Movie "tweets" to May 19, 2026 (1 of 3)

 

 

The Little Girl of Hanoi (1974) – an often staggering blurring of vulnerability-centered artifice and devastating documentary reportage

 

Point Break (1991) – Bigelow’s serendipity-tinged meeting of elements remains one-of-a-kind viewing, albeit not her most penetrating work

 

An American in Paris (1951) – far from Minnelli’s richest or most appealing musical, its proficiency often more alienating than transporting

 

Club Zero (2023) – Hausner’s prettily stylized but broadly unsatisfying film takes a shaky premise and then fails to make the most of it

 

Stella Maris (1918) – Neilan’s stiffly rarified melodrama, patchily elevated by the clash of ethereal idealism and world-weary bitterness

 

Amor (2016) – Rebibo’s drama varies between limp and irritating, the right-to-die moral issue at its center ultimately barely registering

 

Tommy (1975) – Russell’s tackily arresting literalism at least preserves the sheer weirdness, but it’s a largely meaningless experience

 

The Empire (2024) – Dumont’s absurdly magnificent expression of, perhaps, the under-tapped latent grandeur within unflashy rural lives

 

His Girl Friday (1940) – a supreme Hawks achievement, its breathtakingly sustained surface studded with cynical or traumatic rupture

 

Opera (1987) – Argento orchestrates some of his most memorably bravura shots and concepts, somewhat offset by various flatter aspects

 

The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) – a slack and complacent installment, no matter the perpetual allure of the Clouseau-centric universe

 

The Animal Kingdom (2023) – Cailley’s pointlessly polished film is vacuous if considered as an allegory, and of little interest otherwise

 

The Young Philadelphians (1959) – an over-extended, low-impact melodrama, Sherman not so much directing as just clocking in and out

 

Mon roi (2015) – Maiwenn’s rough-and-tumble, vividly-acted chronicle of an unsustainable relationship, perhaps her best overall work to date

 

Black Angel (1946) – Neill’s tight drama pulls a familiar but well-executed shift, its finale marked by self-obliterating purposefulness

 

The House of the Serpent (2022) – Takahashi’s deceptively tight premise generates a dizzying conceptual energy, but it just isn’t much fun

 

Two Minute Warning (1976) – Peerce delivers a solid (if soapy) build-up and high-quality eventual chaos, but one wishes it all mattered more

 

Fassbinder’s Women (2000) – von Praunheim’s engagingly ramshackle reminiscence stirs up plenty, while inevitably illuminating rather less

 

Roman Holiday (1953) – Wyler’s film is easy to take, of course, but its famous charm is primarily of the staid and distanced variety

 

Her Body (2023) – Cisarovska’s film is bracing viewing throughout, even if its various strategies are perhaps less radical than required

 

Laughing Gravy (1931) – a fairly standard (that is, irresistible) Laurel and Hardy short, distinguished by a startlingly bleak ending

 

A Better Tomorrow (1986) – Woo’s ultra-propulsive mesh of all-out conflicts and contrasts, well-seasoned by a palpable vein of fragility

 

Up the Sandbox (1972) – Kershner’s flighty study of put-upon domesticity at least takes a few big swings without becoming utterly untethered

 

Leave No Traces (2021) – Matsuszynski’s cheerless, detailed exploration of a malevolent state system leaves one appropriately drained

 

The Dumb Girl of Portici (1916) – Smalley/Weber’s silent epic impresses in its teeming spectacle, but carries little emotional power now

 

The Turin Horse (2011) – Tarr’s immensely impressive, viscerally penetrating film, seeped in slowly sustained existential extinguishment

 

Burnt Offerings (1976) – Curtis’ patiently-evolving creepy-house drama is ultimately strikingly Shining-adjacent, albeit not as mind-filling

 

Coup de chance (2023) – Allen’s well-burnished, French-made tale of duplicity seldom flags or sputters, but is of limited overall import 

 

Point of Order (1964) – de Antonio shrewdly preserves the indelible highlights while allowing a keen sense of the broader procedural morass

 

Roman de Gare (2007) – Lelouch lays on lots of life-versus-art art teasing and misdirection, all quite elegantly and wittily executed

 

Myra Hess (1945) – Jennings’ no-frills performance piece, still resonant as an unruffled embodiment of cultural perseverance in wartime

 

Sebastian (2024) – Makela’s study of sex work is somewhat over-rarified both in conception and execution, but also sleekly knowing about it

 

Heaven Can Wait (1978) – Beatty/Henry’s remake doesn’t register too strongly now, the dependence on evasive mumbo-jumbo all too glaring

 

Avant l’hiver (2013) – Claudel’s film gently thwarts certain expectations, but remains highly familiar in its moneyed, middle-aged restraint

 

Seven Days to Noon (1950) – the Boultings deliver great views of an empty London, but less intellectual heft, or even much real suspense

 

Eureka (2023) – Alonso’s astonishingly supple, shape-shifting film, masterfully conversing between indigenous myths, realities, aspirations

 

Grand Hotel (1932) – Goulding’s plush contrivance remains a high-end showcase of diverse acting, not without a few stylistic grace notes

 

Peking Opera Blues (1986) – Hark’s breathless criss-crossing of theatricality & espionage, executed with across-the-board high-end dexterity

 

Wake Up Dead Man (2025) – Johnson’s film has some fairly spirited trappings, but the core whodunnit is mostly labored and unrewarding

 

Santo vs. the Riders of Terror (1970) – Cardona’s silly string of barebone theatrics, dotted with lumpy expressions of empathy & compassion

 

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) – Minghella’s adroit filming of the enduring sun-baked behavioural mystery, buoyed by some terrific casting

 

Django (1966) – Corbucci’s lean classic, one’s memory of the mud, the coffin, the bloodied hands surmounting that of its action highlights

 

Megalopolis (2024) – at once plentiful & simplistic, pointedly dazzling & near-senseless, Coppola’s film is, at least, in no way negligible

 

Girl with Hyacinths (1950) – Ekman’s drama allows spurts of expressive, even brave individuality to push through the schematic framework

 

Risky Business (1983) – Brickman ‘s smartly understated, often almost dreamy tone does much to elevate a basically sketchy premise

 

A Dog Called…Vengeance (1977) – Isasi’s man/canine pursuit flick has ample solid spectacle, although the broader context never fully gels

 

Jay Kelly (2025) – even at its best, Baumbach’s soft-pedalled movie is no more than Fellini-lite, seldom feeling relevant to anything at all

 

Mrs. Tu Hau (1963) – a piercing slab of Vietnamese experience, its many rough edges largely true to its wrenchingly disorienting subject

 

You Can Count on Me (2000) – Lonergan most deftly explores the steps forward & back along a family’s lovingly turbulent emotional topography

 

The Guernica Tree (1975) – if nothing else, Arrabal elaborates on his wartime resistance theme in often wildly provocative & profane manner

 

Leave the World Behind (2023) – Esmail’s breakdown drama works best if taken less at face value than as a kind of impressionistic compendium

 

Elegant Beast (1962) – Kawashima’s cheerful catalog of piled-up venality, resourcefully working its potentially claustrophobic setting

 

Monrovia, Indiana (2018) – as assured as ever, Wiseman surveys Trump country in all its decency, insularity and implied malleability

 

Two Girls on the Street (1939) – de Toth’s incisively realized slice of highly up-and-down life, thematically rich even when rather puzzling

 

Gladiator II (2024) – Scott’s wildly unnecessary film hangs together better than might be expected, but offers zero in the way of revelation

 

Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet (1978) – Lipsky’s well-sustained period farce has a nice line in tangibly inventive gadgetry and intrigue

 

The Glass Shield (1994) – an atypical Burnett film, but sharp and assured in its handling of the complicated and incendiary material

 

Slogan (1969) – Grimblat’s loosely-conceived Gainsbourg-Birkin vehicle is mostly just a scenic, only occasionally hard-working time capsule

 

The History of Sound (2025) – Hermanus’s sensitively absorbing case history, warmly intertwining emotional and ethnographic discovery

 

Hidden in the Fog (1953) – Kjellgren’s whodunit is best in its anxious titular mode, otherwise tending toward the ponderous and overstated

 

Fame (1980) – Parker unleashes enough diverse, tightly-packed exuberance to obliterate the screen; none of the rest really matters

 

My Contribution (1972) – Gomez’s brief but engagingly varied survey of Cuban women, animated by (albeit often ruefully informed) optimism

 

Paying for it (2024) – Lee’s film has an appealing frankness, but its clipped, sparse-feeling efficiency doesn’t promote deeper engagement

 

King of Hearts (1966) – de Broca’s gratingly over-orchestrated would-be paean to inner freedom wears out its welcome almost immediately

 

Stanley & Iris (1990) – Ritt’s synthetic-feeling drama sheds its texture and grounding as it goes along, ending up entirely untethered

 

The Confessions (2016) – Ando’s studious meeting of God and finance often feels on the verge of something big, but doesn’t get there

 

The Fan (1949) – Preminger’s crisply updated Wilde adaptation, marked by impeccably amused intelligence and Carroll’s layered playing

 

White River (2023) – Ma’s enigmatic pandemic-era sex triangle is painstakingly considered and embellished, but never fully connects

 

Every Which Way but Loose (1978) – in its own rambunctiously principled way, the movie sustains a (repetitively) coherent worldview

 

His Motorbike, her Island (1986) – Obayashi’s quirkily winning meeting of fetish-adjacent motorcycle love and destiny-infused romantic tosh

 

The Ring (1952) – Neumann’s sparse but searching boxing flick, notable for its attunement to prejudice-fueled resentment and frustration

 

Bullet Train Explosion (2025) – Higuchi’s sleek thriller is very cleanly executed throughout, without dispelling thoughts of Irwin Allen

 

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) – LeRoy’s classic drama remains punchy stuff, even as the social indictment content steadily rises

 

Shadow Kill (2002) – Gopalakrishnan gives stark, startling, ruthless expression to the death penalty mechanism’s spiritual and physical toll

 

Woo Who? May Wilson (1970) – Rothschild’s charmed-feeling portrait of an idiosyncratic, age-defying artist is celebratory, but clear-sighted

 

The Goldman Case (2023) – Kahn’s courtroom drama feels over-stretched at times, but entirely maintains narrative and thematic interest

 

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) – the film’s thin vein of poignancy doesn’t stand a chance against Aldrich’s grotesqued-up pantomime

 

Heli (2013) – Ascalante’s often punishingly direct journey through a starkly brutal environment leaves the viewer with little sense of hope

 

Words for Battle (1941) – Jennings’ Olivier-narrated short film, placing wartime imperatives in an evocation of refined British sensibility

 

The Girl with the Needle (2024) – van Horn’s grimly patriarchy-interrogating tale, starkly rich in notions of transgressive communion

 

Black Christmas (1974) – Clark’s psycho killer drama is pretty well-judged in most respects, but the “classic” status seems a bit generous

 

The Castle (1997) – Haneke’s Kafka adaptation is flattening and frustrating, drably-visualized viewing, and as such perhaps near-ideal

 

Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951) – a capably action-packed (if seldom funny) caper, emphasizing physicality over wordplay

 

Close Your Eyes (2023) – Erice’s reflective film is an often overly deliberate & stately artificiality, but a consistently mesmerizing one

 

Busy Bodies (1933) – a near-emblematic Laurel and Hardy short, initial contentment devolving into high-concept punishment and wreckage

 

In Another Country (2012) – Hong’s graceful minimalism allows (in this case often laugh-out-loud funny) glimpses of infinite possibility

 

Until Death Us Do Part (1979) – Carow’s stark portrayal of an idealism-eroding East German marriage is surprisingly frank and unsparing

 

The Shrouds (2024) – Cronenberg’s enthralling, intricate investigation, as comprehensively destabilizing & unprecedented as any of his films

 

On the Other Island (1968) – Gomez’s collection of character studies, evidencing her inventively probing conviction and empathetic curiosity

 

September (1987) – Allen’s wan abstraction lacks a shred of energy or spontaneity, comic only in its petulant suppression of all levity

 

Tiefland (1954) – Riefenstahl’s self-regarding triumph-of-the-primitive drama is mostly overdone irrelevance, for all its pictorial swooning

 

The Mastermind (2025) – in many ways a near-opposite to Reichardt’s preceding Showing Up, its strengths real, but more academic in nature

 

Demon Pond (1979) – Shinoda’s peculiarly calibrated, utterly watchable meeting of preoccupied earthly deprivation and the unleashed beyond

 

Lucky You (2007) – Hanson’s attention to detail is evident, and the joy-starved take on Vegas intrigues, but it’s bland viewing all the same

 

Mol (1966) – Vieyra’s chronicle of modest progress, more narratively driven & less productively discursive than his other best-known shorts

 

Universal Language (2024) – Rankin’s delightfully weird expression of multi-faceted Canadian culture, executed with a highly singular rigor

 

Sorelle materassi (1944) – Poggioli’s bustling tale of familial manipulation is ruefully poignant, although ultimately feels somewhat rushed

 

Speaking Parts (1989) – one of Egoyan’s more penetrating and humanely infused films, although ever more remote in its video-era cleverness

 

Legend of the Mountain (1979) – Hu’s lengthy but ravishing ghostly reverie is a mesmerizing play of light, mood, attraction and threat

 

Caught Stealing (2025) – Aronofsky puts across the material with swaggering confidence, which only underlines its amped-up irrelevance

 

The Devil’s Trap (1962) – Vlacil’s conflict of rationality and fanaticism is typically well-rendered, even if not entirely persuasive 

 

Zoo (1993) – an inherently fascinating Wiseman record, but not among his strongest, insufficiently examining ethical and other underpinnings

 

The Nature of Love (2023) – Chokri’s comedy-laced relationship chronicle credibly explores the contours of barely rational attraction

 

Vengeance Valley (1951) – Thorpe’s handsome, reflective Western provides much to savour, and indeed is the rare film that’s over too soon!

 

Confidence (1980) – a tight, insecurity-ridden wartime chamber piece, with Szabo in perhaps his most precise, almost bleakly satirical mode

 

The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra (1928) – Florey/Vorkapich’s short is engagingly earnest and busy, but largely weightless

 

Grand Tour (2024) – Gomes’ inspired saga is grand indeed, rooted in colonial attitudes and entitlement, repositioned for a more knowing age

 

Brass Target (1978) – Hough’s unaccountably flavorless mishmash hardly merits its wildly over-qualified cast (Loren! Cassavetes! Von Sydow!)

 

Jacky in the Kingdom of Women (2014) – Sattouf’s idea-laden satire lands better, if not much more meaningfully, than initially seems likely

 

Young Cassidy (1965) – Cardiff/Ford’s film has some galvanizing sequences, but doesn’t coalesce into a persuasive portrait of an artist

 

Green Border (2023) – Holland’s searing cross-section of refugee-related trauma and resistance is almost too much to bear and process

 

Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) – Litvak’s drama discharges its wake-up-call mandate with an impressively stentorian single-mindedness

 

Madadayo (1993) – Kurosawa’s last film is flat and trifling, but can be appreciated as an old man’s amusedly self-referencing testament

 

Towing (1978) – a weirdly half-baked, murky comedy, the slivers of shambling higher ambition undone by often shockingly weak execution

 

A Traveler’s Needs (2024) – Hong’s exquisite expertise yields a gently enveloping, longing-laced weaving of cultural and human mysteries

 

Stranger on Horseback (1955) – stripped down to bare essentials, Tourneur’s Western dramatizes a near-suicidal-seeming ethical compass

 

The Tuner (2004) – Muratova’s ambling tale sometimes feels over-extended, but achieves a suitable payoff in its sad, desultory finale

 

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) – Hall’s original is tighter than Beatty’s remake, but more hemmed in by exposition; pretty much a wash overall

 

Music (2023) – Schanelec’s enigmatic take on personal and artistic formation is impeccably crafted, if perhaps a little too unyielding

 

Cannibal Girls (1973) – Reitman/Levy/Martin’s low-energy early film carries some mild cultural interest, but hardly overflows with promise

 

Black Coal, Thin Ice (2014) – Yinan’s hauntingly atmospheric, fatalism-suffused drama, distinguished by several hall-of-fame-level sequences

 

Who Killed Teddy Bear (1965) – Cates’ drama becomes a fascinatingly odd meeting of trashiness and delicacy, manipulativeness and dignity

 

Fabian: Going to the Dogs (2021) – Graf’s lengthy, searchingly ominous Weimar-era chronicle is consistently vivid, often formally surprising

 

The Elusive Pimpernel (1950) – Powell/Pressburger’s rather hemmed-in period romp has much characteristic style, but fails to fully rise

 

Lettre de la Sierra Morena (1983) – Rozier’s cluttered short genially channels the               allure and limitations of filming outside the system

 

Horse Feathers (1932) – a flat-out Marx Bros. classic, near-inexhaustible in its barely mediated, reality-bending, destabilizing weirdness

 

Red Island (2023) – Campillo’s excellently subtle film, structurally and tonally surprising in its ultimate expression of fading imperialism

 

The Walking Stick (1970) – Till’s drama outgrows its soppy first half, accumulating in interest on the way to its disillusioned final note

 

Tirez la langue, mademoiselle (2013) – with alluring understatement, Ropert contrasts vivid presences and stoically withheld absences

 

Walk Don’t Run (1966) – Walters’ flat More the Merrier remake in no way improves on the original, not even re Grant, not even re Japan

 

All We Imagine as Light (2024) – Kapadia’s fine, stimulating film finds intimate, hopeful grace within India’s barely navigable complexities

 

London Can Take It! (1940) – Jennings/Watt’s brief bombing-era portrait, its imagery of more lasting impact than the portentous narration

 

Gendernauts (1999) – Treut’s study of gender-fluid community remains fresh and inspiring, even if its parameters are knowingly limited

 

The Story of Mankind (1957) – Allen’s humanity-on-trial historical survey, possibly even more dopey, turgid & poorly-made than one expected

 

20,000 Species of Bees (2023) – Solaguren’s film has its over-schematic aspects, but charms with its empathetic, warmly lived-in details

 

Twilight’s Last Gleaming (1977) – Aldrich’s meatily disillusioned drama, seeped in the contradictions underlying American military supremacy

 

Sleepless (2001) – Argento can turn on the baroquely nasty know-how, but the film too often verges on a chore, drenched in over-familiarity

 

Brighton Rock (1948) – Boulting’s gripping slice of low-life paranoia, at its best in the expressive contrasting of innocence & malevolence

 

Notre Dame brule (2022) – Annaud’s grand spectacle seamlessly fuses the real and the fictional, thereby doing full justice to neither

 

The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960) – Boetticher’s superior gangster picture, executed throughout with slyly relishing know-how

 

Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Delights (1981) – even at its simplest, Eustache’s bracing work challenges structural and aesthetic convention

 

Peter Pan (1953) – as with much of “classic” Disney, the film has its intermittent charms, but much of it just seems impenetrably weird

 

Last Summer (2023) – the film feels for a while like a softer Breillat work, but gradually reveals its breathtaking underlying toughness

 

Hog Wild (1930) – an enjoyable but somewhat predictable Laurel and Hardy short, raising its game and peril quotient in the final minutes

 

The Soong Sisters (1997) – Cheung’s sweeping epic is lively & informative, but seldom feels entirely equal to its remarkable subject matter

 

Searching for Mr. Rugoff (2019) – Deutchman’s modest but cherishable tribute, bursting with meatily poignant time-and-place movie talk

 

Lady Frankenstein (1971) – a minor Italian-made variation on the familiar material, playing out dutifully and seldom very excitingly

 

The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025) – Griffiths’ low-key charmer employs a familiar comedic mode, but in a fresh and distinctive context

 

Cash Calls Hell (1968) – Gosha’s top-notch thriller, its terse, tightly duplicitous plotting leavened by multiple veins of vulnerability

 

Zelig (1983) – the seamlessly well-sustained execution of Allen’s high-concept ambiguity often makes the comedy feel almost intrusive

 

Quatorze Juillet (1933) – Clair supplements the core romance with much deft & bustling activity, but the overall impact is on the soft side

 

The Friend (2024) – McGehee and Siegel’s mellow film is overly rarified and dawdling, but at least skirts canine-movie obviousness, mostly

 

Closed Circuit (1978) – Montaldo’s metaphysical mystery is a consistent surprise, particularly delightful for nostalgia-minded film buffs

 

Mission: Impossible (1996) – de Palma’s self-effacing series opener seems almost pokey next to later elaborations, but glides by very nicely

 

An Island for Miguel (1968) – Gomez’s short study of rehabilitated “idlers” belongs among her more straightforwardly regime-boosting works

 

Steve (2025) – Mielants’ decent and dedicated, if overly tidy drama, its rough-and-tumble intimacy disrupted by flashes of transcendence

 

The Unicorn (1955) – Molander’s tale of familial tensions has a potently venal streak, but is predominantly just standard twists and turns

 

Maniac (1980) – Lustig’s slasher movie distinguishes itself if only through Spinell’s committed presence and a robustly unhinged finale

 

Four Murders are Enough, Darling (1971) – Lipsky’s farce is well-maintained on its own all-out terms, but is almost aggressively unenjoyable

 

Friendship (2024) – DeYoung’s anxiety-seeped comedy mostly avoids shtick and obviousness, working its way to a well-calibrated conclusion

 

Divided Heaven (1964) – Wolf’s preoccupied, politically probing drama is cerebral and vivid, if somewhat challenging to fully sink into

 

Mapplethorpe (2018) – Timoner’s by-the-book biopic is sadly short on flavour or perspective, even as the work itself still mesmerizes

 

Cold Eyes of Fear (1971) – Castellari’s mostly house-bound drama is basically pretty creaky, but not without its enlivening flourishes

 

The Lost Bus (2025) – Greengrass oversees much astounding imagery, even if his expertise by now feels too often mannered and unprobing

 

Lamb (1964) – Vieyra’s brief study of Senegalese wrestling, both gleamingly physically immediate and indelibly, necessarily ungraspable

 

Family Viewing (1987) – Egoyan’s early film, its would-be contemporary resonance already heavily circumscribed by contrivance & affectation

 

Happiness (1935) – Medvedkin’s wryly executed parable of a poor man’s cosmic suffering, its propagandistic underpinnings not overly strident

 

Eephus (2024) – Lund’s supple balancing of grounded intimacy & open-ended reverie, the result light but pointed in its cultural implications

 

Far From Home (1975) – Saless’ study verges on bleak comedy in its small-scale repetitions, but with a deeply sad and searching undertow 

 

Donnie Darko (2001) – Kelly provides plenty to enjoyably chew on, although the final act feels more like a retreat than a culmination

 

The White Dove (1960) – Vlacil’s empathetic fable is a little distancing for all its breadth and skill, but elevated by its knock-out ending

 

After the Hunt (2025) – both stylistically and thematically, Guadagnino’s knotty provocation is much more slyly smart than given credit for

 

Two Minutes Late (1952) – Svendsen’s over-plotted, stylistically variable drama frequently sputters en route to the climactic titular irony

 

Cape Fear (1991) – given the prevailing ugliness, the more ravishingly virtuosic Scorsese’s handling, the worse his choice of material seems

 

Case for a Rookie Hangman (1970) – Juracek’s aggressively intelligent satire leaves almost no narrative or societal premise uninterrogated

 

Queer (2024) – Guadagnino’s typically polished film evades any easy response, being far from negligible, seldom completely satisfying

 

Kiru (1962) – at once concise & expansive, beautiful & withholding, Misumi’s study ultimately evokes Melville in its lonely sense of purpose

 

Highlander (1986) – Mulcahy’s film is more lurching mess than coherent high-concept vision, but somewhat benefits from the sheer weirdness

 

The Shadowless Tower (2023) – Lu’s restrained character study is intelligently enveloping, even as it overdoes the fractures and portents

 

Invaders from Mars (1953) – Menzies’ abidingly charming little fantasy, tonally well-sustained with much highly striking color imagery

 

Come Undone (2010) – Soldini’s study of adultery occupies familiar territory with convincingly lived-in, economically-stretched specificity

 

Hi Nellie! (1934) – LeRoy’s tightly energetic little picture has good plotting & terrific newsroom flavor, propelled by a peak-charisma Muni

 

Twist a Bamako (2022) – Guediguian’s study of challenged de-colonialism is never dull or trite, but too ingratiating in its love-story focus

 

And Soon the Darkness (1970) – Fuest’s slow-burn immersion in rural French creepiness works well enough, despite a distinctly thin narrative

 

Cain and Abel (1982) – Brocka’s all-out quasi-parable of fraternal conflict ramps up the turmoil with staggering, pitiless conviction

 

Term of Trial (1962) – Glenville’s solid if over-stirred drama, boosted by its generation-spanning cast, not least a finely subdued Olivier

 

Room 999 (2023) – Playoust’s directorial survey at least provides some amusing diversity; Rohrwacher and Desplechin are among the highlights

 

On the Town (1949) – Donen & Kelly’s musical has some major highlights of course, but also much that feels forced, even by genre standards

 

Claire’s Camera (2017) – probably not peak Hong either regarding the journey or the destination, but goes down very easily and beguilingly

 

A Life at Stake (1955) – not much reason to watch Guilfoyle’s bare-bones, inspiration- and atmosphere-deficient drama, Lansbury included

 

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (2024) – at once chilling and seductive, Grimonprez’s essay film is strongly conceived and impeccably executed

 

Four Daughters (1938) – Curtis’ schmaltz-first family drama does allow a bit more biting characterization and counterpoint than expected

 

