6u532b

Watched on Friday June 6, 2025.

Watched on Friday May 30, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 29, 2025.

Watched on Monday May 26, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday May 20, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 17, 2025.

Watched on Friday May 9, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday May 6, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 1, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 1, 2025.

Watched on Saturday April 26, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday April 23, 2025.

Watched on Saturday April 19, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 17, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 17, 2025.

Watched on Monday April 14, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 10, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 10, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday April 9, 2025.

How the worst day in 2014 used to look

Watched on Saturday April 5, 2025.

Watched on Friday April 4, 2025.

My favourite kind of action movie is one that ends with four aging men in a desert, itting their failings and letting go of their dreams.

Watched on Tuesday March 25, 2025.

Watched on Monday March 24, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 23, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 21, 2025.

A really beautiful if quite inarticulate movie. Everything surrounding Jim's character never quite feels as completely felt as it should be. The last hour in particular feels like a lot of BIG symbolic conceits begging you to feel emotion and falling somehwat flat on their face (the suitcase, Jim trying to perform R on his younger self). This and Color Purple being the first of 'serious' Spielberg show him only being able to view trauma through childhood whimsy. It comes off a whole lot better here though. The mode of filmmaking Spielberg hits on here is some thrilling shit - an odyssey of pure, straight-from-the-soul-of-a-child sense of imagery, that would be perfected by A.I. (the 2001 film not the technology!!) The first shot of this film might be the most arresting and beguiling start to a film I can think of. That and the football stadium full of discarded luxuries have been burned into my brain ever since I saw this the first time.

Watched on Monday March 17, 2025.

Watched on Monday March 10, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 9, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday March 4, 2025.

Watched on Friday February 28, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday February 25, 2025.

Watched on Monday February 24, 2025.

Watched on Monday February 24, 2025.

Watched on Sunday February 23, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday February 19, 2025.

Watched on Monday February 17, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday February 12, 2025.

Watched on Monday February 10, 2025.

Like others have said, this reminds me unmistakably of middle period Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, The Master), which isn't a great starting point as I've never loved PTA. Both him and Corbet feel like they cynically try to reverse engineer a Great American Novel-type story - putting a bunch of heady, important concepts in a story cauldron (art, capital, Holocaust, America, architecture, immigratiom, rape??), hoping that stirring all these things up must guarantee an important story and an important film. The literary, wunderkind boys that they are, they aim for their learned ideas of what's 'impressive' rather than their own sincere expression.

That probably means The Butalist will never fully sit right with me, though it does achieve a lot in straining towards its half-baked ambition. The Van Buren/Toth character relationship is the core of this movie I think, and I found it both thoughtfully written and beautifully acted by Brody and Pierce. Those shifts between them, from initial revulsion, to perfomative acceptance, to exploitation and envy were conveyed heartbreakingly well. Being a 3+ hour epic filmed on only a $12 million budget gives a fascinating feel to this thing - both small and large, with equal-parts bombast and intimacy that balance each other well. If I did indeed like this a lot, it was in some begruding way. Okay, Brady, you did cook in some places.

Quietly one of THE most influential crime films, if not films in general. This template - tracking the rise-and-fall of one individual through reminiscences of recent history - is almost exactly what you can find inherited by even recent stuff like I, Tonya or Hustlers (2019). Still, it might not have been until Scorsese that these films started to reach more ambitiously at BIG truths about America and human greed. The Roaring Twenties is starting from a breezier, simpler place. The joy is in how quickly this moves, rocketing year-by-year through the 1920s with the same livewire energy as James Cagney's central performance. Definitely the ultimate showcase of those old Hollywood montages, where everyone moves at 1.5x speed and newspapers fly onto screen like 'STOCK MARKET IN PERIL'. There really are some movies, especially from the 30s, where you can watch genres be invented in real-time.

Watched on Tuesday February 4, 2025.

Watched on Monday February 3, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday January 29, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday January 29, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday January 22, 2025.

Watched on Monday January 20, 2025.

Watched on Friday January 17, 2025.

, someone had to write these.

• She Hate Me
• The Details
• Between Worlds
• Accidental Love
• The Peanut Butter Solution
• Tiptoes
• How to Get Ahead in Advertising
• That Sinking Feeling
• The Similars
• Time After Time

...plus 61 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

'Every Monday morning I have a script meeting. I say - Page 1, any problem? Page 2, any problem? Page 3, any problem? ....'

