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Watched on Thursday June 12, 2025.

I'm getting bored with Sean Baker, like Red Rocket (reviewed here) it doesn't amount to much, is plainly predictable and Baker's samey one-trick-pony style is fatiguing heavily by this point and not doing nearly enough.

Madison's performance is the best thing on offer here which helps to sell the film. Baker once again is able to pitch the part in such a way which draws us observantly into the character's thinking and how they think their way through and navigate the narrative experience. Backstory details are scarce, ambiguity aplenty, tapping into various modes. Between Madison and Baker it is a superior execution to Demi Moore's role and performance capture in The Substance and therefore I can't fault Madison the Oscar, she does her part justice.

The next most acclaimed in Yuri Borisov sadly isn't given much to work with here, a few glances and not much else (backloaded beyond two hours), a bite-sized part that pales into nothing in comparison to a similar but more substantial impactful role he had a few years back in Compartment No.6.

An issue for me here is that I just don't find much of any of this interesting, something made clear to me very early in the piece. You spend a fair chunk of time in hedonist lifestyle and then a screwy farce (neither of which bring much new to the table worth ing), in a zone that tries to combine your PBS with your TMZ, the starry eyed American Dream in the messy dramas and profane spats of downtrodden streets. Once again, marginal misleading elusive players, quasi-kidnapping, quasi-missing, mock-nuptials, types both less and more than represented. It's all a bit chronically American. The themes in their indicated implications and hard-won epiphanies are of middling effect.

Overall I think this is a better made film than the previous three Best Pictures, but you have to go back to Nomadland for anything halfway decent that won Best Picture, that got anywhere near clearing a modest bar. I late in the Critics Choice Awards Anora's season prospects were hovering over the jaws of defeat and seemingly about to be snuffed out before it was suddenly thrown a lifeline and won their Picture award and then swept the guilds in what felt a flash. Like the last couple years, it's hard to get worked up about, a majority of the nominees nowadays tend to be mediocre, there were worse options, I guess this show of love only increases the likelihood of the Safdies cleaning up in 2025.

Watched on Thursday June 12, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday June 11, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday June 11, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday June 11, 2025.

It's fine guys. Just another entry in a consistent quadrilogy. The Golan-Globus factor seemingly hasn't helped its reputation and made it an easy target for those with an axe to grind. If your notion of a Supe film is that it must be a studio flagship big screen bonanza of record expense shot in real locations with Hollywood crews and maybe with an intermission thrown in there, then you might be really peeved with this. But from a small screen series watch in 2025, I don’t much care for any of that prestige and cultural symbolism, an entry like The Quest for Peace will do the trick.

I when I was five or six my best friend had seen the film and explained to me his cherished figurine of Nuclear Man, and whenever we pretended to be TMNT or Power Rangers or Captain Planet or whatever Nuclear Man got a run as well. I often played the part of Nuclear Man against his Supe. Took thirty years to see it but I got there in the end.

We are shifting into the (pre-pre-)modern era of superhero films here, just on the cusp of a wave of them, yet still very eighties (there's the latter stages of the Cold War with a plea for disarmament peace, a Murdoch media mogul, a Rocky IV-esque rumble, solar power, shoulder pads fashion, etc.) as well as the usual screwballing, and a more pronounced reflection on Supe's role, forbidden to dictate and intervene into world affairs as a supreme being. Some more modern faces showing up like Cryer and Broadbent.

Ends the series on a very evil note, dropping someone into quarry labour prison and saying see you in twenty years. No one deserves that fate.

Looooved the first two acts, was ready to declare this the best in the franchise, unfortunately the finale with the rockets and missile and supercomputer and acid tipped over into the too cartoony for a picture that otherwise had just the right balance of goof. Would've also liked just a fraction more fleshing out of Webster, Vera & Lorelai who leave you wanting more. But just a joy to see a hilarious Superman film, a Lester-Pryor showcase. Not every moment executes, few scenes you'd change a tad, but it's a hoot, and as megafan LBer robyn so eloquently describes, it understands what it essentially is.

I'm a fan of 1983's Octopussy, Never Say Never Again and Superman III, something about making a big silly film at this particular point of time just works and speaks to me. That they are all oft-derided explains why we can't have nice things.

Smallville's Martha used to be Lana? Neat!

A superior sequel, partly shot back-to-back with the original but you can feel the difference. Has some actual character depth, weighty choices, weighty stakes, camp aplenty. This is the Kidder's Lois Supe film, she gets a lot more to work with and is the beating heart. Terence Stamp a lot of fun. Enjoyed the Niagara stuff, the Diner stuff. I have a big soft spot for Lex Luthor, always have, always will. A little patchy in certain areas (by virtue of the production), the recap is a bit long (with awkward cutting around Brando) and the detonation portal release in space is a bit chancey, but overall the best Superman film to date.

Also, villains in the White House (who seem to think they command the planet by default) suddenly announcing they want to rule Australia *eek* too relevant.

Also note there is a Michael Shannon here in the cast of a Zod film

And Lester>>>>Donner. Lester is a superior and funnier filmmaker (with Salkinds runs on the board), I have zero interest in seeing the Donner Cut.