Les roseaux sauvages (1994) – Techine’s deft study of psyches and sexual identities in formation, perhaps his most quietly grounded work

 

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979) – Allen’s lame sequel lacks even a shred of narrative, cinematic or actorly imagination or verve

 

Outrage (2023) – Bonzon’s drama kicks off with a bit of zip and resonance, but rapidly descends into overdone and unedifying melodrama

 

Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962) – Koster’s (far from Tati-esque) comedy could have been worse, given a general sense of minimal effort

 

Fifi Martingale (2001) – Rozier’s immersion in theatrical chance and contingency engages more in theory than in the (prolonged) actuality

 

The First Auto (1927) – Del Ruth’s nostalgic (even back then!) potted history is bright and varied, dotted with quasi-documentary elements

 

Nobody’s Hero (2022) – Guiraudie expertly applies near-classical comedic know-how to an often sharply provocative, unpredictable narrative

 

The Holly and the Ivy (1952) – Ferrall’s seasonal family drama has a few soul-baring highlights, among much standard or rushed interaction

 

The Artist and the Model (2012) – Trueba’s film has some beautifully evocative passages, but one’s mind frequently wanders to Rivette…

 

The Noose Hangs High (1948) – a pretty good showcase for Abbott and Costello, the hectic plot crammed around numerous emblematic routines

 

Perfect Days (2023) – Wenders’ study is mannered and contrived, but not incapable of prompting a certain empathetic self-reflection

 

To the Devil a Daughter (1976) – Sykes delivers a not-bad ominous build-up, all squandered in a climactic flurry of uninvolving mumbo-jumbo

 

When the Tenth Month Comes (1984) – Minh’s delicately pained but somewhat distanced film, prioritizing familial over national trauma

 

Me and my Pal (1933) – an expertly-escalating, riches-to-ruin Laurel and Hardy short, propelled by the singular evil of jigsaw puzzles

 

Close (2022) – Dhont’s is a small film, but exquisite in exploring deep friendship gone awry, the alien contours of grief and reconciliation

 

Twice a Man (1963) – Markopoulos’s work of “thought images” is assistance-required challenging, destabilizing, transgressively beautiful

 

Three Stories (1997) – the impact of Muratova’s murder trilogy varies from spellbinding to barely watchable, sometimes indistinguishably

 

Family Portrait (1950) – Jennings’ survey is woven with practiced skill, but overly conditioned by its faith in British exceptionalism

 

Io Capitano (2023) – Garrone’s adventure-story devices and compressions don’t seem like the optimal approach to such wrenching material

 

Deadline at Dawn (1946) – Clurman’s eloquently twisted noir, hard-boiled and vulnerably soft-centered in more or less equal measure

 

The Apple of My Eye (2016) – Ropert’s uncomfortable comedy takes a while to gel, but ultimately leaves an unexpectedly lingering mark

 

The Fog (1980) – a barely-held-together mishmash of threats, oddities and mythologies, notwithstanding Carpenter’s broad tonal consistency

 

Une vraie jeune fille (1976) – Breillat’s debut explores emerging female sexuality with a still- startling immediacy and unpredictability

 

Nosferatu (2024) – Eggers’ film overcomes an initial sense of redundancy, becoming a cerebrally chilly witness to unfathomable trauma

 

Under the Blue Sky (1959) – Sen’s culture-spanning, politically-laced drama is consistently engaging, although not his most layered work

 

Berlin (2007) – a near pantheon-level Lou Reed concert film, generally mesmerizing notwithstanding Schnabel’s mixed-bag directorial notions

 

The Colossus of Rhodes (1961) – a quite well-mounted & eventful, but hardly distinctive epic, offering little sign of the Leone to come

 

Hedda (2025) – DaCosta’s audacious reimagining takes a while to gel, but then gets there in richly-imagined, fearlessly disconcerting style

 

Can Dialectics Break Bricks? (1973) – a one-joke film which inevitably gets spread thin, however diligently and amusingly implemented

 

Compensation (1999) – Davis’ unique small wonder of a film, a luminously alert conversation across eras, of echoing delights and sadnesses

 

The Unfortunate Bridegroom (1967) – Krejcik’s quasi-farce is astute and thorough, and thereby increasingly depressing and unenjoyable

 

Twisters (2024) – Chung basically delivers a barely-disguised monster movie, its human aspects under-powered, its potential topicality muted

 

West Indies (1979) – Hondo’s teeming, lacerating, wildly imaginative and resourceful extravaganza just about exhausts one’s faculties

 

Night of the Juggler (1980) – Butler’s thriller easily makes up in pace and danger-saturated period color for what it lacks elsewhere

 

La belle equipe (1936) – Duvivier’s varied and decorative tale of lost camaraderie, its impact limited by the overly schematic conception

 

Becoming Led Zeppelin (2025) – MacMahon’s carefully circumscribed but patiently admiration-honing portrait does right by what matters most

 

Ken (1964) – Misumi’s study of competing notions of strength and commitment, ultimately almost overwhelming in its tragic inevitability

 

The Descent (2005) – Marshall’s subterranean horror film is smartly conceived and executed, although one’s enthusiasm can only go so deep

 

Scream of the Demon Lover (1970) – Merino’s Gothic-flavoured drama is sufficiently atmospheric and dread-laced, although seldom surprises

 

Pavements (2024) – Perry dazzlingly intertwines multiple routes down the rabbit hole, the result somehow both distancing and infectious

 

Soledad’s Shawl (1952) – Gavaldon’s chronicle of a doctor’s gradual awakening is stolidly decent, ultimately tipping into outright piety

 

The Dead (1987) – Huston’s almost uncannily well-chosen last film, its reduced ambition evident, but observed with warm, far-seeing fluidity

 

Professor Mamlock (1961) – Wolf’s tragic portrait of delayed awakening to the Nazi threat gathers steadily in concentrated, righteous power

  

Train Dreams (2025) – Bentley’s film is exquisitely crafted, but in a manner that barely allows any true sense of engagement or discovery

 

Goodbye & Amen (1977) – Damiani’s typically pugnacious drama, a clever meeting of splashy local crimes and shadowy geopolitical machinations

 

Aspen (1991) – another Wiseman landmark, here focusing less on the institutional than on (often highly monied) self-examination and growth

 

The Valley of the Bees (1968) – Vlacil’s powerful, brutality- and deprivation-soaked confrontation of earthly and spiritual imperatives

 

The Brutalist (2024) – Corbet’s film, although rivetingly realized, feels fundamentally simpler and smaller than its various grand trappings

 

Le cochon (1970) – even as a vegetarian, Eustache’s close, almost ritualistic study of men at work evokes a sense of loss-tinged awe

 

Biloxi Blues (1988) – Walken’s off-kilter presence excepted, Nichols’ unobtrusive and uncritical filming of Simon’s memoir is minor stuff

 

DogMan (2023) – Besson’s rampantly absurd movie is at least robustly entertaining, bolstered by Landry Jones’ beyond-the-call commitment

 

Tit for Tat (1935) – a fairly nondescript Laurel & Hardy short, their classic dynamic taking second place to a mechanically escalating feud

 

The Measure of a Man (2015) – Brize’s sober study of economic struggle potently taps the engrained predation of bottom-feeding capitalism

 

Blackout (1954) – Fisher’s shaky, damaged-hero drama tries to mine a Big Sleep-type complexity, but never develops much snap or elevation

 

Mario (2024) – Woodberry’s documentary portrait is sometimes a bit heavy-going, but amply informative, persuasive in its admiration  

 

Northern Lights (1978) – Nilsson and Hanson’s decent, immersive memoir, an ever-relevant commemoration of organized working-class activism

 

Time of the Wolf (2003) – one of Haneke’s more narrowly conceived works, but continually expectation-thwarting and existentially troubling

 

A Dog’s Life (1918) – a fairly modestly-conceived but highly likeable Chaplin short, fluidly executed throughout by man and dog alike

 

Evil Does Not Exist (2023) – Hamaguchi’s enthralling exploration of imperiled nature & community evokes a most complex sadness & yearning

 

The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) – Aldrich’s enjoyable desert yarn, not outstanding in any department, solidly adequate in all of them

 

The Stolen Children (1992) – Amelio’s film follows a classic humanist tradition, seldom surprising but observed with fine, searching empathy

 

Fires Were Started (1943) – Jennings’ classic recreation, a compact yet wide-angle hymn to British community, organization and fortitude

 

Smoking Causes Coughing (2022) – Dupieux’s cheery, silliness-hugging work of rampant imagination is weirdly, even disconcertingly satisfying

 

Guilty Bystander (1950) – Lerner’s booze- and fragility-sodden drama satisfies in classic noir manner, aided by various off-kilter presences

 

Planetarium (2016) – Zlotowski’s unusually conceived meeting of fragile period elements maintains an alluringly unstable, searching quality

 

3 Women (1977) – perhaps Altman’s most penetrating film, its vision of female communion and transference wondrously intricate and distinct

 

Bamel & Adama (2023) – Sy’s delicate film stuns and mesmerizes, even as it becomes suffused in personal and collective loss and resignation

 

Barbary Coast (1935) – a well-upholstered but over-stretched melodrama, short on classical Hawksian character dynamics and pleasures

 

Bumpkin Soup (1985) – Kurosawa’s sexy satire of higher education is no big deal, but sustains a happily jingo-laden, goof-guerilla vibe

 

The Night of the Generals (1967) – Litvak’s rampantly over-extended absurdity takes itself very seriously, which surely no viewer will

 

Petite Solange (2021) – Ropert’s study of familial evolution, her most simply-conceived film and perhaps her most exactingly delicate

 

All Through the Night (1942) – Sherman’s rambunctious Bogart vs. Fifth Column adventure yarn, Nazi menace leavened with copious goofiness

 

That Old Dream that Moves (2001) – Guiraudie’s amusingly unprettified comedy of gay desire, drolly combining economic and sexual uncertainty

 

So Long at the Fair (1950) – Fisher/Darnborough’s Gaslight-in-Paris period drama, notable for an unexpectedly dark, desperation-heavy reveal

 

The Promised Land (2023) – Arcel’s drama is near-primally absorbing and determinedly meaty, but surprises only in its escalating melodrama

 

The Monster (1925) – West’s silent horror-comedy finishes pretty strongly after some labored patches, but there’s just not enough Chaney!

 

Combat Girls (2011) – Wnendt’s modern-day Nazi drama is distinctly overwrought, but feels more toxically relevant than one would like

 

The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970) – Dearden’s enigma lacks the requisite sense of satirical fun, but Moore is solidly harried & committed 

 

Pepe (2024) – Arias’ hippo-centered odyssey ranges from the magnificent to the bizarre, more evenly overall than might have been expected

 

Ride the High Country (1962) – Peckinpah’s classically-contoured early film, setting seasoned honor against deliciously sleazy adversaries

 

Paradise Calling (1988) – Dombasle’s stumbling international mishmash has much to offer, excluding any major overall control or vision

 

Summertime (1955) – as with Hepburn’s strenuous virtuosity, Lean’s soft-spirited film makes passingly heavy weather out of very little

 

Jeanne du Barry (2023) – Maiwenn breaks little new ground whether as history or spectacle, and under-interrogates her own lead performance

 

East End Hustle (1976) – Vitale’s drama benefits mightily from its resolute female core, even as the low-rent-gangster stuff often sputters

 

One Man Up (2001) – Sorrentino’s feature debut immediately establishes his gusto and presence, also his penchant for offputting excess

 

The Time of their Lives (1946) – a rather over-involved, supernatural-themed Abbott & Costello vehicle, Bud largely subsumed in the ensemble

 

Oh, Canada (2024) – Schrader’s tangled meditation often feels more like a sketch for a film than a finished one, but rather hauntingly so

 

The Shiver of the Vampires (1971) – Rollin’s sexily atmospheric fantasy playfully and imaginatively expands on vampire-genre conventions

 

Candy Mountain (1987) – Frank and Wurlitzer’s improbable stirring of cultural elements achieves a likeable, end-of-the-world-tinged unity

 

The Shape of Night (1964) – Nakamura’s poised, conscientious study of prostitution, spanning brutal physicality and drained existentialism

 

Eddington (2025) – Aster’s tremendously ambitious, inevitably mixed-reaction-provoking grapple with American decline and degradation

 

The Axe of Wandsbek (1951) – Harnack’s vivid, fable-like tale of come-uppance, set in a questionably exculpatory portrayal of Nazi Germany

 

Children of Men (2006) – Cuaron’s film doesn’t grow much on re-viewing, propulsion and cinematic mannerism overpowering potential resonances

 

The Vampire Happening (1971) – Francis’ sex-on-the-brain spoof is a weirdly displaced creation, but oddly infectious in its low-hanging way

 

Small Things Like These (2024) – Mielants’ (indeed) small, recessively compassionate drama is well-realized on its own circumscribed terms

 

Eighteen Years in Prison (1967) – Tai’s drama has lots of meaty confrontation, propelled by a steely, social-justice-oriented protagonist

 

Android (1982) – Lipstadt’s tight little film adroitly pivots and stimulates, taking on additional resonance in an age of AI-related angst

 

Au bonheur des dames (1930) – Duvivier’s silent melodrama is enthrallingly dynamic throughout, notwithstanding its ultimately shaky ideology

 

A House of Dynamite (2025) – Bigelow’s film is as much instructional illustration as rounded narrative, but highly impressive on those terms

 

Nocturnal Uproar (1979) – the rough edges of Breillat’s exploration of sexual desire and freedom enhance its still-distinctive freshness

 

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead (1990) – for the most part, Stoppard directs his own playful material as if under unenthused duress

 

And…we have Flavor (1967) – Gomez’s brief survey of Cuban music, its celebratory specificity tinged with a sense of embattled yearning

 

Wicked (2024) – Chu’s filming impresses in the integrated bountifulness of its conception, drawing fully on the ever..um..green subtext

 

All the Colors of the Dark (1972) – Martino’s anguish-heavy, reality-fragmenting drama is highly well-sustained, if anything a bit overwound

 

Brainstorm (1983) – for every dazzling or prophetic aspect of Trumbull’s film, there’s another that feels dutiful or thinly conceived

 

Black Gravel (1961) – Kautner’s impressively cheerless drama is a condensed, pitiless catalogue of post-war German ills and resentments

 

The Phoenician Scheme (2025) – Anderson’s film is pleasurable in all the usual ways, but relatively disappointing given the thematic scope

 

The Rebellion of the Hanged (1954) – Crevenna’s chronicle of exploitation & revolt, its more stirring aspects dampened by heavy-handedness

 

Velvet Goldmine (1998) – Haynes’ impressively intricate film, its after-effect defined more by cultural passing than by its outre highlights

 

Who Saw Her Die? (1972) – Lado’s largely flat drama hardly makes the most of its Venice setting, Morricone score or novel lead casting

 

Rumours (2024) – Maddin & the Johnsons ably crank up the absurdist institutional satire, rendering the ultimate apocalypse almost blissful

 

A Fine Pair (1968) – Maselli’s deadening, relentlessly joy- & chemistry-deprived “caper” movie, dragged down by an irritated-seeming Hudson

 

It Couldn’t Happen Here (1988) – Bond’s take on the Pet Shop Boys is imaginatively unflagging, even when not too interpretatively persuasive

 

Every-Night Dreams (1933) – Naruse’s silent film tells its sadly striving tale in unusually varied, sometimes even outright jittery, manner

 

To Leslie (2022) – Riseborough is indeed the major asset of Morris’ no-better-than-decent, ultimately too tidily resolved character study

 

Death Walks at Midnight (1972) – Ercoli’s stylishly tangled drama starts & ends strongly, but its grip often loosens somewhat along the way

 

The F Word (2013) – Dowse’s romantic comedy makes Toronto look nice, but pushes the smart-alecky charm button too insistently (for any city)

 

Le viol du vampire (1968) – Rollin’s restlessly (and perplexingly) ever-renewing movie evokes a kind of free-jazz approach to the genre

 

Presence (2024) – Soderbergh’s film absorbs for its cinematic and tonal precision, albeit it’s not too notable if assessed as a ghost story

 

Don’t Torture the Duckling (1972) – Fulci’s high-end creation, seeped in superstition and transgression, often distinctly discomfiting

 

Rude Boy (1980) – an often valuable but rather too over-leisurely Clash-adjacent time capsule, even allowing the torpor is largely the point

 

Capricious Summer (1968) – even at seventy-four minutes, Menzel’s triflingly pretty, misogynistic windbaggery seems practically endless

 

28 Years Later (2025) – Boyle’s canny, almost tale-of-derring-do-like handling mostly fends off the ever-present threat of over-familiarity

 

Bim, the Little Donkey (1951) – Lamorisse’s sweet-natured little adventure story, heavy on exoticism and light on relevance, but no matter

 

Pump Up the Volume (1990) – not the only thing Moyle’s movie overly pumps up, but it gets by on low-grade charisma and all-purpose defiance

 

In the Folds of the Flesh (1970) – Bergonzelli’s murder mélange is twist- & trauma-laden even by giallo standards, not that memorably though

 

Babygirl (2024) – Rejin generates a compellingly textured core dynamic, even if the surrounding trappings are often cursory and unpersuasive

 

The Valiant Red Peony (1968) – Yamashita’s female-centered yakuza drama is sufficiently lively and bright, if seldom too surprising

 

Giro City (1982) – Francis’ minimal-frills TV journalism drama is worthy but limited in its impact, seemingly by compromise-weary intent

 

Paris qui dort (1924) – Clair’s utterly beguiling, sometimes fairly spectacular fantasy draws on the manipulable wonder of the cinematic image

 

Seven Veils (2023) – just a bit less over-determined and airless than usual for Egoyan, the opera setting providing an alluring extra sheen

 

Allonsanfan (1974) – the Tavianis’ early work engages with history in a hauntingly scrappy, unpredictable, tumultuously tragi-comic manner

 

Vanilla Sky (2001) – a mostly successful stretch for Crowe, even as the brittle allure of its narrative loops and shifts steadily dissipates

 

Une nation est nee (1961) – Vieyra’s rather poignantly optimistic tribute to a new industrial Senegal, laced with a sense of cultural loss

 

The Last Showgirl (2024) – Coppola’s would-be elegiac portrait feels minor & impoverished in most respects, but Anderson is indeed well-cast

 

Deaf Smith & Johnny Ears (1973) – Cavara’s capably unsurprising Western works strictly modest variations on familiar set-ups and challenges

 

Female Perversions (1996) – for all its lumpy & stilted aspects, Streitfeld’s film fascinatingly surveys a topography of desire & adaptation

 

Ken ki (1965) – blending eye-bathing tenderness and chilling murderousness, Misumi’s sword saga crafts a mysterious sense of inevitability

 

Weapons (2025) – Cregger’s upper-echelon horror film isn’t genre-transcending, but it’s unflaggingly lively & creative, and the finale rocks

 

Stars (1959) – Wolf’s sensitively-crafted focus on relative goodness and resistance veers discomfitingly close to a form of Holocaust denial

 

Author! Author! (1982) – Hiller’s idealized, soft-centered comedy works well enough, especially re a near-hypnotically incongruous Pacino

 

The Legend of Frenchie King (1971) – Christian-Jaque’s messy Bardot-Cardinale vehicle has sufficient low-key, happy-go-lucky charm to get by

 

The End (2024) – Oppenheimer’s weird, hermetic, frustrating yet near-dazzling expression of self-righteous ruler-class mythologizing

 

Adelheid (1969) – Vlacil’s pained, wintery drama powerfully draws on post-war fragility and deprivation, distrust and moral confusion

 

Without You I’m Nothing (1990) – Boscovich’s astutely teasing showcase for the fabulous, aggressively singular peak-period Bernhard

 

Aelita (1924) – Protazanov’s is hardly the most gracefully integrated of fantasies, but has much of near prototypical entertainment value

 

Bring her Back (2025) – the Philippous contrive some finely-etched trauma and grotesqueness, but it’s ultimately oddly under-involving

 

Alexandria…Why? (1979) – celebration ultimately triumphs in Chahine’s brash, barely-held-together collage of wartime turmoil and testing

 

The Woman in Red (1984) – Wilder’s poor man’s “10” doesn’t hit many buttons, being at best uninspired and often actively unpleasant

 

The Hop Pickers (1964) – Rychman’s youthful Czech musical is bright and tuneful, at its best even somewhat bringing the sainted Demy to mind

 

My Old Ass (2024) – Park’s gentle parable plays very prettily and nicely, seemingly not aiming any higher than it can comfortably attain

 

What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974) – Dallamano’s overall quite effective exercise in happily sleaze-laden social handwringing

 

Panic Room (2002) – Fincher’s high-end drama is strong on well-honed ingenuity, short on lasting impact, vague house-porn caution aside

 

Kalpana (1948) – Shankar’s tumbling movie is a feast of passionate, ideologically fiery performance, albeit a bit rough around the edges

 

Sorry, Baby (2025) – Victor’s lingering, fresh yet lived-in-feeling film examines the aftermath of assault with unforced intelligence 

 

Il demonio (1963) – Rondi’s starkly gripping tumble through possession and superstition, built around an indelible, startlingly unbound Lavi

 

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) – Allen’s potentially over-reaching fusion ranks among his most satisfyingly precise and ruthless works

 

Une sale histoire (1977) – like just about every Eustache work, it slyly creates its own otherwise uncharted, lingering cinematic space

 

A Complete Unknown (2024) – Mangold’s pointlessness-suffused high-end mediocrity does come alive at times, mostly in the performance scenes

 

The White Reindeer (1952) – Blomberg’s ethnographically specific if rather vaguely articulated myth makes a general virtue of simplicity

 

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) – it’s hard to applaud such calculated grotesqueness, notwithstanding Demme’s unerringly precise execution

 

Solo (2023) – Depuis’ exuberantly performance-driven drama, well-attuned to the destructive capacity of toxic emotional structures

 

Cocaine Cowboys (1979) – Lommel’s lifeless and murky drug smuggling hodgepodge, elevated not at all by Palance, Warhol or the rock group

 

The Church (1989) – Soavi’s supernatural hodge-podge opens strongly and is wildly variable thereafter, but executed with blazing conviction

 

Fail Safe (1964) – Lumet’s well-inhabited white-knuckle speculation, an ever-effective compare-and-contrast with the same year’s Strangelove

 

Both Sides of the Blade (2022) – Denis’ facility with emotional extremity is unequaled, even if the film lands a bit more simply than some

 

Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) – Curtiz’s early color film looks gorgeous in its restored edition, and is robustly enjoyable all around

 

Sunshine for the Scoundrels (2001) – Guiraudie’s own-muse-and-then-some comedy is silly, yet existentially-charged, often implicitly brutal

 

The People Next Door (1970) – Greene’s drama is often thin and overplayed, but does tap into the era’s cross-generational incomprehension

 

The Palace (2023) – at once anarchic and clapped-out, formulaic and weirdly evasive, Polanski’s claustrophobic satire is, at least, singular

 

Jazz on a Summer’s Day (1959) – Stern’s missive from a moment of musical plenty, as alluring in its shaping as in the peerless content

 

Mephisto (1981) – for all its strenuous efforts, Szabo’s Oscar-winner whips up barely a shred of cinematic or intellectual excitement

 

92 in the Shade (1975) – McGuane’s strange movie, an unusual meeting of geniality and threat, engagingly follows its own rambling muse

 

It’s Not Me (2024) – perhaps unwisely embracing a Godard-lite aesthetic, Carax’s reverie is more self-congratulatory than revelatory

 

The Woman in the Window (1944) – Lang masterfully orchestrates the escalating sense of bewildered entrapment, tacked-on twist ending aside

 

Noroi (2005) – Shiraishi executes the found footage conceit impeccably, the trauma-filled content well-placed beyond one’s comfortable grasp

 

Island of Love (1963) – DaCosta’s awful comedy doesn’t do the slightest thing right, including an array of startlingly bad performances

 

Red Rooms (2023) – Plante’s impressive (and rather unnervingly informative) tech-savvy drama unfolds with unerring, mysterious purposiveness

 

Somebody Killed her Husband (1978) – Johnson’s gallop through meet-cute and jeopardy is in no way involving; the climax is colorful at least

 

Snow Canon (2011) – Diop’s early short, filled with well-honed contrasts & nuances, but less distinctively resonant than her subsequent work

 

The Savage Eye (1959) – the film overflows with arresting shards of life, but the “poetic” commentary is portentous, when not condescending

 

Days (2020) – a minimalist and withholding work even for Tsai, but indelibly depicting a transient fulfilment amid the prevailing isolation

 

The Lost World (1925) – Hoyt’s dinosaur-and-more adventure has some ropey storytelling, but offers capably pioneering spectacle and mayhem

 

Adieu Bonaparte (1985) – Chahine’s characteristically thrusting & tumultuous drama gives bold expression to the draining toll of colonialism

 

The Cassandra Crossing (1977) – Cosmatos’ simplification-laden drama hardly justifies the over-qualified cast, but never remotely bores

 

20 Days in Mariupol (2023) – wrenching-beyond-words viewing, threatening to eradicate what remains of one’s optimism for the human project

 

One Potato, Two Potato (1964) – Peerce’s prejudice-raising film is thoroughly decent, and cautiously reined in (however understandably)

 

Tuvalu (1999) – Helmer delivers a somewhat dankly claustrophobic vision, but not without shards of pleasurable eccentricity and invention

 

Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) – a modest work, but dotted with gently surprising, well-played details and shards of straight-faced humor

 

The Origin of Evil (2022) – Marnier elevates a (perhaps overly) classic suspense premise with some fairly delicious venality and peculiarity