1. Alien
2. The Last Duel
3. Blade Runner
4. Body of Lies
5. Legend
6. Thelma & Louise
7. Black Hawk Down
8. Someone to Watch Over Me
9. The Martian
10. Matchstick Men

...plus 19 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

What is a Small Axe anyway?

1. Widows
2. Red, White and Blue
3. 12 Years a Slave
4. Lovers Rock
5. Hunger
6. Mangrove
7. Alex Wheatle
8. Shame
9. Blitz
10. Education

'I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.'

- HAL 9000

1. Eyes Wide Shut
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey
3. A Clockwork Orange
4. Barry Lyndon
5. Paths of Glory
6. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
7. The Killing
8. The Shining
9. Lolita
10. Full Metal Jacket

What Mann?
Which Mann?
Who's the Mann?
When's a Mann a Mann?
What makes a Mann a Mann?
Am I a Mann?
Yes. Technically I Amm.

1. Collateral
2. Heat
3. Thief
4. Miami Vice
5. Ferrari
6. The Insider
7. Blackhat
8. The Last of the Mohicans
9. Manhunter
10. Public Enemies

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Euripides, the Greek playwright, said thousands of years ago: "Whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes successful in show business."
With warm regards,
Francis Coppola

1. Apocalypse Now
2. The Godfather
3. Rumble Fish
4. One from the Heart
5. The Godfather Part II
6. The Rain People
7. Tetro
8. The Conversation
9. Tucker: The Man and His Dream
10. Bram Stoker's Dracula

...plus 11 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

'I had to write him a letter - I wrote Terry a letter. I gave him shit. I'll never work with him again of course. He won't have me. Oh I told him - I said you're so boring. I said you've got to get yourself a writer. My career with Mr. Malick is - over.'

- Christopher Plummer

1. Badlands
2. Knight of Cups
3. The Tree of Life
4. The New World
5. The Thin Red Line
6. Days of Heaven
7. A Hidden Life
8. To the Wonder
9. Song to Song

Best eyebrows in the game

1. The Age of Innocence
2. Taxi Driver
3. After Hours
4. The Wolf of Wall Street
5. The Departed
6. The King of Comedy
7. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
8. The Last Temptation of Christ
9. GoodFellas
10. Raging Bull

...plus 13 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A selection of the films made by directors who had won the Academy Award for Best Director for their previous film.

When you've reached the top - where do you go from there?

• Lost Horizon
• The Heiress
• Shane
• One, Two, Three
• Doctor Zhivago
• The Loved One
• Justine
• Star!
• The Day of the Jackal
• Catch-22

...plus 40 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Choose life. Choose a life less ordinary. Choose to keep a big bag of money you found. Choose fast-running zombies. Choose to forget The Beatles existed. Choose winning Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Choose to get stuck in a canyon for five days. Choose to drop a nuke into the sun. Choose shaving your pubic hair for James McAvoy. Choose to cast Leonardo DiCaprio. Choose not to acknowledge the Apple II team.

1. Millions
2. Sunshine
3. Steve Jobs
4. Trainspotting
5. 28 Days Later
6. T2 Trainspotting
7. 127 Hours
8. Shallow Grave
9. The Beach
10. Yesterday

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Most of these films come from exciting source material or have big names attached to it so you would assume people would mention it a lot and yet...
They are often not enough of a success to be notable but at the same time not enough of a failure to be notable either.

• 2010: The Year We Make
• Righteous Kill
• 1941
• Cowboys & Aliens
• The Two Jakes
• LBJ
• Nixon
• W.
• The Score
• Legend

...plus 119 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Many of these are available in other regions, but I'm not a region free boy :(

Ranked by how desperate I am for them

1. A Canterbury Tale
2. Heavenly Creatures
3. The Insider
4. Ali
5. Taking Off
6. Broadcast News
7. In the Mouth of Madness
8. I Know Where I'm Going!
9. Gone to Earth
10. Oh... Rosalinda!!

...plus 51 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Avengers: Endgame
2. Iron Man
3. Avengers: Infinity War
4. Iron Man 3
5. The Avengers
6. Spider-Man: Homecoming
7. Guardians of the Galaxy
8. Doctor Strange
9. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
10. Captain America: The First Avenger

...plus 16 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

'Why do you want to live?'

'Well I don't know exactly why, but I must.'