Watched on Monday June 9, 2025.

Going to do some short'n'quick ones on this films series. Note, I'm a cinema enthusiast (rather than the comics/Star Wars/graphics geek type) so adjust accordingly in case of perceived blasphemy with overhate lore. Also note I find that these films reflect the filmmaking eras they were released in, which might influence preferences.

Less enthused on this revisit than last time. Mostly set-up, not as deep with character, more humourless, drags. Coasts on the Brando presence (who relative to the rest of the picture almost earns the paycheque). The various opening credits indicate they are throwing money towards clout more than anything. Late 70s as the Sci-Fi blockbuster takes off, so looooooong distended tediously dated opening credits which continue to plague the series. We don't even arrive at Earth until 22 minutes in (not necessarily a bad thing). The sudden timejump to Daily Planet. The supervillain scheme is dealt with quickly. The only feeling that comes through strongly is the Kal-El orphan finding his calling (largely thanks to Brando), the rest treads water.

Certainly a good superhero film, a proof of concept, but dropped in my estimation.

Truth, Justice and the American Way...2025 would like a word.

Was quibbling whether to give this 4 or 4.5, right on that line, but as an enthusiast of train cinema I can't help but put it over the top. It isn't quite as brilliant and cherished as something like Sherlock Jr. can be, but it's tackling a different kind of mode anyway (people flock to these masters of silent comedies from diverse angles afterall), and like many a modern viewer had me going *point* Fury Road! The commitment to the great chase there and back again and the period setting capture is irably complete, you can feel the bigger budget and onus of historical adaptation and it achieves all it envisions doing.

Watched on Saturday June 7, 2025.

Watched on Saturday June 7, 2025.

Watched on Saturday June 7, 2025.

Watched on Friday June 6, 2025.

Watched on Friday June 6, 2025.

Watched on Thursday June 5, 2025.

Watched on Thursday June 5, 2025.

Truthfully just a two star effort (not enough swimming content, and mediocre even by pearl lugger B pic standards), but nudge it up that extra half star given this is tragically the only one of Annette Kellerman's five features to have largely survived the vagaries of time intact (a few being casualties of the 1937 Fox vault fire), so it does come with some considerable priceless value in seeing her do her thing ('Perfect Woman' in her signature one-piece, aqua ballet fantasy, action hero stuntwoman, etc.), plus the novelties of an early example of a feature location shoot in New Zealand and one of the last films to include some Prizma. One can assume the more renowned previous four (when she was younger), particularly the Brenons, were more notable cinematic productions and (despite this proto-Aquacade mermaid kitsch being a visionary but dated box office fad) bigger losses to modern audiences, but there are enchanting moments here between her underwater grace and the underwater cinematography (both in Picton Sound and the Nelson Reservoir). It was low budget with mostly local actors, and her husband is listed as the director of the film (he was indeed present but haven't found any confirmation of who actually directed it, seems like they were just sent a partial crew of professionals and otherwise made-do). A decade later in 1933 when they were filming for months on the Great Barrier Reef, and despite their having been closely associated since the Chicago White City days of 1906, he himself still hadn't bothered to learn to swim then and still relied on filming her via diving bell, underwater viewing pane and tank. So yeah, Venus of the South Seas isn't great, but it's sadly virtually all we have left of the silent film star phase of Annette Kellerman save scattered other reel snippets, and derives a little preciousness from that.

Watched on Wednesday June 4, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday June 4, 2025.

One of those cases where this feels like a film that would've felt much more special at the time. What seems more familiar nowadays was more rarefied then, especially when this fully formed. ire how they pulled off the natural story flow they were going for, adored Yeoman's photography throughout, and a lot of the cast are evidently enjoying themselves immensely, like that first shot of Remar as the bleary cop with the styrofoam coffee, it just takes one glance at him to see how much fun he is going to have with it. If I was a Gen X who saw this at a formative time in 1989, it would mean a lot more, but from 2025 the influential aspects here have been diluted, and the lesser elements harder to overlook. Gave it much the same rating as Jesus' Son. GVS's subsequent My Own Private Idaho just has that little bit more going for it. Still, it's a novelty to see an eighties film starring Heather Graham and Max Perlich.

I like Wellman's cinematic idea of being dropped into the excitement of a live posse formation where details are scattered and emotions are running high, and at crucial moments of deepening measures he uses camera movement for a sense of immersive observance set in train. It's a great people watch film as a gallery of genre types are each etched a little different, the sheer witness of faces (including bad actors and the sincerely vengeful), and in the present climate where a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes the breakneck gallop to outpace the gaps of evidence and a more sober adjudication in order to apply peer pressure and enact a righteous rite-of-age definitely resonates something fierce. Has both a bitter aftertaste and a cyclical presentation, and universal enough so that you can imagine this call to arms scenario playing out on any old day in your own community.

Ultimately though, it felt a bit like a good example of that insists upon itself phrase (which I've never used until this moment). It's fine, hits the intended target, a worthy member of the Fonda preachy court-related pictures, very 12 Angry Men. It proceeds and ends much as expected. Wellman has made many better, but it's a good film. Might be a more significant film to American audiences who you'd think would have slotted this somewhere in their curriculum.

There must be ghost stories of posses who were baited to dash headlong into the forsaken hills or plains right into a trap and mysteriously never returned, and are said to haunt the conscience of a guilty traveler.

Watched on Monday June 2, 2025.

Watched on Monday June 2, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 31, 2025.

Finely acted and thematically robust Irish rural drama with a couple powerful scenes, but ultimately the stage origins become too conspicuously contrived in cinematic translation, the latter stages failing to convince, scenes that might possibly be merely referred to on page and stage (?) are instead depicted to less poetic and detrimental effect.

Watched on Saturday May 31, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 31, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 31, 2025.

This review may contain spoilers.

Very evil example of the homme fatale (and maybe viewer expectations when those gendered tables are turned and the female patsy is treated so pitilessly). The final scene comes off like an ad-hoc studio concession to leaven such a dark end (which makes the film more interesting than it really is), and isn't terribly convincing given the prior finesse of an elaborate plot. Appears to have been filmed directly before Marnie, then Goldfinger, with Connery very much in the JB mold here, charming, servile, poker-faced and icy (ultimately one of his roles with a more menacing aftertaste, think The Offence). Decent piece of casting for Lollobrigida, and Ralph Richardson predictably dominates in the archetype of the rich tyrannical invalid practically pleading to be offed. Dearden and co do a decent job with the rote material, has all the trappings like a country estate murder investigation, a Mallorca yacht holiday with a quick wedding and will change pending, a bit of Weekend at Bernie's, bouts of nasty mistreatment and earned mellowing, and the posterity pairing of two major sex symbols.

Watched on Friday May 30, 2025.

Yep, prefer the Sofia, an astute selection of a film that could be remade better in the right hands. The difference isn't stark, the Siegel works and has a lot of enjoyable turns and appreciable points of difference, but Sofia has a better read and handle on it, all the changes that Sofia made and her deepening complexity of the scenario were on point, and Farrell & Dunst in particular are just superior castings. Siegel was a good filmmaker but you will get a more intriguing and tighter auteurist work from Sofia.

Watched on Friday May 30, 2025.

Watched on Friday May 30, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 29, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 29, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 29, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 29, 2025.

Last time I watched this it was still Kurzel’s only film. It definitely had more of a disturbing impact on me at the time (maybe knowing less about the details of the case come the rug pull, and I would seem to be a relatively more desensitised viewer nowadays, not fazed as heavily by screen depiction, as well as more acquired towards the distinct Kurzel tone which is in full vibe here), yet it remains very unsettling, the forsaken setting of bleak abandonment, the sudden reveals which speak volumes, the slowly grasping subjectivity, the paranoid offscreen suggestion (that scene with the two bricks is one of the hardest things to watch here).

From the standpoint of 2025 the timeless power achingly comes through. Upon release you could read this as a parallel thematically spanning the recent Dubya era arc, and it applies even more pervasively now to the playbook of the no-masks Trumpian era. This could happen anywhere, anytime, macro or micro, with the creep, escalation, indoctrination and capitulation articulating these contours and closing exits masterfully.

Kurzel’s most impressive work outside of Nitram, and it retrospectively has a clarifying way of bringing his whole career together. The kind of notorious (period) subjects he perennially tackles, bravely penetrating what remote formative winding trails can give rise to bloodbath manifestations and expansively inhabiting them from a grounded social psychological lens of raw understanding, the thoughtful way he authentically illuminates overlooked distorting groomed cycles of violence, the warning signals gone undetected, unshakeable abuses, the attested grievances and manifesto falsities, the enabling silence of the flock. Kurzel is a self-styled cinematic neighborhood watchman, educating us on the limitation gap, negligence, frailty and nurture often accompanying perpetrated evil deeds, that violence is violence, cruelty is cruelty, inhumanity is inhumanity, injustice is injustice. You can seek to understand true-crime snaps of violence if you dignify the various interacting subjects and the societal circumstances in which they reside, rather than resorting to cheap ploys that don’t help and push away solutions like sensationalism, glamorisation, populist overreaction, tragedy exploitation, demonisation, exclusion and excess. The unresolved traumas of recent history haunt the sculpted misshapen form of the present, with various complacent forms of culturally condoned violence still generationally recent enough to give one pause.

Watched on Wednesday May 28, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday May 28, 2025.

The greatest strength/failing of this Burns on Baseball is that about 90-95% of the romantic sentiments from the talking heads towards this so-called 'national pastime' could seamlessly apply to any national pastime of similar standing around the world. You don't have to be specifically conversant in baseball (I recognise maybe a dozen names and clubs and a few hoodoos and scandals and anthems but had no linear grasp before watching this, which I found educative and colourful). To me, softball with a sprinkling of baseball was just a fun occasional option for the pre-teen (middle school) cohort in a country where it barely exists and only a creative few could potentially derive a living off it minus a port. I've never in my life seen an MLB game in full, possibly once or twice in the Olympics. Like most bat'n'ball sports (save more leisurely lawn games like golf & croquet), the ball is served up and will likely be coming back after you hit it, and there is some running involved. As per title, it is the plethora of bases that sets it apart from other professional sports of similar stature (a disarming feature rooted in various schoolyard games, or roll'n'move circular board games). I spent this eighteen hours with half my brain soaking up the history of baseball, and the other half conferring with the applicable for me (Australia has several contenders, including the comparable cricket, and more personally there is the alike fandom of Aussie Rules and tennis, but over this parallel timeline you would have to point to swimming as the best answer for 'national pastime', given the coastline population, the cultural popularity of various water activities, the useful skill that can save lives and keep healthy, the relative glorified status some swimmers have enjoyed, the influence overseas of various exponents dating back to the colonial nineteenth century, etc.; learning to swim is a cultural mandate and the finest answer). This universality and redolence in pitch helps Baseball to find more international appeal than that other epic Civil War (as does the recency, living talking heads breaking forth from their documented archival come the fifth episode). But it is also the failing, so unspecific and complacent (that naive hyper-inwardness of perspective that marks all Burns documentaries) that it becomes vaporous, super-casual, more about the vibe this sport has provided than the nitty gritty of the sport itself. But in doing so with such transportable accessibility it achieves something noble, gushing of the cultural function this vehicle provides, filtered in a pastoral writerly manner that feels true to the notion of baseball itself. Also can't help but think that if gridiron was any of the other more attractive variants of football, then baseball would be long forgotten to niche status by now, rather than this steady attrition, a lucky stroke baseball can be thankful for.

Yet, the development of this game from humble beginnings to the then present is richly absorbing, and throughout it is a shining (parody-ripe) example of the use of talking heads, that side was expertly done. Given the feeling and jockeying involved in crafting such a history it won't please all comers (being a noob I enjoyed the presence of the likes of Billy Crystal, Doris Kearns Goodwin & Mario Cuomo, people who aren't primarily known for baseball but represent the life-shaping ion of millions, and reflect the often multi-faceted journeys of many players depicted). Something disarming about the Ken Burns works is that they feel like a Cinematic Universe. His future subjects were likely guest stars (underexplored tangents) in a previous work, you can readily predict them and won't be surprised (arguably already the case when this was released three decades ago). It is very comic book, the big name pillars, the assembled teams, the publishers, the spinoffs, etc. Burns favours the big legends of yore that you can't swerve out of the way of, and Baseball interweaves across various of his other projects, in the locations, the players, the epochs, the racism, the innovations, the national character. If you like a sport as much as these folk love baseball, can relate, experience life through it, ride their highs and lows, then you'll be good here and won't find it too exotic and perplexing and longwinded.

This log regards the 1994 E1-9, working through the 2010 addition now which I'll regard separately.

Watched on Tuesday May 27, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday May 27, 2025.

Refn's most impressive by some distance. Ultimately a bit lacking in certain areas (typical director preoccupations and characterisations), but an invigorating Dostoevsky Carnivalesque of Chopper via A Clockwork Orange, where the brawler gravitates towards calling prison home, reshaping, painting and mirroring cramped surroundings into a one-man stage (everyone has a vaudeville act within them). Gets its various points and conflicts across purposefully enough, although could've taken it a bit deeper and further. Risen in my esteem since last viewing, stands up.

Watched on Monday May 26, 2025.

Is the Cannes Diary a recognised subgenre yet? Because I feel like there are hundreds of these by now (usually finding myself well-disposed to them). HSS clearly knows this particular terrain well, with many winks throughout, whereas much of his cinema of slight variations (think a chronology of live performances) tends towards the middling almost-cinema, here he slots in seamlessly upon very fertile ground, understandably so as someone living festival to festival. From the opening moments I got the immediate impression this was a top-gear outlier for HSS, the interactions are bangers throughout, shot-for-shot very stimulating, the titular function very conducive to interpretation, nods aplenty, nary a detail callback inflection wasted, no cutting room floor filler. Refreshing to see a HSS film actually worthy of some festival adulation and masterful notices, the accompanying celebratory burst of colour (and language) no happy accident. Of the fourteen I've seen to date this was by far the most impressive.

Enjoyed this one a couple times in the years following release and glad to see it still works a fun treat. Different enough from Dial M to feel its own separate thing (as well as a stylish 90s thriller of its day). Douglas and Paltrow (and Suchet) doing exactly the kind of roles you wanted from them then, plus a slippery lover part from Mortensen (this was the 'that guy' role he was most broadly identifiable with in the recent mainstream when career-changer FotR came along). The three characters are all palpably under the pump in one way or another (even if they don't readily let it on), lives at critical junctures navigating slim margins and presenting falsehoods that could come crashing down on them. Their interrelations quietly linger with you more than anything else here. A negative is the generic final confrontation, which felt very rushed and could've been executed a lot better, too reliant on cracking open a safe and physical scuffle, was craving something more warily open-ended or abrupt. Whilst it succumbs to a disposable finish, the selling points here carry it through.

1. The Godfather Part II
2. The Godfather
3. On the Waterfront
4. Amadeus
5. The Deer Hunter
6. The Apartment
7. The Silence of the Lambs
8. The Sting
9. Titanic
10. No Country for Old Men

...plus 87 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Brief Encounter
2. Apocalypse Now
3. The Tree of Life
4. The Conversation
5. Taxi Driver
6. Secrets & Lies
7. Paris, Texas
8. The Mission
9. Dancer in the Dark
10. Pulp Fiction

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

1. Memoir of a Snail
2. Blitz
3. Late Night with the Devil
4. Hit Man
5. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
6. Disclaimer
7. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
8. Boy Swallows Universe
9. Nemesis
10. The Order

...plus 54 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

5 most want to see: Street Smart, Swimming to Cambodia, Rita, Sue & Bob Too, Walker, Matewan

tend to refer to this as my personal fave year of cinema, hence the full ranking treatment

1. High Tide
2. Full Metal Jacket
3. The Year My Voice Broke
4. Withnail & I
5. The Last Emperor
6. Dirty Dancing
7. The Dead
8. Travelling North
9. Empire of the Sun
10. Wings of Desire

...plus 93 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My favourite superhero films.

Cloned from my larger list of comic/GN/manga adaptations, this offshoot is a more American-centric list focused upon the cultural phenomenon of the superhero subgenre. This list affords original film properties, but needs a scope mention here or similar.

1. Watchmen
2. Batman Begins
3. The Dark Knight Rises
4. Blade
5. Kick-Ass
6. Chronicle
7. Ant-Man
8. Big Hero 6
9. Captain Marvel
10. Spider-Man

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

My fave films seen for the first time in 2025 (so far). i.e. the nu2me discoveries

1. Memoir of a Snail
2. Harvey
3. Beau Is Afraid
4. We're All Going to the World's Fair
5. Dead Calm
6. The General
7. Threads
8. Saltburn
9. For All Mankind
10. Jude

...plus 53 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Special mention to his Stan "the Big Man" Bolander original cast stint on Homicide: Life on the Street.

1. All the President's Men
2. Network
3. Toy Story 3
4. Deliverance
5. Nashville
6. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
7. The Affair
8. Hopscotch
9. Superman II
10. 1941

submitted for the latest edition of the HelenWelonMelon poll (newly tagged!)

Unranked, specially ordered from my earliest to most recent first viewings (I attempted to rank but tapped out before 350).

pre-Letterboxd era: #1-226 (roughly ordered from memory)
Letterboxd era: #227-500 (exact viewing order)

You may filter list by alphabet, release, popularity, etc. as it pleases, also see: Top 100 | Top 1%

Restricted myself to features.

Director:
9: Kubrick, Mike Leigh, Ridley Scott, Fincher
8: Coens, Cronenberg
7: Tarkovsky, Ozu, Hitchcock

Year with the most: 1997 (15)

• Return to Oz
• Bambi
• Sleeping Beauty
• FernGully: The Last Rainforest
• Beauty and the Beast
• Dumbo
• Lady and the Tramp
• Invaders from Mars
• Trapeze
• Titanic

...plus 490 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Still need to see: Julius Caesar, Reflections in a Golden Eye, Viva Zapata!

1. Apocalypse Now
2. The Godfather
3. On the Waterfront
4. A Streetcar Named Desire
5. Last Tango in Paris
6. Burn!
7. One-Eyed Jacks
8. Listen to Me Marlon
9. Sayonara
10. Morituri

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

My top 25 films based upon comics/graphic novels, as part of the Letterboxd Showdown on comic books.

Special mention to the French-Canadian The Adventures of Tintin television series, part of my personal canon.

1. Akira
2. A History of Violence
3. My Neighbors the Yamadas
4. Blue Is the Warmest Color
5. Sin City
6. Only Yesterday
7. Watchmen
8. Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro
9. Batman Begins
10. The Dark Knight Rises

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

My favourite feature of each year rewinding the century of 2024 through 1925.

• Memoir of a Snail
• The Killer
• Blonde
• Nitram
• Promising Young Woman
• Ad Astra
• Isle of Dogs
• Phantom Thread
• American Honey
• The Duke of Burgundy

...plus 90 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The 5 films per decade that I shamefully still haven't seen and most desire to see. I will continue replenishing this list as films are seen.

Films ticked off this list;
2014: (34) The Piano, The 39 Steps, The Bicycle Thieves, Cries and Whispers, Mulholland Drive, The Gold Rush, Nashville, The ion of Joan of Arc, L'Atalante, Fanny & Alexander, Nostalghia, No, La Dolce Vita, In the Bedroom, 2046, The Last Temptation of Christ, Modern Times, The Descendants, Early Summer, Like Father, Like Son, Blue Velvet, Double Indemnity, Rififi, Stalag 17, Hugo, Bloody Sunday, Lost in Translation, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, All Quiet on the Western Front, Mean Streets, A Touch of Sin, The Vertical Ray of the Sun, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Code Unknown
2015: (12) Camera Buff, The Music Room, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, After Hours, Winter's Bone, Where is the Friend's Home?, Through the Olive Trees, City Lights, The Conformist, Do The Right Thing, Seven Samurai, McCabe & Mrs. Miller
2016: (8) Yi Yi, Castle in the Sky, Koyaanisqatsi, The Sweet Smell of Success, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxells, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Meek's Cutoff, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
2017: (16) Sense and Sensibility, Distant Voices, Still Lives, Sweetie, The Wind Rises, Traffic, Come and See, Newsfront, Lone Star, It's a Wonderful Life, Incendies, Moonrise Kingdom, Hiroshima, Mon Amour, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Heiress, Mommy, Satantango
2018: (2) Manchester by the Sea, Suspiria
2019: (12) Tyrannosaur, Au Hasard Balthazar, Empire of ion, Mary and Max, Gods and Monsters, One From the Heart, Stagecoach, Platform, A Matter of Life and Death, Pygmalion, Crimes & Misdemeanors, Oliver Twist (1948)
2020: (7) Sorcerer, Umberto D., Cameraperson, L'Avventura, The Battle of Algiers, Song of the Sea, Straight Time
2021: (6) Sunday Bloody Sunday, The Contender, Morocco, Lifeboat, Henry V (1944), The Exorcist
2022: (4) A City of Sadness, The Great White Silence, Nosferatu, Grand Illusion
2023: (5) Nights of Cabiria, Out of the Past, True Romance, ...And Justice for All, Gaslight
2024: (2) Le Samourai, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
2025: (3) Sólo con tu pareja, Dead Calm, The General

• Arabian Nights
• Horse Money
• We Are the Best!
• Norte, The End of History
• The Turin Horse
• Tetro
• Tropical Malady
• Werckmeister Harmonies
• Quills
• Beau Travail

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

5 most want to see: High Hopes, Drowning By Numbers, The Moderns, Landscapes in the Mist, Damnation

1. My Neighbor Totoro
2. Akira
3. Cinema Paradiso
4. Dead Ringers
5. Grave of the Fireflies
6. Shame
7. Ariel
8. A Short Film About Love
9. Distant Voices, Still Lives
10. Another Woman

...plus 134 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Pi
2. The Big Lebowski
3. Mulan
4. The Truman Show
5. The Thin Red Line
6. Out of Sight
7. Eternity and a Day
8. American History X
9. Ronin
10. The Last Days of Disco

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

Not including narrations, but Bra Boys and Red Obsession are worth checking out.

1. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
2. L.A. Confidential
3. Brides of Christ
4. The Sum of Us
5. The Insider
6. Gladiator
7. The Silver Brumby
8. Les Misérables
9. Cinderella Man
10. Proof

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

1. Kingdom of Heaven
2. 28 Days Later
3. Calvary
4. In Bruges
5. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
6. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
7. Braveheart
8. The Secret of Kells
9. Edge of Tomorrow
10. In the Heart of the Sea

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

Since ing LB in January 2013, I've been keeping up the habit of doing monthly lists of my first viewings ranked (mostly for personal reference). Then in Oct 2014 I started compiling the month standouts together in this list.

Twelve years on, I've racked up quite a cool bunch of 149 films. May it continue. A positive reminder that, whether rain, hail or shine, I don't go a month without happening upon at least one really great film for the first time. That's every 30-ish days! I wonder what will come along next?!?!

• Yentl

  JAN 2013

• The Last Wave

  FEB 2013

• The Master

  MAR 2013

• How Green Was My Valley

  APR 2013

• Gone with the Wind

  MAY 2013

• Tabu

  JUN 2013

• Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

  JUL 2013

• My Neighbor Totoro

  AUG 2013

• Cinema Paradiso

  SEP 2013

• Gravity

  OCT 2013

...plus 138 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Including voice work.

1. Alien
2. The Proposition
3. Midnight Express
4. A Man for All Seasons
5. Dogville
6. Watership Down
7. Only Lovers Left Alive
8. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
9. The Naked Civil Servant
10. Dead Man

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

Still need to see: Walker, Sweet Dreams, Copying Beethoven

1. Glengarry Glen Ross
2. A History of Violence
3. The Truman Show
4. The Abyss
5. Gone Baby Gone
6. The Hours
7. The Lost Daughter
8. The Right Stuff
9. Nixon
10. Creepshow

1. A Man Escaped
2. High Society
3. Aparajito
4. The Killing
5. Trapeze
6. Street of Shame
7. Smiley
8. Written on the Wind
9. Lust for Life
10. The Battle of the River Plate

1. Vertigo
2. On the Waterfront
3. Imitation of Life
4. Sleeping Beauty
5. A Man Escaped
6. Johnny Guitar
7. Harvey
8. Ugetsu
9. Sweet Smell of Success
10. Rashomon

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

I hope this formula proves a useful option for people’s all time faves lists.

