ambiguously self-revealing (or self-mythologizing?) framework
Swept Away (1974) – Wertmuller’s most prettily streamlined,
drainingly single-minded film wears down the viewer as fully as the characters
She Dies Tomorrow (2020) – Seimetz’s fascinatingly supple and
allusive creation accommodates dread and wonder, defeat and transcendence
Hermoso ideal (1948) – Galindo’s melodrama creaks plenty, but
briskly covers an impressive span of cultural and geographic territory
A Bread Factory, Part Two (2018) – Wang’s second part ramps up the
peculiarities, but the cumulative result is nourishingly mind-filling
The Big Gundown (1966) – Sollima’s money-in-the-bank Western,
powered by well-conceived stand-offs, twists and contrasting moralities
Elvis (2022) – Luhrmann’s frequently mystifying labors leave one
feeling distanced and short-changed at best, actively hostile at worst
Downpour (1972) – Beizai’s vital
snapshot of a lost-in-time Iran teems with creative zest, ranging from
kookiness to existential despair
Light of Day (1987) – a rather flat Schrader oddity , not that
strong on either the aspirational rock life nor the conflicting real one
In Spring (1929) – Kaufman’s all-seeing survey of Ukraine’s
seasonal rebirth remains transportingly fresh, gracefully engaged, vital
viewing
The Hunt (2020) – Zobel keeps things snappy and adequately
inventive, but the vein of would-be satiric commentary is mostly eye-rolling
The Mercenary (1968) – a sweepingly confident Western, propelled
by frenetic revolutionary fervour, but lacking the bite of Corbucci’s best
Waves (2019) – Shults’ emotionally ambitious drama has its
problematic aspects, but even so is mostly quite shimmeringly compelling
What Have You Done to Solange?
(1972) – Dallamano’s conventionally nasty scenario eventually runs out of
narrative & psychological momentum
In the Earth (2021) – Wheatley blends science and myth with
resourceful panache, generating a surprisingly coherent-feeling experience
Where to? (1957) – Nasser’s
anthropologically valuable story of poverty, its authenticity-seeped modesty
both endearing and limiting
Eye of the Needle (1981) – Marquand’s all-round expertise and a
fascinating Sutherland consistently lift a potentially leaden thriller
Dutch Wife in the Desert (1967) – Yamatoya’s jazzy, oddly pleasing
hitman flick busts through narrative, thematic and tonal expectations
Shirley (2020) – Decker’s darkly eccentric quasi-fantasia confirms
her huge artistic vibrancy, although the film isn’t ideal in various ways
The Fate of Lee Khan (1973) – Hu
again makes kick-ass, if not transcendent, use of colourfully confined
narrative and physical space
A Bread Factory, Part One (2018) – Wang’s empathetic scope and odd
humor wins one over, despite various stilted or unpersuasive aspects
Blind Venus (1941) – Gance’s undoubtedly sincere but convoluted
and dated melodrama, best when busily surrendering to dreamy absurdity
Tribute (1980) – a mostly eye-rolling extravaganza of sentimental
excess and overacting, overseen by Clark with no finesse whatsoever
Blue Film Woman (1968) – the stylistic peak of Kan’s chronicle is
probably the opening credits; what follows leaves one largely indifferent
X (2022) – West works his enjoyably disreputable horror movie
premise to the max, incorporating an unusual meeting of creepiness and longing
The Shadow Within (1970) – a secondary Nomura film, but
illustrating his customarily skillful spanning of genres, moods and concerns
Guest of Honour (2019) – perhaps Egoyan’s smoothest and best
recent movie, despite much that’s over-elaborate or just impenetrably peculiar
Walpurgis Night (1935) – Edgren’s overstuffed melodrama races (not
unrevealingly) through everything from abortion to the Foreign Legion!
The Return of the Soldier (1982) – Bridges’ unremarkable heritage
project, elevated by its strong cast and multi-faceted class consciousness
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) – Pasolini’s deeply
socially connective, dialectical witnessing of classic revolutionary myth
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020) – the movie is funny, well-conceived
and even kinda sweet in parts, but the formula rapidly stretches thin
Companeros (1970) – Corbucci’s
revolution-charged Western, even if familiar in many respects, is never dull,
plain or under-invested
The Party (2017) – Potter’s overwound contrivance goes down more
than easily, but doesn’t hit any great heights, satirical or otherwise
Hotel des Invalides (1952) – Franju’s observance of imperial
grandiosity and human toll may belong among cinema’s most staggering 22 minutes
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021) – Sharpe’s freshly
imaginative treatment makes for bright, if hardly very analytical, viewing
Bandini (1963) – Roy’s strong wronged-woman melodrama is
empathetic and progressively charged, although not without its rickety aspects
New Year’s Day (1989) – Jaglom’s peculiar, untidy-seeming
instincts do succeed in creating a distinct tonal and cinematic space of sorts
Fruit of Paradise (1970) – Chytilova’s aggressively inventive
fantasia of self-discovery & resistance, exuberantly rooted in founding
myths
1917 (2019) – for the most part, Mendes’ rather absurdly polished,
pacey compression alienates & obscures as much as it compels & reveals
Crossfire (1947) – Dmytryk’s intriguingly structured, often potent
thriller, unusually rich in memorable characterizations and interactions
This Much I Know to Be True (2022) – Dominik’s
outstandingly-crafted performance film, seemingly all but psychically synced to
its subjects
La visita (1963) – beneath a cringe-inducing romantic mismatch,
Pietrangeli dexterously opens up layers of compromise and self-recognition
Chan is Missing (1982) – Wang’s film remains satisfyingly fresh
and amusing, observationally and in its cultural and philosophical musings
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) – Argento’s precariously
stylish killer mystery, capped by some spectacularly twisted psychology
Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (2017) – Fiennes’ portrait is
surprisingly candid at times, while preserving Jones’ uncrackable otherness
Flunky, Work Hard! (1931) –
Naruse’s brief early study of economic insecurity, deftly anchoring its comedy
within a broader desperation
Kajillionaire (2020) – by far
July’s most appealing movie to date, its imaginative whimsy yielding a
surprising kind of mini-perfection
A bout de souffle (1960) – one might respond forever to Godard’s
inexhaustible film, whether in words or celluloid or gestures
or dreams
The House of the Devil (2009) – West pulls off some very well-done
suspense and switches of tone, but one ultimately just wishes for more
Night Train Murders (1975) –
Lado’s dispiriting Virgin Spring appropriation is half-hearted even in its
sleaziness, let alone anything else
Rocks (2019) – Gavron’s method yields some moments of uncommonly
energetic authenticity, rather overshadowing the notional narrative
Devdas (1955) – Roy’s epic of caste-enforced separation and
lifelong suffering, much of its impact lying in unsparing accumulation
The Lost Daughter (2021) – Gyllenhaal’s strong if slightly
overly-structured debut, distinguished by its unusual complexity of character
The Virgin Spring (1960) – Bergman’s work of fearsome contrasts
and conflicts, its unsettling mastery bordering on ruthless exploitation
Night Falls on Manhattan (1997) – a second-tier Lumet at best, its
moral shadings undermined by overly compressed and linear plotting
Papa les petits bateaux (1971) – Kaplan’s stylistically and
tonally exaggerated woman-takes-charge comedy rather wears out its welcome
The Great Buster (2018) – Bogdanovich’s rightly affectionate
Keaton tribute is expertly and informatively curated and appealingly organized
The Victory of Women (1946) – not among Mizoguchi’s most
emotionally galvanizing works, but utterly instructive even at its most
didactic
The Batman (2022) – Reeves’ joyless take on the material is
strongly done on its own preoccupied terms, if hardly a must-see at this point
Two Weeks in September (1967) – Bourguignon’s Bardot-adoring
romantic travelogue is nicely pitched, but ultimately not very consequential
Talk Radio (1988) – the battering nihilism of Stone’s empty film
distinctly misconstrues the medium’s real strategic insidiousness
Uptown Saturday Night (1974) – it’s fun to see Poitier in a looser
vein, exercising a convivial, if forgivably haphazard directorial hand
Psychomagic, a Healing Art (2019) – Jodorowksy’s
genially-presented case studies are often oddly touching, if at best only
semi-persuasive
Dodsworth (1936) – one of Wyler’s more lasting films, for its
steady contrasting of attitudes, cultures, and capacities for personal growth
Sun Children (2020) – Majidi’s overdone street-kid yarn packs in
all manner of colour & social interest, but increasingly loses its bearings
if….(1968) – Anderson’s extraordinary survey of British inadequacy
and structural porousness remains as ruthlessly unprecedented as ever
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005) – Park’s drama eventually
attains a near-grandeur equal to its sometimes rather distancing craft
Breezy (1973) – Eastwood shapes the somewhat risky material into a
sensitively flavorful time capsule, run through with middle-aged anxiety
Celeste (1980) – Adlon’s study of devotion and interdependence
constitutes a narrow but finely delineated dramatic and cinematic space
Crime of Passion (1956) – Oswald’s drama doesn’t entirely come
together, but exercises some pull through its idiosyncratic tonal choices
Titane (2021) – the startlingly expressive, vulnerable physicality
of Ducournau’s work makes much of cinema seem, well, staid by comparison
David and Lisa (1962) – Perry’s solicitous observation of fragile
coping mechanisms surmounts the film’s various under-developed aspects
Beloved Sisters (2014) – Graf’s impeccably sustained,
multi-faceted historical extrapolation, rich in compelling personal and social
detail
The Nickel Ride (1974) – Mulligan emphasizes anxious character
study over crime drama, with satisfyingly flavorful, albeit modest, results
Afternoon (2007) – Schanelec’s
family portrait constructs a somehow (if ambiguously) perfect lattice from
lassitude and ephemerality
Saboteur (1942) – one of Hitchcock’s more cursory works overall,
but well-stocked with engaging peculiarities and striking characterizations
The Metamorphosis of Birds (2020) – Vasconcelos’ family memoir
sustains a wondrously searching sense of connectivity and receptivity
Eye of the Devil (1966) – ritualistic horror claptrap, made all
the more unpalatable by Thompson’s humorlessly bombastic direction
Collective (2019) – Nanau’s immensely, often chillingly
implication-heavy uncovering of modern-faced endemic corruption and inadequacy
A Little Night Music (1977) – Prince’s disappointing rendering of
Sondheim’s sublime musical, a glumly static, jarringly miscast affair
Tigrero: a Film that Was Never Made (1994) – Kaurismaki’s
laconically pleasing, absence-haunted meeting of worlds, cultures and maestros
It Happened One Night (1934) – Capra’s classic works a treat of
course, while lacking the acuity and finesse of the genre’s very best
RRR (2022) – you think of Jeanne Dielman, and then Rajamouli’s
boisterously digitized, sadism-laden myth-making would be, like, the opposite
The Family Way (1966) – the Boultings’ comedy now plays like a
catalogue of socially-imposed dysfunction, suppression and lurking anger
The Wild Pear Tree (2018) – Ceylan’s exacting cross-generational
negotiation of the spiritual and material might just be his greatest work
Man on a Swing (1974) – Perry’s police drama is often tonally
interesting, but the central histrionics pan out rather underwhelmingly
The Woman Next Door (1981) – a relatively minor Truffaut work
overall, and yet enrichened at every turn by his empathetic resourcefulness
Niagara (1953) – Hathaway turns in some memorably imposing images
of Monroe and the falls, but much of the rest is highly unremarkable
Fever Dream (2021) – Llosa has spellbinding capacities, but the
material here is ultimately far less permeating than her Milk of Sorrow
Life at the Top (1965) – Kotcheff solidly extends the original’s
tone & themes, although with a recurring sense of going through the motions
Honeyland (2019) – the film’s huge effectiveness as
implication-heavy narrative somewhat works against that as instructive realism
Sparkle (1976) – O’Steen’s showbiz saga is overstuffed and/or
sketchy at times, but has lots of sweetness and crystalline musicality
The Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion (1992) – with brash
ruthlessness, Itami (rather chillingly ill-fatedly) nails the parasitical
shitheads
The Big Steal (1949) – Siegel’s cracking early work plays and
shifts and morally realigns while driving surely and sleekly ahead
Undine (2020) – Petzold invests himself in a somewhat lame
narrative, albeit skillfully positioned both emotionally and historically
Beat Girl (1960) – Greville’s wide-eyed mash-up of milieus and
cultures teems with odd sociological interest, knowingly and otherwise
Dead Pigs (2018) – Yan’s likeable if familiar satire of
contemporary China’s excesses and contrasts is ultimately a bit too
reconciliatory
Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) – Davis’ irresistible,
attitude-seeped drama provides an energetic mini-microcosm of urban Black
culture
Inspecteur Lavardin (1986) –
Chabrol makes it difficult to know where sly manipulation meets indifference,
but it’s something to contemplate
The Mummy (1932) – Freund’s famous piece of creepy mythology has
worn a bit thin by now, despite ample visual and mythological paddings
Argentina, 1985 (2022) – the strengths and limitations of Mitre’s
treatment manifest largely as expected, but it’s a solid work even so
The Pink Panther (1963) – a potentially dull romp, elevated as
much by some gorgeous Edwards scene-making as by the embryonic Clouseau
A Hidden Life (2019) – an (ever-timely) narrative of principled
resistance, well-served by Malick’s perpetually questioning sensuousness
Pressure (1976) – Ove’s landmark film, as authentically revealing
in its messy over-ambition as in its dramatization of relentless prejudice
Eros (2004) – Wong’s segment is
the captivating highpoint; Antonioni’s is cherishable if overstated;
Soderbergh’s is a bit of a throwaway
Black Widow (1954) – Johnson’s winding mystery is an adequate
time-filler, while lacking in much vigor, bite or culminating surprise
What Do We See…? (2021) – Koberidze’s meditative movie gently
tunes into infinite possibilities, while marked by a certain central avoidance
Hotel (1967) – it’s no Airport (!), but Quine keeps the pieces
(albeit of varying interest & broader relevance) glossily & smoothly
purring
La ultima pelicula (2013) – Martin/Peranson’s “last movie” is as
beautifully, critically, wittily mind-bending as that appellation deserves
Nationtime – Gary (1972) – Greaves’ convention record is a
mind-changingly vital, if imperfect record of emerging will and consciousness
The Professional (1981) –
Lautner’s politically skeptical, proficient but not too noteworthy
Belmondo-outsavvies-them-all action vehicle
Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) –
Sturges’ rip-roaring classic keeps things pumping in inspired, if reinforcingly
sentimental fashion
Athena (2022) – Gavras’ application of astounding technical
virtuosity to alienatingly flawed content represents a modern pinnacle of sorts
The Servant (1963) – a dominatingly cerebral Losey/Pinter
achievement, but one that now feels sociologically and cinematically distant
Corpus Christ (2019) – Komasa’s modern-day religious parable fuses
the beatific and the feral with invigorating style and self-belief
Space is the Place (1974) – Coney’s wow-quality Sun Ra fantasia
has one well-shod foot in the then-present, the other in the trippy beyond
Portrait d’une jeune fille…(1994) – Akerman’s lovely yet grave
study of character in formation, a dance of indelibility and transience
The Hurricane (1937) – some expressive prison suffering aside, not
too Fordian a Ford film, but with amply muscular conflict & destruction
My Little Sister (2020) – even at its most necessarily harrowing,
Chuat and Reymond’s film maintains its cultural and behavioral freshness
Luv (1967) – Donner’s awful, brain-hurting film allows only the
vaguest glimpses of how bitingly well the material may have worked on stage
The Lure (2015) – Smoczynska’s blissfully kooky but not unserious
mermaid-themed quasi-musical, propelled by female desire and sexuality
Rage (1972) – Scott’s drama is most tonally and visually striking
in its early stages, with interest waning as the revenge mechanics gear up
White Wedding (1989) – Brisseau’s tale of shocking attraction
walks a fine line between compelling provocation & unconvincing
arbitrariness
7 Men from Now (1956) – Boetticher frames a tightly anguished
story of honor & venality against overwhelming, not-yet-conquered
landscapes
CODA (2021) – Heder deploys many of the standard weaknesses of
sentimentally formulaic moviemaking, but it adequately connects regardless
Paris vu par…(1965) – one of the best of the 60’s anthology films,
with no real weak links; Rouch’s segment is perhaps the most penetrating
Sorry We Missed You (2019) – Loach’s pace and compression limit
the sense of realism, but the thesis is as wrenchingly galvanizing as ever
Raining in the Mountain (1979) – Hu’s epic doesn’t rival A Touch
of Zen, but provides stirringly mysticism-tinged colour and confrontation
Terminal USA (1993) – as per the title, Moritsugu’s uproariously
cliché-splattering hour-long evisceration doesn’t leave much in place
Ghost of Yotsuya, Part Two (1949) – Kinoshita’s rushed,
villainy-heavy conclusion doesn’t deliver on the first part’s intensifying
promise
The Glorias (2020) – Taymor’s shake-up of the biographic form is
engagingly enjoyable,
despite (or in part because of) its flaws and oddities
Katzelmacher (1969) – Fassbinder’s quasi-deadpan-comedy of
cheerless lives builds to a strange kind of minimalist, marooned grandeur
The Nightingale (2018) – Kent marshals the hyper-dramatic elements
with unnervingly dark and forceful, socially eviscerating sense of purpose
The Automobile (1971) – Giannetti’s lightly poignant film feels
too slight both as character study (notwithstanding Magnani) and moral tale
Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (1983) – a loose, rather creatively
under-nourished Jaglom romance, as the scope of his work starts to narrow
The Count of the Old Town (1935) –
Adolphson’s comic slice of Stockholm life doesn’t offer much beyond jovial
eccentricity and local colour
Deep Water (2022) – Lyne maintains a handsomely seductive,
implication-heavy mood, but much about the film seems oddly under-developed
La boulangere de Monceau (1963) – Rohmer’s short film pulsates
with the charmed sense of an astounding artist commencing his life’s work
Swallow (2019) – Mirabella-Davis’s film is effective, if
artificial-feeling, for much of its length, although not ultimately very
persuasive
Autostop rosso sangue (1977) – Campanile’s unabashedly venal road
movie makes for sleazily compulsive, if spiritually draining viewing
Boogie Woogie (2009) – Ward’s plushly-cast art-world satire has
its moments, but for the most part plays out too obviously and monotonously
Late Chrysanthemums (1954) –
Naruse’s very fine study of contrasting post-war fates and economic stability,
studded with unusual detail
Being the Ricardos (2021) – Sorkin’s relentlessly overstuffed (and
centrally miscast) movie only sporadically hits a productive stride
The Basilisks (1963) – Wertmuller’s study of small-town dynamics
is a bit over-insistent, but well-attuned to social and existential stasis
Flames (2017) – Throwell and
Decker’s provocatively ambiguous self-exposure is a spikily and surprisingly
elevating, creation-saturated trip
Prefab Story (1979) – Chytilova’s immersion into eye-hurting,
identity-sapping would-be modernity, navigated with fantastic, swerving energy
Fearless (1993) – Weir’s film is visually and behaviorally
riveting, even if ultimately rather too heavy on free-floating mysticism
Ghost of Yotsuya, Part One (1949) – Kinoshita’s drama is suffused
in escalating pressure and anguish, building to a well-judged cliffhanger
The King of Staten Island (2020) – no doubt fated to stand as the
emblematic Pete Davidson movie, but it’s adroitly unexceptional otherwise
La voglia matta (1962) – Salce’s lively, quite well-sustained,
ultimately desolation-tinged comedy of escalating middle-aged humiliation
Frankie (2019) – Sachs’ knowingly incomplete-feeling yet often
exquisite, precisely inhabited tour through internal and external landscapes
Charles and Lucie (1979) – Kaplan’s broad comedy of mishap and
resulting renewal is appealingly unvarnished, but hardly very major stuff
Annie (1982) – a pretty consistently enjoyable, nicely cast
adaptation, with Huston at the very least avoiding the most likely pitfalls
Las Hurdes (1933) – Bunuel’s study of utter dispossession
establishes the utter conceptual clarity and seriousness of his wondrous cinema
Kimi (2022) – Soderbergh applies his formidable technical know-how
to an effectively-conceived, very much of-the-moment tech thriller
Black Orpheus (1959) – Camus’ film
endures less as myth or sociology than as a seldom-equaled explosion of
sustained colour, rhythm & motion
The Assignment (2016) – under the
absurd circumstances, Hill and the cast execute the mission with admirable
straight-faced intensity
Il merlo maschio (1970) – Campanile’s sex comedy is a shameless
morass of insecurity and objectification, but fairly inventive about it
Better Luck Tomorrow (2002) – Lin’s slick drama mildly subverts
cultural stereotypes, while also jettisoning much flavor and plausibility
Take Aim at the Police Van (1960) – Suzuki delivers complications worthy of that
title in lean, no-nonsense, sleaze-seasoned style
Don’t Look Up (2021) – McKay’s satire is impressively conceived
& controlled, although an ensuing sense of emptiness is all but inevitable
The Mill on the Po (1949) – Lattuada’s (sometimes overly) forceful
contrasting of personal and collective drama yields some major highpoints
Ford vs. Ferrari (2019) – as technically impressive a vehicle as
expected, aside from lacking any worthwhile spiritual or thematic engine
End of the Game (1975) – Schell’s existentially-charged crime
drama doesn’t fully come off, but contains sufficient diverting oddities
Dangerous Game (1993) – for all the off-putting excess, Ferrara
taps a grippingly intense, confessional sense of cinematic insatiability
Le bonheur (1965) – one of Varda’s most disturbingly beautiful
works, contrasting socially-rooted pleasures with radical challenges to them
Red, White and Blue (2020) – McQueen’s involving study is a bit
more conventional and less complexly textured than the best of Small Axe
Stromboli (1950) – Rossellini’s meeting of truths & artifices,
its predominant visual barrenness yielding extraordinary underlying fullness
Kate Plays Christine (2016) – Greene’s investigation consistently
intrigues, even as it establishes all too well its own ultimate inadequacy
Illustrious Corpses (1976) – if not Rosi’s finest film, perhaps
his most emblematic; meticulously controlled and broadly indicting
Old Enough (1984) – Silver’s study of a class-crossing youthful
friendship has enough truth and freshness to surmount its bumpy elements
Osaka Elegy (1936) – Mizoguchi digs into societal gender-based
injustice with a breathtaking, ultimately near-defiant lack of sentimentality
tick, tick…BOOM! (2021) – Miranda provides sufficient performative
highpoints to get through the overdone and/or repetitive passages
Diamonds of the Night (1964) – Nemec’s tight concept yields a
terrifyingly virtuosic tapestry of experience, memory, and imagining
Dark Waters (2019) – Haynes’ uncharacteristic but very fine and
humane, politically and morally relevant, sometimes Pakula-evoking drama
The Judge and the Assassin (1976) – Tavernier’s subtle yet often
boldly surprising navigation through personal and collective morality
Teknolust (2002) – Leeson’s oddly overlooked high-concept film is
a tonal and visual delight, light-footedly stimulating at every turn
L’ecole des facteurs (1947) – the kick-off to Tati’s indelible
body of work, his behavioral mastery and cinematic precision already intact
The Sky is Everywhere (2022) – the suboptimal material pushes
Decker toward multiple excesses, not that she doesn’t do it with major flair
Aparajito (1956) – Ray’s second film remains a key reference
point, holding large and small things in impeccable, attentive equilibrium
Ray & Liz (2018) – Billingham’s laugh-or-you’ll-cry riveting,
unsentimentally close-up observation of desperate parental inadequacy
The Murri Affair (1974) – Bolognini’s broadly satisfying
historical drama, spiced by social tensions and ambiguously decadent
implication
Working Girls (1986) – Borden’s revelatory workplace study, dense
in character and incident, every moment fully inhabited and informed
Entranced Earth (1967) – Rocha’s fiery, restless vision
encompasses pride & self-loathing, tapping a history of failed, out-matched
idealism
Pig (2021) – Sarnoski works some amusing and adroit variations on
vigilante-type structures, although it’s overdone in multiple respects
La cigarette (1919) – Dulac’s tender yet ominous story of
melancholy misunderstanding, with notable use of contrasting perspectives
White Riot (2019) – Shah’s Rock Against Racism movie pleasingly
tracks a progressive piece of drop-in-the-ever-troubled-ocean history
Lucky Luciano (1973) – Rosi’s artfully constructed, often
unexpectedly indirect study, heavy in disillusioned political implication
Babymother (1998) – Henriques’ slice of Black British life has an
engaging general vibe & energy, but too often feels overstuffed &
sketchy
Passing Fancy (1933) – Ozu’s cherishable silent film applies his
customary visual delicacy to a story of initially deceptive simplicity
Pieces of a Woman (2020) – Mundruczo finds some unusually bracing
perspectives on a wrenching physical and psychological experience
Doctor Glas (1968) – Zetterling’s fascinatingly unconventional,
visually aggressive contrasting of a poised outer and a turbulent inner life
Dawson City, Frozen Time (2016) – Morrison’s merging of actual and
dream histories utterly absorbs, if more as reverie than film scholarship
Les novices (1970) – a thin, under-invested Bardot comedy, with
little sign of Chabrol’s reported shadow-directing, but the dog is great
Deal of the Century (1983) – Friedkin’s uncertain quasi-satire
hardly lives up to its title, although in some respects it ages fairly well
I vitelloni (1953) – Fellini’s pessimistic study of hindered
masculinity ages more gracefully than many of his grander subsequent works
The Power of the Dog (2021) – Campion’s seasoned powers are on
full display, even if the film is a little less deft than her finest work
Port of Call (1948) – Bergman’s
socially-critical drama, suffused in working-class physicality, typifies his
sturdy, if narrower, early work
Seberg (2019) – Andrews’ well-intended but disappointing study is
a lot of missed opportunities, including an atypically dull Stewart
Despair (1978) – Fassbinder dazzlingly orchestrates the enigma,
but it’s one of his most conventionally tricky, somewhat sealed-off films
Ready to Wear (1994) – hardly Altman’s most major film, but it’s
enormous fun, with reality and artifice persuasively inter-mingled
The Hellbenders (1967) – Corbucci’s vivid, incident-packed Western
is no masterpiece, but enjoyably gleams with crazed, committed venality
One Night in Miami (2020) – King’s too-smooth drama has no
shortage of isolated strengths, but never transcends its inherent limitations
Pillars of Society (1935) – Sirk’s early drama has its
peculiarities, but bites with relish into small-town stuffiness and hypocrisy
The Ghost of Peter Sellers (2018) – Medak’s memoir provides
irresistible cinema-geek pleasures, along with some seasoned poignancy
Dodes’ka-den (1970) – Kurosawa’s chronicle contrasts the
naturalistic and the expressionist, its impact ranging from diffident to
absorbing
Sharky’s Machine (1981) – Reynolds’ rather uncertainly-handled
action drama manages an occasional flash of individuality, not too much more
La verité (1960) – an engrossing Bardot-centered courtroom drama,
but impacting more straightforwardly than Clouzot presumably intended
In the Heights (2021) – Chu’s over-calculating musical, vibrantly
uplifting in theory, displays a disappointingly bland form of proficiency
Nice and Friendly (1922) – a woodenly-executed,
low-effort/low-reward Chaplin short, even allowing for the limited underlying
ambition
The Traitor (2019) – one of veteran Bellocchio’s most classically
enthralling works, darkly interrogating relative honour and morality
The Mutations (1974) – Cardiff’s bizarre spectacle tempers its
rampant absurdity with heavy elements of misplaced-seeming authenticity
The Power of Kangwon Province (1998) – Hong’s fine early work,
often playfully structured, but colored by dissatisfaction and misconnection
El Dorado (1967) – a deep abiding pleasure for Hawksian
connoisseurs, brimming with perfectly pitched exchanges, shadings and
fallibilities
Genus Pan (2020) – not Diaz’s strongest work, and yet an audacious
expression of the chaos and carnage flowing from human desperation
That Uncertain Feeling (1941) – a happily peculiar, psychosexually
infiltrated application of the high-functioning Lubitsch “touch”
Rodin (2017) – Doillon’s study withholds much, all the better to
evoke the difficult contours of creativity, and attendant personal detritus
Jaws (1975) – Spielberg’s first
huge hit barely seems dated, its impeccable technique supported by an alert
sense of character and place
The Cool Lakes of Death (1982) – Van Brakel’s committed chronicle
of repression and self-discovery largely achieves its epic ambitions
Modesty Blaise (1966) – beneath its rather heavy concept of
stylishness, Losey’s movie primarily talks to and (one hopes) entertains itself
Earwig (2021) – Hadzihailovic’s highly singular vision,
penetratingly present & utterly displaced, voyages toward the strangest of
closures
Damn Yankees (1958) – Donen/Abbott’s irresistible musical has some
distinctive texture, and fabulous (if barely integrated) Fosse routines
And then we Danced (2019) – Akin’s film is narratively fairly
predictable, but has plenty of sociological colour and observational flair
Dusty and Sweets McGee (1971) – Mutrux’s lassitude-heavy study of
marginal lives is a peculiar, only fitfully effective category hybrid
Of Freaks and Men (1998) – Balabanov is a wondrously imaginative
& controlled director, but the film often makes for near-loathsome viewing
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) – beneath its light conventionality,
Hitchcock’s atypical comedy casts a fascinated eye on twisted marital dynamics
The Human Voice (2020) – Almodovar’s high-panache, mega-designed
short film expertly expands its constrained physical and thematic space
The Music Man (1962) – it’s pleasing to revisit Willson’s material
once in a while, even in DaCosta’s deficiency-strewn filming of it
Penance (2012) – Kurosawa’s long, often rather peculiar, but
thoroughly satisfying tale, a series of studies in relative power and capacity
A Doll’s House (1973) – Losey’s approach to Ibsen’s play hardly
lacks compensations, but is far from ideal, flubbing some key moments
Letters Home (1986) – Akerman’s
lovely film, based on Sylvia Plath’s correspondence, its theatricality
facilitating as much as it constrains
Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) – a classic anguished noir set-up,
evidencing throughout Preminger’s masterly control of tone, mood and pace
Introduction (2021) – the objective “smallness” of Hong’s film
somehow allows almost limitless-feeling structural & observational capacity
Hands Across the Table (1935) – Leisen’s delicate comedy has some
lovely scenes (and Lombard!), although gets a little plainer as it goes on
Vitalina Varela (2019) – Costa’s masterwork is a stunning
communion of physical & spiritual states, of limitless light & intimate
darkness
The Parallax View (1974) – among Pakula’s most lasting films,
brilliantly placing genre heroics in outmatched, implication-heavy perspective
Katalin Varga (2009) – more sparely linear than Strickland’s later
work, but marked by elements of comparably near-chilling authority
Guess who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) – Kramer’s trumped-up
concoction is hardly lasting cinema, but at least it’s not like watching
nothing
Another Round (2020) – Vinterberg
ensures the premise goes down easily, although rather constrained both as
social and psychological study
How Green was My Valley? (1941) – Ford’s gorgeous Welsh family
drama is moving and meaningful, for all its idealizations and simplifications
L’homme fidele (2018) – Garrel’s slight but elegant, amusingly
ambiguous exercise in emotional, sexual and psychological architecture
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) – a shallow, unexciting Bond
effort, valueless except as a shrine to the dated and objectionable
Un jeu brutal (1983) – Brisseau is weirdly successful at making
his film’s grotesque contrivances feel almost profound and elevating
Little Man, What Now? (1934) – Borzage’s soulful but
socially-critical, perfectly pitched and acted story of young love’s financial
struggle
A Hero (2021) – Farhadi’s finely-tuned work does evoke the sense
of a recurring template, but one of seemingly inexhaustible adaptability
What’s New Pussycat? (1965) – Donner’s antic comedy, seldom
actually funny, is at least conceptually interesting, in a hollowing kind of
way
Coincoin and the Extra-Humans (2019) – Dumont’s exercise in
all-out apocalypse-heralding weirding is an improbably worthy Quinquin
follow-up
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970) – Billington’s often
very funny wide-angle satire, forged in uneasily far-seeing datedness
Bye Bye Africa (1999) – Haroun’s engrossing (if perhaps
over-calculated) film explores (and enacts) cinema as facilitator and destroyer
Three Cases of Murder (1955) – a seemingly mismatched and yet, in
its variety and intermittent eccentricity, unexpectedly satisfying trilogy
Notturno (2020) – Rosi’s almost
heartbreaking act of witnessing excavates humanity and strange beauty from
within unimaginable chaos
Unfaithfully Yours (1948) – Sturges’ expertly conceived and
structured comedy, perhaps as often disconcerting or chilling as it is funny
Blood of my Blood (2015) – Bellocchio’s sort-of nutty and yet
rather masterfully executed angle on abiding governing perversion &
corruption
The Homecoming (1973) – Hall’s valuable filming of Pinter’s
sensational play, imposingly attuned to all its biting multi-faceted turbulence
Come and See (1985) – Klimov’s
chilling, stand-alone vision, from the comprehension-dissolving boundary of
wartime extremity & grotesqueness
The Cardinal (1963) – Preminger’s study of personal and
institutional Catholicism is strong and wide-ranging (while hardly exhaustive)
The Hand of God (2021) – Sorrentino’s winning memory film is full
of impressive showmanship, while seldom connecting very meaningfully
Born Yesterday (1950) – Cukor’s
adaptation, constrained and stagy and dated in any number of ways, happily
retains its central charm
Les miserables (2019) – Ly’s all-seeing, draining sociological
survey is almost too cinematically exciting and sleek for its own deeper good
Coma (1978) – Crichton’s paranoid thriller is enjoyably
well-conceived, and buoyed by its famously compromised “feminist” sensibility
The Lover (1992) – for all its care and handsomeness, Annaud’s
adaptation too often feels emotionally and intellectually undercharged
The Broken Butterfly (1919) – Tourneur’s rediscovered silent
melodrama has some lovely, pastoral elements, amid much mega-dated contrivance
Eureka (2000) – Aoyama’s pilgrimage-like drama contains much of
impressive allure, even if it doesn’t entirely justify its epic length
The Boston Strangler (1968) – Fleischer impressively varies the
approach, pace & tone, without generating commensurate impact or revelation
The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013) – a slight, fanciful premise,
but one explored by Takahata with an exquisitely sustained delicacy
Old Boyfriends (1979) – Tewksbury’s semi-comedic identity puzzle
has, at the least, an intriguing structure and some striking tonal shifts
The Velvet Underground (2021) – Haynes dazzlingly establishes the
group’s miraculously transporting singularity; any caveats are minor
The White Sheik (1952) – Fellini’s early, endearingly
fantasy-propelled comedy, elevated by outbursts of broader energy and ambition
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) – reliably easy-pleasure
viewing, alertly charting the varied terrain of teenage self-mythologizing
The Night of Counting the Tears (1969) – Salam’s grandly singular
film stands almost as unyieldingly outside time as its subject matter
The Assistant (2019) – Green examines the self-perpetuating,
belittling wasteland of office culture with rare, smartly excruciating focus
Uski Roti (1970) – Kaul’s time-fragmenting, quietly
existentially-charged study of distantly joined lives, spent fruitlessly
waiting
The Trip to Greece (2020) – Winterbottom again adjusts the
ridiculously satisfying formula just about as much as needed, so I’m all good!
Costa Azzurra (1959) – Sala’s sun-baked French Riviera comedy
examines its own dated attitudes just enough to attain marginal respectability
Strange Culture (2007) – Leeson’s flexible investigative form
skillfully illuminates and interrogates a startling real-life incident
Pirosmani (1969) – Shengelaia’s visually ravishing, studiously
unconventional study of the Georgian artist is a small, immersive revelation
Chained for Life (2018) – Schimberg’s fascinating spanning of
ideas & registers is never less than respect-inducing, often rather
dazzling
The Long Farewell (1971) – Muratova’s wonderfully layered and
attentive family portrait pulsates with intimations of ambition and constraint
Passing (2021) – Hall’s film has its debatable aspects, but
there’s not a moment that doesn’t hold one’s aesthetic and thematic attention
On purge bebe (1931) – Renoir’s efficient, often highly theatrical
laxative-driven farce plays a bit puzzlingly now, but not unenjoyably
Prizzi’s Honor (1985) – Huston’s late film at times seems
cunningly and darkly wry, at others merely incomprehensibly and impenetrably
blank
Berenice (1954) – Rohmer’s unadorned early short film is probably
his most overtly horror-like, even vampiric study of attraction
Bombshell (2019) – Roach’s underwhelmingly efficient movie dangles
a plethora of synthetic amusements, to overly bland and toothless ends
Beware of a Holy Whore (1971) – Fassbinder’s observance of
movie-set disorder & torpor as exotically desolate, laughlessly comic
wonderment
City Hall (2020) – Wiseman’s epic portrait of the city as
aspiration and reality is grandly (if sometimes a bit hagiographically)
satisfying
Il moralista (1959) – Bianchi’s comedy takes a few titillatingly
satiric punches at censorious hypocrisy,
but is mostly just messy
…Two Girls in Love (1995) – Maggenti’s progressive romance isn’t
particularly sophisticated overall, but certainly maintains a winning charm
The Artful Penetration of Barbara (1969) – Brass’s
never-a-dull-moment London grab-bag throbs with sexed-up curiosity and
engagement
Lovesong (2016) – Kim’s astutely-observed study of female
friendship and its parameters is a pleasure, although restrained to a fault
Love in the Rain (1975) – Jeong’s romantic comedy draws only
modest variations on a familiar premise, muting the class-driven implications
The Voyeurs (2021) – Mohan exploits some time-honoured cinematic
mechanisms fairly effectively, but the impact rapidly diminishes
La vie du Christ (1906) – Guy’s simple but bustling history
embodies the uncynical wonder of very early film, especially in its final scene
Trouble in Mind (1985) – for all
its sometimes inspired oddities, Rudolph’s strangified modern noir leaves a
rather flat overall impression
High and Low (1963) – one of Kurosawa’s finest films repositions a
wrenching personal drama as a window on societal inequality & instability
Richard Jewell (2019) – Eastwood allows in too much cheap stuff
and clutter, but the central study of overwhelmed decency is finely observed
Sunyeo (1979) – Kim’s tale of injury, striving and temptation
isn’t perhaps his most piercing work, but engages spikily with conventions
His House (2020) – Weekes flirts with run-of-the-mill horror,
transcended through compellingly unique articulations of displaced otherness
Music in Darkness (1948) –
Bergman’s study of life without sight slowly transcends apparent
predictability, in small ways and in larger ones
Chocolate Babies (1996) – Winter’s raucous slice of queer
community is an exuberantly serious assault on conformity and complacency
Home from the Hill (1960) – Minnelli brings the narrative’s
sensational primal melodrama to rivetingly visualized, deeply felt fruition
Amnesia (2015) – it’s good to see Schroeder still at it, but this
meeting of disparate elements never fully coalesces or penetrates
I Walk the Line (1970) – Frankenheimer’s southern potboiler is
under-developed in most respects, although hardly dull (if only for the cast)
Ste. Anne (2021) – Vermette’s film pulsates with openness to a
land, a culture, to the inexhaustible seductiveness of cinematic exploration
The Return of Bulldog Drummond (1934) – Summers’ shakily
get-the-job-done drama remains of modest interest for its time capsule elements
Un dimanche a la campagne (1984) – Tavernier’s skillfully
recessive film is finely done, if relatively overrated among his very varied
works
Freud (1962) – Huston’s impressively conceived if over-schematic
project carries at times the feel of a preoccupied private tutorial
The Whistlers (2019) – Porumboiu delivers plausibly generic crime
thriller pleasures, while also bending them with playfully astute rigour
From Here to Eternity (1953) – Zinnemann’s drama, potentially a
compromised sprawl, displays an improbable array of individual strengths
Swimming out Till the Sea turns
Blue (2020) – the great Jia places modern Chinese literature in warmly-evoked
historical & cultural context
FTA (1972) – however rough-edged,
Parker’s record of Fonda/Sutherland’s idealistic roadshow still hits diversely
meaningful targets
On connait le chanson (1997) – Resnais provides endless formal
pleasure, while remaining true to thwarted, weighed-down human experience
Kitty (1945) – not Leisen’s most
substantial work, but with some sublime moments within the accomplished, often
amusing superficiality
Mekong Hotel (2012) – Apichatpong’s brief, entirely beguiling
hybrid of the startling and soothing, the placid now and the loaded then
Film (1965) – Beckett/Schneider’s short work hardly satisfies;
what’s most debatable perhaps is the exact fashion in which it alienates
Annette (2021) – Carax’s intense, self-extrapolating opus is
awe-inspiring at its best, easily surmounting various less persuasive aspects
Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979) – Arkush’s happily Ramone-heavy
(yeh!) extravaganza, with empowerment mostly winning out over ogling
Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000) – Bong pretty much hits the ground
running, with an amusingly shifting, lightly ethically-seeded narrative
Tevya (1939) – Schwartz’s filming of the Fiddler source material
holds up well, risks of over-flavoring held in check by defiant stoicism
Bacurau (2019) – Mendonca Filho and Dornelles challengingly
reposition nasty genre material in mostly compelling, culturally resonant ways
Ride Lonesome (1959) – another impeccable Boetticher/Scott
contrast of condensed (yet richly-felt) tension and limitlessly open backdrops
I Was at Home, But…(2020) –
Schanelec’s film holds sharply observed human truths in equilibrium with
scintillating cinematic mysteries
A Bigger Splash (1973) – Hazan’s
unprecedented, alluring David Hockney-centered reverie occupies all kinds of
mysterious intersections
Success is the Best Revenge (1984) – Skolimowski’s deeply
personal, lumpy yet possibly quasi-magnificent expression of exile and
engagement
A Walk with Love and Death (1969) – Huston’s chronicle of purity
in the midst of national nightmare sustains a fragile, doomed conviction
Manakamana (2013) – Spray/Velez’s film exemplifies structured
denial as a route into somewhat rarified cinematic and sociological pleasures
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1943) – Sturges’ pacey ingenuity
coexists with too much repetition and indifference to real character
Azor (2021) – Fontana’s intelligently restrained, class-sensitive
craftmanship dissects a society’s calculated moral and structural erosion
Farewell, my Lovely (1975) –
Richards’ retro project is solid enough, but is tonally too unvarying, never
feeling particularly vital
Irma Vep (1996) – Assayas’ captivatingly singular film about a
film spans quasi-documentary, pointed satire, and wondrous abstraction
Sylvia Scarlett (1935) – Cukor’s remarkable comedy is as “queer”
in its tone & structure as in the title character’s unfussy gender-fluidity
Agnes par Varda (2019) – only Varda could make a 90-year-old’s
wander through the past feel like such a brightly forward-looking affirmation
The Alphabet Murders (1965) – Tashlin’s unconventional approach to
Agatha Christie is more of a shaky peculiarity than anything else
Preparations to be Together…
(2020) – Horvat places a classic modern-day enigma within acutely-observed
social and personal realities
Three Women (1924) – Lubitsch’s melodrama provides ample evidence
of the fabled “touch,” albeit applied here to often strained material
Spirited Away (2001) – for me anyway, this is Miyazaki’s most
fully-inhabited, humorously singular, completely enthralling feast of a movie
Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971) – Hancock’s drama is
intriguingly evasive, navigating between sweetness and multi-faceted threat
A Woman’s Revenge (2012) – as its fierce central concept becomes
clear, Gomes’ ethically considered theatricality grows greatly in power
It Should Happen to You (1954) –
Cukor’s fame-for-fame’s-sake comedy has plenty of bright spots, although the
satirical bite is restrained
Prime Time (2021) – Piatek’s drama isn’t that interesting as a
narrative, but more so for its gradually-revealed vein of societal pessimism
Morituri (1965) – aided by the
mercurial Brando, Wicki’s drama intermittently makes the prevailing murkiness
into a moral and visual virtue
Clemency (2019) – Chukwu disinters the ritualistic machinery of
death and its accumulating existential toll with draining brilliance
The Bandit (1946) – the initial atmospheric starkness and social
grounding of Lattuada’s drama rather extravagantly dissipates as it goes on
Escape to Victory (1981) –
Huston’s strange project, wildly fanciful and revisionist, but played mostly
straight, to the point of dourness
The Nude Princess (1976) – Canavari affects a degree of political
consciousness, but the movie is defined primarily by lewd exhibitionism
The Wedding Guest (2018) – Winterbottom’s injection of noirish
plotting & terseness into an India/Pakistan travelogue comes off pretty
well
El fantasma del convento (1934) – de Fuentes’ mysterious tale is
atmospherically creepy, but narratively and thematically rather limited
Lovers Rock (2020) – McQueen’s elevating immersion into the joy of
gathering, laced with the threats and irritants against which it rises
The Guerilla Fighter (1968) – Sen’s frustration-ridden political
drama is a fascinating reference point, in its omissions & inclusions alike
Jojo Rabbit (2019) – Waititi’s Nazi comedy may be less dreadful
than expected, but it’s hard to see the point or virtue of any of it
Los tallos amorgos (1956) – the
strengths of Ayala’s sweatily noirish exercise in guilt & manipulation
outweigh the over-emphatic weaknesses
Skin Deep (1989) – much underrated
late Edwards rewardingly revisits “10” territory, studded with immaculate,
desperation-fueled set-ups
About Some Meaningless Events (1974) – Derkaoui’s vivid, punchy,
if work-in-progress-feeling political and cultural temperature-taking
Ingrid Goes West (2017) – Spicer’s
film has its predictable aspects, but nicely channels a certain strand of
contemporary desperation
Quai des Orfevres (1947) – Clouzot’s drama is a highly superior,
atmospherically balanced marvel of characterization, incident & implication
Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990) – Ivory’s adaptation is carefully
delineated to a fault, but crafts a moving portrait of quiet capitulation
Charles, Dead or Alive (1969) – Tanner’s wryly amusing study of
rebellion, studded with personal, political and philosophical inquiry
Color out of Space (2019) – Stanley’s triumphant return is a
crazed yet held-together spectacle of comprehensive destabilization &
breakdown
I’ll Give a Million (1935) – Camerini’s consistently lively if not
quite screwball-pace comedy, served with not-too-biting social critique
Children of a Lesser God (1986) –
Haines provides some respectable observation and debate, along with much
under-energized sogginess
Daughters of Darkness (1971) – Kumel’s uniquely-pitched vampire
film embeds its chilly genre moves within greater psychological mysteries
Beirut (2018) – Anderson delivers the pictorial values and the
requisite sense of chaos, but it’s all far more basic than the history merits
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1954) – Becker’s colourful but
mostly trite spectacle leaves its venal backdrop almost entirely unexamined
Color Adjustment (1992) – Riggs’ study of prime-time
representation is a bit dated and hardly comprehensive, but full of shrewd
reflection
Jeff (1969) – Herman’s concise double-cross gangster flick is
pretty standard Delon fare, leavened with just a few eccentric touches
Queen & Slim (2019) – it’s not hard to reel off excesses in
Matsoukas’ narrative & mythologizing, and yet the film rises and connects
Snow Trail (1947) – Taniguchi’s
never-a-dull-moment (if elemental and ultimately oddly sentimental)
escape-through-the-mountains drama
Special Effects (1984) – Cohen has
a great core concept, but his race-to-the-finish-line approach doesn’t explore
it very resonantly
Tomka and his Friends (1977) – Keko’s study of childhood during
wartime charms and informs, despite a feeling of artistic tunnel vision
Nurse (2013) – Aarniokoski at least brings some style to the
sleazy lameness, and especially to the bloody climactic high-absurdity mayhem
No Blood Relation (1932) – Naruse’s silent film is compulsive
story-telling, if more visually and emotionally insistent than his finest work
The United States vs. Billie Holliday (2021) – Daniels’ wastefully
unilluminating treatment verges on being a fuzzy one-note trudge
A Woman in the Wall (1969) – Park’s concentrated
relationship-triangle drama is decently (even if not that memorably) positioned
and crafted
Ad Astra (2019) – Gray’s introspective drama starts off tonally
and visually strong, but the overall design ultimately feels insufficient
La sonate a Kreutzer (1956) – Rohmer’s jittery early work hardly
matches his later serene assurance, but teems with historical interest
The Slugger’s Wife (1985) – one
can vaguely see the possibility of a passable movie, but Ashby barely seems
interested in drawing it out
The Howl (1970) – Brass’s sex-and-violence-stained odyssey bleeds
brain-frying creative energy, earning an exhausted form of respect
Diane (2018) – Jones’ remarkable film masters the rhythms and
textures of modest lives, and the existentially-charged complexity within
A Ship to India (1947) – Bergman’s
semi-Bergmanish early melodrama blends noir-inflected romance with desperately
toxic family dynamics
The Delta (1996) – Sachs’ early film is sociologically and behaviourally
fascinating, although leaves a questionable final impression
El camino (1963) – Mariscal’s funny, tolerantly varied study of
narrowly-defined lives is a consistent delight, if seldom too surprising
Little Women (2019) – Gerwig’s enormously skillful adaptation is a
real elevating delight, even if perhaps too virtuously scrubbed in parts
I Was Born, But…(1932) – Ozu’s silent film is a fully-realized,
subtly-observed delight, feeling entirely unconstrained by the lack of sound
Marvin & Tige (1983) –
Weston’s pretty basic, sentimental story of an unlikely friendship,
considerably elevated by Cassavetes’ presence
Gods of the Plague (1970) – Fassbinder’s assured but
exploratory-feeling, noir-influenced early work, suffused in lassitudinous
implication
The Story of Lovers Rock (2011) – in charmingly unpolished
fashion, Shabazz’s cultural history steadily indicts an exclusionary mainstream
Throne of Blood (1957) – Kurosawa’s adaptation is often visually
galvanizing, yet never completely banishes a sense of arbitrariness
The 40-Year-Old Version (2020) – Blank’s movie has much that’s
engagingly authentic, mixed in with a few too many phony beats and set-ups
A Man and a Gisaeng (1969) – Shim/Shin’s brassy comedy intrigues
for its gender-crossing moves, although it’s ultimately pretty conservative
Alice (1990) – Allen’s movie falls mostly flat both as character
study and as magic-infused reverie, leaving just secondary compensations
Douce (1943) – among Autant-Lara’s most darkly sumptuously works,
its romantic longings infested with bitterly class-based realities
The Mustang (2019) – de Clermont-Tonnerre’s study is narratively
and metaphorically unsurprising, but scenically and sociologically winning
The Working Class Goes To Heaven (1972) – Petri’s fire-breathing
drama of workplace action sees dehumanization & delusion in all directions
Puffball (2007) – Roeg’s last film plainly doesn’t touch his peak,
but is intriguingly suffused in female biology, conflicts and affinities
Intermezzo (1936) – Molander’s pained love story only mildly
satisfies at best, before ultimately entirely sinking into a melodramatic swamp
It Comes at Night (2017) – Shults’ minor but well-controlled
threat- and mistrust-heavy drama benefits somewhat from Covid-era resonance
Lucia (1968) – Solas’ expressively & narratively bold (to a
fault) trilogy pries open the painful intimate crevices of revolutionary change
Pale Rider (1985) – Eastwood
delivers expertly-honed, righteously-fueled pleasures, notwithstanding
mythological and egotistical excesses
Detective Story (1951) – Wyler’s practiced theatricality and
actor-shuffling can hardly withstand the damaged intensity at the centre
An Easy Girl (2019) – Zlotowski’s pleasurable chronicle deftly
represents female sexuality, alert to the ambiguities of choice and power
Black Girl (1972) – Davis’s modest but far-reaching family drama
opens up wrenching layers of societally-imposed compromise and regret
The Color of Lies (1999) – one of Chabrol’s strongest and gravest
late films, a sustained reflection on morality and accountability
To Each His Own (1946) – Leisen’s
warm skill & de Havilland’s steady presence almost serve to completely
extinguish one’s sense of absurdity
Before we Vanish (2017) – Kurosawa retains a great feel for
metaphorically loaded concepts, but this lands more lightly than his best works
How to Steal a Million (1966) –
handsomely unimportant Wyler fluff, even by the long-established standards of
handsomely unimportant fluff
Raja (2003) – Doillon’s oddly
persuasive study of turbulent obsession channels the distorting complacency of
male colonial privilege
Full of Life (1956) – Quine’s
slice of pregnant life lightly distinguishes itself through its ethnic flavour
and range of thematic interests
Merveilles a Montfermeil (2019) – Balibar’s film sustains a kind
of klutzy disorientation that viably probes progressive ideals & quicksands
Airport 1975 (1974) – Smight’s sequel has little of the original’s
sprawling appeal and sporadic human interest, but it’s not dull anyway
Countryman (1982) – Jobson juxtaposes traditional, mythic &
nastily contemporary notions of Jamaica, with lumpy but mostly appealing
results
The Lion has Wings (1939) – the idealism is of course overdone,
but it’s thoroughly interesting when considered in its historical context
Ash is Purest White (2018) – Jia’s work is limitlessly
interesting, despite an increasing sense of sociological and thematic
familiarity
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) – Kramer’s epic is
generally as gratingly over-insistent as that tiring title, rarely actually
funny
L’enfer (1994) – Chabrol’s more quotidian but still expertly
unnerving adjunct to Clouzot’s legendary unfinished version of the material
Remember the Night (1940) –
Leisen’s lovely romantic fancy walks a touching, perfectly-played line between
discovery and predestination
Family Romance, LLC (2019) – an easy treasure trove of modern
ambiguities and poignancies, observed by Herzog with unusual self-effacement
10 Rillington Place (1971) – Fleischer’s ideally cast
dramatization is an almost unbearably sad and creepy study in calculated
malevolence
Le bal des folles (2021) – Laurent’s study of oppression is rather
too stately & quasi-spiritual to fully realize its potent subject matter
Sebastian (1968) – Greene’s fizzily diversion-laden codebreaking
yarn tempers its general nonchalance with shards of deeper implication
Rafiki (2018) – Kahiu’s Kenyan same-sex romance isn’t particularly
sophisticated in many respects, but its very existence brings joy
The Wild One (1953) – Benedek’s once-disruptive drama retains
shards of cultural significance, but feels under-achieved on its own terms
Joint Security Area (2000) – Park’s border-set drama grips through
its bold-strokes occupation of political, geographical & narrative space
Murder at the Vanities (1934) – a
silly hybrid of over-the-top musical revue and backstage mayhem, energetically
held together by Leisen
Young Ahmed (2019) – both in what it includes and excludes, the
Dardennes’ too-brief study of radicalized youth seldom feels ideally judged
The Andromeda Strain (1971) – Wise sets out the high-concept
notions with admiring subservience, injecting an occasional overdone flourish
Marianne & Julianne (1981) – von Trotta’s study of turbulent
sisterhood is an expertly practiced occupying of rather familiar thematic space
The Grass is Greener (1960) – Donen’s monied dud has a few
passingly charming notions, but few signs of any life worth giving a damn about
A Silent Voice: the Movie (2016) – Yamada’s astonishingly
impressive study of teenage pain & connection surely ranks with the best of
anime
The Lady Eve (1941) – Sturges’ classic comedy is full of glorious
notions & moments, shrouding a certain absence of central emotional truth
Oxygene (2021) – Aja’s
accomplished but still rather deadening film never transcends the sum of its
parts, which get flightier as it goes on
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)
– Yates’ excellent study of crime-world dependency and betrayal, a bleak
tapestry of subtly tragic ironies
A Portuguesa (2019) – Gomes’ extraordinarily subtle exploration of
a reflective female-written world sustained within a reckless male one
The Tall T (1957) – Boetticher’s incisive, expertly shaped
Western, infiltrated with manifold questionings of frontier masculinity
Une semaine de vacances (1980) – Tavernier’s restrained but
exceptionally smart and satisfying examination of youthful existential crisis
Once a Thief (1965) – Nelson’s
relevance-aspiring crime drama has sufficient flavour and oddity to transcend
utter conventionality
Somniloquies (2017) – corporeal solidity blurrily yields to
ascendantly transgressive dreams, with destabilizing, boundary-crossing effects
In Name Only (1939) – Cromwell’s love vs. avarice melodrama isn’t
particularly notable, but Lombard gives it a touchingly delicate centre
Center Stage (1996) – Kwan’s entrancingly well-judged intertwining
of textured historical evocation & multi-faceted present-day perspective
Greaser’s Palace (1972) – Downey’s
blissfully whacked-out allegorical grabbag is startlingly (if not completely
explicably) fulfilling!
Wasp Network (2019) – Assayas’ intelligently expansive film both
simplifies and obscures, appositely to the political chaos it charts
They Were Expendable (1945) – among Ford’s most complexly moving
pictures, for its recurring offsetting of heroism with absence and loss
Red Moon Tide (2020) – Patino’s
folk-tale-like reverie, in some ways localized simplicity itself, culminates in
gorgeously eruptive imagery
The Dirty Dozen (1967) – Aldrich’s
eye-poppingly-cast drama provides some dumb good fun, when it’s not in one way
or another repulsive
The Hedonists (2016) – Jia’s tragi-comic short film (which you
truly wish were longer) observes the bewildering transition to new paradigms
Shoes (1916) – Weber’s tough, observant social document, frankly
surveying the reality of poverty, and underlying dreams of better lives
Rosa Luxemburg (1986) – von Trotta’s study conveys a moving
empathy for the wearying toll of resistance, but too often falls rather flat
The Sugarland Express (1974) –
Spielberg overplays things a bit, but is well attuned to the multi-level,
quasi-prophetic (O.J.?) dynamics
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) – Sciamma’s instant classic
places some absolutely electric moments within a near-swoon-inducing whole
The Marrying Kind (1952) – Cukor’s
episodic marriage chronicle leavens its deft comedy with convincing economic
and behavioral anxiety
De l’autre cote (2002) – Akerman’s border study identifies much
parched, plaintive beauty, and contrasting institutionalized ugliness
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1968)
– hard to look away from Huston’s drama, even (or especially) at its most
adventurously questionable
Infinite Football (2018) – Porumboiu wryly positions a
futility-marked conversation to accommodate social glimpses & philosophical
shadings
Midnight (1939) – Leisen’s
exemplary comedy seems virtually to float on air (expensively accessorized,
eloquently twist-laden air, that is)
Les equilibristes (1991) – Papatakis’ unprecedented, destabilizing
journey through possibility and destruction, love and exploitation
Shivers (1975) – Cronenberg’s early work has its ragged aspects,
but they don’t much impede its central visceral and allegorical potency
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) – Heller likely makes
the material as rewardingly & artfully multi-faceted as reasonably possible
Vendetta of a Samurai (1952) –
Mori’s suspensefully legend-debunking perspective provides an intriguingly
disillusioned genre counterpoint
Stripes (1981) – Reitman’s pallid
creation provides familiarly under-examined ideological reassurance and few
enduring comic highlights
Deadly Sweet (1967) – Brass’ cursorily plotted response to Blow-Up
is impressively stylistically rapacious, but with scattershot results
Princess Cyd (2017) – Cone’s study of gradually accumulating
awareness & sensation has a slender, but warmly & pleasurably inhabited
frame
Paracelsus (1943) – Pabst’s rather
histrionic but not unthoughtful drama stands in interesting relationship to its
Nazi production context
Bowfinger (1999) – Oz’s pleasantly imagined and performed comedy
is engaging enough, even if not often particularly funny (the dog aside)
Adoption (1975) – Meszaros’ unadorned but highly illuminating
study of the wrenchingly shifting line between female freedom and constraint
Knives Out (2019) – Johnson’s satisfyingly intricate,
misdirection-heavy whodunit, seasoned with a barbed take on privilege and
entitlement
The Mission (1986) – Joffe arouses suitable anti-colonial and
-doctrinal disgust, for all his film’s exoticism-seeking and other excesses
Siren of the Tropics (1927) – Etievant/Nalpas’ dated melodrama
endures as an imperfect (but better than nothing) Josephine Baker showcase
Return of the Prodigal Son (1967) – Schorm’s study of disaffection
is one of the Czech New Wave’s major, most lastingly questioning works
Welcome to New York (2014) – Ferrara, in relatively
straightforward mode, relishingly sinks his teeth into the super-well-suited
material
A Journey to the Beginning of Time (1955) – Zeman’s
prettily-imagined, gently pedagogically-driven voyage through the glories of
evolution
The Mauritanian (2021) – Macdonald’s drama is always solid and
intelligent, if only occasionally moving past relative conventionality
The Crimes of Petiot (1973) – Madrid’s serial-killer flick,
potentially preoccupied and trauma-inducing, mostly just feels flat and drained
Recorder: the Marion Stokes Project (2019) – Wolf’s intriguing
study in intertwined vision and eccentricity, perspicacity and passivity
It Rains on our Love (1946) –
Bergman’s early, socially-critical film is lastingly frank & intimate, even
if overelaborate in some respects
Black is…Black ain’t (1994) – Riggs’ urgently visionary final work
stands as a moving and ambitious memorial, however incompletely realized
La parmigiana (1963) – Pietrangeli’s open-minded chronicle of a
young woman, smoothly contrasting relative moralities and states of freedom
A Quiet Place (2018) – Krasinski’s tight, creepy drama sits at the
safe end of the horror spectrum, but still works well in most respects
I grandi magazzini (1939) – Camerini’s bustling comedy-drama is
mostly light stuff, elevated by its acute sense of workplace power relations
They All Laughed (1981) – Bogdanovich’s connection-heavy comedy
has a limited sweetness and panache, but feels strangely hollow and absented
The American Soldier (1970) – a decadent Fassbinder highlight: a
displaced film noir skewering the allure & cluelessness of American swagger
Gemini Man (2019) – a total success, assuming Lee’s ambition was
to sublimate himself in coldly alienating, concept-squandering nonsense
Huis-clos (1954) – Audry’s cinematic “opening up” is utterly worth
seeing, even if it dilutes the force of Sartre’s text in key respects
Fear of a Black Hat (1993) – Cundieff’s affectionately undiluted
rap mockumentary holds up well, not least the sharp musical parodies
Our Lady of the Turks (1968) – Bene’s fragmented expression of (I
think) history’s traumatic legacy makes for difficult, withholding viewing
A Story of Children and Film
(2013) – Cousins pleasurably, and sometimes relishingly, combines the personal
and the wide-rangingly pedagogic
Secrets of a Soul (1926) – Pabst’s
“psychoanalytical film” seems staidly over-literal now, but it remains
fascinating in its ambition
No Sudden Move (2021) –
Soderbergh’s drama never really breaks out, but becomes more satisfying as the
scope expands & the twists accumulate
Crime and Passion (1976) – one can glimpse something complexly
multi-faceted and darkly-charged, but Passer rather lets it get away from him
The Accidental Tourist (1988) – a few shallow diversions (mostly
the dog) aside, Kasdan’s adaptation is somnolent and barely sufferable
Scattered Clouds (1967) – Naruse’s sweetly melancholy last film
patiently explores gradations of conflict, regret and mutual understanding
The Vast of Night (2019) – Patterson’s
retro-flavoured sci-fier is best when sinking into time and place, falling
somewhat short plot-wise
Assunta Spina (1948) – Mattoli marshals classic melodrama both as
a vehicle for and a social investigation of Magnani’s piercing affect
The Pickle (1993) – Mazursky’s satire has flashes of his warmth
and skill, but overall seems like a severe lapse in judgment and inspiration
Baxter, Vera Baxter (1977) – a major, underseen Duras work: an
investigation of a woman, and an investigation into investigations of women
White Boy Rick (2018) – Demange’s low-life odyssey, forgettable
for much of the way, eventually reaches ethically stimulating territory
The Sign of Venus (1955) – Risi’s comedy has a notably sad but
stoic female-driven core, surrounded by a gallery of flawed masculinity
Fear X (2003) – Winding Refn’s tale of loss and obsession doesn’t
rank as much more than a curiosity, but a very skillfully calibrated one
Black Jesus (1968) – Zurlini overemphasizes white perspectives,
but crafts a compelling, politically-charged study of principled suffering
Triple Frontier (2019) – Chandor expands with assurance into an
old-fashioned adventure yarn; it’s a shame it all matters so little
Remontons les Champs-Elysees (1938) – Guitry’s priapic history
lesson distorts & trivializes, yet not without a certain galloping grandeur
Beverly Hills Cop (1984) – Murphy’s monster hit now plays very
blandly, virtually all potentially sharp edges smoothed down to nothing
Yeong-ja in her prime (1975) – beneath the often brash pace and
expression, Kim sets out a sympathetic and socially-revealing case history
Butter on the Latch (2013) –
Decker’s first feature is enthralling both as psychological puzzle & as
unfamiliar anthropological observation
Michael (1924) – Dreyer’s
fascinating silent film finds a strange ultimate transcendence within recurring
disappointment and exploitation
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) – Wolfe’s film is awkward in
various ways, but preserves the central glory and agony of Wilson’s work
12 + 1 (1969) – an Italian “twelve chairs” romp, offering adequate
variety and diversion (Sharon Tate!), but hardly satisfying overall
Conceiving Ada (1997) – Leeson’s high-concept cross-century female
conversation impresses, but isn’t the overall equal of her Teknolust
Torna! (1954) – best approached from a Matarazzo-centric
worldview, whereby the echoing of past films becomes a rather endearing
strength
Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) – Gilroy (no Peter
Strickland) scores some mild satirical points, but shows little flair for the
giallo-type stuff
Comment ca va (1976) – Godard and Mieville delve exactingly, yet
not hopelessly, into the latent oppressiveness of mass communication
48 Hrs. (1983) – Hill’s early distinctiveness is utterly lost in
this brain-hurtingly banal stuff; even Murphy only provides minimal uplift
A Broken Drum (1949) – Kinoshita’s busy drama of family conflicts
has some adroit moments, amid an often overly clunky overall framework
NOTFILM (2015) – Lipman’s careful explication of the 1965
Beckett/Keaton short as a locus of connections, complexities and reflections
Black Peter (1964) – in its deadpan
observation of teenage directionlessness, Forman’s debut is among his funniest
& most distinctive works
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) – Jarmusch’s impeccably executed
compilation, dotted with cool contrasts, correspondences and intimations
Mon pere avait raison (1936) – one of Guitry’s more intriguing
films, for its probing of life passages and generational expectations
Dragged Across Concrete (2019) – in its
weaving between forcefulness and evasiveness, Zahler’s drama approaches a blunt
conceptual grandeur
Transgression (1974) – Kim’s probing take
on monastic life is always arresting, often disorienting, somehow fusing
irreverence and devotion
Slacker (1990) – with
super-impressive use of limited resources, Linklater achieves a weirdly
beguiling, philosophically loaded quasi-stasis
The Lower Depths (1957) – Kurosawa’s sense of desperate community
leavens one of his most tough-minded, expressively heightened works
Louder than Bombs (2015) – for all its
care and technical skill, Trier’s family drama feels disappointingly artificial
and unmoving
The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1962) – with eccentric courtliness,
Zeman’s fantasy pointedly insists on narrative and formal variation
Scanners (1981) – although hardly dull, it’s one of Cronenberg’s
less penetrating early films, its themes and concepts rather too dispersed
You Only Live Once (1937) – Lang’s classic doomed-lovers thriller
finds moments of fragile loveliness within a largely pitiless society
Take Me Somewhere Nice (2019) –
Sendijarevic’s amused but mindful cross-border journey makes some easy moves,
& several boldly resonant ones
Guru, the Mad Monk (1970) – Milligan’s extreme mismatching of
style and content achieves a most artless form of deadened coherence
Abouna (2002) – Haroun’s mostly easygoing but quietly pleasing
chronicle of preoccupying absences and unconventionally happy presences
The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956) –
for all its simplifications and contrivances, Quine’s film skips brightly
through mildly unusual territory
The Fall of the American Empire (2018) –
it’s easy enough to warm to Arcand’s ambition and sympathies, despite the
movie’s copious obstacles
The Volunteer (1944) – only Powell and Pressburger would have made
a military recruiting film that’s so whimsically and humanely engaging
The Swindle (1997) – Chabrol’s
elegantly unimportant con man/woman drama is certainly skillful in its way, but
it’s not much of a way
Next Stop, Greenwich Village
(1976) – Mazursky’s highly appealing quasi-memoir is warmly dexterous
throughout, within its knowing limits
Zombi Child (2019) – Bonello’s prodigous
meeting of spiritual and national myths, of supernatural and personal
confinements and escapes
Daydreams (1922) – episodic (and
incompletely-surviving) Keaton short includes a few sublime moments amid a
rather downbeat overall scheme
A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) – Kim’s dissection of familial damage
makes for memorable, if hermetically constrained, cinematic architecture
Rosemary’s Baby (1968) – one might
regard Polanski’s classic as a painfully intimate film within a sillier (but
full-bloodedly handled) one
Loveless (2017) – Zvyagintsev’s calculated
film punches a range of outrage-inducing buttons in expertly imposing,
socially-critical fashion
Duck Soup (1933) – McCarey’s
(let’s say) conceptually interesting Marx Brothers classic aggressively evades
any kind of capsule summary
The Disciple (2020) – Tamhane’s
painstaking study of artistic struggle, both illuminatingly hermetic and (a bit
too smoothly) universal
Season of the Witch (1972) – Romero’s atypical but successful
film, driven as much by sharp-tongued social critique as by horror mechanisms
Boat People (1982) – Hui’s pumped-up Vietnamese drama constitutes
a problematically interesting blend of witness-bearing and artifice
No Man of Her Own (1950) –
Leisen’s fateful noir-tinged melodrama is finely-handled, but thinner than his
or Stanwyck’s greatest works
Roubaix, une lumiere (2019) – Desplechin’s
police drama, in no way limited by genre, rich in observance of place, chance
and causation
A Song is Born (1948) – Hawks’ remake of his own Ball of Fire has
far less energy & heart, notwithstanding various musical compensations
Double Edge (1992) – Kollek’s
Israel-Palestine survey remains dispiritingly relevant, for all its
unimpressive manipulation & sensationalism
Our Dancing Daughters (1928) – Beaumont’s silent contains lots of
fizzy interaction, but with a surprising amount of cautionary perspective
Mia madre (2015) – Moretti’s observance of
art and death gently satisfies, but doesn’t quite attain its sought-for
revelatory synthesis
The List of Adrian Messenger
(1963) – Huston’s amused, relaxed-feeling mystery, decorated with enjoyable if
inconsequential trickery
The Lighthouse (2006) – Saakyan’s hypnotic study of life in war
feels entirely real and rooted, and yet intensely imagined and painted
Modern Times (1936) – Chaplin’s instincts and affinities now often
appear dated or hollow, but the moments of dexterous grace remain
Parasite (2019) – Bong’s film has elements
of thematic and narrative inspiration, although it’s the initial exposition
that engrosses most
Butley (1974) – Pinter barely “opens up” Gray’s play, but punches
home the desperately lonely flailing underlying the bitter hectoring
Growing Up (1983) – Chen’s pleasant study of childhood is cleanly
and crisply observed, while never penetrating to the extent of Hou or Yang
Loving Vincent (2017) – overall, a
limitation-transcending expression of adoration for Van Gogh as artist, myth,
transformer of sight itself
Phffft (1954) – Robson’s often
dire, mechanically single-minded sex comedy at least has the odd lively
exchange, and a nice dancing scene
The Paradine Case (1947) – a relative Hitchcock failure, its
prevailing stiffness and propriety stifling the erotic obsession at its centre
The White Tiger (2021) – Bahrani unfortunately steers the
culturally rich material perilously close to being a patchy, meandering slog
St. Louis Blues (1929) – Murphy’s showcase for Bessie Smith, as a
zone of heavy lament within a happily hedonistic all-black world
Synonyms (2019) – Lapid comes at his
themes with major intellectual resourcefulness, but it’s all a bit more fun in
theory than practice
The Unforgiven (1960) – Huston’s
tortured Western, its relish at a glimpsed American dream gradually devastated
by lies, blood and prejudice
Plaisir d’amour (1991) – Kaplan’s comedy punctures smug male
self-entitlement in elegantly varied, if not ultimately too revelatory fashion
Love on the Run (1936) – Van Dyke’s indifferently scripted and
cursorily executed comedy, only intermittently elevated by star quality
3 Faces (2018) – Panahi’s meditation on
confinement, transgression and continuance is an enveloping meeting of pleasure
and profundity
The Witch who Came from the Sea (1976) – Cimber’s
ill-fated-sexuality-studded film navigates pretty well between shock and
poignancy
Naussica of the Valley of the Wind (1984) – Miyazaki’s debut is
thematically engaging, but often crude and cluttered by his later standards
Stage Struck (1958) – Lumet’s
creaky drama doesn’t really hold up, but provides plenty of incidental, time
capsule-type amusements
Based
on a True Story (2017) – Polanski expertly expands the parameters of the
familiar core premise, but the ultimate impact is a bit light
Penny Serenade (1941) – it’s hard to warm to Stevens’ essentially
coldly deterministic view of adult happiness, despite its strengths
La captive (2000) – Akerman’s study of
thwarted male control over female narratives is formally seductive and
strangely, tragically comic
Strangers when we Meet (1960) –
Quine’s most enduring film, every scene channeling the period’s strange
marriage of affluence & suppression
Joker (2019) – Phillips’ film is horribly
effective, even impressive, in parts, but its would-be vision is laboured and
vague at best
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975) – Schlondorff/von Trotta’s
drama impresses and informs, yet doesn’t fully land its ultimate punches
Staying Alive (1983) – Stallone’s thinly flashy, entirely
unpersuasive sequel lacks any of the original’s relative sociological interest
Dollar (1938) – Molander’s arch comedy of interrelated couples is
frequently grating, its commentary on values and priorities falling flat
Thou Wast Mild and Lovely (2014) –
the extraordinary Decker weaves a sensuously full cinematic space, and then
startlingly deconstructs it
The Wayward Girl (1959) – Karlmar beautifully observes evolving
female sexuality & sensibility, but the film overall comes up a little
short
Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)
– King’s absorbing, if imperfect, historical missive, from one era of
calculated oppression to another
Road to Sampo (1975) – Lee’s film evolves from a wintry, absurdist
comedy into a delicately poignant study of compromises and transitions
Hustlers (2019) – Scafaria’s film never
feels really vital, notwithstanding its prioritizing of empathy & social
awareness over exploitation
Women of Ryazan (1927) – Preobrazhenskaya
observes rural community in all its hypocrisy, offset by a strong closing
declaration of purpose
The Ploughman’s Lunch (1983) – Eyre/McEwan’s marvelously subtle,
way under-appreciated personal, political and historical temperature-taking
Le mariage de Chiffon (1942) – Autant-Lara’s romantic confection
is able enough on its own terms, but they’re distinctly complacent ones
It Felt Like Love (2013) – Hittmann’s extraordinarily tuned-in
study of chaotic teenage sexuality, haunting both as cinema & social
document
Nest of Vipers (1978) – Cervi’s period drama of intertwined
desires is rather too tentative and underdeveloped to stir up much interest
Mangrove (2020) – McQueen absorbingly evokes time and place and
the texture of threatened community, although pushes a bit too hard at times
The Cremator (1969) – Herz’s utterly ensnaring study of spiritual
degradation and manipulation is impeccable in every twisted detail
The Lighthouse (2019) – Eggers’ possessed,
often rollickingly hilarious, perfectly pitched vision of corroding identity
and sanity
Dos monjes (1934) – Oro’s film lingers for its starkly pained,
boldly expressed framing story, more than the rather florid melodrama within
The Killing Floor (1984) – Duke’s revealing piece of social &
racial history makes for committed, if in various ways rather bare-bones
filmmaking
March of Fools (1975) – Ha’s fascinating portrait of youth;
spanning low comedy, tragedy, philosophical inquiry & militarized
homoeroticism
The Great Pretender (2018) – Silver’s relationship study may be a
small film, but smartly ventilated by mysterious glimpses of a bigger one
Scandal in Sorrento (1955) – Risi’s sun-baked, sex-propelled
comedy is certainly handsome enough, but it’s mostly mechanical and trifling
The Last Seduction (1994) – Dahl’s
shrewd and stylish manipulation doesn’t penetrate that deeply, but Fiorentino
is a presence for the ages
O Ebrio (1946) – de Abreu’s film has patches of near-unhinged
storytelling & uncertain handling, but an overriding conviction &
sincerity
Honey Boy (2019) – the film has its
familiar aspects, but also much authentic-feeling hurt & strange magic,
beautifully modulated by Har’el
Vivre ensemble (1973) – Karina’s
underseen, observantly personal, unpredictable directorial debut, vital to
fully appreciating her legend
The Fly (1986) – a more conventionally audience-friendly
Cronenberg film no doubt, but made with wittily top-quality control and
calibration
Il maestro di Vigevano (1963) – Petri’s put-upon
comedy is bitterly but sympathetically
alert to class-based subjugation & infantilization
The 50 Year Argument (2014) – Scorsese’s most self-effacing work
is a respectfully rarified immersion into engagement and contemplation
La souriante Madame Beudet (1923) – Dulac’s contrasting of a
woman’s inner and external lives is a searing, much undersung silent classic
Time (2020) – Bradley’s film is as wide & deep & precise
yet ungraspable as its title, closely personal and inherently, tragically
political
Chung Kuo (1972) – Antonioni’s voyage to
China is a humbly serene, deeply fascinated observation of (and
self-acknowledgement of) otherness
Dressed to Kill (1980) – De Palma’s often sumptuous atrocity might
simultaneously have you holding your breath and rolling your eyes
Intimate Lighting (1965) – the (then)
radicalism of Passer’s film lies in its very uninsistence, its impact at once
evasive and lingering
The Last
Black Man in San Francisco (2019) – Talbot’s small miracle of a film captivates
with each deeply-experienced, searching frame
Eva (1948) – Molander’s Bergman-written, death-dogged life
chronicle is grippingly ambitious & assured, even if not consistently
persuasive
The Day I Will Never Forget (2002) – a record of a terrible act,
calmly placed by Longinotto within its self-perpetuating cultural context
Ici et ailleurs (1976) – the Dziga
Vertov’s group’s from-a-distance reflection on Palestine, shot through with a
sense of rueful limitation
London Fields (2018) – Cullen’s flashy
adaptation has a rudimentary, diversionary skill, but feels persistently
distanced and incomplete
Les espions (1957) – Clouzot’s initially cluttered-seeming drama
gradually reveals itself as a sharp vision of pervasive threat and anxiety
Archangel (1990) – Maddin’s
obsessively exacting aesthetic impresses & sometimes seduces, even as it
remains largely distant & unyielding
Hotel du Nord (1938) – Carne’s emblematically idealistic,
helplessly enveloping marriage of romantic fatalism and bustling proletarianism
Black and Blue (2019) – Taylor’s police
drama has terrific momentum, laced with more than sufficient outrage-inducing
social content
The Insect Woman (1972) – Kim’s delectable
film holds a rather astounding number of themes and twists in darkly amused
equilibrium
An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) – Hackford’s drama is at least
somewhat personal-feeling in its recurring clunkiness and misogyny
Loves of a Blonde (1965) – if only in its
understated unpredictability and humour, Forman’s study remains an endearing
assertion of freedom
Starlet (2012) – Baker’s
thoroughly winning modern fairy tale of sorts, laced with deadpan comedy and
clear-sighted social observation
Army (1944) – Kinoshita’s episodic portrayal of Japanese lives
molded by past and looming wars, notable now mainly for historical reference
Mank (2020) – Fincher’s pristinely-crafted film sounds in theory
like a movie lover’s dream, but only intermittently connects or rouses
Diabolo menthe (1977) – the light touch of
Kurys’ journey through teenage sisterhood shouldn’t obscure its range and quiet
radicalism
The Brave (1997) – Depp doesn’t
really justify the sad premise, but well-sustains a tone of doomed stoicism,
sprinkled with varied oddities
Fools in the Mountains (1957) – Carlmar’s comedy has its bright
aspects, but wears out its mistaken identity concept long before the end
The
Twentieth Century (2019) – Rankin’s blissfully inventive, goofily inspiring
vision of Canada’s definitional conflicts and confusions
Le nouveau testament (1936) – Guitry’s comedy is
skillfully loquacious, but the life lessons (such as they are) barely register
now
8 Million Ways to Die (1986) – Ashby’s crime thriller is flat and
fuzzy stuff, lacking much critical perspective or notable creative energy
Ankur
(1974) – with quiet fortitude, Benegal lays out the moral decay that underlies
rural India’s tradition- and caste-driven structures
Sweet Country (2017) – Thornton’s (just a
bit too) virtuosically-gripping case history of sparse yet already
defilement-sodden society
Medea (1969) – an often-disorienting but
bewitching, stunningly-designed telling, feeling almost as if directly dreamed
onscreen by Pasolini
The Doctor (1991) – Haines’
taste-of-my-own-medicine drama may be more primally affecting than it
objectively deserves, but what can you do?
Chains (1949) – Matarazzo’s drama is at its anxiety-stirring best
when tightening the screws; less so in the (inevitably) liberating finale
Where’d
You Go, Bernadette (2019) – Linklater’s tale of regeneration often plays a bit
flatly, but opens up winningly in the home stretch
Humain,
trop humain (1974) – Malle’s now near-nostalgic observance of factory
production is inherently but insufficiently political
Five Days One Summer (1982) – Zinnemann’s last film has much
genuine, sometimes haunting, grandeur, but an overly restrained narrative core
Nana (1926) – a too-often dull silent
Renoir, at its best at its most nakedly suffering, but damaged by Hessling’s
unalluring presence
God’s Own Country (2017) – Lee’s
engrossingly authentic-feeling, frank study, electrically attuned both to the
scenic and the intimate
I Live in Fear (1955) – Kurosawa’s atomic-age drama is among his
more low-key, brooding works, gripping for its central existential clarity
Phantom Love (2007) – Menkes’ astounding fusion of lived and
imagined experience, of pain and rapture, resistance and transcendence
Dosuni (1963) – Park’s lightly-handled but
meaningful chronicle of a determined young woman in an economically strained,
hustling society
Sword
of Trust (2019) – Shelton’s comedy becomes narratively over-stretched, but her
relaxed way with interactions really shines at times
Thomasine & Bushrod (1974) – Parks’ enjoyable outlaw drama
keeps things mostly loose and variable, with lightly norm-challenging results
Capitaine Conan (1996) –
Tavernier’s artfully disorienting war film reverberates with astounding
incident, implication and moral complexity
Hallelujah (1929) – Vidor’s all-black musical drama reaches
numerous expressive heights, amid its largely unceasing anthropological
interest
The Ornithologist (2016) – Rodrigues’
exceptional cinematic offering, a pilgrimage deep into nature & unnature,
self-discovery & self-loss
Dancing Lady (1933) – Leonard’s musical skips along in snappily
blissful implausibility, propelled by effortlessly elevating star quality
Soigne ta droite (1987) – a relative knockabout comedy from
Godard, its virtues requiring (to me anyway) rather strenuous excavation
efforts
Wait Until Dark (1967) – despite
Hepburn’s touching centre, Young’s luridly over-elaborate exercise in terror is
ugly and unappealing
Pain and Glory (2019) – Almodovar hardly
challenges us now, but his cinema has become a painterly oasis of gracefully
preoccupied serenity
The Spirit of St. Louis (1957) –
an atypically straightforward Wilder exercise, executed with empathetic skill
within its narrow parameters
Scarlet Diva (2000) – Argento’s quasi-self-portrait confesses,
pleads and evades in an aggressively ambiguous, enjoyably in-your-face manner
Images (1972) – the spell of Altman’s breakdown movie lies less in
its conceptual elaborations than in its physical immediacy and detail
The Daughters of Fire (2018) – Carri’s film
lustily embraces pornographic elements, while bracingly complicating the
mechanics and the gaze
Dead of Night (1945) – an ever-irresistible anthology, skipping
through its flatter passages to culminate in pull-all-the-stops-out style
TGM the Liberator (1990) – Chytilova’s one-of-a-kind career ends
with a lively but far from subversive, reconciliatory-feeling documentary
Blessed Event (1932) – Del Ruth’s newspaper drama has a fabulous
line in fast-talking cynicism, dotted with surprisingly raw moments
Ema (2019) – Larrain’s fabulously
seductive, fiery chronicle offers an almost frustratingly irresistible alchemy
of giving and withholding
Accident (1967) – Losey/Pinter’s film may be the polished,
implication-heavy apex of a certain (ultimately unproductive) cinematic strain
Castle in the Sky (1986) – Miyazaki’s wildly imaginative spectacle
is fairly exhilarating, although not among his emotionally fullest works
The Red Kimono (1925) – Lang and Davenport’s highly sympathetic,
quite cinematically engaging study of a woman’s shame and redemption
Non-Fiction (2018) – Assayas’ film deploys a
super-smoothly retrograde approach to surveying the cutting-edge, or maybe it’s
vice versa
Hell and High Water (1954) – one of Fuller’s less impactful films
delivers fairly standard drama and crudely dated characterizations
Women Without Men (2009) – Neshat and Azari’s rather peculiar tale
of lost possibilities is far from perfect, but maintains a glassy allure
Humanoids from the Deep (1979) – the monsters are OK, but Peeters
allows the surrounding narrative and quasi-themes to mostly unravel
Staying
Vertical (2016) – for every element of earthy rootedness, Guiraudie’s strange
self-discovery odyssey throws in a bizarro provocation
Green for Danger (1947) – Gilliat’s whodunit rattles happily
along, propelled by doses of comedy, romantic frustration and wartime paranoia
Malmkrog (2020) – Puiu’s brain-flooding film, a shiftingly
doom-ridden comedy powered by imposing aesthetic and intellectual seriousness
Lawyer Man (1932) – Dieterle’s steadily unremarkable Powell
vehicle breezes through a lifetime’s worth of ups, downs & degrees of
cynicism
Casa de lava (1994) – Costa’s challenging, disorienting,
lingering-in-the-mind expression of colonialism’s accursedly tangled
complexities
Only Two Can Play (1962) – Gilliat’s smutty comedy somewhat
endures as a duly depressing window on its repressed, class-driven milieu
Climax (2018) – Noe comes on like a depraved
Busby Berkeley, going from exuberant high to wrenching low with
get-out-of-my-fucking way elan
The True Story of Jesse James (1957) – a solid telling, amply
studded by Ray with arresting moments and stunning widescreen compositions
My Twentieth Century (1989) – Enyedi’s wide-angle historical
fantasy thirsts after greatness, but its devices are too often twee or tiresome
The Velvet Vampire (1971) – Rothman’s (perhaps artfully) unpolished
film works savvy, ideologically-charged variations on the vampire genre
J’accuse (2019) – Polanski’s examination of duty
in the face of institutional resistance, executed with undiminished fluency and
acuity
Black and Tan (1929) – Murphy’s short film preserves some classic
Duke Ellington moments within an oddly disorienting comedy-to-tragedy arc
Ex Drummer (2007) – Mortier’s movie bites out its own
sick-times-whimsical sorta-category, for unenjoyable yet damnably stimulating
viewing
Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) – one
of Ophuls’ loveliest films, drawing on cinema’s inherent play of permanence and
transience
Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2018) – one
concludes Bi’s dream-noirish, boundary-transcending odyssey feeling
transported, even transformed
The Balcony (1963) – Strick’s adaptation is a largely effective,
memorably-cast artificiality, even if rather drained of its core power
Un jour Pina m’a demande (1983) – Akerman captures the expressive
majesty of Bausch’s work, and its almost scary, destabilizing power
St. Louis Blues (1958) – the film is limited in all the usual
Hollywood ways (and then some), but shines for its unique cast and musicality
Antigone (2019) – Deraspe’s excitingly tuned-in
repurposing of Greek mythology, as a tragic study in complexities of immigrant
assimilation
The Driller Killer (1979) – beneath the notorious “nasty” bits, a
bracing early dip into the teeth-bared obsessive well of Ferrara’s cinema
Sicilia! (1999) – it’s an eternal Huillet/Straub mystery, how such
precisely grounded calibration yields something close to bountifulness
Shoulder Arms (1918) – Chaplin’s enjoyably patchy, sometimes
bleak-streaked soldier comedy aims both high and low, ending in dreamy idealism
Madeline’s Madeline (2018) – Decker’s
amazing film, a delicately honey-gathering bee that pollinates the flower at
the heart of creation
La francaise et l’amour (1960) – a
love-at-all-ages anthology, with seven directors working in a uniformly
unexertingly pleasant register
Saturn 3 (1980) – Donen provides a few striking visuals, and the
cast is worth something, but the sense of possibility rapidly dissipates
Supermarkt (1974) – Klick’s in-your-face
film works both as escalating crime drama and as exploration of social
boundaries and affinities
Judy (2019) – Goold’s movie is one of
conventional and not particularly exciting strengths, largely including
Zellweger’s performance
Diabolique (1955) – Clouzot’s narrative trap, lubricated with
humour, cruelty & transgression, barely rusts with time, however often
visited
Clockwatchers (1997) – Sprecher’s
enjoyably lingering film, starting as fairly easy parody, gradually takes on
greater existential weight
Bicycle Thieves (1948) – De Sica’s film still holds truths, but
they lie as much around its edges as in its limitingly structured centre
The
White Crow (2018) – Fiennes’ time-shifting portrayal of Nureyev is
finely-crafted in all respects, perhaps a bit counter-productively
When the Buckwheat Blooms (1968) – Lee’s
epically-contoured tale of desire and separation is a restrained, often
melancholy pleasure
Perfect (1985) – Bridges undermines his film’s plausible ambitions
through persistent over-simplification and lack of critical distance
Vladimir
et Rosa (1971) – Godard & Gorin’s mind-filling, often humorous,
not-too-didactic engagement with representation in turbulent times
The Farewell (2019) – Wang’s charmingly light but
well-considered film studies the loss & regret inherent in personal &
societal evolution
I Am Waiting (1957) – Kurahawa’s noir-ish romance has little
depth, but much capable low-life distraction and tapping of heavy emotion
Lolita (1997) – Lyne’s adaptation
often feels like a rather distanced, academic achievement, although elevated in
its climactic bereftness
Faisons un reve… (1936) – a knowingly minor Guitry
set-up, but with a few stylistic flourishes and resistance-crushing performance
moments
Rebecca (2020) – Wheatley’s scenically well-imagined version is
certainly watchable, but doesn’t hang together particularly strongly
La prise de pouvoir par Louis XVI (1966) –
Rossellini’s brilliantly-controlled, ever-relevant examination of ritualized
image-making & power
Field Niggas (2015) – Allah’s deeply personal &
respectful engagement with Harlem street life is immediate & timeless,
beautiful & appalling
Passe
ton bac d’abord (1977) – with unmatched empathetic clarity, Pialat dissects
socially-determined, aspiration-stifling teenage lives
The Hot Stuff (1981) – Vadim’s bland caper doesn’t have much going
for it, beyond a few glimmers of engagement with art world practices
Tormento (1950) – Matarazzo’s story of separation & suffering
is rather less artful & fully developed than his other Sanson/Nazzari
dramas
Never Really Sometimes Always (2020) – the amazing Hittman’s
surface minimalism conveys enormous and sobering personal and social complexity
The Little Match Girl (1928) – Renoir’s early short film
encompasses both observant emotional poignancy and exuberant visual
experimentation
In Fabric (2018) – in Strickland’s hands,
potentially trite horror notions acquire extraordinary, blackly amused
multi-dimensional ceremony
The
Two of Us (1967) – Berri’s balanced study of wartime relocation, crammed with
behavioural pleasures and darkly pointed undertones
Housekeeping (1987) – Forsyth’s adaptation often seems defined as
much by its absences as its premises, to mixed if quietly endearing effect
Why
Does Herr R Run Amok? (1970) – Fassbinder and Fengler’s film may be among the
most pitiless and withholding of (sort of) comedies
Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019) – perhaps
Tarantino’s most visually and conceptually assured fantasia, teeming with
tangible pleasures
The Hidden Fortress (1958) – it’s hard to rate the film as highly
as many do, even while bowing to Kurosawa’s inventiveness and assurance
Husbands and Wives (1992) –
Allen’s often anguished relationship chronicle is overdone in any number of
ways, but connects even so
The Neighbor’s Wife and Mine (1931) –
Gosho’s comedy (with jazz!) of a put-upon writer is a bit misshapen, but
sprightly handled overall
The Man who Killed Don Quixote (2018) –
Gilliam’s accomplished fantasia flamboyantly reflects & quite movingly
justifies his long obsession
Season of our Love (1966) – Vancini’s
rather ineffectual study of melancholy self-examination falls short of its
evident sweeping ambition
Rita, Sue and Bob too (1987) – Clarke’s boisterously funny,
grounded plunge into sexual self-determination, not without its overdone
aspects
Fortini/Cani
(1976) – Straub/Huillet counterpoint calmly observed surfaces with boiling
historical stains & complex political hypocrisies
A Rainy Day in New York (2019) – Allen tries to
put young faces on classical moods and situations, with often bizarrely
misconceived results
Sun in the Last Days of Shogunate (1957) – an incident-packed,
nuanced semi-farce, with Kawashima in his most confidently expansive mode
Little Buddha (1993) – Bertolucci’s most uninteresting,
inexplicably soft film, suffused in merely superficial beauty and spirituality
Street Scene (1931) – a strangely lesser-known Vidor film,
marvelously balancing God’s-eye expansiveness and careful close observation
The Image Book (2018) – Godard’s reflection
(both celebration & confession) on cinema’s helpless beauty &
intertwined ideological violence
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) – beneath Edwards’ romanticism and
its “iconic” qualities, a relative minefield of insecurity and cynicism
Golden
Eighties (1986) – Akerman delivers classic musical-genre pleasures, infiltrated
with personal and political insecurity and fracture
The Nightcomers (1971) – an enjoyably peculiar brew, but a less
superficial director than Winner would surely have extracted more from it
Buoyancy (2019) – Rathjen’s story of modern-day
slavery is often disturbingly convincing, but limited by its “triumph of human
spirit” arc
Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954) – Siegel’s dynamically incisive
drama, marrying hard-edged realities with muscular, no-nonsense storytelling
The River (1997) – Tsai mesmerizingly explores lives at odds with
themselves & God, their emptiness occasionally touched by furtive rapture
Fort
Apache (1948) – perhaps the summit of Ford’s particular exploration of ritual
and duty, of the tragedy and glory of transition
Diamantino (2018) – Abrantas & Schmidt’s happily
iconoclastic fantasy, its artisanal candy floss seasoned by a plethora of
modern fears
The Birds (1963) – one of Hitchcock’s, and cinema’s, most
mind-alteringly vast expressions of the terrible glory of seeing and desiring
Melo
(1986) – Resnais’ film has the heightened emotional concentration of classical
theatre, beautifully ventilated with cinematic allusion
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) – Kaufman’s remake has some
terrific elements, although gets more conventional as it goes along
A Screaming Man (2010) – Haroun’s mesmerizingly delicate,
personally and politically anguished film leaves one in various states of
mourning
Utopia (1950) – Laurel and Hardy’s last film is ambitiously
plotted, but often poorly realized, and poorly attuned to their advancing years
Beginning (2020) – Kulumbegashvili’s
mind-filling film is often formally mesmerizing, and existentially and socially
almost terrifying
You and Me (1938) – Lang’s socially-minded romance incorporates
some highly striking emphasis, digressions and musical interpolations
Les confins du monde (2018) – Nicloux travels a wrenchingly
original, unsettling route into the extremity of war, as breakdown and erasure
Village of the Damned (1960) – a few elements of Rilla’s drama
hang around in one’s memory, despite the often rushed and cursory handling
No Fear, No Die (1990) – Denis’ powers of observation are
unnervingly powerful here, although her greatest works reach more thrilling
peaks
The Hospital (1971) – Hiller/Chayefsky’s harsh satire provides
some lasting, penetrating pleasures, offset by some impassioned overreaching
The Staggering Girl (2019) – Guadagnino’s short film is rich
in resources at least, placed in service of a forgettably enigmatic trifle
Rio Bravo (1959) – an abiding source of rich Hawksian pleasures,
with some of classic Hollywood’s most easefully fulfilling interactions
The
Misfortunates (2009) – Van Groeningen’s boisterous family memoir is quite
subtle and reflective, but doesn’t always care to show it
Stormy
Weather (1943) – the value and authenticity of Stone’s musical lies in the
performances; the rest is, to say the least, interesting
Eter (2018) – Zanussi’s historical drama
conducts a fluidly wide-ranging moral & ethical investigation, with a
startling final embellishment
The Rain People (1969) – Coppola’s searching early film doesn’t
feel quite fully achieved, but represents an appealing road not taken
Intervista
(1987) – one of Fellini’s lightest & most purely pleasurable films, his
self-mythologizing at its most graceful & least grating
Zorns
Lemma (1970) – Frampton’s astonishing edifice emanates the sense of an
exactingly structured private (but communicable) obsession
Domains (2019) – Kusano’s unique film immerses us
in a behavioural & moral space both meticulously constructed &
mysteriously transcended
Kansas City Confidential (1952) – Karlson at his lean and
committed best, cleanly navigating through disillusioning layers of venality
Princess Mononoke (1997) – perhaps Miyazaki’s most claspingly
direct vision, its beauty offset by discomfiting images of pillage &
imbalance
Heaven-Bound Travelers (1935) – in its rough extant form, the
Gists’ filmic proclamation is suffused in fervent, even hectoring conviction
Peterloo (2018) – Leigh challenges the viewer
with immersively detailed interactions, all the better to establish the
climactic injustice
Soleil O (1967) – Hondo’s vibrant, proud, furious
anecdote of black experience surveys a whole infrastructure of injustice and
condescension
Variety (1983) – Gordon’s exceptionally well-conceived, displaced
noir-like journey through societal and cinematic power structures
La gueule ouverte (1974) – one of Pialat’s
smaller-scale films, but fully possessed by his rare capacity for naturalistic
frankness
The Owls
(2010) – Dunye ably contextualizes the narrative and illuminates the project’s
collective nature, but to rather arid and minor ends
Krane’s Confectionary (1951) – Henning-Jensen’s study of modest
rebellion is well-attuned to individual and collective despair and toxicity
David Byrne’s American Utopia (2020) – Lee’s impeccable film is
almost as joyous & fulfilling as the real thing (which I saw – second row!)
Women of
the Night (1948) – Mizoguchi in his most indicting, unadorned mode, examining
prostitution as a creeping, corroding social trap
Her Smell (2018) – Perry’s deep dive into a psyche and a
milieu, infusing broadly familiar structures with jittery, close-up conviction
A Dream Play (1963) – Bergman’s record of
Strindberg’s play, filmed with respectful theatricality in all its evasively
troubled majesty
Tongues Untied (1989) – Riggs’ hypnotic declaration of presence,
pain, pride, diversity, a film both besieged and poetically celebratory
Murmur of the Heart (1971) – Malle’s
coming-of-age provocation blurs the line between non-judgmental reverie and
soft-centered complacency
The Dead Don’t Die (2019) – Jarmusch, never
having made an outright bad film, seems here to laconically tease us with the
prospect of one
The White Angel (1957) – Matarazzo’s Vertigo-anticipating
extension of Nobody’s Children, increasingly bathed in almost devout conviction
Wolf (1994) – Nichols’ spectacularly
misjudged (but, of course, watchable) genre movie fails and bewilders on just
about every level
Variete (1925) – Dupont’s almost prototypically
ill-fated love triangle drama is absolutely studded with startling
expressionist highlights
At Eternity’s Gate (2018) – Schnabel’s deeply-felt approach,
both investigation and transmigration, transcends potential over-familiarity
The Steamroller and the Violin (1961) – Tarkovsky’s early
work is his most gently accessible, allowing glimpses of greater complexities
The Competition (1980) – Oliansky’s piano-heavy drama is smart
enough to maintain interest, despite various unconvincingly struck notes
Satan’s Brew (1976) – Fassbinder’s aggressively
hard to take farce inhabits a sickly and soulless society, at the mercy of the
ruthless
The Plagiarists (2019) – Parlow’s amusingly
shifty, highly allusive film channels both transient preoccupations and classic
inspirations
Ikiru (1952) – one of Kurosawa’s most lasting films, on the glory
(and institutional rarity) of stagnation overcome through moral clarity
Collateral (2004) – only Mann
could have elevated the improbable material so indelibly, with such sustained
visual and tonal coherence
Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924) – the demands of
Protazanov’s otherworldly dreams ultimately glumly yield to those of the
Earthly revolution
Wild Rose (2018) – Harper deftly delivers formulaic
satisfaction, while crafting a more individualistic portrait of artistic
evolution
The Shop on Main Street (1965) – Kadar and
Klos’s drama remains very moving in its final passage, surmounting earlier
grating aspects
Streetwise (1984) – Bell’s wrenchingly classic social document
continues to provoke complex reactions; pessimism and despair among them
Que la fete commence… (1975) – Tavernier’s teeming portrait
of 18th century France is an extraordinary immersion into
decadence-ridden chaos
An Oversimplification of her Beauty (2012) – Nance’s delicate
self-examination within a beautifully inventive fantasia, and vice versa
Le coup du berger (1956) – Rivette’s early short film, and his
first elegantly-observed filmic conspiracy, albeit a modest and schematic one
On the Rocks (2020) – Murray is the main show in Coppola’s slight
(but not vacuous), retro-feeling comedy, and that’s basically good enough
La fille de l’eau (1925) – a somewhat choppily eventful
Renoir silent film, most memorable for a no-limits expressionistic dream
sequence
Buddies (1985) – Bressan’s film remains an affecting human and
historical document, its relative weaknesses as endearing as its strengths
The Cow (1969) – Mehrjui’s heartrending story of madness in
the face of loss, simply observed but carrying a deep, dignified forcefulness
Destroyer (2018) – Kusama’s gloomy drama has some solidly
old-fashioned virtues, but with an escalating sense of existential overreaching
Moses and Aaron (1975) – Straub/Huillet’s near-humblingly great
spanning of the representationally fundamental & the metaphysically epic
Q & A (1990) – another powerful Lumet tale of corruption and
compromise, although somewhat undermined this time by melodramatic excesses
Hungry Soul, Part II (1956) – a bit more familiar
than Kawashima’s key works, but still a finely-calibrated study of unfulfilled
yearning
Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015) – Zhao’s delicately
mediated and balanced study, arising out of deep immersion in a culture and
location
Burden of Life (1935) – an engaging
family drama, although Gosho is less of a stylistic and analytical force than
his great contemporaries
It’s My Turn (1980) – Weill’s reserved comedy of self-discovery is
agreeably well-judged throughout, with a finely-tuned arrival point
Le caporal epingle (1962) – Renoir’s very fine late work is a
renewed assertion of the drive for freedom, & exploration of its
ambiguities
Hereditary (2018) – Aster’s
commanding film spans agonizing, convincingly-inhabited familial trauma, and
gleefully outlandish mythology
Goin’ South (1978) – Nicholson’s minor Western comedy rather
allows his own overstated presence to swamp all other potential virtues
Vive l’amour (1994) – Tsai’s shimmering, hypnotically withholding
study of emptying possibilities, of connection without connectivity
Angels
Over Broadway (1940) – Hecht and Garmes’ baroquely-expressed redemption drama,
aggressively seeped in masculine self-disgust
For Sama (2019) – Al-Kateab and Watts’ absolutely vital,
often heart-rending documentary prompts a huge sense of respect and humility
Operation Petticoat (1959) – one of Edwards’ most classically
well-functioning comic machines, escalatingly subverting the established order
Desordre
(1986) – Assayas’ early work shows his facility for narrative & emotional
shift, but lacks the overall fullness of his later films
The Assassination Bureau (1969) – Dearden’s plush period comedy
too often takes its eye off the concept’s dark morality, and off the fun
An Elephant Sitting Still (2018) – with bleakly supple
mastery, the tragic Hu Bo interrogates the unbearable heaviness of modern China
Town Bloody Hall (1979) – a rollicking record of ongoing, shifting
relevance (e.g Mailer as seeming foreseer of Trumpian cultural backlash!)
Timecrimes
(2007) – Vigalondo’s time travel flick marshals familiar paradoxes with relish,
making a definite virtue out of its small scale
Rich
and Strange (1931) – an early relationship drama rather more stiff than
strange, but navigated with amused Hitchcockian skepticism
Shoah: Four Sisters (2017) – Lanzmann’s record is
bottomlessly moving as oral history, endlessly fascinating as an act of
witnessing
Kiss Me Deadly (1955) – memorable both for Aldrich’s mastery of
genre attitudes and power games, and for the ultimate obliteration of them
Nenette et Boni (1996) – Denis applies her almost unmatched,
allusively sensuous powers to a portrait of familial connection and fracture
Underworld, U.S.A. (1961) – Fuller’s comprehensive, astoundingly
and intimately pitiless dissection of corporatized American exploitation
Zama (2017) – Martel’s complex, often ravishing film charts
an indelible personal odyssey, against the devastation & upheaval of
colonialism
The Eagle has Landed (1976) – the film’s virtues are mostly
superficial, but Sturges handles the sprawling canvas with veteran know-how
Coup de
foudre (1983) – it’s easy to undervalue the controlled scope of Kurys’ work;
even so, one wishes the film were a little less studied
Ball
of Fire (1941) – by no means the most penetrating of Hawks’ great comedies, but
it’s sweetly irresistible in just about every respect
In Bloom (2013) – with devastating precision and finesse, Ekvtimishvili
and Gross chart a hard-edged society’s unbalanced sexual politics
Autumn Leaves (1956) – Aldrich’s anxiety- and repression-infused
drama, at once plain and yet (not least re Crawford) strangely abstracted
The Life Ahead (2020) – Ponti’s Madame Rosa remake has superficial
polish, but is thinner & more sentimentally calculating than the original
The Group
(1966) – Lumet’s film occasionally works as disillusioned social history, when not falling uncomfortably between
various stools
The End of Evangelion (1997) – Anno’s (in isolation) confusing
narrative yields to turbulently-inspired, strangely mesmerizing expression
The Wild Geese (1978) – McLaglen’s coldly effective action film
could have done with a bit more wokeness, even by then-current standards
I Lost My Body (2019) – Clapin’s wondrously singular,
superbly realized animation, at once dashingly weird, & hauntingly intimate
& lovely
Mercy, the Mummy Mumbled (1918) – Phillips’
sprightly (but sadly degraded) African-American short is as peculiarly inspired
as its title
The Legend
of Rita (2000) – Schlondorff handles his eventful chronicle of terrorism and
its aftermath with veteran incisive confidence
The
Brothers Rico (1957) – Karlson seasons his sharp portrayal of pervasive
criminality with familial challenges and anxious domesticity
Manta Ray (2018) – Phuttiphong’s
enormously allusive, often gorgeously imagined film draws on the multiple
losses & atrocities of refugeedom
The Magus
(1968) – Green’s dated oddity, somewhat more interesting than its reputation,
but tonally mismanaged and ultimately unrevealing
Mauvais
sang (1986) – Carax’s modern classic is a rare meeting of strange and lovely,
forcefully present while infused with dreamy escapism
Dawn of the Dead (1978) – Romero’s scrappy classic remains among
the most strikingly eventful, metaphorically provocative horror films
The Souvenir (2019) – Hogg’s riveting memoir
film unfolds in exquisitely considered fragments, highly alert to class-imposed
complexities
Redes (1936) – Zinnemann/Muriel’s starkly ravishing tale
carries immense righteous power, even though constrained by narrative artifice
Ghost Dog: the way of the Samurai (1999) – Jarmusch weaves
together wildly disparate cultural elements into a funnily coherent
conversation
Le mystere
Picasso (1956) – Clouzot’s cleverly navigated performance film advances to and
retreats from revelation in largely equal measure
Gloria
Bell (2018) – Lelio’s closely-tracking remake trades up on star-kissed
charisma, overall enhancing the graceful existential mystery
Le farceur (1960) – De Broca’s high-energy farce is often
quite distinctive in its eccentricity, seasoned by a chillier and lonelier
streak
The Cotton Club (1984) – Coppola’s epic often enthralls as
performance and showmanship, but falls narratively and emotionally a bit flat
My Name is Nobody (1973) – Valerii (and Leone’s?)