 

Jezebel (1938) – Wyler’s stiffness-skirting, literate portrait of a besieged society, immensely elevated by Davis’ piercing intelligence

 

Meeting Gorbachev (2018) – a clearly enraptured, restrained Herzog delivers a more than solid overview, infiltrated with lost idealism

 

Sayonara (1957) – Logan’s drama remains solidly geared to liberal sensibilities, but nothing approaches the minutely mesmerizing Brando

 

The Teachers’ Lounge (2023) – Catak’s finely-etched study of institutional discord, its effect akin to that of an escalating suspense drama

 

Schizo (1976) – Walker’s drama is competent enough in its plausibility-challenged way, albeit with an epically predictable ultimate twist

 

Athens, Return to the Acropolis (1983) – an unusually concise Angelopoulos, gracefully musing on a city’s bottomless history and resonance

 

London in the Raw (1964) – Miller/Cohen’s “racy” survey is worth a look or two, even if the artifice is as prevalent as the cigarette smoke

 

Benedetta (2021) – Verhoeven’s fiery convent-set film is certainly a provocation, but scrupulous in its challenges and ambiguities

 

Two Sisters from Boston (1946) – Koster’s hokey opera vs. burlesque yarn gets a lift in Durante’s scenes, otherwise it’s serviceable at best

 

The Wolberg Family (2009) – Ropert’s oddly moving study, piercingly specific and vulnerable,  yet hauntingly withholding and uncrackable

 

Phantasm (1979) – Coscarelli’s headily imaginative low-budget mix, glued together by workable layers of free-floating trauma and anxiety

 

Orlando, my Political Biography (2023) – Preciado’s vibrantly fluid and intelligent work of enactment, criticism, testimony, celebration

 

Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) – much of Van Dyke’s emblematic, carnally-charged movie remains logistically (if not attitudinally) impressive

 

Weathering With You (2019) – Shinkai’s beguilingly conceived & realized expression of teen hope & fragility, for a climate-fatalistic world

 

The Amusement Park (1975) – Romero’s effectively immediate catalogue of aggressions, rather amusingly wrapped in public service garb

 

The Man who Sold His Skin (2020) – Ben Hania’s uneasy and stilted quasi-satire leaves one more exasperated than challenged or informed

 

Battle Circus (1953) – Brooks’ pre-MASH Korean medic drama has sufficient weary authenticity to surmount some strained human dynamics

 

Intimacy (2001) – for all its artificiality and over-calculation, Chereau’s film pulsates with empathetic curiosity and investigative acuity

 

Too Wise Wives (1921) – despite its societally rarified setting, Weber’s film pulsates with marital frustration and economic insecurity

 

In Water (2023) – Hong’s brief film is evasive even by his standards, and yet ultimately possessed of almost supernatural certainty

 

Dog Day Afternoon (1975) – a considerably over-extended but serendipity-touched drama, overseen by an energetically in-the-zone Lumet

 

Village of Doom (1983) – Tanaka’s drama feels insufficiently incisive at times, but the bloody final stretch is chillingly well-realized

 

Adam’s Rib (1949) – Cukor’s classic is expertly calibrated when in full flow, the underlying ideological debate still productively tangled

 

A Radiant Girl (2021) – Kiberlain’s heartbreaking, ethically lovely film crafts an intimately personal perspective on France’s wartime shame

 

Countdown (1967) – Altman’s Altman-effacing early drama gets the job done, while feeling persistently familiar even if you’ve never seen it

 

La danse (2009) – a largely celebratory Wiseman work, prioritizing rehearsal and (often stunning) performance over institutional dissection

 

Not a Pretty Picture (1977) – Coolidge’s sparsely pointed film remains striking, often disturbing, as a mode of discourse and investigation

 

Four Daughters (2023) – Ben Hania’s playful and ominous familial exploration is entirely compelling, even when insufficiently ruthless

 

Blotto (1930) – top-drawer Laurel and Hardy short, driven by rather poignant compulsion for liquor-fueled escape from marital confinement

 

36 fillette (1988) – Breillat taps into a turbulently formative female psyche with astounding empathy and whiplash-inducing thoroughness

 

Strip Nude for Your Killer (1975) – Bianchi’s style-challenged concoction goes through its sleazy motions in mostly listless fashion

 

Superman (2025) – Gunn’s multiple calculated risks pay off pretty well, yielding a satisfyingly well-rounded, vulnerability-seeped spectacle

 

School of Fear (1969) – Vohrer’s drama has a striking arrival point, but is insufficiently robust in drawing out the material’s nuances

 

Trapped Ashes (2006) – a not-bad, tonally varied horror anthology, Russell’s ogling shlock outshone by Hellman’s old-Hollywood nostalgia

 

Blue Jeans (1958) – Rozier’s engaging short film, a laconic summer meeting of obsessively priapic purpose and financially-challenged stasis

 

The Apprentice (2024) – Abbasi’s movie is well-played and robustly entertaining, but hardly adequate to its subject’s grim ultimate import

 

We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974) – Scola’s garrulously varied decades-spanning drama, well-attuned to disappointment and compromise

 

Son of the Pink Panther (1993) – Edwards’ last film barely registers as being anything at all; ‘lackluster’ doesn’t begin to cover it

 

Hercules in the Haunted World (1961) – Bava’s crack-speed odyssey does maintain a sensuous, richly-imagined sense of mythic otherness

 

The Accountant 2 (2025) – O’Connor’s sequel leaves only a limited impression, the brutality outweighing its playfully imaginative streak

 

Maman colibri (1929) – Duvivier’s rather over-deliberate silent melodrama, its studied delicacy a bit less winning than in his prime works

 

Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling (1986) – Pryor injects sufficient raw quasi-authenticity to outweigh the frequent flatness and vagueness

 

The Story of O (1975) – and an unforgivably dull one, given Jaeckin’s lack of psychological curiosity, and unwavering tonal monotony

 

Hard Truths (2024) – as bracingly singular as ever, Leigh holds piercing comedy & ranting existential panic in perfectly calibrated balance

 

Time of Roses (1969) – Jarva’s future-set investigation doesn’t ultimately fully satisfy, but impresses in its scope and thoughtfulness

 

Beach Rats (2017) – Hittman’s exquisitely nuanced, superbly-acted study of a restlessly young psyche already straining the end of its tether

 

They Have Changed their Face (1971) – Farina’s fairly nifty, amusingly swerving meeting of vampire myth and cold-blooded runaway capitalism

 

Materialists (2025) – there’s not much new or complex at the core of Song’s film, but the tonal finesse and detail disguises it pretty well

 

Tintin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece (1961) – an inherently odd live-action project, but brightly done and surprisingly likeable

 

Another Country (1984) – Kanievska’s fraught immersion into an intricately, blindly British subculture still connects, if somewhat gloomily

 

Wife (1953) – Naruse’s slightly over-extended but rigorously even-handed study of marital breakdown, its final note challengingly unresolved

 

Exhibiting Forgiveness (2024) – Kaphar’s drama is handsome and well-considered, but also distanced and short on emotional authenticity

 

Perfumed Nightmare (1977) – Tahimik’s must-see personal testament encompasses warmly quirky memoir, fantasy, parody, and ominous warning

 

Synecdoche, New York (2008) – one watches Kaufman’s appropriately draining conceptual marvel with the sense of a quasi-religious pilgrimage

 

The Evil Eye (1963) – Bava’s cannily-handled giallo-prototype probably juggles too many elements, but the humorous streak certainly helps

 

She Came to Me (2023) – Miller’s comedy has plenty of enjoyably peculiar notions and twists, but is rather too fuzzy characterization-wise

 

Road to Life (1931) – Ekk’s Soviet-era film, if stylistically fairly familiar, vividly depicts various threats to collective-minded idealism

 

Blind Date (1987) – Edwards is well in control of the old-school comic machinery, but the movie lacks much emotional warmth or coherence

 

Confessions of a Police Captain (1971) – Damiani’s stark expose of endemic corruption is fairly familiar stuff, but executed with urgency

 

Anora (2024) – Baker’s sensationally well-sustained if somewhat narrowly conceived film is as rollickingly entertaining as any Oscar winner

 

The House that Screamed (1969) – Serrador’s sadism-tinged drama is quite handsomely sustained, at least until its dubiously conceived reveal

 

Basic Instinct (1992) – the film still fairly sizzles where everyone says, but Verhoeven also waves through much mundanity and crassness

 

To Be Twenty (1978) – Di Leo delivers ample ogling and provocation while also somewhat critiquing it, leading to a quite chilling ending

 

Highest 2 Lowest (2025) – Lee’s sumptuous film surprises and pleases in small and large ways, leaving one feeling outright celebratory

 

La Soldadera (1966) – Bolanos’ under-sung, desolate, often near-absurdist study of revolution from an uncomprehending female perspective

 

Ragtime (1981) – Forman’s studiously handsome adaptation is hardly dull, but is rather lacking in narrative vitality and thematic coherence

 

Nosferatu (1922) – one remains spellbound by the clarity of Murnau’s imagery, by the dread-filled compulsion of his pioneering narrative

 

Joker: Folie a Deux (2024) – one stubbornly admires, mostly even succumbs to Phillips’ peculiar notions, however strategically unclear

 

Horror Express (1972) – Martin’s film is more handsomely mounted, with a better cast, than its unpersuasively escalating imaginings deserve

 

The Last of the Mohicans (1992) – a terrifically propulsive, powerfully delineated adventure, albeit not as indelible as Mann’s finest films

 

Arsene Lupin contre Arsene Lupin (1962) – Molinaro’s exhaustingly complicated period romp certainly works hard, but just isn’t much fun

 

The Dead Don’t Hurt (2023) – Mortensen’s Western fulfils some genre expectations, but engages most when pluralistically looking beyond

 

Piagol (1955) – Lee’s war drama, seeped in ideologically untethered perseverance and sad venality, has the feel of a somewhat simpler Fuller

 

The Good Mother (1988) – Nimoy’s drama does too much telling, too little showing, but is adequately empathetic and involving overall

 

The Boxer from Shantung (1972) – a thoroughly satisfying, well-focused genre peak, culminating in staggering, bloodily extended wipeout

 

Nickel Boys (2024) – Ross’s audacious film is utterly absorbing in its intricacy and confidence, even if one responds at a certain remove

 

Robinson’s Place (1964) – Eustache’s early short film is a bracingly cold-hearted anecdote of priapic male calculation and rationalization

 

The Annihilation of Fish (1999) – such trifling old-person material feels essentially beneath Burnett, but the film largely wins you over

 

The Law’s Lash (1928) – Smith’s silent Mountie yarn sticks to the basics, with Klondike the Dog falling short of action-canine greatness

 

Sundown (2021) – Franco crafts an alluringly opaque if economically over-rarified curiosity, built around an impeccably withholding Roth

 

Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) – Hill’s adaptation is impeccably executed in its own embalmed way, but suffused in distanced pointlessness

 

The Escapees (1981) – Rollin’s (relatively nudity-free!) tale of youthful escape and longing is quite unexpectedly wistful and fragile

 

Otley (1968) – Clement’s bloke-caught-up-in-espionage lark is no big deal, but benefits from all the local colour and down-to-earth vibes

 

Monster (2023) – the academicism of Kore-eda’s ambitious structure almost crowds out the film’s behaviorally interesting or touching aspects

 

Room Service (1938) – a fast-moving Marx Brothers farce, logistically quite impressive but seldom actually funny; Harpo’s bits come off best

 

Dark Water (2002) – Nakata’s film is conceptually simpler and less insinuating than his Ring, and yet hauntingly sad and loss-infused

 

Norman Mailer vs. Fun City (1970) –   too brief, loose and hermetic a record to be enormously informative, but always robustly enjoyable

 

Holy Spider (2022) – Abbasi’s slick drama is certainly culturally distinctive, but too often labored about it, if not outright meretricious

 

The Ladykillers (1955) – Mackendrick’s high-functioning comedy has seldom been bettered as an ingratiating meeting of sweetness and venality

 

Bona (1980) – Brocka’s study of misguided, exploitation-inviting devotion, realized with no-nonsense visual and emotional muscularity

 

Murder, my Sweet (1944) – Dmytryk’s Marlowe flick lies at the lighter end of the noir spectrum, with a few distinguishingly edgier elements

 

On the Adamant (2023) – Philibert’s patient observation of marginalized but vivid lives, its small scale embodying its empathetic reticence

 

At Long Last Love (1975) – Bogdanovich’s Cole Porter-heavy musical rarely clicks, being for the most part joy-deficiently miscalculated

 

Le mariage a trois (2010) – Doillon’s five-person country-house piece is often aggressively unlikeable, albeit not altogether unknowingly

 

The Subject was Roses (1968) – Grosbard handles the material ably enough, but it’s devoid of even mild surprises, let alone revelations

 

Piaffe (2022) – Oren’s strange, seductive film taps an electrifyingly intimate sense of fluid sexuality, identity, creativity, even of DNA

 

Bleak Moments (1971) – Leigh’s all-too-aptly titled debut is however leavened with moments of playfulness, even of possible transformation

 

Le boum 2 (1982) – Pinoteau’s tumble of coming-of-age incident slides blandly by, its older generations providing a minimum of seasoning

 

Teacher’s Pet (1958) – Seaton’s lightly comedic Gable/Day meeting is pretty sprightly and thematically well-considered, in its bygone way 

 

Godzilla Minus One (2023) – Yamazaki’s very solidly built, if not genre-transcending, movie, marked by strong emotional undercurrents

 

The Bible…in the Beginning (1966) – Huston’s film is epic primarily in its ill-considered passivity; the Noah episode is at least lively

 

The Kindergarten Teacher (2014) – Lapid’s original is more artful, provocative and ultimately despairing than the American remake

 

Breakout (1975) – Gries’ drama alternately rushes and dawdles but is solidly enjoyable overall, buoyed by some strangely high-end casting

 

Agony (2020) – Civetta’s moody, not very comprehensible psychological drama doesn’t do much right, other than keep the ordeal short

 

Speedy (1928) – Wilde’s aptly-named Lloyd comedy is an expertly-handled rush of big-city incident, albeit mostly more interesting than funny

 

Nosferatu in Venice (1988) – Caminito’s creation doesn’t amount to much, its brooding relative strengths undercut by recurring clumsiness

 

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) – Minnelli’s undervalued, doom-ridden wartime spectacle, stunningly composed even at its flattest

 

Lumberjack the Monster (2023) – Miike’s film impresses in its proficiently psychopath-laden elaborations, although not that lastingly

 

Skip Tracer (1977) – Dalen’s minor drama at least impresses for the sheer sustained cheerlessness of its personal and societal outlook

 

The Queen of Spain (2016) – Trueba serves up lots of well-tuned movie-love pleasure, while soft-pedalling the underlying anxiety and threat

 

The Match King (1932) – a diverting chronicle of venal rise and fall, too zippy though to fully land the tragically introspective finale

 

A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021) – Kapadia’s Marker-evoking reverie is strong and moving, although perhaps a little too studied at times

 

Voyage of the Damned (1976) – Rosenberg’s drama isn’t gratingly bad, but its heavily star-driven narrative strategy is inevitably limiting

 

Simone Barbes ou la vertu (1980) – Trielhou’s diversely stimulating triptych of displaced desire is strangely and elusively captivating

 

Abbott and Costello meet the Keystone Kops (1955) – a not too tired retro-themed A&C work, clearly enough executed, although hardly nuanced

 

Un prince (2023) – Creton’s exquisite film, delicately nourished by intertwining passions, feels at once unprecedented and inevitable

 

The Heavenly Body (1944) – neither Hall nor the actors can inject much spark into such a programmatic, if not outright grotesque, premise

 

Kaala (2018) – Ranjith’s fiery, righteous epic of modern resistance is excessive and exhausting, but also exhilaratingly urgent and relevant

 

The Savage is Loose (1974) – Scott’s filmmaking doesn’t approach the abandon or daring to realize on its titillatingly primal premise

 

Peter von Kant (2022) – Ozon’s Fassbinder tribute/evocation is a sad redundancy, albeit poignantly sustained on its own wallowing terms

 

The Wedding Party (1969) – de Palma et al’s busily digressive early comedy holds up well, with no shortage of incident and invention

 

The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians (1981) – Lipsky’s retro-fantasy is a tactile visual marvel, but often something of a tonal chore

 

Reefer Madness (1936) – Gasnier’s wake-up call shudders with hyped-up conviction, the cinematic clout occasionally rising to the occasion

 

Under the Fig Trees (2021) – Sehiri’s work-day chronicle is limited in its conception and execution, but quite penetrating in its quiet way

 

The Next Man (1976) – Sarafian’s drama intrigues for its political idealism and broad canvas, even as the narrative steadily loses its grip

 

Human Surge (2016) – Williams’ audacious global survey, hauntingly well-attuned to technologically-spurred possibility and ominousness

 

The Return of Frank James (1940) – not readily recognizable as Lang’s work, yet heavily marked by a sense of grave, relentless inevitability

 

L’immensita (2022) – Crialese’s agreeably whimsical childhood memoir, probably at its most engaging when indulging its goofy streak

 

Murphy’s War (1971) – Yates’s drama impresses throughout in its physical realization, but the under-examined single-mindedness gets tiresome

 

La chevre (1981) – the strained premise of Veber’s genially uninflected, blandly scenic comedy wears out almost as soon as it’s set out

 

The Reluctant Debutante (1958) – Minnelli and the cast almost make the cobweb-ridden, emotionally-stilted tosh feel stylishly dashing

 

Trailer of the Film that Will Never Exist… (2023) – despite its constraints, Godard’s brief last exudes a still-restless creative hunger

 

Arrowsmith (1931) – Ford oversees a good, crisply-acted, episodic yarn, although one that’s rather fuzzy on the supposed underlying themes

 

Only the Animals (2019) – Moll somehow makes the wildly coincidence-driven material seem tonally coherent, although hardly important

 

The Shout (1978) – Skolimowski’s film can feel like Roeg-lite, but ultimately occupies its own strangely specific, penetrating space

 

Walk Up (2022) – yet another transcendently supple but deeply lived-in Hong film, woven from simple yet alluring concepts and resources

 

Winning (1969) – Goldstone and Newman press too hard on the spiritual desultoriness pedal, but the racing material is easy to sink into

 

An Enemy of the People (1989) – the minimal, even flat, execution of Ray’s version ultimately sharpens the core sense of ethical conviction

 

Should Married Men Go Home? (1928) – an unhurried & nicely escalating Laurel & Hardy silent short, their classic dynamic already well-formed

 

Anselm (2023) – Wenders’ sumptuously assured portrait is frequently near-hypnotic, even when barely surface-scratching in many respects

 

Road Movie (1973) – Strick’s abrasively plain two-truckers-and-a-whore drama at least avoids any undue glamorization or mythologizing

 

The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki (2016) – Kuosmanen’s low-key charmer toys with sports movie cliches in well-honed deadpan manner

 

Life with Father (1947) – Curtiz’s bellowing comedy raises a few chuckles, but it’s mostly like putting on your grandfather’s musty suit

 

The Night of the 12^th (2022) – Moll’s drama strikes some intriguing notes of hope and progressiveness, amid much that feels broadly familiar

 

The Internecine Project (1974) – Hughes’ not-bad thriller concisely combines a nifty central concept with adequate doses of broader unease

 

Visitors from the Arkana Galaxy (1981) – Vukotic’s one-of-a-kind film bases its wacky imaginings in a rather lovely sense of longing 

 

South Pacific (1958) – Logan’s filming is rich in tunefulness & pretty pictures, bland or impoverished or barely tolerable in other respects

 

True Mothers (2020) – Kawase’s film is tasteful to a fault, but deftly executes its various switches of perspective and interpretation

 

The Petrified Forest (1936) – Mayo hardly disrupts the material’s compressed staginess, but it’s not hard to submit to the loquacious gusto

 

Revenge (2017) – Fargeat’s bloody, pain-seeped drama is ruthlessly well-done, on its own not particularly conceptually notable terms

 

The Outfit (1973) – Flynn’s drama is basically just a series of set-ups, but executed with tough-minded flavour and much casting flair

 

Trenque Lauquen (2022) – Citarella’s wonderfully supple, fully-imagined winding narrative, elevated by the joy of storytelling, and of being

 

The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) – Richardson pitches the absurdity-riven hollow grandeur just right; the animations are a big plus

 

Les annees 80 (1983) – Akerman’s simple but deeply pleasurable observation of cinematic creation, from baby steps to joyous fulfilment

 

The Big Night (1951) – Losey saturates the quest-for-revenge premise in physical & emotional damage, any uncomplicated pleasure held at bay

 

About Dry Grasses (2023) – Ceylan’s utterly absorbing, often quite artfully unpleasant, study of end-of-one’s-tether human behaviour

 

Star Trek: the Motion Picture (1979) – for all its miscalculations, Wise’s handsome, overly-stately reunion doesn’t play too badly now

 

Aruna & Her Palate (2018) – Edwin’s soft-pedaled romantic meeting of bird flu-investigating foodies should surely have amounted to more

 

The Cameraman (1928) –  a deftly enough executed Keaton comedy, but more conventional and less dreamily alluring than his greatest films

 

A Couple (2022) – Wiseman’s serenely pretty images hold the fraught underlying marital material in cunningly resonant counterpoint

 

Superman (1978) – Donner’s blockbuster now seems largely quaint, its small pleasures swamped by countless suboptimal creative decisions

 

The Last Emperor (1987) – an imposing and intelligent epic, inevitably less consistently galvanizing than Bertolucci’s earlier peaks

 

Merrill’s Marauders (1962) – Fuller pushes the form to delirious fatigue-seeped extremity, the value of survival itself barely discernible

 

The Year of the Everlasting Storm (2021) – a strong and varied Covid-linked anthology, the Panahi and Poitras segments among the highlights

 

A Double Life (1947) – Cukor’s overblown wallow in tortured-artist handwringing doesn’t provoke much sympathy, despite a barnstorming Colman

 

The Lies of the Victors (2014) – Hochhausler’s modern-day-paranoia-infused drama is too murkily articulated to fully unnerve or galvanize

 

Regrouping (1976) – Borden’s thrillingly densely-packed debut, forged in ceaseless feminist interrogation of methodologies and assumptions

 

Sick of Myself (2022) – Borgli’s fine-tuned exercise in desperate self-absorption, a kind of skin-eating cousin to The King of Comedy

 

Thunder on the Hill (1951) – Sirk’s convent-set murder mystery, handled with lively conviction and sense of (perhaps divine) purpose

 

The New York Ripper (1982) – Fulci’s brashly destabilizing, nowhere-to-hide assault on narrative and societal complacency and nicety

 

When Ladies Meet (1933) – Beaumont’s crackingly-cast theatrical adaptation leaves an unexpectedly literate and modulated after-impression

 

A Real Pain (2024) – Eisenberg’s film is a real if limited-scope pleasure, empathetic & funny, perfectly deploying Culkin’s whiplash energy

 

Concorde Affaire ’79 (1979) – Deodato’s lively thriller is no big deal, but compares favourably enough with bigger-budget reference points

 

28 Days Later (2002) – if only due to subsequent zombie apocalypse excess, Boyle’s drama doesn’t greatly reward present-day re-viewing

 

Dr. Mabuse vs. Scotland Yard (1963) – May’s epically superficial, menace-free concoction utterly squanders an enduringly resonant concept

 

The Zone of Interest (2023) – one may deeply respect Glazer’s choices and formal rigour, while also finding them substantially unsatisfying

 

La vie revee (1972) – Dansereau’s Montreal-centered time capsule sustains a most appealing, if truncated sense of female fun and discovery

 

The Company of Wolves (1984) – Jordan/Carter’s rich and intricate work, both childlike and learned, dense in biologically-rooted implication

 

Ginza Cosmetics (1951) – Naruse’s small but lovely study of women, its interlaced disappointments eventually yielding to hope and renewal

 

Conclave (2024) – Berger’s wearisome drama rattles on handsomely enough, but is hardly persuasive in engaging one’s higher faculties

 

Dawn of a New Day (1964) – Chahine’s inconsistent melodrama hits hardest when skewering often staggeringly callous middle-class attitudes

 

Howard’s End (1992) – as satisfyingly mounted and nuanced as any Merchant Ivory adaptation, and yet one feels intellectually under-served

 

The Hunters (1977) – Angelopoulos’s exactingly and disorientingly masterful expression of Greece’s turbulently pivoting modern history

 

Black Bag (2025) – Soderbergh’s abstracted spy game has no shortage of intelligent bite, but one wishes it ultimately felt more important

 

Warning Shadows (1923) – Robison’s strange, perversity-laced drama is somewhat over-extended, but rich in startling imagery and notions

 

The Big Easy (1986) – McBride’s indulgence of local color and off-kilter performances sufficiently elevates the basically plain material

 

Oedipus Rex (1967) – Pasolini’s mesmerizing film establishes both the eternal relevance and peril of myth-based society and ideology

 

In a Violent Nature (2024) – Nash’s unblinking immersion in genre brutality attains something disconcertingly close to purity & equilibrium

 

The Strangler (1970) – Vecchiali’s remarkable, consistently startling genre film, frequently verging on a meditatively troubled dream state

 

I Like It Like That (1994) – Martin’s rambunctiously positive-minded movie has unflaggingly terrific vibes, centered on the invaluable Velez

 

Prague Nights (1969) – a stylish but not particularly impactful macabre-tales Czech anthology; Schorm’s segment is the most socially charged

 

Mountainhead (2025) – Armstrong’s film has no shortage of chillingly sharp writing and conceptualizing, but falls most peculiarly short

 

The Magic Flute (1975) – a thoroughly pleasurable Bergman diversion, delightfully interweaving theatrical fidelity and cinematic alchemy

 

El Norte (1983) – Nava’s migration epic remains a notable reference point, despite its many simplified, schematic or stretched aspects

 

The Widow (1955) – Park’s romantic drama is sympathetic but rather minor, its truncated surviving form imparting an oddly mysterious quality

 

Saturday Night (2024) – giddy with misdirected energy, Reitman’s ridiculously falsified reconstruction is the epitome of pointlessness

 

Joy House (1964) – Clement’s drama is no one’s finest hour, but has sufficient imagination and mild perversity to avoid predictability

 

D.E.B.S. (2004) – Robinson’s zippily nonsensical (but sincere!) Juliet Bond/Juliet Blofeld love story is (embarrassingly?) easy to submit to

 

The 36^th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) – the heart of Liu’s film lies in pure grueling performance, executed in crisply irresistible style

 

Sinners (2025) – Coogler’s astoundingly rich and slyly witty film is a cracking genre exercise, seeped in a bloody and exploitative history

 

Alone (1931) – even in now-truncated form, Kozintsev/Trauberg’s lively and culturally varied tale transcends its propagandistic moorings

 

One From the Heart (1981) – the smallness of Coppola’s basic narrative seems puzzlingly unworthy of the distancingly extravagant trappings

 

A Valparaiso (1963) – Ivens/Marker’s magical short film fluently explores the city in its extraordinary presence and innate fragility

 

Nightbitch (2024) – Heller’s thorough, messily empathetic portrayal of motherhood almost renders the film’s more fanciful elements redundant

 

Promise at Dawn (1970) – Dassin’s stodgily unenjoyable filming of Romain Gary, strangled at birth by the aggressively unwatchable Mercouri

 

The Truman Show (1998) – Weir’s all-too-easy slice of existential stroking doesn’t ultimately offer much more than the base premise

 

Niaye (1964) – Sembene’s early short is spare in its execution, utterly lacerating in the scope of its righteous anger and disillusionment

 

The Ritual (2025) – Midell’s exorcism drama surprises only in its tonal monotony and the almost uniformly poor quality of its craftsmanship

 

The Fifth Day of Peace (1970) – Montaldo’s study of stark military ethics maintains an appropriately unadorned, un-triumphant grimness

 

One-Trick Pony (1980) – Simon’s image-tweaking starring role is low-key to the point of slip sliding away, but generally likeable about it

 

The Kaiser’s Lackey (1951) – Staudte’s drama is somewhat prickly viewing by design, systematically dissecting stridently toxic patriotism

 

The Order (2024) – Kurzel’s serviceable, no-frills drama wouldn’t be particularly memorable if not for sadly enhanced Trump-era resonances

 

Day of the Last Judgment (1961) – De Sica’s pointlessly and messily star-laden, philosophically trifling treatment of an apocalyptic premise

 

The Limey (1999) – Soderbergh’s crisp style and playfully knowing use of Stamp’s star image render the thin narrative near-indelible

 

La rosiere de Pessac 79 (1979) – Eustache’s return to the subject matter observes a poignant if inevitable dilution of tradition & community

 

Warfare (2025) – Garland and Mendoza convincingly immerse us in on-the-ground military prowess, its purpose and context barely glimpsed

 

The Chronicles of the Grey House (1925) – von Gerlach’s sharply restored, elemental drama emanates a ruggedly imposing physicality

 

Silkwood (1983) – Nichols oversees a shrewd exercise in modern day quasi-mythologizing, marked by memorably unstrained character dynamics

 

Girls of the Night (1961) – Tanaka’s study of attempted rehabilitation, keenly attuned to society’s near-unresolvably contradictory stances

 

Thelma (2024) – Margolin’s simplistically conceived movie is no great shakes, but benefits from its warmly sympathetic casting and detailing

 

The Bad News Bears (1976) – Ritchie holds things together with generous-spirited, unshowy know-how, but it can only amount to so much

 

End of the Century (2019) – Castro’s warmly modest film crisply blurs the lines between destiny and possibility, commitment and transience

 

The Million Pound Note (1954) – Neame’s pretty but toothless quasi-fable has little feel for the embedded issues of class-based suckerdom

 

Other People’s Children (2022) – Zlotowski explores biological and emotional traps and possibilities with finely empathetic dexterity

 

The Farmer Takes a Wife (1935) – Fleming’s minor diversion benefits provides Americana galore, and the young Fonda’s spellbinding gravity

 

Anatomy of Hell (2004) – for all its ponderous self-importance & artificiality, Breillat’s film is vulnerably mesmerizing, even touching

 

Phase IV (1974) – Bass’s 2001-of-the-ants drama is best when at its most abstract and removed, seeming generally underdone otherwise

 

Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry (2023) – Naveriani’s study of a small life’s startling renewal exudes a fresh-feeling, grounded intimacy

 

Stranded (1965) – Compton’s unusually personal, open-minded film, empowered by a playful but clear-sighted sense of self-determination

 

Le moine et la sorciere (1987) – Schiffman’s scrupulous, intelligent historical drama, built on myths & realities of feminine power & wisdom

 

The Possession of Joel Delaney (1972) – Hussein’s drama is, at least, more culturally and tonally intriguing than one might have expected

 

Emilia Perez (2024) – Audiard’s iconoclastic work is less strenuously nutty than some suggested, even if its rewards are mostly fleeting

 

Shane (1953) – Stevens’ fondly remembered Western makes for mostly ponderous, uninvolving viewing, its pictorialism pointlessly overdone

 

A Man of Integrity (2017) – Rasoulof’s chronicle of corruption & injustice makes a searing impact, even if inevitably somewhat circumscribed

 

The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947) – Godfrey’s lame, dime-store-psychology-driven melodrama manages to make Bogart grotesque and Stanwyck boring

 

The Breaking Ice (2023) – Chen’s likeable but ultimately slight relationship study rather overdoes the warmth-challenged titular imagery

 

The Betsy (1978) – Petrie’s flavorless, improbably well-cast filming of a Robbins melodrama is too disengaged even to arouse much antipathy

 

Ichi the Killer (2001) – Miike’s prodigious, draining vision pushes every kind of limit, its delirious excesses tinged with near-poignancy

 

Dutchman (1966) – it’s appropriately hard in Harvey’s filming to separate jarring imperfection from daring, destabilizing precision

 

Dahomey (2024) – Diop’s film is mystically alert to past, present and future complexities, energized by bitingly articulate youthful voices

 

Why Change Your Wife? (1920) – DeMille’s comedy sustains a suitably skeptical tone, bolstered by hard-working intertitles and costumes

 

Heaven Before I Die (1997) – Musallam’s very peculiar, cosmically-aspiring comedy is genial nonsense, but at least sort of novel about it

 

The Odessa File (1974) – between the cursory plotting and its meretricious angle on Nazism, Neame’s drama doesn’t leave a great impression

 

Do Not Expect Too Much… (2023) – yet another tour de force from an unbound Jude, leaving one exhilarated and fearful, pumped-up and drained

 

The Wings of Eagles (1957) – Ford’s cut and paste tribute has its boisterous moments, but in no way ranks among his more notable films

 

The Temptation of Isabelle (1985) – Doillon’s exercise in emotional extremity most likely leaves one feeling morose, impotent, alienated

 

Play Misty for Me (1971) – Eastwood’s debut is less notable for its plot than for its instant evidencing of unforced directorial confidence

 

Crossing (2024) – the sociological specificity of Akin’s big-hearted movie compensates for its over-conventionality in various respects

 

Mad Dog Coll (1961) – Balaban’s bare-bones gangster opus is notable if only for its cast, not to mention some suitably mean-spirited moments

 

White as Snow (2019) – Fontaine’s playful, sexually expansive modern take on Snow White is a lot of fun to watch, while also kind of nutty

 

When Ladies Meet (1941) – Leonard’s quick remake is inferior to the original in all respects, the casting and ending very much included

 

De humani corporis fabrica (2022) – Castaing-Taylor/Paravel’s startingly curated survey, frequently excruciating in its varied revelations

 

Ironweed (1987) – Babenco’s lumbering adaptation, with its sub optimally starry casting, lacks much guiding energy or sense of purpose

 

Blood Feud (1978) – Wertmuller’s Fascist-era drama is clumsily tedious at best, often plain unpleasant, hectoring its stars into poor form

 

The Outrun (2024) – Fingscheidt’s thoughtful, highly observant chronicle of trauma and recovery, anchored by the impeccably committed Ronan

 

La rosiere de Pessac (1968) – Eustache’s observance of local ritual stands in peculiar tension to France’s then-ongoing social turmoil

 

The Good Thief (2002) – Jordan’s drama bursts with offbeat charm and flavor and incident, but never shakes off a sense of low-stakes

 

Escape from Sahara (1958) – Staudte’s drama has more varied incident & interaction than the title suggests, but still isn’t overly involving

 

Mickey 17 (2025) – for me (if no one else), superior to Bong’s Parasite, tapping a hilarious sad-sack take on existential transcendence

 

Five Deadly Venoms (1978) – Chang’s zippy but focused handling of the insinuating premise lifts this somewhat above the Shaw Brothers pack

 

The Bostonians (1984) – Ivory’s adaptation, finely attuned to the suppressed, is well-judged overall, in its verging-on-boring manner

 

Le jour et l’heure (1963) – Clement’s well-mounted drama, at its strongest when dissecting conflicting degrees of war-time resistance

Between the Temples (2024) – Silver’s smart and culturally detailed comedy, palpably drenched in suspicion, anxiety and desperation

 

Les deux timides (1928) – Clair’s sprightly, inventive and highly engaging silent comedy, appealingly rooted in its reticent protagonists

 

Ararat (2002) – Egoyan’s suffocatingly over-determined intricacies and artifices all but extinguish any possibility of revelation or empathy

 

Yuki’s Sun (1972) – Miyazaki’s early short film, more of a blueprint for a story than an actual one, is cute but mainly for completists

 

Queens of the Qing Dynasty (2022) – McKenzie’s precise yet almost dreamy film, meticulously observed and audaciously unconventional

 

The Terror of Batignolles (1931) – Clouzot’s early short is a bit over-emphatic, but nicely subverts the initial mood and expectations

 

New York Stories (1989) – but deadeningly rarified ones, with all three segments (Scorsese/Coppola/Allen) lacking in conviction or relevance

 

The Legend of Paul and Paula (1973) – Carow’s pleasing working-class romance, ventilated with unpredictable humour and eccentricity

 

Heretic (2024) – Beck/Woods’s challenge to belief and composure starts off bracingly and intelligently, but one’s interest rapidly wanes

 

Never on Sunday (1960) – no amount of would-be zestiness can elevate Dassin’s thunderingly off-putting concepts, acting and overall handling

 

Naked Acts (1996) – Davis’ film, if sometimes rather didactic and over-forceful, is cherishably notable in its very conception and existence

 

The Garden of Women (1954) – Kinoshita’s drama is strongest when engaging in school intrigue & activism, often getting bogged down otherwise

 

Caligula: the Ultimate Cut (2023) – even in its (let’s assume) best possible version, Brass’s drama is too often a repetitively airless slog

 

The Five Days (1973) – Argento’s atypical, scrappily episodic slice of history, often overly broad, but notable in its stylistic variety

 

Vengeance is Mine (1984) – Roemer’s placid-seeming premise yields a surprisingly challenging narrative of displacement and deliverance

 

The Wandering Princess (1960) – Tanaka’s wide-ranging film isn’t her most intimate or haunting, but fully displays her ambition and capacity

 

A Mistake (2024) – Jeffs’ medical and ethical case study is intelligent and well-sustained, if hardly free of cliché and over-simplification

 

Une si jolie petite plage (1949) – Allegret’s indelible work of rainy, lonely fatalism, stained with past & present cruelty & exploitation

 

A Fish in the Bathtub (1998) – Micklin’s affectionate but trifling comedy, its endless carping as wearying to a viewer as to its characters

 

The Fourth Victim (1971) – Martin’s would-be suspense drama could hardly be more perfunctory & unconvincing, its two leads utterly charmless

 

Daddio (2023) – Hall’s well-judged film extracts as much from the physically and thematically confined premise as could likely be expected

 

The Singing, Ringing Tree (1957) – Stefani’s prettily and amusingly realized fairy tale, its expressive princess outshining the bland prince

 

Fatal Attraction (1987) – not that Lyne’s film is entirely “bad”, but it’s hard to see past the wretched conception of Close’s character

 

Dirty Ho (1979) – Liu’s fight scenes approach joyously amused dance-like abstraction, the notional narrative barely registering around them

 

Trap (2024) – Shyamalan works his (for him) relatively grounded concept with ample flair and ingenuity, although it can only yield so much

 

Crypt of the Vampire (1964) – Mastrocinque adequately sustains a shadowily anxious mood, when not surrendering to the haphazard plotting

 

The Pianist (2002) – Polanski’s chronicle of cruelty and chance, individual survival chillingly placed against overwhelming collective loss

 

My Cousin from Warsaw (1931) – Gallone’s film often grates a bit, but is relatively incisive in its observation of calculated infidelity

 

Sing Sing (2023) – Kwedar’s solidly engaging quasi-artifice, its effect more straightforwardly decent and unforced than one might expect

 

Elective Affinities (1974) – Kuhn’s Goethe adaptation is of general if dry interest, while often insufficiently precise or piercing

 

Star Trek IV; the Voyage Home (1986) – Nimoy’s series highlight leaves one feeling solidly celebratory, for all the staggering absurdities

 

Love Under the Crucifix (1962) – Tanaka’s tragic tale of religious persecution and romantic impossibility, crafted with deeply-felt patience

 

The Fall Guy (2024) – Leitch amply delivers on the mindless incident, but one identifies missed opportunities at every screeching turn

 

If I Should Die Before I Wake (1952) – Christensen’s lean child’s-eye-view Argentinian noir attains an anxiously determined intensity

 

Death Becomes Her (1992) – Zemeckis’ satire seems as gratingly overblown and wearisome as ever, and only marginally relevant to anything

 

The Burial of Kojo (2018) – Bazawule’s myth-infused creation provides ample pretty imagery, but overall is rather too thin & unenlightening

 

Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins (1975) – Richards’ film is no big great shakes, but largely succeeds in maintaining its low-rent charm

 

The Beasts (2022) – Sorogoyen’s strong film builds from effective if somewhat conventional suspense to an unexpectedly complex aftermath

 

Mysterious Island (1929) – Hubbard’s semi-silent Verne adaptation varies wildly in tone and quality and hokeyness, but is never dull

 

Les photos d’Alix (1982) – Eustache’s exemplarily executed concept is thrillingly unexpected and disorienting (at least the first time!)

 

Being There (1979) – Ashby’s complacently hollow parable is just a big, contrived fake, albeit with an evenly-applied veneer of classiness

 

Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros (2023) – Wiseman sumptuously observes (while perhaps under-analyzing) a deep-rooted, indulgence-driven marvel

 

The Haunting (1963) – Wise’s film layers on superficial resonance & “creepiness,” but feels increasingly ponderous, overwrought & arbitrary

 

Fisting: Never Tear us Apart (2018) – if nothing else, Alcazaren subverts expectations with huge gusto, to the point of near-breakdown

 

The Thief of Bagdad (1940) – an abiding, ravishing pleasure, earnestly and fun-seekingly invested in its magic- and threat-infused world

 

Unrest (2022) – Schaublin’s highly singular and well-achieved work, as mesmerizing in its painstaking detail as in its overall conception

 

The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) – Landis’ formally engaging early comedy hits its (often enthusiastically crass) marks frequently enough

 

Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony (2002) – Hirsch’s survey inspires and uplifts despite one’s sense of subsequent failed promise

 

Strange Fascination (1952) – Haas’ concentrated downfall drama, built around a surprisingly layered and vulnerable central relationship

 

Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023) – Pham’s extraordinarily well-conceived and -controlled full-length debut leaves one simply enthralled

 

The Dark Past (1948) – Mate’s smoothly handled, programmatically “psychological” drama, powered by the aggressive central character dynamic

 

Your Name. (2016) – Shinkai’s time-bending romance is quite beautifully executed, from behavioural delicacies to cosmic complexities

 

The Disappearance (1977) – Cooper’s intriguing film (non-butchered version) works satisfyingly edgy variations on an unsurprising premise

 

Green Fish (1997) – probably Lee’s least satisfying film, its contrasting elements rather bumpily integrated, although never entirely dull

 

Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938) – Lubitsch’s sparring comedy is notably twisted and over-rarified, and of course flows like a sparkling river

 

Our Father, the Devil (2021) – Foumbi’s drama has some strong dramatic and moral bones, and yet far too often skirts meretriciousness

 

The Black Windmill (1974) – Siegel’s kidnap drama leaves one wanting more in most respects, notwithstanding its darkly amused crispness

 

Le grand bain (2018) – an above-average gloom quotient aside, Lellouche’s synthetically easy-to-take movie seldom subverts the formulaic

 

The Plot Against Harry (1969) – Roemer’s wryly comic tale of increasing bewilderment and lost agency teems with garrulous individuality

 

Cute Girl (1980) – Hou’s early comedy executes its fizzy agenda with lightly determined finesse, & a marked preference for country over city

 

This Land is Mine (1943) – Renoir’s articulate drama of wartime awakening is most supply handled, notwithstanding the escalating rhetoric

 

Totem (2023) – Aviles’ exquisitely observed, tight yet expansive family study brims with joy and pain and celebration and ominousness

 

Phantom of the Paradise (1974) – De Palma’s musical opus pops off the screen both eye- and ear-wise, although the fun inevitably dwindles

 

Hotel (2004) – Hausner’s concise mood piece is a relatively minor creation, but filled with precisely delineated threat and strangeness

 

Sunset Boulevard (1950) – Wilder’s grotesquerie-seeped meeting of worlds demands attention, however near-loathsome in its cold impeccability

 

Afterimage (2016) – a highly respectable, pristinely-crafted conclusion to Wajda’s work, although one watches at something of a remove

 

Simba: the King of the Beasts (1928) – the Johnsons’ record remains mesmerizing viewing, although now severely attitudinally compromised

 

Showing Up (2022) – one would happily immerse oneself in Reichardt’s beautifully calibrated, oddly funny study for, say, twice as long  

 

A Full Day’s Work (1973) – Trintignant’s episodic black comedy as writer-director is inherently minor, but sharply and wryly executed

 

To Die For (1995) – Van Sant’s dark satire now seems opportunistic and scattershot, its pleasures mostly of the time capsule variety

 

The Feeling that…has Passed (2023) – Arnow’s highly singular, intimate work of seeming self-examination, suffused in deadpan inevitability

 

Black Chapel (1959) – Habib’s plot-heavy, nature-of-patriotism-questioning espionage drama is respectably executed, but never fully grips

 

Sundays and Cybele (1962) – Bourguignon’s film, overdetermined even at its best, poses a bit of a challenge to modern-day sensibilities

 

The Quiet Earth (1985) – Murphy’s well-visualized apocalyptic drama meshes familiar genre pleasures & easy-to-take existential elaborations

 

I…for Icarus (1979) – Verneuil’s reality-channelling conspiracy drama is too often undermined by leaden writing, staging and plotting

 

Here (2024) – Zemeckis’ film is patchy and often superficial, but of (albeit repetitive) formal and at least some thematic interest

 

The Unknown Singer (1931) – Tourjansky’s smooth but underdeveloped drama, its melancholy streak offset by a vibrant young Simone Simon

 

Michael Clayton (2007) – Gilroy’s articulate, silkily-crafted drama, more gripping in its multi-faceted exposition than in the resolution

 

Topkapi (1964) – well-paced logistics aside, Dassin’s heist movie is too often fussy and irritating, when not coasting on trivial exoticism

 

The Disappearance of Shere Hite (2023) – the relatively low-profile of Newnham’s useful study perhaps kind of supports its general thesis…

 

The Sister of Ursula (1978) – Milioni adequately maintains the murderous intrigue, but seems most fully invested in the carnal add-ons

 

Jagged Edge (1985) – Marquand’s would-be-ambiguous drama isn’t very rewarding now, being smoothly lame at best, cringeworthy at worst

 

The One-Armed Swordsman (1967) – Chang’s superior martial arts drama, executed with unwavering crispness, focus and technical prowess

 

A Different Man (2024) – Schimberg’s highly intelligent, layered film, endlessly stimulating on matters of identity, influence, etc. etc.

 

Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan (1972) – Yuen exploits, critiques and subverts female subjugation with equally ravishing panache

 

Gattaca (1997) – Niccol’s drama provides overly tidy and arid viewing, for all its well-modulated high-concept thematic and visual trappings

 

On the Same River (1959) – a landmark North Vietnamese love story, piercing and resonant despite various ragged or overstated aspects

 

The Sweet East (2023) – Williams’ amazing film chews on a cult-ridden America in all its runaway articulacy, its glory-adjacent absurdity

 

Under Heaven in Seoul (1961) – Lee’s busy, socially-grounded comedy/drama comes on like a would-be, if more knockabout-inclined, Korean Ozu

 

Star Trek: the Search for Spock (1984) – Nimoy barely makes the over-stretched narrative hang together, but at least lands the happy ending

 

Zombie (1979) – Fulci’s vision remains a benchmark of the undead, not least for its steady erosion of all physical & existential certainties

 

Maria (2024) – Larrain’s exploration, showcasing a perfectly attuned Jolie, fascinates in its own rarified (if seldom moving) fashion

 

U-Boat, Westward! (1941) – Rittau’s service-and-decency-emphasizing Nazi wartime chronicle smoothly downplays its propagandistic intent

 

The Sleepy Time Gal (2001) – Munch’s constantly surprising interweaving of meetings and absences, dotted with alluring details and oddities

 

Ikarie XB 1 (1963) – Polak’s technically impressive, expansively-plotted space saga maintains an unshowy tone of anxious wonderment

 

I Used to Be Funny (2023) – Pankiw quite deftly calibrates the film’s trauma-laced tone, while rather misjudging its narrative fragmentation

 

Themroc (1973) – Faraldo’s film provides assorted provocations more than a coherent vision, but not without a strange, lingering delicacy

 

The Passion of Remembrance (1986) – Blackwood/Julien’s fascinating multi-faceted cultural investigation, merging celebration and criticism

 

Chateau en Suede (1963) – Vadim’s tediously repetitive (and not even titillating) farce squanders its mildly transgressive possibilities

 

Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (2024) – Taorima’s film, deeply lived-in yet often elusive, confirms his unforcedly expansive instincts

 

Do You Know Urban? (1971) – Reschke’s life chronicle has much freshness and personality, but also a palpable sense of imposed constraints

 

The Portrait of a Lady (1996) – Campion’s filming is wondrously rich & vivid & layered, & as stimulatingly frustrating as one could wish for

 

Abismos de pasion (1954) – Bunuel’s ruthlessly concentrated version of Wuthering Heights shudders with antipathy and self-loathing

 

Firebrand (2023) – Arnouz’s film has some interesting angles, but one ultimately feels led astray and/or short-changed in most respects

             

The Cassandra Cat (1963) – Jesny’s lovely contemporary folk tale, Demy-adjacent in its quasi-musicality, is fanciful but never frviolous

 

The Border (1982) – the institutional and social interest of Richardson’s drama becomes subsumed by increasingly overwrought melodramatics

 

Emmanuelle (1974) – Jaeckin’s movie’s way with story, character, and the supposed unifying themes are indeed as soft as the erotic content

 

Padre Pio (2022) – Ferrara’s contrasting of social & spiritual is far from his most electrifying work, but does steadily increase in power

 

La chanson d’une nuit (1932) – Colombier/Litvak’s film delivers predictable complications, but with amiability and appealing musicality

 

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) – Tarantino’s relatively more low-key & vulnerable conclusion, providing a satisfyingly resonant contrast to Vol. 1

 

Blind Beast (1969) – Masumura’s immersion in sensual extremity is grotesque and absurd and, quite possibly, in large part unforgettable

 

Dicks: the Musical (2023) – Charles’s gleefully hard-working film does pretty well by the modestly-conceived, all-out-queer material

 

Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972) – De Palma’s wryly-controlled, well-played drop-out satire is likely his funniest film, not merely by default

 

Tenebrae (1982) – not quite Argento’s best, but with highly fine-tuned elements, the disquietingly bloody gusto escalating along the way

 

Suddenly (1954) – Allen’s claustrophobic assassination thriller is no big deal, but cleanly done, elevated by Sinatra’s jittery villain

 

Under Paris (2024) – Gens patiently works and polishes the formula on the way to a quite unexpectedly (and, likely, memorably) big finish

 

Pot o’ Gold (1941) – Marshall’s musical is wafer-thin and very silly, but quite deft about it, and anyway, no one involved could care less!

