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I’m a huge sucker for this kind of Southern Gothic Americana story and I’ve had Wise Blood on my radar for at least a year now, but seeing as it was never going to leave streaming services, hadn’t made time for it until crafting my Criterion Challenge for the year. That much anticipation can be a double-edged sword, but the film wound up being exactly what I hoped it would be, which is crazy considering John Huston was in his seventies when he pulled off something this fresh and haunting.

I really love how freewheeling and poetic the film feels. There isn’t a big ensemble or anything, but most of the focus is tied around a few pillars, and then the characters often wander off on their own. This kind of spirit isn't something I can find in enough movies. It feels very slice-of-life laced with a fun satirical edge. I was also unaware how much the ending influenced another movie that I’m a huge fan of. That was a neat surprise.

It’s almost a little weird seeing Pasolini making a film that runs so close to the ground of the Italian neo-realism style, given how surreal and peculiar so much of his stuff that he’s known for is. This is like something Vittorio De Sica might’ve made. And after thinking about it for a few minutes, I guess I wish that Pasolini had made a few more films in this style before embracing his artistry and continuing his career.

If you’ve seen the famous films that De Sica is known for, you’re more or less getting exactly that with Mamma Roma. It’s not quite as tight and masterful, and there is a feeling of a young director still trying to figure himself out while embracing the style his country was known for. He does that extremely well, but there felt like a ceiling was stuck on just how precise he was going to be able to make it. That said, drawing comparisons to De Sica is an incredible compliment.

I had a far better time reading about the back-and-forth court battles this film waged to overcome dumb obscenity laws when it was released than the two hours I spent watching the movie. For something that garnered so much controversy for some nudity and sexual content, it isn’t very sexy, isn’t very provocative, and isn’t very clever. You’ve seen a lot of this kind of stuff since, and it’s done more compellingly almost everywhere.

I give it some credit for trying to bring forth some original political commentary, but it feels deeply rooted in late 1960s Sweden, not in the topics they discuss, not in the way a time capsule might be, but in the way that these themes, many of which are universal, aren’t broached on a deep enough level to still be all that interesting. There is an ambitious swing being taken here. But it didn’t really hold up on a dramatic or intellectual level. It gets very, very dull.

This is as fascinating a portrait I’ve seen made for any artist. It’s like one of those documentaries that would usually be made after someone es, looking back on who they were as a person and artist, but made when Jane Berkin was turning forty, by her friend, Agnes Varda, instead. It’s a sweet, loving look at the woman she was, how she got where she was, her artistic and personal aspirations, and her current family life. It’s also two friends hanging out and making interesting, personal shit, together.

It’s lovely watching Varda and Birkin sitting behind and in front of a camera, talking about life and who Birkin is/wants to be, while coming up with interesting vignettes for Birkin to perform. It all functions as a tribute to her spirit and their friendship and is way more watchable than the typical biopic/vanity documentary we see so often today. They’re so full of life and personality, and I loved every bit of it.

I’m pretty sure that Hour of the Wolf is regarded as Bergman’s only horror film, but The Magician steers pretty damn close to that territory. There are some genuinely chilling images that he packs into this underrated (relative to the rest of his oeuvre) gem that is equal parts haunting, carnivalesque tale and a director reflecting on his place in cinema after a historical run in the 1950s.

Each new (to me) Bergman film I come across is another exercise in getting frustrated that there once existed some person who could, almost yearly, drop dramas that are this engaging, full of memorable and believable characters, delving into humanity. The Magician is more of a self-introspective piece in relation to Bergman’s own work and craft, which gives it a unique flavor he didn’t touch on much. I liked it a lot.

The two most immediate thoughts after the film ended was how cool it is to have all your friends and co-workers come together after your death to help preserve your dance pieces beyond your life for generations to come to enjoy and how fucking awesome those overhead train things throughout are. I’m a big fan of those now and would do anything to get them here widely. How steampunk!

I’m not as into the art of dance as other people, so it wore a bit thin for my personal preferences. But on a technical level, Wenders created an immersive, beautifully composed dance film, accompanied by people blissfully reminiscing about Pina Bausch. It’s touching to see so much love and ion, not just for the woman, but also for her work, shine through each person working to present it to the biggest audience possible.

It kind of blows my mind that Sergei Eisenstein basically got an assignment from Stalin to make something borderline hagiographic, and this is the historical drama that he turned in, with some of the best-looking shot compositions and a sweeping score. Ivan the Terrible had a very interesting production cycle if you’re interested in a bunch of political drama behind the scenes. Yet the movie manages to be even more thrilling than that.

My only hangup with the film is that the visuals are suitably epic and are often jaw-dropping, but are never matched in stature by its story and characters. It’s weirdly missing an extra something, and even the battle scene feels smaller in scale and intensity, like an intimate drama trying to hide the corners. It’s missing an intangible something extra to grab me and launch the film into a tier above. It comes very close, though, through sheer style.

Watching Bible salesmen attempt to shill for a $50 (~$435.69 today) luxury bible across middle America in the 1960s is more entertaining than it might sound to you, but not as much as I hoped it would be. Some people seem to love this documentary, and I hoped it’d be zippier because of how they talked about it. There is a great energy to watching capitalism try to eat the poor, but it didn’t grab and hold me like I expected. The hook wasn’t strong enough for me.

That said it’s still really interesting to exist as a fly on the wall and get a peek at how the salesmen traveled, worked and lived and the same to the regular people they’re trying to milk dry for luxury bibles, perhaps the most American bullshit product you can think of. It’s a sad sort of life that seems to have faded drastically from its heights, and you can feel the desperation from both sides of the sale.

The second installment of Marcel Pagnol’s Marseille trilogy is just as good as the first film and has me wondering why these aren’t more heavily ired and widely discussed when people speak of classics of world cinema. Fanny was originally the ending of this particular story, being the last of the three to be adapted from the stage. Pagnol must’ve felt these characters were as irresistible as I did, and we got a finale movie four years down the line.

Just like Marius, Fanny suffers a bit from being a sound film in the early 1930s. That pacing is slow, and it takes a while for the film to find a rhythm. The slice-of-life aspects are watchable purely because I like the characters, but the first act especially feels like a lot of treading water. There’s a masterpiece in here if you trimmed some of the fat of both parts and cut together a three-ish hour epic.

There were numerous warning signs that this movie could fall on its face, dating back to hiring Len Wiseman to direct a few years back. I don’t know if we’ll ever find out just how much Chad Sthelski reshot, but it’s nice to say his action DNA is all over this film and continues the series tradition of unleashing inventive, bone-crunching set pieces, only improved by their incredible sound mixing, especially in the Dolby format.

I think they realized the first cut of the film was pretty shit and they did their best to hide the framework and glue that holds the film together in reshoots. The script is some of the most late-2000s Hollywood action blockbuster stuff I’ve seen in a while. Two times it tries to throw in a twist or a reveal, and it flat out doesn’t work. It's most notably rough in the third act that comes screeching to a halt for some momentary fanservice, but the rebound is strong enough.

At no point are we ever more than five minutes from more action kicking off. It’s goofier, resulting in stronger slapstick overtones thanks to the delivery of most of its lines. It doesn’t have the same brooding coolness of the core Wick films, which seems intentional, as it gives Ana de Armas her own unique character in the franchise. She isn’t just a copy of Reeves’ Wick. The film has its own unique, if recognizable, flavor.

Even her fighting style is different enough from Wick’s that it provides variance in how the fight scenes play out. There’s still plenty of creative carnage across the gunfights, grenade fights, melees, flamethrower duels, and an array of other weapons she gets her hands on. It’s all shot beautifully, has some of the best unintrusive CGI blood (stylized brilliantly) and CGI fire I’ve seen in any movie, and packed all the thrills I could’ve wanted. I was grinning like an idiot almost the entire time.

I kind of think this film would be more fun to have someone with several months, if not years, on their hands break everything down moment to moment, line by line, to explain all the references, ideas, and thoughts that went into each moment of the film, than it was to watch. Godard’s King Lear feels littered with such ideas that I don’t think I have remotely enough knowledge to parse. I’m glad I caught it once, though.

I don’t think the film is impenetrable, but it requires more attention, time, and probably a quick, accurate hand to rewind certain bits to begin to grasp everything he’s loaded onto your plate. This is among the densest films I’ve ever seen, and given Godard’s nature, he sure wants to give you a challenge in deciphering even the slightest meanings. It’s not designed to be enjoyed so much as analyzed. Do with that what you want, I guess.

This is only my fourth Buster Keaton film, and I’ll still probably have to check out more of them because they’re so highly regarded and significant to film history, but I don’t think they’re going to hit me as hard as they do for those who adore the man’s work. The Cameraman is neither my favorite nor least favorite of his classics, but his role as a gag man seems to often take precedence over tying the whole thing together.

And to his credit those gags are some very inventive shit. The guy comes up with some very clever sequences that had me laughing a good bit. But a lot of these feel oddly superficial and irrelevant to the plot and/or the themes. I suppose that doesn’t matter, considering the level of craft that Keaton is working on, especially for the time, but I wasn’t engaged in this emotionally or intellectually. Nothing really grabbed me like I expected, given The Cameraman’s reputation.

A forty-year-old man wants to kill his wife due to the illegality of divorce so that he can marry his sixteen-year-old cousin. When the film claimed to be Italian Style, it seemingly was giving answers that you wouldn’t glean just from the title before seeing the film. It also makes for a pretty great farce, consistently coming up with funny shit to throw on the screen for the audience to have a laugh at.

It also managed to surprise me with a few of the beats it stuck to. It manages to keep a certain level of cartoonishness without feeling contrived or getting out of hand. You can buy into the drama and the situation without feeling like you’re watching a mediocre Peter Sellers comedy. Mastroianni is a true movie star and brings a great presence wherever he goes. There’s more depth here than I expected.

These late Fellini films feel like an old man who’s still got a thing or two he wants to say, but his juice isn’t really there that made his most famous work pop. Ginger and Fred feels like him giving Marcello Mastroianni and his wife, Giulietta Masina, both of whom’s most famous roles were thanks to him, one last (light) Felliniesque send-off. It’s none of the three’s best work. It's honestly not much more than that winding-down moment.

Fellini is still a good enough director that he manages to compose a solid enough film, and his two leads still have it. But this isn’t something people talk about when they talk Fellini films, and it's mostly because it's just pretty boring. His satire of television is very broad and not that funny. Amelia and Pippo aren’t great characters, and I wasn’t that invested in this story. I dunno, I thought it was just flat all around.

It’s pretty rare to come across a romantic drama so warm, sweet, tender, and genuine. Desert Hearts isn’t concerned with anything other than the electric chemistry between Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau, leading you on in all the ways you want any good romance story to before giving you just about everything you could want to see from these people. It hits all the notes and doesn’t exactly trip on the way there.

I’m also a big fan of films that feel quintessential Americana, and where can you find that better than small-town America in the 1950s? It’s got that perfect, anything can happen on this wide open land, feeling that so many films from the 1970s have that I love. It’s a borderline miracle that someone managed to replicate that in the 1980s. I’d say that I wonder why Donna Deitch didn’t get the opportunity to make more movies like this, but I think we all know why.

After watching the first film in Marcel Pagnol’s Marseille Trilogy, I’m coming up with reasons as to why these aren’t more heralded as classics. It seems like it being almost 75 years old before its recent restoration plays a big factor, another being that I’m unsure if it had much of a following post-WWII through today in of directors inspired by the films. I’d love to know more about its reputation in and outside of over the last nearly 100 years to figure all that out.

The film takes some time to gain momentum as it is still a product of the 1930s. But once it gets humming, it begins to come together like a prime Linklater film as young people hang around Marseille and try to piece together what they want out of their futures. The romance works very well. There are legitimately funny comedic bits interspersed into the day-to-day, and the characters are all very compelling. It even avoids feeling visually trapped by its technological limitations and origins as a play. Marius is a promising start to the trilogy and something of a forgotten gem.

I only found out Alan Rudolph was the protégé of Robert Altman a few months ago after having seen two of his films and not clocking it. Watching Choose Me with that knowledge makes it so apparent that I spent most of the runtime wondering how I missed that on Afterglow and My Name. The DNA is there, and while it somewhat feels second-hand, watching Rudolph tap into Altman’s bag is pretty fun.

I don’t think the film was ever quite as funny as some people seem to say, and I wasn’t particularly into the characters’ relationships on an emotional level, but they’re so messy that it’s hard not to be entertained by the sultry come-ons and the sheer audacity of these people. The Teddy Pendergrass songs are solid, but the 80s isn’t exactly my favorite period for music or art, and the atmosphere things from that decade produced are highly evident in the film.

Always pretty fun learning about a culture you don’t know much about and seeing how much warmth and hope the people involved try to bring to the world. Buena Vista Social Club is a very feel-good movie in that regard, with a lot of fun, colorful musical performances showcasing, at the time, talent that hadn’t been brought to the world stage for socio-political reasons. It’s a fantastic showcase for them.

I don’t think it's always the most engaging and feels too broad, rather than spotlighting any particular stories or throughlines. I didn’t really grow an emotional attachment to any of the people, but their spirits were more than enough to keep my interest. The most compelling part of the film was watching them explore Manhattan for the first time towards the end. I also wish the film hadn’t been shot in that mini-DV style, but it was the late 90s, and people were trying new things. It just doesn’t look great.

I always find it a nice surprise when a film that starts like such a breezy road trip movie as Il Soro reveals it’s got some serious depth and weight to it when the final title card hits and the orchestra flares up one last time. Maybe I’m just easily impressed by films that can cozily lure you in and haunt you after they’re finished, it isn’t super often you can get an experience that potent. You don’t get it that often.

Italy looks fittingly beautiful, and the dichotomy of old Italy and new Italy playing such a key role makes for compelling strife. I’m also a fan of this “carefree man opens the world up for a younger guy” type of story. It’s pretty easy on the eyes when the film is about attractive people exploring attractive lands and just trying to have a good time. That’s really how the film gets you. There’s always something you want to be looking at.

I wasn’t sure I was going to watch this film, but then I figured if they decided to make a musical out of it, there had to be something there, and I’m glad I followed this shoddy judgment through. Light in the Piazza is a beautiful, very fun little romantic comedy featuring plenty of location shooting in Rome and Florence to give it that authentic European vacation feel. It’s a literal Hollywood destination wedding.

The real magic of the film is that the level of dramatic honesty feels almost novel, given the decade it was made. It doesn’t feel like your typical melodramatic, deeply artificial romance that was being mass-produced in the 1950s and 1960s. Its commitment to realness gives it a very sweet and sincere vibe with believable characters played by attractive and charismatic actors. It’s basic, but it works very well.