Step 1: Restrict your fave films to 1% of your total films viewed
e.g. if you have marked 4800 films (of all types) as seen, subtract those last two digits and list 48 features. Then add a 49th once you reach 4900 films seen. And so on...

Step 2: Then rank the decade appearances by quantity.
e.g. 70s (24%) > 80s > 90s > 00s > 60s > 50s > 40s/2020s > 10s > 1920s > 30s (0%)
This step could flexibly focus on something different, like genre or country, up to you, but choose the one all-in angle, keep it simple.

Step 3: Finally, individually note the years first seen, and then list your earliest & latest seen. e.g.
Ancient: Sleeping Beauty ('92), FernGully ('93), Titanic ('98), Alien, Aliens, Alien3 ('99), Planet of the Apes ('00)
Freshest: Memoir of a Snail ('25), The Killer ('23), Promising Young Woman (‘21), The Duellists ('19), The Graduate ('16)

You could rearrange the list alphabetically or chronologically (release or viewing) if you so please (as I have done), but as a list that is designed to be added to over time you might find it more convenient to maintain ranking order. If you wish to share & compare your list with that of other s, apply the tag 1% challenge. Wouldn't recommend as useful for s who have seen <800 films total with selections over a <5 year period.

• Man with a Movie Camera

  2014

• Citizen Kane

  2009

• Brief Encounter

  2012

• Late Spring

  2013

• On the Waterfront

  2010

• Vertigo

  2008

• Sleeping Beauty

  1992

• Imitation of Life

  2014

• The Apartment

  2012

• Andrei Rublev

  2010

...plus 69 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Still need to see: A Life Less Ordinary, Henry V, Dance With a Stranger, From Hell

1. Alien
2. Brazil
3. The Aviator
4. Naked Lunch
5. Young Winston
6. The Sweet Hereafter
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
8. Another Woman
9. The Madness of King George
10. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

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

1. The Tree of Life
2. Shame
3. The Deep Blue Sea
4. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
6. Sleeping Beauty
7. A Separation
8. Insidious
9. The Story of Film: An Odyssey
10. Carnage

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

Australia's 100 greatest films, arranged chronologically by year (then alphabetically). Cloned from my ranked list of the same films.

Films with no relevance to Australian life or setting do not qualify (e.g. Tanna, The Rocket, Hacksaw Ridge, The King, Bright Star, Judy & Punch, etc.). Miniseries have also been omitted.

Pre-70s: 4% | 70s: 14% | 80s: 21% | 90s: 16% | 00s: 18% | 10s: 20% | 20s: 8%

Greatest directorial contributions to local excellence: de Heer (5%), Beresford, Miller, Noyce, Schepisi, Weir (3%)

• Always Another Dawn
• Sons of Matthew
• Jedda
• Smiley
• Wake in Fright
• Walkabout
• Picnic at Hanging Rock
• Sunday Too Far Away
• The Devil's Playground
• Storm Boy

...plus 90 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My 100 favourite Australian feature films.

Films with no relevance to Australian life/setting are not eligible (e.g. Tanna, The Rocket, Hacksaw Ridge, The King, Bright Star, Lore, etc.). Miniseries have been omitted.

1. Memoir of a Snail
2. Wake in Fright
3. The Proposition
4. The Last Wave
5. Picnic at Hanging Rock
6. High Tide
7. Gallipoli
8. The Year My Voice Broke
9. Candy
10. My Survival as an Aboriginal

...plus 90 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. The Conformist
2. Ryan's Daughter
3. Five Easy Pieces
4. The Boys in the Band
5. M*A*S*H
6. Patton
7. Kes
8. Bed and Board
9. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
10. The Set

1. The Apartment
2. Double Indemnity
3. Sunset Boulevard
4. Ace in the Hole
5. Some Like It Hot
6. The Lost Weekend
7. Sabrina
8. Witness for the Prosecution
9. Irma la Douce
10. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

Still need to see: The Odessa File, The General, Conrack, Megalopolis

1. Runaway Train
2. Heat
3. Deliverance
4. Mission: Impossible
5. Out of It
6. Midnight Cowboy
7. Zoolander
8. Ali
9. Rosewood
10. The Rainmaker

1. Boy
2. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
3. Army of Shadows
4. Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
5. Burn!
6. Out of It
7. The Secret of Santa Vittoria
8. Sweet Charity
9. Cactus Flower
10. Katzelmacher

1. Salvador
2. Aliens
3. 9½ Weeks
4. The Fly
5. The Mission
6. The Sacrifice
7. Castle in the Sky
8. Manhunter
9. Top Gun
10. Shadows in Paradise

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

1. Bright Star
2. A Single Man
3. Antichrist
4. A Serious Man
5. Crazy Heart
6. George Michael: Live in London
7. Coraline
8. The Road
9. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
10. Watchmen

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

1. Isle of Dogs
2. The Favourite
3. At Eternity's Gate
4. Peterloo
5. The House That Jack Built
6. Lean on Pete
7. Widows
8. Leave No Trace
9. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
10. The Haunting of Hill House

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

• Challengers
• Poor Things
• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
• Encanto
• Soul
• Avengers: Endgame
• Bird Box
• The Greatest Showman
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• Minions

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

The fifty most popular 20th century films which I haven't managed to see yet. Have I been living under a rock? Feel free to have a laugh or gasp at my expense in how this overlooked cuisine reveals -to-base peculiarities. Results filtered from the Letterboxd all-time popularity* setting (as of last update).

*popularity seems to equate to 'volume of activity' rather than simply 'most watched' (e.g. hyped releases a few months from premiere can generate significant activity).

1. House
2. Hocus Pocus
3. Harakiri
4. Buffalo '66
5. Cure
6. Tarzan
7. The Karate Kid
8. The Muppet Christmas Carol
9. Stop Making Sense
10. Kids

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

Still plenty left to see, and at least a third of these are very hazy childhood memories in need of revisit.

Most in need of rewatch: The Great Mouse Detective, Cinderella, Dinosaur, therefore treat those positions loosely for now.

1. Sleeping Beauty
2. Dumbo
3. Beauty and the Beast
4. Mulan
5. Bambi
6. Lady and the Tramp
7. Pinocchio
8. Aladdin
9. Robin Hood
10. The Sword in the Stone

...plus 32 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

fave films from the 1970s

1. Alien
2. The Godfather Part II
3. Apocalypse Now
4. The Duellists
5. The Godfather
6. Barry Lyndon
7. Duck, You Sucker
8. Chinatown
9. Mirror
10. Stalker

...plus 60 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

fave films of the 1960s

1. Once Upon a Time in the West
2. Andrei Rublev
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. Planet of the Apes
5. The Graduate
6. The Apartment
7. Days of Wine and Roses
8. Charulata
9. The Big City
10. To Kill a Mockingbird

...plus 50 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Secrets & Lies
2. Crash
3. Fargo
4. Breaking the Waves
5. Trainspotting
6. Crowded House - Farewell to the World
7. George Michael: MTV Unplugged
8. The English Patient
9. Lone Star
10. Sling Blade

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

1. Brief Encounter
2. Citizen Kane
3. Late Spring
4. Double Indemnity
5. The Red Shoes
6. Rebecca
7. Dumbo
8. How Green Was My Valley
9. Great Expectations
10. The Philadelphia Story

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

1. Promising Young Woman
2. Blade Runner

   Final Cut

3. Alien
4. Once Upon a Time in the West
5. The Godfather Part II
6. The Terminator
7. FernGully: The Last Rainforest
8. Brief Encounter
9. Apocalypse Now

   Original Cut

10. The Duellists

...plus 90 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Promising Young Woman
2. The Godfather Part II
3. Apocalypse Now
4. The Godfather
5. Barry Lyndon
6. Raging Bull
7. Chinatown
8. On the Waterfront
9. Her
10. Amadeus

...plus 90 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Simply, my favourite directorial debut features, as per the first edition of the Letterboxd Showdown series.

1. Promising Young Woman
2. The Duellists
3. The Scent of Green Papaya
4. Thief
5. Citizen Kane
6. Hunger
7. A Single Man
8. Koyaanisqatsi
9. Alien³
10. Pi

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

As per tagged showdown, my 30 favourite monochromatic, gloriously colourblind films.

1. Brief Encounter
2. Andrei Rublev
3. Raging Bull
4. On the Waterfront
5. Man with a Movie Camera
6. Citizen Kane
7. Rumble Fish
8. The Apartment
9. Late Spring
10. Days of Wine and Roses

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

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

Still need to see: Heaven, Black Bag

1. The Aviator
2. Carol
3. The Talented Mr. Ripley
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
5. Babel
6. Knight of Cups
7. Blue Jasmine
8. I'm Not There
9. Hot Fuzz
10. Charlotte Gray

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

Still need to see: The Brink’s Job, The Night They Raided Minsky’s, Blue Chips

1. The Boys in the Band
2. To Live and Die in L.A.
3. Bug
4. Killer Joe
5. The French Connection
6. Sorcerer
7. Cruising
8. The Hunted
9. The Guardian
10. Rules of Engagement

Still need to see: The Color of Money, Box of Moonlight

1. Miller's Crossing
2. The Big Lebowski
3. Barton Fink
4. Do the Right Thing
5. Hannah and Her Sisters

   His centrality to the very small scene makes this a sufficient enough appearance, as opposed to something like Raging Bull.

6. To Live and Die in L.A.
7. The Night Of
8. Rounders
9. The Plot Against America
10. O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Still need to see: Shadow of the Vampire, Streets of Fire

1. The Aviator
2. Antichrist
3. The English Patient
4. At Eternity's Gate
5. Platoon
6. Affliction
7. The French Dispatch
8. Light Sleeper
9. Wild at Heart
10. The Card Counter

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

Still need to see: Henry V, Rescue Dawn

1. The Prestige
2. Empire of the Sun
3. American Hustle
4. Knight of Cups
5. I'm Not There
6. Little Women
7. American Psycho
8. Batman Begins
9. The Dark Knight Rises
10. Velvet Goldmine