Western seasons its applause-worthy myth-making with various downright goofy
notions
Uncut Gems (2019) – Sandler’s committed
presence and the Safdies’ breathless narrative make for an engrossing if rather
empty-feeling ride
Apostasy
(1948) – Kinoshita’s story of prejudice and injustice retains much social
interest, despite evidencing no great directorial finesse
Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1981) – Jaeckin’s pretty enough but
hardly earthy adaptation, its edges persistently softened for easy consumption
High Life (2018) – Denis supply molds the genre material in
daring, often borderline-outrageous, if not quite masterpiece-generating manner
Olivia
(1951) – Audry’s vital study of generation-crossing female desire weaves an
intricately mutable web of emotions, moods & power games
Dry
Summer (1963) – Erksan’s intense drama of greed, lust and betrayal, powered
(sometimes excessively) by unwavering, tense physicality
A Dry White Season (1989) – Palcy’s film contains much that’s
savagely agitating, but the dominant narrative too often just gets in the way
India Song (1975) – Duras’ film holds presence
& absence in unique equilibrium, casting a spell both soul-sickened &
implicitly empowering
Kill List (2011) – Wheatley’s brutally accomplished genre-crossing
revel, studded with echoes of past cinematic oddities and swaggers
Aniki
Bobo (1942) – Oliveira’s early work, atypical in its straightforward charm, is
a well-observed, if sometimes over-emphasized pleasure
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020) – Sorkin’s packaged telling
isn’t worth much, but has a definite right-movie-at-the-right-time vibe
La signora
senza camelie (1953) – Antonioni’s sleek study of desolating fame builds to an
ironic portrait of cushioned female surrender
Queen of Diamonds (1991) – Menkes incisively nails Vegas’s trashy
emptiness, and yet in a film with a sense almost of divine ascension
The
Law of the Border (1966) – Akad’s conflict-heavy drama straddles the ragged
& the poetic, its genre-type moves pulsing with authenticity
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) – Jenkins confirms his
extraordinary delicacy and ease, in a gloriously balanced, searching adaptation
Duvidha (1974) – Kaul’s film occupies a
hauntingly elusive, heightened space, as if directed by the ghost at the heart
of its narrative
Big Time (1989) – not quite the indelible Waits film that we one
day deserve, but ably showcasing his unique persona and canny musicianship
An Inn in Tokyo (1935) – Ozu’s silent
film is among his saddest, as poverty ultimately imposes a grim, almost
self-obliterating morality
Midsommar (2019) – Aster’s stunning, anthropologically
compelling waking nightmare grips in every detail, even as it perplexes and
repels
Nobody’s Children (1951) – Matarazzo’s tightly-wound,
deeply-invested, socially-outraged variation on his recurring themes and
devices
Havana (1990) – Pollack aims all too obviously for iconic
romanticism and spectacle, but everything about it feels artificial and labored
An Innocent Witch (1965) – Gosho’s
sympathetically troubled, ambiguity-seeded tale of exploited female sexuality,
desired and demonized
The
Favourite (2018) – Lanthimos’s film teems with biting provocations, but is
ultimately less involving than his (even) weirder works
Les orders (1974) – Brault’s superbly calibrated record of a
modern Canadian atrocity, deeply attuned to the machinery of dehumanization
The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) – Weir’s drama covers the
basics, but seldom feels like an optimal approach into the material
Swedenhielms (1935) – Molander’s stagy drama about an
over-extended family’s self-centered travails now feels grating and
complacent
The Two Popes (2019) – Meirelles’ drama is plainly a fanciful
artifice, but it’s conceived and embodied with pleasingly warm intelligence
Pickpocket
(1959) – one of Bresson’s most mesmerizingly crafted inquiries and meditations,
a film of almost unnervingly searching detail
All the Vermeers in New York (1990) – Jost’s strangely haunting
meeting of elusiveness & precision, contrasting the lasting & the
ephermeral
Teorema (1968) – Pasolini’s
inexhaustibly analyzable expression of the bourgeoisie’s unraveling, powered by
a slyly seductive premise
Greta (2018) – a silly contrivance,
establishing Jordan as a spent force, slightly redeemed by its take on a
triumphing female friendship
The Traveler (1974) – Kiarostami’s chronicle of an errant
child teems with life & insight, its ending foretelling the greater works
to come
The Holcroft Covenant (1985) – Frankenheimer’s wildly unpersuasive
high-concept thriller confuses & underwhelms in large & small ways
alike
Poil de carotte (1932) – Duvivier’s masterfully-balanced study of
an unhappy father and son remains chillingly raw and affecting at times
Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party (2015) – Cone’s sociologically
valuable slice of anxiety-ridden Christian life, observed with much dexterity
Spoiled Children (1977) – Tavernier’s early film has a wide
thematic reach, strongly anchored in the problems of contemporary urbanization
The Half of It (2020) – Wu’s gentle comedy has scores of appealing
traits, but is limited by its artificial premise, among other things
Hungry Soul (1956) – Kawashima’s study of
transgressive female desire grows in restrained power, although leaves much for
the sequel
Swing Shift (1984) – Demme’s amiably missed-opportunity “Rosie the
Riveter” drama is largely drained of analysis, anger or implication
Machorka-Muff (1963) – Straub/Huillet’s “abstract
visual dream,” at once hard-edged in its historical specificity, &
timelessly liberating
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) – Singer’s movie rattles by
in stilted, compromised manner, while inevitably hitting a few pleasurable
marks
It Always Rains on Sunday (1948) – Hamer anchors
the central drama within a realistically colourful portrait of unadorned
post-war community
Nowhere to Hide (1999) – Lee’s goofily brutal,
now-for-my-next-trick action flick is a most uninvolving brand of
applause-worthy virtuosity
Silver Bears (1977) – Passer has to scramble to hold the
international-finance shenanigans together, but his pleasure is rather
infectious
The Aquatic Effect (2016) – Anspach’s
last, somewhat over-abbreviated film has a nice line in odd affinities and
slanted storytelling
Day of the Outlaw (1959) – De Toth’s raw end-of-the-world Western
draws combustibly on primal conflicts, played out in shivery isolation
Kinetta
(2005) – a rather arid viewing experience, but not inappropriately to
Lanthimos’ exploration of joyless fixations and relationships
Where
Eagles Dare (1968) – Hutton’s wartime drama is uninspired in large and small
ways alike, heavily flaunting its flavorless silliness
Dogman (2018) – Garrone’s film is
uncomfortably well-realized, particularly in its empathetically put-upon
central character, and the dogs
They Might be Giants (1971) – Harvey’s fragile-cored,
time-capsule-infused comedy is oddly & defiantly appealing, although
certainly flawed
Pharos
of Chaos (1984) – a somewhat overwhelmed-seeming German observation of the
aging Sterling Hayden, in all his grandeur and banality
A Reckless Rover (1918) – notable for a lively depiction of a
comedic African-American milieu, although one heavily conceived in stereotype
Elles (2011) – Szumowska’s highly satisfying and
assured engagement with prostitution as threat, liberation and domestic
reference point
The Devil’s Playground (1976) – Schepisi’s tension-permeated study
of Catholic boys school admits a certain rueful, resigned admiration
Mignonnes (2020) – Doucoure’s cynically & carelessly maligned
film is an essentially sad social study that’s ultimately too soft if anything
Rio Grande (1950) – the stirring conclusion of Ford’s “cavalry
trilogy” at once retreats and eases up, for a tapestry of moods and registers
Malina (1991) – Schroeter’s amazing, fiery, jaggedly sexualized
depiction of breakdown is both operatically excessive & hurtingly immediate
Inside
Daisy Clover (1965) – the knowing artificiality of Mulligan’s drama is overall
more weakness than strength, but it has its moments
The Event (2015) – Loznitsa’s fall-of-USSR record
observes and shapes the premonitory mundanity that attends historical
momentousness
Newsfront (1978) – Noyce provides an enjoyably episodic sweep of
changing times, but at the cost of very much political or emotional depth
The
Skin (1981) – Cavani depicts the end of war as a crucible of exploitation, lies
and illusions, with often savagely impressive impact
Black
Legion (1937) – Mayo’s lumpily flawed movie still fascinates for its
ever-relevant angle on cynical manipulation and suckerization
How
Fernando Pessoa Saved Portugal (2018) – Green’s “mini-film” comprises an
ironically deadpan anecdote with a poetically evocative soul
Foul Play (1978) – Higgins’ peril-comedy isn’t boring, mostly just
shallow & clumsy; the soft-balled Hitchcock references count for nothing
The Fish Child (2009) – Puenzo’s love-against-the-odds
drama doesn’t really persuade on any level, despite various alluring elements
5 Against
the House (1955) – Karlson’s quip-heavy heist drama is over-written and
under-impactful, providing merely passing distraction
Gaby Baby Doll (2014) – Letourneau’s opposites-attract trifle
evokes an intrigued affection, even if not much of it lands very convincingly
A Dandy in Aspic (1968) – Mann’s twisty Cold War
drama provides some pictorial and tonal pleasures, but for much of the time is
pretty flat
Porco Rosso (1992) – Miyazaki’s flying pig movie is of course
swaggeringly absurd, but also honorably upright, and often evasively lovely
Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) – despite some
biting moments, it’s mostly a cinematically moribund message movie, from a
pre-Kazanian Kazan
Vox
Lux (2018) – Corbet’s grandiose but smart and haunting portrait of
soul-destroying modern celebrity’s darkly-charged signification
Of
Great Events and Ordinary People (1979) – Ruiz dazzlingly crafts one of the
all-time great meditations on representation and engagement
Puberty Blues (1981) – Beresford’s worthwhile portrait observes
Australia’s perpetuating patriarchal culture with low-key progressivity
David Golder (1931) – Duvivier’s early sound film, suffused in
weary bitterness, still resonates with its depiction of grasping materialism
Late Night (2019) – Ganatra’s calculatingly
engaging comedy too often feels like an incompletely-inhabited,
blood-and-bile-inhibited outline
The Bronte Sisters (1979) – Techine’s
atypical, finely-judged study places the sisters’ creative force as forged in
isolation and exclusion
Investigating Sex (2001) – the form of Rudolph’s centered yet
shifting film oddly befits its focus on the preoccupying contours of sexuality
The Indian Tomb (1959) – the second part of
Lang’s adventure, driven by figurative and literal layers of compounding
conspiracy and threat
Green Book (2018) – Farrelly’s relentlessly superficial if
cursedly watchable pap lacks any rounded sense of interaction, time or place
Closely Watched Trains (1966) – Menzel’s
deftly-observed, gently erotic-minded tale of self-discovery and resistance
holds up pretty well
Personal Problems (1980) – Gunn’s shifts of focus, emphasis and
rhythm expand and liberate the material, albeit sometimes a bit perplexingly
Don Giovanni (1979) – musically opulent, but Losey’s complacent
handsomeness hardly interrogates the largely insufferable narrative
The Laundromat (2019) – Soderbergh’s witty, if often bumpy,
deployment of open-ended form to an inherently unsummarizable ongoing outrage
Wooden Crosses (1932) – Bernard’s powerful, illusion-free war film
squarely scrutinizes fear and death, and resilience and its limits
Welcome II the Terrordome (1995) – Onwurah’s super-ambitious
mash-up has some great far-seeing moments, but bogs down at other times
Suspiria (1977) – Argento’s predestination-seeped classic, as
defined by absences and ambiguities as by its often extraordinary compositions
Vice (2018) – for all the movie’s strenuous, certainly
seldom-boring efforts, Cheney’s underlying ugliness remains elusively
under-analyzed
The Munekata Sisters (1950) – with quiet force,
Ozu examines contrasting approaches to self-determination in uncertainly
modernizing times
Rich and Famous (1981) – Cukor’s last film is often overdone, but
still underrated, curiously trying out modern perspectives on old forms
La boutique (1967) – Berlanga’s sex comedy looks stylish on the
surface, but narratively just flails around to little cumulative impact
The Wise Kids (2011) – Cone sinks into the conviviality and
suppression of his under-examined milieu with wide-ranging, humane
consideration
The Illumination (1973) – a film of relative brevity but
vast-ranging (if rather academic) scope, confidently marshaled by peak-form
Zanussi
The Invisible Man (2020) – Whannell provides a halfway striking
overall angle and some snappy scenes, but it can only count for so much
Bluebeard (1936) – Painleve & Bertrand’s
super-whimsical, darkly-undertoned animation lies among cinema’s more oddly
inspired 13 minutes
The Underneath (1995) – Soderbergh’s modern-day noir is deftly
handled, although its ambitions seldom seem to be set particularly high
L’horloger de Saint-Paul (1974) – Tavernier places a low-key crime
narrative at a preoccupied meeting place of old and new anxieties
Stan
& Ollie (2018) – Baird’s film makes it easy to coast contentedly along,
warmed by skillfully sentimental recreations and evocations
Our Town (1956) – Kawashima’s chronicle of
stubborn perseverance provides a colourful & quite affecting window on
changing, loss-heavy times
Sleepwalk (1986) – Driver’s altogether wonderful, intimately
watchful yet dreamily morphing vision of mundane life infiltrated by myth
Calcutta
(1969) – Malle methodically accumulates deprivations and colonially-gifted
injustices, properly devoid of much token relief
The Irishman (2019) – Scorsese’s epic is in too many respects
familiar, glib, opaque or superficial, eliciting mostly dutiful respect
History Lessons (1972) – Straub/Huillet’s daringly
contrasting modes of representing and investigating a capitalism-determined
civilization
Party Girl (1995) – Posey is the perfect standard-bearer for
Mayer’s peppy fusion of self-expression, personal evolution and library science
The 47 Ronin (1941) – Mizoguchi’s long, contemplative, finely
controlled study of the agonizing demands of personal and societal codes
The
Mule (2018) – an inevitable if easy pleasure, infusing Eastwood’s sensationally
honed storytelling skill with defiant fragility
The Mephisto Waltz (1971) – Wendkos’ deal-with-the-devil drama
falls rather ineffectually between a moody high road and a campy low one
Diva
(1981) – Beineix’s film has some potentially beguiling elements, but they
impact less than the ugly swagger of its governing style
The Caine Mutiny (1954) – Dmytryk’s film is often much duller than
its reputation; even the central human drama unfolds overly simply
Corpo celeste (2011) – Rohrwacher’s
almost unprecedently wondrous debut, extraordinarily observant and true,
shimmering in unforced mystery
The Slender Thread (1965) – Pollack’s
race-against-time drama (and implicit tribute to American can-do-ism) is
polished, but basically dull
The Hater (2020) – Komasa’s coldly virtuosic dive into the social
media dark side is expertly thought-provoking, if inevitably unendearing
Prophecy (1979) – it’s disappointing how Frankenheimer surrenders
so fully (albeit fairly proficiently) to unprophetic monster-movie devices
Jacques Rivette – le veilleur (1994) – Denis’ quiet portrait is
thrilling for Rivette worshippers, confirming a gentle but firm singularity
Dream Street (1921) – for all its strange & problematic
aspects, Griffith’s maligned drama now ranks among his richest, most restless
works
Lover for a Day (2017) – Garrel’s impeccably executed romantic
shuffling, its classical qualities infused with acutely-felt need and desire
The United States of America (1975) – Benning/Gordon’s
mesmerizingly executed trip record, among the largest of small films (or vice
versa)
The Forest for the Trees (2003) – Ade’s calmly
excruciating study of not fitting in is perfectly pitched all the way to its
sublime ending
The
Searchers (1956) – perhaps Ford’s most magnificent & complex work, an epic
attuned to America’s slow, painful, often ugly self-discovery
Li’l
Quinquin (2014) – Dumont’s mesmerizingly strange, often hilarious investigation
takes a uniquely wacked-out road to near-greatness
The Italian Job (1969) – Collinson’s caper film
holds up well, with an improbable haul of logistically striking or peculiarly
iconic moments
Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) – a delightful instance of
Miyazaki’s superbly-visualized, mysteriously affecting, warmly-shaded alchemy
Capernaum
(2018) – Labaki’s heart-rending drama is a recent milestone in socially- and
humanistically-charged, narratively fluent cinema
Between the Lines (1977) – Silver’s deceptively easygoing
newspaper comedy has a terrific instinct for flaws, compromises & elusive
closures
Song
of the South (1946) – Disney’s notorious film has some conventional virtues,
but reeks with racial subservience and marginalization
For Ever Mozart (1996) – one of Godard’s most tragically beautiful
late films, on art & war, nobility & naivete, the ephemeral & the
abiding
The Missouri Breaks (1976) – Penn’s digressive post-Watergate
Western reflects on law and morality with elusive, often eccentric complexity
Spoor (2017) – Holland and Adamik’s darkly handsome, eco-conscious
drama is consistently interesting, notwithstanding its big kooky streak
Tight
Spot (1955) – for all its professionalism, Karlson’s reluctant witness drama
makes only a modest bang, with Rogers unpersuasively cast
Mortal Transfer (2001) – Beineix’s least interesting movie
strings together various tawdry manoeuvres, albeit quite dynamically
implemented
A Guide for the Married Man (1967) – underneath
all the smug leering, Kelly’s unpleasant comedy may embody a few grim social
truths
Can
you Ever Forgive Me? (2018) – Heller maximizes the story’s crowd-pleasing
potential while cultivating an adequate thematic depth
Anne-Marie (1936) – Bernard’s beguiling film blends soaring
ambitions and earthly affinities, although its gender role rebellion peters out
Wild Style (1982) – Ahearn’s film prioritizes multi-faceted,
digressive observation over plot, with happily ragged, celebratory results
La
menace (1977) – Corneau’s (maybe too) cleverly-conceived drama is a bit under-involving,
despite plenty of great notions and spectacle
Booksmart (2019) – Wilde’s not too funny wild-night comedy
feels largely hollow, hermetic and strained, for all its tolerant
open-mindedness
He Who is Without Sin…(1952) – Matarazzo’s melodrama, immersed in
separation and suffering, is grandly watchable, if a bit blandly played
Defending Your Life (1991) – probably not Brooks’ conceptually
tightest movie, but more than adequately funny and philosophically engaging
The Executioner (1963) – Berlanga’s mesmerizingly assured black
comedy expertly tightens an economic & moral vice on its overwhelmed victim
Sorry
to Bother You (2018) – Riley’s uniquely-calibrated satire-and-then-some riffs
richly on economic exploitation and cultural degradation
Emitai (1971) – Sembene’s highly arresting, clear-sighted,
fabulously visualized confrontation of Senegalese culture and malign
colonialism
Born in Flames (1983) – Borden’s amazing, teeming, defiantly
attack-mode vision-collage foresees our failed, big-lie-infused landscape
Les
portes de la nuit (1946) – Carne’s often lovely (when not over-mythologized)
fatalistic drama, rooted in vivid post-Liberation anxiety
Museum Hours (2012) – Cohen’s extraordinarily astute, warmly
illuminated (but not unshadowed) window on personal and aesthetic engagement
Fata
Morgana (1971) – timeless myth-spawning magnificence yields to the human stain
in Herzog’s rather magnificently opportunistic reverie
I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020) – Kaufman’s inspiredly weird
expression of the wondrous intimacy & frightening immensity of connection
Gate of Hell (1953) – Kinugasa’s famous tragedy
is prettily decorative, but its restrained anguish makes a relatively modest
impact now
The Departed (2006) – Scorsese’s Oscar-winner ranks among his more
alienatingly self-contained demonstrations of technical mastery
Bambole (1965) – four directors, four hot female stars, and four
easy-to-take but mostly forgettable stories of repressed sexuality
Widows
(2018) – McQueen’s crime drama has intimations of wide-angle, socially astute
greatness, unrealized in the climactic narrative flurry
Scent
of a Woman (1974) – Risi’s original moves along briskly and scenically, but its
hectoring, leering notion of charm rapidly wears thin
You are Not I (1981) – variously other-worldly and creepily drab,
Driver’s short-ish film sets out an implication-infused identity enigma
The
Old and the New (1929) – Eisenstein’s industrial paean is deliriously vivid and
venerating, both transcending and obliterating humanity
Dolemite is my Name (2019) – Brewer and Murphy put on a great
show, although it’s a bit light both as character study and cultural history
Othon (1970) – Straub and Huillet craft a methodical
challenge to preconceptions of historical recreation and narrative
representation
Afterglow (1997) – Rudolph successfully pitches a potentially
straightforward romantic melodrama on the heightened edge of absurdity
Awaara (1951) – Kapoor’s grand
melodrama hits expressively fantastic notes & small, socially critical ones
with equally accomplished swagger
Suburbicon (2018) – Clooney’s
weirdly ungainly blending of unremarkable film noir, toothless satire and
bloodless social commentary
The Naked Island (1960) – Shindo’s
distilled study of barren lives is certainly memorable, despite
counterproductive imposed constraints
Empty Suitcases (1980) – Gordon’s mind-filling film feels largely,
if not yet entirely, despairing of male-determined cinema & society alike
Forza Bastia (1978) – Tati’s
rediscovered day-of-the-match footage is nicely observed fun, but real life
resists the sublimely Tati-esque
The Report (2019) – Burns’ perhaps
artfully dullish record plays rather too familiarly, but effectively puts
across its multiple outrages
Les visiteurs du soir (1942) –
Carne’s fantasy of supernatural intervention is rather too heavygoing, despite
its alluring narrative folds
The Handmaid’s Tale (1990) – Schlondorff’s adaptation collapses
into little more than random notions, mostly drained of allegorical force
The Purple Taxi (1977) – Boisset’s
Irish-set drama appeals for its once in a lifetime cast, but is mostly empty
gestures and pronouncements
The Sisters Brothers (2018) –
Audiard pulls off the genre swagger, but the film’s heart is subtly ironic and
ambiguously vulnerable
Burden of Love (1955) – Kawashima’s
eye-opening, pregnancy-festooned, progressively issue-laden narrative makes for
quite unusual comedy
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) – there’s much that lingers,
maybe forever, in Scorsese’s calculated interrogation of Biblical cliché
Something Different (1963) –
Chytilova’s intimately alert study of two female lives, marked by contrasting
frustrations and compromises
Us (2019) – Peele weaves in some mild
metaphorical interest, but overall the film plays much more conventionally
& repetitively than Get Out
Scorpio (1973) – fairly average international spy games, elevated
by the cast, when not hampered by Winner’s very basic cinematic instincts
Whisper of the Heart (1995) – Kondo’s happiness-provoking,
fantasy-inflected love story, rooted in the interaction of dreams and
commitment
Broken Blossoms (1919) – Griffith’s
sensibility now seems crass on several fronts, but the film’s central
melancholy spell somehow endures
Cities of Last Things (2018) – Ho’s
concept-heavy drama ultimately feels rather too removed, but is impeccably
structured and populated
Blume in Love (1973) – Mazursky’s
delightfully regulated film embraces idealized romanticism all the better for
seeing right through it
The Shipwrecker (1984) – Buhler’s
coolly cerebral engagement with Sterling Hayden sounds more formally
interesting than it actually is
Pushover (1954) – Quine’s expertly
paced and plotted thriller is mostly all surface, but one of consistently
devious, voyeuristic pleasures
Slack Bay (2016) – Dumont’s
class-conscious farce swirls with affectations, peculiarities and taboos, while
somehow seeming integrated
Walden (1969) – Mekas’ great
submergence in a life fully lived and felt, asserting both the specificity and
universality of experience
Water Lilies (2007) – Sciamma’s
quietly enchanting study of personality and desire in formation; of femininity
as structured display
Saturday Night Fever (1977) – Badham’s
strutting classic of sorts, less airy (and more bitingly misogynistic) than the
myth might suggest
Season of the Devil (2018) – one of
Diaz’s more concentrated works, an extended, aching song of loss and grief in
the face of brutality
Curse of the Cat People (1944) – Lewton’s beautiful evocation of
intertwined isolations, marked by captivating play of light and shadow
The Invincibles (1994) – Graf’s politically-charged police
thriller reaches for grandeur, but lets in too many slack and dilutive elements
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) –
Carpenter executes his shrewdly absurd siege narrative with the maximum in
existentially-charged stylization
Nobody’s Daughter Haewon (2013) –
with the most finely light-footed seriousness, Hong enmeshes us in shifting
internal & external realities
Nightfall (1956) – Tourneur’s film
travels from urban darkness to open snowy landscapes, powerfully expressing the
passage to redemption
Revenge (1989) – Shinarbayev’s
narrative of grim earthly imperatives, shimmeringly told through poetically
unbound structures and images
The Caretaker (1963) – Pinter’s
inexhaustibly rich and provocative text, more memorable here for the acting
than the cinematic realization
Everybody Knows (2018) – from a
somewhat limited narrative, Farhadi crafts an insinuating portrait of
widespread, if well-concealed, rot
That’s the Way of the World (1975) –
Shore’s record-industry drama (Keitel produces EWF!) has enough substance to
transcend curio status
La haine (1995) – Kassovitz’s often-inspired lightning-bolt film
surveys and sparks multitudes, its ambition in some ways counterproductive
Air Raid Wardens (1943) – some standardly enjoyable
Laurel and Hardy set-pieces surmount a blandly unaccommodating homefront
framework
Marriage Story (2019) – Baumbach’s
smart film overflows with interesting moves and details, while often feeling
too studied at key moments
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach
(1968) – Straub/Huillet’s beautiful, ethical, exactingly rigorous yet deeply
alert historical evocation
Parting Glances (1986) – narrative
artificiality aside, Sherwood’s classic bearing-of-witness film contains much
that’s true and surprising
Mexican Bus Ride (1952) – beneath
Bunuel’s convivially eventful surface lies a more deliciously biting vein of
transgressive calculation
First Man (2018) – Chazelle’s most
interesting film to date, for its intimate physicality and recessive core, and
its surprising absences
Baal (1970) – Schlondorff’s Fassbinder-starring Brecht
adaptation is rough-hewn, repellent and yet stubbornly, ambiguously insinuating
The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981) –
Reisz and Pinter’s strategy holds up well, although the risk is consummately
minimized throughout
Apart from You (1933) – Naruse’s
emotionally resonant silent drama surveys a thankless world of gender-based
injustice and imposed sacrifice
Sightseers (2012) – Wheatley drolly
injects bloody murder into the latter-day strained reality of heritage Englishness’
bucolic surface
Body of my Enemy (1976) –
Verneuil’s brassily enjoyable, focus-shifting clutter of a drama eventually
submits to revenge-genre mechanics
Da 5 Bloods (2020) – Lee embraces melodrama with relish, as a
scaffold for a passionately haunted, digressive survey of unending fracture
War and Peace (1966) – whatever its
imposed constraints, Bondarchuk’s massive epic is a constant visual and
logistical astonishment
Requiem for a Dream (2000) –
Aronofsky’s awe-inspiring but largely unmoving parade of suffering is the most
hypnotic of unwatchable movies
The Balloon (1956) – Kawashima’s
absorbing family drama sets off understated spiritual searching against
harder-edged modern pragmatism
Mid90s (2018) – Hill’s film
evidences a fine touch with mood, interaction, and implication, although
ultimately pulls up a bit short
Insiang (1976) – Brocka’s sensationally impactful tale
of female oppression and revenge both transcends and deeply reflects its
setting
Sidewalk Stories (1989) – Lane’s (mostly)
silent comedy is cutely conceived, but really no great shakes in any aspect of
its execution
Lettres d’amour (1942) –
Autant-Lara’s romantic farce is deftly enough assembled, but rather
passionlessly relentless in its complications
Burning Cane (2019) – the
remarkable Youmans crafts a broodingly and intuitively coherent, if sometimes
overwrought, cultural portrait
The Tree of Guernica (1975) – Arrabal’s vision is as
much possessed as painterly, but it’s scathingly attuned to war’s corrosive
decadence
When Pigs Fly (1993) – Driver’s unusual ghost story has beautiful
elements, although overall lands more conventionally than her Sleepwalk
L’arme a gauche (1965) – a solid enough drama, moving
from exoticism to remoteness, but probably Sautet’s least interesting work
overall
The Old Man & the Gun (2018) – Lowery’s genial,
warmly-textured showcase for the cherishable Redford, a film of knowingly small
virtues
Le marginal (1983) – Deray’s
grabbag of set-ups and confrontations, more than capably held together by
conviction and attitude (Belmondo!)
Drive a Crooked Road (1954) – Quine’s
snappily-written (by Blake Edwards) little crime drama, drawing shrewdly on
social and sexual envy
Only Yesterday (1991) – Takahata’s very sweet expression of a
present untidily informed by the past, with its delightfully-conceived ending
The Panic in Needle Park (1971) –
Schatzberg’s unyielding study of addiction encompasses bleak documentary and
disorienting stylization
Cosmos (2015) – Zulawski’s fulsomely strange,
ever-renewing creation intrigues as cinematic sculpting, while hardly aiming to
satisfy
Homework (1989) – Kiarostami’s
utterly fascinating, formally enveloping testimony on Iran’s education system
is humane and quietly ominous
The Fallen Idol (1948) – Reed’s spatially engrossing, delicately
observed, emotionally scarred drama, hampered by a rushed-seeming ending
Noise (2006) – Assayas’ often aurally
challenging, always rigorously observed record of spectrum-spanning “art rock
festival” performances
“Doc” (1971) – Perry’s sparsely
eloquent emphasis on frailty and loneliness makes for an unusual, if perhaps
overly absent-feeling Western
Sophia Antipolis (2018) – Vernier is rapidly becoming
a master chronicler of a fractured, confused age, fusing the discovered and
imagined
The Lineup (1958) – with incisive
precision and awareness, Siegel navigates a landscape shot through with malign
implication and connection
Milou en Mai (1990) – Malle’s fusion of
personal and political is pleasant but incompletely realized, seeming to grab
at this and that
Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) –
Haskin’s often handsome concoction intrigues most in its lonely early stages,
becoming hokier as it goes on
Knife + Heart (2018) – Gonzalez’s
rather astonishing fever drama grips and transfixes with every rich, luridly
provocative frame and concept
The Day of the Locust (1975) –
Schlesinger’s adaptation feels by turns overwhelmed and inspired, attaining a
distinctively pained blankness
Subway (1985) – Besson’s
subterranean circus has no shortage of strikingly strutting acts, but it’s hard
to care much about most of them
The Navigator (1924) – Keaton’s
maritime comedy is filled with great gags, although lacks the personalized
allure of his very best films
Camille Claudel 1915 (2013) –
Dumont’s immaculate contrasting of physical and spiritual confinement shimmers
with hope and injustice
Dark Star (1974) – Carpenter’s
beguiling comedic space flick, handled with a perfect blend of disillusioned
hokiness and expansive vision
Yella (2007) – Petzold immaculately posits modern Germany’s sleek
entrepreneurial sheen as an excluded woman’s moment-of-death fantasy
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
– Wilder’s hermetic courtroom drama rattles happily along to the big reveal,
flush on star charisma
Arabian Nights: Volume 3 (2015) – Gomes concludes by
easing deeply & beautifully into fundamental (yet myth-tinged) connection
& continuity
The Appointment (1969) – channeling
European art film influences, Lumet creates an interesting if not very
substantial romantic enigma
Antigone (1992) – with typically exacting
precision, Straub/Huillet cause the material to at once recede and (as terrible
warning) advance
Bonnie Scotland (1935) – a
brightly-executed Laurel and Hardy feature, with the amazing pair at their most
easefully funny and captivating
Golden Exits (2017) – Perry’s relationship study doesn’t hold the
attention like his other works, albeit that might sort of be its point
L’enfant secret (1979) – Garrel’s
study of an eroding relationship is an extraordinary emanation of separate,
hurting, fractured cinema
Luminous Motion (1998) – Gordon’s astutely disturbing,
wonderment-infused weirdo-parable on the stagnating capacity of traditional
family
Sylvie et le fantome (1946) –
Autant-Lara’s film is pure escapism, skillful and delicate, but its
artificiality doesn’t approach poetry
Suspiria (2018) – Guadagnino lets loose (and then
some) with quite amazing results, spawning a gorgeously textured, deeply
inhabited vision
Docteur Popaul (1972) – a somewhat
depressingly leering dark comedy (I suppose) from the well-populated slack end
of Chabrol’s oeuvre
Cane River (1982) – even the many imperfections of Jenkins’
rediscovered historically-conscious romance are cherishable and informative
Babette Goes to War (1959) –
Christian-Jaque’s undistinguished WW2 comedy/drama barely even seems interested
in, or really aware of Bardot
The Wife (2017) – despite the barnbusting lead performances,
Runge’s drama is too tinny and under-powered to leave much of an impact
The Incubus (1981) – Hough’s
opportunistic, low-conviction horror movie at least has Cassavetes and an
allusively intense conclusion
Weekend at Dunkirk (1964) –
Verneuil’s epic has epic moments to match Nolan’s, linked by muscularly varied
incident and moral inquiry
Camera Buff (1979) – Kieslowski’s study of cinema as
liberator & destroyer relies on relatively easy ironies, but masterfully
charted ones
A Star is Born (2018) – Cooper’s treatment is
well-inhabited and pleasurable, without dispelling the air of anachronism and
redundancy
Un carnet de bal (1937) – a
variedly episodic drama, limited by its artificial premise, elevated by
Duvivier’s unerringly attuned control
Totally F****ed Up (1993) – Araki’s energetically inquisitive film
is a near-hypnotic meeting of stylization and vulnerable authenticity
Coup de Grace (1976) – Schlondorff’s
undercurrent-heavy Russian civil war drama is visually haunting, yet surely
overly distancing
Ray Meets Helen (2017) – Rudolph’s comeback film doesn’t play
entirely steadily, which generally aids its dreamily distanced peculiarity
Montparnasse 19 (1958) – Becker’s
portrait of Modigliani is hauntingly pained, although barely explores the
specificity of his vision
White of the Eye (1987) – Cammell, as
weirdly possessed as his protagonist, pushes a conventional narrative toward
the primally visionary
Un singe en hiver (1962) – a rather
peculiar film by the often overlooked Verneuil, but not lacking in thematic
ambition and reflectiveness
Octavio is Dead! (2018) – Lee hits her stride with the
pleasantly-handled gender-fluid interactions, but bogs down in claptrap
elsewhere
Dead Ringers (1988) – Cronenberg’s
insularly concentrated, rather schematic tale exudes uneasy fascination, not
least for Irons’ expertise
The Dawns here are Quiet (1972) – Rostotskiy’s war
drama is strong when immersed in action and setting, weaker in its more
fanciful aspects
Only One Night (1939) – Molander’s lively but overstated
culture-clash drama glaringly underserves its female characters in particular
Cameraperson (2016) – Johnson’s
emotion-spanning, ethically stimulating, overall riveting tapestry of personal
and professional witnessing
Manila in the Claws of Light (1975) – Brocka’s utterly
vivid and gripping, devastating illumination of a teeming, predatory
environment
The Watermelon Woman (1996) – Dunye’s
unusual, cannily loose-feeling film pleasurably challenges narrative, sexual
and canonical norms
The Golden Coach (1953) – one
happily submits to Renoir’s sumptuous artificiality, while rather missing the
connectivity of his finest work
Leave no Trace (2018) – Granik’s well-observed,
quietly tragic chronicle evokes broader fractures & strangenesses at the
core of America
The Moment of Truth (1965) – Rosi
indelibly records the substance & mystique of bullfighting as glorious,
perhaps life force-eroding horror
Tucker: the Man and his Dream (1988)
– Coppola’s happily indefatigable chronicle feels like rather too much dream
and too little real man
I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse (1973) – Arrabal’s
fiery, provocative vision is as unbound as its title, yet with a tender, even
devout core
Eyes, Ears and Throats (2019) – a
marvelously assembled collection of restored punk films; likely to set off a
weird, irrational longing
L’eternel retour (1943) – Cocteau’s boldly winding retelling of
classic material is vividly strange & lovely, strongly realized by Delannoy
Privilege (1990) – Rainer’s amazing film
constantly shifts and pivots, deconstructing itself & much else in serious
yet celebratory manner
Les mistons (1957) – even in 18
minutes, Truffaut’s nimble, resourceful early short encompasses a range of
emotion and life experience
The Eyes of Orson Welles (2018) – Cousins’ enthralling
letter to Welles analyzes, illuminates, (sometimes) grates, and in no way
exhausts
L’invenzione di Morel (1974) – Greco’s rather
heavily-expressed enigma belongs to a time of cinema as grand concept and
physical destination
Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) –
the central motor of female inspiration remains powerful, although Seidelman
allows in too much silliness
A Man Vanishes (1967) – the terse initial momentum of Imamura’s investigation
rewardingly stalls and spins and semi-surrenders to invention
Beast (2017) – a much superior
serial killer drama, for Pearce’s deft local observation and its sensitively
unconventional characterizations
Limite (1931) – Peixoto’s only film is an astounding,
inexhaustibly gorgeous flow of water, light, observation, allusion and mystery
Jennifer 8 (1992) – Robinson’s drama
is appealing when at its more thoughtful, but ultimately all but falls apart in
an unseemly rush
Bread and Chocolate (1974) – Brusati’s comedy is at
times too broad, at others bland, at its best when drawing on exile and
dispossession
Support the Girls (2018) – Bujalski’s seemingly
unassuming film yield layers of piercing, socially and economically indicting
observation
Till We Meet Again (1955) –
Kawashima’s smoothly ambitious but rather restricted melodrama, ultimately
marked by poignant unfulfillment
Patty Hearst (1988) – Schrader’s
artfully evasive study often feels almost narcotized, but his formal
intelligence gradually imposes itself
Greed in the Sun (1964) – Verneuil’s duel in the
desert never acquires much depth, but grips through sustained forceful
sun-baked swagger
Did you Wonder who Fired the Gun?
(2017) – Wilkerson’s dark investigation, driven by a loathing drink of
long-festering familial poison
Mado (1976) – another fascinating exercise in
structure and group dynamics from peak-period Sautet, rich in personal and
social implication
Girl 6 (1996) – Lee’s
representation-preoccupied, intriguingly evasive film of seductive presences
built on long-established absences
Two People (1945) – Dreyer’s disowned intimate drama
feels rushed and inadequately articulated, yet exudes a strange, stark purity
Crazy Rich Asians (2018) – Chu’s movie is cannily
executed throughout, although the “craziness” is mostly of an opulently
oppressive nature
Taipei Story (1985) – Yang and
Hou’s transfixingly well-rendered study of personal and societal hollowing in
the shadow of modernization
Peeping Tom (1959) – Powell’s extraordinarily
rich, luridly committed expression of cinema as mirror, excavator, lover and
destroyer
Besieged (1998) – the film has its
questionable aspects, but Bertolucci’s quicksilver mastery of cinema remains
sensuously thrilling
“10” (1979) – probably Edwards’
most study-worthy, self-revealing film, cinematically fascinating & rich in
ambiguities (& sure, it’s funny)
Home (2008) – Meier crafts a highly memorable family drama,
powered by nuanced relationships and a terrifically-visualized overall concept
Wild 90 (1968) – Mailer’s confined behavioural experiment doesn’t
light too many interesting fires, despite repeatedly pugnacious attempts
Mercuriales (2014) – Vernier’s strangely stunning film
shifts deftly between multiple states and moods, at once delicate and troubled
Hot Biskits (1931) – Williams’ busy
all-African-American short comedy prioritizes clean execution over cultural
revelation or flavor
A Year of the Quiet Sun (1984) –
Zanussi’s pain-infused post-war romance follows unusual, searching paths, but
never fully takes hold
Barry Lyndon (1975) – Kubrick’s
inexhaustible historical chronicle negotiates the gloriously palpable and the
pervasively unknowable
Cold War (2018) – Pawlikowski’s film possesses an
immensely graceful economy, spanning epochal life shifts & intimate
behavioural mysteries
This Sporting Life (1963) –
Anderson’s powerfully physical drama explores masculinity both as imposing gift
and as uncomprehending curse
Daddy Nostalgia (1990) –
Tavernier’s quiet surface yields a warm tapestry of actual & figurative
separations, of intertwined joys & regrets
The War of the Worlds (1953) –
Haskin’s vision of overmatched mankind, memorable for its bleakly beautiful,
almost reverential images
Arabian Nights: Volume 2 (2015) – Gomes’ (relatively)
more somberly-rooted second segment is a rich excavation of connection and
consequence
The Point (1971) – Wolf and
Nilsson’s tuneful, sweetly peculiar animation is at once trippy, satirical and,
uh, pointedly message-bearing
Le monde vivant (2003) – Green’s
open-eyed fairy tale emanates delighted conviction, even as it deconstructs and
absurdifies itself
White Zombie (1932) – Halperin’s Haitian-set grab-bag has its
moments, but lacks for an overall insinuating
coherence of tone or vision
Burning (2018) – Lee’s quietly glowing masterpiece is
a socially resonant cinematic mystery, crossing contrasting states of being and
action
Return of the Pink Panther (1975) –
perhaps the best Clouseau movie, or at least the best synopsis of its strangely
contoured universe
Rendez-vous (1985) – an extremity-embracing narrative of personal
and artistic discovery, held together by Techine’s customary smoothness
All Night Long (1962) – Dearden’s
jazz-world Othello is mostly just an overwritten curio, but not lacking for
musical compensations
Kommunisten (2014) – Straub’s repositioning of extracts from past
work gently affirms the breadth, beauty & courage of his work with Huillet
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) – Siegel’s
terrific, propulsive narrative contains one of cinema’s great, ever-renewable
allegories
A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery (2016) – Diaz’s epic voyage of
engagement with history and myth, to the limits of understanding and grief
Their First Mistake (1932) – among
Laurel and Hardy’s strongest and certainly most subtext-heavy shorts; one only
wishes it were longer
The Stranger (1991) – Ray ends his
career on a physically restricted but intellectually engaged note, emphasizing
awareness & reconciliation
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) – Meyer’s jaw-dropping
vision marries chronic superficiality & bizarrely committed, rutting
intensity
The Love Witch (2017) – a visual, tonal and thematic
vision not so much implemented as lusciously exhaled by the iconoclastic Biller
Innocence Unprotected (1968) –
Makaveyev’s new-film-made-from-an-old-one is a happy but scrupulous assertion
of freedom and persistence
Hollywood Shuffle (1987) –
Townsend’s happily ramshackle, sort-of-groundbreaking, funny-enough stirring of
celebration and condemnation
Gribiche (1926) – Feyder’s contrasting of
working-class spontaneity with deadened moneyed formality remains most formally
& tonally pleasing
Under the Silver Lake (2018) – Mitchell’s lush, highly
fanciful investigation is at once relentlessly revelatory and callowly static
Maitresse (1976) – Schroeder provides
ample sympathetic provocations, but the film’s broader strategies ultimately
ring rather hollow
Orlando (1992) – a key reference
point in the cinema of gender construction, while also, in Potter’s hands, an
exquisitely quizzical romp
Memories of Underdevelopment (1968) –
an absorbingly cerebral social & personal document by Alea, crafted as
near-emblematic art cinema
Exhibition (2013) – Hogg positions and repositions our
spectatorship with near-eerie assurance within her remarkable installation-like
film
Welcome Mr. Marshall! (1953) – Berlanga’s kowtowing-to-the-Yanks
comedy has a few satirical highlights amid a lot of heavy foot-dragging drama
Kiss Me Goodbye (1982) – Mulligan’s
feeble comedy is inexplicably bland, showing little affinity for or curiosity
in its ghostly premise
Wildwechsel (1973) – Fassbinder’s
“jail bait” drama may be one of his more conventional provocations, but no less
bitingly executed
BlackKklansman (2018) – a secondary
Lee work, most valuable & piercing when least constrained by the often
rather plainly executed narrative
The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (1939) –
Mizoguchi’s exquisite tragic love story contrasts formal performance and
besieged intimacy
Crooklyn (1994) – Lee’s family
chronicle has modest but well-realized ambitions, illustrating his capacity for
warmly lived-in observation
Nausicaa (1970) – Varda’s overlooked
collage of Grecian mythologies & realities fulfillingly spans the didactic,
bizarre, personal & poetic
Krisha (2015) – in its searing balance of naturalism & formal
audacity, Shults’ perspective on familial trauma may well prove unforgettable
Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) – Dutt’s
last directorial work is hauntingly bleak, almost seeming as a prophesy of
looming self-obliteration
Popeye (1980) – Altman’s strange,
attractively visualized project shrouds
its “entertainment” in self-absorbed, semi-penetrable mystery
La ronde (1964) – Vadim’s version is
handsomely mounted, elegantly amused and quite enjoyably played, but the
interest gradually deflates
The Death of Stalin (2018) –
Iannucci’s expertly-stylized absurdist patina serves to darkly accentuate the
underlying moral emptiness
Beaubourg (1977) – Rossellini’s last
film explores the Pompidou Centre with classical grace, prioritizing
observation over deconstruction
The Comfort of Strangers (1990) –
Schrader extracts every drop of archly twisted beauty from the story, but it
still doesn’t amount to much
La Marseillaise (1938) – Renoir’s
approach to history, encompassing both grand spectacle and easy intimacy,
remains quietly radical
Archipelago (2010) – probably Hogg’s least vital work
to date, but nevertheless one of grippingly impressive empathy and controlled
tension
Badou Boy (1970) – Mambety’s dizzying
short, at once a deeply-rooted celebration and a radical deconstruction, all
but overwhelms the senses
Escape from New York (1981) – one
wishes Carpenter’s smartly hokey drama spent less time on escaping, more on
relishing its bizarro New York
Tales of Ginza (1955) – Kawashima’s
ambitiously genre and tone-spanning melodrama gets rather weighed down with
complications and oddities
Private Life (2018) – Jenkins’
bitterly humorous chronicle is compelling and existentially charged, although
perhaps rather too mannered
Sanjuro (1962) – Kurosawa’s more
tightly-conceived extension of Yojimbo makes for a narratively and tonally
rather repetitive experience
Prospero’s Books (1991) – an
astonishing Tempest, magicked at the peak of Greenaway’s daunting textual,
imaginative & organizational powers
Les
choses de la vie (1970) – Sautet’s film grips for its structural and logistical
panache, while feeling underachieved as character study
Stinking Heaven (2015) – Silver’s impressively
harrowing yet withholding study of the promises and agonizing limits of
idealized community
The Passionate Friends (1949) – a
most repressed form of passion, and somewhat of filmmaking, but certainly
elevated by Lean’s precision
Police Story 2 (1988) – as enjoyable for Chan’s unforced geniality
as for its near-exhausting-to-watch, somehow noble technical prowess
The Shootist (1976) – Wayne’s aptly final film is hard to resist,
even if Siegel pushes the themes and conflicts rather too thickly
Shoplifters (2018) – with consummate skill, Koreeda crafts a fresh
and fully-realized, complexly layered perspective on family and morality
Time Without Pity (1957) – Losey
suffuses his race-against-time drama in sufficient pained emotion to push
through the many deficiencies
Unknown Pleasures (2002) – Jia hauntingly channels China’s
confusing evolution, the desultory personal vacuums within its modernity
Night Must Fall (1964) – Reisz and
Finney both dissect and relish in the unpleasant material, leaving one both
impressed and dissatisfied
Arabian Nights: Volume 1 (2015) – Gomes’ trilogy comes
rapidly to colourful, rabble-rousing life, triumphantly spanning the
unspannable
Idaho Transfer (1973) – Fonda’s laid-back, evasive time travel
fantasy has a nice angle on the slow extinguishment of youthful idealism
The Last Battle (1983) – Besson’s
future-world showdown is basically thin and unedifying stuff, although kitted
out with some style
Verdict: Not Guilty (1933) – the
Gists’ vision of heavenly judgment is severely (if a bit shakily) yet tangibly
and redemptively realized
Atlantique (2019) – Diop’s wonderful
film is entirely fresh and alert, and yet with the sense of inevitable,
eternally-returning myth
Jubilee (1978) – Jarman’s fabulous,
visually and aurally full-to-bursting, sexually liberated punk fantasia both
condemns and commemorates
The Juniper Tree (1990) – Keene’s
tale of witchcraft and isolation makes for thin cinematic poetry, memorable
only in lonely spurts
Sapphire (1959) – Dearden’s vivid, racially charged
investigation both challenges and embodies a plethora of prejudices and
assumptions
Bitter Money (2016) – Wang’s grave observation of modern China,
tracking flickers of human individuality in an oppressive industrial machine
Staircase (1969) – Donen’s tedious, inadequately empathetic study
of an aging gay couple seems poorly implemented by almost any measure
O Fantasma (2000) – Rodrigues’ amazing nocturnal vision of
restless sexuality and desire drifts into a leather-clad feral wasteland
Female Trouble (1974) – below
Waters’ delirious, tear-it-down odyssey may lie an empathetic dissection of the
social construct of femininity
I Am Not a Witch (2017) – Nyoni’s
film teems with well-observed visual and cultural astonishments, while often
feeling somewhat held back
Moonrise (1948) – Borzage’s wondrously calibrated drama, possessed
of haunting visual and narrative articulacy and expressive delicacy
Angst (1983) – Kargl’s close-up study of a startlingly vivid
killer resists any sort of embrace, but is too smart and distinctive to dismiss
Maidstone (1970) – Mailer’s
pugnacious patchwork of heightened “reality” is a highly of-its-time tumble of
limitations and liberations
Border (2018) – Abbasi’s seriously strange,
disquieting, multiple-boundary-exploring film is seeped in moral allusions and
challenges
The Scapegoat (1959) – Hamer’s
story of switched identities is entertaining enough, but feels overly formal
and superficially inhabited
Petits freres (1999) – Doillon’s
eventful picture of near-lawless youth is often depressing, ultimately hopeful
(not entirely convincingly)
Harper (1966) – Smight’s attitude-heavy private eye
flick is smoothly handled and spikily written, but the cynicism digs merely
tan-deep
La Sapienza (2014) – Green’s wondrously distinct
film nurtures a wryly life-, light-- and love-asserting core within its formal
trappings
Black Jack (1979) – Loach’s often
grimly-anchored adventure yarn prioritizes its extraordinary period flavour
over easy narrative momentum
The Death of Empedocles (1986) –
Straub/Huillet’s text-heavy, formally rigorous performance work is strangely
beautiful, even transcendent
Putting Pants on Philip (1927) – a
formative Laurel & Hardy work with a breezy air of communal engagement, and
a priapically energized Stan
L for Leisure (2014) – Kalman/Horn’s
smartly evasive reflection on non-work, as multi-faceted institution and dreamy
semi-glimpsed gateway
Suzaki Paradise Red Light (1956) –
Kawashima’s study of marginal lives, both facilitated and slightly limited by
its tolerant incisiveness
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
(1988) – Kaufman’s adaptation is in too many ways titillating and posturing,
rather than investigative
Yojimbo (1961) – Kurosawa’s sly
action film is masterfully visualized and structurally striking, but hollower
than one wishes of a classic
Eighth Grade (2018) – not that I
would know, but Burnham’s well-modulated study feels authentically, often
excruciatingly tuned-in
Joi Baba Felunath (1979) – Ray’s easygoing, scenic
detective story is a knowingly minor work, defined mainly by relaxed
interactions
Dave Chappelle’s Block Party (2006)
– there may be times when Gondry’s happy record is just exactly what you need
(and, wow, Erykah Badu!)
La grande illusion (1937) – a Renoir
masterpiece, holding myriad complexities and subtleties in almost mystically
perfect equilibrium
Dark River (2017) – Barnard’s drama
builds Gothic elements onto naturalistic observation, impacting a little less
than her earlier work
L’homme en colere (1979) – Pinoteau’s very basic
action picture is at once slapdash & unimaginative, with minor time-capsule
compensations
Yentl (1983) – Streisand’s musical
has an enterprising core, self-regardingly wrapped in oblivious timidity and
sterile handsomeness
Secrets of Women (1952) – Bergman’s
series of variously flat or overdone vignettes presages the smiles of later,
more fully-achieved works
The Kindergarten Teacher (2018) – Colangelo’s
unusually unsettling drama, rooted in distorted idealism, anchored by a
sensational Gyllenhaal
Viva l’Italia (1961) – a Garibaldi film of ample
grand spectacle, anchored by Rossellini’s unforced, probing approach to
recreating history
Jackie Brown (1997) – one of
Tarantino’s most conceptually restrained, pleasurably observed and seasoned,
and treasurably cast films
Serie noire (1979) – Corneau injects a brilliantly
unbound Dewaere into the drabbest of crime film milieus, with fine &
distinctive results
Sun Don’t Shine (2012) – Seimetz’s
fine, hauntingly fraught character study, built on genre-displaced noir-ish
motivations and anxieties
Brothers and Sisters of the Toda
Family (1941) – Ozu’s semi-precursor to Tokyo Story calmly excavates familial
faultlines and hypocrisies
Hide in Plain Sight (1980) – Caan’s
only directorial credit has some decent feeling and observation, but is rather
too narratively sketchy
Un flic (1972) – Melville’s notionally rather
unambitious last film moves further toward wordless abstraction, as if to a
vanishing point
Don’t Worry, he Won’t Get Far on Foot (2018) – Van
Sant drowns his film in group therapy tedium, barely cracking Callahan’s
artistic engine
Robinson Crusoe (1954) – a diverting
and colourful telling of the tale, particularly when most gripped by Bunuel’s
expressive capacity
Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. (1992) – Harris’
portrait is spikily exuberant, emotionally compelling and smartly politically
charged
Barrier (1966) – the remarkable Skolimowski charts a
disorienting, almost hallucinatory path through troubled personal &
societal landscapes
The Selfish Giant (2013) – Barnard’s
powerful drama is painfully true to its deeply challenged community, yet not
without a troubling beauty
The Cage (1975) – Granier-Deferre’s confinement
drama plays its modest cards pretty strongly, all the way to an oddly
satisfying ending
Near Dark (1987) – if not Bigelow’s
best film, maybe the one you’d rescue first from the sunrise inferno, for its
confident genre swagger
Der var engang (1922) – an
incompletely surviving Dreyer work, of limited thematic interest, but not
without feeling and expressive gravity
Annihilation (2018) – Garland’s film grips as a
creepily insinuating allegory of environmental weirding, less so in its
overdrawn specifics
Vincent, Francois, Paul…(1974) – an engaging study of weary male
life passages, typifying Sautet’s structural and observational subtlety
Blow Out (1981) – a classic de Palma set-up, finding a
relative integrity in disreputable material, and a terrible kind of
commemoration
Pyaasa (1957) – Dutt’s
finely-expressed melodrama, an emotionally unwavering elevation of artistic
purity over money-grabbing venality
Hello Again (2017) – a valuable, generally pleasant
record of LaChiusa’s great musical, if more jarring and less unified than would
be ideal
Mickey One (1965) – a mesmerizingly
observed yet wildly unbound existential mystery, as Penn and Beatty accelerate
into their great periods
Goodbye South, Goodbye (1996) –
Hou’s enveloping study of inter-dependence in the midst of distance – from past
roots and present paradigms
The Ritz (1976) – Lester’s film, in
concept a liberatingly open-minded breathless farce, in practice makes for
rather tedious viewing
Shirkers (2018) – Tan places her long-lost movie
within a lightly reflective quasi-detective story, to colourful and mostly
pleasing effect
Man’s Castle (1933) – its somewhat insipidly conceived heroine
aside, Borzage’s love story is delicately observed and often spikily funny
Swann in Love (1984) –
Schlondorff’s Proust adaptation is meticulously considered, but it barely
breathes or bleeds or bites or evokes
The Duelists (1977) – Scott’s episodic debut has
plenty of actorly and pictorial interest, but never pierces very deeply, even
less wounds
Sicilian Ghost Story (2017) –
Grassadonia and Piazza’s absorbingly unusual negotiation between grim reality
and liberating dream-life
Room at the Top (1959) – Clayton’s intensely class and
power-conscious drama feels overwrought now, but it retains an elemental basic
force
Mysterious Object at Noon (2000) –
Weerasethakul’s film is at once intimate and limitless, wondrously invented
while patiently unearthed
The Maidens of Fetish Street (1966) –
Resnick’s string of grubby fantasies is fitfully semi-persuasive as a
quasi-poetic essay on obsession
Tricked (2012) – Verhoeven’s brightly-executed, only
modestly biting drama hardly evidences the flaunted innovation of its creative
process
Lost Horizon (1973) – Jarrott’s
famous flop isn’t so difficult to get through, but has only superficial beauty
& little artistic coherence
Police Story (1985) – even for
non-genre-aficionados, Chan’s breathlessly uplifting action-farce is
impressively conceived and executed
Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940) –
Taurog’s super-smooth Astaire-Powell teaming is among the most blissful of
musicals, non-auteur division
Girl (2018) – Dhont’s absorbing transgender portrait
balances reticence and exactitude, marked by intense attention to fragile
physicality
Claudine (1974) – Berry’s small
classic explores edge-of-its-tether black working class culture with
rambunctious, almost radical frankness
Workers, Peasants (2001) – Straub/Huillet’s mysteriously perfect
meeting of form and content, infused with the dignity of human endeavour
The Son of Joseph (2016) – Green
deploys his uniquely-honed aesthetic strategies to perhaps their loveliest,
warmest and funniest ends
The Savage Innocents (1960) – Ray’s
polar drama has an authentic core, but it’s often barely visible through the
glaring, grating weaknesses
La nuit de Varennes (1982) –
Scola’s expansively-conceived, pedagogically-minded French Revolution mash-up
is a great, garrulous ride
The Long Good Friday (1979) – Mackenzie’s in-the-zone
gangster drama piles strength upon strength, while overstating its thematic
case a bit
High Flying Bird (2019) – Soderbergh gives the film
a steely, probing intelligence, but it remains overly artificial and
under-involving
Destiny (1921) – Lang’s mythology-
& magic-heavy tale is most impactful now when anticipating later, more
concentrated Langian conspiracies
Streamers (1983) – Altman’s incisive Rabe adaptation slices into
the inherently unstable, desire-suppressing theatre of the military
Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (1978) – Blier’s
relentlessly transgression-laden comedy feels at once fully achieved and
largely affectless
First Reformed (2018) – Schrader’s agonized drama is
at once significantly overstated, even crass, and yet rather magnificently
rendered
Queimada! (1969) – Pontecorvo’s vivid drama of
revolution and colonial meddling is problematic and bumpy, but always grandly
provocative
Freeway (1996) – mythic echoes count for little in Bright’s
enjoyably disreputable B-movie, enlivened by Witherspoon in her best ever mode
Razzia sur la chnouf (1955) – Decoin’s atmospheric
drug-trade expose teems with character & incident, tersely anchored by the
imposing Gabin
Lucky (2017) – Lynch constructs a fine late showcase
for Stanton, lightly seasoned with philosophical investigations &
existential mysteries
Viaggio con Anita (1979) – Monicelli’s murky, often
attitudinally ugly comedy lurches arbitrarily along, wasting a displaced Hawn
Prince of the City (1981) – Lumet’s exactingly subtle study slowly
exposes its initial exultation as an ethically untethered illusion
A Mother Should be Loved (1934) –
even in incomplete surviving form, Ozu’s silent film is emotionally compelling
and visually eloquent
Tully (2018) – Reitman and Cody’s study of motherhood
is well-observed and empathetic and also utterly misconceived, in roughly equal
parts
L’emmerdeur (1973) – Molinaro doesn’t offer much
beyond briskness and a quirky casting pairing, but it still beats Wilder’s
leaden remake
Funny Ha Ha (2002) – Bujalski perfectly channels a generation’s
faltering adulthood, with the film’s modest means reflecting its milieu
Love in the City (1953) – a valuably auteur-heavy
docu-fiction compilation, much more socially & existentially bleak than the
title suggests
Submergence (2017) – Wenders’ strained narrative
mostly fails to productively interrogate or stimulate, even less to create
cinematic poetry
The Rite (1969) – Bergman’s study of art and
authority in conflict is somewhat overstated and grotesque, and yet
comprehensively stunning
The Falcon and the Snowman (1985) –
Schlesinger’s spy drama is smoothly executed, but rather too politically and
emotionally lightweight
Toute une vie (1974) – Lelouch’s romantic epic
expands outward with hypnotically vast ambition, at the cost of a recurring
emptiness
The Dressmaker (2015) – a borderline-gratingly
eccentric patchwork, consistently well-stitched by Moorhouse, but with
skin-deep impact
De Mayerling a Sarajevo (1940) – an unusual Ophuls
work in its mesh of ominous political specificity and elegantly timeless
romanticism
Barton Fink (1991) – the Coens’ painstaking, gusto-infused, yet
largely affectless vision of Hollywood as (at least) existential purgatory
Une histoire simple (1978) – Sautet’s empathetic, anxiety-attuned
study is appealing, but less striking than his propulsive genre work
The Rider (2017) – Zhao’s gloriously considered and
observed film engages uniquely with damaged masculinity and compromised sense
of purpose
Le cave se rebiffe (1961) – Grainger’s counterfeiter
drama, entirely typical of late Gabin, plays pretty well if hardly too
distinctively
Sophie’s Choice (1982) – despite
its “classic” elements, Pakula’s reverent but mis-weighted adaptation is among
his less impressive films
Le notti di Cabiria (1957) – for all its heavy
pathos, one willingly yields by now to the contours of Fellini’s film as those
of a classic
Ready Player One (2018) – Spielberg notionally
asserts the primacy of reality, while rejecting it with dazzlingly kinetic
repetitiveness
Sextette (1977) – an astounding
concoction, hardly lacking in bizarro interest, “directed” by Hughes with a
sense of despairing hopelessness
And Life Goes On (1992) – Kiarostami’s journey through
extreme human resilience exemplifies his masterly, expansively interrogative
method
Bed of Roses (1933) – La Cava’s girls-on-the-make comedy packs
plenty of plot, but gets flatter and less snappy as the girls get gooder
Western (2017) – Grisebach’s
well-observed study of cross-cultural aspirations and realities, richly lodged
in the folds of modern Europe
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) –
Taylor’s no-dawdling adaptation doesn’t have much individuality, nor much
relish for the sheer weirdness
A Short Film About Killing (1988) –
a promise chillingly kept: Kieslowski achieves a multi-faceted, if knowingly
circumscribed perfection
Oh…Rosalinda!! (1955) – for all its
formal excellence, Powell and Pressburger’s late musical too often feels rather
distant and academic
Bergman Island (2004) – Nyrerod’s
satisfyingly frank, often poignant (if highly selective) portrait of a filmic
lion in isolated winter
Guns of the Trees (1961) – Mekas’
incompletely realized (as acknowledged) debut is nonetheless productively
strange, whimsical and engaged
Tabu (2012) – Gomes’ singularly
surprising film, in which classical cinematic dream-making emerges from artful contemporary complexity
Cuba (1979) – Lester’s
romance-infused drama veers from knowing classicism into uninvolving
artificiality, despite many interesting elements
The Emperor of Peru (1982) – a pretty enjoyable kid-friendly
fantasy, especially when Arrabal brings the subdued peculiarity to the fore
Sergeant York (1941) – among the
least Hawksian and most conventionally emotion-stoking of Hawks films, but not
entirely unmoving
Let the Girls Play (2018) – Hallard’s
breezy film prioritizes bright & easy narrative, at the cost of much deeper
engagement or illumination
Sunday too Far Away (1975) – Hannam’s
study of the sheep-shearing life is modest in most respects, but always
anthropologically interesting
Le pont des arts (2004) – Green’s
beautiful expression of art’s transcendent, connective possibilities, and the
associated earthly threats
Cool Hand Luke (1967) – the rebellion
in Rosenberg’s drama is mainly skin-deep, albeit very charismatic, glisteningly
photographed skin
A Useful Life (2010) – Veiroj’s study of enforced
transition is nicely done throughout, with particular resonance for aging
cineastes (hi!)
To Catch a Thief (1955) – Hitchcock’s mostly shallow
distraction often pushes scenic sophistication into the realm of pure
abstraction
Class Relations (1984) –
Straub/Huillet’s stark vision of a serially enmeshing, subjugating America is
among their most powerful works
Get Carter (1971) – Hodges’ gangster
classic is a hard-to-look-away negotiation between cold-eyed genre swagger and
locally-rooted grit
La pelicula infinita (2018) –
Listorti’s compilation taps into what might be cinema’s secret dream, of
becoming pure Lynchian conspiracy
Swiss Miss (1938) – worth it for
Laurel, Hardy, the St. Bernard and the piano, despite the dull setting and
stodgy wraparound material
Benny’s Video (1992) – Haneke’s
ambiguous fable of technology-fueled deterioration is effective but limited as
both diagnosis and prophecy
The Hot Rock (1972) – Yates’ film may
be the epitome of the undemandingly creative, pleasantly acted, un-bothersomely
weightless caper flick
The Man from Nowhere (2010) – Lee’s pitting of
enigmatic protagonist against the sleazy world is muscularly stylish, but
mostly unmoving
Satan in High Heels (1962) – Intrator’s melodrama
spins its wheels for much of the time, seldom living up to the title’s sleazy
promise
True Stories (1986) – Byrne’s
eye-filling journey through puzzlin’ modern-day evidence and fancy is one of
the great cinematic one-offs
Wild Strawberries (1957) – among Bergman’s most
classically impeccable, all-seeing studies, less disquieting than his later
savage peaks
You Were Never Really Here (2017) – Ramsay’s
striking but minor film infuses low-grade melodrama with dark texture &
traumatic implication
Un papillon sur l’epaule (1978) – Deray’s enjoyable
journey of conspiracy-tinged bemusement, toward an arrival point of limited
clarity
Bottle Rocket (1996) – Anderson’s
uncannily out-of-the-box-Andersonian debut is a happy string of variously
peculiar, absurd & sweet notions
Antoine et Antoinette (1947) – Becker impeccably
ventilates his sweetly simple narrative with a bustling wealth of flavorful
observation
Isle of Dogs (2018) – eccentric material even for
Anderson, laying on layers of oddity and separation with happy, beguiling
hermeticism
The Ear (1970) – Kachyna’s fluently uneasy exploration
of a toxic marriage, backgrounded by pervasive state-driven insecurity &
infiltration
See You in the Morning (1989) –
Pakula’s interesting but rather too aridly analytical exploration of modern
familial infrastructure
The Sicilian Clan (1969) – given the great trio of
stars, it’s a pity Verneuil’s crime epic isn’t more tonally and thematically
striking
Darkest Hour (2017) – it feels like such overly- polished &
-orchestrated slabs of history should have run their course, but apparently not
Archimede, le clochard (1959) – hardly a demanding
work, but lifted by its verbal ornateness and by Grangier’s loose, unfussy
handling
Babylon (1980) – Rosso’s
electrifying portrait of community, in all its exuberant complexity,
transcendent aspiration and besieged reality
Max et les ferrailleurs (1971) – Sautet’s drama drives home its
strong premise, within a rich observance of contrasting tones & moralities
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) – the Coens’
beautifully-judged, existentially-charged journey along the Western-genre
spectrum of doom
The President (1919) – Dreyer’s penetrating drama of
transgression and guilt, well-attuned to recurring patriarchal arrogance and
injustice
Career Girls (1997) – simple and
yet increasingly expansive, even mystical, Leigh enjoyably explores the
complicated energies of friendship
Le voleur de crimes (1969) – Trintignant’s tale of proud
self-obliteration is a bit too slight, for all its sustained eccentric
intensity
Disobedience (2017) – Lelio appears almost eerily
attuned to the material & milieu, creating a consistently, observantly
subtle experience
Car Wash (1976) – even when embracing
dumbness, Schultz’s comedy has winning interactions and a persistent feeling
for societal currents
L’infant de l’hiver (1989) – early
but quite assured Assayas work shows his feeling for emotional structures, if
not yet fully inhabited
The Lost Weekend (1945) – Wilder’s literately
wrenching drama is hardly uninteresting, but now seems over-emphatic in many
respects
The Dreamed Path (2016) – Beckermann contrasts
conversations between generations, crafting an alluring sense of communion
across them
Unman, Wittering & Zigo (1971) – Mackenzie’s
drama of British public school malevolence: no If, but effective on its own
off-putting terms
Deep Crimson (1996) – Ripstein
gives the macabre story an effective if limited air of twisted vulnerability
and lurking deep-black comedy
A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) –
Chaplin’s last film is hardly a success, but may be grudgingly admired for its
stubborn artificiality
Stray Dogs (2013) – Tsai’s film is persistently,
hauntingly touching and connective, despite its unique, withholding
strangeness
China Gate (1957) – Fuller’s artifice-transcending
Apocalypse Now-like quest digs deeply & rawly into racial prejudice &
political ambiguity
L’oeuvre au noir (1988) – Delvaux’s
Inquisition-era drama leavens its prevailing studious gravity with
idiosyncratic inquiry & observation
The Fury (1978) – the film bursts with sensational
De Palma sequences, while ultimately seeming perplexingly unworthy of his
attention
Black Tide (2018) – Zonka’s no-one-is-innocent
police drama is pretty effective, despite its ample doses of hamminess and
overstatement
The Music Box (1932) – a reliable delight for Stan
and Ollie’s beautifully textured interplay, although this isn’t its richest
expression
Farewell, Babylon! (1993) – out of not that much, Arrabal spins a
mostly diverting, happily eccentric quasi-narrative (and time capsule)
Thank God it’s Friday (1978) – Klane’s sanitized,
inoffensive diversion offers prototypical character antics and
credits-to-credits disco
Visages villages (2017) – Varda and
JR’s enchanting, sweetly poignant journey overflows with productive, respectful
engagement and invention
House on Bare Mountain (1962) – Frost brings some real
zest to his nudie-centric narrative, but it’s unfortunately only minimally
infectious
Too Early/Too Late (1982) –
Straub/Huillet’s impeccably measured indictment of capitalism’s crushing of
natural dignity, agency and beauty
Stalag 17 (1953) – Wilder’s blend of dark drama and
dumb comedy is well-paced and -calculated rather to the point of alienating
coldness
Au poste! (2018) – Dupieux’s amiably goofy
police-interrogation comedy playfully and unpredictably interrogates its own
form and content
The Skin Game (1931) – a dated but
still quite biting tale of conflicting values and prejudices, lifted by the odd
Hitchcockian flourish
Mala noche (1986) – Van Sant’s
first feature is perhaps still his most personally expressed, emotionally frank
& sociologically interesting
Les naufragés de l'île de la Tortue (1976) – Rozier’s singular
comedy celebrates openness to chance and discovery, in life and (and as) art
The Post (2017) – a softly conventional treatment of the material
by any measure, but Spielberg certainly runs a polished, assured show
Paw (1959) – Henning-Jensen’s tale of a “boy of two
worlds” is scenically pleasurable, while depending on simplistic cultural
oppositions
Hammett (1982) – Wenders navigates
fluidly within conventions and ambiguities, at once objectively distanced and
seductively enmeshed
Profound Desires of the Gods (1968) – a compelling
provocation, for all Imamura’s calculated drawing on primitivism and
transgression
The 15:17 to Paris (2018) – Eastwood’s intriguingly
experimental take on the material roots the heroism in extreme unadorned
ordinariness
The Old Gun (1975) – Enrico discomfitingly steers from honorably
anguished evocation of war to near exploitation-genre-type vengeance
Water (1985) – Clement’s cluttered colonial farce hits wanly at
easy political targets, entirely ignoring the real tragedy of its premise
The Song of Home (1925) – Mizoguchi’s somewhat
schematic and inevitably ragged early film already shows his deep feeling and
individualism
Film Stars don’t die in Liverpool (2017) – McGuigan’s appealing
but minor historical footnote lacks much sense of faded Hollywood glamour
Pravda (1970) – viewed at a time of brutally ascendant capitalism,
the Vertov Group’s rather plaintive seriousness becomes reinvigorated
Fort Apache the Bronx (1981) – Petrie’s
focus-shifting, episodically-ambitious cop drama ultimately lacks authorial
strength and flavour
Days of Hate (1954) – Nilsson’s concise tale of an
obsessed woman carries a pervasive oneiric quality, creating its own unsettling
texture
Female Human Animal (2018) – Appignanesi constructs an
absorbing, informatively provocative investigation, although not without
missteps
Melodie en sous-sol (1963) – Verneuil’s unhurried
handling & some nifty moves lift the caper mechanics, and then there’s also
Delon & Gabin
How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989) – Robinson’s
very patchy & unsatisfactory film does retain shards of eloquence &
conceptual grandeur
Le maître-nageur (1979) – Trintignant’s weirdo satire is dotted
with piercing moments, within an uncompromisingly whimsical overall scheme
Phantom Thread (2017) – Anderson thrillingly evokes a hermetic
creative world, in all its nuanced glory and seeping underlying instability
Goupi mains rouges (1943) – Becker’s bustling story
of familial conflicts, evidencing all his supple mastery with character and
incident
Permanent Vacation (1980) – a lonely study, modest in
scope and in resources, but satisfactorily equipped with emerging Jarmuschian
attitude
Le secret (1974) – Enrico’s intriguingly enigmatic if not
ultimately too illuminating drama, drawing deeply on charismatic star presence
22 July (2018) – Greengrass’ reverent recreation is as
solid as expected, but tends toward over-conventionality in its tone and focus
La casa del angel (1957) – Nilsson’s atmospheric study
of emerging sexuality, beautifully poised between innocence, repression and
menace
Heathers (1988) – Lehmann’s multi-kind-of-iconic,
black-as-death-and-then-some, parody-transcending comedy still surprises and
impresses
Classe tous risques (1960) – Sautet puts across the packed
narrative with the optimum meeting of pacey toughness and immersed sensitivity
Molly’s Game (2017) – Sorkin’s mannered skill verges by now on
grating self-parody, generating a pointless, uninterestingly proficient film
Craig’s Wife (1936) – Arzner’s condensed drama of a woman’s
unraveling, filled with precise observation and wide-reaching social
implication
Cure (1997) – with quietly creeping
mastery, Kurosawa extends his terrific genre premise into broader implication
and destabilization
The
Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979) – Alda and Schatzberg’s genteel calibrations and
contrasts go down too soothingly to matter much now
Amour fou (2014) – Hausner transfixingly crafts a
highly-poised, allusive reflection on freedom and its personal and societal
ambiguities
Shadows (1959) – from the start, Cassavetes was the
greatest & coolest of behavioral choreographers & investigators, also
of shit disturbers
A Short Film about Love (1988) – a
shivery prison of a film, but conceived and executed by Kieslowski with almost breathtaking
exactitude
Charlie Bubbles (1968) – Finney’s one film as
director is both formally striking and pensively authentic, if ultimately
overly elusive
Roma (2018) – Cuaron’s grandly (almost
disquietingly) well-achieved evocation, marked by shimmering observation and
stunning set-pieces
Renaldo and Clara (1978) – Dylan wraps his Rolling Thunder tour
record in wryly messy observation and wistfully eccentric playacting
Alexandria Again and Forever (1989) – Chahine’s full-blooded,
politically charged outburst, overwhelmed by endless self-mythologizing
Cops (1922) – Keaton and Cline’s priceless short
ranks among the most fluently and elegantly unbroken twenty minutes of comedy
on film
120 battements par minute (2017) – Campillo’s
essential, perfectly-calibrated memoir of Act Up - Paris is galvanizing and
heartbreaking
The Late Show (1977) – the (forced) Carney/Tomlin teaming only
partially elevates the prevailing ordinariness of Benton’s comedic film noir
Palermo Shooting (2008) – Wenders’
citing of Bergman & Antonioni only confirms his own film’s gimmicky, if
proficiently explored, hollowness
Dementia (1955) – Parker’s sinisterly sleazy vision is
a striking, if ultimately rather hollow assembly of troubled surfaces and
notions
Senoritas (2013) – Rodriguez’s observation of a
young woman balances intimacy & isolation, connectivity & anomie,
revelation & unknowability
Kaleidoscope (1966) – Smight’s low-impact caper
illustrates Beatty’s oddly recurring career-long affinity to flat, undemanding
material
La balance (1982) – Swaim’s multi-faceted crime drama
is skillful but not really genre-defying, rendering its stature rather
mysterious
The Wrath of God (1972) – Nelson’s rambunctious movie is mostly
notions and affectations, devoid of any Peckinpah-like coalescing spirit
A Fantastic Woman (2017) – a few grace notes aside,
Lelio’s film draws its strength from sympathetic dignity rather than radicalism
The Flying Deuces (1939) – an enjoyably rickety
Laurel and Hardy feature, with a peculiarly (ultimately nuttily) morbid
underlying streak
The Voice of the Moon (1990) –
Fellini’s last film doesn’t lack for characteristic flourishes, but seldom
fully galvanizes or inspires
Bloodbrothers (1978) – Mulligan doesn’t seem ideally attuned to
the boisterous material, although it’s dotted with searching moments
Patience (after Sebald) (2012) – Gee’s
superbly-crafted essay film is at once dramatization, elucidation,
extrapolation and pilgrimage
Little
Peach (1958) – Naruse immerses himself deeply, often rawly, into the grind of
marriage; as a woman’s choice, and as her subjugation
Finders Keepers (1984) – Lester’s
breathless comedy is a relative marvel of pacing and organization, but one of
pretty hollow consequence
Du rififi a Paname (1966) – given the raw elements (Gabin vs
Raft!), de La Patelliere’s international crime mishmash is pretty underwhelming
Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) – McDonagh’s
largely grotesque contrivance should have been shunned more than lauded
Du cote d’Orouet (1971) – beneath its easy pleasures, Rozier’s
understated film explores under-examined lives & the institution of leisure
Scrubbers (1982) – Zetterling’s
raucously humane study of female confinement, with an almost Kubrickian
attunement to visionary strangeness
La petite Lise (1930) – Gremillon’s drama is
suffused in fatalistic brooding, with sequences of intense, almost disembodied
physicality
Unsane
(2018) – for all Soderbergh’s practiced intensity, the movie’s ultimate impact
doesn’t much transcend that of standard fraught peril
Foxtrot (1976) – Ripstein’s
sputtering tale of class-fueled desert island breakdown is underpowered both as
drama and as wartime allegory
Southern Comfort (1981) – at the
engaged peak of his terse powers, Hill elevates a nastily conceived narrative
to near-classic status
Ten to sen (1958) – apparently based on classic
detective material, but Kobayashi’s extremely perfunctory handling hardly
brings that out
The Shape of Water (2017) – del Toro’s immaculately-textured film
is no doubt an immediate classic, and yet a barely relevant trifle
The Girl with a Pistol (1968) – Monicelli’s rather messy
Vitti-goes-to-Britain movie teems with time-capsule, culture-clash interest
The Coca-Cola Kid (1985) –
Makavejev’s strangely suppressed film barely hits as satire, maybe all the
better to evoke dark corporate gravity
The Scientific Cardplayer (1972) – an enjoyably
inventive, bitterly class-conscious parable, despite Comencini’s constraints as
a stylist
The
Other Side of the Wind (2018) – a thrilling, teeming Welles reclamation, at
once interrogatingly present and receding into unknowability
Lo squadron bianco (1936) – Genina’s crisp but memorably
visualized drama of self-exile and redemption belongs in the canon of desert
movies
Bad Timing (1980) – probably not
Roeg’s most pleasurable film, but among his most fearlessly transgressive,
destabilizing and accusatory
Man on the Roof (1976) – Widerberg grounds his
memorable climactic set-piece in a well-stewed portrait of police force
contrasts & tensions
Downsizing (2017) – Payne’s ambitious
film has many incremental strengths, none of which mitigate against a
dissipated overall impact
La tete contre les murs (1959) – with appalled restraint, Franju
probes the disquietingly exploitable morality of mental hospitalization
Withnail
& I (1987) – Robinson’s enduringly funny comedic memoir, anchored by the
priceless Grant, shot through with existential panic
The Great
Silence (1968) – Corbucci’s strikingly wintery western pitilessly depicts the
extinction of all goodness under a twisted law
Red Sparrow (2018) – Lawrence maintains an impersonal &
unmoving efficiency, obliviously punctuated with regular nastiness &
exploitation
La califfa
(1970) – Bevilacqua suffuses his film in jaggedly politicized provocations and
oppositions, to rather unclear ultimate ends
In the Line of Fire (1993) – Petersen’s highly proficient,
characterless thriller stands at the very top rank of third-tier Eastwood films
L’auberge
rouge (1923) – Epstein is among the most ominously fascinated, and visually and
psychologically engaging, of silent directors
Battle of
the Sexes (2017) – King’s personal & political history might deserve a
movie less suffused in Hollywoodian slickness & calculation
Der Fall (1972) – you’ll seldom see a detective film that
suppresses genre swagger as thoroughly as does Bruh’s absorbingly morose study
Modern
Problems (1981) – Shapiro’s laughlessly scattershot telekinesis-themed comedy
is poorly conceived and even more wretchedly executed
Signori
& signori (1966) – Germi’s high-energy farce traffics ruthlessly in chronic
sexual compulsion & its surrounding societal hypocrisies
A Field in England (2013) – Wheatley’s strange and remarkable
creation, earthily and unearthily celebratory while seeped in ominous stasis
The Lady of
Musashino (1951) – Mizoguchi’s tenderly clear-eyed study of a refined tradition
eroded by urbanization, by modern moralities
Harlequin (1980) – Wincer’s drama steadily descends into lofty
supernatural grab-bag, with unconvincing political/allegorical seasoning
Cesar and Rosalie (1972) – …and David, as Sautet’s well-played
love triangle takes on more structurally and emotionally radical undertones
Marjorie Prime (2017) – Almereyda’s superbly-crafted,
implication-heavy exploration of the evolving malleability of identity and
memory
The Plough and the Stars (1936) – a concentrated study in Ford’s
ruefully sentimental, gratingly celebratory, helplessly tribal Irishness
On ne meurt
que deux fois (1985) – Deray’s investigation has an off-kilter, iconic
Rampling-charged appeal, when not seeming overly murky
California Split (1974) – on repeat viewings, Altman’s texturally
absorbing gambling study feels defined primarily by its ultimate emptiness
Quand on a 17 ans (2016) – Techine’s fine study of turbulent
teenage attraction, richly rooted in its environment, in behavioural mysteries
The Killing
(1956) – Kubrick’s first great filmic enigma, layering exacting detail over
pervasive (if not yet cosmic) existential absence
Car Cemetery (1983) – Arrabal’s punky/kinky post-apocalyptic
fantasia feels as much constrained as inspired by its Biblical parallels
The Illustrated Man (1969) – Smight’s Bradbury adaptation is
consistently portentous, unenjoyably acted, and aggressively meaningless
Un beau soleil interieur (2017) – yet another captivating Denis
masterpiece, shimmering with structural and observational delicacies
Comes a Horseman (1978) – an unusual setting for Pakula, but its
thematic links to his greatest works gradually come into satisfying focus
Les uns et les autres (1981) – as Lelouch’s epic,
performance-heavy spectacle expands toward greatness, its core feels smaller
and emptier
The Paleface (1922) – Keaton’s film fascinates as performance and
even as existential mystery, even as it now offends in many other respects
Happy as Lazzarro (2018) – at once intensely observed and serenely
imagined, Rohrwacher’s graceful vision is perhaps improbably persuasive
Freebie and
the Bean (1974) – amid all the goofy excess, Rush’s more intimately off-kilter
sensibility shows through pretty regularly
Theories des
ensembles (1990) – a delightful mini-Marker, as simple as a bedtime story, yet
deeply technologically & philosophically engaged
Dishonored
(1931) – Sternberg’s sensationally atmospheric showcase for Dietrich, at her
most seductively amused and reality-bending
Sleeping
Sickness (2011) – Kohler’s fascinatingly measured observations encompass a
bracing range of cultural and political complexity
Gypsy (1962) – an adequate record of potentially sensational
material, only shallowly tapped by LeRoy, and with imperfect lead casting
Mille
milliards de dollars (1982) – Verneuil’s investigation of malign corporate
power remains relevant, despite its suboptimal execution
Hustle
(1975) – Aldrich’s stark, rather incompletely-realized drama is a melancholy
channeling of its period’s confusions & contradictions
9 doigts (2017) – Ossang’s punkish spinning of myth and genre
sustains a handsomely intense artificiality, but never really galvanizes
The Reckless Moment (1949) – Ophuls’ fascinating incursion of
noir-ish menace into superficially perfect (but confining) domesticity
La belle noiseuse (1991) – Rivette’s film about a painting yields
some of his most exquisitely realized ambiguities and complexities
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969) – Pollack’s film always
feels a little too removed from the fatigue & stench & ultimate
hopelessness
Francofonia (2015) – Sokurov’s heavily-executed blend of
recreation, history and reflection informs, but only intermittently stimulates
Saint Jack
(1979) – one of Bogdanovich’s best films, navigated with understated skill, and
great facility with character and atmosphere
Un coeur en hiver (1989) – Sautet’s study of emotional distance is
exquisitely calibrated, but ranks below his more connective work
Sons of the Desert (1933) – prime Laurel & Hardy, the spousal
dynamic adding a deliriously weird subtext to their eternal codependency
The Land of Steady Habits (2018) – probably Holofcener’s flattest
& least resonant work, albeit that might kind of be its sociological point
Edouard et Caroline (1951) – Becker’s beautiful little
relationship study, marked by the most delicate visual and emotional
calibration
Micki & Maude (1984) – a comedy from just past the end of
Edwards’ great period, always enjoyably proficient but only sporadically
inspired
The Stranger
within a Woman (1966) – Naruse, at his engrossing bleakest, introduces an
extreme rupture into a familiar domestic structure
Outside In (2017) – as in much of Shelton’s work, the carefully
sensitive observation ultimately yields a limited lasting consequence
Dorian Gray (1970) – interesting less for the narrative updating
than for Dallamano’s committed channeling of period style and decadence
Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore (1996) – Jacobson’s likeably
rough-edged film infuses lurking darkness into sex-positive collegiality
Six et demi
onze (1927) – Epstein’s doomed romance is structurally & visually
fascinating, regarding photography both as marvel & threat
Black
Panther (2018) – Coogler’s cinematic
exuberance and sharply-honed contemporary instincts largely surmount the
conventional aspects
Anna (1967) – Koralnik’s love letter to Karina is a rather
dreamily eccentric treat, a closer relative to long-form music video than to
Demy
Sea of Love (1989) – Becker’s serial killer drama is hardly
memorable as narrative, but has pretty strong writerly and actorly texture
El sopar (1974) – Portabella’s alert witnessing of lives forged by
resistance, allowing neither easy articulation nor clear arrival point
Call me by your Name (2017) – Guadagnino’s aspirational vision of
love and pain is aesthetically impressive, if more as statue than flesh
Le dos au mur (1958) – Molinaro’s neatly-plotted adultery and
blackmail drama maintains interest despite its overly passionless execution
Mr. Jealousy
(1997) – Baumbach’s identity-in-formation early work is too artificially &
repressively conceived, but goes down easily enough
Three Daughters (1961) – Ray’s rather unwieldy trilogy: two
sensitively rendered if limited vignettes bracketing an unremarkable ghost
story
The Stairs (2016) – Gibson’s study of middle-aged addiction in
Toronto is a humane act of witness-bearing, devoid of false certainties
Madame Rosa (1977) – Mizrahi’s film is certainly more morally
provocative and unsentimental than it sounds in outline, if calculatingly so
Willie and Phil (1980) – Mazursky’s over-affable take-off on Jules
et Jim extends tolerant pleasantness to the point of near-affectlessness
Un nomme La Rocca (1961) – Becker and Belmondo allow the rather
perplexingly shifting narrative a quasi-Melvillian stylistic coherence
All the Money in the World (2017) – Scott’s monotonous charting of
easy oppositions is as handsome and under-invested as all his late work
La spiaggia (1954) – Lattuada’s summer resort melodrama becomes
increasingly sharp in its social criticism, embodied in a distinctive ending
Scenes from
the Life of Andy Warhol (1990) – Mekas’ deeply-lived personal memorial doesn’t
deny the viewer a propulsive voyeuristic thrill
Jacob the Liar (1974) – Beyer’s triflingly empathetic fable offers
trite foreground interest at the cost of an obscured ultimate horror
Hello
Destroyer (2016) – Funk’s sad character study is also a persuasive indictment
of a rampant hypocrisy at the heart of Canadian culture
An American
Romance (1944) – Vidor’s grand hymn to exceptionalism eschews subtlety in
favour of surrender-inducing physicality & incident
Beau pere (1981) – Blier’s transgressive love story stays on the
right side of complete ickiness, with Dewaere an empathetic focal point
Jack of
Diamonds (1967) – Taylor’s slick caper delivers strictly generic distractions,
notwithstanding its unctuously-treated “guest stars”
Madame Hyde (2017) – Bozon puts the worn-out concept to
surprisingly stimulating use, as a renewal of personal and pedagogic
communication
The Medusa
Touch (1978) – Gold’s smart handling of the melodrama allows the film an
improbable degree of grounded, widely-indicting power
L’Anglaise et le duc (2001) – a fine extension of Rohmer’s oeuvre,
stimulating both as naturalistic recreation and historical interrogation
Libeled Lady (1936) – Conway’s pacey screwball comedy is a
confident delight, if a bit more mechanical and skin-deep than the genre’s
highs
Boro in the
Box (2011) – Mandico’s deliciously iconoclastic short film pays Borowczyk the
most liberated yet loving tribute imaginable
The Jokers
(1967) – Winner’s appealingly-conceived, happily thrown-together caper is
certainly more fun than his later wearisome cinema
The Last Metro (1980) – Truffaut’s film is consistently and
eventfully engaging, at the cost of greater historical bite or evocative power
Piranha
(1978) – Dante’s early mayhem-fest is zippily written and zestily executed,
with nicely judged infusions of political resonance
Voyage a travers le cinema francais (2016) – completely
irresistible of course, curated by Tavernier with delightful, frank
individuality
Lured (1947) – Sirk’s enjoyably busy, focus-shifting thriller,
enlivened by its steady critique of woman as societal bait and decoration
Orson Welles: One Man Band (1995) – Silovic’s mesmerizing assembly
properly celebrates Welles’ restless, often joyous creative radicalism
Midnight Lace (1960) – Miller’s suspense film has an enjoyably
Hitchcockian surface & structure, less so the underlying acuity &
intensity
Blind
Massage (2014) – Lou’s informative, often-surprising portrait of an alternative
community spans sensitivity, sensuality and turbulence
Funny Lady
(1975) – leaving aside a few tunes and the easy nostalgia, Ross turns in a
mostly dreary, going-through-the-motions sequel
Quelques jours avec moi (1988) – Sautet steers his eccentric
narrative toward a quirkily engaging emphasis on connection and acceptance
County
Hospital (1932) – if only for the “hard-boiled eggs and nuts,” a solid core
element of the indelible Laurel and Hardy mythology
Mother! (2017) – Aronofsky’s tritely magnificent expression of
monstrous creativity works best when in blackly satiric, discomfiting mode