If nothing else, Where Eagles Dare is proof that if you create a fun enough spectacle, nothing else will really matter. The film isn’t much more besides a men at war adventure with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood as they fuck up some Nazis and a bunch of shit explodes. That sounds more basic than it is but the action hits, the adventure aspects have a nice variety of roadblocks and challenges to overcome, and everything is really damn fun.

There isn’t much to say about the story considering it’s pretty messy and convoluted, but Eastwood and Burton are too damn cool to care that much and things move along quickly throughout the entire two-and-a-half hours. My biggest gripe is that this hasn’t (going off the copy TCM aired) gotten a proper restoration since the early days of Blu-ray at best. It’s muddy and difficult to make out details, which are more annoying than you’d think.

I wasn’t even a fan of I Think You Should Leave when I watched the first season back in 2019, and Friendship still hit really hard. I was slightly worried that it would feel like a drawn-out sketch, but Andrew DeYoung keeps coming up with situations explicitly tailored to Tim Robinson’s brand of humor without any of them feeling contrived. And as each new scene ramps things up and flies off the rails, Robinson keeps doing funny shit.

Paul Rudd balances between an object with an inhuman stoic deadpan delivery and an actual person scene to scene. He makes for a great straight man, even when only his presence is lingering in the background. It was also nice to see Kate Mara used well again. I feel like I haven’t seen her around in years. I’m glad I was able to catch this with a reasonably sized crowd. The energy in that room was infectious. I had a blast.

I’d been hearing all weekend about how Bring Her Back was this super bleak, downer from A24 that finally saw them get a film that reached the heights of Hereditary. I’m here to tell you, if you’ve been hearing the same things, temper those expectations. It is super bleak and full of despair, and offers up some of the nastiest gore and brutal violence I’ve seen in a mainstream horror film recently, but doesn’t offer a ton outside of those two goals. I expected more.

It almost feels like a movie that was built from its ending backward, with a few gnarly scenes interspersed throughout. It was fun watching Sally Hawkins play someone so different from her usual type. But the film struggles to balance the mystery of the unknown with its heavy foreshadowing, leaving her stuck playing fairly one-note. There isn’t one twist that took me by surprise, given how explicitly everything gets spelled out beforehand. It leaves you sitting in the chair just waiting for the movie to catch up.

And that's where my main frustrations with Bring Her Back lie. The horror aspects are terrifying, one scene had me plug one of my ears and duck below the brim of my hat from the sheer skin-crawling visual. However, those visuals take such a focus that it kind of feels as if the Philippou brothers didn’t care to develop the characters or the story. There’s a weird disconnection between the words and actions and the rest of the film. The ideas never quite come together.

I stand by my opinion that no movie is better for having Robert Aldrich behind the camera, but he does know how to navigate a script, and he’ll get a slightly above-average movie out of it. He certainly doesn’t make things worse, and he has an uncanny eye for picking really interesting projects. Ulzana’s Raid fits the bill as another revisionist Western that wanted its audience to leave going “yeah, we’re doing terrible crimes in Vietnam” after watching the colonizers use similar tactics against the natives. It’s not entirely new ground, but it continues to make for great movies.

Ulzana’s Raid is similarly dark and bleak, going full New Hollywood gore and violence to build an American West atmosphere much more full of dread and scary than many other Westerns. It truly feels lawless with death lingering everywhere. I don’t think Aldrich is good enough of a director to narrow in on the main characters and make that drama as much of a draw, but the story, on the surface at least, is interesting enough to keep things going.

Soldier Blue is a rare revisionist Western that drives its points about the US being a nation founded on the back of genocidal settlers with some of the most grisly violence and unflinching brutality I’ve seen from an American film, especially for 1970. It’s horrific enough that it borders on exploitation territory just from the sheer quantities and bluntness, even opening with a title scroll that warns of the events at the end of that film. Never seen that before.

I was skeptical about the decision to cast Peter Strauss because he looks and acts like he’s straight out of a 1950s beach party movie, but the longer the film went on, the more thematically fitting it felt that the male lead looked like an all-American boy. It helps drive the film’s points home, even if he is about as strong an actor as those who would be cast in those films as well. It all works out in the end.

On the topic of the rest of the film, it does run a little long, and I don’t think it absolutely nails the tonal balance it was going for. But it’s already such an ambitious and borderline reckless task, taking full advantage of the new possibilities brought forward at the start of New Hollywood. It’s a bit heavy-handed and lacking in nuance, it should feel heavier than it does. But it is full of originality and genuine daring. I quite liked it for what it was. It feels like it should haunt me for a little bit.

Stardust Memories was one of the Woody Allen films I most wanted to see, but it never came to streaming, so I got tired of waiting, and now here I am. Allen, in his prime, doing a riff on Fellini’s 8½, makes for plenty of material, and you can kind of imagine how it goes. The guy’s eye for European arthouse images is pretty great, and his wit still cracked as the 1980s came around. Allen still has things to say, even if he adamantly claims this wasn’t autobiographical.

It was funny checking the critical reviews of the time and discovering how lambasted it was for feeling too whiny and self-centered, which I don’t think is inaccurate, but it all felt very playful. Where the film trips hardest is when it comes time to wrap things up. Allen has an interesting idea there, but it feels forced in a “well, the movie’s runtime is nearing a close, time to wrap it up,” and it does feel a little unsatisfying and sudden. I don’t think it entirely worked out.

Broken Arrow represents a Hollywood that finally realized it had to reckon with its, as an extension of America’s, treatment of native Americans in the movies, and they go about it the only way they knew how. By hiring a bunch of white actors they believed brought the proper stature and voices to play natives, slather them in red face, and hire a 16-year-old love interest for Jimmy Stewart. That's showbiz, baby!

All in all, it represents the first cog beginning to turn for a country reckoning with its past via popular entertainment. It’s obviously incredibly dated and doesn’t nail what it’s trying to do, but its heart is mostly in the right place, at least on the surface, for 1950. My real issue with it is that it’s just really damn boring. This is a dull, plodding story that, while shot well, doesn’t leave much to chew on in 2025. It’s an interesting historical relic, but it’s not an entertaining movie.

I went into this one fairly skeptical as nobody I know seemed to enjoy it but I came away pretty damn amused. I don’t think the grounded, realistic presentation plays into the more screwball nature of a lot of the jokes and gags. There is an energy missing that, under a more freewheeling direction, could’ve made for a far funnier film. But so many of those jokes land while the clever premise makes for a fun movie nonetheless.

It helps that you have Robert Redford exuding an effortless cool as the leader of this ragtag gang to anchor the film. He plays a great straight man to the kooiker, but still probably not goofy enough, crew he’s got, as they repeatedly draw up heists and watch those plans go up in flames. It’s a pretty simple premise when you step back and look at it, but it delivers something fresh and fun each time. I thought it worked well.

Duel in the Sun has producer vanity project written all over it, starting with a nine and a half minute orchestral prelude before the overture begins as Orson Welles describes the inspiration of the film we’re about to watch only to fade into a shot of the sky and pan down to the offices of David O. Selznick before the title crawl finally begins nearly fifteen minutes into the film. There’s a thin line between ambition and pompousness. This film flies way over it.

According to the Martin Scorsese introduction on TCM, Selznick, high off his ass on different kinds of pills and other drugs to keep him going, wanted Duel in the Sun to eclipse the massive, unfathomable success of Gone with the Wind and from that opening thirty minutes you can feel the movie loudly screaming at you about how important and prestigious it is. The production values are sublime, and it’s very clear no expense was spared making a spectacle. They just forgot to insert a heart to get the film going.

This doesn’t bother me as much as others because I love a Golden Age style epic of excess. This style of filmmaking does it for me, and despite the only able story at its core, I was able to lose myself in the vastness of the scenes, even if it was begging to be shot in expansive widescreen, but Hollywood hadn’t quite gotten there yet. Jones is pretty good as a lead, even if she doesn’t beat the “you’re mostly here because you were sleeping with the producer” allegations, but most importantly, she’s very sultry and makes it work.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is the directorial debut of world-famous man, George Clooney. He’s since gone on directing (mostly) mediocre films for the next twenty years, but Good Night and Good Luck is good, so I assumed he must’ve shown promise toward the start, but as it turns out, not really. He’s blessed with an incredibly interesting story to tell, but he doesn’t have half the instinct behind the camera that he does in front of it.

There are a lot of choices made with the camera and aesthetic that feel like someone with enough clout to be handed the director’s chair after they’d been hanging around Soderbergh and the Coen Brothers. There’s no consistency to it. Some of the flourishes are neat, many of them feel like they’re just there to go “look what I can do” in a desperate plea for recognition. It’s intrusive. Charlie Kaufman’s script is good enough to get a solid movie out of it, but there’s a better version of this from a better director in another universe.

This is a lesson that you can’t just plug the Hollywood noir melodrama into the Italian neorealist style, but I’d be lying if I said the experiment doesn’t make for one of the most visually interesting and intriguing noirs out there. I don’t feel that the visual language matches the hokey script and typical dialogue at all, but then you’re shown characters running around 1940s New York, and you suddenly feel very forgiving.

This is an interesting attempt to blend two very different styles, and I appreciate the ambition on display. It even works in parts, but there was no way they would’ve ever been allowed to make something too realistic and gritty, being forced to stick to a more familiar American style of storytelling. It forces the atmosphere and, for the time, unique on-location production to do a lot of heavy lifting, but it works out well enough for everyone. It’s like using a hammer to fit a square peg through a round hole. You can manage, but it takes some effort.

More than once, I’ve started up a Mike Leigh film and found myself wondering why I’m doing this to myself. His films are stocked full of some of the most realistic, grounded and genuine portraits of working class people with problems you can identify with and inevitably hit very close for comfort. There are glimmers of light, but it almost feels like they’re mocking the characters because, despite what love can heal, life will continue to bowl you over. It all feels hopeless.

And maybe that speaks more to where I’m at personally than the movie, but the weight that All or Nothing sets on your head and then continues to grow heavier the longer the film goes on gets to me. Sure, there are absolutely brilliant monologues and stunning performances, just look at that final conversation between Spall and Manville. But you really have to put up with the dire and bleak atmosphere that eats at you to get to see those gems. It’s just so fucking depressing.

It’s been ten years since Slow West dropped and seemed to gather a solid underground reputation. Now, John Maclean is back with another very atmospheric and moody neo-Western, this time with samurai action flair. It’s pretty clear that he didn’t have the budget to fully deliver on the thrills to the extremes he wants to, nor is his writing all that sharp. This would be a better film if nobody talked except for Tim Roth and the occasional henchman.

I think Maclean is really weak when it comes to characterization, and leaning more into genre to cover those weaknesses would’ve made for fewer unforced potholes. But that cinematography is still gorgeous, and he knows how to use the sun as well as anyone. I thought the colors were a little dim and didn’t pop as well as Slow West, but there are a lot of striking images accompanied by a pretty sublime score. It creates a solid atmosphere that ultimately carries the movie. It's the definition of an IFC Films film.

I guess it's inevitable that, in a series of films that reaches six entries, you’ll eventually come across one that finally bores you. It’s taken five films, but Baby Cart in the Land of Demons is the first time I’ve watched one of these films and felt genuine disappointment that the persistent fervor and insane levels of creative fight choreography and gleeful violence weren’t there. Almost everything I love about Lone Wolf and Cub, besides a few short scenes, doesn’t begin piling in until the final act.

And even when it arrives, it’s far from the most memorable stuff this franchise has offered us. Honestly, despite still being above your average action movie, I’m not sure if I’ll more than one or two specific moments when I think back on the series. It’s a shame too, because even at this base level it still manages to be pretty damn amusing. But I know what the series is capable of, and it doesn’t deliver those highs.

If you’re going to make a tourism ad your two main draws being about how beautiful Rome looks, even when the color grade is so off that Alec Baldwin glows red, and how outrageously horny visiting or living in the city makes everyone, will get people’s attention. Come see the sights, hear the sounds, and get your rocks off for the low price of whatever is as good a sales pitch as any.

I’d be very curious to know what Woody Allen thinks of a lot of his post-2000, especially post-2010s films. There seems to be a lot of them where he doesn’t have anything to say, realizes it, and coasts on writing punchy dialogue and casting a new generation of actors who wanted to work with him. Everyone does a great job here finding the humor, and one segment even finds some depth that feels eerily reminiscent of modern influencer culture, consistently delivering laughs and interesting storylines. It doesn’t amount to a ton, but I had way more fun than I expected to with To Rome with Love.

I’ve finally done it. I’ve discovered a giallo that I enjoyed enough to convince me that, even with such a low hit rate, I should abandon these pursuits of mediocrity in the hope that I find one as amusing as this. I think the general thing that helped elevate this above the typically lackluster giallos that Criterion uses to fill its catalog was how much this one leans into being more of a police/crime thriller.

For once, the general mystery that runs through the film was the most compelling part of the film. Sure, people get murdered and there's some classic, harsh giallo violence, but it's not nearly as gratuitous or in focus as many of its contemporaries. It’s genuinely interesting, and the conspiracy feels big, scary, and fairly believable. There’s power in its truth to haunt you or at least creep you out a bit on an existential level.

Welp, Criterion got me again. They once again programmed a giallo, which has an ittedly very intriguing title, that turned out to be pretty bad. Strip Nude for Your Killer dangles its two draws in your face, promising nudity and violent murder. It delivers on those two promises but gives you little more than your average slasher to indulge in. Luckily we’re never more than ten minutes away from a new pair of tits, but isn’t that what Google is for?

I guess if all you need is some crazy levels of sleaze and some colorful lights, this might cut it for you. ittedly, I’m not huge on a lot of these deeper cut giallos in general. The vast quantities of style (in this case, not much) over substance don’t do much for me when the mystery might as well not matter, and the characters exist just to get knocked down, without even a personality for the protagonist. This has been a pretty poor use of time.

Union Pacific is considered the first lineal Palme d’Or winner, although retroactively awarded in 2002 due to the outbreak of WWII, just before the original 1939 festival could be held. I wonder what its historical standing would be if not for that fact, because while Union Pacific is an impressively made, pretty solid Western, it's greatly overshadowed by what John Ford did with Stagecoach two months before.

The big difference here is the attention to scale and detail that was building a railroad across the country, so vast that the studio had to get a regulation railroad operating license to make the film. The major set pieces are still very impressive, and I had a lot of fun trying to spot the various movie magic tricks. Even the character writing and drama don’t feel overbearing or melodramatic. However, you really feel that 1930s pacing as things progress at a rather slow pace. It shows its age in some regards, but while reaching for and practically nailing a timeless quality.