 

The Protagonists (1999) – Guadagnino’s penetratingly singular feature debut, ranging from solemnly commemorative to wildly digressive

 

The Mechanic (1972) – a satisfyingly well-constructed, no-nonsense Bronson procedural, a peak of Winner’s not-yet-grating early period

 

Felix et Lola (2001) – Leconte’s modest but touching love story, distinguished by its bright setting and unusually melancholy, fragile core

 

Cat Ballou (1965) – Silverstein’s would-be-comic Western barely registers as anything, the jaunty songs and a hard-working Marvin aside

 

Mon crime (2023) – Ozon’s (albeit colourful and well-orchestrated) farce doesn’t amount to much, modern-friendly resonances notwithstanding

 

The Wanderers (1979) – Kaufman ably balances raucous, incident-filled mythmaking against gloomier realities, with ample stylistic finesse

 

The City Below (2010) – Hochhausler’s high-end, sleekly allusive, calmly eviscerating expression of gathering existential & systemic peril

 

Captain Salvation (1927) – Robertson’s hard-fought triumph of virtue over depravity is consistently sharp, with a memorable final showdown

 

Les comperes (1983) – a typically uncomplicated Veber comedy, cheerily bulldozing its way through an essentially rather pitiful premise

 

Gone to Earth (1950) – Powell/Pressburger’s drama is delectably eccentric at times, but doesn’t cohere or penetrate like their greatest work

 

The Wages of Fear (2024) – Leclercq’s epically redundant, impatient remake substitutes meaningless bombast for tension and character

 

Sweet Revenge (1976) – Schatzberg does his best with the authority-baiting material, but the movie just isn’t that interesting or likeable

 

Standing Tall (2015) – Bercot’s study of troubled youth becomes strangely moving despite its innate conservatism, aided by incendiary acting

 

Larceny (1948) – Sherman’s pre-Lynchian clashing of American worlds is efficiently convoluted and calculating, if not especially atmospheric

 

Fados (2007) – Saura’s beautifully-judged celebration of the Portuguese musical form, both reverently backward-looking & vibrantly immediate

 

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) – Nichols’ reading of the abidingly over-extended play remains feistily, if not grotesquely, viable

 

Anatomy of a Fall (2023) – Triet’s film exudes quality in all respects, even if it lands somewhat more straightforwardly than hoped for

 

The Last Run (1971) – Fleischer’s drama executes its sparsely fatalistic plot mechanics in no-nonsense, scenically desolate fashion

 

Sans queue ni tete (2010) – Labrune’s meeting of prostitution & psychoanalysis moves past familiarity to strike some fresh alchemical notes

 

Torch Singer (1933) – a calculated Colbert melodrama, but peppered with points of frankness, and much of race-based or social interest

 

Killing Car (1993) – a disappointing Rollin effort, its core concept mechanical and unpersuasive, slackly executed in all respects

 

Bird (2024) – Arnold’s fantastical, perhaps improbably winning, exploration of multiple levels of transcendence in challenged circumstances

 

Il boom (1963) – De Sica’s sardonic, ruthlessly-edged capitalist satire is among his stronger late works, with Sordi at his put-upon best

 

Circle of Two (1981) – Dassin’s dismally low-conviction age-gap relationship drama almost makes one wish for Melina Mercouri to burst in

 

Return of the Prodigal Son (1978) – Chahine’s remarkable, teeming saga culminates in a sensational expression of multi-faceted bitterness

 

Woman of the Hour (2023) – Kendrick’s unusually structured film, quite delicately attuned to gender-powered threats and vulnerabilities

 

Day of the Owl (1968) – the most straightforward of Damiani/Nero’s “Mafia trilogy” narratively and otherwise, but meaty viewing nonetheless

 

The GoodTimesKid (2005) – Jacobs’ minor but oddly penetrating comedy, elevated by nicely-tuned, appealingly-played behavioral mysteries

 

Never Open that Door (1952) – two short Argentinian tales of suspense, both solidly and atmospherically staged and paced by Christensen

 

Juror #2 (2024) – Eastwood works through a tightly noir-worthy premise with immense, unrufflable expertise and attunement to complexity

 

Fist of Fury (1972) – Wei’s film showcases some astounding Lee set-pieces, bolstered by the righteousness-infused historical milieu

 

Hearts of Fire (1987) – Marquand’s film is at best a curio, at worst a complete fiasco, worth it if only to see Dylan and Ian Dury together

 

Black Test Car (1962) – Masumura’s hard-hitting tale of corporate espionage peels back breathtaking layers of brutish ethical decay

 

The Bikeriders (2023) – Nichols satisfies one’s sociological curiosity, while creditably tapping into the métier’s iconic qualities

 

L’idiot (1946) – Lampin’s adaptation is reasonably intelligent on its own muted terms, but one seldom feels deeply involved or stirred

 

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) – the movie doesn’t seem any less shlocky with time, but the non-stop polished Tarantino-isms still zing and snap

 

Forbidden Photos of a Lady…(1970) – Ercoli’s artfully relishing treatment of basically familiar material, marked by canny misdirection

 

Longlegs (2024) – Perkins’ compulsion-ridden drama is compositionally & tonally impressive, in service of a somewhat overstretched mythology

 

Aimless Bullet (1961) – Yu’s heartfelt portrait of Korea’s post-war deprivation becomes almost hypnotic in its rough-edged cheerlessness

 

In God we Trust (1980) – Feldman fails to wrestle his sprawling ideas into much shape, although he lucks out with the Trumpian pre-echoes

 

Liza (1972) – ultimately one of Ferreri’s thinner works, notwithstanding ample existential and behavioral mystery and pictorial diversion

 

Problemista (2023) – a most beguiling expression of Torres’ remarkable sensibility, its fancifulness rooted in persuasive anxieties

 

The Wages of Fear (1954) – Clouzot’s ultra-classic drama sustains a singular presence and physicality, for man, machine and terrain alike

 

Postcards from the Edge (1990) – Nichols’ relentlessly superficial adaptation carries no truth or clout whatsoever, emotional or otherwise

 

I’ll Be Alone After Midnight (1931) – if nothing else, de Baroncelli’s musical exhibits a diverting range of perspectives on sexual desire

 

Kneecap (2024) – Peppiatt’s revved-up origin story is uproarious fun, organically rooted in its underlying cultural and political themes

 

Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) – Morrissey’s sex- and body-horror opus is more cohesive than his Dracula film, and only a little less fun

 

The Name of the Rose (1986) – Annaud lovingly brings the displaced whodunnit to life, but with an inevitable loss of intellectual shimmer

 

Adalen 31 (1969) – Widerberg brings violent collective action and tentative individual experience into an unusual, productive communion

 

The Iron Claw (2023) – Durkin’s surprisingly satisfying study of tragic familial momentum, dominated by desperately fragile swagger

 

Fast Company (1979) – Cronenberg taps a different kind of obsessiveness, embracing the accompanying milieu with atypical brashness and gusto

 

Nothing to Hide (2018) – Cavaye’s cosmically-tinged comedy delivers smoothly and amusingly  enough on its highly artificial premise

 

Cinderella (1950) – Disney’s unbalanced rendition is way too much with the cartoon mice, way too little romance and magic and mystery

 

Tricheurs (1984) – Schroeder’s bright images and generic trappings intriguingly counterpoint his gambling drama’s obsessively doomed core

 

Downhill (1927) – Hitchcock’s finely-etched tale of decline remains quite harrowing at times, the rushed final redemption notwithstanding

 

Plan 75 (2022) – Hayakawa brings some fine detail to the urgent core premise, but chokes off the film with excessive sensitivity & caution

 

The Last Tycoon (1976) – Kazan’s strangely distanced and displaced last film seems anchored in neither history nor myth, much less in joy

 

Les fausses confidences (2017) – Bondy’s playfully polished artificiality culminates in a beautiful climactic merging of creative worlds

 

Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter (1968) – a strangely downbeat Herman’s Hermits showcase, forged as much in denial as in celebration

 

Peppermint Candy (1999) – Lee’s meticulously constructed, richly detailed, increasingly impactful study of unraveling and breakdown

 

Thirty Day Princess (1934) – Gering’s pleasantly-populated farce packs a lot into its brief running time, none of it that noteworthy though

 

The Taste of Things (2023) – Tran’s film absorbs as much for the delicacy of its emotions as for its lovingly detailed food observance

 

The Brink’s Job (1978) – Friedkin’s unimportant light-touch robbery movie, most notable for its staggering post-Sorceror retreat in ambition

 

Asako I & II (2018) – Hamaguchi’s absorbingly shifting enigma ultimately reveals itself as a radically unusual chronicle of renewal

 

Fixed Bayonets! (1951) – Fuller’s concentrated study ranks among the most all-round ruthlessly sustained and well-calibrated of combat films

 

Lovely Rita (2001) – Hausner’s study of teenage aberrance is a relatively minor work, and yet haunting in its sparse, startling certainty

 

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) – Huston’s well-paced and -constructed yarn, propelled by ample sweaty suspicion and venality

 

Amanda (2022) – Cavalli’s highly distinctive study of female social anxiety makes for improbably, somewhat defiantly, satisfying viewing

 

The Iceman Cometh! (1973) – Frankenheimer’s filming of O’Neill is overly workmanlike, but it’s a valuable record, not least for the cast

 

Temblores (2019) – Bustamante’s clash of class versus sexuality is intelligent and heartrending, although over-wrought in several respects

 

Man’s Favorite Sport? (1964) – ever-intriguing, glossy Hawksian mix of old and (at least somewhat) new, seeped in multi-layered sexual panic

 

Kumbha Mela (1989) – Antonioni’s record of India emphasizes (hauntingly if perhaps questionably) near-unimaginable human density & otherness

 

The Phantom of the Opera (1925) – the multiple lasting peaks of Julian’s silent version amply elevate the often-basic core storytelling

 

Gone in 60 Seconds (1974) – Halicki’s tireless film delivers on what it’s famous for, with greater added flavor than you might expect

 

Dark Glasses (2022) – Argento’s blind-woman-in-peril thriller is knowingly slacker than his best work, but not without its moments of course

 

The Turning Point (1952) – Dieterle’s no-frills crime drama avoids too many wrong moves, albeit the ones it makes aren’t that memorable

 

Iron Island (2005) – Rasoulof’s powerfully conceived & visualized study of exploitation, perhaps too subtly calibrated in some key respects

 

Virtue (1932) – Buzzell’s fast-talking tale of reformation zips as-if-effortlessly by, elevated by the vulnerably determined Lombard

 

An Eye for Beauty (2014) – Arcand’s low-wattage relationship drama offers nice location spotting, but is hardly inspired stuff overall

 

They Only Kill their Masters (1972) – Goldstone’s easygoing, enjoyably-cast small-town comedy-drama easily delivers enough to get by

 

The Door into Summer (2021) – Miki gives his Heinlein adaptation an appealing modern sheen,  but it mostly just seems dreamily bonkers

 

The Split (1968) – Flemyng’s crime thriller has a solid set-up, a cracking cast and ample hard-bitten style, but still feels like not enough

 

Manon des sources (1986) – the of-a-piece conclusion of Berri’s saga matches its predecessor both in light and in retribution-laced darkness

 

He Walked by Night (1948) – Werker’s crime drama has, at least, a somewhat creatively-conceived villain and some sharp, shadowy visuals  

 

The Settlers (2023) – Haberle’s starkly unsparing slab of history evolves into an intriguingly conceived reflection on such commemoration

 

Carry on Abroad (1972) – a low-energy series entry, although the desolate setting renders the compulsive randiness relatively poignant

 

Perfect Love (1996) – Breillat’s compellingly fatalistic (if slow-burning) study of a relationship’s intricately draining contours

 

Mogambo (1953) – the wranglers do much better with the animals than an affectless Ford does with the ridiculous foreground melodrama

 

Joyland (2022) – Sadiq’s sociologically valuable, searching drama blisteringly surveys a stiflingly patriarchal, death-of-all-hope society

 

Monte Carlo (1930) – a very deft, if somewhat low-key, Lubitsch comedy, with some nice playing and an elegantly multi-layered finale

 

Egg and Stone (2012) – Ji’s unadorned, unsettling examination of a teenage girl’s life, deeply rooted in biological reality and myth

 

ffolkes (1980) – McLaglen’s suspense-challenged hijack drama doesn’t evidence much flair, its cast almost uniformly sleepwalking through

 

L’animal (1977) – Zidi’s stunt-heavy comedy is relentlessly cheesy and untidy, but you keep watching in a kind of uncomprehending amazement

 

Made in England (2024) – an elevatingly well-curated Powell & Pressburger overview; maybe a bit too Scorsese-centric, if that’s possible

 

Raven’s End (1963) – Widerberg’s thoughtful, optimism-challenged coming of age study has some marvelous moments and grand characterizations

 

Prince of Broadway (2008) – Baker’s low-budget chronicle is very likeable, but too transient-feeling to leave a major lasting impression

 

Umberto D (1952) – reliably engaging viewing, even when De Sica’s surfeit of polish and incident threaten to obscure its sad truths

 

The Old Oak (2023) – Loach’s late film is seldom surprising and not particularly subtle, but decent and moving in its sentimental idealism

 

Canoa (1976) – Cazals’ frequently incendiary, still-relevant dramatization of a “shameful memory” is vital, at times formally risky viewing

 

Shy People (1987) – Konchalovsky’s lumpy culture-clash doesn’t much satisfy in any respect, least of all in its vaguely mystical intimations

 

The Black Report (1963) – Masumura’s incisive portrait of an overwhelmed legal system, outplayed by its ethically flexible adversaries

 

The Piano Lesson (2024) – a valuable record of the play, despite Washington’s frequently dubiously over-emphatic directorial instincts

 

Fanfare d’amour (1935) – Pottier’s Some Like It Hot precursor is lively and well-plotted enough, although light on curiosity and subtext

 

Household Saints (1993) – Savoca’s tale of familial lores and destinies is heavy-footed at times, but ultimately rather sweetly mysterious

 

Police Python 357 (1976) – Corneau’s super-watchable drama slyly (and sometimes rather masochistically) subverts expectations throughout

 

Fast Charlie (2023) – Noyce efficiently piles up the bodies, allowing sufficient vulnerability and seasoning to stand out from the pack

 

Symphony for a Massacre (1963) – Deray’s Melville-evoking study of imploding criminality is most strongly conceived, paced and controlled

 

Privates on Parade (1983) – Blakemore’s enthusiastically dated musical-comedy is campily enjoyable, its broadness not entirely frivolous

 

Blood for Dracula (1974) – Morrissey’s weirdly relishable telling is a hoot at times, and astute even at its most elaborately trashy

 

Silver Dollar Road (2022) – Peck’s film evokes the requisite sad outrage, even as it illuminates some aspects more clearly than others

 

Love is a Funny Thing (1969) – Lelouch’s eccentrically ambitious quasi-road movie, lifted by its amused observation of American culture

 

Ex Libris (2017) – a largely celebratory application of the Wiseman methodology, its revelations mostly relatively small, but meaningful

 

Elevator to the Scaffold (1958) – Malle’s interweaving of contrastingly doomed narratives & tones is eternally (if rather emptily) skillful

 

Origin (2023) – for all its historical & thematic interest, DuVernay’s mode of engagement lacks both intellectual & cinematic electricity

 

The Fifth Cord (1971) – the narrative barely holds one’s attention, but Bazzoni’s control of style and tone are consistently upper-tier

 

Curse of the Pink Panther (1983) – often weirdly stimulating on various Edward-ian meta-levels, however tired and unfunny otherwise

 

The Witch’s Mirror (1962) – Urueta’s uneasy witchcraft/mad scientist hybrid isn’t done with any great finesse, but it’s never dull anyway

 

Humane (2024) – Cronenberg Jr.’s mega-contrived set-up yields a thunderingly unsubtle & uninformative movie, with a few diverting trappings

 

There’s no Tomorrow (1939) – Ophuls’ often risqué film is increasingly suffused in a sad sense of social and emotional female entrapment

 

Cop Land (1997) – Mangold’s drama delivers well enough on its core besieged-morality premise; any greater ambitions go mostly unrealized

 

The Case is Closed: Forget It (1971) – Damiani’s viscerally effective prison drama, a colourfully all-out exercise in wide-angle muckraking

 

How to Have Sex (2023) – Walker situates her narrative of personal disillusionment in fine-tuned sociological and behavioral context

 

Ballad of a Workman (1962) – Kinoshita’s quiet narrative of sacrifice and perseverance is largely familiar, but well-judged throughout

 

Four Days in July (1984) – Leigh’s inconsistently sparking Irish-set drama feels (perhaps necessarily) more uneasy than his strongest works

 

Messiah of Evil (1974) – Huyck’s eye-catching film has all kinds of off-kilter trappings, satisfyingly elevating its basic horror premise

 

Chien blanc (2022) – Barbeau-Lavelette’s flat reworking of familiar material feels superfluous and affectless in just about all respects

 

Flying Leathernecks (1951) – Ray’s wartime chronicle is something of a patchwork, strongest when tapping anxious camaraderie and conflict

 

Chinese Puzzle (2013) – the returns of Klapisch’s still-energetic third go-round in the series don’t diminish as much as they might have

 

Our Town (1940) – Wood’s filming of Wilder’s inexhaustible play remains both (almost simultaneously) lovely & macabre, comforting & jolting

 

Fort Saganne (1984) – Corneau’s epic account of honour and courage is strong in all respects, while never quite attaining cinematic grandeur

 

The Last Waltz (1978) – Scorsese’s many sequences of thrillingly alert musicianship transcend the film’s misshapen or skewed aspects

 

The Accusation (2021) – Attal’s rarified study of legal amd moral ambiguity is intelligent and worthy, but in no way paradigm-shifting

 

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) – Mulligan’s adaptation has the requisite sincerity and sense of place, but is consistently, well, just dull

 

Alice and the Mayor (2019) – Parisier’s unexpected treat, its lightly pleasing comedy becoming satisfyingly, even inspiringly philosophical

 

Love Me Tonight (1932) – everything still works a treat in Mamoulian’s utterly charming, consistently and discursively inventive musical

 

The Innocent (2022) – Garrel works an elegantly supple variation on genre mechanics, filled with witty correspondences and nuances

 

Nighthawks (1978) – Peck’s historically vital, radically plain record of gay life navigates fully-observed realities, frustrations and joys

 

Lilya 4-Ever (2002) – Moodyson’s study of disregard and exploitation leaves one appropriately shaken, despite a sense of over-packaging

 

The Man who Knew too Much (1956) – Hitchcock’s remake has its moments of course, but overall is narratively strained and emotionally hollow

 

Deux (2019) – Meneghetti’s touching tale of imposed romantic separation operates almost as a displaced, anxiously watchful suspense drama

 

The Magician (1926) – at its inconsistent best, Ingram’s drama conveys a creepily prototypical sense of the threateningly inexplicable

 

The Quiet Girl (2022) – Bairead’s well-crafted film crafts a modest but meaningful spell, culminating in its quietly tragic ending

 

Rabbit, Run (1970) – Smight’s adaptation doesn’t adequately cohere or penetrate, but holds interest in a jittery, fragmented kind of way

 

Wild Target (1993) – Salvadori’s would-be-deadpan but mostly just low-energy hitman comedy barely seems to enjoy its own amorality

 

The Power (1968) – Haskin’s paranormal thriller applies its workably anxious intensity to predominantly slipshod and puzzling plotting 

 

Madeleine Collins (2021) – Barraud’s unraveling psychological mystery is sophisticated and alluring in all repects, perhaps to a fault

 

The Philadelphia Story (1940) – the plush intelligence of Cukor’s edifice is as often distancing as engaging (relative to Hawks, say)

 

The Foolish Bird (2017) – Ji/Otsuka’s study of modern China’s absences & inadequacies is oddly haunting, if at times rather diffuse-feeling

 

Sweeney! (1977) – a largely successful big-screen magnification of the TV show’s core elements, although increasingly rather over-plotted

 

Camp de Thiaroye (1988) – Sembene’s drama isn’t his most tonally or formally distinctive work, but makes a no less searing cumulative impact

 

An Affair to Remember (1957) – a lifeless, sometimes outright ridiculous remake, with McCarey generally seeming asleep at the wheel

 

Stonewalling (2022) – Ji/Otsuka’s resonant examination of modern China, deeply attuned to the troubling commodification of female biology

 

Invisible Stripes (1939) – Bacon’s no-nonsense crime thriller, notable for a cracking cast, and its sympathy for the parolee’s predicament

 

Passion (2008) – Hamaguchi’s study of misaligned desires often feels strained and overdone, but never fails to engage and somewhat stimulate

 

Man of La Mancha (1972) – Hiller’s heavy-footed, not too well-cast slog through the modestly tuneful but bizarrely over-cherished musical

 

Compartment Number 6 (2021) – Kuosmanen’s engrossing meeting of opposites, fresh and distinctive in its approach to character and culture

 

Carry on Cowboy (1965) – a bland series entry, rather hemmed in by its genre and milieu; Jon Pertwee’s self-contained bit is the highlight

 

The Apparition (2018) – Giannoli’s investigative drama builds on a faith-based core premise in an unexpectedly expansive, balanced manner 

 

And then There Were None (1945) – Clair prioritizes playfulness and puzzlement over fear and menace, but it works well the first time

 

Ring (1998) – Nakata’s stark film stays in the mind as much for its focus and straightforwardness as for its now semi-legendary premise

 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) – Forman’s film remains grandly entertaining, but is flawed and objectionable in any number of ways

 

November (2022) – Jiminez prioritizes steely race-against-time momentum over all else, leaving one feeling somewhat under-informed

 

The Roots of Heaven (1958) – far from Huston’s sharpest work, but intriguing despite (or because of) its multiple oddities and confusions

 

The Platform (2019) – Gaztelu-Urrutia impressively implements and varies the weird core premise, but the results aren’t exactly rewarding

 

Dark Victory (1939) – Goulding’s wondrous high-end absurdity, with Davis at peak electricity whether being insufferable, or tenderly stoic

 

Jean de Florette (1986) – Berri tells an irresistible yarn, while never transcending the stately, pictorial values of heritage cinema

 

Apocalypse Now Redux (1979/2001) – Coppola’s epic remains a frequent logistical astonishment, and never less than unquenchably singular

 

One Fine Morning (2022) – perhaps Hansen-Love’s most intimately affecting work to date, its concerns spanning the rarified and the universal

 

Casino Royale (1967) – a five-director extravaganza, sometimes seeming almost radical in its messiness, when not merely aggressively shoddy

 

La Llorona (2019) – Bustamente’s often exquisitely-calibrated film, a strong instance of genre-inflected historical remembrance & accounting

 

A Chump at Oxford (1940) – second-tier Laurel and Hardy crams a lot into its running time, but most of its notions feel under-realized

 

The Last Island (1990) – Gorris’ end-of-civilization drama, if somewhat stilted, is thematically stimulating and appropriately depressing

 

The Man with a Shotgun (1961) – Suzuki’s revenge drama, elevated by expansive Western-style plotting and handsomely varied outdoor vistas

 

When Night is Falling (1995) – Rozema’s romance has sufficient elevation & distinctiveness to maintain goodwill, despite frequent clunkiness

 

Coded Message for the Boss (1979) – Dziuba’s double agent drama is (by design) about as drably low-key and action-deprived as the genre gets

 

Love Lies Bleeding (2023) – Glass masters the low-life mayhem with infectious commitment , although one’s enthusiasm can only stretch so far

 

Double Suicide (1969) – a tragic tale of transgressive love and twisted duty, gripping for Shinoda’s narrative and compositional boldness

 

Home Sweet Home (1982) – Leigh’s film, in structure a work-driven sex comedy, contains some of his most cheerlessly desperate moments

 

Saps at Sea (1940) – a consistently funny, if somewhat disconnected, Laurel and Hardy vehicle with some nice set pieces (and a funny goat)

 

Broker (2022) – Kore-eda’s film is as skillfully crafted and observant as ever, but one feels increasingly distant from what unfolds

 

The Raging Moon (1971) – Forbes’ film doesn’t much convince as a study of disability nor of life in general, but avoids the worst pitfalls

 

Who You Think I Am (2009) – Nebbou’s overly cautious and rarified but overall well-judged study of catfishing thrill and consequence

 

Lady and the Tramp (1955) – far from Disney’s most ambitious or memorable animation, but pleasurably and expertly executed across the board

 

Madame Bovary (1991) – on its own terms at least, Chabrol’s poised adaptation fascinates both in its overall arc and in its many subtleties

 

Peter Ibbetson (1935) – Hathaway’s atypically spiritual film navigates its distendedly romantic, courtly premise quite sweetly & hauntingly

 

Humanist Vampire Seeking…(2023) – Louis-Seize’s deadpan comedy works only minor variations on largely tapped-out narrative & tonal concepts

 

Lady Caroline Lamb (1972) – Bolt’s inert costume drama keeps things flavorlessly moving, barely seeming interested in reaching the end

 

The Painted Bird (2019) – Marhoul’s experientially and existentially extreme chronicle astounds, challenges, and in no way satisfies

 

The Devil Rides Out (1968) – Fisher races through the material’s loopy contortions with a sustained sense of worried but righteous intensity

 

Dis-moi (1980) – Akerman’s brief record of three encounters, near-hypnotic in its respectful attentiveness, its sense of loss and longing

 

The Little Foxes (1941) – Wyler’s relishingly well-inhabited drama, seeped in the silky venality of its promise-squandering time and place

 

Scarlet (2022) – Marcello’s beautiful period tale is an utterly beguiling complement to Martin Eden’s greater scale and overt ambition

 

The Heartbreak Kid (1972) – May’s classic comedy is as funny as anyone needs, its ultimate significance satisfyingly hard to pin down

 

La antena (2007) – Sapir’s vastly imaginative, allusive, threat-laced fantasy, perhaps more transfixing in its parts than in its totality

 

Porgy and Bess (1959) – the inherent if minimal historical interest aside, Preminger’s filming is at best distancing, at worst excruciating

 

Highway Patrolman (1991) – Cox’s movie is mostly low-hanging fruit, but executed with finesse, and infectiously evident directorial pleasure

 

Anything Goes (1936) – Milestone’s patchy farce has a few jaunty highs but is often a bit of a slog, not even delivering enough Cole Porter

 

The Eternal Memory (2023) – Alberti’s ultimate contrasting of collective remembrance and individual forgetting is, truly, bitterly touching

 

Five Easy Pieces (1970) – Rafelson’s great film remains a unique expression of America’s cultural divide, enigma, and eccentricity

 

En guerre (2018) – Brize’s highly immersive study of labor struggle in an age of globalization crackles with righteous, desperate passion

 

The Man who Finally Died (1963) – Lawrence’s drama makes sadly turgid work of its (not entirely inartful) complications and misdirections

 

Lourdes (2009) – Hausner’s quite well-calibrated, absorbingly observed film contrasts transcendent aspirations and earthbound realities

 

The Seventh Veil (1945) – Bennett’s peculiar, ultimately alienating marriage of cut-glass propriety and free-for-all psychologizing

 

Tori et Lokita (2022) – the Dardenne meeting of narrative propulsion & social observation by now evokes a formula, but an ever-rewarding one

 

Carry on Girls (1973) – a relatively not-bad entry, maintaining relatively high spirits, with a relatively pull-out-all-the-stops finale

 

100 Years of Japanese Cinema (1995) – Oshima’s too-brief survey is probably insufficiently scholarly and objective, but stimulatingly so

 

Pillow Talk (1959) – unignorable in its plush, denial-heavy weirdness, Gordon’s comedy is at least worth revisiting every thirty years or so

 

Broken Mirrors (1984) - Gorris’ structurally audacious second film is again major viewing, inevitably and necessarily not fully “satisfying”

 

My Wife’s Relations (1922) – a relatively modest Keaton short, but with terrific narrative economy and matchlessly calibrated fluidity

 

The Eight Mountains (2022) – Vandermeersch/van Groeningen’s episodic film is a fine-tuned ravishment, even if lacking the snap of greatness

 

The All-American Boy (1973) – Eastman’s only film as director suggests a career of untapped (perhaps waywardly untappable) capacity & spirit

 

Paradise: Faith (2012) – a near-ideal application of Seidl’s well-honed methodology, inscrutably melding veneration and quasi-ridicule

 

Woman Times Seven (1967) – De Sica’s MacLaine showcase has a certain plushy know-how, but the underpinnings are rather repetitive and sad

 

I’m Going Home (2001) – de Oliveira’s meditation on loss, denial and suppression is a wonderfully tragi-comic meeting of form and content

 

Desire Me (1947) – an unwieldy film, but more tonally & visually coherent than might have been expected, given the absent directorial credit

 

Comrades: Almost a Love Story (1996) – Chan grounds his melodramatically extended premise in an inexhaustible depth of social observation

 

 

Autobiography of a Princess (1975) – Merchant Ivory’s inherently slight memory piece accommodates a modest degree of rueful revisionism

 

Our Body (2023) – Simon’s fine institutional portrait provides almost limitless points of education, identification, hope and resignation

 

Sleeping Beauty (1959) – Disney’s version doesn’t have much narrative coherence or overall character, but is visually pleasurable enough

 

Little White Lies 2 (2019) – nothing about Canet’s lazily conceived and executed sequel makes a meaningful impression, not even the scenery

 

Pack Up Your Troubles (1932) – a quite tonally and conceptually varied Laurel & Hardy vehicle, as such possibly more interesting than funny

 

The Flower of Evil (2003) – ultimately a second-tier Chabrol, but one deliciously oozing with fine-tuned ambiguities and implications

 

Under Milk Wood (1971) – Sinclair’s filming of Dylan Thomas is generally likeable and worthwhile, although seldom particularly vital

 

Saint Omer (2022) – Diop’s film, while not without some over-strenuous aspects, is often quietly thrilling in its conception and execution

 

Stakeout (1987) – just barely enough lust and threat seeps through Badham’s sustained pandering slickness to avoid a sense of utter idiocy

 

The Invisible Dr. Mabuse (1962) – Reinl’s knock-off races through its rickety plot with none of Lang’s sustained implication and menace

 

His Three Daughters (2024) – Jacobs’ drama makes for comfortably relatable viewing, surmounting an initial feeling of artificiality

 

Victims of Sin (1951) – Fernandez’s careening, richly visualized drama, pitting righteous female energy versus staggering male venality

 

9 Songs (2004) – for all its forced aspects, Winterbottom’s study of short-lived connection is quite structurally and tonally distinctive

 

Joe Hill (1971) – Widerberg’s ambitious, pictorial chronicle has fine passages, while feeling rather narratively unbalanced overall

 

Eileen (2023) – Oldroyd’s film, rich in strange detail, doesn’t entirely satisfy in the home stretch, but is unusually alluringly overall

 

Siberian Lady Macbeth (1962) – Wajda’s dutiful transcription doesn’t much play to his strengths, perhaps excepting the stark final stretch

 

A Fish Called Wanda (1988) – Crichton’s comedy is generally more frenetic than funny, with limited grounding in character or feeling

 

Keoma (1976) – Castellari’s inherently pretty basic but expertly executed, sweatily myth-infused tangle of redemptions and showdowns

 

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021) – Schoenbrun’s feature debut, beautifully ambiguous in its often loneliness-tinged details

 

El cochecito (1960) – Ferreri’s garrulous comedy still seems bitingly radical in its take on differently-abled community and infrastructure

 

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) – Coppola’s filming is a real mixed bag, often dazzling even when somewhat kooky, but seldom transformative

 

Vanina (1922) – von Gerlach’s aged observance of doomed love against smoky societal hubbub and malign manipulation cries out for restoration

 

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning (2023) – the tangled plotting almost approaches profundity, but there’s a pervasive sense of redundancy

 

Le Magnifique (1973) – de Broca’s (basically) one-joke movie has some amusing moments, but systematically wears out its limited welcome

 

When Time Ran Out (1980) – Goldstone delivers all the cringey faults of the era’s disaster movie genre, with few if any offsetting virtues

 

Casanova ’70 (1965) – Monicelli handles the comedy with some panache, but it’s inherently unedifying, basically depressing in its world-view

 

Challengers (2024) – Guadagnino’s high-end update of the classic romantic comedy triangle, executed in fine-tuned, bisexuality-savvy manner

 

Violent Summer (1959) – Zurlini’s meeting of romantic obsession & wartime upheaval intrigues scene by scene, within a rather ungainly whole

 

Hotel (2001) – Figgis feeds lustily on diversely peculiar narrative and expressive possibilities, although with somewhat dour results

 

The Crippled Masters (1979) – notable for its sincere showcasing of its differently-abled protagonists (but not for too much else, in truth)

 

The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (2023) – Friedkin’s sharp and incisive last film stretches the material no further than it can naturally bear

 

8 ½ (1963) – I always said I was relatively cool on the teeming allure of Fellini’s creation, but over time, the experience gets warmer

 

The Unbelievable Truth (1989) – Hartley’s spiky affect remains enjoyable and well maintained, but the film ultimately seems pretty thin

 

The Ball at the Anjo House (1947) – Yoshimura’s drama, well-attuned to class-based attitudes, is most compelling in its denial and despair

 

Rebel Ridge (2024) – Saulnier’s well-sustained drama has much that’s strong and relevant, even if ultimately somewhat excessively ramped-up

 

La Cage aux Folles (1978) – Molinaro’s comedy earns its relative cultural standing as much through focused dullness as farcical inspiration

 

B. Monkey (1998) – Radford’s mixing of tones, styles and milieus is likeable enough, even if only for the oddities and incongruities

 

Detective Bureau 2-3 (1963) – Suzuki generates some great color-popping visuals, and at least a few lively narrative inventions to match

 

Silent Night (2023) – the no-dialogue prowess of Woo’s revenge thriller doesn’t count for much, given the unpleasantly one-note storytelling

 

Dark Waters (1956) – Chahine sinks his teeth into meaty class- and labour-dynamics, going all in on an aggressively alienating protagonist

 

Grown-Ups (1980) – a hilarious and horrifying early Leigh, piercing and grounded yet somehow distant, satisfying even in its insufficiency

 

Le plein de super (1976) – Cavalier’s road-movie is a memorably lived-in slice of boisterously vulnerable, economically marginal masculinity

 

MaXXXine (2024) – West’s trilogy-ender is plainer viewing than his Pearl in most respects, but not lacking in its own grubby flourishes

 

Her Brother (1960) – Ichikawa’s darkly-tinged family drama, much more elegantly and evasively strange in practice than it sounds in summary

 

Three…Extremes (2004) – Miike’s strangely beautiful segment is the best of the trilogy; Park’s is the most sadistically overwrought

 

The Broadway Melody (1929) – Beaumont’s early Oscar winner retains sufficient energy and flavour to surmount its inevitable limitations

 

Society of the Snow (2023) – Bayona’s telling is well-judged and respectful, consequently of limited artistic or even dramatic interest

 

A Man, a Woman and a Bank (1979) – Black’s caper has more bright spots than you’d expect, but it’s hard to say it ultimately amounts to much

 

Where the Green Ants Dream (1984) – Herzog’s ethnographically engaged Australia film at least fitfully achieves a sort of poetic otherness

 

Anatomy of a Murder (1959) – Preminger’s patiently detailed and calibrated study fully realizes its ambition and justifies its length

 

Down by Love (2016) – Godeau’s transgression drama has at least one foot in trashy potboiler territory, undercutting its “classier” aspects

 

Sadie McKee (1934) – Brown’s entertaining Crawford vehicle knowingly modulates her star presence through shifts of fortune and fortitude

 

Will-o’-the-Wisp (2022) – Rodrigues’ mold-breakingly goofy (but thematically serious) queer musical is improbably successful, even visionary

 

Perfect Friday (1970) – Hall’s bank heist caper works diligently at being sexily stylish fun, but feels predominantly arch and distanced

 

Insomnia (1997) – Skjoldbjaerg’s starkly one-note investigative drama, all the more unedifying for its heavy streak of leering misogyny

 

Titicut Follies (1967) – Wiseman’s still most chilling, gut-punching work surveys an institution seemingly beyond explication or repair

 

Let it Rain (2008) – Jaoui’s character study is typically deft, but so minor that (seemingly by design) it rapidly washes from the memory

 

Christmas in July (1940) – Sturges’ utterly delightful comedy, highly literate and reflective even as it teems with ingenious incident

 

Das Boot (1981) – the extended version of Petersen’s drama is reliably terse, tense and evocative, although hardly genre-transcending

 

The Romantic Englishwoman (1975) – Losey’s meta-flavoured drama is handsomely enough done, on its own smugly arid, low-involvement terms

 

L’evenement (2021) – Diwan’s rigorously gripping case history, marked throughout by its experiential, biological and social specificity

 

The Far Country (1954) – a compelling study of community in formation, although less psychologically searing than the best of Mann/Stewart

 

Paradise: Love (2012) – Seidl’s film contains aspects of distressing revelation, albeit drawn from familiar ethical and other ambiguities

 

Red-Headed Woman (1932) – one takes in Harlow’s astoundingly single-minded protagonist with something close to humbled (if complicated) awe

 

Guelwaar (1992) – Sembene’s deadpan tragi-comic premise accommodates a glorious tumult of incident, confrontation, and impassioned testimony

 

On the Buses (1971) – hard to know what’s uglier in Booth’s TV sitcom spin-off, the craft or the attitudes, but it’s all sort of instructive

 

My Imaginary Country (2022) – Guzman’s brief but stirring observance of resurgent Chilean progressivism, inevitably cautious in its optimism

 

When Tomorrow Dies (1965) – the most smoothly crafted of Kent’s early films, and better than decent in its treatment of female restlessness

 

Lux Aeterna (2019) – Noe’s assertion of unleashed creative force is quite the sensory experience, although leaves one at a skeptical remove

 

Lydia (1941) – Duvivier’s ruefully-tinged tale of spurned suitors and lost loves is rather lacking in conviction and emotional force

 

The Ballad of Narayama (1983) – Imamura’s mannered Palme d’or winner evokes a far more distanced response than his incendiary best work

 

Sometimes a Great Notion (1971) – Newman’s drama is terrific when observing men at work (and death), less so in its one-note defiance

 

The Novelist’s Film (2022) – Hong’s film beautifully explores (and embodies) the mysteries and tensions of connection and creativity

 

Daddy Long Legs (1955) – the graceful ease of the wonderful Astaire-Caron pairing surmounts the material’s awfully dated underpinnings

 

Eternity and a Day (1998) – a near-archetypal art-film reverie, not Angelopoulos’ greatest work, but likely among his most accessible

 

Working Girls (1931) – Arzner’s empathetic depiction of material realities somewhat contextualizes the film’s marriage-driven preoccupations

 

Saturday Fiction (2019) – Ye’s intricate tapestry of swooning artifice and brutal reality is as breathtakingly executed as any recent film

 

Top of the Heap (1972) – St. John’s film is lumpy & overstretched at times, but engages distinctively with racial frustration & weariness

 

Kinds of Kindness (2024) – Lanthimos’ explication-defying triptych is tremendously inventive & thoughtful, & rather impressively alienating

 

Intimidation (1960) – Kurahara’s crime drama expertly packs a bundle into barely more than an hour, without feeling rushed or abridged

 

Punch-Drunk Love (2002) – a small but strangely wondrous film, both in Anderson’s inspired broad conception & his unerring mastery of detail

 

The Facts of Murder (1959) – Germi’s slow-burning, well-observed drama packs in a lot, but it’s unfortunately not particularly memorable

 

The Royal Hotel (2023) – Green crafts a properly depressing picture of lonely messed-up masculinity, but the ultimate impact feels diluted

 

1900 (1976) – Bertolucci’s epic doesn’t match his best work, and yet is wondrous viewing in its often heavy-footed, crass, misshapen fashion

 

Orphans (1987) – Pakula’s film works best when embracing the material’s weirder aspects, feeling too theatrically constrained at other times

 

Chaudhvin ka chand (1960) – Sadiq’s initially rather standard melodramatic complications steadily accumulate in culturally-revealing anguish

 

Alice (2022) – Ver Linden’s cartoonish simplifications & posturings hardly do justice to the material’s tenuously fact-based underpinnings

 

Olympia (1938) – Riefenstahl’s film distances in its supplication and stylistic bombast, but also provides much near-prototypical excitement

 

25^th Hour (2002) – at its best, Lee’s variable drama eloquently channels a sorrowful post-9/11 sense of extinguished possibilities

 

Don’t Cheat, Darling! (1973) – an East German musical!, no challenge to Demy, but sustaining its good spirits more than might be expected

 

Napoleon (2023) – Scott marshals his awe-inspiring resources with dull prowess, in the service of a moribund approach to its subject

 

Orgasmo (1969) – Lenzi’s paranoia drama is just another unrevealing sex and décor contrivance, but ramps up the venality effectively enough

 

1984 (1984) – Radford’s dully literal, intellectually unengaging filming doesn’t make much of a case for the work’s continuing relevance

 

Signe: Arsene Lupin (1959) – Robert’s caper delivers elegantly unruffled, well-plotted fun from start to finish, albeit not much more

 

My First Film (2024) – Anger’s beautifully woven film culminates in a unique meeting of cinematic and biological celebration and choice

 

Poem (1972) – by many measures the most straightforward and compact of Jissoji’s trilogy, but no less fascinating in every respect

 

One False Move (1991) – Franklin’s astutely-handled thriller never eases up, even when sometimes overcooking its culture-clash elements

 

Samurai Spy (1965) – the extreme complexity of Shinoda’s narrative rather overwhelms one’s appreciation of the film’s strengths & subtleties

 

All of Us Strangers (2023) – Haigh’s beautifully calibrated expression of loss & isolation, through a wondrous queering of the supernatural

 

My One and Only Love (1957) – Chahine’s raucously zesty musical-comedy maintains a sophisticated patina, despite much underlying clumsiness

 

Tron (1982) – Lisberger’s movie has its patchily prophetic aspects, but doesn’t enact them in a very enjoyable or coherent fashion

 

Is This Fate? (1979) – Reidemeister’s distinctive methods draw out an absorbingly contoured, not-quite-hopeless portrait of strained family

 

Little Joe (2019) – various diverting eccentricities aside, Hausner’s simplistic channeling of a Body Snatchers premise doesn’t achieve much

 

The Ladies Man (1961) – Lewis’ film has some still-stunning design & choreographic elements, deployed to often repetitive & distancing ends

 

Three Floors (2021) – Moretti’s polished, low-drama sameness unifies the up-and-down material, but the results are hardly very vital

 

Annie Laurie (1927) – Robertson’s restored melodrama is mostly tepid stuff, Gish notwithstanding, although it cranks up for the final act

 

A Question of Silence (1982) – Gorris’ exploration of female otherness remains, at the very least, satisfyingly analyzable and debatable

 

Start the Revolution Without Me (1970) – Yorkin’s farce is handsomely mounted and quite deftly plotted, but hardly relevant to anything

 

Back to Burgundy (2017) – Klapisch mostly sticks to familiar conflicts and dynamics, but elevated by irresistible local colour and detail

 

Wagon Master (1950) – an appealing application of Ford’s customary strengths, often feeling close to Hawks in its character dynamics

 

Fallen Leaves (2023) – second-tier Kaurismaki, but still, a cherishable gesture of hope for life and for art in an all-round punishing world

 

Midnight Mary (1933) – Wellman’s snappy, travail-laden drama ultimately hits no great height, but Young perseveres most appealingly

 

Beautiful City (2004) – Farhadi’s overly ramped-up early drama lacks his later thematic finesse, but makes a suitably desolate impact

 

A Warm December (1973) – Poitier’s emphasis on Black culture only partially elevates the generally soppy, often tonally peculiar romance

 

Kamikaze 89 (1982) – Fassbinder’s acting-only presence only underlines Gremm’s ragged direction of this scattershot dystopian fantasia

 

The Bitter Ash (1963) – Kent’s discontent-suffused drama remains almost unnervingly potent, despite persistently inadequate writing & acting

 

Vengeance is Mine… (2021) – beneath its brassy, super-eventful surface, Edwin’s startling film gleefully undermines genre-movie masculinity

 

The More the Merrier (1943) – Stevens’ sprightly handling & Coburn’s priceless playing don’t entirely validate a bothersomely coercive plot

 

Lingua Franca (2019) – Sandoval’s melancholy drama makes for worthily anxious viewing, even if rather thin and vague in some key respects

 

Who’s Who (1979) – Leigh’s study of class distinctions is more ungainly and strained than his best work, but still hits targets galore

 

Door (2008) – Takahashi works some quite striking visual, aural and tonal variations on a familiarly escalating domestic threat narrative

 

Angel (1937) – Lubitsch’s thoughtfully restrained three-cornered romance, distinguished by its peerless use of space, absence and silence

 

La rabbia (1963) – a two-part macro-analysis of existential discontent, with Pasolini far surpassing the unpoetic, hectoring Guareschi

 

I Saw the TV Glow (2024) – Schoenbrun’s unexpectedly affecting, synopsis-defying exploration of otherness verges on flat-out brilliance

 

Madame Freedom (1956) – Han’s study of female transgression is fully compelling, even if not among the period’s most potent masterpieces

 

The Elephant Man (1980) – Lynch’s film remains a moving, near-optimally controlled navigation through potentially pitfall-laden material

 

Sandakan No. 8 (1974) – Kumai’s memoir of exploitation is commendably sincere and decent, but rather lacking in finesse in many respects

 

You Hurt my Feelings (2023) – Holofcener’s all-round under-engaged, hermetic triviality doesn’t suggest much left in the creative tank

 

Au hazard Balthazar (1966) – Bresson’s exquisite, inexhaustible film may leave you disconcertingly poised between despair and wonderment

 

The Company (2003) – Altman’s Wiseman-lite ballet movie could surely have been more penetrating, but is sumptuously easy to surrender to

 

Love Letter (1953) – Tanaka’s affectingly melancholy drama, suffused in post-war Japan’s emotional and financial desperation and striving

 

Civil War (2024) – Garland’s lamely depoliticized, curiosity-deficient drama holds one’s attention, but the missed opportunities are glaring

 

Plot of Fear (1976) – Cavara’s giallo brings together some outside-the-norm concepts and embellishments, but without fully realizing on them

 

Loophole (1981) – Quested’s bank robbery drama leaves you adequately recompensed, even while mostly sticking to how-it-happened basics

 

I Hate But Love (1962) – Kurahara’s genre-straddling film cycles through an impressive range of tones, moods, energy levels and locations

 

Beau is Afraid (2023) – Aster’s trauma-heavy parable of a doomed life’s gestation (perhaps) is all way too much, for which we give thanks

 

Farewell My Love (1956) – Chahine’s garrulous, death-haunted musical pushes the form’s melodramatic possibilities to near breaking point

 

Strip Jack Naked (1991) – Peck’s film is most valuable in illuminating his vital Nighthawks, supplemented by well-told personal history

 

Les granges brulees (1973) – Chapot’s investigation draws unexpectedly well on steely star dynamics and withholding, wintery rural reserve

 

Sasquatch Sunset (2024) – a strange project by the Zellners (obviously!) but largely persuasive and sad in its sense of imperiled communion

 

Carriage to Vienna (1966) – Kachyna’s sparsely tense drama sustains a terrifically atmospheric, psychologically fraught immediacy

 

Burden of Dreams (1982) – Blank’s madness-adjacent record, memorable as it is, can’t help often seeming inadequate, or maybe superfluous

 

Ballerina (2023) – Lee’s revenge thriller is proficiently and gleefully generic, with just a few isolated points of modest distinctiveness

 

Pygmalion (1938) – it’s not the fault of Asquith/Howard’s fluent, properly unsentimental filming if one keeps anticipating Lerner and Loewe

 

The House by the Sea (2017) – Guediguian’s family drama is a top-to-bottom overreach, however affectionately and resonantly rendered

 

Darling Lili (1970) – the film for me has never quite connected as desired, despite Edwards’ sophisticated interrogation of image & reality

 

Black Rain (1989) – an intensely memorable recreation of Hiroshima and its aftermath, exactingly crafted by a ruefully seasoned Imamura

 

Nothing But a Man (1964) – Roemer’s intelligently sensitive film sadly surveys the barely evolving limits imposed on Black life aspirations

 

Paris 13^th District (2021) – Audiard maintains an age-defying freshness and engagement, even through the film’s less persuasive patches

 

The Gold Rush (1942 version) – Chaplin’s portentous added soundtrack and other tinkering is (academic interest aside) mostly for the worst

 

Sibyl (2019) – Triet sinks into classic-level art-movie themes & structures with sensually alert intelligence & innately tuned-in panache

 

Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) – worth it at least for the animation, and the immortal line: “What’s that got to do with my knob?”