Le Marie du port (1950) – Carne’s polished attentiveness to messy
motivations and behaviour elevates an otherwise minor if eventful romance
Bad
Lieutenant (1992) – Ferrara and Keitel’s absolute tour de force in absurd
revelation, confounding one’s rational judgment and taste
Up to his Ears (1965) – despite de Broca’s ravishing set-pieces
and backdrops, the film’s thematic weightlessness tips into insipidity
Werewolf (2016) – McKenzie’s hauntingly close, sparse study of
addiction both as deprivation and as near-wondrous, if doomed, fulfilment
Nea (1976) – Kaplan’s lively “young Emmanuelle” story acts out the
classic ambiguities of female-desire centric, female-directed cinema
Street of No Return (1989) – Fuller’s displaced but largely
effective last film lands some old-style punches, under an often peculiar gloss
Aerograd (1935) – Dovzhenko fulfils propagandistic stipulations
while (more interestingly) crafting a darkly intimate cultural study
I, Tonya (2017) – Gillespie’s tiresomely over-active movie is at
best ineffectual & anthropologically shallow, at its worst barely tolerable
I fidanzati (1963) – notable for Olmi’s distinctive placement of
romantic realization within almost peerless social & industrial observation
The Music of
Chance (1993) – Haas is well attuned to the mysterious alternative-paradigm
sort-of-coherence of the Austerian tone and method
L’invitation (1973) – Goretta skillfully crafts the characters and
group dynamics, but the film seldom feels notably challenging or profound
For the Plasma (2014) – Bingham/Molzam craft a sparsely alluring,
if surely under-developed, negotiation between specificity & transcendence
Ajatrik (1958) – Ghatak invests his episodic tale of a
poor-man-and-his-car with consistently raw, widely observant emotion and power
Fever Pitch (1985) – Brooks’ disparaged drama provides strong
doses of troubled observation & reportorial snap, its narrative excesses
aside
Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) – Matsumoto’s transgender-centered
drama ranges from the representationally striking to the trite and lurid
Lady Bird (2017) – Gerwig’s debut exhibits wonderful deftness,
counterpointed by a warm, wise feeling for frustrations and anxieties
The Deadly Trap (1971) – Clement’s faltering grafting of
Gaslight-type anxiety narrative onto vague mass-conspiracy drama, or vice versa
Nighthawks (1981) – Malmuth’s New York terrorism drama does OK for
pacy spectacle but lacks much context (especially in post 9/11 hindsight)
Paradis perdu (1940) – Gance’s multi-generational story of love
and loss is well-told on its own too-often tritely sentimental terms
Miss Sloane (2016) – Madden’s tiresome lobbyist drama feels as
overly polished and inauthentically calculating as its political targets
Le tigre aime la chair fraiche (1964) – Chabrol handles the
shenanigans with some style and deadpan wit, although to inherently limited
ends
Repo Man (1984) – Cox’s classic mash-up retains a weirdly
indelible stylistic and attitudinal coherence, even as the fun rapidly wears
thin
Un borghese piccolo piccolo (1977) – Monicelli slyly takes a
seeming “average man” satire in a rather startlingly subversive direction
Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017) – Gilroy’s diverting character study
is impressively thoughtful, but narratively rather over-extended
A Girl in Every Port (1928) – a prototypically Hawksian dynamic
makes for solid formative viewing, spiced & strangified by the iconic
Brooks
The Double Life of Veronique (1991) – Kieslowski’s existential
mystery, both propelled & (of course) restricted by its alluring
calibrations
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) – a largely bland caper, absent
Jewison’s meshing of relentless materialism with stylistic over-consumption
Neighboring
Sounds (2012) – Filho’s geographically-specific life study is masterfully
constructed, vibrantly observed, sociologically rich
Crazy Mama (1975) – Demme’s good humour and flair with wacky group
dynamics can only do so much to elevate the thin, constrained material
Maine Ocean (1986) – Rozier’s unbound narrative encompasses
everything from communal goofiness to virtually end-of-the-world-type solitude
You’ll Never Get Rich (1941) – Lanfield’s Astaire-Hayworth
match-up goes too light on song and dance, too heavy on turgid complications
The Strange Little Cat (2013) – with composed idiosyncrasy,
Zurcher charts the mundanity, mystery and latent horror of family interactions
The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969) – the peculiar blend of whimsy and
commentary only fitfully flourishes under Forbes’ overwhelmed direction
Cache (2005)
– Haneke’s brilliantly articulated film carries an immense implicative scope,
leaving almost no points of certainty or comfort
The Main
Event (1979) – any potential for a nicely crackling face-off is squandered by
substantial lack of punch, in all departments
Pieta (2012) – for all the film’s superficial diversions, Kim’s
concepts and instincts seem mostly grotesque, contorted and deadening
The Fixer Uppers (1935) – an adequate but somewhat
peculiarly-conceived Laurel and Hardy short, rather limiting their classic
interplay
Garcon! (1983) – a relatively minor Sautet work, yet an utterly
pleasurable, marvelously orchestrated anecdote of compromise and renewal
Coogan’s Bluff (1968) – Siegel’s mastery of space, attitude and
pacing elevates the (now unfavourably dated) narrative’s easy oppositions
The Bridges of Sarajevo (2014) – a largely successful, if overly
dutiful-feeling anthology, satisfyingly varied in style and perspective
The Groundstar Conspiracy (1972) – Johnson’s high-concept premise
is offset by a vulnerable human core, to moderately diverting effect
Husbands and Lovers (1991) – Bolognini’s overly prettified tale of
agonized polyamory is far better at exposing bodies than emotional truth
The Disaster Artist (2017) – Franco’s watchably breezy but
unimportant quasi-tribute feels more like a borrowed ride than an actual one
La nuit de carrefour (1932) – Renoir’s early crime drama,
fascinatingly rooted in the sensual and behavioural textures of shadowy lives
Looker (1981)
– Crichton’s forward-looking thriller doesn’t lack for interesting concepts,
nor sadly for uninteresting narrative & character
Sudden Rain (1956) – Naruse’s small-scale drama subtly charts
perhaps-irresolvable familial and communal anxieties and discontentments
Keanu (2016) – enjoyable but
thematically blunted Key and Peele romp has future Oscar-winning screenwriter
all over it (uh, not really…)
Vice and Virtue (1963) – Vadim’s rather grotesque visual and
narrative concepts do little to illuminate the morality of war, or of anything
Eureka (1983) – Roeg’s strange, mythically-infused tale of
intertwined discovery and loss is as productively challenging as any of his
works
Le parfum de la dame en noir (1931) – L’Herbier dispatches the
somewhat creaky narrative with some panache, if minimal broader implication
Blade Runner 2049 (2017) – despite any number of impressive &
thoughtful concepts, Villeneuve’s film is more trudge than transporting vision
The Arrival of Joachim Stiller (1976) – Kumel’s winding tale of
faith and influence is distinctly eccentric, but very shrewd and winning
Wolfen (1981) – Wadleigh’s genre picture generally feels rather
distant and underinvolving, despite various points of broader resonance
Manon 70 (1968) – Aurel’s film provides rather too much easy
enjoyment & prettiness to fully impress as an investigation of moral
relativity
Their Finest
(2016) – Scherfig’s quite stirring film articulately explores cinematic
compromises while (unironically?) capitulating to them
A Woman’s Face (1938) – Molander’s enjoyable melodrama never
transcends absurdity, skipping along on easy transitions and contrasts
Slaves of New York (1989) – the movie has its pleasures, but Ivory
never feels sufficiently close to the milieu or its anxieties & attitudes
The Lion Hunters (1966) – Rouch’s
hypnotically rich chronicle of the hunt, as respectful of its layered myths as
of its meticulous realities
Detroit (2017) – Bigelow applies her visceral organizational
skills to still-incendiary material, evoking a deep and righteous anger
Malj (1977) – Ilic’s ominously-styled short film is certainly one
of the more singular expressions of survival and escape in cinema history
The Morning After (1986) – one of Lumet’s more low-impact dramas,
embodying a missed opportunity to engage with Fonda’s shifting star image
Les plus belles escroqueries du monde
(1964) – Godard’s closing segment subtly indicts the mostly undemanding
pleasures that precede it
The Lost City
of Z (2016) – Gray’s historical drama, rich with old-fashioned pioneering
grandeur, feels at once unresolved and inevitable
Le rideau cramoisi (1953) – Astruc’s seductively enigmatic short
story of desire would be the blackest of comedies, if pitched differently
Heist (2001) – it’s narratively clever of course, but also chilly
and mechanical, suffused in Mamet’s writerly affectations and maneuvers
The Third Lover (1962) – a modest but effective study of envy and
malign intervention, perfectly suited to Chabrol’s fascinated scrutiny
Dunkirk (2017) – Nolan’s formally impressive, immersive recreation
transcends genre norms in many ways, remains limited by them in others
Imperative (1982) – Zanussi’s honorable but forced philosophical
investigation ultimately just about overcomes its rather arid gravity
The Blot (1921) – Weber’s silent landmark remains immensely
empathetic and intimately moving, shimmering with intertwined complexities
Things to
Come (2016) – an absorbing, probing tapestry of life adjustments &
passages, luminously woven by Hansen-Love & embodied by Huppert
Big Bad Mama (1974) – Carver’s loosely-driven period piece is
brashly engaging, even if its main commitment is to redneck-brand titillation
Docteur Chance (1997) – Ossang’s road movie is a strangely
beautiful artifice, placing doomed, pouting momentum over conventional
coherence
Brief Ecstasy
(1937) – Greville’s alert handling of stodgy melodrama, not least the
(unresolved) emphasis on female intellectual fulfilment
In the Fade
(2017) – Akin’s drama is mostly schematic & sensationalistic, relying
heavily for any sense of coherence on Kruger’s conviction
The Drowning Pool (1975) – Rosenberg’s polished but no-big-deal
detective flick almost seems weightily reflective by latter-day standards
Invitation
au voyage (1982) – when not feeling forced, Del Monte’s transgressive
pop-inflected odyssey sustains a darkly romantic charge
Bedtime Story (1964) – Levy’s confidently-motoring, savvily
twisting artificiality, with Niven and Brando an abstractly empathetic tag team
The Unknown Girl (2016) – the Dardennes’ spartan but hauntingly
acute investigation of the nature and toll of responsibility and redemption
Night Call Nurses (1972) – Kaplan’s lively exploitation picture
actually is almost as preoccupied with trauma & activism as with
titillation
Mahjong (1996) – Yang’s film teems with incident and stringent
moral implication, but doesn’t cohere as pleasingly as his greatest works
The Fly (1958) – Neumann’s straight-faced absurdity benefits from
its visual and vague thematic kinship to the period’s domestic melodramas
Happy End
(2017) – Haneke’s utterly enveloping study of multi-faceted destabilization; of
intertwining literal and figurative death wishes
The Toolbox Murders (1978) – Donnelly gets the highlights, if
that’s what they are, out of the way early; the rest is mostly a blank
Veronika
Voss (1982) – Fassbinder positions his Sunset Boulevard-like narrative as a
window on cold-hearted cultural & historical transition
King & Country (1964) – Losey’s concentrated case study of
wartime inhumanity is potently visualized, but narrow in its scope and impact
The Dreamed Path (2016) – a bit less satisfying than Schanelec’s
previous work, despite its impeccable precision and alluring layerings
Show People (1928) – an early example of Hollywood’s
self-absorption, conveyed by Vidor in his lightest, most happily celebratory
vein
Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud (1995) – Sautet’s fine body of work
ends on a delicately woven, immaculately restrained study of life transitions
The Eiger Sanction (1975) – Eastwood delivers on the material’s
scenic potential, and doesn’t seem to aim to fire anything else out of it
Logan Lucky (2017) – Soderbergh’s well-made caper comedy doesn’t
amount to much, despite its bedrock of cultural sympathy and attentiveness
Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (1969) – Oshima’s astounding exercise in
narrative rebellion, powered by a kind of aggressive semi-callowness
Labyrinth (1986) – Henson’s fantasy never cooks up much magic, but
has the occasional striking element, and Bowie! (sure, not prime Bowie)
Lac aux dames (1934) – Allegret’s pleasant film delivers varied
incident and (surprising) titillation more surely than emotional depth
Southside with You (2016) – Tanne
doesn’t tap Linklater-type enchantment, but any Obama mythology/nostalgic
longing is pretty irresistible
The Empty Canvas (1963) – Damiani’s tale
of obsession and frustration provides plenty of interest, despite its overall
aesthetic modesty
Stealing Beauty (1996) – Bertolucci’s Tuscan contrivance skirts
insipidity, and yet his sensuous cinematic observation remains remarkable
La fievre monte a El Pao (1959) – Bunuel’s socially-conscious,
somberly-rendered drama, underlain by moral compromise & twisted desire
Beatriz at Dinner (2017) – Arteta’s largely well-played if
unsurprising clash of worldviews isn’t exactly a beacon of hope for
progressives
The Woman in Blue (1973) – Deville ultimately steers an initially
flimsy-seeming enigma into more intriguing, pensively reflective territory
The Hand (1981) – Stone does pretty well at giving events a
fraught, varied texture (kinda like JFK!), but the upside is inherently limited
La pyramide humaine (1961) – Rouch’s
fascinating , forgivably earnest meeting of cultures is both cinematic
experiment & idealistic reverie
Gimme Danger (2016) – Jarmusch’s Stooges
documentary is an archival delight, contemplative for all its (never dangerous)
visual energy
Farewell to Spring (1959) – for all its
empathetic care, Kinoshita’s study of maturing friendship in wrenching times
seldom pierces deeply
Crossroads (1986) – the dubiously-conceived myth-inflected
narrative reduces Hill to ambling triviality; the music is the main
compensation
The Girls
(1968) – Zetterling’s innovatively provocative clash of art and life
interrogates just about every stale assumption about women
Fahrenheit 451 (2018) – Bahrani’s insufficiently-reflective,
repetitively-pounding filming feels like a missed opportunity in every respect
From the Clouds to the Resistance (1979) – Straub/Huillet
challengingly interrogate the persistence of humanity’s violent submission to
myth
Mascara
(1987) – Conrad’s myth-stained melodrama feels forged in committed inside-out
queerness, however oddly framed, located and expressed
The Eagle with Two Heads (1948) –
Cocteau’s grandly singular structure of political and regal intrigue, rendering
twisted tragedy as triumph
The Comedian (2016) – in no way a
Pupkin-update (if only!) but still a relative triumph for De Niro, if one of
easy effects and pleasures
Le Tigre se parfume a la dynamite (1965)
– raggedly-plotted espionage stuff, so loosely controlled by Chabrol as to seem
mildly subversive
Personal
Best (1982) – Towne’s sports film remains a stimulatingly problematic text in
representing female physicality and fluid desire
Numero zero (1971) – Eustache’s respectful record of his
grandmother’s life testimony, a pure channeling of weary, turbulent experience
Brad’s Status (2017) – White’s preoccupied character study never
transcends “first world problems”-type introspection and self-readjustment
L’oro di Roma (1961) – Lizzani’s piercing but constrained drama
doesn’t quite rank among the cinema of occupation’s most lasting works
Lulu on the Bridge (1997) – for all its clunky peculiarities,
Auster’s film intrigues for its sense of elemental investigation and pleasure
Party Girl (1958) – Ray’s rather bumpy melodrama is most
compelling for its central sense of worn-out decency, under siege by empty
swagger
La soledad
(2016) – Armand’s film hardly lacks for haunted, bewildered impact, even as he
pushes too hard to encompass Venezuela’s tragedy
The Man who Knew too Much (1934) – Hitchcock’s effective thriller,
pushing throughout toward greater future depth & psychological complexity
Grandeur et decadence… (1986) – Godard treads fairly lightly &
affectionately through times of change, rendering you poignantly stimulated
The Domino Principle (1977) – Kramer’s serviceable assassination
thriller falters at delivering much on its apparent grander ambitions
Ismael’s Ghosts (2017) – Desplechin may be dancing on the spot,
but the choreography and rhythms remain uniquely beguiling and stimulating
The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1969) – Lerner’s quite compelling
opening out of Shaffer’s fascinating sun-drenched, humanity-stained quest
Fado majeur et mineur (1994) – a grave yet playfully confounding
fragment from Ruiz’s bottomless cinema of echoes, layers and dreams
Telefon (1977) – an effective thriller for Siegel’s assured tone
and pacing and the anxious subtext, although with muted ultimate impact
Victoria (2016) – Triet’s end-of-her-tether comedy seems to aspire
to a wilder, more tempestuous tone than its cutes and clutter allow
The Seventh Victim (1943) – Lewton and Robson’s quietly
threat-laden devil worshipper drama leaves a complexly troubled aftertaste
Un mauvais fils (1980) – an astutely-measured, searching study of
incremental renewal, a peak illustration of Sautet’s more intimate mode
The Choirboys (1977) – the material should surely sing of a
messed-up America more scabrously and roughly than it does in Aldrich’s hands
Orly (2010) – Schanelec sets out pleasingly innovative routes into
the well-established existential possibilities of airport departures
Topaz (1969) – Hitchcock’s late film at times seems stolid and
artificial, at other times almost experimental in its shifts and abstractions
A Confucian Confusion (1994) – Yang’s sharply genial study of a
society where economic growth outpaces the emotional and intellectual kind
Hardcore (1979) – a strong, inherently diverting film, but for
Schrader, something of a missed moral, sociological and stylistic opportunity
La loi de la jungle (2016) – Peretjatko’s satire of unprincipled
development is mostly a goofy slog, with little real bite or panache
The Man in the White Suit (1951) – Mackendrick’s smart,
sure-footed comedy, cleverly foreseeing the looming fragility of industrial
society
Eaux profondes (1981) – Deville’s Highsmith adaptation falls a bit
short overall, despite striking stylistic, tonal and structural moves
Pass Over (2018) – Lee’s exemplary filming of vivid theatrical
material, a Godot-like expression of America’s complex culture of oppression
Les nouveaux messieurs (1929) – Feyder’s silent drama stirringly
contrasts the promise of the left & the practiced persistence of the right
Blue Black Permanent (1992) – Tait’s wonderfully measured, alert
conversation between generations, and reflection on seeing and recording
Anima nera (1962) – Rossellini ruthlessly deconstructs the
stereotype of male irresponsibility, stripping it down to its outmaneuvered
core
I Called Him Morgan (2016) – Collin
makes unusually effective use of archival materials, crafting a haunting memoir
of thwarted artistry
Ugetsu (1953) – Mizoguchi’s chillingly
beautiful tale of earthly tumult & fracture that lets in the ghosts of
temptation, & those of comfort
HealtH (1980) – Altman’s thinly allegorical satire is enjoyable
enough, but rather too defined by the transient hollowness it observes
A Woman’s Decision (1975) – Zanussi’s study is one of his looser
works, but deeply attuned to existential anxieties and social heaviness
Wonder Wheel (2017) – one of Allen’s more sustained late works
shifts effectively from easeful period evocation into stark, pitiless tragedy
The Walls of Malapaga (1949) – Clement’s
doomed romance endures for its immersion in time and place, despite its
familiarly fatalistic core
Surrender (1987) – Belson’s lazily-handled comedy of intertwined
emotional and economic anxiety never works up much pace or punch
La punition (1962) – Rouch’s captivating
(seemingly Varda-inflected?) meditation on the freedom and limitation of
exploration and encounter
Lady Macbeth (2016) – Oldroyd’s chilling
drama: superbly sparse and confined, yet infused with an ambiguous air of
broader societal shifting
Les amis (1971) – Blain’s calmly radical
treatment of potentially transgressive material, carefully evasive and
indirect, never merely coy
Tequila
Sunrise (1988) – Towne’s film is an able study in structure, mood and light,
until plot mechanics ultimately triumph over all else
A double tour
(1959) – Chabrol extracts just about every tortured, loathing nuance possible
from the ultimately somewhat thin material
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) – Reeves’ is an impressively
conceived and sustained vision, if seldom very conceptually stimulating
Immortal Love (1961) – Kinoshita’s eventful drama of relentless
familial pain is rather too dutiful & restrained to penetrate as it intends
Star 80
(1983) – Fosse’s filmography ends in flashy disappointment, extracting little
of substance from its unpleasant case history
The Tenant
(1976) – Polanski’s effective if rather over-elaborated tale of paranoia, at
its best when evoking anxiety and persecution
A United Kingdom (2016) – Asante’s
welcome excavation of a significant historical episode feels a little more
stifled than necessary
Zouzou (1934)
– Allegret’s atmospherically bustling, often saucy rags-to-riches tale provides
an effective showcase for Josephine Baker
Things
Change (1988) – a pleasant, well-played trifle, but Mamet’s affinity for such
pervasively genre-limited cinema is hard to figure out
Bande a part (1964) – Godard’s legendary film pulsates with the
allure of losing oneself in an invented moment, and with its sadness
The Trip to Spain (2017) – a get-together as ingratiatingly
familiar by now as any mainstream franchise, but funny and seductive throughout
T. R. Baskin (1971) – a film of modest virtues, since contemporary
dehumanization and personal enigma aren’t Ross’s most natural territory
The Nights of Zayandeh-Rood (1990) – wrecked by censorship,
Makhmalbef’s family chronicle speaks tremulously to the trauma of revolution
The Devil is a Woman (1935) – von Sternberg/Dietrich’s rather
coldly capricious last film lacks the overwhelming allure of its predecessors
A Decent Woman (2016) – Rinner’s well-crafted showdown of nudists
and materialists is too straightforward to really stir or challenge
The Rowdyman (1972) – Carter/Pinsent’s film chugs along rather too
easily to achieve lasting impact, other than as a marker of time & place
Histoires d’Amerique (1988) – Akerman’s mesh of jokes &
testimony is both celebratory & eerie, mirroring the fraught
Jewish-American odyssey
Cactus Flower (1969) – the familiarly-honed material neither
stings nor blossoms cinematically, but Saks navigates it pleasantly enough
Bird People (2014) – Ferran extends the
weary metaphorical possibilities of airports to wondrously extreme,
persuasively unfettered heights
The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go (1970) – Meredith’s jumbled,
pseudo-idealistic action-comedy, suffused in dopiness and antiquated attitudes
Sankofa (1993) – Gerima’s always strikingly-conceived, often
astounding expression of reborn communion with past culture and injustice
Isle of the Dead (1945) – a modest narrative, but suffused with
Lewton’s remarkable shadow-infused play of preoccupation and fragility
The Handmaiden (2016) – likely Park’s
best film, if only for obscuring his hermetic limitations with sheer narrative
& visual sumptuousness
Mandingo (1975) – Fleischer’s terrifyingly well-realized
exploration of slave-owning America’s moral and psychological wretchedness
The
Supplement (2002) – Zanussi’s interesting exercise in fleshing out the bones of
an earlier film, rather labored on its own terms though
Single Room Furnished (1968) – Mansfield
is strikingly plaintive in her last film, which Cimber generally handles with a
decent touch
The Square (2017) – Ostlund’s sleek, assured exhibit of a film, an
impressively multi-pronged exploration of art-world ethics & absurdities
Blue Collar (1978) – Schrader’s powerful debut remains a key film
of its period about labour, race, power and their complex interaction
The Case is Closed (1982) – with understated power and empathy,
Sen dissects the bottomless inequalities and injustices of Indian society
The Narrow Margin (1952) – Fleischer’s terse and tight thriller is
great viewing, but ranks below film noir’s thematic and sensual peaks
Queen of Katwe (2016) – Nair delivers
the expected tale of colourful odds-beating assertion, with an (equally
expected) absence of much else
Being Two isn’t Easy (1962) – Ichikawa’s
eyes-of-a-child slice-of-life drama is at best trifling, and frequently tedious
and/or insipid
9 to 5
(1980) – Higgins’ easy-to-take comedy can be seen now as unnecessarily and
counterproductively rigged, and only half-woke at best
The French
Way (1945) – De Baroncelli’s low-energy farce makes poor use of Josephine
Baker, largely pushed to the narrative’s bland margins
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) – Lanthimos’ imposing if
knowingly alienating exercise in ominous, mythologically-informed displacement
Slap the Monster on Page One (1972) – Bellocchio’s dark study of
establishment hypocrisy remains potent, for all the territory’s familiarity
Iceman (1984) – notwithstanding its Sorkin-ish science chatter,
Schepisi’s drama just gets increasingly silly, contrived and clumsy
Les enfants terribles (1950) – a
mesmerizing, disruptive amalgam of Cocteau’s poetic extremity & Melville’s
skeptical, unsparing observation
I, Daniel Blake (2016) –
near-vanishing-point Loach, the weight of injustice reducing a quietly worthy
man to a dying assertion of identity
The Structure of Crystal (1969) –
Zanussi’s understated reflection on relative freedoms, a very subtle posing of
the personal as political
Lookin’ to Get Out (1982) – the movie sustains a superficial,
raucous energy, but it all matters far less than Ashby’s enduring earlier work
Torso (1973) – the impact of Martino’s lascivious, committed
fluidity is rather limited by the film’s thematically sparse narrative
The Florida Project (2017) – Baker’s
sociologically, morally & stylistically rich study walks an immaculate line
between cute & troubling
L’argent (1928) – L’Herbier’s milestone
silent drama, epically grappling with the unequal power and morality of man and
financial markets
Rough Cut (1980) – a passable caper, but would be low-energy,
textureless stuff from anyone, let alone a film notionally signed by Siegel
Jaguar (1968) – Rouch’s dizzyingly
stimulating country-to-city African odyssey throbs with incident and underlying
social implication
Paterson (2016) – Jarmusch’s masterful
observation of inner lives, an implicit rebuke to the prevailing brainlessness
of dominant culture
The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978) – Olmi’s moving chronicle of
peasant life, encompassing generous humanism and quiet political indictment
Dreamscape (1984) – Ruben’s thriller falls short of Pakula on one
hand and Ken Russell on the other, but is good, lightly-implicating fun
The Silence (1963) – Bergman’s highly
arresting study of conflict and flight is one of his most sensuous,
implication-laden enigmas
Girls Trip (2017) – Lee’s energetic
movie doesn’t flag, but the narrative & moral trajectory & sexual
frankness are predictably calibrated
It (1927) – Bow still radiates - if not all of “it” - at least a
big piece of it, showcased by Badger’s admiring, fleet-footed narrative
Dog Day (1984) – Boisset’s injection of the iconic Marvin into a
raucously bawdy French rustic context shambolically fails to come off
Justine (1969) – Cukor’s formally
impressive but distant film feels too inertly classical to tap the material’s
rich potential complexities
Antiporno (2016) – Sono at once creates
candy-porn, jerks off to it and blows it up, in formally impressive if
ideologically suspect style
The Klansman (1974) – Young’s film stimulates for its wretched
sociological background, more than for its ploddingly ugly foreground drama
Une etrange affaire (1981) – Granier-Deferre’s elegant, mysterious
but precise fable of charismatic leadership and its reality-bending orbit
The Whole
Town’s Talking (1935) – an enjoyably fast-paced if never biting comedy, a
fluent adjunct to Ford’s primary cinematic achievement
Mountains may Depart (2015) – Jia’s
limitlessly fascinating straddling of experiences, of personal and societal
shifts and displacements
Time after Time (1979) – Meyer’s
high-concept film appeals most for its pleasant incongruities, before fraught
plot mechanics take over
Purple Butterfly (2003) – Lou’s historical reverie/thriller is
frequently dreamily enveloping, at other times rather murkily disorienting
The Queen’s Guards (1961) – a pageantry-seeped military memoir,
with Powell fitfully engaged by its more skeptical and anguished elements
Cezanne et moi (2016) – for better &
worse, Thompson scenically observes her epochal protagonists more than she
stylistically channels them
Cisco Pike (1972) – Norton’s
loose-limbed drug-dealer drama, a great little time capsule of in-the-moment
presences and interactions
Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1987) – Rosi’s only superficially
engaging adaptation is heavy with over-deliberation and over-prettification
Battling Butler (1926) – a pleasant but relatively subdued Keaton
comedy, not equaling the cinematic and physical grace of his best works
Roxanne Roxanne (2017) – Larnell’s
intuitively-shaped, empathetic chronicle, emphasizing Shante’s perseverance
against chronic male weakness
Porte des lilas (1957) – Clair’s late
film feels like a settling for less, but finds some darker veins within its
small-scale observation
The First Deadly Sin (1980) – Hutton handles the weary procedural
aspect solidly enough, but flails at the apparent broader intentions
Mother Kusters goes to Heaven (1975) – Fassbinder’s stylistically
restrained but utterly fascinating exercise in frustration and venality
Norman (2016) – Cedar’s nimble film, at
its best in exploring the textures of connection, ultimately leaves a softer
impact than one hopes
Amore et rabbia (1969) – five varied provocations, most notably
Bertolucci’s possessed performance art and Godard’s interrogative beauty
Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) – Murakami delivers some colorfully
goofy visions of community, stranded among much anonymous space padding
La beaute du diable (1950) – Clair’s
fine treatment of Faust, propelled throughout by exquisite narrative fluidity
and directorial elegance
Last Flag Flying (2017) – Linklater’s
knowingly old-fashioned Vietnam reunion odyssey sinks easefully into
contradictory American attitudes
Petit a petit (1970) – beneath its
loose, often goofy surface, Rouch’s film reflects on the delights &
limitations of cultural interchange
Suburbia (1984) – Spheeris’ super-cool, attitude-heavy vision of
(inevitably doomed) alternative community amid a hostile & clueless society
Liliom (1934) – a rather draggy supernaturally-infused tale
of redeemed brutishness, notable though as an uncharacteristic Lang work
Free Fire (2016) – Wheatley tightly
concocts a carnage-strewn, no-way-out, near-vanishing-point of genre cinema, to
somewhat unclear ends
The Condemned of Altona (1962) – despite
its heavy-footedness, De Sica’s brooding Sartre adaptation wades in fascinating
moral waters
Dreamchild (1985) – Millar and Potter’s reverie nimbly spans ages
and registers, but the calculated restraint and taste limits its impact
Bellissima (1951) – Visconti’s
neo-realist grounding is merely an intermittent anchor for choreographic
flourishes and actorly histrionics
Obvious Child (2014) – of course, the
(modest yet meaningful) virtue of Robespierre’s abortion-centered comedy is its
very ordinariness
Kleinhoff Hotel (1977) – Lizzani’s erotic drama is calculatingly
exploitative, and yet not without a striking commitment and preoccupation
Max Dugan Returns (1983) – Ross/Simon’s low-impact comedy would be
a grim study of moral and material surrender, if it meant anything at all
Fraulein Doktor (1969) – hints of
decadence & a powerful final battle scene aside, Lattuada’s war drama is
largely mechanical & passionless
Gold (2016) – Gaghan’s Bre-X
fictionalization maintains interest, but one often wishes for the hand of a
Mann or Pakula (or Eureka’s Roeg!)
Portrait of Madame Yuki (1950) – another
calmly potent Mizoguchi study of toxic gender relations, ultimately all but
conflating sex & death
Track 29 (1988) – Roeg/Potter’s mostly underwhelming drama layers
rather strained elaborations on top of a central psychological enigma
Irezumi (1966) – Masumura’s bloodily
devouring, desirous melodrama; one of his more straightforward works, but
utterly gripping throughout
Manifesto (2015) – Rosefeldt’s unique
high-concept piece is a near-marvel of organization, imagination, pedagogery
and pure performance
Lust for Life (1956) –
Minnelli’s expressive powers are ironically constrained by fidelity to
Van Gogh’s; but Douglas compels throughout
La naissance du jour (1980) – Demy’s small-scale literary
adaptation most intrigues for fleetingly complex glimpses of his unique
sensibility
The Getaway (1972) – a decent thriller on its own terms, although
a minor, morally weightless work in the context of Peckinpah’s cinema
Wet Woman in the Wind (2016) – Shiota
ventilates the brisk soft-porn material with an appealingly deadpan, lightly
absurdist sensibility
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) – at its frequent finest, a
transporting, sensitive, evocative record of Welles’ immense cinematic fluency
Decoder (1984) – Muscha’s brooding drama is appealingly dated in
its punkish analog trappings, very little so in its broader preoccupations
Leo the Last (1970) – Boorman’s peculiar, voyeuristic sociological
parable/channeling of revolutionary desires/chaotic provocation
Journey to the West (2014) – Tsai’s
(slowly!) dreamy and gracefully funny short film, seemingly carrying a subtext
of understated indictment
Madigan (1968) – Siegel’s tough,
propulsive detective thriller; impeccably weaving moral contrasts and shadings
and shifting perspectives
Marseille (2004) – Schanelec’s impressively considered film crafts
a most unusual alchemy of person & place, & expression of new beginning
No Blade of Grass (1970) – Wilde’s environmental collapse thriller
is at best a brash visual assault, at (frequent) worst unhinged & jarring
Informe
general II (2016) – Portabella’s clear-eyed if genteel charting of the gulf
between small-group awareness and state-wide torpor
The Leopard Man (1943) –
Lewton/Tourneur’s brilliantly-sustained classic, a haunting, seldom-equaled
marriage of delicacy and pained gravity
Salto nel vuoto (1980) – for all Bellocchio’s acuity, this
repression-laden, corroded-establishment drama is a bit too heavy &
unsurprising
Lost Lost Lost (1976) – but also vibrantly and permanently found;
in Mekas’ absorbing survey of exile, arrival, evolution and community
Journey to the Shore (2015) – Kurosawa’s
calm rewriting of our metaphysical universe, studiously free of conventional
genre trappings
The Bronze Buckaroo (1939) – Kahn’s
bare-bones all-black Western carries its unstated otherness with shambling
charm, but few fireworks
The Constant Factor (1980) – Zanussi’s almost mathematically
powerful study of pervasive corruption and the limits of a moral response to it
Colossal (2016) – could Vigalondo have
foreseen that his out-there movie would so resonate as a remarkable allegory of
Trumpian menace?
Come Drink with Me (1966) – vividly
enjoyable but not yet full-throttle Hu, in terms of both raw technique and
underlying sensuousness
Superstar (1988) – Haynes’ Karen Carpenter bio-pic is at once an
eerily multi-faceted investigation, and a negation of any such possibility
Ossessione (1943) – hard not to think of
Visconti’s adaptation primarily in earthier, hungrier contrast to its Hollywood
counterparts
Alien: Covenant (2017) - Scott sure
knows how to punch it out, but the feeling of repetition, redundancy and
overreach is insurmountable
Birds in Peru (1968) – Gary’s
ritualistic, sun-baked ceremony of sex, death & fate taps (albeit rather
strenuously) a sparse elemental power
Working Girl (1988) – Nichols’ overvalued comedy, heavily
dependent on reality-obscuring simplifications, feels now like a dusty relic
I Will Buy You (1956) – Kobayashi’s
(rather strenuously) heavy-hearted baseball scouting drama is among the most
somber of sports films
Fences
(2016) – Washington does right by the (inherently not so cinematic) play, such
that you lose yourself in the language and evocation
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)
– De Sica’s rather familiarly, elegantly rarified, but nonetheless moving drama
of looming Holocaust
Galaxina (1980) – Sachs’ genre parody is perplexing in most ways,
hardly aiming for quality yet drearily tentative in its raunchy cheesiness
Letters by a Novice (1960) – an artful
mixture of austere investigation and calculating decadence, seemingly entirely
up Lattuada’s alley
The Beguiled (2017) – Coppola’s
restraint and feeling for female community serves here to push the material
toward virtual invisibility
The Music (1972) – Masumura/Mishima’s
astonishingly-rendered, pained erotic extremity, conflating psychoanalysis
& transgressive invention
Revolution (1985) – Hudson’s film is mostly effective when
channeling chaotic mass experience, much less so in its narrative contrivances
Mammy Water (1953) – Rouch’s brief but
teeming study exuberantly straddles eye-filling actualities and
respectfully-presented myths
Christine
(2016) – Campos renders a sad real-life tale as a case study in pervasive
discomfort, and in coping mechanisms taken and spurned
Michael Kohlhass (1969) – Schlondorff’s
tale of injustice and rebellion, its impact rather muddied by its attempt to
channel the sixties
Maria’s Lovers (1984) – Konchalovsky’s minor post-war drama feels
mostly trivial and arbitrary, not tapping its actors’ considerable powers
The National Health (1973) –
Gold/Nichols’ carefully-gauged hospital comedy, its diagnosis both directly
scathing and challengingly evasive
Marguerite & Julien (2015) –
Donzelli’s period-bending treatment of transgressive material, intriguingly
straddling history & romantic myth
A Woman of Paris (1923) – its modest sensitivity to female
perspective & desire aside, Chaplin’s drama is of limited cinematic
interest now
Mourir a 30 ans (1982) – Goupil’s memoir of 1968, somberly but
piercingly contrasting all-consuming activism & subsequent
directionlessness
The Night Visitor (1971) – Benedek’s ingenious thriller delivers
fascinating logistics, although its echoes of Bergman are merely frost-deep
Raw (2016) –
at its harrowing best, Ducournau’s vivid film is a startling expression of the
scorching, perilous power of female desire
Tom Jones (1963) – occasional pell-mell interest aside,
Richardson’s relentless opportunism now seems mostly tiring and alienating
Lost Persons Area (2009) – Strubbe’s
representation of Europe’s shifting order is highly well-conceived, but carries
a muted overall impact
The Reckoning (1970) – Gold’s
super-meaty class-conscious drama, anchored by Williamson’s sensationally
contemptuous, possessed presence
Une jeunesse
allemande (2015) – Periot’s absorbing film conveys the turbulent passing of a
very era-specific melding of culture and action
Raw Deal (1948) – under Mann’s alert
handling, a thriller narrative of hard-driving visual eloquence, suffused with
unfulfilled longing
Kung-fu master! (1988) – no director can
bridge loveliness and social transgression as easefully yet meaningfully as the
incomparable Varda
Julia (1977) – Redgrave’s moving presence aside, Zinnemann’s
lead-footed memory piece seldom feels fully-inhabited or very evocative
The Future Perfect (2016) – Wohlatz’s
beguiling study of a young immigrant’s multiple aspirations, navigating
self-assertion & assimilation
Station Six-Sahara (1963) –
superficially a potboiler, but infused by Holt with substantial behavioral
relish & subtle structural mysteries
A Cat in the Brain (1990) – pure immersive cinema of a kind,
although Fulci’s show of anguished self-reflection is only semi-persuasive
Story of a Love Story (1973) –
Frankenheimer’s all-but-lost film is ceaselessly if strenuously investigative,
and surprisingly rewarding
A Ghost Story (2017) – Lowery’s extraordinarily well-judged
amalgamation of tangibly-depicted myths and sparse, searching ambiguities
The Mascot (1934) – Starewicz’s remarkable stop-motion adventure
is an early spanning of Toy Story & Tim Burton, of the cute & the
freaky
Goya’s Ghosts (2006) – the narrative contrivances of Forman’s
blandly handsome film seriously weaken its historical and cultural impact
La terra trema (1948) – Visconti’s
searching emphasis on realism is moving, yet highly mediated, arguably
undermined by wider ambitions
Snowden (2016) – Stone applies relative
directorial restraint to potentially paranoia-strewn material, with respectable
but limited results
The Corruption of Chris Miller (1973) –
Bardem’s expressively visualized semi-elevation of a lurid killer narrative,
with a dash of Persona!
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) – Coppola affectionately makes it all
feel more meaningful than it is, aided by seen-the-future-level casting
My Second Brother (1959) – the major
impact of Imamura’s engaging and committed early film lies in its bleak social
and economic awareness
Wonderstruck (2017) – Haynes’ parallel lives story has the
multi-dimensional beauty of a diorama, to be meticulously explored and caressed
L’attentat (1972) – Boisset’s solid,
wide-ranging entry into a classic tradition, finding corruption and complacency
inside every dark suit
Death Proof (2007) – hard not to admire Tarantino’s artful balance
of leisurely good spirits, deceptive finesse, and insistent disposability
Marketa Lazarova (1967) – Vlacil’s
turbulent, imposing historical chronicle, both vividly direct & narratively
elusive, even hallucinatory
The Bad Batch (2016) – Amirpour’s film
becomes increasingly intriguing, as a sly subversion of swaggering
post-apocalypse-type cliches
Kill! (1971) – Gary’s murky drug-trade thriller, fitfully
sparked by the tussle between intellectual ambitions and mostly pulpish
execution
Wrong is Right (1982) – Brooks’
well-titled farce-attack is both absurd & prescient, stylistically
uncertain & (thus) pretty much on target
The Burmese Harp (1956) – Ichikawa’s
transcendence-seeking tale of post-war Burma seldom surpasses superficial
grandeur and spirituality
Good Time (2017) – the Safdies’ very striking blend of
propulsively inventive crime narrative and extraordinary observational
directness
The Golden Fortress (1974) – you might
view Ray’s handling of the flamboyant material either as overly staid, or as
carefully interrogative
Heat (1995) – a modern genre landmark, for Mann’s awe-inspiring,
deeply-searching mastery of narrative, visual and thematic geometry
La ligne de demarcation (1966) – Chabrol’s effective Occupation
drama emphasizes dogged collective solidarity over individual heroism
Hidden Figures (2016) – Melfi’s bland
conventionality leaves little basis for distinguishing inspirational truths
from trite exaggerations
Dear Summer Sister (1972) – Oshima’s
unusual, oddly troubling layering of an almost naively beaming surface on
deeply fractured depths
Mike’s Murder (1984) – Bridges plays
observantly and languidly with textures and contrasting milieus, although to
limited ultimate ends
Les maitres fous (1955) – Rouch’s
unique, often astonishing anthropological record also acts as a savage parody
of hollow colonial pomp
Wonder Woman (2017) – Jenkins’ blockbuster is pretty fresh and
engagingly literate, when not lost in interminable pyrotechnic abstraction
A Special
Day (1977) – Scola’s precisely rendered study of a brief encounter, affectingly
contrasting intimate truths and national delusions
Casino (1995)
– illustrating Scorsese both at his most technically unimpeachable, and at his
most relentlessly & under-rewardingly hermetic
Vie privee (1962) – Malle rather
peculiarly extrapolates Bardot’s immense if rather shallow mythology into a
fatalistic death ritual
Nocturnal Animals (2016) – Ford’s tiresomely pretentious,
airlessly “well-crafted” drama is almost entirely unpleasant and unedifying
The Penal Colony (1970) – Ruiz’s
strangely ominous creation almost seems now like a prediction of degrading
political & factual objectivity
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1982) –
Petit’s film is less a detective story than a genre- and gender-defying study
in absence and darkness
Mother Never Dies (1942) – Naruse’s
moving story of life after loss, rather more sentimental (& ultimately
jingoistic) than his finest work
My Cousin Rachel (2017) – Michell’s drama of suspicion and desire
avoids Gothic excess, but at the cost of diluted ambiguity and impact
The Silent Partner (1978) – Duke’s pretty nifty, sometimes
surprisingly raw thriller, cherishable as an all-time-great Toronto
time-capsule
In the White City (1983) – Tanner’s questing cinema finds here its
most mythic port of call, experience and memory shimmeringly intertwining
Hud (1963) – the physical and emotional
territory of Ritt’s bleak drama frequently evokes stronger, less constrained
films, before and since
Frantz (2016) – with customarily precise
yet somewhat passionless virtuosity, Ozon navigates post-war misdirections and
compromises
Steelyard Blues (1973) – Myerson’s
frequently grating drop-out comedy does happily elevate at times (mostly due to
the inspired Peter Boyle)
Une vieille
maitresse (2007) – Breillat’s brilliant 19th century drama, composed
yet destabilizing, of a desire that pushes toward death
Carmen Jones (1954) – Preminger’s
all-black musical now seems more like an artificialized denial of black culture
than an elevation of it
The Other Side of Hope (2017) – Kaurismaki’s customarily
well-honed, wide-ranging and supple survey of multi-cultural dreams and
realities
Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania
(1972) – Mekas’ remarkable, captivating memory film, feeling at once unfiltered
and highly mediated
The Girl from Trieste (1982) –
Campanile’s undercharged story of obsession does find its way to a strikingly
doomed, alienated finale
Hot Thrills and Warm Chills (1967) – for
Berry, thrills and chills evidently drive their own unknowable laws of
narrative, framing & pacing
Nocturama (2016) – Bonello’s sleekly knowing, trite yet
stimulating terrorism drama sleekly rejects conventional representational
dilemmas
Real Life (1979) – Brooks’ evasively
fascinating, at least semi-premonitory collision of showbiz stylization and
documentary-style flatness
Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease (2000) – Zanussi’s
drama pushes as hard as its title, but attains a sort of cranky magnificence
Veiled Aristocrats (1932) – Micheaux’s clear-eyed, ultimately
celebratory assertion of racial identity and (also!) female self-determination
Baby Driver (2017) – for the most part, the film zooms & flies
on Wright’s happy cinematic air, infused with barely flagging creative joy
Moderato
Cantabile (1960) – one of the period’s memorably doomed enigmatic encounters,
hauntingly observed by Brook (& Antonioni’s spirit?)
Phobia (1980) – if only Huston had
brought some bleak relish and a greater sense of the absurd to the mechanical
serial killer narrative…
The Man who Put his Will on Film (1970)
– Oshima’s stark enigma seems to posit cinema as a shifting, almost
autonomously malevolent threat
Jackie (2016) – at once highly immersive and dreamlike, Larrain’s
precise recreation taps the ambiguities of intimate witnessing of history
Haxan (1922)
– Christensen’s unequaled blend of historical pedagogy, lurid fantasy &
socially-aware self-reflection remains quite remarkable
Rollover (1981) – few films ever
grappled with global financial complexity as Pakula’s does, even fewer with
such stylistic audaciousness
Le temps de
mourir (1970) – paranoia spawns its own bleak destiny in Farwagi’s enigmatic,
occasionally striking drama of predestination
Logan (2017) – Mangold at least brings some modest literacy,
cinematic grandeur & emotional frailty to the essentially meaningless
material
Moi, un noir (1958) – Rouch’s vastly
impactful study of African exile, aspiration & resentment remains
ambiguously revelatory & troubling
Mr. Patman (1980) – in various oddly
interesting ways, Guillermin’s murky drama symbolizes its strange, displaced
era in Canadian cinema
Monsieur
Klein (1976) – Losey’s dark case history of the Holocaust’s perversion of fate
and rationality, articulated with unforced mastery
La La Land (2016) – Chazelle’s airily
pretty but passionless appropriation of classic forms yields only fleeting, if
not vapid pleasures
The
Champagne Murders (1967) – an enjoyably anxious exercise in highly-designed,
ambiguous confinement; second-tier Chabrol at best though
The Color of Money (1986) – Scorsese’s perhaps most underrated
movie, placing stark psychological structures within restless cinematic ones
Trois jours
a vivre (1957) – Grainger’s rather rushed marriage of backstage theatrics and
noir-type tension never satisfactorily coheres
A Quiet Passion (2017) - Davies'
outstanding study of Emily Dickinson enthralls with its sensitivity and precise
charting of complexities
La memoire
courte (1979) – de Gregorio’s increasingly bracing, Rivette-tinged
investigation into evasive histories and unreliable narrators
I Dreamt I
Woke Up (1991) – Boorman’s loving exploration of his Irish home, both
facilitated and cluttered by playfully mythic inventions
Ten Nights in a Bar Room (1926) – Calnek’s tale of lost moral
compasses ultimately rather chills for its repurposed imagery of mob justice
I Am Madame Bovary (2016) – Feng’s
alert, tragi-comic charting of classically thwarted female determination in an
age of dismal bureaucracy
Monterey Pop (1968) – Pennebaker’s (too
short!) concert film contains some indelible, almost incomparably vivid images
of key performers
Wimbledon Stage (2001) – Amalric’s
enigmatic investigation of a non-writing writer balances persuasive mystery
& lightly-observed detail
There was a Crooked Man (1970) –
Mankiewicz’s late-career slumming exercise maintains its brassy swagger, but
it’s all offputtingly coarse
The City Below (2010) – Hochhausler’s
quite fascinating immersion in intertwined possibilities – personal &
corporate, elevating & ominous
He Ran all the Way (1951) – a modest
set-up, boosted by Berry’s expressive direction and Garfield’s hauntingly
tortured final performance
Vanishing Point (1984) – like cinematic
breath, Ruiz’s film draws in toward its ominous secrets, out toward a world of
cryptic possibilities
The Goodbye Girl (1977) – under the
narcotic-like patter, Simon’s comedies now seem relentlessly complacent and
behaviorally under-engaged
Europe, she Loves (2016) – Gassmann’s observant study of marooned
modern youth presses the “Europe is lost” theme rather too single-mindedly
The Nest of
the Cuckoo Birds (1965) – Williams’ rediscovered, obsession-ridden oddity is
proudly defiant, yet often strangely lovely
The Diary of Lady M (1993) – Tanner’s intimate films with Mezieres
are strong and progressive, but more transient than his major works
Murder on the Orient Express (1974) –
Lumet’s (indeed) plushly train-like version doesn’t allow the concept or the
cast much fresh air
First they Killed my Father (2017) – for all its committed skill,
Jolie’s memoir of 1970’s Cambodia feels overly mediated and composed
Bride of Frankenstein (1935) – Whale’s
grandly-visualized horror milestone teems with intense repression &
feeling, amid wondrous mythology
Cheerful Wind (1981) – Hou’s early film belongs very much to his
lighter, even goofy, side, but already hints at the scope of his concerns
The Birth of a Nation (2016) – Parker’s persistent lack of
subtlety fortunately doesn’t obscure the film’s central, primally righteous
force
Manji (1964) – Masumura’s creepily
expansive (if hardly optimistic) vision of desire and fulfilment at once
thrills and repels you
Full Metal Jacket (1987) – Kubrick immerses us in soldiering and
war as a journey into hermetic, edge-of-madness self-fictionalization
Traffic Jam
(1979) – Comencini gradually supplants the initial broad comedy with a bleak
portrait of societal paralysis and venality
The End of the Tour (2015) – who knows
whether Ponsoldt’s film captures the “real” Wallace, but it’s persuasive on its
own intimate terms
Cesar (1936) – Pagnol’s prolonged talkiness increasingly impresses
as a form of psychologically and sociologically engaged modernism
War Machine (2017) – Michod’s
McChrystal-by-another-name semi-satire is mostly heavy-footed stuff, often
seeming tonally all wrong
Camouflage (1977) – Zanussi’s confidently scathing portrait of the
multi-faceted rot, if not outright madness, underlying hermetic academia
Cutter’s Way (1981) – Passer’s brilliantly, evasively tortured
film seems even more prescient in a fractured, dark-fantasy-ridden America
Charulata (1964) – the perfectly nuanced
sensitivity of such genteelly interiorized Ray films is both their majesty and
their limitation
Silence (2016) – a luminously immersed testing of faith, in which
the relative silence of “Scorsese” may be as prominent as that of God
Joe Bullet
(1973) – for all its pulp limitations, de Witt’s apartheid-era drama buzzes
with the possibility of unconstrained action
Desert Hearts (1985) – Deitch’s beautiful period story of women in
love, a restrained small step & clear-eyed large one for American cinema
La traversee de Paris (1956) – Autant-Lara’s rather grating
Occupation comedy increasingly flails around as it grasps at darker resonance
Queen & Country (2014) – a mostly pleasing cinematic
withdrawal by Boorman into memoir, dense with calmly-observed anxiety &
repression
Ludwig (1973) – a study of anguished royalty, typifying Visconti’s
problematic placement between turgidity and genuine tormented grandeur
Mudbound (2017) – Rees’ patient,
ultimately traumatizing drama presages the geographic & cultural divides
that will all but consume America
Dragon Inn (1967) – Hu’s gorgeous classic sinks with relish into genre
skirmishes while increasingly seeming to dream beyond it, toward Zen
To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) – Friedkin’s strangely compelling
straddling of vulgar disposability and almost spiritually-infused certainty
Le mouton enrage (1974) – Deville’s evasively peculiar comedy of
compromised self-determination, built on bleakly twisted underpinnings
Personal Shopper (2016) – Assayas’ scintillating cinematic
tapestry, woven from a myriad of artistic and existential strivings and
mysteries
Ten Minutes to Live (1932) – hard to
surmount the limitations of Micheaux’s revue/drama, likely the least necessary
of his surviving films
Good Men, Good Women (1995) – Hou’s impeccable work of reflective
commemoration, spanning generations of national and personal traumas
Escape from Alcatraz (1979) – Siegel’s
classic escape film is a tersely vivid tapestry of figurative, spiritual and
physical confinements
Jauja (2014) – in Alonso’s beautiful,
respectful cinema of discovery and exile, the potentially startling flows as
naturally as clear water
Barefoot in the Park (1967) – Simon’s
facile writing now seems beyond machine-like, almost monstrous in its faking of
human intercourse
On Body and Soul (2017) – Enyedi’s beautifully attentive film, on
what our dreams know better than our tired, ritualistic waking minds
Little
Murders (1971) – Arkin’s black, black comedy has a highly distinctive angle on
contemporary alienation, disarray and screwed-up hope
The Future is Woman (1984) – Ferreri
strikingly (if not so subtly) welds an amped-up disco surface onto an
elemental, nurturing underbelly
Woman of the Year (1942) – considered at
a time of yawning cultural divide, the central conflict of Stevens’ comedy
seems all the fresher
The Human Surge (2016) – Williams’ artfully rough-hewn global
survey captures cultural parallels & divergences, possibilities &
confinements
Child’s Play
(1972) – a limited, contrived piece of theater, but lifted by Lumet’s dark
shaping and by crackerjack actorly presences
To Die Like a Man (2009) – Rodrigues’
fascinating, melancholy film, rich with unusual representations of performance
and self-assertion
The Chase (1966) – Penn’s overstuffed
but powerful, premonitory allegory of American delusion, ugliness and societal
incoherence
Land of Mine (2015) – an effective
depiction by Zandvliet of post-war abstractions, even if it follows familiar
emotional and dramatic beats
Just a
Gigolo (1979) – Hemmings’ film doesn’t exhibit much relish for the
period/setting, the decadence nor (most sadly) its striking cast
L’amant
double (2017) – Ozon’s sleek, erotic creepy-twin melodrama is to lasting cinema
what phantom pregnancies are to population growth
The Flying
Ace (1926) – Norman’s niftily plotted and quite fluid thriller doesn’t mention
or hint at race, which fuels its quiet radicalism
Ce jour-la (2003) – Ruiz’s singular
comedy progresses from rather grating wackiness to (I think) strangely complex
allegorical depths
The Brood (1979) – one of Cronenberg’s
less gripping or persuasive creations, at least up to the eye-popping,
repulsion-rich final stretch
Toni Erdmann (2016) – Ade’s highly
successful serio-comic investigation of our faltering personal and collective
spontaneity & connectivity
The Bellboy (1960) – Lewis’ engagingly alienating (if that makes
sense) directorial debut, at once formally exacting & conceptually unbound
The State I am in (2000) – Petzold’s
coolly allusive drama of modernity possessed by past; endless flight
indistinguishable from stasis
Daisy Miller
(1974) – Bogdanovich’s pleasant but passionless James adaptation, limited by
insufficient tonal and analytical precision
Okja (2017) – Boon’s film feels ultimately like a soft punch,
despite all its whimsy, biting satire, technical panache and general oddness
One A.M. (1916) – an impeccable
exhibition of dexterity, although feeling now rather as if Chaplin barely
sensed the audience beyond himself
Querelle (1982) – Fassbinder’s
remarkable, no-way-back meditation; a ritualistic, anguishing enacting of
intertwined awakening and death
The Founder (2016) – Hancock’s flavorless McDonald’s origin story
doesn’t even hint at the fast food industry’s mostly toxic social legacy
Three Rooms in Manhattan (1965) – clash-of-culture interest aside,
Carne’s over-extended study in romantic anguish falls mostly flat
So Fine (1981) – Bergman’s comedy is
enjoyable and varied enough but never really sparks, with the central gimmick
contributing little
Les maries de l’an deux (1971) –
Rappeneau puts together a grand, fast-paced historical romp, little of which
seems to matter much now
The Big Sick (2017) – absent its modest
contribution to filmic diversity, Showalter’s comedy would be no more than
unremarkably pleasant
Letter from Siberia (1958) – Marker at
once descends deeply and ethically into his complex subject, and seems to
whimsically ascend above it
Pi (1998) – perhaps Aronofsky’s most
lasting film, pounding its way to some kind of jittery coherence (if not
necessarily persuasiveness)
Flic story (1975) – a largely familiar
detective/gangster structure, enhanced by actorly charisma & Deray’s
evocation of post-war weariness
Lion (2016) – Davis’ quite offputtingly well-polished,
sociologically and otherwise mostly valueless piece of one-in-a-million
feel-goodery
Seisaku’s
Wife (1965) – Masumura (epically under-celebrated) unflinchingly depicts the
repression and meanness at the heart of rural society
Chain Letters (1985) – Rappaport’s
distinctive take on contemporary unease feels at once highly stylized and yet
near-randomly unearthed
I Am Self-Sufficient (1976) – Moretti’s
early film is a bit underpowered, even allowing that dissatisfied lassitude is
its main fuel source
Get Out (2017) – Peele’s
metaphorically-charged horror comedy is sharp and eerily effective, yet has
surely been too generously appraised
My Love has been Burning (1949) –
Mizoguchi’s film is an absolute landmark in the cinema of women’s rights,
activism and self-determination
Xanadu (1980) – Greenwald’s mostly
ill-considered, what-were-they-thinking mishmash at least exhibits a spurting
idiosyncratic dreaminess
Elle (2016) – hard to know how to react
to Verhoeven’s elegantly calculated displacements, or (beyond admiring Huppert)
how much even to try
The Deadly Affair (1966) – Lumet and le Carre’s familiarly solid,
unshowy exercise in institutional, ethical and domestic exhaustion
Eden (2001) – Gitai’s evocation of 1940s Israel feels like a
boringly missed opportunity, allowing only flashes of insight or identification
Shampoo (1975) – Ashby/Towne’s impeccable utilization, extension
and ultimate (transient) hollowing-out of the bottomless Beatty mystique
Sacro GRA (2013) – Rosi’s well-caught
quotidian observations seem to hint at an underlying unifying loss, a troubling
existential darkness
Sergeant Madden (1939) – about five
parts unimportantly enjoyable police drama to one part visually and
thematically engaged von Sternberg
13 Tzameti (2005) – Babluani’s tight, unsentimental drama is
impressively (if not that consequentially) fully-imagined in every detail
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) – a Holmes/Freud mash-up more
stimulating in Meyer’s concept than in Ross’s blandly rendered actuality
Neruda (2016) – Larrain’s meta-fiction
narrative might have seemed strained, in the hands of a less graceful weaver of
cinematic tapestries
All Fall Down (1962) – Frankenheimer’s family melodrama has plenty
of meat and color, but ultimately lacks emotional and expressive potency
Cobra Verde (1987) – Herzog’s drama piles on eye-filling scenes,
while surely grappling inadequately with the representation of slavery
All that Jazz (1979) – Fosse’s cinematic
testimony is a whirl of the repellent and the visionary, artistic virtuosity
and mere restlessness
Scabbard Samurai (2010) – Matsumoto’s is
the most enjoyably Letterman-ish samurai movie we’re likely to see, cutesy
sentimentality aside
I Was a Male War Bride (1949) – Hawks’ brilliantly unforced comedy
of frustration and denial, soberly building to a classic final stretch
Pars vite et reviens tard (2007) – Wargnier drives an interesting
urban paranoia premise toward strictly superficial, convoluted rewards
Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street (1973) –
Fuller’s rather peculiar German thriller is at once classical and chaotic,
immediate and abstracted
Julieta (2016) – Almodovar’s sensuous
melodrama hardly seems aware of real life’s messy textures, but easily envelops
on its own terms
Uptight (1968) – Dassin’s powerful, often anguished informer melodrama,
galvanized by the era’s tensions, debates and social realities
Historias extraordinarias (2008) – Llinas’ binge of storytelling,
drunk on narrative possibility, while retaining an evenly wry sobriety
Pete ‘n’ Tillie (1972) – Ritt’s
episodic, philosophical, often bitter comedy, propelled by beautifully dry
writing, directing and acting
Abuse of
Weakness (2013) – Breillat’s fascinating, masterfully-controlled case study in
the ambiguous exercise of power and exploitation
Birthright (1939) – for all its imperfections, Micheaux’s drama is
a deeply-felt expression of anger at persistent belittlement & injustice
Shadows in Paradise (1986) – an
emblematic illustration of Kaurismaki’s peculiar melding of gloomy denial and
tight-lipped hopefulness
Asparagus (1979) – Pitt’s brief, vivid,
sensuous animation drinks/sucks from strange, deep pools/organs of individual
& collective desire
It’s only
the end of the world (2016) – largely dour & limited family material, but
rather interestingly interrogated & ventilated by Dolan
Indecent Desires (1968) – marginally
interesting for Wishman’s modestly innovative structure of desire, and for its
starkly pitiless ending
Symbol (2009) – Matsumoto’s great tease
of a movie, positing utter nonsense as the heart of all meaning &
connection (or something anyway…)
The War between Men and Women (1972) –
Shavelson’s pretty ambitious Thurber-inspired comedy too often bogs down in
tedious wheel-spinning
Potiche
(2010) – Ozon’s broad, breezy tale of female awakening plays pretty
successfully with garishly outdated attitudes and aesthetics
Eleven P.M. (1928) – Maurice’s drama is often confusingly
articulated, but still intrigues for its sad, ultimately other-worldly
conviction
Plein sud (1981) – Beraud’s preoccupied
drama of erotic collision and chaotic personal reinvention is pleasingly
engaged and unpredictable
Arrival (2016) – Villeneuve’s well-crafted alien visitor drama
ultimately privileges dreaminess over investigation, rather disappointingly
Farewell, friend (1968) – Herman’s
twisty thriller is well-plotted and -paced and has the striking Delon-Bronson
team-up, so that’s all good
Until the end of the World (1991) – a
great escalation of Wenders’ movie wanderlust, yet a relative stagnation in his
artistic expansiveness
Le trio infernal (1974) – Girod’s rather
rigidly nasty piece of period decadence makes only a modest satirical or
stylistic impact
The Dinner (2017) – more a fussy dog’s
breakfast of family anguish, as Moverman unenjoyably and indigestibly burns up
the cinematic kitchen
Rififi (1955) – the film now might seem
alternatively either conventional or forced, but Dassin finds in it a pained,
pessimistic coherence
Author! Author! (1982) – interesting
only for stray glimpses of a preoccupied centre, but barely breaking through
Hiller’s ineffectual gloss
A Touch of Zen (1971) – Hu’s great epic
travels from rich, intimate narrative to an astounding relinquishment of
earthly and cinematic bonds
Rules don’t Apply (2016) – Beatty’s
fascinating exercise in evasiveness – his subject’s, his own, that of his
film’s preoccupied playfulness
I knew her
well (1965) – Pietrangeli’s brilliantly observant, assumption-challenging study
of a young woman, both celebratory and sobering
Local Hero (1983) – for every nicely
observed element of Forsyth’s widely-treasured film, there’s another that seems
crass or undercooked
Shock Treatment (1973) – the hedonistic
sheen of Jessua’s breezy modern vampirism drama is more striking than the
cynical underpinning
The Lovers (2017) – navigating most
deftly between lightness and gravity, Jacobs explores ideas of intertwined
withering and renewal
Toni (1935) – Renoir’s tragic drama of
thwarted desire and ambition; as always, rich in broader, impeccably-seeded
social implication
Modern Romance (1981) – one of Brooks’
best & most elusively funny films, at once universal & distinctly,
itchily precise (space floor?!)
‘Tis Pity
She’s a Whore (1971) – Griffi’s film sustains a suitably pained if somewhat
overly prettified air, on the way to its bloody finale
I Am Not Your Negro (2016) – for all its
clear strengths, Peck’s film is maybe a less electric interlocutor than
Baldwin’s work would merit
Not
Reconciled (1965) – Straub’s brief work implicitly rebukes an entire tradition
of stale, conventional narrative and representation
He Knows you’re Alone (1980) – a
moderately lively slasher, limited by Mastroianni’s lack of cinematic relish,
nastiness-wise or otherwise
Two English
Girls (1971) – one of the finest illustrations of Truffaut’s navigation between
intimacy & distance, whimsicality & formality
Song to Song (2017) – Malick’s immersive
new cinema remains both vital & alienating, experience & sensation at
once elevated & flattened
Sunday in Peking (1956) – viewing China
primarily as bucolic fulfilment of past dreams, Marker could hardly imagine the
shape of its future
Swamp Thing (1982) – Craven’s film isn’t
very dramatically or thematically imposing, but skips by on bursts of
broadly-etched zestiness
Ecce bombo
(1978) – Moretti’s early not-quite comedy is a rather interestingly ungraspable
exercise in blankness and dissatisfaction
20th Century Women (2016) –
for all its vivid sincerity, Mills’ film seems strained & artificial next
to, say, Reichardt’s Certain Women
La chamade
(1968) – not much in Cavalier’s film penetrates too deeply, albeit that the
sense of weightlessness is inherent to the theme
Werner Herzog eats his Shoe (1980) – worth seeing just for the
concept, even if the movie is short on actual unambiguous shoe-eating
Shadowman (1974) – Franju’s late,
sporadically insinuating thriller provides some elemental narrative pleasures,
but limited overall potency
T2
Trainspotting (2017) – strained regrets aside, Boyle’s sequel has a lot of
synthetic-feeling energy & conflict, but little real feeling
Utamaro and his Five Women (1946) –
Mizoguchi’s captivating, deeply-connected reflection on integrity and
self-determination in art and love
The First
Monday in October (1981) – time-capsule interest aside, Neame’s plodding
semi-comedy doesn’t argue a very stirring case for itself
In a Year with 13 Moons (1978) – among
Fassbinder’s most extreme expressions of trauma, querulously balancing intimacy
and ungraspability
Loving
(2016) – Nichols’ study appeals most for its reticence; its quiet observance of
social revolution embodied by unassuming people
Le trou (1960) – Becker’s near-hypnotic
prison escape drama builds to a devastating final evaluation of relative
freedom and morality
Some Kind of Hero (1982) – Pressman’s
overly brisk downward-spiral Vietnam vet movie needed more character, and a far
less flimsy redemption
The Outside Man (1973) – a terse,
efficient thriller, vastly elevated by Deray’s fascinated immersion in Los
Angeles geography and culture
The
Meyerowitz Stories (2017) – despite inspired stretches and overall consummate
skill, the film doesn’t much extend our sense of Baumbach
Conflagration
(1958) – Ichikawa’s hermetic but intensely gripping tale, darkly propelled by
barely expressible self-loathing and anguish
Compromising
Positions (1985) – Perry’s not-exactly-Lynchian exposure of suburban secrets
and discontent plays it a bit too soft throughout
Story of Sin (1975) – Borowczyk
painstakingly, almost austerely charts the moral ambiguities underlying his
potentially lurid chronicle
The Eyes of
my Mother (2016) – hard not to admire Pesce’s straddling of tranquility &
malevolence, while also praying for release from it
Red Angel
(1966) – Masumura’s amazing study of war’s perverting yet cleansing effects,
suffused in physical and psychic damage and suffering
Eyewitness (1981) – beneath its rather conventional surface,
Yates’ drama is heavy with the detritus of America’s scarred moral landscape
Sauvage
innocence (2001) – a mesmerizingly-executed slow collision with fate, perhaps
somewhat conventionally conceived for Garrel though
The Electric Horseman (1979) – a nice
little ramble, leaving aside the inherent hypocrisy of its anti-corporate,
simplicity-embracing creed
A Man called
Ove (2015) – Holm at least brings some decent warmth to his distinctly
familiar-feeling melting-of-a-crusty-old-man tale
The Bedford Incident (1965) – Harris navigates a grippingly
mirthless course to a highly Strangelove-ian abstract/realist end-point
Amelie
(2001) – Jeunet’s notably skillful crowdpleaser no doubt hits every target for
which it aims, albeit they’re mostly valueless ones
1,000
Convicts and a Woman (1971) – the title is pretty much the only relish-worthy
aspect of this largely joyless British contrivance
Century of
Birthing (2011) – Diaz’s mighty reflection on faith, creativity and commitment,
encompassing the grotesque and the sublime
It’s Always Fair Weather (1955) – if
only Donen/Kelly’s musical could have dug even deeper into the melancholy that
tempers its exuberance..
Thomas in
Love (2000) – Renders maintains the governing gimmick quite ably, but the film
doesn’t leave much lasting impression of any kind
The
Mackintosh Man (1973) – a rather plain drama, but lifted by Huston’s seasoned,
unshowy pleasure in the life-draining spy machinations
Ruined
Heart…(2014) – Khavn’s doomed criminal/whore love story is a strikingly
individual, aggressively visualized performance-art piece
Bad Girls go to Hell (1965) – Wishman
injects a trace of quiet authorial sympathy into a generally disembodied &
mechanical victimhood drama
Danton (1983) – Wajda skillfully
navigates historical events & oppositions, yet his film hardly taps the
revolution’s complex momentousness
Our Souls at
Night (2017) – you wish the still-magnetic stars were in harder-edged material,
but a pleasing movie on its own flaccid terms
Casque d’Or
(1952) – Becker’s drama of doomed romance might almost embody the huge virtues
of the period’s French cinema, & its limitations
The Loveless (1981) – Bigelow/Montgomery’s striking collision, at
once direct & evasive, of classic biker aesthetics & small-town
repression
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) – among
Fassbinder’s most precise, unerring works; occupying a unique space between
reverie & social document
Billy Lynn’s
Long Halftime Walk (2016) – Lee’s engaging cavalcade of American idiocies and
failings is generally more dutiful than incisive
Record of a
Tenement Gentleman (1947) – Ozu’s exquisite portrait, both bleak and hopeful,
of a post-war community’s gradual rehumanization
Paris, Texas (1984) – Wenders’ finely
weighted, and yet somewhat forced, navigation between old- and new-world
connections and ruptures
Police Woman (1973) – an often
disengaged-feeling martial arts potboiler, suffused in the kind of mediocrity
one can be nostalgic about
The Light
between Oceans (2016) – Cianfrance’s
tragi-romance is mostly pleasantly if unremarkably old-fashioned, without being
cloying
Odd
Obsession (1959) – Ichikawa’s darkly preoccupied family drama might have a racy
synopsis, but is a largely monotonous viewing experience
Critical Care (1997) – interesting
enough material, not lacking in care, but Lumet needed to give it some extra
fire, or kick, or passion…
Turkish Delight (1973) – few films have
immersed themselves in gleeful, unashamed animal spirits as boisterously as
Verhoeven does here
Berlin Syndrome (2017) – the grimly
unappealing core material ultimately proves unworthy of Shortland’s
multi-faceted engagement with it
3 hommes a abattre (1980) – Deray’s
efficient but rather mechanical man-in-the-wrong-place thriller feels only
intermittently engaged
The Girl
from Chicago (1932) – its depiction of varying morality aside, one of
Micheaux’s weaker, more thematically limited surviving films
Ares (2016)
– Benes’ grim vision of a strained future benefits from being viewed in
fanciful hindsight as a pumped-up prophecy of Macron!
Rabid (1977) – Cronenberg’s vividly
punishing early work effectively occupies the intersection of intimate and
collective anxieties
Chungking
Express (1994) – perhaps the most purely enjoyable, kinetic, wondrously
intuitive expression of Wong’s beautiful cinematic gifts
The Big Clock (1948) – Farrow’s
structurally-striking thriller is great to watch, but lacks the thematic &
tonal depths of classic noir
John From
(2015) – Nicolau’s idiosyncratic, precise deconstruction of teenage dreams
& rituals, in the most beguiling of sun-kissed packages
The Driver’s
Seat (1973) – Griffi’s odd little jigsaw movie (with Taylor & Warhol!)
draws fairly effectively on the era’s multiple anxieties
Oldboy (2003) – no doubt a gift from Park
to genre fans, bringing a patina of tragic grandeur to its manipulations and
contrivances
The Sorcerors (1967) – Reeves’ great
little mind-control drama, seeped in local texture, agonized emotion and
overall genre mastery
Evolution (2015) – Hadzihailovic’s eerily
precise, mythic tale of ritual and mutation; suffused in alienated, somehow
accusatory beauty
Born to Win
(1971) – Passer’s sadly under-remembered movie is a distinctive blend of eccentric
delight and grim, no-way-out junkiehood
The Factory (2004) – Loznitsa’s short
study sets out unchanging brutal realities, couched within semi-abstract,
almost wondrous mystery
The Scar of
Shame (1927) – some biting thematic elements aside, Perugini’s drama is a bit
less notable than other “race film” landmarks
Spetters (1980) – Verhoeven propels the
broadly-drawn, often biting material with his swift, brutally frank cinematic,
social & moral relish
Barry (2016)
– Gandhi’s gentle Obama mythology now seems as far removed as Columbus, given
America’s current Presidential atrocities
Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion
(1970) – the orderliness of Petri’s comedy of degraded power may feel weirdly
comforting now
Blue Steel (1989) – Bigelow’s minutely alert but
short-of-redemptive visualization of a dispiritingly ugly relentless killer
narrative
Rome, Open City (1945) – one feels
Rossellini methodically constructing, if not yet fully crossing, a bridge to
cinematic modernity
Night will Fall (2014) – Singer’s
chronicle of recovered Holocaust film is reverent and moving, but can it ever
pierce us sufficiently now?
La prisonniere (1968) – Clouzot’s strained
last film is most gripped & gripping when immersed in pure cinematic
&/or behavioral manipulation
Kicking and Screaming (1995) –
Baumbach’s debut lacks much overall punch, but provides many appealing, often
quite Stillman-esque fragments
Stavisky (1974) – Resnais’ sumptuous
surface incrreasingly yields a study of extraordinary complexity, subtlety and
regretful allusiveness
The Girl
with all the Gifts (2016) – McCarthy’s impeccable character-driven vision both
delivers and transcends zombie-genre pleasures
Touchez pas au grisbi (1954) – Becker’s
famous, precisely rendered crime drama, marked throughout by wearily
understated observation
Starman (1984) – Carpenter’s
basic-feeling alien visitor road movie is generally pleasant, but no great
shakes in any department whatsoever
Storm Children (2014) – Diaz’s observation
of devastation; a quietly challenging fusion of pictorial mastery and
sociological helplessness
The Sandpiper (1965) – pretty insipid
stuff in all respects, with Minnelli’s expressive mastery seemingly shamed into
timid submission
Trance (2006) – Villaverde’s study of
enforced prostitution finds startling, quasi-mythic ways to chart the limits of
our identification
The Spy who
Loved Me (1977) – a sporadically pretty but hollow & unengaged Bond epic,
hardly sustaining the “nobody does it better” branding
Jonas et Lila, a demain (1999) – Tanner’s
enthralling late-career investigation is allusive & romantic, but also
alert to threats & limits
The Lodger (1927) – Hitchcock’s tightly
gripping silent film foretells his later masterly explorations of sexual
obsession and trauma
Therese Desqueyroux (2012) – Miller’s
careful but unsurprising telling feels far less alive and piercing than
Franju’s earlier version
The Shooting
(1966) – Hellman’s mythic ambitions can seem rather strained, but the film
nevertheless emanates a strange, sparse power
Demain on demenage (2004) – in its own
celebratory yet haunted way, Akerman’s comedy is as radically destructive as
her epic Jeanne Dielman
Prime Cut
(1972) – Ritchie’s should-be classic thriller is sparsely & scenically
articulated, on a startlingly weird underlying sensibility
Our Little Sister (2015) – Koreeda’s
Ozu-lite tale is overly prettified and hardly momentous, but filled with
subtle, satisfying virtues
Hellbound train (1930) – for all its
hectoring strangeness, Gist’s film is a raggedly authentic cry of wide-ranging
societal anguish
Grenouilles (1983) – Arrieta’s short film
plays engagingly (in its minimal, abstracted way) with low-budget genre myths
and contrivances
The
Accountant (2016) – O’Connor’s weirdly over-stuffed narrative is all debits and
few credits, bursts of accounting-talk notwithstanding
Sounds from the Mountain (1954) – Naruse’s
masterfully observed, often severely piercing study of faltering relationships
and structures
What Women Want (2000) – Meyers’
unmemorable comedy is largely free of complexities, ambiguities or ironies (oh,
or of real laughs either)
The Tenth Victim (1965) – Petri’s playful
futuristic thriller is diverting and good-looking, but doesn’t have his later
forceful bite
The Last
Married Couple in America (1980) – beneath the standard contrivances, Cates
provides bitter glances at a vast emotional wasteland
Keetje Tippel (1975) – a strikingly
expansive chronicle of social and sexual exploitation, well-served by
Verhoeven’s unflinching brashness
American
Honey (2016) – Arnold’s microcosm of strained capitalism; a lovely, piercingly
observant odyssey of cinematic pollen-gathering
The Village Teacher (1947) – initial
promise as a character study yields to Donskoy’s dutifully reverent evocation
of Soviet achievements
Black Hawk Down (2001) – despite Scott’s
exacting focus on immersive authenticity, the film doesn’t really expand the
genre’s vocabulary
Description d’un combat (1960) – Marker strains to see Israel’s
future, and (of course) fails, even as the most effortless of time travelers
Black or White (2014) – Binder’s tidily
balanced conventionality hardly allows his greater thematic ambitions (such as
they are) to flourish
Drunken Master (1978) – whatever one’s
affinity for the genre, Chan’s almost constant, cleanly-observed
ultra-physicality is mesmerizing
Mirror,
Mirror (1990) – Sargenti smartly positions the lurid Carrie-like material to
reflect female desires, insecurities, bonds and rifts
The 400 Blows (1959) – Truffaut’s film
taps a romantically poignant, searching totality that binds and transcends the
sum of its parts
Cafe Society (2016) – hardly a
fully-achieved Allen film, but appealing for its gorgeous surfaces and quietly
regretful, dreamy undertones
Les bas-fonds (1936) – Renoir’s peerlessly
varied observation of social complexities culminates in offsetting states of
relative liberation
Captive
(1986) – Mayersberg’s somewhat detached but resonant reflection on, perhaps,
the intertwined confinements of storybook princesses
The Triplets of Belleville (2003) –
Chomet’s wonderfully-executed animated treasure, pitched at a previously
uncharted angle to the world
Model Shop
(1969) – Demy’s treasurably dead-end American film, drifting plaintively at an
intersection of drab depression & displaced beauty
Florentina Hubaldo, CTE (2012) – Diaz’s
ultimately devastating investigation of the cruel contours and legacy of
extreme personal trauma
Scum (1979) – Clarke’s unsparing portrait
of callous institutional uselessness ultimately verges on draining, Kubrickian
horror fantasy
Ashik Kerib (1988) – less satisfying than
his earlier works, Parajanov’s fantasy spans both painstaking conservation and
hermetic denial
The Exile (1931) – Micheaux’s film
groundbreakingly digs into racial constructs and perceptions, technical
limitations notwithstanding
Big Man Japan (2007) – Matsumoto wittily
spins his superhero mumbo-jumbo-mythmaking to absurd lengths, & yet finds a
rumpled grandeur there
Magnificent Obsession (1954) – Sirk
immaculately renders the astounding plot contrivances & settings as confining as they are
transcending
Fire at Sea (2016) – Rosi’s suprising,
quietly audacious approach to the migrant crisis draws out sharply tragic
parallels and oppositions
They’re a Weird Mob (1966) – a proficient if often toothless romp,
elevated by Powell’s playfully brutal observations of masculinity
Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001) – it’s
hardly worth recalling the nominal plot, but Gans’ escalating abandon makes
some kind of impression
The Spook
who sat by the Door (1973) – Dixon’s remarkable, incendiary blend of biting
satire and deadly serious revolutionary quasi-prophecy
In a Glass Cage (1985) – for all
Villalonga’s exacting skill with challenging material, there’s little to be
gained from watching the film
Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A. (1946) –
Williams’ rather under-realized melodrama teems with interesting, sometimes
provocative fragments
Denial
(2016) – any contribution to the cinema of rationality is ever-timely and
valuable, despite Jackson’s overly conventional instincts
Two Women (1960) – De Sica’s ending
largely retains its bleak power, but much of the film’s querulous suffering
feels strenuously calculated
A Beautiful Mind (2001) – Howard’s highly
watchable (of course), not unmoving movie is laden with predictable
simplifications & limitations
Le Amiche (1955) – Antonioni’s early masterpiece, suffused with spiritual
misalignment beneath its ceaselessly observant, probing surface
James White
(2015) – a film of essentially small parameters, but deftly seeded by Mond
& the fine actors with unusual hurts & grace notes
Pointilly (1972) – Arrieta’s fragment of
preoccupation (and abuse?), both watchful and mythic, is intriguing enough that
you wish for more
The Last Days of Chez Nous (1992) –
Armstrong’s modest but vividly, expansively observed drama of familial
transitions and displacements
Menilmontant (1926) – Kirsanoff’s
supremely haunting narrative is a glory of cinema’s expressive power, both as
disruption and as comforter
Certain Women (2016) – Reichardt’s
exquisitely observed and geographically rooted, deeply-felt study in
circumscribed but meaningful lives
That Man from Rio (1964) – de Broca’s
pantheon-worthy romp, its underlying coldness mightily offset by the epically
charismatic Belmondo
Unrelated (2007) – Hogg demonstrates a
superb, sometimes quietly heartbreaking feeling for the shifts in human
connection, and their victims
O Henry’s Full House (1952) – Hawks’
sequence aside, the use of five directors doesn’t prevent a frequent feeling of
sanitized repetition
Sogni d’oro
(1981) – Moretti’s incident-filled 8 ½-type self-mythology is at once sort of
unsummarizably brilliant, yet mostly uninteresting
Nude on the Moon (1961) – hard to
imagine whose erotic reveries would exactly have been satisfied by
Phelan/Wishman’s perplexing fantasy
Dog Days (2001) – Seidl’s unique
deployment of cinema’s inherent voyeurism opens up knowingly problematic yet
oddly expansive sexual terrain
Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970) –
Schatzberg’s study of a fashion model taps both the industry’s modish surfaces
and its enervating heart
The Salesman
(2016) – Farhadi’s well-honed investigative method again probes rewardingly
into Iran’s distinct yet very human hypocrisies
The Thing from Another World (1951) – it’s
true - Nyby’s classic yarn most enthralls for the constantly masterful Hawksian
group dynamics
Le cent et une nuits de Simon Cinema
(1995) – Varda’s goofy, ramshackle star-studded homage teems with defiantly
elemental creative pleasure
Dr. Strangelove (1964) – a lasting
achivement, if frequently a stifling one, for Kubrick’s visual grandeur and
structural cleverness
The Tribe (2014) – Slaboshpitsky’s stylization is arguably overdone, but the film is still
something of a startling triumph on its own terms
Christopher Strong (1933) – Arzner’s
fascinating study of intertwined female capacity and (both self- and
externally-imposed) limitations
The Settlement (2002) – Loznitsa crafts
his film almost as strange displaced science fiction, but challenges us to see
the humanity within
De Palma
(2015) – Baumbach and Kasdan deliver just about as effective and illuminating a
survey as one can imagine in the time allotted
The New Land (1972) – the second part of
Troell’s fine saga, as eerily well-attuned to the new life’s isolation as to
its grand belonging
Married to the Mob (1988) – on its own
terms, capable only of demonstrating Demme to be a proficient enhancer of
largely turgid material
Jack Frost (1964) – Rou’s charmingly
tangible musical fantasy evokes its magical rustical world with beguiling,
knowing primitivism
Equity (2016) – Menon’s control and the
well-worked-out script make for gripping viewing, despite the project’s narrow,
hermetic nature
Listen to Britain (1942) – Jennings and
McAllister bring diverse observations of a challenged nation into precise,
watchful equilibrium
The Legend of Suram Fortress (1985) –
Parajanov/Abashidze’s film is an alluring, somewhat weary emissary from a
far-off aesthetic tradition
The Last Picture Show (1971) –
Bogdanovich’s haunting film merits its reputation, even if its poetic
desolation can feel over-calculated
An Investigation on the Night that Won’t
Forget (2012) – Diaz’s commemoration could hardly be cinematically simpler, or
more vastly human
Year of the Dragon (1985) – Cimino’s provocatively
flawed but often brashly scintillating expression of America’s escalating
tribal madness
La carriere de Suzanne (1963) – Rohmer’s
second moral tale, dense with deeply considered relationships, is among the
most rawly complex
The Sea of
Trees (2015) – an increasingly depressing slog through the forest, as the full
depth of Van Sant’s insipidity blooms into view
Double Indemnity (1944) – a fascinating
noir web, with Wilder’s snappy perfection almost entering a zone of
spiritually-drained abstraction
Cemetery of Splendour (2015) – as always,
Apichatpong’s exquisite perceptions seem to open up wondrous new spiritual and
narrative spaces
The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) – Kloves’
film poses at being harder-edged than it is, but is pleasingly seeped in
taciturn charisma
Requiem for a Vampire (1971) – Rollin
seems rather lacking in conviction here, leaden plotting somewhat undercutting
his erotic ritualism
Pride (2014) – Warchus’ calculating film
is hardly hard-edged, but is pleasing & persuasive in its evocation of
community & shared struggle
Wind Across the Everglades (1958) – hardly
as focused as Ray’s best work, but increasingly propelled by a central relish
and intensity
Italian for Beginners (2000) – Scherfig
unproductively applies the minimal ‘Dogme’ style to a contrived piece of
romantic wish-fulfilment
White Girl (2016) – somewhat familiar
territory, greatly ventilated by Wood’s alert direction and Saylor’s
fascinatingly vital fragility
Los Olvidados (1950) – Bunuel’s grimly
indelible landmark, its severe sociological potency magnified through constant
expressive mastery
Psycho II (1983) – Franklin references the
original’s general form and assorted content with aplomb, but can’t revive its
potent substance
The Man who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) –
Ford’s film remains a key if subdued reference point in exploring America’s
founding myths & lies
Under the Shadow (2016) – much in
Anvari’s “ghost” story feels overly generic, for all its
powerful metaphoric and social elements
eXistenZ (1999) – a fascinating, if
relatively more rigid expression of Cronenberg’s magnificently unsettled,
premonitionary sensibility
Belladonna of Sadness (1973) – Yamamoto’s
weirdly lovely submission to narrative and artistic iconoclasm, stoked by
recurrent erotic frenzy
I Smile Back (2015) – Palky’s film is most
interesting for Silverman’s complex presence, and for hints of a broader
critique of domesticity
The Frozen North (1922) – enjoyable,
relatively low-key Keaton short is somewhat harder-edged than expected, until
its dreamy final reveal
The Asthenic Syndrome (1990) – Muratova’s
remarkable, overspilling expression of our screwed-up, deadened societal train
to nowhere
The Shipping News (2001) – Hallstrom’s
adaptation feels frosted, distant and overly compressed, achieving little of
lasting interest
Andrei Rublev (1969) – Tarkovsky’s
inexhaustible, daunting recreation; cinema as teeming, immersive, cruel and
transcendent pilgrimage
A Hologram for the King (2016) – it’s
enjoyable and sociologically diverting, even if Tykwer’s crisp proficiency
doesn’t yield much depth
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) –
Mankiewicz’s lugubrious drama warrants no more than a minor place in the museum
of cinematic repression
JLG/JLG (1994) – Godard’s beguiling
self-mythology, possessed by mourning and retrenchment while (of course)
restlessly investigative
Sausage Party (2016) – as craftily
polished as a supermarket tomato, Tiernan & Vernon’s (let’s say) liberation
fantasy is tirelessly amazing
The Emigrants (1971) – Troell’s steady,
entirely persuasive chronicle draws its power from wondrous faith, rooted in
stark necessity
The Last of England (1987) – Jarman’s
scorching evocation of a death-spiraling Britain; perhaps overdone but
forgivably and masterfully so
The Last Vacation (1947) – Renoir might
have found vitality in this family vignette; Leenhardt assembles pretty,
undistinguished mechanics
A Bigger Splash (2015) – not ultimately a
major film, but galvanized by Guadagnino’s ravishing taste in cinematic and
emotional architecture
The Age of the Medici (1973) –
Rossellini’s unerring rationality and measured clarity sustains a mesmerizing
historical representation
The Crying Game (1992) – Jordan’s singular
fusion of political and romantic destinies; fascinating despite its soft,
unresolved heart
A Quiet Place in the Country (1968) – the
narrative’s generic aspects fetter Petri’s fine madness, notwithstanding its
anti-consumerist bite
The Childhood of a Leader (2015) – Corbet
audaciously & painstakingly represents our futile desire to trace back evil
to explicable origins
Wedding in Blood (1973) – a
straightforward Chabrol drama, with all his practiced skill but little of
narrative or psychological distinction
Moonlight
(2016) – Jenkins’ utterly enveloping, structurally impeccable study carries a
wondrous sense of elevation, immersion and destiny
Le Testament d’Orphee (1959) – Cocteau’s
farewell film, a marvelously strange but enraptured assertion of restless
poetic sensibility
Body Double (1984) – one’s assessment
would drown in reservations, if not for De Palma’s often ravishing, utterly
spellbinding scenemaking
The Sidewalk is Gone (2002) – but even in
such a relatively minor diversion, Tsai’s peculiar deadpan poetry of absences
remains alluring
Villain (1971) – Tuchner’s slab of British
gangland nastiness; only modest surprises, but should satisfy most cravings for
red meat
Divines (2016) – Benyamina’s deeply-rooted
yet transcendent drama of young female overreach radiates thrilling cinematic
and human energy
The Wild Bunch (1969) – in its chilling
nihilistic perfection, Peckinpah’s tirelessly orchestrated epic remains an
astonishment to behold
Cafe Lumiere (2003) – Hou pays beautiful
tribute to Ozu’s complex grace and mild quirks, while noting Japan’s subsequent
social evolution
The Big Sky (1952) – a work of grand
spectacle and classic Hawksian human structures, tapping the faultlines of the
nation’s harsh formation
The Innocents (2016) – Fontaine’s stark
drama is moving and well-told, if ultimately slightly lacking in cinematic and
moral distinctiveness
Winter Kills (1979) – Richert plays drolly
with America’s unquenchable, helplessly romantic obsessions with conspiracy,
power & myth-making
Demons (1985) – Bava’s gorily concentrated
relish-fest may be, if nothing else, the movie a Billy Idol/Motley Crue et al
soundtrack needs
You Only Live Twice (1967) – the fifth
Bond film is already a largely ponderous experience, visual excellence &
skin-deep “exoticism” aside
High-Rise (2015) – Wheatley’s fearsomely
well-orchestrated, tightly-packed adaptation encompasses epochs of social
delusions and faultlines
The Third Generation (1978) – Fassbinder’s
pitiless diagnosis of post-war Germany as little more than a political and
behavioral toilet
The Mirror has Two Faces (1996) – the
movie’s vaguely affirmative core gets smothered by Streisand’s gooey,
superficial manipulations
Hour of the Wolf (1968) – with ruthless concision, Bergman
extrapolates the preoccupations of the artistic sensibility into pure horror
film
Dog Eat Dog (2016) – Schrader impressively
ventilates and transcends his paltry material, but the film still feels way
beneath him
The Phantom of the Moulin-Rouge (1925) –
Clair’s central dream of mischievous transcendence just about wins out over
stodgy plotting
Second-Hand Hearts (1981) – one hopes
Ashby’s angle was affectionately sociological more than raucous condescenion,
but it’s tough to tell
Fellini’s Casanova (1976) – maybe
Fellini’s most undervalued film, weary with the toll of such relentless pursuit
and climax and aftermath
Danny Collins (2015) – in the absence of
much else, Fogelman’s film feels as if everyone involved was basically just
enjoying Pacino’s act
The Games of Angels (1964) – Borowczyk’s
brief animation of industrialized destruction lies among his most precisely
calculated visions
The Postman always Rings Twice (1981) –
the mild erotic charge aside, Rafelson’s interest in the dated material remains
a little mysterious
Wet Dreams (1974) – best known for Nick Ray’s (hauntingly wrecked)
piece, but diverting throughout as a giddy/dirty conceptual time capsule
Little Men (2016) – another fine, minutely
calibrated work from Sachs, deeply sympathetic to practical, economic and human
limitations
La belle et la bete (1946) – Cocteau’s
delightfully articulated, emotionally vivid myth, suffused in magic both as
facilitator & as barrier
Winter of our Dreams (1981) – almost every
scene of Duigan’s modest but precise drama feels possessed by some form of
loss, lack or absence
Aquarius (2016) – Filho’s film teems with
exquisitely measured social and personal observation, indelibly anchored by the
incredible Braga
The Owl and the Pussycat (1970) – Ross’s
drab comedy now looks like a time capsule for a particular strain of ugliness
and coarseness
Une femme de menage (2002) – Berri’s film
has all the prototypical virtues of French cinema, even if nothing about it is
too surprising
Private Property (1960) – Stevens’
rediscovered class-conscious drama has a pretty effective angle on catastrophic
envy and desire
The Wave (2015) – Uthaug’s throwback fjord
disaster movie is just about passably watchable, as long as you can shut out
the dialogue
The Trouble with Harry (1955) – for all
its dark-sounding premise, Hitchcock’s comedy is mostly a trifling diversion
from his major work
The Official Story (1985) – Puenzo’s solid study of political
awakening is perhaps more conventionally executed than its theme requires
The Terminal Man (1974) – modestly
cautionary "mind control" drama, enhanced by Hodges’ chilly, astute,
deliberately-paced precision
Elegy to the Visitor from the Revolution
(2011) – Diaz’ shimmering lament, suffused with loss, yet powered by the hope
inherent in creation
Go Down, Death! (1944) – Williams’
morality tale remains startling for its potent conviction in the intervening
reality of heaven and hell
The Oberwald Mystery (1980) – an unusual expression of Antonioni’s
pervasive disquiet, emphasizing its technical modernity, yet lost in time
Sleeping Giant (2015) – Cividino
ventilates his simple tale through superb feeling for youthful behaviour,
morality and environment
Juste avant la nuit (1971) – Chabrol’s
eerily well-controlled examination of transgression, guilt and morality; among
his strongest works
Manchester by the Sea (2016) – Lonergan’s
film isn’t without humour, but makes its mark as a rare sustained study of the
contours of sadness
A Simple Story (1959) – aptly named, and yet the meticulousness
and purity of Hanoun’s observation is its own kind of aesthetic complexity
Cannery Row (1982) – Ward’s desired mythic artifice never entirely
gels, but I may never forget the Nolte/Winger dancing scene at least
Nathalie Granger (1972) – Duras’ film is calm and almost
narrative-free, yet seems to draw on a world of individual and systemic trauma
Lost River (2014) – Gosling’s strikingly
weirdo directorial effort is strangely haunting, for all its stylistic and
narrative excesses
Le roman de Werther (1938) – Ophuls’ eloquent,
emotionally gripping tragic love story pulsates with his
empathetic cinematic elegance
I Am Sam (2001) – Nelson’s film is such
obvious nonsense that it’s best to treat the whole thing as an absurd parody,
which mostly works
Salut les cubains! (1971) – Varda’s joyous (if arguably
underly-politicized?) creativity renders still photographs as breathless as
dance
Joy (2015) – perhaps the most
straightforwardly satisfying example of Russell’s facility for
effortless-seeming, intuitive organization
Onibaba (1964) – Shindo’s striking dark tapestry; perhaps not a
work of great depth, but one of memorably needy, lusty, fearful texture
That’s Entertainment! III (1994) – a
workmanlike compilation overall, distinctly lifted by some striking previously
unseen material
Les intrigues de Sylvia Couski (1975) –
Arrieta’s intriguingly elusive film; a highly fluid, open exercise in identity
and performance
The Search (2014) – Hazanavicius provides some strikingly bleak
recreations, but his narrative structure is overly limiting and unpersuasive
The Tiger of Eschnapur (1959) – almost at career-end, Lang
concocts his most exotically ravishing expression of his ensnaring narrative
The Verdict (1982) – Lumet positions familiar material as a gripping wintery vision of light
in the personal and institutional darkness
Business is Business (1971) – beneath the
brash shenanigans, Verhoeven’s film is a somewhat wistful survey of a bleak
sexual landscape
Hell or High Water (2016) – Mackenzie
reaches a bit too strenuously for broader resonance, but it’s still a
super-solid, loss-seeped drama
What did the Lady Forget (1937) – Ozu’s mildly provocative early
sound film has all his smooth facility with distinctive family structures
I Ought to be in Pictures (1982) – hardly feels like Simon or Ross
were really trying, but weary old-time know-how holds it together
The President (2014) – Makhmalbaf’s deeply-felt odyssey
constitutes a desolately resonant reference point for Trump-fueled despair
Eldridge Cleaver (1970) –
Klein’s punchy portrait should strike our politically destitute era as
hard as ever, as iconography & as attitude
Fruits of Passion (1981) – Terayama’s committed but inherently
rather detached film of intense erotic presences within structuring absences
The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956) – Walsh’s provocative
deconstruction of women and/as currency, presented with suitably brassy polish
Rams (2015) – Hakonarson’s film is surprisingly satisfying both as
quirky sociological window and as cornerstone of the sheep-film pantheon
Out of Season (1975) – Bridges’
meaningless, glumly-acted drama feels like observing a turgid funeral march
toward a well-signposted grave
Lessons of Darkness (1992) – Herzog’s relatively conventional
pictorial mastery communicates reverence but too, at times, unexpressed horror
49th Parallel (1941) – Powell’s Nazis-in-Canada epic
still excites with its ambition and commitment, despite its over-emphatic
aspects
Life of Riley (2014) – a perfect end point for Resnais: a
magnificent artificiality, suffused with dreamy yet intricate cinematic mystery
Score (1974) – Metzger’s full-bodied, fairy-tale-inflected,
cinematically & verbally quite well-articulated celebration of bisexual
hedonism
Melancholia (2008) – Diaz’s enormously striking, anguished,
necessarily fractured expression of relentless personal and national trauma
Grass (1925) – Cooper and Schoedsack’s documentary odyssey falls a
little short of cinematic grandeur, for all its many stunning images
Maggie’s Plan (2015) – the Miller/Gerwig brand names feel to be
severely flagging in this unaccountably mechanical, low-insight effort
Courage for every day (1964) – Schorm’s fluidly observed but not
greatly distinctive study of escalating (righteous) rage against the system
Mistress (1992) – Primus’ love/hate Hollywood vignette
occasionally spins its general flatness into something more interestingly dark
Perceval le gallois (1978) – tonally & structurally, one of
Rohmer’s most distinctive works, but no less morally & sociologically
bracing
Knight of Cups (2015) – hard to assess whether Malick is trapped
in cinematic affectation, or in some sense truly artistically liberated
The Sorrow and the Pity (1969) – Ophuls’ milestone film is (true
to the history it addresses) as pervasively unsatisfying as it is imposing
Heat (1986) – the movie has hints of something darker and
dreamier, but Richards’ sometimes appealing rhythms aren’t enough to get there
The Ghost that Never Returns (1930) – Room’s drama is just about
as hauntingly evocative as its title, with terrifically visualized moments
Captain Fantastic (2016) – the film’s
weaknesses are easily forgiven, given Ross’s genial skill and the inherent
appeal of non-conformity
The Exterminating Angel (1962) – Bunuel’s brilliantly strange
expression of the corrupt stasis at the heart of the ruling establishments
Time out of Mind (2014) – Moverman’s largely effective study of
homelessness, drawing on both immersed realism and resourceful artifice
The Demons (1973) – on paper it sounds like a feverish trash
explosion, but in practice Franco renders it plodding, flat and repetitive
Viva (2007) – Biller’s immensely pleasurable, perfectly designed
and sustained 70’s evocation/parody/critique/lament/you name it…
Mr. Freedom (1969) – Klein’s remarkable piece of pop-art distills
American grandstanding to a hyperactive, brightly coloured junkyard
Swiss Army Man (2016) – just when you
think there can be no new love stories, Kwan and Scheinert’s dank yet delicate
oddity proves otherwise
The Ballad of Narayama (1958) - Kinoshita’s grim tale has a
sustained beauty, but one of sustained artificiality, and inherent distance
Ornette: Made in America (1985) – Clarke’s strategically eccentric
approach perfectly complements Coleman’s genially iconoclastic power
Bang Gang (2015) – Husson’s study of “modern love” is accomplished
and searching in some respects, overly posed and perfunctory in others
The Front (1976) – Ritt’s blacklist comedy is rather too sparse
and unatmospheric to leave much of an impression, beyond dutiful admiration
Love Battles (2013) – Doillon & the actors arrive at some
memorably erotic physical & emotional architecture, which must count for
something
Primary (1960) – Drew’s alert and stimulating time-capsule study
of the low-tech drudgery and mundanity on the road to ultimate power
Ashes (2012) – Apichatpong dreams briefly, turbulently of pushing
his cinema away, but ultimately it returns, in all its elemental beauty
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) –
perhaps Peckinpah’s greatest, most epically rueful film, seeped in a decay both
romantic and terrible
City of Women (1980) – only Fellini could rattle around deep
inside his own ass with such sustained, unbound, happily problematic brilliance
The Spy in Black (1939) – Powell’s well-paced film certainly
points toward the confidence and scope of his soon-to-follow masterworks
Green Room (2015) – hard to give much of a damn about Saulnier’s
drama, for all its attention to detail and engagingly naturalistic aspects
The Marquise of O (1976) – Rohmer’s striking case study of tangled
proprieties & impulses provides a strong adjunct to his core achievement
Big Trouble (1986) – feels most like Cassavetes when the messy
narrative yields to an eccentric observance of life as actorly improvisation
Liebelei (1933) – not as glorious as Ophuls’ later works, but
demonstrating all the elements of his expansive, empathetic cinematic mastery
Born to be Blue (2015) – Budreau’s Chet Baker film benefits from
Hawke’s performance, but feels overly formal and emotionally distanced
L’ange et la femme (1977) – Carle’s strange, sparse, isolated
fantasy somehow seems to draw on Quebec’s politically-charged otherness
Short Term 12 (2013) – Cretton’s film is deft and often quite
moving, even if driven by a familiar form of narrative over-compression
The Pumpkin Eater (1964) – striking when at its most rawly,
despairingly Pinteresque; at other times it feels forced in its icy alienation
11 Minutes (2015) – Skolimowski’s exercise in connection &
causation is skillful, but certainly more limited & mannered than his best
work
Sudden Impact (1983) – Eastwood’s brash portrayal of America as
crime-ridden cesspit; one hopes the intention was at least quasi-satiric
Oyuki the Virgin (1935) – Mizoguchi’s study of female
self-determination against society’s disdain; not as potent now as his greatest
works
Sunset Song (2015) – Davies’ beautiful, intimate deeply-rooted
rural chronicle holds a wealth of sociological and philosophical complexity
Blood and Black Lace (1964) – Bava at lurid play in his perfect
stylized milieu; the results are often ravishing, if only fleetingly
Money Monster (2016) – Foster’s movie is to an impactful topical
commentary as a bunch of tweets are to an eloquently reflective essay
Le chat (1971) – Granier-Deferre’s sober tale, somewhat more
enduring than the clapped-out lives it depicts; Gabin/Signoret obviously help
The Lobster (2015) – Lanthimos’ unique comedy expresses with
superb elegance the desperate tyranny of our social and cultural ideologies
The Battle of the Sexes (1928) – one perhaps detects Griffith most
keenly when the battling yields to depicting stupidity and suffering
Vagabond (1985) – Varda’s calmly expansive approach places
questions of self-determination vs. victimhood into constant, doomed tension
Trumbo (2015) – I suppose it’s somewhat ironic that Roach’s
portrayal of a writer’s fiery defiance should be so safe and pedestrian
Woyzeck (1979) – Herzog’s small-scale film encompasses a wealth of
twisted observation, with Kinski’s staggering presence at its fulcrum
Midnight Special (2016) – Nichols brings it a reflective sheen and
classy casting, but ultimately it’s just more unilluminating hocus-pocus
Festival panafricain d’Alger (1969) – Klein’s productively
exhausting record pulsates with music, incident and hunger for revolution
The D Train (2015) – Mogul/Paul’s comedy of renewal through sexual
and social repositioning stops well short of scorching the tracks
Dernier domicile connu (1970) – Giovanni’s solid
worn-out-shoe-leather police drama, seeped in disillusionment at societal
shortcomings
Neighbors (1981) – Avildsen’s stiff corpse of a comedy, surely one
of the more clueless efforts ever turned in by an Oscar-winning director
Coming Home (2014) – Zhang’s drama is no doubt heartfelt, but
ultimately a trifling way of dealing with politically charged material
Night Mail (1936) – Watt and Wright’s propulsive portrait of
pre-war Britain evokes both industrial ingenuity and menial human confinement
Tale of Tales (2015) – Garrone’s happy if
unimportant blend of the inconsequentiality of bedtime stories, & the adult
dreams to follow later
Super Fly (1972) – O’Neal’s mountainously iconic presence thrives
mightily against Parks’ provocatively textured cinematic rhythms
Le beau marriage (1982) – Rohmer’s merely superficially slight
comedy somehow seems to foresee the vexing weightlessness of the online era
45 Years (2015) – Haigh’s wondrously acted (or inhabited) study is
a quietly tragic masterpiece of emotional calibration and evocation
The Lickerish Quartet (1970) – Metzger asserts erotica’s
reality-bending power, and all but seduces/bludgeons you into believing it
Interior. Leather Bar. (2013) – Franco/Mathews’s film is certainly
fascinating, even if marked as much by glibness as by profound reflection
Princesse Tam-Tam (1935) – Greville’s movie would be of little
interest, beyond its compromised, contradictory use of Josephine Baker
The Shallows (2016) – Collet-Serra’s
concentrated (and, yes, un-deep) woman-in-peril drama does sustain a certain
sensationalistic beauty
La rupture (1970) – Chabrol pushes events & characterizations
near absurdity, all the better to emphasize the film’s central moral strength
Anomalisa (2015) – the existential despair and inner heaviness may
not be so new, but Kaufman’s astounding expression of it certainly is
Un certo giorno (1968) – Olmi’s calmly probing observation of a
business executive, musing on the contingencies of success and contentment
Black Widow (1987) – for all its limitations, Rafelson’s drama is
perpetually alluring for its immersion in female desire and fascination
All our Desires (2011) – Lioret’s amalgam of modest social crusade
& hankie-friendly melodrama; smooth, but rather perplexingly forgettable
The Phynx (1970) – Katzin’s bizarre, leaden attempt at a madcap
generation-spanning celebrity-strewn romp evokes near-total bewilderment
By the Sea (2015) – generally interesting but persistently limited
attempt by Jolie to occupy the cinematic territory of past masters
The Night Heaven Fell (1958) – Vadim delivers accomplished
Bardot-ogling, but his largely bleak film talks of passion more than it evokes
it
Roar (1981) – much as
Harrison’s one-of-a-kind movie asserts man/beast harmony, the sense of
otherness and threat is often plain terrifying
Messidor (1979) – another sparsely transporting study by Tanner,
of the intertwined living & dying fueled by directionless, doomed movement
The Sky Trembles…(2015) – Rivers’ powerfully disquieting drama,
seemingly a challenge to underexamined ideas of cinema as cultural leveler
The French (1982) – Klein’s wide-ranging tournament record, free
of pumped-up glamour, teeming with solid time capsule-type pleasures now
Yolanda and the Thief (1945) – not the most coherent of musicals,
but Minnelli’s expressive mastery compensates for its deficiencies
The Witch (2015) – Eggers’ impressive film navigates with
imposingly chilly finesse between disparate occurrences and uncertainties
Nora Helmer (1974) – Fassbinder gives Ibsen’s play a fascinatingly
ritualistic tone, eloquently evoking social and psychological constraints
The Neon Demon (2016) – like its subject,
Refn’s film of fleetingly alluring surfaces & concepts seems designed to be
rapidly disposed of
Mr. and Mrs. Kabal’s Theatre (1967) – Borowczyk’s disquieting,
sparse animation, studded with piercing dreams of real-world erotica ahead
Straight Outta Compton (2015) – Gray’s essentially old-fashioned
telling often falls a bit flat, excepting when it taps into social currents
La promesse (1996) – emblematic Dardenne brothers work, applying
propulsive narrative technique to searching, socially-grounded material
Ill Met by Moonlight (1957) – a well-told yarn, but too narrow in
its scope for Powell and Pressburger’s masterful sensibility to flourish
Starstruck (1982) – Armstrong happily delivers the requisite tacky
set-pieces, while never losing her sense of social and cultural realities
Mauvaise graine (1934) – Wilder’s debut (!) is an appealing if
rather rushed drama, more at ease with the convivial than the hard-bitten
The Forbidden Room (2015) – Maddin/Johnson’s astounding,
unprecedented creation, crafted with volcanic relish from cinema’s scrappy
margins
Serail (1976) – de Gregorio’s playful and yet deadly serious
mystery, drawing ever-inward while suggesting limitless further unpackings
Hail, Caesar! (2016) – with consummate skill, the Coens celebrate
both the technical mastery and mythic reach of classic Hollywood
Demons 2 (1986) – the movie races along in its opportunistically
haphazard way, seldom providing much basis for rating Bava Jr. as a stylist
Frankenstein must be Destroyed (1969) – Fisher’s study in
escalating anguish and doom is intensely focused, if stately by modern
standards
Steve Jobs (2015) – Boyle/Sorkin’s highly structured, mannered,
repetitive approach falls flat, to the point of near-boredom by the end
The Goalie’s Anxiety…(1972) – from Wenders’ early, questing
period; full of smart moves, but not ultimately yielding his richest outcomes
Code 46 (2003) – Winterbottom’s enigmatic semi-thriller, a
deadened distillation of elements from similar films, never seems necessary
Full Moon in Paris (1984) – Rohmer’s beautifully structured
(albeit highly typical) study of a young woman’s doomed idealistic overreach
Leave her to Heaven (1945) – Stahl paints the prettiest of
aspirational postcards, then lets loose Tierney’s sensational malevolence
The Invitation (2015) – Kusama expertly shapes the Purge-like
premise into a human exploration as well as a genre-friendly creep-out
Edvard Munch (1974) – Watkins’ rewarding multi-facteted
investigation, intimately evocative while insisting on social and historical
context
99 Homes (2014) – Bahrani’s film is full of compelling
observation, fortunately not too obscured by the labored, unconvincing plot
mechanics
Spirits of the Dead (1968) – Malle, Fellini & Vadim execute
their respective segments with solidity, tortured razzle-dazzle &
shamelessness
Spectre (2015) – Mendes’ digitized spectacle-making often
fleetingly dazzles, but the film’s heart feels entirely weary, if not absent
Heremias (2006) – Diaz’ long but monumentally rewarding narrative
of wrenching personal evolution in a cruel, unyielding environment
My Brilliant Career (1979) – Armstrong’s eternally pleasurable,
well-observed study of a vibrant young woman determined to set her own path
The Treasure (2015) – Porumboiu holds the drudgeries of existence
and the possibility of mythic triumph in mysteriously perfect balance
Things to Come (1936) – the film’s strident certainty is hard to
warm to now, no less than the oppressive scale of Menzies’ visualizations
Sid and Nancy (1986) – Cox ably charts the relationship’s raucous
otherness, but at the (inevitable?) cost of a rather wearying film
The Virgin’s Bed (1969) – even as it utterly strangifies the
Biblical references, Garrel’s stark film is carried by revolutionary faith
Creed (2015) – Coogler’s object lesson in renewing familiar
devices & structures, through sensitivity to character, & sheer
cinematic smarts
The Sunday Woman (1975) – Comencini’s mystery has an appealing
cast and playful streak, but just succumbs to endless unilluminating tangles
Last Love (2013) – Nettelbeck’s glossy, deadening sap-odyssey
lurches shambolically from one meaningless exchange/confrontation to another
Lightning (1952) – Naruse’s customarily acute observation of
family turmoil winds its way to a quiet assertion of self-determination
Suffragette (2015) – much in Gavron’s scrupulous film is stirring,
but such a history surely demanded a more radical, wayward presentation
The Strange Affair (1968) – and also just a bit strained, as
Greene jazzes up a familiar trajectory through seediness and stained decency
Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine (2005) – Tscherkassky
reconfigures violent Western genre pleasures as deep cinematic trauma
Room (2015) – Abrahamson’s affinity for the child’s perceptions,
& for the competing confinements of lived experiences, bring it in solidly
May Days (1978) – Klein’s loosely-compiled record of Paris 1968, a
wistful/stirring reference point for dreams of counter-Trumpian action?
Paris by Night (1989) – Hare’s sharp modern noir, a politically
charged deconstruction of Rampling’s superbly incarnated protagonist
Camille 2000 (1969) – the plot and characters barely register
really, but Metzger’s erotic set-pieces are something to contemplate
Hitchcock Truffaut (2015) – Jones’ essay film is a twinkling,
maturely-flavoured drink from one of film culture’s inexhaustible fountains
Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) – Brooks’ fragmented,
impressionistic filming and Keaton’s idiosyncrasy yield a fascinatingly evasive
study
Conte d’ete (1996) – Rohmer’s beautiful study of, essentially,
behavioural and emotional shallowness, against a setting of quiet continuity
Crimson Peak (2015) – not untypically, the blood all flows through
del Toro’s design and imagery, seldom through his pale narrative
Viktor und Viktoria (1932) – Schunzel’s zippy little trifle, not a
major entry in the cinema of desire, even less that of queerness
Dirty Pretty Things (2002) – Frears provides plenty to grimly chew
over, but sacrifices some penetration for the sake of thriller mechanics
Female Vampire (1972) – the only structuring principle of Franco’s
trudging, barely sentient grab-bag is Romay’s perpetually naked body
The Danish Girl (2015) – Hooper’s deadening sensitivity &
caution often seem like a denial of the story’s physical & emotional
specificity
The Running Man (1963) – Reed’s cat-and-mouse drama trots blandly
along, seemingly barely engaged with the material’s possibilities
Trances (1981) – El Maanouni’s multi-faceted exploration of
performance & environment; informative & rousing, if not quite
deliriously so
Two Men in Town (2014) – Bouchareb’s chronicle of the hateful
erosion of new beginnings, most interesting in its wider angle moments
Du cote de la cote (1958) – Varda’s exquisite cataloguing of
sights from the Riviera, ultimately as attuned to exclusion as to celebration
Concussion (2015) – Landesman only sporadically rises above
soft-centered pedestrianism to evoke, say, the steel and scope of a Michael
Mann
Nada (1974) – Chabrol’s brisk terrorism drama often flirts with
quasi-absurdity; but then, it seems to ask, what political project doesn’t?
River of Grass (1994) – Reichardt’s not unrewarding but often
rather peculiar debut is far from her most unified or fully realized work
The Camp Followers (1965) – Zurlini’s desolate odyssey of war and
sexual brutality accumulates in despairing, near-disbelieving power
Every Thing Will Be Fine (2015) – occasionally interesting for its
icy dread and regret, but Wenders generally feels rather marooned here
Charley Varrick (1973) – Siegel’s memorable thriller, a
beautifully structured abstraction layered with terse observation and texture
Ceremonie d’amour (1987) – Borowczyk’s late return to form, almost
like an interrogation held within an erotically-charged private structure
Bright Road (1953) – the sentimental, insulated triviality of
Mayer’s film largely undermines the historical significance of its black cast
On my Way (2013) – Bercot plays around with Deneuve’s star image
and lasting if wearier allure, to pleasant if not very significant effect
The Warriors (1979) – propelled by Hill’s feeling for edgy
confrontations in ominous spaces; civilization out at the margins, if anywhere
Perdida (2009) – a little treat of a movie, albeit rather
softball-ish, as Garcia-Besne excavates intertwined family & film industry
history
Commandment Keeper Church… (1940) – in their frail endurance,
Hurston’s fragmented recordings evoke a quiet sea of reverence, and some fear