This film filled me with a deep despair and sadness from the start and didn’t let up until it was over. You might be thinking to yourself, “Well, yes, that is the point of Lord of the Flies.” But I don’t even mean it like that. This was more along the lines of “this is palpably sad and I feel bad for the kids having to navigate these characters while seemingly stranded on an island and then released back into a world where they’ll finally understand the parable.”

As for the film itself, it employs a more documentary, modern style, which helps make it feel more real. The kids are all solid enough, even if my emotional reactions were driven more by the atmosphere and external stimuli than their performances. It feels a tad drawn out at even ninety-minutes given how it's impossible to not already be familiar with the Lord of the Flies story by twenty-five. It accomplishes what it needs to.

I am such a fucking sucker for a true to form adventure film and I didn’t expect to stumble across one as warm as this one wound up being. I love how the weathered and worn out print on Criterion Channel feels like you’re watching a copy that was marooned on an island for a few decades like the titular character. The roughness, faded colors and washed out look add so much character to the film.

It was interesting watching Luis Buñuel working with something less surreal and more straightforward storywise. This is a simple man versus nature tale and he sprinkles in a healthy amount of existential dread as time rolls on and Crusoe can’t do anything but deal with it. Nothing about it feels too manufactured, melodramatic or sentimental either, which is impressive for an English film in 1954. I don’t think this could’ve gone much better.

I can’t be convinced that this entire film wasn’t conceived off the idea of McQuarrie coming to Cruise to relay the message that this was going to be the last chance they’d get to do one of these and asking him what two or three things he most wanted to do before Ethan Hunt rode off into the sunset. I’d assume that the biplane sequence you’ve seen all over the promotion for the film had been on his mind for a while, so they put a team together, went to a gorgeous location, and shot it.

Seeing as Tom didn’t die, it was time for him to come up with a second large-scale suicide attempt. Tom, clearly wanting to outdo the underwater stunt from a prior movie, decided it was now or never, so they figured out how that could fit into the film, which wasn’t that difficult if you’ve seen the prior movie, and shot it. Then they were sitting in the editing room, with a 164-minute-long first part of the story already out there, and had to figure out what kind of events could have possibly led to these sequences while closing the door on the franchise.

The result is a 170-minute trial for your patience. I’ve seen the surprisingly negative reviews that almost unanimously blasted the first 90-100 minutes as feeling like endlessly circling the drain, regurgitating a ton of exposition, many of which gets recycled to new talking heads as the ensemble recklessly expands by the minute, with a degree of self-seriousness that starts making the film feel like MacGruber.

Occasionally, things get broken up by a fight or some running, but nothing that memorable, let alone awe-inspiring, like the series is known for. You're left waiting for things to finally begin, resulting in what feels like a ninety-minute first act on top of what already existed in the last film. However, the promise of seeing Tom Cruise do unbelievable shit is dangling in front of you, and because of that, I was willing to put up with it.

We finally get to the first big set piece, and, by god, is it breathtaking. This is why we’ve dubbed Cruise “Mr. Movies.” I’ve never seen shit like that before. The scale of the stunt is wild, and it really makes you wonder how nobody was seriously injured while shooting it. Once again, the series blends the line between reality and Hollywood magic impeccably, and the film makes you forget how much it tested you for the ninety-ish prior minutes.

But almost immediately after you’re done being wowed by the insane tenacity of one Mr. Thomas Cruise, you’re thrust right back into the endless throng of exposition, and the film, once again, grinds to a halt. We’re only at the two-hour mark. You begin to think about everything that’s being said, and the self-elegiac nature of it all starts to rise to the surface. The film isn't flashy enough to hide it, and is delivering these bland points like they’re vital to the enjoyment of the film. No, Tom. I am not here for the story or to hear how great you are. I already know of your greatness. Now just do some cool shit, I'm begging you.

And this is where my relationship with this franchise may hurt my enjoyment of the film, compared to a superfan. I like the other movies well enough, but don't revere them like others. There feels like an intense focus on tying off strings that casual fans probably forgot exist or weren’t even aware of in the first place, turning into oddly pedantic thread tying that, since we’ve finally gotten shown what the film could be with the stuntacular reprieve, more or less drowns you back into the abyss, waiting for Tom to take to the skies as vaunted in every piece of marketing this film has had.

But if you are that superfan, these contrived and ridiculous delivery mechanisms may not bother you. I was getting Rise of Skywalker vibes from its matter-of-factness, but to each their own. I think it falls into a trap of trying too hard, making sure everything checks out, rather than trusting its audience to pick and choose how deeply they want to follow along and care. There is no reason this film should feel as thinly spread as it does, other than to get so many actors a payday. It’s not like anyone outside of Ethan has much of a character.

Many people popped in, and I have no clue who they are or why they’re here. They get no definition, serve almost exactly one plot beat, most of which simply relay information, and are promptly disposed of. The villain is still weak as shit, but at least I can appreciate that metaphor. There wasn't even breakout potential on paper for anyone. Nobody gets anything that memorable to work with. But I suppose that's also why we call him Mr. Movies. He gets his people paid. I can respect that.

This brings us to the final act. The one you’ve seen, as I’ve said almost as many times as the film prefers to retell you information, from all the marketing. And, once again, Tom Cruise does insane shit that no actor will ever showcase the balls in attempting ever again. He’s truly the last cowboy. He’s Mr. Motherfucking Movies for a reason. I have issues with how they cut in and out of the first half of the stunt, keeping it from gaining momentum until they’re finished with all the minute details of the poor excuses for side characters. But when it comes time to defy death, Tom turns his head, tells the Reaper “not yet,” and delivers once more to close the movie on its highest point.

And that’s where my problem begins. Final Reckoning is more or less Tom Cruise’s Megalopolis. It’s a film that, in this current moment, feels like one last hurrah for a level of craft and ambition that we will likely never see again on film. Who is ever going to cheat death like this again? It’s a film of extremely high highs and despairing lows. It’s nothing short of a complete fucking mess and I am so curious to know how Tom took that reality in the editing room. There’s absolutely no way he wasn’t aware of this. It begs the question of how he read that script and went forward anyway. Maybe that’s the answer. There just never was a script, and they tried to patchwork it. You know what? I choose to believe that.

And honestly, I could still forgive it for how sloppy so much of the glue is if it weren’t nearly three-fucking hours. He has great actors who know how to work the camera when allowed. They’re just so rarely allowed to take that spotlight, often working with painfully stilted material. If Tom is on screen, he gets all the focus, for better and worse. This is his movie, and he isn't about to let anyone make a name on his send-off.

The dialogue isn’t even that witty this time. The sense of camaraderie isn’t there. It’s a film that keeps stumbling and getting back up, refusing to stay down but unable to look ahead and avoid the landmines. Even the score doesn’t rouse the emotions as the best this series has to offer so frequently does. There are long stretches of tensionless, flat dialogue spurted by people who are frankly above it. No movie should get in its own way this much.

This is now, by far, the longest thing I’ve ever written for this site, and it's total stream of consciousness vomit, so I thank you if you managed to survive this long. I imagine the experience was akin to watching this film without the rewarding bits sprinkled along the way. But even with this all out on the page, I’m still not entirely sure how to feel about the film. There’s so much about it I respect, down to Tom Cruise trying to preserve a spectacle only cinema can produce. He’s one of the last gatekeepers we’ve got, and he tried his best. It just doesn’t come together for a great final adventure.

I’m unsure how to weigh this ambition against what I had to endure. Sure, there are moments of pure elation, but so much in between is mind-numbing and redundant. It didn’t have to be this way, but this is Hollywood, and you don’t get unlimited time to work things out. I thank Tom for taking one last ridiculous swing and giving me two set pieces I will for a long time. But there are still two hours of movie around that, and that’s a whole lot of work for the reward.

I think I enjoy my noir more along the lines of the American style with snappy, witty dialogue punctuated by violence as we careen towards highly contrasted uncertainty. Touches Pas au Grisbi leans too deep into gangster drama for my liking. I just prefer the noir archetypes and tropes over the gangster ones. It makes for better films, and this hybrid feels like one foot in one bucket and the other foot in a different bucket. Pick a bucket. Please.

The film has a lot of great camera work to play with contrast. It knows how to dabble in shadows very well. The main drama is compelling, but it doesn’t feel like a mystery enough to really grab me. It’s also on the slower side of gangster film, and it does feel like we’re just waiting for the inevitable explosive finale. This is a lot of ripping on a movie that I generally liked, but it was one of those experiences where I can see how it could’ve shaped into something different that I’d have enjoyed more. It’s a bit frustrating to discover something isn’t entirely for you.

The Exiles holds the status of being a rare film about the authentic modern experience of Native Americans in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It appears to have been built off the back of interviews with several people as they talk about what their days look like and where they’re at mentally, which is then somewhat reenacted for the scenes, creating this sort of docu-fiction hybrid. It makes for a great time-capsule and document, but it’s hit and miss as a movie.

I feel that picking between being a more boots-on-the-ground documentary or a neo-realist drama would’ve made for a better film, and it does feel like the hybrid resulted more because of the filmmaker's inexperience than anything. At least it shows some genuine ambition to make something about a group of people who nobody else was really covering, let alone like this. It certainly has a uniqueness to it.

Now this is what I expected when I checked out the original Pink Panther this morning. Narrowing the focus to Clouseau and his investigation was the right move, which makes the fact that this script was an adaptation of a play completely unrelated to The Pink Panther that Blake Edwards agreed to direct if he could remove the main character and insert Sellers’ bumbling inspector, which sounds infuriating if you were the author of the original piece, but made for a good movie.

The result of all these tweaks makes A Shot in the Dark one of the largest leaps I’ve seen a sequel take over its original. Sellers is hilarious, and the film is full of very clever sight gags, one-liners, and is creative at coming up with odd situations to stick Clouseau in. It has some very 1960s pacing with more downtime as they transition from one big sequence to the next than I’d like, but it keeps the laughs coming, and the mystery is compelling enough without feeling too serious. It’s a movie that just works very well with what it’s got.

Given that my only real familiarity with The Pink Panther was through watching cartoons of the mascot on Boomerang when I was very young and the Steve Martin reboot series, which I also watched when I was younger than ten, enjoyed at the time and haven’t thought of much since, I was very surprised to discover the film that spawned the entire franchise wasn’t even a mystery. This was a straight relationship farce where a crime happened to have taken place. It creates some real whiplash.

The other great surprise is how unfunny and dull most of the film is. This isn’t even Inspector Clouseau’s movie, he’s just a part of an ensemble of which every other character is broadly disinteresting. The on-location parts look gorgeous, and the sets all have this nostalgic 1960s pop-art vibe. Truly, the most memorable part of the film is its score, with that iconic theme lifting the atmosphere more than a few times.

Beyond that, the only real redemption here is the bits where Peter Sellers swoops in and steals the entire movie. It’s not a surprise that Clouseau becomes the focal point for future films. He’s got, by far, the best and most consistent bits and, outside of the car chase, the biggest laughs. He’s not in it enough for me to say that I really enjoyed the film, but I'm very intrigued to see how well the series corrects itself by leaning into that strength.

I fucking love a snow Western and when you slap Raoul Walsh behind the camera with his expert eye you’re giving me some fucking heat. The entire first act of the film is some gorgeous Cinemascope compositions against snowy capped Montana as Clark Gable galivants along, looking like the suave motherfucker that he was and Jane Russell being the absolute sexpot she made her career as.

The story isn’t anything crazy, but the film brings along the A-grade Western scale with just an unfathomable amount of cattle for the cattle drive across breathtaking expanses. The cast has great chemistry with each other, and the script brings enough of that patented 1950s machismo that is simultaneously hilarious and totally dudes rock stuff. The Tall Men may not be ed by that many, but if you’re a fan of genre fare, it’s a pretty damn good time.

This feels like a neo-noir written by two guys who were big fans of the B-level noirs that flooded theaters in the 40s and 50s. You can tell they really loved the genre and put in the footwork for what makes a fairly disposable but still solidly highbrow genre piece, and didn’t attempt to subvert or overcome those limits. They did modernize the formula well enough, but you’re still running into the same tropes and expectations.

It results in an entertaining neo-noir that feels like something that would be caught on Spike TV or some equivalent channel throughout the nineties. Without Val Kilmer and Joanne Whalley’s star power, it’d probably not be much of anything. It moves along briskly enough and makes enough logical sense that you don’t catch yourself thinking about contrivances until the finale, where things blow themselves out of believable proportions in the most noir way possible. It’s fine for what it is, but by no means anything you need to see.

Way more often than you or I would probably imagine, I’ll boot up a random giallo I’ve never heard of on Criterion Channel, going “surely, this one will grab me on some level,” only to walk away going “yeah, no” yet again. It's got some style, clearly knows it, and tries to ride that horse for a straight ninety-something minutes as I wonder why I’m doing this and what I’m supposed to care about.

The Morricone score is pretty damn unnerving, but it repeats itself way too goddamn much and by the end you’re cheering for someone to allow this dad to his dead daughter so you don’t have to listen to it anymore. The visual flairs are neat, occasionally giving you a slight reprieve from the emptiness that you’re sitting through. It really makes me realize how the whole giallo thing just isn’t always for me. I need more substance than it usually offers.

It’s pretty interesting going back through Justine Triet’s filmography and seeing how she got to the point of making Anatomy of a Fall. Some of the clockwork is there, like the legal aspects and how Triet writes her female characters. That sounds very broad, but you’ll get it if you watch this. Otherwise, In Bed with Victoria is more or less just a pretty good romcom that falls off toward the end. The groundwork is there for Anatomy, though.

The film is at its best when it functions as a character study of Victoria. She feels incredibly natural and realistic for a rom-com character played charmingly by Virginie Efira. Her romantic and professional life troubles are compelling, even if I didn’t care who she might wind up with in the slightest. I just wanted to learn more about her and watch her live life, which sadly gets tossed out quite a bit when the final act focuses mostly on a court case.

Genuinely, who was asking for Outrage to develop into a trilogy? The first film was fine, and I can at least see where Kitano was coming from with the sequel. But why does this film exist? I assume it was a money thing? It isn’t like Kitano’s heart appears to be out of it or anything. He’s got good enough filmmaking instinct to keep things watchable and intermittently exciting. But it never answered my main question: why he was doing this.

I do think this could’ve made for an interesting final image of Kitano’s cinematic career, but as this wasn’t his final film or even his final appearance on the silver screen, that gets wiped off the slate. The film is ridiculously complicated, and there hasn’t been any reason to get invested in the web of characters in the two prior films, so why start here? The violence still punctuates things, but with new extremes, granted, nothing here is new. I just fail to see the point here.

I really enjoyed this challenge last year, its shorter than many of them and I made a banger list for myself. Who am I to say no to more movies?

Start:
Finished:
Progress:

Here's the original list

Prompts:
1. Watch the movie that was added first
2. Watch the movie that was added last
3. Watch the movie that is the longest
4. Watch the movie that is the shortest
5. Watch the movie that is rated the highest
6. Watch the movie that is rated lowest
7. Watch a movie from the 1950s
8. Watch a movie from the 1960s
9. Watch a movie from the 1970s
10. Watch a movie from the 1980s
11. Watch a movie from the 1990s
12. Watch a movie from the 2000s
13. Watch a movie from the 2010s
14. Watch a movie from the 2020s
15. Shuffle your watchlist and watch the first movie that appears
16. Watch a movie from a director you haven’t watched anything from
17. Watch a movie that stars one of your favorite actors
18. Watch a movie that stars one of your favorite actresses
19. Watch the movie that is the most popular
20. Watch the movie that is the least popular
21. Watch the movie that was released the earliest
22. Shuffle your watchlist and watch the first movie that appears
23. Watch a movie from your favorite genre
24. Watch a movie from your least favorite genre
25. Watch the movie with the most beautiful poster
26. Watch the movie you have been anticipating watching most
27. Watch a movie from before you were born
28. Watch a movie recommended to you by someone
29. Watch a documentary
30. Shuffle your watchlist and watch the first movie that appears

Bonus:
31. Watch a triple F-rated movie (directed by, written by, and led by a woman) (thank you kawada_kun for submitting this prompt!)
32. Watch a cult classic/movie that just seems bonkers (thank you Lisa for submitting this prompt!)
33. Watch a movie by (one of) your favorite directors that you haven't seen yet (thank you Ansem for submitting this prompt!)
34. Watch the movie at the halfway point of your watchlist. Round up or down if needed. (thank you Benjamin Baron for submitting this prompt!)
35. Watch a film from a country you've never seen films from (thank you kawada_kun for submitting this prompt!)

• Takeshis'

  1. Watch the movie that was added first

• Let the Bullets Fly

  2. Watch the movie that was added last

• Heimat

  3. Watch the movie that is the longest

• Thunder

  4. Watch the movie that is the shortest

• As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

  5. Watch the movie that is rated the highest

• Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2

  6. Watch the movie that is rated lowest

• Artists and Models

  7. Watch a movie from the 1950s

• The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean

  8. Watch a movie from the 1960s

• The Dawns Here Are Quiet

  9. Watch a movie from the 1970s

• That Day, on the Beach

  10. Watch a movie from the 1980s

...plus 25 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The movies that were released in America in some form in 2025 (probably) from my favorite to least favorite. Might have thrown in some festival movies I was able to catch because they were digital as well. Will stop keeping track after the Oscars.

1. Sinners
2. Friendship
3. Black Bag
4. Broken Rage
5. Mickey 17
6. Ballerina
7. Final Destination Bloodlines
8. Bring Her Back
9. Thunderbolts*
10. Warfare

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

I've been doing this for a few years and don't see myself stopping completely anytime soon. I've seen so many movies I'd already completed some of these criteria so I just did a random Criterion film in their place that I felt was in the spirit of the theme.

Here's the original list, and away we go.

Started: 6/3
Watched: 1/52
Completed:

Categories:
1. Watch a film from the CC40 Boxset
2. Watch a film from the year you were born
3. Directed by Robert Altman
4. Watch a film that would be your first choice in the Criterion Closet
5. Great Soundtracks
6. John Turturro’s Adventures in Moviegoing
7. 1920s
8. Watch a film that will be added to the physical collection in 2025
9. 1930s
10. Andrew Garfield’s Closet Picks
11. 1940s
12. Celine Song’s Top 10
13. 1950s
14. Watch a film from the Criterion Channel’s all-time favorites lists
15. 1960s
16. Watch a film that is currently out of print from the physical collection
17. 1970s
18. William Friedkin’s Closet Picks
19. 1980s
20. Spine #451-499
21. 1990s
22. Documentary
23. 2000s
24. Janus Contemporaries
25. 2010s
26. Bill Hader’s Second Closet Picks
27. 2020s
28. Noir and Neo-noir
29. All-Time Top Criterion Closet Picks
30. Criterion Releases Never Picked in the Closet
31. North American film
32. Ayo Edebiri’s Closet Picks
33. Wim Wenders’ Adventures in Moviegoing
34. South American film
35. Random Number Generator (Google random number generator, set values from 1 to whatever number Criterion has listed last here. This number will change as more releases are announced so please keep up to date by using the link I have provided as I will not be updating each time Criterion makes announcements. Watch whatever movie corresponds to the spine number you are given.)
36. AAPI Filmmakers
37. Watch a film shorter than 80 minutes
38. European film
39. Cult Movies
40. Isabella Rossellini’s Adventures in Moviegoing
41. Winona Ryder’s Closet Picks
42. African film
43. John Carpenter’s Top 10
44. Horror
45. Asian film
46. Dark Comedies
47. Rachel Kushner’s Adventures in Moviegoing
48. Australian film
49. Female Filmmakers
50. Ben Wheatley’s Closet Picks
51. A film by a director whose work you have not seen before
52. Watch any Criterion film from your watchlist

• Il Soro

  1. Watch a film from the CC40 Boxset (already completed, so watchlisted Criterion substituted)

• Buena Vista Social Club

  2. Watch a film from the year you were born

• Choose Me

  3. Directed by Robert Altman (already completed, so watchlisted Criterion substituted)

• Marius

  4. Watch a film that would be your first choice in the Criterion Closet

• Desert Hearts

  5. Great Soundtracks

• Divorce Italian Style

  6. John Turturro’s Adventures in Moviegoing

• The Cameraman

  7. 1920s

• King Lear

  8. Watch a film that will be added to the physical collection in 2025

• Fanny

  9. 1930s

• Salesman

  10. Andrew Garfield’s Closet Picks

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

As with many challenge lists for 2025, I had a lot of fun putting the lists together, looked over things after I finished, and decided I made something far too interesting not to indulge in.

So without further ado: here's the original list, and away I go on my inaugural trip down The Anti-Criterion Challenge.

Start: ?
Finish: ?
Progress: 0/52

Categories:
1. 5 Years of Anti-Criterioning! Pick any challenge from the past 4 years of challenges!
2. 1920's
3. 1930's
4. 1940's
5. 1950's
6. 1960's
7. 1970's
8. 1980's
9. 1990's
10. 2000's
11. 2010's
12. 2020's
13. Starring Hiam Abbass
14. Starring Sandra Oh
15. Starring Isaac de Bankolé
16. Olivier Lemay's I'M ALWAYS A SLUT FOR UNUSUAL ASPECT RATIOS
17. Adam T's Hotels as Liminal Spaces
18. Michelle Grondine's blue eyeshadow cinematic universe
19. comrade_yui's neo-expressionism: the forgotten studio style
20. Horror made in Indonesia by an Indonesian director
21. Romance or Drama made in South Korea by a South Korean director
22. A film with practical monsters or creatures
23. Golden Raspberry Winner in any category
24. Film that did have a theatrical release, but did not have a theatrical release in the US
25. Film from any director in any style or genre
26. Another film from the same director in a different style or genre
27. A narrative film or documentary about sex work
28. A narrative film or documentary about a revolution, demonstration, protest, activist, or human rights movement
29. Starring one of the Real Housewives
30. Payal Kapadia's List of 50 Favorite Films
31. Condemned by the Catholic Church
32. Directed by an Indigenous director whose work you haven't seen before
33. Directed by a trans, nonbinary, two-spirit, or other gender non-conforming director whose work you haven't seen before
34. Broken up into chapters
35. Five or more words in the title
36. Made with a micro-budget (less than $400,000)
37. Armando Vanegas' Afro-Latino Representation
38. Mentioned in Shazia Iqbal’s article Muslim Life in India for Film Independent
39. Edited by Maysie Hoy
40. Edited by Marie-Hélène Dozo
41. Edited by Tina Baz
42. A film whose primary spoken language is the primary language for less than 1,000 other films
43. Musical that is not in English
44. Based on mythology, folklore, or fairy tales
45. Adapted from a children’s book
46. Silent film made in Japan by a Japanese director
47. Comedy made in Egypt by an Egyptian director
48. Starring a professional athlete
49. From a fandom you've never participated in
50. Hallmark holiday (or equivalent vibes)
51. Someone holds a cat
52. Ends in a freeze frame

Tags: “anti-criterion challenge 2025” or “acc2025”

• The Bullet Train

  1. 5 Years of Anti-Criterioning! Pick any challenge from the past 4 years of challenges! - 2023: 29. Made in an island nation by a director from that country

• Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge

  2. 1920's

• The Prisoner of Shark Island

  3. 1930's

• Stormy Weather

  4. 1940's

• The Noose

  5. 1950's

• Triumph Over Violence

  6. 1960's

• Heart of Glass

  7. 1970's

• Rosa la Rose, Public Girl

  8. 1980's

• Faraway, So Close!

  9. 1990's

• PTU

  10. 2000's

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

This is one of my favorite challenge lists I've ever assembled, packed with 53 movies I really want to watch, and I look forward to having the excuse to see each and every one of them.

Here's the original list

Start: 4/13
Finish: 5/22
Progress: 53/53

The Categories:
1) Out with the Old, watch one of the movies that has been sitting in your queue for the longest.
2) In with the New! Watch a new addition to the queue.
3) Watch a movie that starts with one of the first letters of the alphabet.
4) Dadcore: Watch a film that your father likes or you think he would like.
5) Watch a highly rated movie from 2024 from your queue.
6) Black History Month: Watch a movie by a black director.
7) Black History Month: Watch a movie with a black lead.
8) Shortest Month of the Year: Watch one of the shortest movies in your queue (+40 minutes).
9) As John Waters says," Get More Out of Life, Watch a Fucked Up Movie." Watch a movie from the Weirdo Watchlist.
10) Watch an Oscar winner from your queue. The Oscars air on March 2nd.
11) Watch a movie from the Criterion Collection.
12) Watch one of the oldest movies in your queue.
13) Directed by a woman.
14) April Fool's, Watch a Comedy.
15) Watch a Film with Someone's Name in the Title.
16) Canadian Film Day is April 16th, Watch a Canadian Film.
17) Watch one of the lowest-rated movies in your queue.
18) Watch a black-and-white movie.
19) Watch one of the highest-rated movies from your queue that's not in the Letterboxd Top 250 List.
20) Watch a film that played at the Cannes Film Festival. Cannes starts May 13th.
21) Watch a movie also on one of your mutual's Watchlist.
22) Watch an Animated movie.
23) Pride Month: 1,001 Movies to Criterion Before You Pride.
24) Pride Month: Watch a queer documentary from Pride: A Chronological History of Queer Interest & LGBTQ+ Cinema.
25) Watch a movie that was made in the Southern Hemisphere.
26) Free Space, watch whatever you want.
27) Blockbuster Summer: Watch a film that held the #1 spot at the box office.
28) Blockbuster Summer: Watch a movie in your queue you missed in theatres.
29) Blockbuster Summer: Watch a sequel, prequel, or remake of a series you've already seen one entry of.
30) Watch a film that seems to radiate Summer Vibes.
31) Period Piece.
32) Watch a War or Western film.
33) Watch a movie in your queue with the most generic title.
34) Watch a Family movie.
35) Watch one of Hideo Kojima's Twitter picks for his birthday, August 24th.
36) Watch one of the least popular movies on your queue.
37) Watch a film that played at the Toronto International Film Festival. TIFF starts September 4th.
38) Watch one of the most popular movies in your queue.
39) Watch a Documentary.
40) Watch a movie from before you were born.
41) Watch a movie in your queue with the coolest title.
42) Spooky Time: Watch a movie that showed up in one of the following series on Shudder: One: Queer for Fear, Two: 101 Scariest Movie Moments or Three: Horror's Greatest.
43) Spooky Time: Watch one of the Lowest Rated Horror Movies in your queue.
44) Spooky Time: Watch one of the Highest-rated Horror Movies in your queue.
45) Noirvember: Watch a Noir film, Classic or Neo.
46) Noirvember: Watch a Thriller movie.
47) You're Going to Die Someday, Better start making a dent on this list, 1001 Movies to See Before You Die.
48) Watch a movie you wouldn't want to watch with your parents.
49) Not Your Choice, allow someone else to choose the movie from your queue.
50) Watch a movie that starts with one of the last letters of the alphabet.
51) Watch a movie from the Neverending Christmas list.
52) Full of cheese week: Watch a comedy.
53) End on the Right Foot: Watch a movie from the Letterboxd Top 250 Narrative Feature Films.

• The Blue Kite

  1) Out with the Old, watch one of the movies that has been sitting in your queue for the longest.

• The Track

  2) In with the New! Watch a new addition to the queue.

• ...All the Marbles

  3) Watch a movie that starts with one of the first letters of the alphabet.

• Hombre

  4) Dadcore: Watch a film that your father likes or you think he would like.

• Black Dog

  5) Watch a highly rated movie from 2024 from your queue.

• Jungle Fever

  6) Black History Month: Watch a movie from a black director.

• Camp de Thiaroye

  7) Black History Month: Watch a movie with a black lead.

• Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story

  8) Shortest Month of the Year: Watch one of the shortest movies in your queue (+40 minutes).

• Inserts

  9) As John Waters says," Get More Out of Life, Watch a Fucked Up Movie." Watch a movie from the Weirdo Watchlist.

• Fellini's Casanova

  10) Watch an Oscar winner from your queue. The Oscars air on March 2nd.

...plus 43 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I originally made this list purely for the fun of it, laughing along thinking it was somewhat ridiculous, but as things tend to go, I got attached to wanting to see most of these, so here I am, with yet another list that I want to get through this year.

Here's the original list

Start:
Finish:
Progress:

• Gintama: The Movie

  Week 1: Anime Week
  Jan 1 - Jan 7

• Sssssss

  Week 2: Reb Brown Week
  Jan 8 - Jan 14

• Extreme Prejudice

  Week 3: Vestron Video Week
  Jan 15 - Jan 21

• Real Genius

  Week 4: 80s Teen Comedy Week
  Jan 22 - Jan 28

• The Terror

  Week 5: Roger Corman Week
  Jan 29 - Feb 4

• Black Emanuelle

  Week 6: Blaxploitation Week
  Feb 5 - Feb 11

• One Million Years B.C.

  Week 7: Hammer Films Week
  Feb 12 - Feb 18

• Radioactive Dreams

  Week 8: Albert Pyun Week
  Feb 19 - Feb 25

• Clockers

  Week 9: Keith David Week
  Feb 26 - Mar 4

• Joe

  Week 10: Cannon Group Week
  Mar 5 - Mar 11

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I've decided to make another challenge list that will inevitably get me excited to watch but it's a strong 50/50 on if I keep up, binge it, or forget what I'm doing. The mystery is half the fun.

The original list

• WR: Mysteries of the Organism

  Week 1: September 2nd-8th
  The American History of X Week

• The Youth Killer

  Week 2: September 9th-15th
  Anxiety Week

• Babe

  Week 3: September 16th-22nd
  Nicecore Week

• Citizen Ruth

  Week 4: September 23rd-29th
  Her Dark Material Week

• You, the Living

  Week 5: September 30th-October 6th
  Anders(s)on Week

• Godzilla vs. Hedorah

  Week 6: October 7th-13th
  Strange Beasts Week

• Songs My Brothers Taught Me

  Week 7: October 14th-20th
  Indigenous Cinema Week

• The War of the Worlds: Next Century

  Week 8: October 21st-27th
  Alien Encounters Week

• Wax, or The Discovery of Television Among the Bees

  Week 9: October 28th-November 3rd
  Found Footage Week

• Russian Ark

  Week 10: November 4th-10th
  The Long Take Week

...plus 33 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Well, it took a while but I finally finished the second part. I'm a sucker for a fun challenge and this looks like another one of those, so here's the Part 3 list. Wonder how long this one is going to take.

The challenge:

"After picking and watching all the films from the year of your birth and then watching 2 films from every year you've been alive I thought there was only one other option left - let's go back before we were born!

The starting film will be one from the year you were born and then you can work backward with a film from each year until you've got as many films as your current age. All first-time views only."

Tag: #BYC3

• Hakuchi: The Innocent

  1999

• A Hero Never Dies

  1998

• 20th Century Nostalgia

  1997

• I Shot Andy Warhol

  1996

• God's Comedy
• Prêt-à-Porter
• A Night in Nude
• Talking Head
• Jacquot de Nantes
• Henry & June

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

something to do

• Electra, My Love

  meyi

• The Land

  Claggart

• Man with a Movie Camera

  skyler

• Through a Glass Darkly

  Britta

• A Summer's Tale

  Abel

• Peep "TV" Show

  TP

• Oh, Sun

  ostr

• The Unknown

  Tel

• The Silence

  Luior

• 3 Idiots

  LIR

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

I really liked this challenge last year, and when I went to make this year's list I accidentally selected more than 40 countries and had trouble whittling it to 30. To much good shit to pick from. Going to have to check on some of those after I'm done here. I'd also seen every Ghibli film so I just went with a different anime film I wanted to see instead.

The original list

Start: 3/5
Finish: 3/12
Progress: 30/30

To Participate:
- In March, watch feature films (60+ min) from different countries (one film per country)
- tag them with: "maw2025"

To Complete the Challenge:
- You must watch, tag, and review (see below) 30 feature films (60+ min) films from 30 different countries, all in the month of March.
- no rewatches
- One film needs to be from Japan (preferably a Studio Ghibli film)

• Patlabor 2: The Movie

  Japan

• The Puppetmaster

  Taiwan

• Red Sorghum

  China

• Tale of Cinema

  South Korea

• Nomad

  Hong Kong

• Tears of the Black Tiger

  Thailand

• Sholay

  India

• Hajji Washington

  Iran

• Gallipoli

  Australia

• Sleeping Dogs

  New Zeland

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The movies that were released in America in some form in 2024 (probably) from my favorite to least favorite. Might have thrown in some festival movies I was able to catch because they were digital as well. Will stop keeping track after the Oscars.

1. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
2. I Saw the TV Glow
3. Close Your Eyes
4. Dune: Part Two
5. The Seed of the Sacred Fig
6. No Other Land
7. La Chimera
8. The Beast
9. The Substance
10. About Dry Grasses

...plus 166 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Well, I enjoyed the first part a lot and prefer this idea to fill my year with challenges rather than try and pick random films depending on the day. So, onto part two.

Challenge: The starting point for this challenge is the year you were born and then each subsequent year of your life also comes into play.

For each year you have to include 2 films, the most popular (from your watchlist or in general) and the second is a free pick from that year. Although again has to be a first-time watch.

There is no watch order. All films on your list must be watched before your next birthday, if not 2 more films must be added. To complete the task, simply watch all the films on your list!

Tag for this challenge: #BYC2

The original list.

• 10 Things I Hate About You

  Year - 1999

• Man on the Moon

  Year - 1999

• Malena

  Year - 2000

• Devils on the Doorstep

  Year - 2000

• Millennium Mambo

  Year - 2001

• What Time Is It There?

  Year - 2001

• About Schmidt

  Year - 2002

• Lilya 4-ever

  Year - 2002

• Bright Leaves

  Year - 2003

• Café Lumière

  Year - 2003

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

Back for a fifth year for one of my favorite challenges on Letterboxd. Here's my docket this year:

Start: 1/2
Finish: 1/13
Progress: 43/43

Japanuary 2025 Line-Up:
1. Shinya Tsukamoto (1/1/1960)
2. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
3. Koji Shiraishi
4. Takashi Miike
5. Hayao Miyazaki (1/5/1941)
6. Juzo Itami
7. Hideo Gosha
8. Koreyoshi Kurahara
9. Nobuhiko Ōbayashi (1/9/1938 — 4/10/2020)
10. Seijun Suzuki
11. Shōhei Imamura
12. Kinji Fukasaku (7/3/1930 — 1/12/2003)
13. Shinji Sōmai (1/13/1948 — 9/9/2001)
14. Masahiro Shinoda
15. Gakuryū Ishii (1/15/1957)
16. Nagisa Ōshima (3/31/1932 — 1/15/2013)
17. Toshiaki Toyoda
18. Takeshi Kitano (1/18/1947)
19. SABU
20. Hirokazu Koreeda
21. Ryūsuke Hamaguchi
22. Naoko Ogigami
23. Yuki Tanada
24. Shunji Iwai (1/24/1963)
25. Yasujirō Ozu
26. Akira Kurosawa
27. Masaki Kobayashi
28. Hiroshi Teshigahara (1/28/1927 — 4/14/2001)
29. Hiroshi Shimizu
30. Kenji Mizoguchi
31. Mikio Naruse

Bonus categories:
32. Anime (156-180)
33. Pinku/Pink Violence (181-190)
34. Samurai (191-200)
35. J-Horror (201-220)
36. Directed by Women (221-250)
37. Tokusatsu (251-270)
38. Short film (271-280)
39. Documentary (281-290)
40. Cyberpunk (291-300)
41. Yakuza (301-310)
42. LGBTQIA+ Films (311-320) (For the linked list, sort to Japanese films)
43. Recommendations from Ben (321-350)

• Hiruko the Goblin

  1. Shinya Tsukamoto (1/1/1960)

• License to Live

  2. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

• Occult

  3. Koji Shiraishi

• Sun Scarred

  4. Takashi Miike

• The Sky-Colored Seed

  5. Hayao Miyazaki (1/5/1941)

• Minbo, or the Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion

  6. Juzo Itami

• Goyokin

  7. Hideo Gosha

• I Hate But Love

  8. Koreyoshi Kurahara

• The Rocking Horsemen

  9. Nobuhiko Ōbayashi (1/9/1938 — 4/10/2020)

• Story of a Prostitute

  10. Seijun Suzuki

...plus 33 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

This is a list for the Letterboxd Stats Top 2024 portion. I picked 20 films that, while not the best or my favorite 20 watches, were 20 films that stuck with me this year. Apparently, the list needs to be public to work with the API, so I felt I owed some explanation. If you have Pro or , feel free to click on my 2024 stats page to see what this was for.

• On the Silver Globe
• Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
• Winchester '73
• Das Boot
• Miss Lonely
• Oasis
• Hoop Dreams
• Harlan County U.S.A.
• Kung-Fu Master!
• Close Your Eyes

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

I am not rich enough to sustain this habit.

• Brazil

  2/26/19

• Kiss Me Deadly

  9/26/19

• Funny Games

  9/26/19

• Seven Samurai

  10/22/19

• To Sleep with Anger

  10/31/19

• Bicycle Thieves

  10/31/19

• In the Mood for Love

  12/1/19

• Persona

  12/9/19

• Stalker

  1/29/20

• The Last Emperor

  1/29/20

...plus 81 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Third time around. I like movies. Criterion has movies. I will watch movies, hopefully without leaving them until the last minute like I did last year. Here's to a good time.

Started: 5/3
Finished: 12/9
Progress: 52/52

The original list

Categories:

1. Spine #351-450
2. Spine #601-700
3. Watch a film with a rating of 4.3 or higher
4. First film in your watchlist
5. Most recently added film in your watchlist
6. Longest runtime in your watchlist
7. Most popular film in your watchlist
8. Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project
9. Criterion Staff Picks
10. New York Film Festival Favorites
11. Watch a film in the Saturday Matinee series "Observations on Film Art"
12. First Films - watch a directorial debut
13. Virtually Reality
14. Random Number Generator (Google random number generator, set values from 1 to whatever number Criterion has listed last here. This number will change as more releases are announced so please keep up to date by using the link I have provided as I will not be updating each time Criterion makes announcements. Watch whatever movie corresponds to the spine number you are given.)
15. Technicolor
16. Women Auteurs
17. Criterion Sight and Sound
18. Dreaming of a Holiday Movie Marathon
19. Watch a Netflix Original released by Criterion
20. 100 Years of Olympic Films
21. LGBTQ+
22. Directed by Luis Buñuel
23. Directed by Mai Zetterling
24. Starring Liv Ullmann
25. Italian Neorealism
26. Hong Kong Cinema
27. Made in Brazil
28. Ari Aster’s Closet Picks
29. Yo La Tengo’s Closet Picks
30. Charlie Day’s Closet Picks
31. Michael Shannon’s Closet Picks
32. Aubrey Plaza’s Top 10
33. Anthony Bourdain’s Top 10
34. Alan Arkin’s Top 10
35. Tunde Adebimpe’s Top 10
36. Genre: Made for TV
37. Genre: Family
38. Genre: Animation
39. Genre: History
40. Guillermo del Toro’s Twitter Film recommendations
41. 1920s
42. 1930s
43. 1940s
44. 1950s
45. 1960s
46. 1970s
47. 1980s
48. 1990s
49. 2000s
50. 2010s
51. 2020s
52. Watch any Criterion film from your watchlist

• Le Doulos

  1. Spine #351-450 - 447

• Stromboli

  2. Spine #601-700 - 673

• Harlan County U.S.A.

  3. Watch a film with a rating of 4.3 or higher

• The Heroic Trio

  4. First film in your watchlist

• Alambrista!

  5. Most recently added film in your watchlist

• The Ruling Class

  6. Longest runtime in your watchlist

• La Ciénaga

  7. Most popular film in your watchlist

• Insiang

  8. Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project

• The Eagle Shooting Heroes

  9. Criterion Staff Picks

• A Nos Amours

  10. New York Film Festival Favorites

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Note to future self: If I wind up doing this, it'll be because I started towards the back half of the year and had to binge a catch-up because I finished my other challenges and wanted to keep watching more films. Making challenges for myself makes it easier to pick a movie so here I am.

The original list.

(Voluntary) Rules 📢
1. Each week you must watch the film that you have selected for that week's topic;
2. After having watched each film you should write and post a review of at least five sentences;
3. Ensure that you tag each film with the challenge tag FSDO2024. Also make sure you tag it with the weekly tag, for example, FSDO2024Week1. This will enable other students to find your reviews;
4. Read other student's reviews and share comments with one another.

Please Note ✏️
- All of these rules are voluntary;
- If you are unable to watch the listed movie in any given week you can skip it or watch it later;
- Feel free to make up your own topics for any given week if you don't like the existing topic or if you are unable to gain access to a movie that fits it;
- Feel free to change any movie on your list at any time. The availability of a film often makes this necessary;
- If you don't like writing reviews you don't have to. Maybe comment on other people's reviews so you can still be a part of the dialogue (although you don't have to do that either).

2024 Syllabus

Week 1 - Actor - Edna Purviance
Week 2 - Studio - Metro Pictures
Week 3 - Genre - Boxing
Week 4 - Movement - Hollywood Blacklist / McCarthyism
Week 5 - List - Akira Kurosawa's Favorites
Week 6 - Book - My Last Sigh, By Luis Buñuel
Week 7 - Genre - Oneiric Cinema
Week 8 - Auteur - Jack arnold
Week 9 - List - Rarefilmm.com
Week 10 - Genre - Anti Capitalist
Week 11 - Actor - Elizabeth Taylor
Week 12 - Writer - Paddy Chayefsky
Week 13 - Production design - Bernard Evein
Week 14 - List - Todd Haynes' top 50 for LaCinetek
Week 15 - Writer - Ilya Nusinov
Week 16- Auteur - Elia Kazan
Week 17 - Award - Oscars - Best foreign/international film
Week 18 - Genre - Social Realism
Week 19 - Actor - Eiji Okada
Week 20 - Cinematographer - Vilmos Zsigmond
Week 21 - Movement - Blaxploitation
Week 22 - Auteur - Alejandro Jodorowsky
Week 23 - Cinematographer - Tonino Delli-Colli
Week 24 - Genre - Addiction
Week 25 - Studio - Famous players
Week 26 - Actor - Jean Pierre Leaud
Week 27 - Book - Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock ’n’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood
Week 28 - Auteur - Joan Micklin Silver
Week 29 - Cinematographer - Nestor Almendros
Week 30 - List- Episodes of The Rewatchables
Week 31 - Writer - Sam Shepard
Week 32 - Auteur - Jim Jarmush
Week 33 - Cinematographer - Giorgos Arvanitis
Week 34 - List - John Grisham adaptations
Week 35 - Auteur - Kristoffer borgli
Week 36 - Book - In the blink of an eye, By Walter Murch
Week 37 - Genre - Beautiful Traditional animation
Week 38 - Award - Berlin Festival - Teddy award for LGBTQ+
Week 39 - Actor - Paul Giamatti
Week 40 - Auteur - Lee chang dong
Week 41 - Award - European Film Awards - Best European Film
Week 42 - Genre - Body Horror
Week 43 - Auteur - Hideaki Anno
Week 44 - Genre - Bollywood Horror
Week 45 - Award - SXSW - Grand Jury Prize
Week 46 - Studio - Oscilloscope
Week 47 - Actor - Moon So-ri
Week 48 - Studio - Pen Studios
Week 49 - Award - Sundance - Grand Jury Prize
Week 50 - Book - Trascendental Style in Film - Paul Schrader
Week 51 - Genre - Filipino coming of age
Week 52 - Cinematographer - Christopher Doyle

• Limelight

  Week 1 - Actor - Edna Purviance
  January 1st - 7th

• The Scarecrow

  Week 2 - Studio - Metro Pictures
  January 8thst - 14th

• Hard Times

  Week 3 - Genre - Boxing
  January 15th - 21st

• Body and Soul

  Week 4 - Movement - Hollywood Blacklist / McCarthyism
  January 22nd - 28th

• Running on Empty

  Week 5 - List - Akira Kurosawa's Favorites
  January 29th - February 4th

• Die Nibelungen: Siegfried

  Week 6 - Book - My Last Sigh, By Luis Buñuel
  February 5th - 11th

• The Hourglass Sanatorium

  Week 7 - Genre - Oneiric Cinema
  February 12th - 18th

• Boss Nigger

  Week 8 - Auteur - Jack Arnold
  February 19th - 25th

• The Young and the Damned

  Week 9 - List - Rarefilmm.com
  February 26th - March 3rd

• The Gleaners and I

  Week 10 - Genre - Anti-Capitalist
  March 4th - 10th

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I watch 1 random horror movie for each day of October. I record it here. Simple stuff. Doing this on top of Hooptober.

• Devilman - Volume 2: Demon Bird
• Morgiana
• Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot!
• Who Can Kill a Child?
• Slaughter Hotel
• Ju-on: The Curse 2
• Twixt
• Habit
• Fascination
• Cut-Throats Nine

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

And after round 3 comes round 4. We're still standing. October demands I watch a shitton of horror. Who am I to tell it no? I'll be doubling up on doing my own 1 horror movie a day thing on the side as I usually do. The hunger for new horror films is apparently insatiable. I continue to hope I don't run out of movies.

Link to the original challenge

There must be 31 horror films
6 countries
8 decades
ALL of the films from a horror franchise with at least 4 entries (if there is a hard reboot, you can choose whichever has 4+ that you prefer)
1 film by Wes Craven
1 film caused by/worsened by weather
1 film starring a Black woman
1 Donald Sutherland film
3 films from New World Pictures.
2 Indian films.
4 Italian films
2 Horror comedies
2 films made primarily or entirely in Texas
1 film that exists in at least 2 available cuts (you just have to watch one. Bonus if you watch them all.)
1 Robert Wiene film
1 Michael Soavi film
1 film from 2011
1 film from 1984

And 1 Tobe Hooper Film (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film)

***FOR THOSE THAT LIKE TO DO EXTRA WORK: WATCH Cyclone and Crawlspace. Like last year, there is a third film: We Are Zombies.

• A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse

  6 Countries: Japan

• Beauty and the Beast

  6 Countries: Czechoslovakia

• Lorna, the Exorcist

  6 Countries:

• Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary

  6 Countries: Canada

• Nazareno Cruz and the Wolf

  6 Countries: Argentina

• This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse

  6 Countries: Brazil

• The Uninvited

  8 Decades: 1940s

• The White Reindeer

  8 Decades: 1950s

• Mother Joan of the Angels

  8 Decades: 1960s

• Successive Slidings of Pleasure

  8 Decades: 1970s

...plus 31 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I originally made this challenge list not thinking I'd have time to do it, but I've really enjoyed plowing through films I selected rather than having to pick on the day, so here I go.

The original list

Start: 8/1
Finish: 9/9
Progress: 52/52

The Categories:
1) Out with the Old, watch one of the movies that has been sitting in your queue for the longest.
2) In with the New! Watch a new addition to the queue.
3) Watch a movie that starts with one of the first letters of the alphabet.
4) Dead of Winter: Watch a film set during winter or has snow in it.
5) Watch a highly-rated movie from 2023 that you may have missed.
6) Black History Month: Watch a movie by an African American director.
7) Black History Month: Watch a movie with an African American lead.
8) Shortest Month of the Year: Watch one of the shortest movies in your queue (+40 minutes).
9) As John Waters says," Get More Out of Life, Watch a Fucked Up Movie." Watch a movie from the Weirdo Watchlist.
10) You're Going to Die Someday, Better start making a dent on this list, 1001 Movies to See Before You Die.
11) Watch an Oscar Winner. The 2024 Oscars are on March 10th.
12) Watch a movie from the Criterion Collection.
13) Period Piece.
14) April Fool's, Watch a Comedy.
15) Watch one of the lowest-rated movies in your queue.
16) Canadian Film Week, Watch a Canadian Film.
17) Watch a film with a number in the title.
18) Watch a black-and-white movie.
19) Directed by a woman.
20) Watch a film that played at the Cannes Film Festival. Cannes 2024 starts May 14th.
21) Watch a movie that's also in one of your mutual's Watchlist.
22) Watch an Animated movie.
23) Pride Month: 1,001 Movies to Criterion Before You Pride.
24) Pride Month: Watch a queer documentary from Pride: A Chronological History of Queer Interest & LGBTQ+ Cinema.
25) Watch a movie that was filmed in the Southern Hemisphere.
26) Free Space: Watch Whatever You Want.
27) Blockbuster Summer: Watch a sequel, prequel, or remake of a series you've already seen one entry of.
28) Blockbuster Summer: Watch a movie in your queue you missed in theatres.
29) Watch a movie in your queue with the coolest title.
30) Watch a film that seems to radiate Summer Vibes.
31) Watch one of the oldest movies in your queue.
32) Watch a Family movie.
33) Watch a movie in your queue with the most generic title.
34) Watch one of the least popular movies on your queue.
35) Watch one of the highest-rated movies from your queue that's NOT in the Letterboxd Top 250 List.
36) Watch a War or Western film.
37) Watch a film that played at the Toronto International Film Festival. TIFF 2024 starts September 9th.
38) Watch one of the most popular movies in your queue.
39) Watch a Documentary.
40) Watch a movie from before you were born.
41) Spooky Time: Creature Feature, watch a movie with a monster in it.
42) Spooky Time: Watch one of the Highest-rated Rated Horror Movies of All Time.
43) Watch a film from Guillermo del Toro's Twitter Recommendations.
44) Watch a Random Movie.
45) Watch a Movie that has someone who worked on movie #45, cast or crew. Example: Hideo Yamamoto was the cinematographer on both Visitor Q and Fireworks.
46) Noirvember: Watch a classic Noir film.
47) Noirvember: Watch a Neo-Noir film.
48) Watch a movie you wouldn't want to watch with your parents.
49) Not Your Choice, allow someone else to choose the movie from your queue.
50) Watch a movie that starts with one of the last letters of the alphabet.
51) Watch a movie from the Neverending Christmas list.
52) End on the Right Foot: Watch a movie from the Letterboxd Top 250 List.

• Time and Tide

  1) Out with the Old, watch one of the movies that has been sitting in your queue for the longest.

• 8 ½ Women

  2) In with the New! Watch a new addition to the queue.

• Alice's Restaurant

  3) Watch a movie that starts with one of the first letters of the alphabet.

• Abashiri Prison

  4) Dead of Winter: Watch a film set during winter or has snow in it.

• The Promised Land

  5) Watch a highly-rated movie from 2023 that you may have missed.

• Killer of Sheep

  6) Black History Month: Watch a movie by an African American director.

• Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song

  7) Black History Month: Watch a movie with an African American lead.

• Celluloid Nightmares

  8) Shortest Month of the Year: Watch one of the shortest movies in your queue (+40 minutes).

• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

  9) As John Waters says," Get More Out of Life, Watch a Fucked Up Movie." Watch a movie from the Weirdo Watchlist.

• Diva

  10) You're Going to Die Someday, Better start making a dent on this list, 1001 Movies to See Before You Die.

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I stumbled across this challenge and figured that my Watchlist was far too long, so I decided to do something about it. Here we go.

The original list.

Start: 6/1
Finish: 6/11

Prompts
1. Watch the movie that was added first
2. Watch the movie that was added last
3. Watch the movie that is the longest
4. Watch the movie that is the shortest
5. Watch the movie that is rated the highest
6. Watch the movie that is rated lowest
7. Watch a movie from the 1950s
8. Watch a movie from the 1960s
9. Watch a movie from the 1970s
10. Watch a movie from the 1980s
11. Watch a movie from the 1990s
12. Watch a movie from the 2000s
13. Watch a movie from the 2010s
14. Watch a movie from the 2020s
15. Shuffle your watchlist and watch the first movie that appears
16. Watch a movie from a director you haven’t watched anything from
17. Watch a movie that stars one of your favorite actors
18. Watch a movie that stars one of your favorite actresses
19. Watch the movie that is the most popular
20. Watch the movie that is the least popular
21. Watch the movie that was released the earliest
22. Shuffle your watchlist and watch the first movie that appears
23. Watch a movie from your favorite genre
24. Watch a movie from your least favorite genre
25. Watch the movie with the most beautiful poster
26. Watch the movie you have been anticipating watching most
27. Watch a movie from before you were born
28. Watch a movie recommended to you by someone
29. Watch a documentary
30. Shuffle your watchlist and watch the first movie that appears

Bonus
31. Happy birthday! Shuffle your watchlist and pick the film that corresponds with your day, month, or year of birth (thank you Graham for submitting this prompt!)
32. A film with a full sentence for a title or the longest title you can find on your watchlist (thank you Crawlspace Dweller Matt [♥] for submitting this prompt!)
33. Watch the oldest movie nominated for an Academy Award in any category (thank you Lawrence M for submitting this prompt!)
34. Watch a movie you want to watch in theaters (thank you Shachar for submitting this prompt!)
35. Watch a movie with a person's name in the title (thank you Jurassiarkour for submitting this prompt!)

• A Gentle Breeze in the Village

  1. Watch the movie that was added first

• United Red Army

  2. Watch the movie that was added last

• La Commune (Paris, 1871)

  3. Watch the movie that is the longest

• Devilman - Volume 1: The Birth

  4. Watch the movie that is the shortest

• The Fifth Seal

  5. Watch the movie that is rated highest

• The Moon Is... the Sun's Dream

  6. Watch the movie that is rated lowest

• A Night to

  7. Watch a movie from the 1950s

• Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

  8. Watch a movie from the 1960s

• Real Life

  9. Watch a movie from the 1970s

• Eastern Condors

  10. Watch a movie from the 1980s

...plus 25 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Half of what slows me down watching films is having to pick from a selection, so I'm filling up my year with challenges in case I continue at the pace I'm on. Maybe I'll burn out. Maybe I won't.

Challenge: For this challenge, you can only pick films released in the year you were born (I'm going with Letterboxd dates to avoid UK/US release date confusion), the total amount of films to watch is the same as your current age.

There is no time limit on the challenge, only watch all the films before your next Birthday, or you'll have to add another film!

All the films have to be first-time watches.

Track the tag #BYC to read everyone's reviews.

1999

The original list.

• In China They Eat Dogs
• Summer of Sam
• Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade
• Aimée & Jaguar
• Sweet and Lowdown
• Holy Smoke
• Humanité
• Pola X
• Detroit Rock City
• The Road Home

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

I originally made this list for fun, but now that I see the movies I laid out here, I kinda wanna give it a go. We'll see how that goes.

The original list

The Challenge
(note new tag: maw2024)

Watch and review 30 feature films from 30 different countries in March. No rewatches. Must include 1 film from Mexico. Please read ALL the rules.

Rules
1. Feature films only (60+ min)
2. No re-watches.
3. Only films watched, logged, and reviewed in March 2024 count.
4. Log and tag your films immediately after watching, with 2 tags: maw2024 and the (single) selected country of the film, from the LB list of countries. You can add your review later by going to the log and editing it.
5. To count, a review needs to be somewhat substantial in that it has to show that you have seen the film. One-liners do not count. Think more along the lines of 150 words +

• Sólo con tu pareja

  Mexico

• Catch-22

  USA

• The Silent Partner

  Canada

• The Last Supper

  Cuba

• The Harder They Come

  Jamaica

• The Woman Who Invented Love

  Brazil

• Clean

  UK

• Ma mère

  Portugal

• Sex Is Crazy

  Spain

• Je T'Aime, Je T'Aime

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The movies that were released in America in some form in 2023 (probably) from my favorite to least favorite. Might have thrown in some festival movies I was able to catch because they were digital as well. Will stop keeping track after the Oscars.

1. Killers of the Flower Moon
2. John Wick: Chapter 4
3. The Zone of Interest
4. How to Blow Up a Pipeline
5. Riceboy Sleeps
6. All of Us Strangers
7. Close
8. Oppenheimer
9. The Holdovers
10. The Outwaters

...plus 149 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

For the fourth January in a row, it's time to journey across Japan. I continue having a blast with this and I can't imagine this year is any different. Cheers to Ben for creating the challenge. Here are my plans:

The original list.

Japanuary 2024 Line-Up:
1. Teruo Ishii (1/1/1924 — 8/12/2005)
2. Shinya Tsukamoto (1/1/1960... A belated birthday celebration!)
3. Takashi Miike
4. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
5. Hayao Miyazaki (1/5/1941)
6. Mamoru Oshii
7. Toshiaki Toyoda
8. Ryūsuke Hamaguchi
9. Nobuhiko Ōbayashi (1/9/1938 — 4/10/2020)
10. Masahiro Shinoda
11. Seijun Suzuki
12. Kinji Fukasaku (7/3/1930 — 1/12/2003)
13. Shinji Sōmai (1/13/1948 — 9/9/2001)
14. Hirokazu Koreeda
15. Nagisa Ōshima (3/31/1932 — 1/15/2013)
16. Gakuryū Ishii (1/15/1957... A belated birthday celebration!)
17. Keisuke Kinoshita
18. Takeshi Kitano (1/18/1947)
19. Kinuyo Tanaka
20. Yukiko Mishima
21. Miwa Nishikawa
22. Mikio Naruse
23. Kenji Mizoguchi
24. Shunji Iwai (1/24/1963)
25. Ishirō Honda
26. Hiroshi Shimizu
27. Shōhei Imamura
28. Hiroshi Teshigahara (1/28/1927 — 4/14/2001)
29. Yasujirō Ozu
30. Masaki Kobayashi
31. Akira Kurosawa
Bonus categories:
32. Anime (156-180)
33. Pinku/Pink Violence (181-190
34. Samurai (191-200)
35. J-Horror (201-220)
36. Directed by Women (221-250)
37. Tokusatsu (251-270)
38. Short film (271-280)
39. Documentary (281-290)
40. Cyberpunk (291-300)
41. Yakuza (301-310)
42. Released by Third Window Films (311-320)
43. Recommendations from Ben (321-350)

• Horrors of Malformed Men

  1. Teruo Ishii (1/1/1924 — 8/12/2005)

• Gemini

  2. Shinya Tsukamoto (1/1/1960... A belated birthday celebration!)

• Imprint

  3. Takashi Miike

• Charisma

  4. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

• Yuki's Sun

  5. Hayao Miyazaki (1/5/1941)

• The Red Spectacles

  6. Mamoru Oshii

• Monsters Club

  7. Toshiaki Toyoda

• Heaven Is Still Far Away

  8. Ryūsuke Hamaguchi

• Miss Lonely

  9. Nobuhiko Ōbayashi (1/9/1938 — 4/10/2020)

• The Petrified Forest

  10. Masahiro Shinoda

...plus 33 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

This is a list for the Letterboxd Stats Top 2023 portion. I picked 20 films that, while not the best or my favorite 20 watches, were 20 films that stuck with me this year. Apparently, the list needs to be public to work with the API, so I felt I owed some explanation. If you have Pro or , feel free to click on my 2023 stats page to see what this was for.

• The Mother and the Whore
• Shoah
• Last Year at Marienbad
• Dragged Across Concrete
• The Most Terrible Time in My Life
• My Night at Maud's
• Irma Vep
• Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
• Daughter of the Nile
• A Fugitive from the Past

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

Third time around. I like movies. Criterion has movies. I will watch movies, hopefully without leaving them until the last minute like I did last year. Here's to a good time.

Started: 4/1
Finished: 12/9
Progress: 52/52

The original list

Categories:
1. Random Number Generator (Google random number generator, set values from 1 to whatever number Criterion has listed last here. This number will change as more releases are announced so please keep up to date by using the link I have provided as I will not be updating each time Criterion makes announcements. Watch whatever movie corresponds to the spine number you are given.)
2. Made in Belgium
3. Made in Taiwan
4. Made in Canada
5. Made in Portugal
6. Animals in the Collection
7. Films To Fall Asleep To
8. Black Music Films
9. Black Lives Collection
10. Heartbreak Heaven: Films to Watch When You’re Questioning Love (and Heartbreak Heaven: Films to Watch When You’re Questioning Love, Part II)
11. Criterion Double Features - Film #1
12. Criterion Double Features - Film #2
13. Danny Peary’s “Guide for the Film Fanatic”
14. Sundance Hits
15. Early Women Filmmakers
16. Independent American Cinema
17. Dysfunctional Families
18. Food on Film
19. Faith on Film
20. Tearjerkers
21. British Realism
22. Wilco’s Closet Picks
23. Gaspar Noé’s Closet Picks
24. Alicia Malone’s Closet Picks
25. Laurie Anderson’s Closet Picks
26. Bong Joon-ho’s Top 10
27. Sonic Youth’s Top 10
28. Jane Campion’s Top 10
29. Allison Anders’s Top 10
30. Directed by Carl Dreyer
31. Directed by Melvin Van Peebles
32. Directed by Marlon Riggs
33. Directed by Keisuke Kinoshita
34. Starring Tatsuya Nakadai
35. Genre: Fantasy
36. Genre: Action/Adventure
37. Genre: Crime
38. Watch a film with a spine #201-350
39. Watch a film with a spine #800-950
40. Watch a film with a rating 3.0 or lower
41. 1920s
42. 1930s
43. 1940s
44. 1950s
45. 1960s
46. 1970s
47. 1980s
48. 1990s
49. 2000s
50. 2010s
51. 2020s
52. Any Criterion film on your watchlist

• Shanghai Express

  1. Random Number Generator - 933

• Man Bites Dog

  2. Made in Belgium

• Flowers of Shanghai

  3. Made in Taiwan

• The Daytrippers

  4. Made in Canada

• Ossos

  5. Made in Portugal

• Kes

  6. Animals in the Collection

• News from Home

  7. Films To Fall Asleep To

• Jimi Plays Monterey

  8. Black Music Films

• Black Girl

  9. Black Lives Collection

• Center Stage

  10. Heartbreak Heaven: Films to Watch When You’re Questioning Love (and Heartbreak Heaven: Films to Watch When You’re Questioning Love, Part II)

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I watch 1 random horror movie for each day of October. I record it here. Simple stuff. Doing this on top of Hooptober.

• Brotherhood of the Wolf
• Exorcist: The Beginning
• Death Becomes Her
• I Spit on Your Grave
• Saw X
• Slumber Party Massacre II
• Dust Devil
• Eyes of Fire
• The Exorcist: Believer
• The Blob

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

And after round 2 comes round 3. If we're still standing. As October demands, here I am to watch a shitton of horror. I'll double up on doing my own 1 horror movie a day thing on the side again as well. I like it. Hope I don't run out of movies.

Link to the original challenge.

Criteria:
There must be 31 films
6 countries
8 decades
2 post apocalyptic or natural disaster related films
1 film with Robert Englund
1 something is underground film
3 Satan/Devil centered films
1 Amicus film.
The worst Dracula film (by Letterboxd rating) that you haven't seen and can access.
1 LGBTQ+ connected film
5 Films from De Palma, Wes Craven, Ken Russell, Hitchcock and/or Moorehead & Benson.
2 Peter Cushing films
1 film based on a work of or invoking the name Bram Stoker
1 film based on a Clive Barker story
1 film that was released the year that you turned 10
1 Mario Bava film.
1 film with an 'x' in the title

And 1 Tobe Hooper Film (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film)

***FOR THOSE THAT LIKE TO DO EXTRA WORK: WATCH The Zodiac Killer and 10 Rillington Place. Like last year, there is a third film: Shaky Shivers.

• Vampyros Lesbos

  6 Countries: Spain

• Szamanka

  6 Countries: Poland

• At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul

  6 Countries: Brazil

• Love Massacre

  6 Countries: Hong Kong

• Inside

  6 Countries:

• Pee Mak

  6 Countries: Thailand

• The Hands of Orlac

  8 Decades: 1920s

• The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

  8 Decades: 1930s

• The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

  8 Decades: 1940s

• The Thing from Another World

  8 Decades: 1950s

...plus 29 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Synonym for synonym?

• Detachment

  SickBoy

• Sir

  Sara 🦋

• American Honey

  brittabot ⚜ deedeebot

• Marketa Lazarová

  LIR

• My Name Is Nobody

  Royal3WitCheese

• I Want to Eat Your Pancreas

  SoferPeMeteor

• Let the Corpses Tan

  Maximusbeardus

• Relaxer

  cam

• Sardar Udham

  sreee

• The Electrical Life of Louis Wain

  Abe

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

Does grass feel pain when you step on it?

• Mona Lisa

  Jiro Tupaki

• Like Someone in Love

  Apple Juice

• Alice in the Cities

  LIR

• Panic in the Streets

  maiyima

• Affliction

  GA

• The Discovery

  brianna

• The Motorcycle Diaries

  brittabot ⚜ deedeebot

• Hard Target

  Shinan

• Last Year at Marienbad

  giffapolus

• The Skeleton of Mrs. Morales

  La Increíble G M

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

I'm still bored.

• Battle Beyond the Stars

  Shinan

• Neptune Frost

  Jiro I & II

• The Butterfly Effect

  GA

• Red Eye

  bgh0305

• Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

  TFC’s dutch pancake

• Dobermann

  TFC’s guest of honor

• Bay of Angels

  Apple Juice

• Sideways

  Kudabe

• The Triplets of Belleville

  Jimothy Mayonnaise

• I Am Cuba

  La Increíble G M

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

The movies that were released in America in some form in 2022 (probably) from my favorite to least favorite. Might have thrown in some festival movies I was able to catch because they were digital as well. Will stop keeping track after the Oscars.

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once
2. Decision to Leave
3. Moonage Daydream
4. The Batman
5. The Banshees of Inisherin
6. Happening
7. Ambulance
8. The Sadness
9. Vortex
10. Aftersun

...plus 140 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

For the third January in a row, it's time to journey across Japan. continue having a blast with this and I can't imagine this year is any different. Cheers to Ben for creating the challenge. Here are my plans:

The original list.

Line-up:

1. Shinya Tsukamoto (1/1/1960)
2. Takashi Miike
3. Akira Kurosawa
4. Masaki Kobayashi
5. Hayao Miyazaki (1/5/1941)
6. Satoshi Kon
7. Hirokazu Kore-eda
8. Ryūsuke Hamaguchi
9. Nobuhiko Ōbayashi (1/9/1938 — 4/10/2020)
10. Ishirō Honda
11. Keisuke Kinoshita
12. Kinji Fukasaku (7/3/1930 — 1/12/2003)
13. Miwa Nishikawa
14. Yukiko Mishima
15. Nagisa Ōshima (3/31/1932 — 1/15/2013)
16. Gakuryū Ishii (1/15/1957... A belated birthday celebration!)
17. Toshiaki Toyoda
18. Takeshi Kitano (1/18/1947)
19. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
20. Kenji Mizoguchi
21. Hiroshi Shimizu
22. Masahiro Shinoda
23. Yoshishige Yoshida
24. Shunji Iwai (1/24/1963)
25. Shinji Aoyama
26. Seijun Suzuki
27. Shōhei Imamura
28. Hiroshi Teshigahara (1/28/1927 — 4/14/2001)
29. Kon Ichikawa
30. Mikio Naruse
31. Yasujirō Ozu

Bonus categories:

32. Animated film (156-180)
33. Pinku/Pink Violence film (181-190)
34. Samurai film (191-200)
35. Japanese Horror (201-220)
36. Directed by Women (221-250)
37. Kaiju film (251-260)
38. Short film (261-270)
39. Documentary (271-280)
40. Recommendations from Ben (281-300)

New additions:
Satoshi Kon
Ryūsuke Hamaguchi
Yukiko Mishima
Masahiro Shinoda
Shinji Aoyama

Featured as categories in Japanuary 2021 or Japanuary 2022 but do not for Japanuary 2023:

Kaneto Shindō: If only there were more days in January... still, do check out Kaneto Shindo's work. Lots of great movies. Phenomenal filmmaker.

Katsuhito Ishii: Ishii is a fun filmmaker who ultimately has a smaller, harder-to-access body of work. Watch his movies if you can!

Yasuzō Masumura: Again... If only there were more days in January. Yasuzō Masumura's films are well worth checking out.

Kōji Wakamatsu: The Godfather of Pink Cinema. Unfortunately, many of his films are harder to access, but I recommend that those who can find his movies check them out.

Sion Sono

Naomi Kawase

• Vital

  1. Shinya Tsukamoto (1/1/1960)

• Lesson of the Evil

  2. Takashi Miike

• Stray Dog

  3. Akira Kurosawa

• The Fossil

  4. Masaki Kobayashi

• Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess

  5. Hayao Miyazaki (1/5/1941)

• Ani*Kuri15: Good Morning

  6. Satoshi Kon

• Air Doll

  7. Hirokazu Kore-eda

• Intimacies

  8. Ryūsuke Hamaguchi

• School in the Crosshairs

  9. Nobuhiko Ōbayashi (1/9/1938 — 4/10/2020)

• Dogora

  10. Ishirō Honda

...plus 30 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A challenge I stumbled across last year while I was bored and figured fuck it why not, loved it and am diving right the fuck back in. So here goes nothing I guess. Again.

Started: 4/6/22
Finished: 12/13/22
Progress: 52/52

The original list

Categories:

1. Watch a movie from the year you were born.
2. 1920s
3. 1930s
4. 1940s
5. 1950s
6. 1960s
7. 1970s
8. 1980s
9. 1990s
10. 2000s
11. 2010s
12. Genre: War
13. Genre: Science Fiction
14. Genre: Musical/Music Themed
15. Watch a film by a director whose work you haven't seen before
16. Directed by Chantal Akerman (Directed by Chantal Akerman)
17. Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
18. Directed by Wong Kar-wai (Directed by Wong Kar-wai)
19. Directed by Claire Denis (Directed by Claire Denis)
20. Isabel Sandoval's Top 10 (Isabel Sandoval’s Top 10)
21. Bill Hader's Top 10 (Bill Hader’s Top 10)
22. Ana Lily Amirpour's Top 10 (Ana Lily Amirpour’s Top 10)
23. Richard Linklater's Top 10 (Richard Linklater’s Top 10)
24. Made in the United States
25. Made in Poland
26. Made in Iran
27. Made in Mexico
28. Made in Senegal
29. Watch a film that has an out of print physical release (Out of Print Criterion Releases)
30. Watch a film from the "America Lost and Found: The BBS Story" collection (America Lost and Found: The BBS Story)
31. Watch a film with a spine #1-100 (Criterion Collection by Spine Number)
32. Watch a film with a spine #500-600 (Criterion Collection by Spine Number)
33. Cannes Film Festival Winners (Cannes’s Big Winners)
34. Midnight Madness: Watch a cult classic (Midnight Madness)
35. Growing Pains: Watch a coming of age film (Growing Pains)
36. Stage to Screen: Watch a stage adaptation (Stage to Screen)
37. Out at Criterion: Watch an LGBTQ film (Out at Criterion)
38. Watch a film on the Summer Travels list (Summer Travels)
39. Watch a film on the Hollywood Classics list (Hollywood Classics)
40. Watch a film from the Animation Before the 2000s list (Animation Before the 2000s)
41. Starring Catherine Deneuve (Starring Catherine Deneuve)
42. Starring Anna Karina (Starring Anna Karina)
43. Starring Jeanne Moreau (Starring Jeanne Moreau)
44. Paul Dano's Closet Picks (Paul Dano’s Closet Picks )
45. Ethan Hawke and Jonathan Marc Sherman's Closet Picks ( Ethan Hawke and Jonathan Marc Sherman’s Closet Picks )
46. Michael K. Williams’ Closet Picks (Michael K. Williams’ Closet Picks)
47. Sean Baker's Closet Picks (Sean Baker’s Closet Picks)
48. Amy Heckerling's Closet Picks (Amy Heckerling’s Closet Picks)
49. Agnes Varda's Closet Picks (Agnès Varda’s Closet Picks)
50. Random number generator (Google random number generator, set values from 1 to 1131, this number will change as more releases are announced, watch whatever movie corresponds to the spine number)
51. Watch a film featured in any of the Essential Art House box sets (Essential Art House Films)
52. Any Criterion film on your watchlist

• Ride with the Devil

  1. Watch a movie from the year you were born

• Battleship Potemkin

  2. 1920s

• Osaka Elegy

  3. 1930s

• , Year Zero

  4. 1940s

• The Burmese Harp

  5. 1950s

• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

  6. 1960s

• The Castle of Sand

  7. 1970s

• Lola

  8. 1980s

• Europa Europa

  9. 1990s

• Secret Sunshine

  10. 2000s

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I watch 1 random horror movie for each day of October. I record it here. Simple stuff. Doing this on top of Hooptober.

• Mad God
• White Dog
• Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum
• We're All Going to the World's Fair
• The Shout
• Coma
• Werewolf by Night
• Watcher
• Tetsuo II: Body Hammer
• A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Just after round 1 comes round 2 so here I am again about to watch a shitton of horror. I'll probably double up on doing my own 1 horror movie a day thing on the side again as well. I like it. Hope I don't run out of movies.

Link to the original challenge.

Criteria:
There must be 31 films
6 countries
8 decades
2 insect centered films
1 horror film set in space or the future (relative to when it was released)
2 animated films
1 bloodthirsty old person/people film
2 1970s regional US films (Thanks Sean Young)
The worst horror sequel from the 1990s that you haven't seen and can access. (I realize that this will take a little work)
1 German Silent
5 Films from David Cronenberg, Ti West, Bill Rebane, Charles B. Pierce, William Grefe and/or Joy N. Houck Jr.
2 Christopher Lee films
1 film with a musician or band in it (A real life musician or band)
1 Stephen King adaptation that is not the first go around.
1 Lon Chaney film.

And 1 Tobe Hooper Film (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film)

***FOR THOSE THAT LIKE TO DO EXTRA WORK: WATCH The Last Circus and Silent Madness.

• Vampire Hunter D

  6 countries: Japan

• Roadgames

  6 countries: Australia

• The Beast

  6 countries:

• The Watcher in the Woods

  6 countries: UK

• The Visitor

  6 countries: Italy

• Fallen

  6 countries: USA

• The Blob

  8 decades: 1950s

• The Cremator

  8 decades: 1960s

• Demons

  8 decades: 1970s

• Cat People

  8 decades: 1980s

...plus 26 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I'm bored.

• Secrets & Lies

  Sara

• The Mourning Forest

  deardani

• Macario

  LIR

• Cameraperson

  SassyKimchi

• Ee.Ma.Yau.

  Galaxy

• Life of Pi

  Ryan

• High Tension

  mother!GETTHEFUXKOUTOFMYHOUSE!

• So Long, My Son

  redfooball

• Confessions

  Kudabe

• A Night at the Opera

  Shinan

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

I like to watch people get punched and kicked in the face. Hong Kong likes to punch and kick people in the face. So here we are.

The original list

1) A movie starring Gordon Liu (1-5)
2) A movie directed by Yuen Woo-Ping (6-10)
3) A movie directed by Joseph Kuo (11-15)
4) A movie either starring or directed by Jackie Chan (16-20)
5) A movie either starring or directed by Sammo Hung (21-25)
6) A movie starring Jet Li (26-30)
7) A movie starring Bruce Lee (31-35)
8) A Wuxia film (36-40)
9) Kung Fu Horror (41-45)
10) Bruceploitation! (46-50)
11) Wait, what?! A weird Shaw Brothers selection. (51-55)
12) A Jack favorite (56-60)

• Dirty Ho

  1) A movie starring Gordon Liu (1-5)

• Iron Monkey

  2) A movie directed by Yuen Woo-Ping (6-10)

• The Mystery of Chess Boxing

  3) A movie directed by Joseph Kuo (11-15)

• Police Story 4: First Strike

  4) A movie either starring or directed by Jackie Chan (16-20)

• Dragons Forever

  5) A movie either starring or directed by Sammo Hung (21-25)

• Shaolin Temple

  6) A movie starring Jet Li (26-30)

• The Big Boss

  7) A movie starring Bruce Lee (31-35)

• Dragon

  8) A Wuxia film (36-40)

• Human Lanterns

  9) Kung Fu Horror (41-45)

• Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger

  10) Bruceploitation! (46-50)

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

The movies that were released in America in some form in 2021 (probably) from my favorite to least favorite. Might have thrown in some festival movies I was able to catch because they were digital as well. Will stop keeping track after the Oscars.

1. The Father
2. Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time
3. Derek DelGaudio's In & of Itself
4. tick, tick... BOOM!
5. Riders of Justice
6. Shiva Baby
7. The Worst Person in the World
8. The Souvenir: Part II
9. Drive My Car
10. The Power of the Dog

...plus 135 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Another January, another Japanuary. I had an absolute ball with it last year and looking down the list, this year is looking like another great time. Cheers to Ben for creating the challenge. Here are my plans:

The original list.

The categories:
31 Main Categories:
1. Akira Kurosawa (1-5)
2. Hayao Miyazaki (6-10)
3. Hirokazu Kore-eda (11-15)
4. Kaneto Shindō (16-20)
5. Kiyoshi Kurosawa (21-25)
6. Takashi Miike (26-30)
7. Yasujirō Ozu (31-35)
8. Kon Ichikawa (36-40)
9. Shinya Tsukamoto (41-45)
10. Nobuhiko Ōbayashi (46-50)
11. Nagisa Ōshima (51-55)
12. Hiroshi Teshigahara (56-60)
13. Sion Sono (61-65)
14. Seijun Suzuki (66-70)
15. Masaki Kobayashi (71-75)
16. Shōhei Imamura (76-80)
17. Takeshi Kitano (81-85)
18. Kinji Fukasaku (86-90)
19. Mikio Naruse (91-95)
20. Hiroshi Shimizu (96-100)
21. Yasuzō Masumura (101-105)
22. Yoshishige Yoshida (106-110)
23. Shunji Iwai (111-115)
24. Toshiaki Toyoda (116-120)
25. Naomi Kawase (121-125)
26. Miwa Nishikawa (126-130)
27. Kōji Wakamatsu (131-135)
28. Gakuryū Ishii (136-140)
29. Ishirō Honda (141-145)
30. Keisuke Kinoshita (146-150)
31. Kenji Mizoguchi (151-155)

Bonus/Alternative Categories:
Feel free to substitute any of the 31 director categories listed above with the options below.

32. Animated Film - Not Directed by Hayao Miyazaki (156-180)
33. Pink / Pink Violence Film (181-190)
34. Samurai Film (191-200)
35. J-Horror (201-220)
36. Directed by Women (221-240)
37. Kaiju (241-260)
38. Short Film (261-270)
39. Documentary (271-280)
40. Recommendations from Ben (281-300)

• Sanshiro Sugata

  1. Akira Kurosawa (1-5)

• Mon Mon the Water Spider

  2. Hayao Miyazaki (6-10)

• Our Little Sister

  3. Hirokazu Kore-eda (11-15)

• Children of Hiroshima

  4. Kaneto Shindō (16-20)

• Bright Future

  5. Kiyoshi Kurosawa (21-25)

• The Bird People in China

  6. Takashi Miike (26-30)

• Early Summer

  7. Yasujirō Ozu (31-35)

• Odd Obsession

  8. Kon Ichikawa (36-40)

• Tokyo Fist

  9. Shinya Tsukamoto (41-45)

• Hanagatami

  10. Nobuhiko Ōbayashi (46-50)

...plus 30 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A challenge I stumbled across because I was bored and figured fuck it why not? So here goes nothing I guess.

Started: 3/6/21
Finished: 11/12/21
Progress: 52/52

The original list

Categories:

1. 1984 - watch a film released the year of Criterion's inception.
2. Directed by Akira Kurosawa
3. Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
4. Horror
5. Released on Laserdisc (Criterion Collection Laserdisc Titles)
6. Made in Spain
7. Wes Anderson's Top 10 (Wes Anderson’s Top 10)
8. Romance
9. A silent film
10. 1920’s
11. 1930’s
12. 1940’s
13. 1950’s
14. 1960’s
15. 1970’s
16. 1980’s
17. 1990’s
18. 2000’s
19. 2010’s
20. Directed by a woman
21. A film featured in the "Pioneers of African American Cinema" series (Pioneers of African American Cinema)
22. Documentary
23. Comedy
24. Any film on The Criterion Channel (Every Film Available on The Criterion Channel & Secondary List - if you don’t have this service then just choose any film featured on this list and watch however you please. Some may even be on other streaming services or available for rent.)
25. Martin Scorsese's Top 10 (Martin Scorsese’s Top 10)
26. Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
27. Directed by Federico Fellini
28. The Merchant Ivory Collection (Merchant Ivory Collection)
29. Oscar Winners (Oscar Winners)
30. Black and white
31. Directed by Charlie Chaplin
32. Watch any film featured in the Godzilla Boxset
33. Western
34. Made in Italy
35. Made in the Soviet Union
36. Made in India
37. A film from the Eclipse series (The Criterion Collection: Eclipse)
38. Kelly Reichardt's Top 10 (Kelly Reichardt’s Top 10)
39. Directed by John Cassavetes
40. Watch a film between spine #100-200
41. Film Noir
42. Samurai
43. A film featured in the "Queersighted: Queer Fear" series (Queersighted: Queer Fear)
44. A film featured in the "New Korean Cinema" series (New Korean Cinema)
45. Directed by Ingmar Bergman
46. Directed by Agnes Varda
47. Based on a book (Criterion Films Based on a Book)
48. Foreign-Language Oscar Winners (Criterion Collection: Foreign-Language Oscar Winners)
49. Josh and Benny Safdie's Closet Picks (Josh and Benny Safdie’s Closet Picks)
50. Watch a film with spine #1000 or higher
51. Watch a film featured in "Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits" (The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, The Way of the Dragon, Enter the Dragon, Game of Death)
52. Any Criterion film on your watchlist

• The Hit

  1. 1984 - watch a film released the year of Criterion's inception.

• The Bad Sleep Well

  2. Directed by Akira Kurosawa

• Pierrot le Fou

  3. Directed by Jean-Luc Godard

• The Brood

  4. Horror

• The Adventures of Robin Hood

  5. Released on Laserdisc (Criterion Collection Laserdisc Titles)

• Faster, Faster

  6. Made in Spain

• The Friends of Eddie Coyle

  7. Wes Anderson's Top 10

• Happy Together

  8. Romance

• The King of Kings

  9. A silent film

• Häxan

  10. 1920’s

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Basically Spooktober but I started this before I knew what that was. I watch 1 random horror movie for each day of October. It's a blast. I record it here. Simple stuff. Doing this on top of Hooptober.

• Titane
• Freaks
• Angst
• Dracula
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
• Candyman
• Halloween II
• The Empty Man
• Sightseers
• Wolf Creek

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My inaugural season for Hooptober. Will be doing this on top of my own 1 horror movie a day binge that I've been doing for two years now because I want all the horror. Cheers.

Link to the original challenge.

Criteria:
6 countries
8 decades
2 folk horror
4 films from 1981
2 films from your birth year
2 haunted house films
The worst Part 2 that you haven't seen and can access. (I realize that this will take a little work)
1 film set in the woods
1 Kaiju or Kong film (not the new K v. G)
2 Hammer films
3 films with a person of color as director or lead. (excluding Asian)
3 Asian horror films.

And 1 Tobe Hooper Films (There must ALWAYS be a Hooper film)

• Legend of the Mountain

  6 Countries - China

• Nosferatu the Vampyre

  6 Countries -

• Near Dark

  6 Countries - USA

• Lamb

  6 Countries - Iceland

• Noriko's Dinner Table

  6 Countries - Japan

• [REC]

  6 Countries - Spain

• Bride of Frankenstein

  8 Decades - 1930s

• Creature from the Black Lagoon

  8 Decades - 1950s

• Viy

  8 Decades - 1960s

• Black Christmas

  8 Decades - 1970s

...plus 26 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Watching a bunch of movies, rating them in the end, attempting to prevent human instrumentality as much as possible.

• La Chienne

  Luca

• The New World

  Dan

• Andrei Rublev

  Lir

• Apur Sansar

  lilbish

• La Femme Nikita

  Aleks

• The Professional

  Kudabe

• Marathon Man

  Mav

• Clueless

  Sloth

• Searching for Sugar Man

  Donn

• Supa Modo

  Bob

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

The movies that were released in America in some form in 2020 (probably) from my favorite to least favorite. Might have thrown in some festival movies I was able to catch because it was digital as well. Stopped keeping track after the Oscars.

1. Soul
2. Possessor
3. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
4. Minari
5. Nomadland
6. Da 5 Bloods
7. Hamilton
8. Dick Johnson Is Dead
9. Sweat
10. David Byrne's American Utopia

...plus 113 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Watching a ton of movies that will inevitably get ranked in of shoe size and chipotle order weight. Extra point if you mail me some starbursts.

• Threads

  Tidal

• Manila in the Claws of Light

  Waffle

• The Lost Weekend

  Luca

• King of New York

  Always

• Kotoko

  Vogels

• Hair

  Aleksandra

• The Hate U Give

  Lilbish

• The Metamorphosis of Birds

  Kelly

• The Nest

  Ammo

• The Intouchables

  Sara

...plus 30 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

An event for a film server, I get in a spaceship, surf moon waves before eventually running out of apple juice and floating to sector 24601 to party with aliens, never to see my friends again.

• The Hater

  Liam

• All About Eve

  Allie

• American Splendor

  Beca

• Strange Circus

  Kudabe

• A Bittersweet Life

  Jord

• Jallikattu

  LIR

• Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl

  Akira

• The Sword of Doom

  Sam

• Tampopo

  Kelly

• Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

  Lawrence

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

This list serves as a challenge for the month of January, with the goal being to experience some of the most important and exciting Japanese directors and genre films.

Link to challenge

1. Takashi Miike
2. Shinya Tsukamoto
3. Sion Sono
4. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
5. Hirokazu Kore-eda
6. Anime film, not directed by Hayao Miyazaki
7. Yasujirō Ozu
8. Shōhei Imamura
9. Akira Kurosawa
10. Hiroshi Teshigahara
11. Takeshi Kitano
12. Pink film
13. Masaki Kobayashi
14. Kaneto Shindo
15. Kinji Fukasaku
16. Nagisa Ōshima
17. Pink Violence film
18. Kenji Mizoguchi
19. Hayao Miyazaki
20. J-Horror film
21. Kaiju film
22. Japanese Punk/Rock film
23. Naomi Kawase
24. Nobuhiko Ōbayashi
25. Seijun Suzuki
26. Toshiaki Toyoda
27. A film that’s considered “strange”
28. Katsuhito Ishii
29. Documentary
30. Comedy
31. Random film Ben thinks you should watch

• Dead or Alive: Final

  1. Takashi Miike

• Bullet Ballet

  2. Shinya Tsukamoto

• Why Don't You Play in Hell?

  3. Sion Sono

• Creepy

  4. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

• After the Storm

  5. Hirokazu Kore-eda

• Tekkonkinkreet

  6. Anime film, not directed by Hayao Miyazaki

• I Was Born, But...

  7. Yasujirō Ozu

• Pigs and Battleships

  8. Shōhei Imamura

• Dodes'ka-den

  9. Akira Kurosawa

• Pitfall

  10. Hiroshi Teshigahara

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

What came first the chicken or the egg? Neither, McDonalds isn't using real dairy.

• The Wayward Cloud

  new Sean

• A Page of Madness

  Liguare

• Sabrina

  Allie

• The Impossible

  Nate

• Nymphomaniac: Vol. I

  Akira

• Society

  Beca

• Son of the White Mare

  Lia

• Inland Empire

  Altvra

• The Red Shoes

  Iridescence

• Triad Election

  Jord

...plus 25 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.