'That's my answer too.'

1. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
2. A Canterbury Tale
3. A Matter of Life and Death
4. The Red Shoes
5. Peeping Tom
6. I Know Where I'm Going!
7. Oh... Rosalinda!!
8. Black Narcissus
9. The Spy in Black
10. The Small Back Room

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

'People always ask why I don't make independent movies. I do make independent movies - I just make them at Sony and Paramount.'

1. The Social Network
2. Panic Room
3. Se7en
4. Gone Girl
5. Zodiac
6. Fight Club
7. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
8. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
9. The Game
10. Alien³

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I haven't even seen a lot of these. Their titles just sound cool.
If it's based on a book or whatever it doesn't count. The movie can't take credit for the title.

• Star Wars
• The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
• Gun Crazy
• Nuts in May
• Only Angels Have Wings
• The Night of the Hunter
• Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
• A Matter of Life and Death
• Silent Running
• Eyes Wide Shut

...plus 83 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

'I don’t think morality applies to art. It’s a ludicrous idea. I mean, what is the morality of a still life? I don’t think there’s good or bad fruit in the bowl.'

1. Carlito's Way
2. Hi, Mom!
3. Blow Out
4. Snake Eyes
5. Sisters
6. Carrie
7. Dressed to Kill
8. Phantom of the Paradise
9. The Fury
10. Scarface

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Doc! Doc!!! Are you telling me you made a movie.... out of.... motion capture!?!?

1. Back to the Future
2. I Wanna Hold Your Hand
3. Back to the Future Part II
4. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
5. The Walk
6. Death Becomes Her
7. Back to the Future Part III
8. Cast Away
9. Forrest Gump
10. Allied

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My wife is dead and time and reality make no sense anymore

1. The Dark Knight
2. Dunkirk
3. Memento
4. Inception
5. Tenet
6. Batman Begins
7. Interstellar
8. The Prestige
9. Oppenheimer
10. The Dark Knight Rises

'I'd love to go to school and have a normal life, but I don't see any professor at Yale being able to teach me more than Steven Spielberg.'

- Shia LaBeouf

1. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
2. Jaws
3. Jurassic Park
4. Saving Private Ryan
5. Raiders of the Lost Ark
6. Schindler's List
7. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
8. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
9. Bridge of Spies
10. Lincoln

...plus 16 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

'If the critics start liking my movies, then I'm in deep trouble.'

1. Assault on Precinct 13
2. Halloween
3. The Thing
4. In the Mouth of Madness
5. The Fog
6. Escape from New York
7. Christine
8. Starman
9. They Live
10. Big Trouble in Little China

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

', no matter what, it's better to be a live dog than a dead lion.'

1. Something Wild
2. Stop Making Sense
3. Philadelphia
4. The Silence of the Lambs
5. Melvin and Howard
6. Married to the Mob
7. Rachel Getting Married
8. The Manchurian Candidate
9. Ricki and the Flash
10. Swing Shift

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

'I just made pictures I would've liked to see.'

1. Double Indemnity
2. Sunset Boulevard
3. A Foreign Affair
4. Witness for the Prosecution
5. The Apartment
6. Ace in the Hole
7. Some Like It Hot
8. Five Graves to Cairo
9. Sabrina
10. The Lost Weekend

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Quick and the Dead
2. Spider-Man
3. Spider-Man 2
4. Army of Darkness
5. Darkman
6. The Evil Dead
7. A Simple Plan
8. Spider-Man 3
9. Crimewave
10. Drag Me to Hell

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

'Watch me make a movie like Albert Hitchcock'

- Pitbull

1. Vertigo
2. Psycho
3. Shadow of a Doubt
4. Notorious
5. Rear Window
6. Rebecca
7. Dial M for Murder
8. Lifeboat
9. Rope
10. The Man Who Knew Too Much

...plus 12 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2. Heavenly Creatures
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
4. Braindead
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
6. King Kong
7. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
8. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
9. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
10. The Frighteners

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Phantom Thread
2. Punch-Drunk Love
3. Magnolia
4. The Master
5. Licorice Pizza
6. There Will Be Blood
7. Boogie Nights
8. Inherent Vice

This came up in some research I was doing for my history degree, and I thought it was interesting. Collected from a 1990s research project to interview people who used to go to the cinema in their youth in the 30s.

In response to a 'favourite films' question, list is sorted by % of people who mentioned.