 

Les temps qui changent (2004) – Techine’s nuanced meshing of narrative, romantic and cultural elements works (as usual) improbably well

 

Stars in My Crown (1950) – Tourneur’s luminous, intelligently moving portrait of a challenged community’s reliance on faith-based morality

 

Faya dayi (2021) – exploring an economically and spiritually entrapped culture, Beshir attains a rare sense of cinematic expansiveness

 

You Can’t Take it With You (1938) – Capra’s moralizing parade of eccentricity falls flat now, evoking little joy, and even less revelation

 

Barrios altos (1987) – Berlanga’s potentially liberating hairpin-bend plotting gradually deteriorates into an unrewardingly confusing grind

 

City on Fire (1979) – Rakoff’s dull disaster movie lacks any kind of creative energy or basic curiosity, achieving just about nothing

 

Never Look Away (2018) – von Donnersmarck’s epic chronicle is meatily relishable, its inspired aspects outnumbering its more prosaic ones

 

The World’s Greatest Sinner (1962) – Carey’s highly peculiar (but ever-relevant) demagoguery parable does cast a strangely lingering spell

 

Pacification (2022) – Serra’s languidly handsome, slyly evasive journey through the varyingly malign stratifications of colonialism

 

One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942) – Powell/Pressburger’s classic marries terrific efficiency with multi-faceted warmth and idiosyncrasy

 

The Suspended Step of the Stork (1991) – Angelopoulos’ meditation on distance and exile is, overall, transfixingly conceived and composed

 

See No Evil (1971) – Fleischer’s thriller is effective in its watchfully atmospheric build-up, but plot mechanics eventually take over

 

Spring Fever (2009) – with often hurting intimacy, the shifts and makeovers of Ye’s film take its characters far from its opening ecstasy 

 

Winchester ’73 (1950) – Mann’s Western has unmatchable narrative drive, although the subsequent work with Stewart is richer overall

 

Proxima (2019) – Winocur’s all-round absorbing (if indulgence demanding) melding of space-program procedural and mother-daughter romanticism

 

Theodora Goes Wild (1936) – Boleslawski’s repression-loosening comedy is funny and deftly played, although not very internally consistent

 

Deprisa, Deprisa (1981) – a startling change of tone and subject for Saura, executed with fresh, genre-embracing contemporary flavour

 

The Kiss of Death (1977) – a strong, surely undervalued Leigh work, at times sombre and ritualistic, at others disconcertingly unpredictable

 

American Fiction (2023) – Jefferson’s superficially provocative film rapidly comes to seem simplified and intellectually undercharged

 

An Actor’s Revenge (1963) – Ichikawa’s hard-working film is no doubt an esoteric artificiality, but an almost ceaselessly dazzling one

 

My Blueberry Nights (2007) – Wong’s likeable but patchy and under-achieving odyssey, at times suggesting distracted self-caricature

 

Elena et les hommes (1956) – Renoir’s collision of worlds & desires is a high-functioning joy, if a little heavier going than his very best

 

Mandara (1971) – Jissoji’s deeply personal, challenging, stylistically restless film leaves one drained and shaken, and possibly transformed

 

Pearl (2022) – West’s poisoned-chocolate-box aesthetic and the sensational Goth make for enjoyably, malevolently satisfying viewing

 

Black Sun (1964) – Kurahara’s desolation-tinged drama pushes a range of racially-charged buttons, with sometimes jaw-dropping intensity

 

The Whistle Blower (1986) – Langton’s Cold War drama is a plain, minor work, most useful now as a reflection of its era’s various anxieties

 

The Moon has Risen (1955) – Tanaka’s family drama is a gently sympathetic adjunct to co-writer Ozu’s similar, more fully realized works

 

Fremont (2023) – Jalali’s deadpan quasi-comedy of exile & assimilation is small in just about every way, but precisely & quietly meaningful

 

Without Anesthesia (1978) – Wajda’s close-up study of contemporary turmoil may be among his most compellingly, conflictedly personal works

 

Presumed Innocent (1990) – Pakula keeps things well-controlled and coherent, but it barely registers in comparison to his most lasting works

 

The Cat has Nine Lives (1968) – Stockl’s beautiful channeling of female experience, lastingly infiltrating in all its truths and mysteries

 

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024) – Ball’s all-round well-judged episode scales the extreme high end of technical accomplishment

 

Triumph of the Will (1935) – Riefenstahl’s still-cautionary record of fervent unity, its unblinking purposefulness as fearsome as ever

 

Rain Man (1988) – Levinson’s psychologically trite, offputtingly materialistic drama doesn’t wear too well (or even entertain much)

 

The All-Around Reduced Personality (1978) – Sander constructs an enormously stimulating record of a time, place, sensibility and struggle

 

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (2023) – Jackson’s beautifully composed & textured, yet rather hermetic & distanced-feeling tapestry of memory

 

Adventures of a Dentist (1965) – Klimov’s deeply bizarre comedy taps deeply into the stiflingly malign, conformity-minded Soviet psyche

 

Festival in Cannes (2001) – a wispy concoction even by Jaglom’s later standards, but he ensures that the romance outweighs the bullshit

 

The Adventures of Arsene Lupin (1957) – Becker’s unfaltering controlled, amused elegance can’t transcend the film’s inherent superficiality

 

Brother (2022) – Virgo’s layered study of loss and remembrance works quite beautifully on its own (tastefully circumscribed) terms

 

The Petrified Forest (1973) – Shinoda’s darkly twisting, destabilizing drama, seeped in ethical and spiritual ambiguity and transgression

 

The American Success Company (1980) – Richert’s patchy, peculiar comedy largely fails as satire, but is likeable in a stumbling kind of way

 

Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965) – Honda’s energetic mash-up starts off strong (Nazis!) but ends up less mind-stoking than hoped for

 

Nitram (2021) – Kurzel’s astutely inhabited study of errant behaviour, barely-containable impulsiveness evolving into ungraspable tragedy

 

Baba Amin (1950) – Chahine’s frantic, supernaturally-tinged comedy is unpolished and over-egged, but the existential panic rings true enough

 

State and Main (2000) – Mamet’s cobbled-together clash of values and cultures is trifling at best, near-venally complacent at worst

 

First Case, Second Case (1979) – the droll structural simplicity of Kiarostami’s shrewd investigation yields disquietingly ominous results

 

Poor Things (2023) – Lanthimos’ odyssey is a gonzo-visionary, rudely & cerebrally engaging wonder, albeit evoking pleasure more than passion

 

Samurai Rebellion (1967) – Kobayashi’s gripping drama, ever-relevant for its study of the destructively distorting workings of privilege

 

Chariots of Fire (1981) – a British landmark of sorts, but one rooted more in heritage-imbibing calculation than in cinematic inspiration

 

The Divorce of Lady X (1938) – Whelan’s early colour film looks good and doesn’t play as stiffly as it might have, so that’s not too bad

 

Mektoub my Love (2017) – Kechiche’s idealistic observance of summertime youth at least feels comfortable in its own languidly ogled skin

 

Patton (1970) – Schaffner’s epic hits the spot on its own swaggeringly accessible terms, and has to be seen at least once just for Scott

 

Un heros tres discret (1996) – Audiard’s impressively (perhaps excessively) lively and varied study of major-league wartime self-reinvention

 

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) – the film endures as an all-purpose reference point, simplifications and contrivances notwithstanding

 

Everything Went Fine (2021) – Ozon’s clear-headed end-of-life drama conforms to and circumvents expectations in just about equal measure

 

My Name is Julia Ross (1945) – Lewis’s steelily worry-inducing classic makes remarkably full and varied use of its mere sixty-five minutes

 

Robinson’s Garden (1987) – Yamamoto’s spikily intimate urban fantasy ranges from bewitching to grating, but the best of it sticks with you

 

Red Sun (1971) – Young’s Western is unremarkably solid in most respects, but easily worth seeing once for the Bronson/Mifune/Delon meet-up

 

Rotting in the Sun (2023) – Silva’s twistingly self-mythologizing, eye-filling romp has a terrifically transgressive, anxiety-laced energy

 

The Big Combo (1955) – Lewis’ noirish convolution is top-drawer across the board, not least in several career-defining on-screen presences

 

Eden is West (2009) – Costa-Gavras squanders his technical adeptness on a ridiculously over-revved, often tasteless immigrant odyssey

 

The Women (1939) – Cukor’s spectacularly Bechdel-test-failing ensemble piece doesn’t offer much now beyond some fine-tuned mean-spiritedness

 

Daguerrotype (2016) – an inherently rather minor application of Kurosawa’s implicative powers, but amply enjoyable in many of its details

 

Love and Pain and… (1973) – Pakula expands the rather unexciting material with streaks of playfulness and ambiguity, but it only goes so far

 

L.627 (1992) – Tavernier’s involved and scrupulous police drama crafts a draining sense of a barely functional, socially corrosive grind

 

Sweet Substitute (1964) – much about Kent’s film is plain or cursory, but it endures if only for its breathtakingly cold-hearted ending

 

Godland (2022) – it’s weirdly tempting to view Palmason’s handsomely brutalizing drama as the bleakest of blackly existential comedies

 

Kings Row (1942) – Wood’s drama infiltrates its small-town doings with unexpected doses of psychological trauma and behavioral darkness

 

Love Unto Waste (1986) – Kwan’s chronicle of messily striving lives becomes increasingly unpredictable, thematically challenging, & haunting

 

Hard Labour (1973) – Leigh’s quietly devastating study of social & existential marginalization, studded with unexpected, meaningful moments

 

Woman is the Future of Man (2004) – yet another impressive Hong creation, at once forensic and elusive, laced with sexual pessimism

 

The Naked Spur (1953) – a terrific Mann/Stewart Western, its intense character dynamics ravishingly well-played and dynamically visualized

 

Official Competition (2021) – Duprat & Cohn’s comedy hits just about all its often-deadpan marks, fueled by irresistible performances

 

Roberta (1935) – Kern’s songs are sensational, but it’s otherwise only middling as an Astaire-Rogers musical, pretty dire in other respects

 

Get on the Bus (1996) – Lee’s journey of bonding and discovery is likeably vivid and purposeful, even at its most crassly conflict-stirring

 

Witchhammer (1970) – Vavra’s drama of persecution and terror is blood-curdlingly well-done, executed with incisive clarity in all respects

 

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) – for me, contrarily, a fuller viewing experience than Fury Road, not that it’s much worth arguing over

 

Samson (1961) – Wajda’s episodic study of Jewish survival surely withholds too much, but is darkly well-attuned to fear and incomprehension

 

Tough Guys Don’t Dance (1987) – Mailer pedantically and flavorlessly translates his unrewarding book into an even more unrewarding movie

 

Le rouge est mis (1957) – Grangier’s hard-boiled drama is seldom too surprising, but unsentimentally and satisfyingly delivers the goods

 

The Holdovers (2023) – Payne’s handling is steady and classy as usual, but can’t transcend the material’s ceaselessly piled-up contrivances

 

This Transient Life (1970) – Jissoji’s meeting of transgression and spirituality is chillingly, immaculately provocative and fulfilling

 

The Yards (2000) – Gray’s film may be constrained by melodrama, but delivers classic-level contours and textures, and phenomenal casting

 

America as seen by a Frenchman (1960) – and in Reichenbach a pretty easily mesmerized, low-analysis Frenchman, however understandably

 

Personality Crisis: One Night Only (2022) – Scorsese/Tedeschi’s well-judged, if darkness-averse showcase for the mega-treasurable Johansen

 

Love’s Confusion (1959) – Dudow oversees the frothy-sounding plot with notable ideology-minimalizing openness and relative frankness

 

Tin Men (1987) – Levinson’s mundane dueling salesman drama demonstrates that he’s no Mamet, if indeed much of anyone at all, artistry-wise

 

The Murder of Mr. Devil (1970) – Krumbachova’s satirical battle of the sexes, sparked by sharply imaginative notions and visualizations

 

Oppenheimer (2023) – Nolan’s dazzling plush limo of a film, high-end-accessorized in all respects, softening the edges of one’s reservations

 

Welcome, or No Trespassing! (1964) – Klimov’s film is a bright and funny, hi-jinks-driven, bureaucracy-smashing Soviet-era comedy (really!)

 

Gregory’s Girl (1980) – Forsyth’s comedy retains its localized charm, but the sense of directorial fragility and limitation grows over time

 

La fin du monde (1931) – Gance’s apocalyptic drama is magnificent at its possessed best, surmounting some notably inadequate plotting

 

Dune: Part Two (2024) – Villeneuve applies utterly top-flight feats of visualization and organization to a ceremonially distancing narrative

 

The Traveling Players (1975) – Angelopoulos’ journey through shifting national trauma is formally mesmerizing, and steadily traumatizing

 

loudQUIETloud: a Film about the Pixies (2006) – and a suitably clear-eyed and deglamorized one, actually a bit under-polished if anything

 

Muriel (1963) – Resnais’ challengingly singular tapestry of immediacies and absences grows more richly masterful with each viewing

 

How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022) – Goldhaber’s drama is over-calculated and -circumscribed, but rousingly solid stuff as far as it goes

 

Lissy (1957) – Wolf’s film is a valuably multi-faceted, if not particularly subtle, survey of an incendiarily fearful pre-WW2 Germany

 

Power (1986) – Lumet’s rapidly- and pervasively-dated political drama is worth revisiting, for all its flat, conceptually muddled aspects

 

The Four of the Apocalypse (1975) – Fulci’s most uncharacteristic Western offsets its macabre elements with odd, sympathetic digressions

 

Earth Mama (2023) – Leaf’s study of challenged motherhood may seem familiar in outline, but is distinguished by its empathetic toughness

 

Harakiri (1962) – Kobayashi’s expertly-structured, slow-burning samurai drama, contrasting individual and institutional truth and honor

 

Noises Off (1992) – Bogdanovich’s transcription of Frayn’s painstaking mechanics is amply respect-worthy, if sadly not all that entertaining

 

Gueule d’amour (1937) – Gremillon’s ominous drama of obsession-fueled decline, powered by the sensationally unstable Gabin-Balin dynamics

 

Talk to Me (2022) – the Philippous’ horror film doesn’t perhaps transcend its genre, but it’s quite memorably penetrating and trauma-infused

 

A Wedding Suit (1976) – Kiarostami’s child-oriented drama whips up a surprising degree of anxiety, rooted in convincing economic insecurity

 

Firefox (1982) – one of Eastwood’s less engaging movies has him barely registering within the special effects & plodding Cold War theatrics

 

A Ravishing Idiot (1964) – Molinaro’s tiresome espionage comedy tries hard to not much effect, making poor use of its mismatched stars

 

The Color Purple (2023) – Bazawule’s filming is respectable and often ravishing, but gradually declines in persuasiveness and cohesion

 

Devil of the Desert (1954) – Chahine’s high-spirited uprising drama provides ample scenic action, amid much rushed and choppy narrative

 

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) – Anderson’s dazzling (albeit somewhat distancing) film makes even the most exacting of directors seem sloppy

 

Blindfolded Eyes (1978) – Saura’s intertwining of art and life meanders a bit at times, but ultimately burns a shocked hole in one’s memory

 

The Blackening (2022) – Story’s jokily subversive horror comedy hits more than it misses, but ultimately lets the viewer off far too easily

 

Los que volvieron (1948) – Galindo’s character-baring drama is fairly basic stuff both narratively and visually, but not unsatisfying

 

Strange Invaders (1983) – Laughlin’s zippily appealing fantasy isn’t the tightest of movies, but at least doesn’t overplay its varied hand

 

With Beauty and Sorrow (1965) – Shinoda’s ruthlessly unpredictable creation, often startling in its actions, relationships and psychologies

 

Dream Scenario (2023) – Borgli’s shrewd, literate, quite scary expression of the extreme vicissitudes of modern-day virality and influence

 

The Aristocats (1970) – a nostalgic, jazz-tinged Disney highpoint, the animation handsome and supple, the anthropomorphism easy to take

 

Khrushtalyoy, my Car! (1998) – German’s work overwhelms and brutalizes one’s faculties like few others, achieving a disquieting grandeur

 

Pool of London (1951) – Dearden niftily oversees the film’s multiple strands and moods, including some relatively envelope-pushing aspects

 

Frere et soeur (2022) – Desplechin’s overly withholding film frequently evokes, at least in spurts, the rich vivacity of his best work

 

Pick a Star (1937) – Sedgwick’s utterly complacent, stardom-besotted trifle, with not enough Laurel and Hardy to make it worth the trouble

 

Paris (2008) – Klapisch’s tapestry has its oddities and omissions, but in its best moments provides a rush of pure, immersive sensation

 

Pocket Money (1972) – Rosenberg’s pleasantly conceived buddy movie yields mostly minor results, other than Marvin subtly outacting Newman

 

Grace a Dieu (2018) – Ozon’s navigation through difficult, complex material is enormously gripping, & almost disconcertingly well-controlled

 

The Liquidator (1965) – Cardiff’s rickety Bond variation squanders its central concept, blandly filling time with not much of anything

 

Blind Spot (1981) – von Alemann’s superbly-considered, paradigm-challenging positing and investigation of a feminist approach to history

 

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) – the musical numbers aside, one wishes Curtiz’s biopic were more fully possessed by Cagney’s pugnacious energy

 

Pleasure (2021) – Thyberg’s painstaking care is impressive & informative, but the film’s poise & ambiguity are frequently counter-productive

 

Abigail’s Party (1977) – Leigh’s observation of relentless martial awfulness is sort of mesmerizing, although in an abstract kind of way

 

Pas de scandale (1999) – Jacquot’s elusively haunting weaving of piercing specificities, startling juxtapositions, and preoccupied evasions

 

Bend of the River (1952) – not among the psychologically or thematically richest of the Mann/Stewart Westerns, but a good yarn nevertheless

 

Tale of Cinema (2005) – Hong’s meta-narrative achieves a beautifully allusive, evasive equilibrium, well-grounded in human idiosyncrasy

 

The Gay Divorcee (1934) – a patchy Astaire-Rogers musical, but with many points of elevation, not least the long (long!) Continental number

 

The Silent Twins (2022) – Smoczynska’s highly pleasurable enigma astutely & energetically fuels a multitude of reactions & interpretations

 

Martha (1974) – Fassbinder’s unnervingly heightened study, driven by a spectacularly cheerless, socially indicting perspective on marriage

 

Bless Their Little Hearts (1983) – Woodberry’s piercing study of challenged family, immediate yet elegiac, casts a widely sorrowful net

 

The Warped Ones (1960) – Kurahara’s drama draws so fully on its protagonist’s manic energy, it ultimately seems on the verge of ripping open

 

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) – a true cornucopia of wonderments, which I really wish evoked a deeper response than it does

 

Strangers in the House (1942) – Decoin’s Simenon adaptation morosely drags its feet on the way to a rushed but enjoyably blustering reveal

 

Ham on Rye (2019) – Taorima’s strange, delicate expression of teenage rites of passage crafts its own previously uncharted imaginative space

 

Experience (1973) – Kiarostami’s early study of youth is certainly small-scale, but executed with innate visual skill, sensitivity & warmth

 

I Like Movies (2022) – Levack’s film is cleanly and appealingly executed, while in no way stretching one’s sense of the movies one likes

 

The Four Days of Naples (1962) – it’s hard to look away from Loy’s powerfully draining recreation, despite a recurring sense of bombast

 

Eight Men Out (1988) – Sayles’ historical drama prioritizes narrative efficiency over most else, with rather flat, mostly unmoving results

 

Forever a Woman (1955) – Tanaka’s frank, affecting portrait of creativity & illness, extraordinarily attuned to its protagonist’s pain & joy

 

Fingernails (2023) – Nikos’ assertion of romantic self-determination is surprisingly coherent on its own peculiar but well-worked-out terms

 

Julia (1974) – Rothemund’s unremarkably titillating comedy at least keeps things moving, enlivened by a recurring kinky weird streak

 

Affliction (1997) – not Schrader’s most tightly-realized work overall, but one with some indelible moments rooted in towering performances

 

The Battle of Algiers (1965) – Pontecorvo’s viscerally and cerebrally exciting film remains a key reference point in the cinema of conflict

 

This Place (2022) – one wants to like Nayani’s well-meaning drama, but the poor-quality writing and scene-making make it pretty hard

 

A Man There Was (1917) – Sjostrom’s formidably tortured drama, highlighted by several pioneeringly well-executed aquatic set-pieces

 

The Angelic Conversation (1985) – Jarman’s pilgrimage-like immersive rapture leaves no aspect of the frame, soundtrack or montage unqueered

 

Les seins de glace (1974) – Lautner’s atmospherically- and psychologically-challenged drama works minor variations on familiar themes

 

Joy Ride (2023) – Lim’s hardworkingly superficial movie seldom evokes actual joy, likewise much real sense of cultural or personal discovery

 

Three Poplars on Plyuschikha Street (1968) – Lioznova’s poignant vignette draws in a lightly-treading range of social implication and detail

 

Six O’ Clock News (1996) – McElwee is ever-enjoyable company, even as his doom-laced existential investigation makes only limited progress

 

El Casado Casa Quiere (1948) – Solares’ comedy provides a few competently harried relative highpoints, while often getting bogged down

 

Aftersun (2022) – Wells’s captivating and haunting debut suggests a remarkably intuitive and fluid sense of cinema, and of much else

 

Cousin Angelica (1974) – Saura’s assured, at times inspired blending of past & present reveries, desires & traumas approaches his best work

 

The Believers (1987) – Schlesinger’s dire human-sacrifice thriller is at best unenjoyably absurd and at worst culturally offensive

 

One Way Ticket to Love (1960) – Shinoda’s debut is a fine, if rather over-plotted, study of seaminess-imperiled pressure and desperation

 

Past Lives (2023) – Song’s film makes heavy weather of basically not that much, albeit with pleasantly and tastefully applied polish

 

The Roof (1956) – De Sica’s socially informative drama is as enjoyable as any of his work, while subject to familiarly reductive limitations

 

Tomasso (2019) – Ferrara’s personal doodling, teasing and mythmaking is strangely absorbing, however restricted its objective achievement

 

Mahler (1974) – the film is in many ways among Russell’s all-round best, and yet too seldom engages, delights or persuasively informs

 

The Five Devils (2022) – Mysius’ magic-infused interweaving of cross-temporal causes and effects is an unexpectedly alluring pleasure

 

The Ugly American (1963) – Englund is no Pontecorvo, but the film is of lastingly earnest interest for all its simplifications and evasions

 

After the Rehearsal (1984) – an aging Bergman’s return to the memory-suffused, eternally testing, eternally giving crucible of theatre

 

The Upturned Glass (1947) – Huntington’s rather plain murder drama at least yields some relative structural and philosophical surprises

 

Possessive (2017) – Edwin’s doomed teen romance is cleanly done, but doesn’t occupy the same cinematic universe as his awesome Vengeance…

 

Portnoy’s Complaint (1972) – one sporadically admires Lehman’s commitment to unlikability, but much about the film is unrewardingly grueling

 

The Delinquents (2023) – Moreno’s quite wonderful film evolves from bank heist drama to patiently dreamy vision of spiritual unburdening

 

The Perfect Furlough (1958) – within its severely dated parameters, Edwards’ early film is bright and zippy, with ample formal pleasures

 

What’s Up Connection (1990) – Yamamoto’s super-energetic mash-up expresses cultural loss and absorption in astoundingly inventive manner

 

Algie, the Miner (1912) – Guy’s ten-minute silent film accommodates a surprisingly lively subversion of gender norms and relationships

 

Orchestra Seats (2006) – Thompson’s elegant light comedy forgivably ranks idealized affection above real-world anxieties and practicalities

 

The Liberation of L. B. Jones (1970) – Wyler’s barely tolerable last film, more a capitulation to than interrogation of its wretched milieu

 

The Innocents (2021) – Vogt’s drama, novel and subtle throughout, ranks high on the list of creepy (if artfully inexplicable) child movies

 

The Incredible Journey (1963) – Disney’s easy-pleasure, (relatively!) restrained animal odyssey still likely delivers what you came for

 

Tetsuo: the Iron Man (1989) – Tsukamoto’s astounding vision just pulverizes the senses, such that judgment barely seems possible or relevant

 

Fantasia (1940) – Disney’s grand project is rather touching in its highfalutin eccentricity, when not punishingly reductive and wrong-headed

 

La mort de Danton (2011) – Diop’s astute, irresistible portrait efficiently nails multiple components of French cultural cluelessness

 

Nuts in May (1976) – Leigh’s comedy is slow-burningly hilarious at times, built on disquietingly repressive psychological undercurrents

 

Hyenas (1992) – Mambety’s Durrenmatt adaptation is colourful and spirited, but hits the venal titular metaphor rather too directly

 

The Man From Laramie (1955) – Mann’s marvelous compositions give intense expression to the tightly-wound psychological undercurrents

 

Lan Yu (2001) – Kwan’s modern landmark studies same-sex love with quietly truthful finesse, well-attuned to personal and societal evolution

 

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) – Milestone’s version remains more immediately impactful and draining than the recent remake

 

Tar (2022) – the contours of the comeuppance leave one queasy, but at its frequent best Field’s film is enthralling in its thoroughness

 

Mysteries (1978) – de Mussanet’s Hamsun adaptation is consistently intriguing, but lacking in overall clarity and strength of vision

 

On Chesil Beach (2017) – Cooke’s McEwan adaptation mostly comes across as a tastefully distant artificiality, but sensitively executed

 

Thirst for Love (1966) – Kurahara’s drama is packed with fascinating detail, although doesn’t quite nail the central transgressive obsession

 

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) – Scorsese’s overly deliberate drama ultimately feels misshapen and misjudged in too many key respects

 

The Murderers are Among Us (1946) – Staudte’s post-war drama remains impactful in its (albeit circumscribed) reaching for moral reckoning  

 

The Naked Face (1984) – Forbes’ murder hodgepodge isn’t very persuasive on its own terms, and often (re, say, Steiger) actively unenjoyable

 

Deep Red (1975) – Argento constructs some terrific cinematic architecture & atmosphere, although the film often feels captive to its genre

 

The Fabelmans (2022) – it’s strange that Spielberg’s stupendous vanity project should come out feeling so distanced and unconvincing

 

The Last Adventure (1967) – Enrico’s episodic romp is unusually narratively & tonally unpredictable, with terrific behavioral vibrancy

 

Sphinx (1981) – Schaffner delivers some spectacular travelogue, but the rest is deadly dull and/or preposterous and/or barely coherent

 

Destinies of Women (1952) – Dudow’s teeming drama embeds much progressive empathy into its propagandistically forward-looking framework

 

Saltburn (2023) – Fennell’s narratively shaky movie seldom feels particularly worthwhile, with little ultimate satiric or other pay-off

 

Johnny Corncob (1973) – Jancovics’ animation is arresting in its ugliness-skirting faux simplicity, but it’s not the most involving of tales

 

Pasolini (2014) – Ferrara’s intertwining of biographical recreation and artistic extrapolation is among his most unerringly effective works

 

An Angel for Satan (1966) – Mastrocinque’s not-bad concoction, elevated by some starkly chilled visuals, and a mostly well-deployed Steele

 

The Whale (2022) – Aronofksy’s unproductively theatrical drama seldom convinces or moves, despite its aggressively attention-getting aspects

 

The Eyes of the Mummy (1918) – Lubitsch’s stiff early film has a few striking moments, but doesn’t cast any kind of sustained spell

 

Broadcast News (1987) – Brooks’ overly amiable, insufficiently interrogative movie is still worthwhile as a quaintly dated discussion point

 

Pastorale 1943 (1978) – Verstappen’s reflectively shifting narrative and unexpected choices of emphasis outweigh various flatter elements

 

Maestro (2023) – Cooper’s film impresses less for its depths than its surfaces, but at their best those surfaces are grandly electrifying

 

Night Games (1966) – Zetterling’s frequently startling (then at the end surprisingly redemptive) case history of intertwined abuse & wonder

 

The Addiction (1995) – Ferrara’s attitude-heavy vampire picture stylishly channels a spectrum of physical and existential uncertainty

 

Giants and Toys (1958) – the colourful surface of Masumura’s corporate satire rapidly reveals a dazzlingly pessimistic social analysis 

 

Blue Jean (2022) – Oakley’s quietly precise and credible study of stifled sexual identity in an imperfectly evolving time and place

 

Three Wishes for Cinderella (1973) – with ample charm and wit, Vorlicek’s wide-eyed telling fits snugly within its various constraints

 

Brazil (1985) – Gilliam’s epic retains a sense of propulsive grandeur, despite big dollops of banality, flippancy and/or unproductive excess

 

Branded to Kill (1967) – Suzuki tears through multiple limits and conventions with an almost unnerving degree of imagination and confidence

 

No Hard Feelings (2023) – Stupnitsky’s sunnily distasteful, vaguely resentful comedy isn’t so bad on its own resource-squandering terms

 

Stronger than Love (1955) – Demicheli’s amusingly heated Cuban melodrama, powered by outsized passions, motivations and resentments

 

Ali (2001) – Mann’s top-tier cinematic prowess and energy can’t entirely overcome the familiar limitations of the linear biopic form

 

Elisa, my Love (1977) – Saura expands the filmic space around his modest central narrative in accomplished, sometimes perturbing style

 

Turning Red (2022) – for all its high-concept craft and energy & beguiling Toronto-ness, Shi’s fable is less engaging than hoped for

 

L’etrange Monsieur Victor (1938) – its modest star-image tweaking aside, Gremillon’s drama offers familiar, but happily-received, pleasures

 

Christine (1983) – Carpenter makes good visual use of the car, but the plotting around it seems haphazard and thematically unimpactful

 

Killers on Parade (1961) – Shinoda’s caper pops with imaginative verve, tempered by twinges of authentic melancholy at the state of things

 

Barbie (2023) – Gerwig discharges the commercial mandate in sensationally imaginative, energetic, even penetratingly thoughtful manner

 

The Black Hole (1979) – Disney’s space opera undercuts its relative visual strengths with a plethora of lame and grating miscalculations

 

Place Vendome (1998) – Garcia’s plush, increasingly fatalistic drama has no lack of enticing elements, but falls a bit short as a whole

 

Blind Date (1959) – Losey’s attention to mood, interaction and class-conscious machinations elevates the solid if strained core premise

 

Doppelganger (2003) – a lesser Kurosawa work overall, notwithstanding the quite unexpected swerve into shaggy-dog/road games territory

 

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) – Lloyd’s elemental version solidly endures, propelled by star charisma, cleanly-drawn conflict, ample exoticism

 

Bubble (2022) – Araki’s sort of dystopian Little Mermaid has a pretty gooey core, within the considerable visual & conceptual heavy-hitting

 

Little Big Man (1970) – Penn’s daring, captivating survey of American history as inextricably intertwined, ever-renewing tragedy and farce

 

Choice of Arms (1981) – Corneau’s convoluted, overly sprawling crime drama benefits from his steady handling, and an utterly classic cast

 

The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean (1966) – Compton’s fable retains a peculiarly touching delicacy, even when the storytelling somewhat wobbles

 

La permanence (2016) – Diop’s most concentrated long-form work, observing patient compassion in the face of fathomless need and trauma

 

Repeat Performance (1947) – Werker’s unusual drama executes a Twilight Zone-like premise with a bracing degree of pessimism and resentment

 

Neptune Frost (2021) – Williams/Uzeyman’s boundary-transcending, teeming expression of an exploited people’s complexities and capacities

 

Cabaret (1972) – Fosse’s film is worth revisiting for the Fosse-ness, but isn’t particularly satisfying by most non-Fosse-ness measures

 

To You, From Me (1994) – Jang’s narratively & stylistically audacious film gleefully assails just about all aspects of South Korean society

 

Strangers on a Train (1951) – one of Hitchcock’s most tightly executed pleasures, albeit lying outside his swoon-inducing masterworks

 

Mother, I Am Suffocating…(2019) – Mosese’s expression of the pained relief of exile carries an acutely haunting visual and emotional force

 

Seventh Heaven (1937) – King’s remake is shamelessly sanitized, would-be-spiritually-uplifting hokum, albeit sweetly enacted by Simon

 

Passages (2023) – Sachs’ small-scale drama may most stick in the mind for its uncommonly nasty and manipulative emotional structures

 

Seytan (1974) – Erksan’s narratively choppy, resource-challenged, atmosphere-deprived Exorcist remake has only minor virtues at best

 

No Nukes (1980) – an inadequately shaped, thematically dated record, but with some lasting musical highlights (Scott-Heron, Springsteen…)

 

The Living Skeleton (1968) – Matsuno’s overly busy ghosts-and-weirdness narrative holds together through sparse, preoccupied conviction

 

Armageddon Time (2022) – Gray’s fine, strikingly melancholy reflection on the evasive workings of privilege, progress, influence and chance

 

Streetwalker (1951) – Landeta’s coincidence-heavy melodrama, distinguished by its empathy for constrained female lives, both rich and poor

 

The War of the Worlds (2005) – Spielberg’s vision of destruction is an astounding visual achievement, but emotionally coarse and/or barren

 

Les stances a Sophie (1971) – Mizrahi’s marriage chronicle sustains a bright, sparky air of feminism-infused investigation & experimentation

 

May December (2023) – yet another unprecedented Haynes tour de force, combining disparate tones and genres with sensational stylistic acumen

 

Dogora (1964) – Honda’s peppily bewildering mash-up of jewel heist caper and coal-eating space monster (yep, they got to that idea first…)

 

Crossing Delancey (1988) – Silver fleshes out the thin but appealing core story with a warm wealth of surrounding detail and observation

 

After the Curfew (1954) – a valuable discovery, for Ismail’s lonely portrait of Indonesia’s post-military societal and moral precariousness

 

She Said (2022) – Schrader’s no-nonsense investigation drama is respectably done, but not particularly galvanizing from any perspective

 

Evil of Dracula (1974) – the most narratively overstuffed and overall least visually and thematically alluring of Yamamoto’s vampire trilogy

 

Dreamgirls (2007) – Condon botches the job in too many key respects, the musical highlights barely surviving the surrounding near-chaos

 

Eerie Tales (1919) – Oswald’s anthology is of course historically interesting, but far too stiff and overstated to evoke eeriness now

 

Bottoms (2023) – Seligman’s high-scoring comedy has a good angle on self-empowerment, although the climactic ramping-up is a mixed bag

 

The Game is Over (1966) – Vadim’s film has ample if dated style and titillation, but ultimately seems mostly misogynistically mean-spirited

 

Witness (1985) – Weir’s drama plays more conventionally than its reputation suggests, while certainly lifted by directorial sensitivity

 

Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees (1977) – Shinoda’s satisfyingly unpredictable and perverse fable spans just about every available register

 

Bones and All (2022) – Guadagnino balances the disparate elements with great delicacy, although the upside is inherently rather limited

 

Eight Hours of Terror (1957) – the Stagecoach resonances don’t do Suzuki’s often shakily-handled and overacted early effort too many favors

 

The Insider (1999) – Mann’s ability to wrangle sprawling material is second to none, although at the cost of persistent over-simplification

 

Honeycomb (1969) – Saura’s charting of an arid marriage’s desperate game-playing makes for hermetic, only sporadically galvanizing viewing

 

The Killer (2023) – Fincher’s sleekly proficient, detail-oriented handling near-transforms the essentially contrived & unimportant material

 

Towards Tenderness (2016) – Diop’s all-round impressive short study encompasses a scintillating vastness of social and cultural implication

 

I Start Counting (1970) – Greene infiltrates the core material with intriguing detail and subtext, drawing on both dream and threat

 

The Living Dead Girl (1982) – the pained mood piece at the core of Rollin’s film just about surmounts the myriad inadequacies around it

 

The Country Girl (1954) – Seaton’s adaptation makes for pretty drab, tedious viewing, its notable cast now seeming forced and unpersuasive

 

Triangle of Sadness (2022) – Ostlund’s overpraised, draggy and bloated creation leaves you cinematically and intellectually unsatisfied

 

History is Made at Night (1937) – Borzage infiltrates the assured romantic comedy with a palpably unsettling sense of threat and menace

 

Max par Marcel (2009) – a rare Marcel Ophuls film marked by excessive brevity, its warm memories of his father delighting and illuminating

 

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978) – Morrissey/Cook/Moore’s take-off scores its rather desperate laughs, but without much overall pop

 

Heroic Trio 2: Executioners (1993) – To’s sequel somewhat improves on its predecessor, if only through more sustained grimness and loss

 

A Child is Waiting (1963) – Cassavetes musters some empathetically forthright observation, within an overly circumscribed overall structure

 

Afire (2023) – Petzold’s supple tale of personal & artistic catalysis, its initial lightness ultimately yielding tragedy-infused complexity

 

Bambi (1942) – Disney’s classic holds joy and threat in effective balance, although is most commanding when gripped by the latter (Man!)

 

King Lear (1987) – beneath the surface’s play and quasi-chaos, Godard establishes a haunting sense of cultural besiegement and fragility

 

Straight on Till Morning (1972) – Collinson’s serial killer drama blends stylistic ambition with numerous surprises of tone and emphasis

 

Sage femme (2017) – Provost’s story of reconciliation is unfailingly watchable, no matter how short on thematic or stylistic surprises

 

Gigi (1958) – Minnelli’s tuneful and decorative Oscar-winner actually ranks among his less fulfilling works, even skirting unpleasantness

 

Ghost in the Shell 2.0 (2008) – the impact of Oshii’s film does diminish a little on reviewing, regardless of the “2.0” version refinements

 

The Mad Genius (1931) – Curtiz’s showily well-tuned tale of manipulation, a prime vehicle for Barrymore’s atmospherically ripe stylings

 

Master Gardener (2022) – Schrader’s study of shifting power dynamics is rewardingly strange, all the way to an unexpected happy ending

 

Anima persa (1977) – Risi’s drama penetrates less than you hope for, despite its darkly amusing peeling away of bourgeois structures

 

Topsy-Turvy (1999) – Leigh’s wonderful study of creativity in all its facets, joyousness coexisting with fragility, even outright terror

 

Time to Love (1966) – Erksan’s enigmatic love story evidences great care, but is compositionally overdone and behaviorally unrevealing

 

Rustin (2023) – Wolfe’s overly procedural, spoon-feeding movie adequately discharges its basic commemorative mandate, and that’s about it

 

Africa on the Seine (1955) – Sarr/Vieyra’s brief observance of Black life in Paris is acerbic & pointed, but not ultimately without optimism

 

Prince of Darkness (1987) – one of Carpenter’s less rewarding works, marked by scattershot narrative and a sad lack of dramatic intensity

 

Lake of Dracula (1971) – a worthy stylistic and thematic successor to Yamamoto’s Vampire Doll, even if more conventional in numerous ways

 

Moonage Daydream (2022) – Morgen’s film scintillates in its multitudinous presences, even as one remains aware of the inevitable absences 

 

Fighting Elegy (1966) – Suzuki’s drama makes for rather repetitively pounding viewing, but certainly scores as cheerless social critique

 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) – a work of astoundingly fine-tuned inventiveness, and of no small emotional intelligence

 

Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1955) – Allegret’s inevitably constrained filming has a better feel for class differences than for the core passion

 

Asteroid City (2023) – not Anderson’s most easily pleasurable film, but ultimately one of his most intricately rich, humane and stimulating

 

Himiko (1974) – despite the film’s formal strengths, Shinoda’s dramatizing of Japan’s founding myths is among his less elevating works

 

Family Business (1989) – Lumet’s brassy, notably-cast crime drama all but revels in inconsequentiality (but solidly crafted, naturally)

 

Stress is Three (1968) – a second-tier Saura work, well in control of its sparsely toxic set-ups, but ultimately limited in its impact

 

Women Talking (2022) – Polley’s instincts and methods lead her disappointingly awry here, generating a reductively artificial, unmoving film

 

Fanfan la tulipe (1952) – Christian-Jaque’s film has ample wit, pace and spirit, and then leaves an utterly shallow after-impression

 

Mary Magdalene (2018) – Davis makes consistently interesting narrative choices, their impact limited by monotonous tonal stateliness

 

A Reflection of Fear (1972) – Fraker taps some strange, disembodied veins of troubled reverie, but it ultimately comes to rather too little

 

Made in Hong Kong (1997) – Chan’s tremendous drama of delinquent youth provides a virtually unbroken, intricate, nihilism-tinged rush

 

The Secret Life of an American Wife (1968) – Axelrod’s lifelessly garrulous comedy is unappealingly conceived, often just depressing

 

Voleuses (2023) – Laurent’s emphasis on female fun and camaraderie is appealing, but the film seldom transcends its gleaming superficiality

 

The Last Days of Dolwyn (1949) – Williams’ notably-cast but overly stiff drama stands out for its aspects of doomed Welsh authenticity

 

Ghost in the Shell (1985) – viewed at a time of escalating AI-related thrill & fright, Oshii’s sexy, hard-edged reverie feels new again

 

Endless Night (1972) – Gilliat’s Agatha Christie grab-bag is more peculiar than suspenseful, but one generally appreciates the effort

 

No Bears (2022) – Panahi’s wondrous, moving film radiates clarity of purpose in the face of almost all-touching constraint and suspicion

 

When Worlds Collide (1951) – Mate’s drama has sufficient high-concept momentum to surpass its copious limitations and peculiarities

 

Chico & Rita (2010) – a delightfully energetic music-saturated animated chronicle, albeit with not too many narrative or stylistic surprises

 

Alice Adams (1935) – Stevens oversees a supple piece of small-town Americana, but all else is secondary to the fascinatingly vivid Hepburn

 

Russian Dolls (2005) – Klapisch’s L’auberge sequel, despite its theme of ongoing growth, too often feels like a (still polished) retread

 

Diamonds are Forever (1971) – a few bits of extended brutality aside, Hamilton’s Bond entry lacks much dramatic energy or distinct identity

 

Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996) – Suleiman’s film attains a wryly moving synthesis of deadpan comedy & ever-looming existential tragedy

 

The Notorious Landlady (1962) – Quine’s over-extended comedy struggles to maintain momentum, but the well-staged finale pays off nicely

 

Hold Me Tight (2021) – Amalric’s study of loss, trauma, remembrance, fantasy and renewal is wondrously, intricately vivid and enveloping

 

Vacation from Marriage (1945) – Korda’s forced wartime relationship drama, all too obvious in its calculated ideological assurances

 

First Graders (1984) – as always, Kiarostami is innately well-attuned to the material, calmly drawing out humour, portent and implication

 

The Looking Glass War (1970) – Pierson’s solid Le Carre adaptation leaves a suitably doomed, politically abstracted overall impression

 

Night Shift (2020) – Fontaine’s police drama is well-attuned to small escapes from everyday tensions, but makes a minimal overall impression

 

Rear Window (1954) – one of Hitchcock’s richest visual and thematic tapestries, intensely and pleasurably full in complexity and implication

 

Election 2 (2006) – To intelligently builds on the first film, with some startling individual sequences, and an ultimate thematic grandeur

 

The Edge of the World (1937) – Powell’s early work has a marvelous overall gusto and conviction, surmounting the sometimes untidy filmmaking

 

Lunana: a Yak in the Classroom (2019) – Dorji’s humane film isn’t consistently strong, but carries ample scenic and ethnographic interest

 

Pulp Fiction (1994) – if not Tarantino’s best work, likely his most inexhaustibly inspired, somehow vividly generous even at its sleaziest

 

The Vampire Doll (1970) – Yamamoto’s sleekly, unfussily handled tale, crisply peeling back its impressively malign and tangled premise

 

The Son (2022) – Zeller’s trauma-infused drama carries some basic clinical interest, but is distancingly predictable and artificial

 

Knife in the Water (1962) – the dauntingly assured, societally insinuating potency of Polanski’s early film barely diminishes over time

 

Society (1989) – once you’re done with the gross-out surprise value of Yuzna’s satire, there’s not too much to reward deeper consideration

 

Fountainhead (1956) – Kobayashi’s ambitious meeting of personal and political rather wanders at times, but is enormously engrossing overall

 

Cow (2021) – Arnold’s study of farming infrastructure and the unknowability at its centre is thought-provoking, if not quite revelatory

 

Violette Noziere (1978) – Chabrol maintains an atmospheric behavioral mystery, while arguably pushing the structure a little hard at times

 

Something to do with the Wall (1991) – Levine/McElwee provide a modestly observational adjunct to weightier examinations and analyses

 

Love on a Pillow (1962) – Bardot gets oddly marginalized within Vadim’s decorative, narratively haphazard journey of self-discovery

 

Nyad (2023) – Vasarhelyi/Chin deliver something close to a dramatized PowerPoint presentation, not that the subject matter demands much else

 

Looping the Loop (1928) – Robison’s circus-set drama is never less than sturdy, often gripping in its navigation of poignancy and creepiness

 

The Howling (1981) – Dante’s nifty little horror flick, although hardly genre-transcending, displays tons of good humor & all-round know-how

 

The Left-Handed Woman (1977) – Handke’s study of feminine self-determination, its multiple withholdings both enriching and limiting

 

Living (2022) – Hermanus’s remake provides ample delicately-crafted pleasures, although one likely wishes for a greater cumulative impact

 

Tokyo Drifter (1966) – the existential bereftness within Suzuki’s hyper-designed, hyper-everything action film is improbably persuasive

 

The Golden Boat (1990) – Ruiz’s wondrously strange & shifting, near-vampirically blood-spurting dip into New York’s spikily creative depths

 

The World of Apu (1959) – Ray’s film has some of his most delicate passages, even as his ambitions expand beyond quotidian observation

 

The Souvenir: Part II (2021) – Hogg’s work continues to grow in scope and capacity to surprise, while tending its core observational virtues

 

La bonne annee (1973) – the tonal and structural surprises and pleasures of Lelouch’s light but lasting film outweigh the various stumbles

 

Dream Demon (1988) – Cokliss’ fantasy teems with forceful visual and thematic notions, arrayed within a slipperily effective overall scheme

 

Youth in Fury (1960) – Shinoda meshes personal and political agonies and corruptions in visually and behaviorally super-charged fashion

 

Fair Play (2023) – Domont’s toxicity-laced drama is inevitably too slick, but more than amply engrossing, provocative and debate-friendly

 

The Burning Crucible (1923) – Mozzhukhin’s love story exhibits a startlingly wide-ranging facility, with some major expressionist highlights

 

24 Hour Party People (2002) – Winterbottom predominantly keeps things busily and noisily superficial and celebratory, and why quibble?…

 

Anna and the Wolves (1973) – the laceratingly clear-sighted Saura rips into the malevolent self-preservation of the decadent bourgeoisie

 

Lady Chatterley’s Lover (2022) – de Clermont-Tonnere’s version has its actorly & other strengths, while seeming generally over-romanticized

 

Un homme et une femme (1966) – Lelouch’s film remains pleasing, as much for its myriad of peculiarities as for the charisma-heavy romance

 

Time Indefinite (1993) – one of McElwee’s best, its ramshackle personal history charmingly (if not so profoundly) contextualized & annotated

 

 King Lavra (1950) – Zeman’s early short film is full of richness and subtlety, in the service of a satisfyingly dark and weird premise

 

Benediction (2021) – at its strongest, Davies’ immersion in Sassoon inspires some of his most ravishingly touching cinematic reveries

 

The Gauntlet (1977) – an image-tweaking highlight of 70’s Eastwood, enormously entertaining even at its most heavy-duty implausible

 

Employment Offer (1982) – Eustache’s last (and so inherently tragic-feeling) film; a pointed, whip-smart fable of modern dehumanization

 

The Christmas Tree (1969) – Young’s blend of atomic-age portent and tragic quasi-fairy-tale is a peculiarly displaced, yet haunting creation

 

L’auberge espagnole (2002) – Klapisch’s easy-viewing “Europudding” is super-well-sustained, if not particularly progressive, entertainment

 

Berlin Express (1948) – Tourneur’s drama has immense historical interest, although it’s more tonally & narratively uneven than his best work

 

El Conde (2023) – Larrain’s distinctly weird but for the most part elegantly witty expression of the inter-connected persistence of evil

 

The Whole Shootin’ Match (1978) – Pennell sustains a shambling low-budget charm, but it can only carry the overly loose narrative so far

 

The Heroic Trio (1993) – To’s action film is cheerily vivacious & stylishly cast, but murkily articulated and executed in any number of ways

 

Forty Guns (1957) – one enjoys the many elements of full-on Fullerism, although it doesn’t cohere as tightly as his very best works

 

EO (2022) – Skolimowski achieves a mesmerizing meeting of inherent inscrutability (animal and human alike) and rapturous presentness

 

Murders in the Zoo (1933) – Sutherland more than delivers on the zoo murders, and on the zoo all-round, so that’s all that matters!

 

The Book of Mary (1985) – Mieville’s beautiful short film gracefully contrasts the freedom of youth and the limiting parameters of adulthood

 

Believe in Me (1971) – Hagmann’s study of escalating drug abuse connects at numerous points, but ultimately feels unsatisfyingly abbreviated

 

Nous (2021) – Diop’s spellbinding documentary, entirely reflecting her wondrous spanning of imaginative boldness and infinite patience

 

The Curse of Quon Gwon (1916) – Wong’s drama elicits substantial, pilgrimage-like respect, even in its narratively mysterious surviving form

 

The House that Jack Built (2018) – von Trier’s cosmic provocation applies breathtaking proficiency to mental and moral-capacity-evading ends

 

The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) – Guest’s catastrophic drama is a solid present-day reference point, when not offputtingly abrasive

 

Election (2005) – To’s slyly allegorical drama is proficient throughout, but it’s indelibly elevated by its calmly ruthless final stretch

 

St. Ives (1976) – Thompson’s actor-squandering concoction is superficially well-furbished, but dramatically and psychologically mostly inert

 

Gold Brick (2023) – Rozan’s corporate revenge flick is likeable enough, although far too breezy  and over-simplified to carry any real bite

 

Knock on any Door (1949) – Ray’s message-laden drama has him rather too hemmed in, but is moderately striking in all kinds of secondary ways

 

Je vous salue, Marie (1985) – Godard’s luminously enthralling creation, at times amusingly quasi-obvious, at others far transcending that

 

The Seven Year Itch (1955) – one of Wilder’s all-round least impressive efforts, actually barely tolerable in its single-track obsessiveness

 

Insomnia (2002) – Nolan’s plainest film improves in theory on many aspects of the (overpraised) original, with mixed benefits in practice

 

L’aventure, c’est l’aventure (1972) – Lelouch’s buddy romp is pretty silly, but it’s certainly hardworking and often laugh-out-loud funny

 

M3GAN (2022) – Johnstone provides few real surprises, but it’s a well-designed, effectively zeitgeist-channeling piece all the same

 

The Hell Ship (1923) – Sjostrom’s drama has much of interest, but lacks the implied concentrated intensity and spectacle of its title

 

Street Smart (1987) – Schatzberg’s drama sure has its moments, but is too slickly polished for its themes and milieu to fully reverberate

 

All Monsters Attack (1969) – Honda’s bright and cheerful deployment of Monster Island’s inhabitants as, basically, de facto life coaches!

 

Stillwater (2021) – McCarthy’s cross-cultural hodgepodge goes down easy, but doesn’t convince in most respects, much less morally stimulate

 

Violent City (1970) – Sollima’s above-average Bronson vehicle, its terse tone, extended set-pieces and winding narrative well under control

 

Birth (1994) – one values Glazer’s trauma-laced behavioural mystery more for its intriguing parts than for the slightly disappointing whole

 

Fires on the Plain (1959) – Ichikawa’s wrenching, concentrated vision of suffering and disorientation, absent any traces of wartime glory

 

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023) – Anderson’s super-polished miniature is (of course) formally dazzling, and an all-round pleasure

 

Picpus (1943) – Pottier’s Maigret mystery is dotted with well-turned characterizations, although you’re mostly just trying to keep up

 

Dead & Buried (1981) – Sherman delivers some well-judged creepiness and oddity, although the premise is ultimately somewhat over-stretched

 

Sambizanga (1972) – Maldoror’s vital dawn-of-the-revolution film, drawing as fully on intimate rituals and joys as on structural injustices

 

Till (2022) – Chukwu’s dignified telling is as moving as one hopes for, although one remains aware of narrative and tonal roads not taken

 

The Sleeping Car Murders (1965) – Costa-Gavras’ plushly well-cast early thriller is an atypically politics-free zone, but done with style

 

The Girl from Monday (2005) – Hartley’s super-lo-fi treatment of grandiosely high-concept material wears surprisingly, defiantly well

 

Invention for Destruction (1958) – Zeman’s all-but-perfectly pitched meshing of ever-tangible threat and delightfully retro artificiality

 

All my Puny Sorrows (2021) – McGowan’s conventionally respectful adaptation, too timid & under-energized on matters of death & life alike

 

The Garden of Delights (1970) – Saura’s mordant study of traumatic family dynamics, executed with austerely wry, disorienting elegance

 

Q (1982) – Cohen and Moriarty’s expansively eccentric conviction easily power through the film’s copious rough edges and omissions

 

Everything Goes Wrong (1961) – Suzuki’s fluently issue-crammed chronicle of disaffected youth makes for a most dynamic seventy-one minutes

 

A Thousand and One (2023) – Rockwell’s episodic drama becomes steadily more expectation-evading, to more than respectable cumulative effect

 

Cecile est morte! (1944) – Tourneur’s Maigret film is well-plotted and solidly executed, but substantially unmemorable all the same

 

Byzantium (2012) – Jordan’s plotting is overdone even by vampire mythology standards, but the overall mix is improbably entertaining

 

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