6u532b

Watched on Friday December 23, 2022.

Watched on Monday September 12, 2022.

Watched on Monday September 12, 2022.

Watched on Monday September 12, 2022.

Watched on Monday September 12, 2022.

Watched on Monday September 12, 2022.

Watched on Tuesday July 5, 2022.

Watched on Monday June 27, 2022.

Watched on Saturday June 11, 2022.

Watched on Sunday March 27, 2022.

Watched on Sunday March 27, 2022.

Watched on Sunday March 27, 2022.

Watched on Sunday March 27, 2022.

Watched on Sunday March 27, 2022.

Watched on Friday January 28, 2022.

Watched on Friday January 28, 2022.

Watched on Friday January 28, 2022.

Watched on Wednesday January 12, 2022.

Watched on Wednesday January 12, 2022.

Watched on Tuesday January 11, 2022.

Watched on Thursday March 5, 2020.

Movies with murder/crime mysteries, feel free to suggest.
(List sorted by Release Date)

• Rebecca
• And Then There Were None
• Strangers on a Train
• Dial M for Murder
• Rear Window
• Witness for the Prosecution
• House on Haunted Hill
• The Alphabet Murders
• Sleuth
• The Last of Sheila

...plus 64 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The King of the Neighborhood
• The Young and the Damned
• Los Caifanes
• Aventurera
• Viridiana
• The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz
• Let's Go with Pancho Villa!
• Alucarda
• You’re Missing the Point
• Two Monks

...plus 240 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

___________________________

* The Austrian Film Museum

"Beginning in the early 1930s and continuing for a quarter-century, Mexico was home to one of the world’s most colorful and diverse film cultures: not many other countries could claim a comparable range of production, diversity of genres and number of master filmmakers. The excellence of Mexican cinema was founded on its commercial strength - Mexico supplied all of the Spanish-speaking markets in Central and South America, and delivered several box-office successes in the United States as well. During the thirties, the country also became an important refuge for European exiles. Numerous filmmakers and craftsmen had their own (usually semi-secret) Mexican Period, and German-born Alfredo B. Crevenna became Mexico’s most prolific director. In the 1940s, few other film cultures were quite as potent.

Today, the riches of this Golden Age have been nearly forgotten: in Europe, one is more likely to find DVDs of Mexican wrestling films than the masterpieces of Emilio Fernández or Fernando de Fuentes. Milestones such as Vámonos con Pancho Villa (1935, De Fuentes) or Rio Escondido (1948, Fernández) are completely unknown. The Film Museum retrospective thus offers a rare glimpse at the singular beauty of this film culture and the genius of its masters - such as the enigmatic Emilio ‘El Indio‘ Fernández who is represented by five films. The retrospective also traces the Mexican footsteps of two seminal foreign artists: Sergei Eisenstein and Luis Buñuel - the former a key influence in the development of a national film idiom, the latter a maverick on the margins of the film industry whose works often undermined and contradicted mainstream themes and approaches."

___________________________
MIA

La mujer sin alma (Fernando de Fuentes, 1943)
___________________________

• Let's Go with Pancho Villa!
• Aventurera
• Champion Without Crown
• Another Dawn
• Él
• Enamorada
• Wild Flower
• The Kneeling Goddess
• Illusion Travels by Streetcar
• The Blood Stain

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

Consensus for Showdown № 90: Murder Mystery (your favorite whodunit films)

1. Se7en
2. Zodiac
3. Rear Window
4. Clue
5. Memento
6. The Usual Suspects
7. Scream
8. Memories of Murder
9. The Silence of the Lambs
10. Gone Girl

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

+ shorts

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CTxk-4J5HY

• Urotsukidōji II: Legend of the Demon Womb
• Doomed Megalopolis
• Bio Hunter
• Urotsukidōji III: Return of the Overfiend
• Urotsukidōji V: The Final Chapter
• Urotsukidōji IV: Inferno Road
• Genocyber
• Memories
• Cyber City Oedo 808
• Angel's Egg

...plus 253 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Noen bra skrekkfilmer til halloween.

• The Evil Dead
• Evil Dead II
• Army of Darkness
• Night of the Living Dead
• Dawn of the Dead
• Day of the Dead
• The Exorcist
• Eraserhead
• Near Dark
• The Fly

...plus 120 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

i end up watching a lot of horror movies for my annual halloween challenge. these are my all-time top 20 favorites

• The Housemaid
• Climax
• A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
• House
• The Slumber Party Massacre
• A Nightmare on Elm Street
• Oldboy
• What We Do in the Shadows
• Over the Garden Wall
• The Shining

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

Mark your calendars: '80s HORROR—our 30-film collection featuring films by Dario Argento, Kathryn Bigelow, John Carpenter, Larry Cohen, David Cronenberg, Tobe Hooper, Michael Mann, Ken Russell, Paul Schrader, and more—is coming to the Criterion Channel (criterionchannel.com) on October 1! 🔥 Curated by Clyde Folley, this ghastly tour through the decade of greed features ambitious art-pulp hybrids, old-fashioned creature features, a vampiric Nicolas Cage, and absolutely unclassifiable cult oddities, bringing together some of the eighties’ most stylish, haunting, and outrageous visions.

• Inferno
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne
• Dead & Buried
• The House by the Cemetery
• The Funhouse
• Strange Behavior
• Wolfen
• Scanners
• Roadgames
• Basket Case

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

1. Revolver
2. Snatch
3. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
4. The Gentlemen
5. Sherlock Holmes
6. The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
7. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
8. RocknRolla
9. Aladdin
10. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

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

Over the past two months the cinema in town has shown full restorations of all seven of Tarkovsky's feature films and by some miracle, I found the time in my schedule to view all of them. I have already seen each of his movies once before (Mirror twice) so I was keen to see how my experience changed viewing it in a cinema. Along with his three student films and his documentary on the production of Nostalghia I've viewed his entire body of work.

The first film in the series was Andrei Rublev, a movie where I was mostly indifferent to at the time I'd seen it at home on the two disc set Artificial Eye put out and was hoping I could watch this with renewed interest and appreciation. Unfortunately, this did not happen. While it'd be wrong of me not to point out the films amazing formal qualities such as its contrasts of stark b&w photography with its quick editing especially in the first half slowly building up to the final painting montage with one exception I found it hard to be engaged in any of the events going on. Rublev himself acts an observer to a sequence of events which have no relation to each other and I found it really hard to be interested in a movie whose priorities are so scattershot. I suspect it's champions argue that this is the film that allowed Tarkovsky to be his most experimental filming a "greatest hits" version of his life allowing him to be at his most playful, with the exception of the bell tower portion which itself would be a 5 star short film with a clear narrative through line of a boy who is forced into adulthood in the span of a month (the scene of the molten steel entering the mould is my favourite shot of the film). Even the painting scene I found to be a bizarre way to connect the events together. What sounds so good in theory I found to be really obtuse in practice with Tarkovsky seemingly focusing on random elements before zooming out in succession, I think a less expressionist montage would have been more impactful especially with his very rigid painting style.

After that was Mirror, a movie which I already liking a lot and expected my opinion of it to remain about the same and it did! I'd be hard pressed to criticise this in any way even if I do it I think some of the references to his own life were a bit gauche (The scene where Andrei recalls a conversation with his mother about a dead coworker in a room with a poster of Rublev is the only time I'd ever call him out for being too on the nose). Mirror and Rublev are the two films of his I'd argue that have the most in common, scattershot scenes of a person's life, rich in visual detail (a close up of the condensation of a glass of water forming a crescent moon to a music cue in allegro is up there for his single greatest image) however I prefer Mirror for how much he puts himself on screen, warts and all. This also marks his first step into what i'll dub "elemental film making". The lakes in Rublev's half way point go forward into deep focus on jars of milk, a house destroyed by torrents and rain tipping over a house masking a house fire. Tarkovsky's attention to detail of water especially is one of my favourite motif's in all of cinema (matched only by Piavoli) and this is it's genesis.

After that the season went back to his first film Ivan's Childhood. For the longest time this and Stalker would flip flop places for my favourite of his and regrettably the other film now has that mantle permanently. That being said I'd take his most clear cut feature over a lot of what he created afterwards. I can't really explain why either, I wouldn't say the acting in any of his films are bad (with one exception) but here the performances are so central to the film you have to take particular notice of them and everyone is exemplary especially Ivan who's tale rivals Come And See for cinema's greatest wartime tragedy. The small scale and Tarkovsky's knack for composition transforms a simplistic war movie into something more surreal. Jagged edges remain omnipresent everywhere, pointing out of the frame where all compositions are uneven and nothing resembling stability. It's adults are always filmed in low angle to reemphasise Ivan's own size, making him feel small in his surroundings. Infact it's this movies rather standout story that allow it's more magical elements like his dream sequences and viewing the moon from a reflection in a well to stand out, a trick I wish more films tried to employ.

With three features under my belt I started his 20 minute short film The Killers, a movie of so little artistic value I'm shock it was from the same directors. To start with the Hemingway short story it's based on is the prose equivalent of rice paper, there's nothing to it as a bland fable with nothing beyond the surface and such a bare bones approach to writing that if I hadn't also seen the film it'd have left my mind as quickly as it entered. The film takes this approach literally as the story is adapted word for word on a rickety set and a static mise en scene that could have you tricked into thinking it was a silent film if you muted it. Never mind that Tarkovsky and co director Aleksandr Gordon (who had 7 features after his shorts, none of them significant) somehow thought that having a character in blackface would be appropriate as characters spout the n-word liberally at his face with no justification or critique given only that Hemingway did it it's just sloppy film making for its 25 minute runtime (a minor divergence at the end and Tarkovsky whistling a song that'd be classed as an anachronism at the time saves it from being completely worthless).

The fourth movie was Nostalghia Which I already wrote about although I continue to be amazed at how much of an outlier it is in it's work. It's aggressive beauty is a technique I can't think of that has ever been successfully replicated and while this is often regarded as his "worst" or most flawed feature I think it's imperfections are what makes it one of my favourites and I hope it's true intentions eventually allow it to be reappraised as his masterwork.

I wish I could say the same about the documentary about this film that he directed called Voyage In Time. First of all in 2016 documentary's about Tarkovsky are already numerous. This lists at least 20 sources on filmic material about his life's work and while I haven't seen all of them I find it hard to believe any of them can match Chris Marker's One Day In The Life Of Andrei Arsenevich which remains his best film and one of the best of any artist in cinema, remaining personal yet distant when discussing his life leading up to The Sacrifice. Yet in Voyage In Time Tarkovsky films himself about as straight forward as you can get. The director famous for his mostly wordless storytelling in his best films is now reduced to soundbytes of himself. Waxing about how he only cares about directors such as Bergman and Bresson in the first half. Shots of landscapes used to film nostalghia without saying much of what the film meant to him at the time, this films existence seems unnecessary. All his views and thoughts at that period in his life are already covered in his book Sculpting With Time and what little we learn about Nostalghia is already covered in the movie itself, resulting in 62 minutes of dead air (although the fleeting look at surburban life in italy does breath a bit of life towards the end but too little too late).

After this I segwayed into his second short There Will Be No Leave Today, a film that I'd argue is his most under-rated of his eleven directed films. There's nothing really special about the film, all the direction is workmanlike which already makes it a huge step up over The Killers yet the movie's structure makes it weirdly compelling. Comparisons to Wages Of Fear have already been mined to death (and Friedkin's Sorcerer for recent examples) but the movie's commitment to it's premise became weirdly endearing. I can't in good conscience put it over any of his features even the ones I was underwhelmed by but I do respect the movie in I'm bad at articulating and It'd be interesting to see how his career would have gone if this was his jumping off point rather than the Steamroller And The Violin (although the opening of digger trucks tunnelling the ground would later be used as a template for creating the bell mould in Andrei Rublev)

Film No. 5 was Stalker. Stalker has been in my top 10 films for the years since I first saw it and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit disappointing in this viewing because I was amazed how much of this I'd still ed. With the exception of Nostalghia which I saw last November the other 6 tarkovsky's I'd seen roughly next to each other about early 2010ish. I was 17 at that time so obviously my view of cinema and life in general has changed considerably since then but only Stalker remained intact in my mind. The opening scene of three men entering a bar talking about a meal (might be a shy wink to The Killers now that I think about it) carries to the unforgettable ending of the telekinetic woman at the end, watching Stalker again I was able to replay the entire movie in my head while watching it. This is by no means a criticism. It remains the tour de force 37 years later but it's also the one I have the least to say about. Unlike Nostalghia which I'd say I had the most fun with because the entire movie felt like uncharted territory Stalker is such a singular work I feel like I've seen the movie 1000 times even though I've only seen it once (Only movie I feel similar about is Zulawski's On The Silver Globe, a director who I wish I wrote about when I had the chance). There's some minor details I ired revisiting like a lush shot of a waterfall surrounding the central trio and the penultimate shot of the characters despair willing a rainstorm inside the zone being the thematic opposite of the similar shot in Mirror but a masterpiece is a masterpiece and I'm glad my opinion of this wasn't diminished...

... Which I cannot say about The Sacrifice. During my initial binge of his ouevre I would have put it behind Stalker as my second favourite. I his images reaching a peak, the composition that of a master working his craft culminating in the much talked about scene of the house burning as penance for disobeying god. In this viewing Tarkovsky seems out of his league. Odes to Bergman remain rampant: It's filmed on the sea island of Faro where a lot of his masterpieces took place, Swen Nvquist famously shot it and it deals with a lot of similar themes such as how Catholicism informs a man's life and how it enforces the family hierarchy. The problem is that Tarkovsky's trying to do Bergman in this and I wish he had stuck to his own element. His visual style contrasts badly. Wide shots that bookend the film show characters in malaise and while Tarkovsky would usually use these shots to allow him to be visually creative like how the trio in Stalker's interest in the Zone leads to a very exciting infiltration sequence (to where I have no idea how people could ever call him boring) here his camera has to remain attached so characters can pontificate on their own existence. Bergman let this work into his favour, think how badly the wordplay in The Seventh Seal would operate without the vanishing point of the chess game. Andrei has no such luxuries, the text remains the only thing as his tendency of having characters blandly talk about their own lives is pushed to its apex (my biggest criticism of his entire ouevre that only Stalker was able to sidestep thanks to its narrative mystery). Maybe i'd be more forgiving if the story was anything to be interested in. The story of a man who miraculously has his house survive a bombing thanks to an oath made with god under a set of which he then breaks and has to repay for is a story that could make up a short at best. This movie and the final feature in the season are the only times he didn't justify the length of the movie. Stalker and Rublev are long films but in that time entire worlds are created, the camera's frame does little to cover up how expansive the areas covered by Rublev's life and The Zone really are. The Sacrifice takes place in a small island, the visual motifs that always used ot be so varied are repeated beyond belief from music stings to wind flowing between the grass that the house fire at the end is the only thing that breaks the monotony (That is maybe the point although I resent having this point hammered in within 149 minutes when it could easily be done in 100). It's not bad by any means and the movie contains black and white sequences that are so astonishing from a camera moving downwards from the frame mimicking the castle at the end of nostalghia to a reflection in glass of the sky which is a fantastic reversal of the age of time sequence in Stalker and hints at the magnum opus he could have made had he still been alive) and I'd still take a weak Tarkovsky over everything else but given what could have been I can't help but feel let down (Ok, I mentioned I don't think the acting in any of his features is "bad" but the woman's screaming as penance for disobeying god is really hammy for my tastes and I wish that entire sequence was cut)

His final student film is The Steamroller And The Violin. I only knew about this beforehand from Mark Cousin's excerpt of it in The Story Of Children And Film and it was a brilliant shot and thought if the movie kept that up for 40 minutes I'd prefer it over some of his features. That didn't happen but it's cute regardless. I don't have much to say about it, it's a simple tale of friendship, the surrogate father ode reminding me of The Bicycle Thieves a fair bit and it features some of his flair (the aformentioned scene and one of the boy picking an apple up in an desolate house) although I'd argue the film is more of a collection of scenes with not much in the way of narrative compared to his early feature. It's possible that Tarkovsky wanted to adapt the style of No Leave Today in Ivan's Childhood and Rublev then went back to this film for Mirror and kept that style until his death.

Finally I saw Solaris, a beautiful example of a great director adapting an uninteresting story (sound familiar?) I only say this yesterday so I have many Thoughts on it and while I don't plan on going over all of them, I did notice that this is Tarkovsky at his most wordy. After the opening scene there's a sequence that feels about half an hour long of people talking to each other about stuff that's happened in the past. Scene like this exist in all his movies but it's only in this film that feels... Untarkovskyian? The scene is one of the crew of Solaris talking about his experience traversing the mysterious fog driving the crew into hysterics but the dialogue feels like someone reciting words out of a novel (I later checked my copy of the book and the dialogue's nearly word for word). After this talk and dialogue between the other crew the general then shows the audience a 30 second shot of cameras abroad the ship. This I felt was a rather appropriate metaphor for the film. The characters explain something that happened in the past and then flashes forward to the event happening. The astronaut talks about how he lost his wife then 5 minutes later we see the exact scene play out. A scientist talks about how the crew went mad then shows a midget run out of his office as an example (I'm pretty good picking up on his symbolism but didn't get this at all, please explain it to me). Instead of Show, Don't Tell, the motto of his other 6 films he seems to employ Tell, Then Show, which I find really bizzare and pads the movie out to nearly 3 hours (I don't the film being NEARLY this long when I first saw it) and entire scenes weirdly redundant, a critique I can't apply to any other feature of his including The Sacrifice. Some scenes exist with no explanation and these are his crescendos. An extended scene of a car driving across the streets of Tokyo with the camera gradually panning out to a busy intersection has no reason to exist other than to establish his previous family life yet is so striking I worship it's inclusion. A minor detail emerges that the ship turns weightless for 30 seconds and after an agonising scene of the astronaut, his dead wife and the head scientist discussing the anomaly leads to a breathtaking scene of zero gravity. The world floats similar to the floating woman in Mirror, to there I imagined Tarkovsky highlighting a two sentence age at most and allowing his imagery to truly breathe. I won't talk about the famous hallway scene at the end and what follows afterwards (the last half hour is the movie's strong point) but I will say that Tarkovsky learned the right lessons from this when he made Stalker, another movie based on a book but one that's delibrately abstract allowing a space to be created around it rather than inside it (I also think it's bizzare that this of all his movies got a hollywood remake when this already feels like Tarkovsky channeling Hollywood after his inflammatory comments regarding 2001: A Space Odyssey when this feels like a Hollywood Tarkovsky film with its clear cut narrative (I still prefer this over 2001)).

So I saw all 11 of his movies. I'd say I like all of this to some degree except the last two and as I said there's still something in even his weakest features that usurps the grand majority of what most directors are aiming for, It's a shame he only made 11 and he couldn't have the highly successful career that two bit hacks like Godard still have to this day.

EDIT: I was aware that the year after production of Nostaghia finished that Tarkovsky worked on an opera for London's Royal Opera House but I had no idea this his adaptation of Boris Godunov had been filmed and commercially released. The 3+ hour opera draws obvious comparisons to Andrei Rublev with it's minute attention to detail in the period setting and with it's sprawling coverage of humanity covering every contour imaginable. This time the setting is that of a social revolution as the films Raskolinkov is used as a figure of revolution while nearly all his previous films are surfacely apolitical. It's a welcome change and the main reason I prefer it to Rublev as that film's allegory for grandiose set-pieces as a representation of a man's life is made literal here with the confines of a theatre. However much like Rublev the engagement in the text is a somewhat draining one. Granted he does what he can but there are long stretches where despair is the only emotion presented as a fixed tambre can only be emotionally resonant for so long (also the ending is taken straight out of Nostalghia but that film's ending was brilliant so I don't blame him). Still, it remains a fascinating chapter in his life and I recommend it for that and on his own as a powerful, if overlong epic of filmed opera.

1. Stalker
2. Nostalgia
3. Ivan's Childhood
4. Boris Godunov
5. Mirror
6. Andrei Rublev
7. The Sacrifice
8. Solaris
9. There Will Be No Leave Today
10. The Steamroller and the Violin

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

See all director lists here.

1. Fallen Angels
2. 2046
3. In the Mood for Love
4. Chungking Express
5. As Tears Go By
6. Happy Together
7. Ashes of Time
8. Days of Being Wild
9. The Grandmaster
10. My Blueberry Nights

• The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
• Concerning Violence
• When the Earth Seems to Be Light
• Paris Is Burning
• The Act of Killing
• Close-Up
• Waltz with Bashir
• Shinjuku Boys
• 5 Broken Cameras
• Man with a Movie Camera

...plus 330 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films associated with the outdoor company Patagonia. All films included are >20mins runtime and available to stream online for free.

• Artifishal
• Blue Heart
• DamNation
• Fishpeople
• Mind Over Mountain: On the Bugs to Rogers Traverse
• Mountain of Storms
• Public Trust
• Rotpunkt
• Solving for Z
• Stone Locals - Rediscovering the Soul of Climbing

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

Nearly two decades after these films' release, it is now time to review the story of the birth of a cinema that is not that new anymore. They should be labelled as the "digital generation", denoting the shift of paradigm that dominates the period technologically and aesthetically. Hopefully this meeting could be the start of an interesting discussion on the significance, in the context of Japanese cinema, of this digital generation — 

And also neon films in Asia in the late 90s predominantly take the issue of loneliness or at least even though it is not the main theme that is brought but there is still influence from the style of that year and this is in symmetry with the dreamy mood like Iwai and ends at its peak, i.e. —
“All About Lily Chou-Chou 2000 (internet trend)”

honestly it's just about the list because I found some
Post-Shunji Iwai sentences then I searched over the internet but I couldn't find any essays or threads about it and suddenly I have a thought to talk to my friend about Post-Iwai and ended up getting some stupid ideas haha

few films were released before Lily-Chou but I included, Post-Iwai only as a bridge to how the films have a crossover or have a similar feel and match the title of the list.

— Always update 
— Alphabetical Order 
— suggest ( SELECTIVE ) are open

• All About Lily Chou-Chou
• 0 & 1
• 2/Duo
• 20th Century Nostalgia
• After Life
• Age 17
• Ai・Mai・Me
• Hatsuko's World
• April Story
• August in the Water

...plus 92 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Marlon Brando is arguably the greatest actor who ever lived. He's my favorite, at least...and I've seen every single one of his films...the great, the good, the band and the very ugly. Here's how I rank them.

1. The Godfather
2. Last Tango in Paris
3. On the Waterfront
4. One-Eyed Jacks
5. A Streetcar Named Desire
6. Julius Caesar
7. The Wild One
8. Viva Zapata!
9. The Men
10. Guys and Dolls

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

Couldn't find too much for him, but if you know anything else he likes I will add it

Music
Bjork, Kanye, MIA, Arcade Fire, Karen O, Frank Ocean, Fatboy Slim, FKA Twigs, Beastie boys, Weezer, Daft punk, Chemical brothers, MGMT, Sonic Youth, REM, Beck, Notorious BIG, Vampire Weekend

• Being There
• Blood Simple
• Barton Fink
• Raising Arizona
• After Life
• Woman in the Dunes
• s Ha
• Synecdoche, New York
• Anomalisa
• Blue Valentine

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

some of my favorite skate videos

• Video Days
• "cherry"
• Alien Workshop - Mind Field
• Alien Workshop: Photosynthesis
• Mosaic
• Propeller: A Vans Skateboarding Video
• Enjoi - Bag of Suck
• Stay Gold
• Mouse
• Toy Machine - Welcome To Hell

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

1. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
2. The World's End
3. Baby Driver
4. Shaun of the Dead
5. Hot Fuzz
6. Last Night in Soho
7. The Sparks Brothers

If I missed any, let me know. When you get lost in such a wonderful discussion, it's easy to miss something.

Not on Database:
The Stud (directed by Quentin Masters),
The Equalizer,
The Saint (starring Roger Moore)
Common as Musk (starring Edward Woodward)
Budgie (1970's British tv show)
Minder (1970's British tv show)
The Strauss Family (starring Stuart Wilson)
Drill Bill (gay porn parody of Kill Bill)
Q (British tv show by Spike Milligan)
Canon (1970's US tv show)

1. Hot Fuzz
2. The Mechanic
3. Lawman
4. Scorpio
5. Firepower
6. The Nightcomers
7. Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood
8. Death Wish 3
9. Full Metal Jacket
10. Beyond Therapy

...plus 147 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

This list of personal favorites was originally assembled by Edgar Wright and Sam DiSalle in July 2016, and is semi-regularly updated. Films are in chronological order.

Note from Edgar, August 2016:

“This is a personal and subjective list of 1,000 favourite movies from 100 years of cinema. It’s not a set text or intended as any bible of ‘greatest’ films. I decided to put this together as a fluid list for my own enjoyment, amusement and reference. I hope it’s fun for you to pore over and dive into some of the films you haven’t seen or haven’t heard of.

Don’t get all riled up about omissions or which movies you think should be favourites of mine, the truth is I may very well like / not like or not have seen the movies you think are missing. In fact, I like way more than 1,000 movies, but any longer and this list would be really insane.

Thanks to Sam DiSalle for helping me put it together. If you feel so inspired, make your own list. Film watching is a life-time pursuit and there’s many more films out there for me to see. This site is a great place to start.”

Last updated in March 2020.

• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
• Nosferatu
• Safety Last!
• The Gold Rush
• The General
• Metropolis
• Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
• Steamboat Bill, Jr.
• The ion of Joan of Arc
• The Cameraman

...plus 990 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I personally have never been a fan of following films based on movie stars...but for some I make an exception for obsession! So here's a list of the films of a movie star whom I love that I have seen and ranked in order of their greatness.

The world may know him as Hellboy but he'll always be Slade to me.

Also, he not only starred in Pottersville but he also produced it. Isn't that something?

1. Drive
2. Tangled
3. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
4. Looney Tunes: Back in Action
5. Nightmare Alley
6. Hellboy
7. Don't Look Up
8. Blade II
9. Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters
10. Pottersville

Westerns I'm meaning to watch. I'm sure there's quite a few here that I'll love.

Also trying to work through this list of Universal-International westerns.

My list of Westerns I've seen.

• One-Eyed Jacks
• Annie Oakley
• Dead Man
• El Topo
• Face to Face
• Death Rides a Horse
• The Mercenary
• The Shooting
• Soldier Blue
• The Hired Hand

...plus 124 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Movies that inspired Wes Anderson to make "The French Dispatch".

• The 400 Blows
• Vivre Sa Vie
• PlayTime
• His Girl Friday
• The Rules of the Game
• Masculin Féminin
• The Man Who Knew Too Much
• The Tenant
• Sweet Smell of Success
• Mon Oncle

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

In preparation for his 10th film, The French Dispatch, Wes Anderson recommended that his cast and crew watch 5 films that would give the proper thematic and aesthetic context for the project they were embarking upon. The films were meant to "assimilate" them to the period and place the film takes place in.
Well, since I'm stuck in my house for the foreseeable future, I want to get in on the action. Even though The French Dispatch will likely be released later than expected, I'm going to go ahead and watch all these now, before the world ends or the internet goes down (whichever comes first). As I watch each film, I'll update the list with my reviews.
All 5 of these movies can be found on Criterion Channel (which has a free trial) or Kanopy (which you can access with most library cards).

• Vivre Sa Vie

  A beautiful young woman's descent from domesticity into moral decay and prostitution. 

  The story is told through 12 vignettes. But aside from the story, what I find most interesting is the look and feel of the film. Godard has a very specific sense of space, and a very diliberate way of using it in each frame. It's a technique that helps convey his characters' emotions. A woman's face being positioned so that it's blocked by the back of an aggressive character's head, for instance, could show how she feels trapped or overshadowed.

  Much like the melodramatic music that just randomly cuts out before scenes or moments are over, this film ends rather awkwardly. Like they ran out of money and just threw up their hands and said, "Ah, that's probably good," and went to drink some wine (that's obviously not what happened...I don't think). But the philosophical conversation in part 11 really saves this whole thing. It's such a French film conversation. But you know what? That's okay. It's great. And it helps tie the whole story together - it helps illuminate the characters' motivations AND the director's, all while providing some thought-provoking morsels of philosophy to chew on after the movie is over.

• Diabolique

  I think the thing I'll the most about this movie is Vera Clouzot’s eyes. The shock and horror. 
  Henri-Georges Clouzot has a mastery of pace and suspense. In Diabolique, he weaves a haunting atmosphere of mystery and fear. To say this is Hitchcockian would be an insult to Clouzot, but it would also be accurate. As the story goes, Hitchcock tried to secure the rights to this film, but Clouzot beat him to it by mere hours. The two were contemporaries, and they influenced each other. Hitchcock was a bit more adventurous and "pop" so to speak, whereas Clouzot was more skeptical, and critical of human nature. Both approaches make for satisfying film entertainment. And not just that, but both made groundbreaking contributions to filmmaking. 
  This is a movie that lingered in my head for days after watching it.

• Jenny Lamour

  <div><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">Inspector Antoine is a perfect Wes Anderson character (Heck, he even looks kind of like Mathieu Amalric from The Grand Budapest Hotel). I can see why Anderson included this movie on his watch list for the cast of The French Dispatch. And I can't help but wonder if I've accidentally seen a glimpse of his new movie by watching this. I kept getting strange flashes of how it might be incorporated into an Anderson film. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">
  </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">The story moves at an agreeable pace (Clouzot is great at building tension). It dedicates an appropriate amount of time developing the characters and social dynamics, before diving into the inevitable murder mystery and investigation. There are clever twists and plot turns, culminating in a satisfying conclusion (though I do have some qualms about the killer's willingness to it guilt). </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">
  </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 17.3333px;">I have limited experience with Clouzot. But after watching Diabolique and this, I'm thinking I need to dedicate some more time to the French Hitchcock.</span></div>

• Le Plaisir

  “There's no joy in happiness."

  Le Plaisir has some wonderful cinematography, and beautiful narration with simple - but still profound - ruminations on life. It does tend to meander a bit at times, which kind of holds the film back. Of course, it all serves to build a certain atmosphere though. A certain way of looking at the world, and at people. And that way of looking is compelling. In fact, as I’ve reflected on this film, it’s grown on me. The longer middle vignette is the strongest of the three, and kind of carries the the film as a whole. But it’s kind of fun to have an anthology film like this, where you have multiple ways of looking at the themes the director is trying to explore.

  I’d probably rate the individual stories as such:
  1. Le Masque - 3.5
  2. La Maison Tellier - 4
  3. Le Modele - 3.5

  So I suppose the proper rating would be 3.5 overall. But I’d be willing to consider a 4 on the strength of the middle section alone.

• The 400 Blows

  It's not flashy. There's not a strict adherence to plot or story structure. The main character seems pretty unlikeable at first - all the characters are pretty lousy people really. And yet by the end of the movie, there's this unexpected emotional connection. 

  Antoine is a scoundrel, no doubt. He gets himself into trouble, and then digs himself further in when he realizes he has no way out. But I can't help but feel sorry for him. After all, he's a product of his environment and upbringing. His parents don't seem to like him much, and tend to neglect him when he needs care and love the most. It's no wonder he acts out. It's no wonder he longs to escape. He already feels adrift, unloved, uned. Where else does he have to turn?

  This is one of the best films about adolescence and growing up, especially from a child's perspective. That's a very difficult thing to do, capturing that energy. And it also features some of the best work by young actors I've ever seen.

  The 400 Blows is an all timer, even if it initially seems a bit understated.

• The French Dispatch

  "Perhaps the doubtful old maxim speaks true. All grand beauties withhold their deepest secrets."

  Yeah I'm gonna watch this a bunch more times.

  I feel like I've already seen this movie before. Sure, some of that is just from Wes Anderson's style. He uses a lot of the same devices in his movies. But aside from that, it just has a familiarity to it that I have trouble describing. It's a good thing though. It makes me feel less worried about the things that don't readily make sense.

  I love the look of this movie. He really does embody the work of his French cinematic inspirations. And yet he updates it for the modern day, and polishes things up a bit. The script is really sharp too, aside from being a bit confusing. But there are some great lines, some great soliloquies.

  Here's a great line:
  "I'm not brave. I just wasn't in the mood to be a disappointment to everybody."
  I relate, Lt. Nescaffier. I think we all can. That's the kind of thing that makes this script, and film, great.

  Is still an imperfect film, to be clear. The stories are sometimes hard to follow. And without a stronger narrative connectivity, it does feel more like a series of vignettes than a "Film" with a capital F. Sure it's based around a newspaper and its founder and writers. But there's not really a larger story at play here. Just a device with which to provide these individual stories. I wish there had been a stronger big frame story element. I actually think it could've used one more part at the end. Something short, even. With a little more umph. Maybe a better summation of the principle French Dispatch group's path from here. Does that make sense? Maybe not. I'm sure I'll develop a better sense of what's wrong (and right) with this movie the more times I watch it.

  But overall, this is a wonderful film, full of interesting characters and great performances. If you're an Wes Anderson fan, it'll hit that sweet spot for you. Maybe not all the time, but enough.

  And now a word from Gemini Tooth Powder.

The Star Wars movies ordered by in-universe chronology.

You are confused? You don't know in which order you should watch the movies? Just watch them like this, chronologically.*

*I'd make an exception for The Clone Wars & Rebels. These are pilot movies for whole series you may watch after the "main" movies (click here for TCW series specific chronology).

For all other TV series (including ) and where they fit, see this.

1. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
2. Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones
3. Star Wars: The Clone Wars
4. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
5. Solo: A Star Wars Story
6. Star Wars Rebels: Spark of Rebellion
7. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
8. Star Wars
9. The Empire Strikes Back
10. Return of the Jedi

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

• Throne of Blood

  Director: Akira Kurosawa

  Plot: Returning to their lord’s castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit’s prophecy comes true, Washizu’s scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit’s prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa’s resetting of William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.

• The Searchers

  Director: John Ford

  Plot: As a Civil War veteran spends years searching for a young niece captured by Indians, his motivation becomes increasingly questionable.

• Seven Samurai

  Director: Akira Kurosawa

  Plot: A samurai answers a village’s request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food. A giant battle occurs when 40 bandits attack the village.

• The Magnificent Seven

  Director: John Sturges

  Plot: An oppressed Mexican peasant village hires seven gunfighters to help defend their homes

• A Fistful of Dollars
• The Hidden Fortress

  Director: Akira Kurosawa

  Plot: Japanese peasants Matashichi and Tahei try and fail to make a profit from a tribal war. They find a man and woman whom they believe are simple tribe hiding in a fortress. Although the peasants don’t know that Rokurota is a general and Yuki is a princess, the peasants agree to accompany the pair to safety in return for gold. Along the way, the general must prove his expertise in battle while also hiding his identity.

• For a Few Dollars More
• Yojimbo

  Director: Akira Kurosawa

  Plot: A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.

• Harakiri

  Director: Masaki Kobayashi

  Plot: Aging samurai Hanshiro Tsugumo arrives at the home of Kageyu Saito and asks to commit a ritual suicide on the property, which Saito thinks is a ploy to gain pity and a job. Saito tells Tsugumo of another samurai, Motome Chijiiwa, who threatened suicide as a stratagem, only to be forced to follow through on the task. When Tsugumo reveals that Chijiiwa was his son-in-law, the disclosure sets off a fierce conflict.

• Once Upon a Time in the West

  Director: Sergio Leone

  Plot: A widow whose land and life are in danger as the railroad is getting closer and closer to taking them over. A mysterious harmonica player s forces with a desperado to protect the woman and her land.

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

See all director lists here.

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

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

• Tange Sazen and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo
• The 47 Ronin
• Rashomon
• Vendetta of a Samurai
• Gate of Hell
• Seven Samurai
• Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto
• Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji
• Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple
• Taira Clan Saga

...plus 73 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

outlaws & sheriffs, cowboys & indians.

1. Rio Bravo
2. Wagon Master
3. McCabe & Mrs. Miller
4. Once Upon a Time in the West
5. 3:10 to Yuma
6. Heaven's Gate
7. Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
8. Keoma
9. Canyon age
10. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

...plus 209 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Pan's Labyrinth
2. The Devil's Backbone
3. The Shape of Water
4. Cronos
5. Crimson Peak
6. Nightmare Alley
7. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
8. Blade II
9. Hellboy
10. Pacific Rim

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

Collider Exclusive list of Guillermo Del Toro’s list of top 10 Noir films that influenced his film, Nightmare Alley (2021).

• Fallen Angel
• Niagara
• Underworld U.S.A.
• The Killing
• Detour
• Too Late for Tears
• Born to Kill
• The Lineup
• The Breaking Point
• Nightfall

Complete list of the films Guillermo del Toro has recommended on twitter. Click the 'Read notes' button to see his comments. Also be sure to check out his twitter for recommendations of visual artists, books, tv shows, film composers, etc.

I've seen 59%, how about you?

GDT quotes:

"Lost films only stay lost if no one looks for them. Be curious. Be peculiar. What you watch is what you are."

"Your taste in film is a quest. You have a palate and you must refine it to match your essence. Never settle and never follow blindly."

"Film is a religious call. No one is right or wrong- During the very same mass some look at the clock while others find their Damascus road"

"Wittgenstein said:'The limits of your language are the limits of your world'. The same is true of your visual language. Be curious. Want more"

"Favorite movies don't have to be perfect movies. Like in any relationship, Love is what makes them stick around."

"Great films- like diamonds- sometimes require mining. Some are hard work but their yield is precious. These films seldom get us at first viewing. But when repeated they become permanent loves."

"If we don't defend what we love- if we let it fade- then our lives loose meaning. We must declare ourselves of what we are... What we love."

• Throne of Blood

  Criterion top ten thematic/authorial pairings:
  Kurosawa’s being one of the essential masters is best represented by these, his most operatic, pessimistic, and visually spectacular films. Try and guess which is which. How he managed to be both exuberant and elegant at the same time will be one of life’s great mysteries.

• High and Low

  A painful, gripping kidnapping drama. The final revelation is heartbreaking.

  Criterion top ten thematic/authorial pairings:
  Kurosawa’s being one of the essential masters is best represented by these, his most operatic, pessimistic, and visually spectacular films. Try and guess which is which. How he managed to be both exuberant and elegant at the same time will be one of life’s great mysteries.

• Ran

  My favorite "color" Kurosawa. Its pictorial beauty and tragic, violent spirit never fail to move me.

  Criterion top ten thematic/authorial pairings:
  Kurosawa’s being one of the essential masters is best represented by these, his most operatic, pessimistic, and visually spectacular films. Try and guess which is which. How he managed to be both exuberant and elegant at the same time will be one of life’s great mysteries.

• The Seventh Seal

  Criterion top ten thematic/authorial pairings:
  Bergman as a fabulist—my favorite—is absolutely mesmerizing. These two films have the primal pulse of a children’s fable told by an impossibly old and wise narrator. Fanny and Alexander is Dickens, Hans Christian Andersen, and John Calvin rolled into one. Both tales are ripe with fantastical imagery and a sharp sense of the uncanny. Also, I am often surprised at how the humor and comedic elements in The Seventh Seal seem to be overlooked in favor of its reputation as a quintessential “serious” art film.

• Fanny and Alexander

  Criterion top ten thematic/authorial pairings:
  Bergman as a fabulist—my favorite—is absolutely mesmerizing. These two films have the primal pulse of a children’s fable told by an impossibly old and wise narrator. Fanny and Alexander is Dickens, Hans Christian Andersen, and John Calvin rolled into one. Both tales are ripe with fantastical imagery and a sharp sense of the uncanny. Also, I am often surprised at how the humor and comedic elements in The Seventh Seal seem to be overlooked in favor of its reputation as a quintessential “serious” art film.

• Beauty and the Beast

  A film about the magic of film. A Goldsmith's most delicate confection. One of the most beautiful ever.

  Criterion top ten thematic/authorial pairings: Beauty and the Beast may be tenuous and delicate where Eyes Without a Face is overripe and pulpish, but these films are gorgeous, dark poems about fragility and horror. Both fables depend on sublime, almost ethereal, imagery to convey a sense of doom and loss: mad, fragile love clinging for dear life in a maelstrom of darkness. The clash of haunting and enchanting imagery has seldom been more powerful. Eyes Without a Face boasts an extraordinary soundtrack too!
  Sight and Sound top 10:
  La Belle et la Bête is the most perfect cinematic fable ever told. After Méliès, only Cocteau has understood that perfect simplicity is required to tell a fairytale – and that nothing but the power of pure cinema is needed to create awe and wonder.

• Eyes Without a Face

  Visual poetry. Delicate horror. Tragic and emotional.

  Criterion top ten thematic/authorial pairings:
  Beauty and the Beast may be tenuous and delicate where Eyes Without a Face is overripe and pulpish, but these films are gorgeous, dark poems about fragility and horror. Both fables depend on sublime, almost ethereal, imagery to convey a sense of doom and loss: mad, fragile love clinging for dear life in a maelstrom of darkness. The clash of haunting and enchanting imagery has seldom been more powerful. Eyes Without a Face boasts an extraordinary soundtrack too!

  '84 I see EYES WITHOUT A FACE for the first time and I realize that European horror may be my favorite.

• Great Expectations

  Criterion top ten thematic/authorial pairings:
  Most people David Lean for his big-scale epics, like Doctor Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, or The Bridge on the River Kwai. But here he is at his most precise and poetic. Both movies are epics of the spirit, and both are plagued by grand, utterly magical moments and settings; whether showing Oliver’s mother straining and in pain, by intercutting with a flexing branch of thorns, or by lovingly lingering on Miss Havisham’s decaying splendor, Lean understand the need for hyperbole in order to manage the larger-than-life Dickensian archetypes. Some of the ages in both films skate the fine line between poetry and horror.

• Oliver Twist

  Criterion top ten thematic/authorial pairings:
  Most people David Lean for his big-scale epics, like Doctor Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, or The Bridge on the River Kwai. But here he is at his most precise and poetic. Both movies are epics of the spirit, and both are plagued by grand, utterly magical moments and settings; whether showing Oliver’s mother straining and in pain, by intercutting with a flexing branch of thorns, or by lovingly lingering on Miss Havisham’s decaying splendor, Lean understand the need for hyperbole in order to manage the larger-than-life Dickensian archetypes. Some of the ages in both films skate the fine line between poetry and horror.

• Time Bandits

  Perhaps one of the very best "children's story" films ever made. Dazzling imagination and poignant humanism.

  Criterion top ten thematic/authorial pairings:
  Terry Gilliam is a living treasure, and we are squandering him foolishly with every film of his that remains unmade. Proof that our world is the poorer for this can be found in two of his masterpieces. Gilliam is a fabulist pregnant with images—exploding with them, actually—and fierce, untamed imagination. He understands that “bad taste” is the ultimate declaration of independence from the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie. He jumps with no safety net and drags us with him into a world made coherent only by his undying faith in the tale he is telling. Brazil remains one of the most important films of my life, and Time Bandits is a Roald Dahl–ian landmark to all fantasy films. Seeing Time Bandits with my youngest daughter just two weeks ago, I was delighted when she laughed and rejoiced at the moment when Kevin’s parents explode into a cloud of smoke.

...plus 421 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Captain America: The First Avenger
2. Captain Marvel
3. Iron Man
4. Iron Man 2
5. The Incredible Hulk
6. Thor
7. The Avengers
8. Iron Man 3
9. Thor: The Dark World
10. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

...plus 17 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Spider-Man: No Way Home
• Spider-Man 2
• Spider-Man
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
• Spider-Man: Far From Home
• Spider-Man: Homecoming
• The Amazing Spider-Man
• Venom
• Venom: Let There Be Carnage
• The Amazing Spider-Man 2

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

Movies from iMDb Top 250 list (ranked).
(Last updated January, 2)

1. The Shawshank Redemption
2. The Godfather
3. The Godfather Part II
4. The Dark Knight
5. 12 Angry Men
6. Schindler's List
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
8. Pulp Fiction
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
10. Fight Club

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

300 top 10 lists entered. Each top 10 list was counted as a ballot, with titles ranked #1 receiving 10 points, and titles ranked #10 receiving 1 point.

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
2. Mulholland Drive
3. Persona
4. Seven Samurai
5. Taxi Driver
6. The Godfather
7. Apocalypse Now
8. There Will Be Blood
9. Pulp Fiction
10. Stalker

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