1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
2. The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
3. Gone with the Wind
4. Cavalcade
5. All Quiet on the Western Front
6. Mutiny on the Bounty
7. Rose Marie
8. Victoria the Great
9. Lost Horizon
10. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Casino Royale
2. Goldfinger
3. Skyfall
4. You Only Live Twice
5. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
6. No Time to Die
7. The Living Daylights
8. Dr. No
9. Octopussy
10. The Spy Who Loved Me

...plus 15 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

'If it was never new, and it never gets old, then it's a folk song.'

- Llewyn Davis

1. Barton Fink
2. Inside Llewyn Davis
3. Raising Arizona
4. Fargo
5. No Country for Old Men
6. A Serious Man
7. Miller's Crossing
8. True Grit
9. Hail, Caesar!
10. The Man Who Wasn't There

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I'll watch what she's making

1. Sleepless in Seattle
2. Julie & Julia
3. When Harry Met Sally...
4. Heartburn
5. This Is My Life
6. You've Got Mail
7. Michael
8. Lucky Numbers
9. Bewitched

Movies that feel unexplainably tied to the culture of the year they came out in.

Hard to pinpoint why, but when you are watching these, you think to yourself 'oh yeah, this is so [insert release date].'

• The Graduate
• The Matrix
• Targets
• Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
• Miami Vice
• A Canterbury Tale
• Girlfriends
• The Truth About Charlie
• The Manchurian Candidate
• Rachel Getting Married

...plus 14 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Robert Mitchum watches over me while I sleep

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Amadeus
• Barry Lyndon
• Blade Runner
• Chinatown
• Double Indemnity
• Lawrence of Arabia
• The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
• Out of the Past
• Taxi Driver

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

50 of the most notable films from the genre's classic period, gathered from various lists and recommendations.

I'm currently 26/50 on these, still working on it.

• Stranger on the Third Floor
• The Maltese Falcon
• Phantom Lady
• Double Indemnity
• Laura
• The Woman in the Window
• Murder, My Sweet
• Detour
• Scarlet Street
• Leave Her to Heaven

...plus 40 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Yes, I love Pixar sequels. Leave me alone.

1. Toy Story 3
2. Toy Story 2
3. Monsters University
4. Monsters, Inc.
5. Toy Story
6. WALL·E
7. Ratatouille
8. Toy Story 4
9. Finding Dory
10. Finding Nemo

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Harry Brown
• Larry Crowne
• Dolores Claiborne
• Charley Varrick
• Florence Foster Jenkins
• Jerry Maguire
• Barry Lyndon
• Charlie Bartlett
• Miss Sloane
• Billy Bathgate

...plus 9 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Now lemme get this straight
You put the lime in the coconut, you drank 'em bot' up
You put the lime in the coconut, you drank 'em bot' up....

1. Pulp Fiction
2. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
3. Reservoir Dogs
4. Inglourious Basterds
5. The Hateful Eight
6. Jackie Brown
7. Django Unchained
8. Kill Bill: Vol. 1
9. Kill Bill: Vol. 2
10. Death Proof

See my reasons why in the notes!

• Little Women

  The women didn't seem all that little to me. They were the size you would expect for someone of their age.

• If Beale Street Could Talk

  Beale Street didn't talk

• Good Time

  Was more of a Stressful Time than anything

• Unstoppable

  They stopped it

• Rise of the Planet of the Apes

  The Planet of the Apes didn't really rise in this one. It only got started.

• Three Days of the Condor

  This film was not 72 hours long

• The Hateful Eight

  A good portion of the eight were hateful, sure. But a few of them seemed like good people. It isn't fair to generalise like that, Mr. Tarantino

• The Man Who Knew Too Much

  Idk the man actually seemed kinda dumb to me. Who would leave their child unattended like that?

• The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

  We never saw Colonel Blimp die!!!

• Pee-wee's Big Adventure

  I'm not one to judge but it seemed like just a moderately-sized adventure to me.

...plus 22 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Edward Scissorhands
2. Batman Returns
3. Beetlejuice
4. Ed Wood
5. Pee-wee's Big Adventure
6. Batman
7. Sleepy Hollow
8. Big Fish
9. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
10. Mars Attacks!

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Star Wars
2. Return of the Jedi
3. The Empire Strikes Back
4. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
5. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
6. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
7. Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones
8. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
9. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker