Consensus for Showdown № 212: The Nice Guys (best films about male friendship) 4om5t

1. Stand by Me
2. Superbad
3. The Shawshank Redemption
4. Shaun of the Dead
5. The Banshees of Inisherin
6. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
8. Hot Fuzz
9. Dead Poets Society
10. The Nice Guys

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

the Great Asteroid City Scavenger Hunt of 2023? Get ready for the Great Phoenician Scheme Scavenger Hunt of 2025! We’ve once again teamed up with Focus Features to create a playful puzzle for Letterboxd’s most curious minds.

From May 21–27, you’ll be searching for seven items inspired by Wes Anderson’s signature aesthetic, hidden around our website and apps, in the lead up to the theatrical release of his twelfth feature film. The grand prize? A private screening of The Phoenician Scheme for you and your Anderson Amigos at your nearest cinema.

There’ll also be three runner-up prize packs containing limited-edition The Phoenician Scheme merch and a signed poster; all eligible go in the draw and winners are chosen at random. and conditions apply—this competition is global, but the grand prize is only eligible to be won by a Letterboxd member living in the US. If you’re drawn as the winner of the grand prize but are outside the US, you’ll receive a runner-up prize pack instead (until the allocation of prize packs is exhausted).

For more information, check out our Scavenger Hunt FAQ on Journal. Happy hunting!

Keep track of the clues below:

Clue #1: “Step up to the podium and give a short speech—your trophy is for the taking and your fans are all here. Victory is sweet.”
Bonus clue: “This story set the stage for a Phoenician collaboration. PS: the term ‘fan’ is meaningful here.”

Clue #2: “Mind the gap: did you know that Wes and his latest lens already came together some time ago?”
Bonus clue: “Sometimes you need to sort the wheat from the chaff.”

• The Phoenician Scheme

What exactly is Blaxploitation? Similar to film noir, Blaxploitation, a genre that dominated American theaters for a decade, doesn’t have a strict definition. You just sort of know it when you see it.

Because the genre is thematically tied rather than aesthetically—to be clear, these films are still defined by colorful fashions and tricked-out cars—a Blaxploitation picture can come in all shapes and sizes. Along with revolutionary visions of underworld figures rising to become local heroes, these movies can be a sweet-coming-age story, a dusty Western, a creepy horror flick, a tender family drama, or a blown-out musical.

So pop on a playlist of the genre’s mega hits, pick out your hair, and open your slang dictionary because we’re talking about the powerful Black men and women in Mayfield’s words who are “Gambling with the odds of fate.”

Read more about each selection in Robert Daniels’ full story on Journal.

• Uptight
• Cotton Comes to Harlem
• Shaft
• Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
• Buck and the Preacher
• Super Fly
• Trick Baby
• Black Caesar
• Cleopatra Jones
• Coffy

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

As the 2025 Festival de Cannes reaches the midway point, we check in on the Cannes Screen Jury rankings so far. View the Screen Jury Grid here, updated daily.

Note: Sirat, Renoir, and Die My Love are tied at fourth place with a 2.4 average rating.

1. Two Prosecutors

   3.1 / 4

2. Sound of Falling

   2.8 / 4

3. Nouvelle Vague

   2.7 / 4

4. Sirât

   2.5 / 4

5. Die My Love

   2.5 / 4

6. Renoir

   2.5 / 4

7. Case 137

   2.3 / 4

8. The Little Sister

   2 / 4

9. Eddington

   1.5 / 4

Updated each month, our Journal team highlights a selection of watchlist-worthy films that are potentially slipping under the radar.

Read more about this month’s selections on Journal here.

• Motel Destino
• Egghead & Twinkie
• Electra
• The Surrender
• Vulcanizadora
• The Fishbowl

For Mother’s Day, we asked our Letterboxd contributors to write about their favorite moms in cinema history. While we couldn’t all pick Mabel Longhetti in A Woman Under the Influence nor Alice Hyatt in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, our selections range from stepmoms to godmothers, from Cher to Sigourney, from singing nuns to wives with knives—four of us chose John Waters characters!

Read the full story on Journal to see what everyone has to say about their selections.

• Mother

  Selected by Mia Lee Vicino

• Cinderella

  Selected by Ella Kemp

• Aparajito

  Selected by Mitchell Beaupre

• News from Home

  Selected by Samm Ruppersberger

• Forever a Woman

  Selected by Öykü Sofuoğlu

• Serial Mom

  Selected by Rafa Sales Ross and Jenni Kaye

• The Sound of Music

  Selected by Sophie van Waardenberg

• Little Women

  Selected by Marya E. Gates

• Back to the Future

  Selected by Alexander Jones

• Dog Day Afternoon

  Selected by Jack Moulton

...plus 8 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Consensus for Showdown № 211: Grand Illusion (best classic sci-fi/fantasy films)

1. Alien
2. Star Wars
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. The Empire Strikes Back
5. The Wizard of Oz
6. Metropolis
7. Planet of the Apes
8. Godzilla
9. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
10. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

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

In line with the BFI’s Black Debutantes film season, curator Rógan Graham picks 15 films by Black Women directors to watch.

Graham says of the season: “Black Debutantes uncovers a number of familiar early works by respected filmmakers alongside films new to UK audiences. The latter include Jessie Maple’s Will and Zeinabu irene Davis’ Compensation. Several of the featured filmmakers, such as Cauleen Smith and Bridgett M. Davis, have only made one traditional feature throughout their careers, but their powerful voices and unique perspectives nevertheless remain as fresh and relevant as ever.

“Recurring themes of love, motherhood, ancestral trauma, the relationship to one’s body, racial violence and filmmaking itself all emerge from these remarkable early films in a range of genres, from coming-of-age and historical dramas to dystopian epics and contemporary independents.”

Black Debutantes: A Collection of Early Works by Black Women Directors takes place at BFI Southbank until 31 May, with select titles on BFI Player now. Follow curator Rógan Graham on Letterboxd here.

• Compensation
• Dreaming Rivers
• Drylongso
• Flight of the Swan
• Illusions
• Losing Ground
• Mountains
• Naked Acts
• Sugar Cane Alley
• Test Pattern

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

To celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, the team at Gold House selects 20 films to watch.

Gold House is a non-profit that empowers the Asian Pacific diaspora through community building and championing authentic storytelling to create a more inclusive future for all. For more info, visit their website here.

• A Nice Indian Boy
• A Normal Family
• Crazy Rich Asians
• Dìdi (弟弟)
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Girls Will Be Girls
• How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies
• Monkey Man
• Next Goal Wins
• Over the Moon

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

Updated each month, Katie Rife highlights a selection of the best classic titles hitting physical media or with new restorations opening in theaters.

Read more about this month’s selections on Journal here.

• Withnail & I
• Falling in Love
• The Iron Rose
• In My Skin
• Going Down

There’s no better place to lose your mind than at the beach. The tides whisper promises of peace and rebirth—but dig a little deeper and you’ll find something hungrier in the surf. Sometimes it’s a monster. Sometimes it’s an entire town. Sometimes it’s just you, alone with whatever awful thing you brought with you.

Whether it’s body horror hidden under golden rays or something sinister slithering up from the tide pools, we’ve gathered twenty films that prove some beaches are best left unvisited. Slather on some SPF 666 and get ready for some seriously bad vibes.

Read more about each selection in Jenni Kaye’s story on Journal.

• The Surfer
• Old
• Long Weekend
• The Shallows
• The Lost Boys
• The Beach
• The Lighthouse
• The Sand
• Us
• Sweetheart

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

This list of the 50 highest-rated animated feature films directed by women is current as of April 25, 2025, and ranked by average member rating. Please read the accompanying essay by Alicia Haddick, for the thematic discoveries she made while exploring this list.

Compiled by our lists editor Jack Moulton, with gratitude for Vanessa’s extensive list of films directed by women. To be included, films must have a minimum of 1,000 member views.

Eligibility Rules:
• Includes women co-directors, even if uncredited.
• Films must be feature-length (more than 40 minutes), with a theatrical and/or festival release and/or release on a curated streaming service.
• Documentaries of any kind, short films, theater/stage, straight-to-video, web videos, TV series or miniseries, and TV episodes are excluded. TV movies are included for this list. Anthology feature films are excluded unless the director team is majority female.
• Films must have at least 1,000 views.

1. Persepolis
2. A Silent Voice: The Movie
3. Shrek
4. The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia
5. Dou kyu sei – Classmates
6. K-On! The Movie
7. The Breadwinner
8. Daria in 'Is It College Yet">View the full list on Letterboxd. ]]>

This list of the 100 highest-rated narrative feature films directed by Asian women is current as of April 29, 2025, and ranked by average member rating. Please read the accompanying essay by Jessica Siu-yin Yeung, for the thematic discoveries she made while exploring this list.

Compiled by our lists editor Jack Moulton, with gratitude for Vanessa’s extensive list of films directed by women and thanks to Mihir Nanda for ongoing suggestions. To be included, films must have a minimum of 1,000 member ratings.

Eligibility Rules:
• Includes female directors of south, east and central Asian heritage, regardless of where they were born, or the country they make their films in.
• Includes women co-directors, even if uncredited. For example, Slumdog Millionaire is included due to Loveleen Tandan’s co-director credit.
• Films must be feature-length (more than 40 minutes), with a theatrical and/or festival release.
• Documentaries of any kind, short films, theater/stage, TV movies, TV series or miniseries, and TV episodes are excluded.
• Films must have at least 1,000 ratings.

1. A Silent Voice: The Movie
2. Past Lives
3. Us and Them
4. Moral
5. Forever a Woman
6. Dou kyu sei – Classmates
7. K-On! The Movie
8. The Farewell
9. House of Hummingbird
10. Little Forest

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

Consensus for Showdown № 210: This Must Be the Place (best films with location titles)

1. Fargo
2. Mulholland Drive
3. Casablanca
4. Paris, Texas
5. The Grand Budapest Hotel
6. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
7. In Bruges
8. Sunset Boulevard
9. Palm Springs
10. Chinatown

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

Taiwan Plus presents a film screening series celebrating 12 classic Taiwanese films that challenged oppression and redefined cinema to celebrate Asian & Pacific American Heritage Month.

See their official showcase here.

(Note some films are only available in certain regions.)

• Dragon Inn
• Growing Up
• In Our Time
• A Flower in the Rainy Night
• The Time to Live and the Time to Die
• Dust in the Wind
• Pushing Hands
• The Wedding Banquet
• Eat Drink Man Woman
• Tropical Fish

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

To mark the release of The Legend of Ochi, out now in New York and Los Angeles and expanding wide on April 25, director Isaiah Saxon shares fifteen films that influenced his debut feature.

Read the notes to see what Saxon has to say about each selection—follow him on Letterboxd here.

• Kes

  That feeling when you’re a sad quiet kid and the people around you all suck and only animals make any sense. This describes The Legend of Ochi, and it describes Kes, Ken Loach’s 1969 heart-bursting breakout about a boy and his kestrel falcon. Real and poetic and alert in every moment.

• Hukkle

  It’s 2002. I’m in film school and working at a video store in San Francisco. Koyaanisqatsi is my favorite film. Hukkle drops out of the Hungarian sky like a message from God. With Hukkle, György Pálfi opened the door to a new nonverbal, non-anthropocentric filmmaking language that sadly very few have walked through since.

• The Black Stallion

  The first 45 minutes contain the most emotionally accurate depiction of human-animal bonding ever committed to film. The platonic ideal of 1970s natural light, high-contrast image-making. Carol Ballard’s masterpiece belongs in the cinematography pantheon alongside Barry Lyndon, There Will Be Blood, and Stalker.

• My Life as a Dog

  “And what about Laika, the space dog? They put her in a Sputnik, and sent her into space. They attached wires to her heart and her brain to see how she felt. I don’t think she felt so good. She spun around there for five months until her doggy bag was empty. She starved to death.”

• The Witches

  By leaps the best Roald Dahl adaptation, and the only one that captures his allegiance and respect for the moral superiority of children in contrast to the rotten meagerness of adults. When I was in fifth grade a substitute teacher wheeled out the VHS/TV unit and let this rip, and I’ve never been the same. Angelica Huston’s orgasmic performance is the most perfectly inappropriate nightmare ever served to children. Nicolas Roeg is a king. Peak Henson animatronics and prosthetics work. Who cares if Dahl disavowed the unfaithful ending. Pshh. This film is the whole fucking package, man.

• Kwaidan

  Among the great works of stagecraft, in league with The Night of the Hunter and The Red Shoes, is Masaki Kobayashi’s experimental and visionary collection of folkloric ghost stories set in Edo-period Japan. Come for the brilliant impressionist matte paintings and sets, stay for the hypnotic Toru Takemitsu score.

• Supermarket Woman

  A step-by-step madcap demonstration of how to dismantle the layers of defensive fragile masculinity that have calcified in every workplace hierarchy ever. Made by the greatest husband and wife duo to ever do it. Nobuko Miyamoto is my Charlie Chaplin. Juzo Itami is my Billy Wilder. Also a major keystone in my favorite genre, which I simply call “Radical Kindness.” See also: Tampopo, Moonstruck, Sister Act, Raising Arizona, Magic Mike XXL.

• Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

  The inspiration—and actual filming locations—for my fantasy island of Carpathia, are the remote mountain villages of the Carpathian Mountains which stretch across Ukraine and Romania. This 1965 Soviet drama is an ethnographic time capsule of the traditional people of this land, the Hutsuls. Featuring their traditional music, architecture, and clothing, captured via jaw-dropping wide-angle cinematography. From the director of The Color of Pomegranates, Tarkovsky's buddy and political prisoner, Sergei Parajanov.

• Free Willy

  This is a documentary about me when I was twelve. Skating around like a feral little punk looking for love in the animal kingdom.

• Paris, Texas

  Maybe the best movie ever made? What can you say? You can’t. You can only drool and sob. You want to know about divorce from a child’s point of view, it’s this and E.T. as your double feature to end all double features.

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

• Thunderbolts*
• Final Destination Bloodlines
• Another Simple Favor
• Sharp Corner
• Sister Midnight
• Pavements
• The Surfer
• Karate Kid: Legends
• Hurry Up Tomorrow
• Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

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

In cinema, identical twins are almost always played for either comedy or horror; the “evil twin” is a potent symbol, and some older examples of this effects-heavy phenomenon imply that there’s something inherently sinister about two people who look exactly alike.

There are far too many examples of dual roles to cover in a single list. And the closer you look, the more the possibilities multiply, which is why we’re concentrating primarily on single actors playing identical twins in English-language films. That being said, there are a few interpretations—because cinema, like nature, is too complex to be reduced to simple binaries. Even when it comes to twins.

Read more about each selection in Katie Rife’s story on Journal.

• Lady of the Night

  Norma Shearer as Florence and Molly

• The Black Room

  Boris Karloff as Baron Gregor and Anton

• The Dark Mirror

  Olivia de Havilland as Terry and Ruth

• The Other

  Dolores del Río as María and Magdalena

• The Parent Trap

  Hayley Mills as Susan and Sharon

• Dead Ringer

  Bette Davis as Margaret and Edith

• Sisters

  Margot Kidder as Danielle and Dominique

• Big Business

  Bette Midler as Sadie and Sadie, Lily Tomlin as Rose and Rose

• Dead Ringers

  Jeremy Irons as Beverly and Elliot

• Double Impact

  Jean-Claude Van Damme as Alex and Chad

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

Introducing the 2025 Popcorn List, an annual survey of acclaimed feature films without US distribution as recommended by festival programmers across the country.

Get more details on The Popcorn List via their Instagram and Substack.

• Ashima
• Brooklyn, Minnesota
• Clocked
• Color Book
• Everything You Have Is Yours
• Fantasy A Gets a Mattress
• Gloria!
• Hanami
• If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing
• It Was All a Dream

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

To celebrate the release of her new album, Forever is a Feeling, Lucy Dacus has shared a list of films that influenced her in a limited edition zine published by Coup De Main. Letterboxd has an exclusive first look at a selection. For the full list, the zine is available for purchase here.

• Harold and Maude
• Children of Paradise
• The Lovers on the Bridge
• Moonlight
• The Fall
• Nashville
• Before Sunrise
• Before Sunset
• Before Midnight
• Paris, Texas

Ahead of her Coachella performance tonight, Marina shares 11 films that inspired her new single, Cuntissimo ✨

• The Great Beauty
• La Dolce Vita
• Poor Things
• Female Trouble
• Frida
• Thelma & Louise
• Death Becomes Her
• The Love Witch
• The Substance
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

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

Consensus for Showdown № 209: The Killing Joke (best dark-comedy films)

1. Fargo
2. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
3. Parasite
4. In Bruges
5. American Psycho
6. Heathers
7. Jojo Rabbit
8. The Banshees of Inisherin
9. After Hours
10. Pulp Fiction

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

To mark the release of The Friend, in theaters now from Bleecker Street, directors David Siegel and Scott McGehee shares ten films that influenced their new dog-centric feature starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray.

Make sure to read the notes to see what Siegel and McGehee have to say about each selection.

• Midnight Cowboy

  An unlikely New York friendship, Harry Nilsson’s “Everybody’s Talkin”, and the most iconic long-lens alone-in-the-crowd-of-Sixth-Avenue photography we know of.

• Umberto D.

  A man and his dog, the impossibility of being together, the impossibility of being apart. De Sica’s overpowering humanism. “Everyone wants to be Italian.”

• Three Colours: Blue

  The great Juliette Binoche, whom we worked with on Bee Season, overcoming grief and difficult men in the deepest color of Kieslowski’s trilogy.

• Wendy and Lucy

  A dog and her best human friend, living in a car that’s even smaller than most New York apartments. An extraordinary Michelle Williams performance. Melodrama with the lightest touch.

• Working Girl

  The opening aerial shots, the harbor, the ferry, the hubbub of life on the streets of a lost New York. The color red.

• When Harry Met Sally...

  The Great American Song Book, the romance of the city, thoughts of George Fenton’s irresistible New York score for Nora Ephron in You’ve Got Mail.

• Courage of Lassie

  Canine superstar Pal’s most audacious character arc: raised in the wild, tamed by Elizabeth Taylor, drafted to fight in WWII, then coming home with PTSD.

• Death by Hanging

  Oshima’s absurdist post-execution re-enactment of an undead convict’s life and crimes. And some strange tonal overlap with Bill Murray’s undead character, Walter.

• EO

  A donkey’s-eye POV, and Jerzy Skolimowski’s late-career brilliance.

• Kes

  A boy, a bird and Ken Loach offering hope through flight.

To mark the release of The Amateur, in theaters now from 20th Century Studios, director James Hawes shares ten films that influenced his new Rami Malek and Laurence Fishburne starring espionage thriller.

Make sure to read the notes to see what Hawes has to say about each selection.

• Three Days of the Condor

  A classic of the genre for me—and a source of inspiration for my version of The Amateur. The movie delivers so much of what makes the genre compelling; the hero isolated... against seemingly impossible odds, thrown back on their wits and resources. You enter a world where the danger is always around you, often an upside version of a familiar world—unpredictable, hunting you. And somehow the themes speak to our paranoia about the times we live in at any time, which is why the genre is constantly reinvented for the shifting political threats and context. But essentially, we put ourselves in the journey of that hero; mistrusting, surviving, overcoming.

• Zero Dark Thirty

  This is my kind of movie. It’s a story that matters, a true story that has helped shape our recent world, told with pace and style and courage. I am completely embedded with Jessica Chastain’s character from the outset and Kathryn Bigelow maintains the stakes for the character and the bigger story till the very end. The set pieces felt crushingly authentic. A properly brilliant and dangerous thriller.

• The Lives of Others

  Such a brilliant character-driven spy movie with one of the best constructed final lines of all movies! (Go watch again.) I was intoxicated by the atmosphere of this film. It inhabited the shadows, the night of the city, and it brilliantly persuaded the audience to empathize with the Stasi officer who is first presented as a cold-hearted enemy, before becoming our quiet hero. I enjoyed all its brilliant subtleties.

• Enemy of the State

  Tony Scott was a master of crafting pace and, to me, this 1990s film really holds up. He mastered a way of showing surveillance on screen and people monitoring screens to make it compelling and even sexy. It is another film in the genre that weaves together multiple storylines brilliantly, making the most of every overlapping thread in the life of Will Smith’s character.

• All the President's Men

  Not strictly a spy film, but it plays in that space—with conspiracy and surveillance and cover-up. There is no explicit threat and yet it feels rinsed with danger for our heroes. Redford looks over his shoulder, in a classic genre pose, hunting the threat that follows him. I love that the movie is based on fact and delivers such understated drama. I love the lean script that never spends any time where it is not needed; every beat delivers. Redford and Hoffman are of course iconic and it sets up the classic spy theme of a man (or men) against the odds, unseen and under-estimated, until they triumph.

• Casino Royale

  God, I love a Bond. I struggled to decide between On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Casino. But Casino is a celebration of the spy genre, one of the best of the Bond movies—with all the panache and exoticism that has made the releases such cinematic events. It boasts some spectacular set pieces, right from the get-go, with properly visceral energy, and the movie manages just the right tonal balance of wit and jeopardy, without ever straying too arch. I enjoyed the more rooted approach that raised the stakes for the Craig Bond while always relishing the color and flare and adventure that is part of the Bond DNA. Add to that a new and charming hero, a darkly fascinating villain (in the marvelous Mads Mikkelsen) and love interest with the intoxicating Eva Green. It’s a heady mix.

• The Insider

  This was a team of filmmakers all at their very best. Even though it is largely about a civil and domestic case, more about corporate profits than politics or ideology, it has such tension, such jeopardy and such rich journeys for its characters that it delivers like the best espionage tale. Crowe and Pacino are of course startlingly brilliant. But I truly love the intensity Michael Mann brought to play so that a solitary bullet placed in a mail box or an unexpected fax message churning out in a nighttime study can deliver such a sense of danger and risk. I have many frames pulled from The Insider in my gallery of best movie ever stills.

• The Bourne Ultimatum

  Probably the best of the franchise. I loved these movies for their guts and pace and grittiness. I felt Paul Greengrass brought a real urgency to the movies and the genre. This was a step up for action sequences with their rooted immediacy. Car chases and fight sequences were brought into often brutal urban settings and the whole effect was to raise the stakes and the adrenaline levels for the audience.

• The Third Man

  This is a movie I have watched again and again. Graham Greene wrote a novella of the story before he wrote the script, to get himself into the world and the characters, and you can feel that in every scene. This is a whole world, a sure-footed creation of a moment in time, after the war, when all the rules have changed. I worked as a documentary maker in West Africa when a civil war broke out and I often thought there of the way Greene and Carol Reed created their world of change and risk and new moral boundaries. And Reed shot the film full of distortions and shifted horizons , strange shadows and lighting flares that speak to the nightmare of the moment his characters exist in. Masterly storytelling.

• Syriana

  I loved the complexity and sophistication of this movie. Like many of my list it has in it images that are seared into my brain; the boy electrocuted in the pool, George Clooney’s character walking away from an explosion. Robert Elswit’s cinematography is utterly inspiring; always precise and economical. And of course, two intense performances at the beating heart of the story with George Clooney bringing such hurt and pathos to his role. You can feel director Stephen Gaghan’s ion for this piece hitting every beat of the movie.

To mark the release of A Minecraft Movie, in theaters now from Warner Bros, director Jared Hess shares ten films that influenced his new video game blockbuster.

Make sure to read the notes to see what Hess has to say about each selection.

• Army of Darkness

  Sam Raimi delivers a total banger on a tight budget. His level of creativity and comedy in this film is off the charts. The one-liners, snap zooms and puppetry are iconic. “Thanks. I could use a good horse blanket.”

• Monty Python and the Holy Grail

  This was the most quoted film of my childhood and is one of the funniest films ever made. Thank you Terry Gilliam for the brilliant animation segments, for covering everyone in dirt and for having smoking piles of garbage everywhere. Genius.

• The Wizard

  My favorite video game movie. When Lucas pulls out the “Power Glove”—I’ve never had so much disgust for a villain. Also, any movie that blasts “Send Me An Angel” by Real Life is instantly in my top five.

• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

  This is the greatest fantasy film ever made. Period. A masterclass in storytelling.

• Big Trouble in Little China

  Kurt Russell delivers one of the most brilliant comedic performances of all time as Jack Burton. Note to self: Never park your 18-wheeler in a sketchy alleyway where a massive kung-fu battle is about to take place.

• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

  This is a perfect film. The BMX chase is probably my favorite scene in all of cinema.

• Rad

  This was the most rented video in my house growing up. It’s my favorite underdog film and also features the song “Send Me An Angel” by Real Life, so…

• Willow

  Val Kilmer is unforgettable as Martigan—“the greatest swordsman who ever lived.” Thanks for everything, Val. You are a legend and will forever be missed.

• UHF

  In this comedy masterpiece, Weird Al creates the most insane slate of original TV shows in order to save a UHF station. Creativity is his superpower.

• Police Story 4: First Strike

  Super original and funny action sequences. The ladder fight is next level. Jackie Chan brings comedy and personality to everything he does. A true master.

As Freaky Tales lands in US theaters this week, the film’s writer-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck share the films that paved the way to their genre-blending new feature.

• Repo Man

  The attitude of this movie is a big cinematic middle finger to convention. and, yes... the glowing green bus.

• Scanners

  Um... the less said here, the better.

• Hollywood Shuffle

  The lo-fi special effects and fantasy elements of this movie are all over Freaky Tales.

• The Last Dragon

  I must have seen this movie on VHS twenty times in 1986. It’s all about that glow.

• Enter the Dragon

  Bruce Lee was a big influence on the final chapter.

• The Decline of Western Civilization

  We were inspired by this Penelope Spheeris doc for “the look” in the punk chapter, “The Gilman Strikes Back”.

• 8 Mile

  Instant classic of the underdog rap battle genre.

• Fear City

  We shared this one with Pedro Pascal for the vibe of his chapter, “Born to Mack”.

• Ms .45

  Abel Ferrara's grindhouse revenge classic is outrageous!

• Thief

  A favorite of ours, and a big influence on the “Born to Mack” chapter.

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

Consensus for Showdown № 208: Multiplicity (best dual performances in film)

1. Us
2. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
3. The Prestige
4. Mickey 17
5. The Parent Trap
6. Mulholland Drive
7. Everything Everywhere All at Once
8. Adaptation.
9. The Great Dictator
10. Dead Ringers

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

• A Minecraft Movie
• The Friend
• The Wedding Banquet
• On Swift Horses
• Hell of a Summer
• Warfare
• Drop
• Sinners
• The Ugly Stepsister
• Havoc

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

Our SXSW crew’s highlights from the 2025 festival, as selected by our correspondents Annie Lyons, Jenni Kaye and Zachary Lee.

Read more on Journal about why these features resonated with Letterboxd and our crew.

• Fucktoys
• Hallow Road
• Idiotka
• It Ends
• Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
• Redux Redux
• The Rivals of Amziah King
• She's the He
• Slanted

As Fazerdaze returns to New Zealand for a homecoming album show for her new record Soft Power, she shares five films that influenced her in the making of the album.

Fazerdaze plays the iconic Powerstation in Auckland on Saturday 22 March, 2025. Tickets on sale now via Ticketmaster.

• Night on Earth

  We referenced the LA segment of this film for our “Cherry Pie” music video. My friend, Olive Jeffares, thought it would be cool for me to reference and play both of these characters; Corky (the cab driver, played by Winona Ryder) and Victoria (the glamorous casting agent, played by Gena Rowlands), representing different facets of my own journey into womanhood. I love this film, and it was fun to play two very different female characters but both of whom I somehow see myself in.

• Mulholland Drive

  The eeriness that David Lynch creates in Mulholland Drive always freaks me out, and I love it. I really wanted to tap into that same surreal dreamscape for the Soft Power visuals. Camilla’s character was a recurring appearance on my mood boards — not just for her makeup and fashion, but for her dark, enigmatic energy. I love the film’s sense of disillusionment and psychological unease, something I very much wanted Soft Power to embody.

• The Worst Person in the World

  I love this film. There’s so much emphasis on ‘strong female characters,’ but what if I feel lost, indecisive, and am still figuring myself out - where do I fit in the world!? Worst Person in the World showed me that uncertainty doesn’t make you any less of a main character. I watched it while making the record and deeply related to Julie — her identity crises while being in a relationship with someone much older, and more established than her — I felt so seen watching this play out. I wanted Soft Power to explore a similar tension: self-discovery vs. external expectations, quiet power struggles, and the strength it takes to still be yourself when you don’t have the answers.

• A Star Is Born

  Firstly, I love Lady Gaga in this. Secondly, this version of A Star is Born came out while I was writing Soft Power and it hit me hard. I had a spike of success when I was younger, and didn’t realize that was kind of threatening to those around me. Suddenly I felt very alone and this film and story capture so many of the battles young artists face — professionally, creatively and personally. Success can change your relationships in ways you don’t expect, and this film portrays that so well.

• The Piano

  One of my favourite films of all time. I think Ada’s character is so deeply powerful but in very subtle, quiet and subversive ways. Her acts of silent resistance, her magnetic inner world, her devotion to her piano and this weird need for people (men) to control her. I think Ada’s character embodies a lot of the traits of what I was seeking to find with Soft Power. Ada seems to embody these unconventional forms of power in the world she lives in, and I love that she has the bravery to wield it. She never says a word and she is so fiercely true to herself.

Consensus for Showdown № 207: Monkey Business (best primates in film)

1. Nope
2. Planet of the Apes
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. King Kong
5. The Wizard of Oz
6. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
7. The Lion King
8. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
9. War for the Planet of the Apes
10. Aladdin

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

To mark the release of Sister Midnight, now in UK and Irish theaters, director Karan Kandhari shares ten films that influenced his debut feature.

Make sure to read the notes to see what Kandhari has to say about each selection.

• McCabe & Mrs. Miller

  I’m trying to make films with the least amount of dialogue possible, because I believe film is an audiovisual medium, so it may seem strange that a director whose films are known for their talkiness would be one that has had the biggest impact on me. But Altman was a true anarchist of cinematic form, a rebel whose work proudly thrusts a fist in the face of authority. He was also one of the greatest chroniclers of human messiness.

  Altman dismantled and subverted well-worn genres. In fact, he would pretty much deface them. Whether it was the war film with M*A*S*H, the detective film with The Long Goodbye or in the case of McCabe & Mrs. Miller, the mythos of the American Western. He may well have been dismantling America as an idea throughout all his work. This film moves me like no other. It may be one of the greatest misfit stories ever: inverting the gender roles, expectations and archetypes of the Western hero between both Julie Christie’s Miller and Warren Beatty’s McCabe. The result is something so achingly human, desperate and sad. While this wasn’t a direct influence on Sister Midnight, its spirit no doubt led me there. A scene towards the end, with a battered McCabe flopped out in the snow, gazing at a wild horse gliding by, is pure magic. In the hands of another director, this could be pure cheeseball. With Altman, however, you get something altogether more strange and beautiful, without an ounce of sentimentality.

• The General

  I think people tend to forget Buster Keaton was not just a comedic performer, but a filmmaker. There was more to him than the acrobatic freak of nature reared on the vaudeville circuit. The cinematic grammar he employs uses few cuts and choreographs tableau master shots.
  Early in The General, the posh father of Buster’s love interest declares that he just isn’t good enough for his little girl. After they scram, a solitary Keaton sits on the crank that connects and motions the wheels of his steam train. His posture is slumped, his face is dilating in deadpan sorrow. The train slowly ambles to life. Keaton, frozen in his melancholy, is manoeuvred in graceful circles as the crank and wheels roll on; only snapping out of his stupor as he’s about to out of frame and the shot cuts.

  I find Chaplin too sentimental, and his grotesque smile actually creeps me out. Keaton never forces you to feel anything by using emotional tricks. You arrive there through the innocence and humanity in his performances which for me are so endearing in their unshakeable deadpan.

  As Norma Desmond says in Sunset Boulevard, while projecting her old silent films to Joe Gillis: “Wonderful isn’t it? And no dialogue. We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces.” And what a face Buster had…

• A Woman Under the Influence

  Another chronicler of human messiness and vulnerability. Cassavetes never judges his characters, treating them all with equal empathy, no matter what shade of grey they are. It’s done with true care, in this beautiful film of humans struggling to integrate into society’s masterplan, with an unforgettable electric performance by Gena Rowlands.

  As with The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, an enormous loneliness radiates from the story’s core. Both films are also fascinating for being lensed with an outsider’s eye-view of Los Angeles by a native New Yorker. The result is suburban LA as a realm of alienation, where Mabel sputters and short circuits like a displaced thunderbolt under the bleach-white California sun.

• The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

  Cassavetes tackles Los Angeles alienation again. A Woman Under the Influence was a study of womanhood set mostly during the day, bleached by the bright ‘optimistic’ LA sun. Chinese Bookie occurs almost entirely at night—a study of masculinity in the shadowy gaps and neon-lit interiors of the after hours.

  The whole film, and the characters that populate it, feel liminal. Lost souls floating between realms. Cosmo (Ben Gazarra) is a strip club owner with a gambling problem. He is always between things, just on the edge of something, not quite where he needs to be. Gazarra’s male bravado slowly punctures as the film progresses. He’s not a hero, nor is he an anti-hero. He’s a flawed man, ill-equipped for the peculiar situation he’s plunged into. An accidental outlaw. This film shares the loneliness of A Woman Under The Influence, but it’s now wrapped in sad desperation all its own.

  The film has some of my favorite telephoto photography in it. Cassavetes taught me that you can eliminate establishing shots to create a world. Literally throw the audience into the soup, so to speak, and let them find their own way around. This was Cassavetes’ first attempt at something vaguely ‘genre’, but to actually call this a genre film would be to reduce it. It’s something else entirely.

• The Trial of Joan of Arc

  Bresson’s minimalism and narrative economy is as precise as a sharp blade, the film is lean and elliptical. Florence Delay’s performance as Joan is austere, as is how the film tells her story. Her Joan is almost supernatural, because of the actual lack of any supernatural elements in the sober way she’s presented. The sparse narrative and bare use of dialogue heightens the mystery of Joan of Arc. It leaves enough unsaid and enough space between the lines to invite you to partake in the mystery. Her performance feels both timeless and modern. In the moments when dialogue does emerge from Joan’s mouth, it does so like little bombs. It’s punk-rock, and from a different planet to Carl Theodor Dreyer’s theatrical interpretation of Joan of Arc. My favorite scenes are the silent ones that feel like we are spying on Joan into her cell, through cracks in the jailhouse walls. If you know the history, you know how Joan’s story ends, but Bresson still manages to make it harrowing.

• Yojimbo

  The lemming-like allegiance to code, hierarchy and customs of the Samurai has always bemused me. It is an absurd life choice. Look at the ‘Akō incident’ of 1703 to see what I mean. In Yojimbo, the Samurai we get is a Rōnin—one without a master nor clan. The Rōnin were looked down upon, because in the eyes of society, they had no ‘status’ without a master. Sanjuro the Rōnin is played by Toshiro Mifune. Alongside Buster Keaton, he’s one of the most expressive physical performers ever, with an eccentric humor coursing through his bones and rascal face. In the opening scene, Mifune’s lone outlaw enters town with the swagger of a stray dog, as eyes peer at him from the shadows. There’s a similar scene in Sister Midnight when Uma, our small-town outsider, sits displaced and examined by the neighbours outside her new home in the big city. Sister Midnight is essentially about someone becoming an accidental outlaw. The two scenes share a spirit, but not aesthetics.

  This is Kurosawa’s third Cinemascope film and his most powerful use of the format, especially in how he employs empty space within the frames, echoing Japanese Ukiyo-e art, which is similarly composed with landscapes and architecture amongst empty space. I’m attracted to characters that fly in the face of convention. Rather than some lofty noble Samurai drunk on his own importance, I’ll take Mifune’s goofy outcast in tattered robes any day.

• Good Morning

  Humor is present in all of Ozu’s work, but this delicate little film is the most outwardly silly. He still finds the poetry of human interaction in the mundane, but now with the addition of fart jokes. It follows a group of school kids mesmerised by the first television brought into their small village by a bohemian couple in a changing Japan.

  The formalism of Ozu’s mise en scene is entirely his own. His fixed camera was mounted low on the ground, to mirror life occurring on ground level in the Japanese home. I watched a lot of Ozu at a young age, but this one struck me because he used the geography of the village in a way he had not before, by observing action from overhead wides as the tiny figures of the inhabitants traipse around the skinny lanes.

• Le Samouraï

  This film’s aesthetic identity directly mirrors that of the lead character. Alain Delon is a sharply dressed hitman operating with cool, detached precision, like some sort of gangster monk. The film itself is sparse, sleek and stylish.

  There’s barely any dialogue in it and Jef Costello is a man of few words. Nothing is out of place, until the order he’s painstakingly cultivated becomes skewed. Even as paranoia heightens, the film’s aesthetic architecture remains consistent and true to itself. It is a study of ‘control’ in all its facets. This film shows that employing emotional restraint and withholding narrative information can still create something moving. The surprising melancholy it evokes in the final moments haunts me every time I see it.

  There’s a loose tradition in the 1970s of these existential films about lone wolf figures like Taxi Driver, The Killing of Chinese Bookie and Le Samouraï. I’d like to think that the character of Uma in Sister Midnight is a continuation of this lineage.

• The Middleman

  I love Charulata and the Apu trilogy, but this is my favourite Satyajit Ray film. It’s his darkest and most cynical, and the fact that it was made in the ’70s feels fitting in some way. Pradip Mukherjee’s performance also shares that lone wolf in existential crisis quality of the ’70s films I mentioned earlier. Like Cosmo in Chinese Bookie, he, too, is ill-equipped for the unusual circumstances that begin to swallow him. Like the New York of Taxi Driver or Hong Kong of Chungking Express, Calcutta is a huge beast of a character in this film.

• Scorpio Rising

  Chrome, rubber, flesh and leather are presented with ritual-like reverence under Kenneth Anger’s horny gaze in this dream-like meditation on the American Rebel. Anger was an occultist. Specifically a follower of Aleister Crowley’s Thelema, which built its practice around ‘ceremonial’ magic. The notion of ceremony and ritual prevails throughout this film. He’s toying with iconography of all kinds—pop-culture, religious and musical. Images of Marlon Brando and James Dean peer down from postered walls like outlaw angels, juxtaposed against flashes of Jesus and Nazi gatherings as handsome stone-faced bikers perform their own rituals—adorning themselves in leathers and polishing their bikes.

  This predates Easy Rider for using pop music instead of score and it’s the music that propels the film with hypnotic rhythm. The Crystals swoon, Elvis howls and Ricky Nelson laments as Anger bends the form, treating the medium of film as a ‘magickal operation’ unto itself.

To celebrate the 2025 New York International Children’s Film Festival, filmmaker Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep) shares with us some favorite movies from his own childhood and teenage years, and those he’s enjoyed watching with his children. Read the notes for Michel’s stories about seeing these films throughout the years.

Gondry’s latest film, Maya, Give Me a Title (Maya, donne-moi un titre), is a stop-motion series of paper cut-out stories whose plots are suggested by his daughter. The film screens in the Spotlight slot of NYICFF, on Sunday, March 16, 2025.

A follow-up sequel, Maya, Give Me Another Title, is in the official selection of this year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival, which takes place in June 2025.

• Stowaway in the Sky

  “The first movie seen in my life, and still is maybe my favorite. It’s by Albert Lamorisse. And not to be confused with The Red Balloon, which he did too. It’s a feature film about a granddad and his grandchild traveling across in the hot balloon. When they take off and we see the people watching... Then they fly by the Eiffel Tower and by Brittany and then they go to the mountain and it’s just wonderful.

  “In the school where our parents were working, it was Thursday, the day off at school, so I’d still go to school and do more playful activities. And they had put a big white tent in the recess yard and they projected the 16 millimeter copy of this film. I think that was the first feature film I watched all of. And it was a great experience and I watch it every other year and I am never disappointed. A lot of time you watch movies you liked as a kid and you’re disappointed, but this one doesn’t disappoint me.”

• The Jungle Book

  “A Walt Disney cartoon, The Jungle Book. I the coconuts, the big bear. I mean, I prefer the animation from Communist countries at the time, but I’m like every kid. I got sucked into the Walt Disney stories also.”

• Bambi

  “Bambi, I . Ah yes, I the background and it was super sad. It’s amazing to do a movie so sad for children, but it was very strong and you could feel the drawing. It was still, you could feel the hand-work.”

• The Aristocats

  “I love The Aristocats too because at the time it’s where they started using [a] Xerox machine, so they would do it with crayons and the pencil on paper and then photocopy them on the transparent material. There is a scene where they are playing the jazz and they were super hip. And to make the sort of colorful light you would see in the party, they had just bright colors that they move slowly on a separate level. Oh, it’s wonderful.”

• Hibernatus

  “We had very fun comedies with [actor] Louis de Funès, like Hibernatus. It’s a man that [is] discovered in the ice and has been frozen for 100 years and they can’t show him the world as it is now because it would traumatize him. So they recreate the world from the age when he was frozen and all the comedy is based on that. It’s very funny.”

• The Apartment

  “I watching The Apartment, the one with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, and I had a crush on Shirley MacLaine. It was Alexandre Trauner, the art director, and you had amazing perspective.”

• Mary Poppins

  “I had a crush also on Julie Andrews. She has a little cross-eye, very charming. I liked, it was a good representation of women, strong and yet feminine. [Mrs Banks] still looked very much like a woman of this time— and the dad and the bankers. It’s much more actually leftist than, let’s say, [It’s a Wonderful Life], which is very conservative. The Frank Capra movies are very conservative.”

• The Love Bug

  “I enjoying the original, the Beetle car, what was the name? The little car that was a Beetle? Herbie? Loved it.”

• Porky's

  “Oh, I I was a teenager, but the movie I loved the most, it was in a big theater and every seat was taken. So my friend and I, we had to go in single places, and it was called Porky’s.

  “When we watch[ed], it was a subtitled. Without subtitle[s] we could not hear any words. So we could follow the story thanks to the subtitle, because there was a continuous laughter. That was so amazing. But when I watched it again on television, it didn’t work for me. I didn’t find it funny one bit.”

• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

  “I just watched it a year ago and I really liked it. I liked the villain [Robert Helpmann] who was actually an [Australian] ballet dancer. He was not an actor.”

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

A collection of nineteen films by women directors, one from each filmmaker interviewed in Marya E. Gates’s new book, Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors in Their Own Words.

Read Gates’s thoughts on each of the listed films in her Journal story here, and click here for her expanded list of every film directed by these nineteen women.

• Gas Food Lodging
• Little Women
• Working Girls
• Bright Star
• Angie
• Daughters of the Dust
• Madeline's Madeline
• The Watermelon Woman
• Variety
• A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

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

Awards season is, of course, an endlessly entertaining, glamorous, and enriching celebration of cinema—a time to take stock of what the best (and most successful) films of the past year might tell us about the current state of pop culture. But awards are also defined by their inherent contradictions: what does “best” even mean if art is subjective? It’s why this season hurts and delights in equal measure.

But on Letterboxd, we go granular. Here, it is about that one scene, that one shot. Given this is the place to celebrate the minutiae of cinema, we raise you: Letterboxd’s FYCs (For Your Consideration), celebrating the niche, hyper-specific moments that imprinted in our minds last year.

Read the notes to see which category each film has won (and who awarded the prize), and check out our Journal story for words on each selection.

• Challengers

  Best Tennis Ball POV Shot

  The Reynolds Woodcock Award for Leading Man Most in Need of Bed Rest and a Bowl of Homemade Soup

• Better Man

  Best London Tourism Promo

• Heretic

  Best Meow Emitted by a Human Actor

• The Room Next Door

  Best ing Literature

• Trap

  Best Girl Dad

• Cuckoo

  The Chumbawamba Award for Getting Knocked Down and Getting Up Again

• Hard Truths

  Best Spitefully Delivered Dig on the Futility of Baby Clothing

• The Order

  The Gene Hackman Tribute Award for Best Mustache in a ing Role

• Babygirl

  Best Sexy Accessory

• Gladiator II

  Best Cartoon “CHOMP” Sound Effect

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

• In the Lost Lands
• Mickey 17
• Novocaine
• Opus
• Borderline
• Ash
• Queen of the Ring
• The Actor
• Thank You Very Much
• The Alto Knights

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

Consensus for Showdown № 206: Maiden Voyage (BAFTA Outstanding Debut nominees)

1. Ex Machina
2. Shaun of the Dead
3. Aftersun
4. Pride & Prejudice
5. Moon
6. The Muppets
7. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
8. Monkey Man
9. Mamma Mia!
10. Attack the Block

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

In celebration of Black History Month, Nickel Boys director RaMell Ross shares eight film recommendations from Black filmmakers.

Read the notes to see what Ross has to say about each selection.

Nickel Boys is in theaters and available on digital now from Amazon MGM Studios. It is nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay at this year’s Academy Awards.

You can read our full interview with Ross, from Robert Daniels, on Journal here.

• Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One

  Because the reality of an event and performance of self pulse, uncountable, as the contours of clouds.

• T

  Because photography and film have reinscribed the world, shadowed it back, and now we live in a picture, an image of the world. because that, and... Documentary Ventriloquism is losing its voice.

• Moonlight

  Because the harnessing of moonlight, as a historical balm, quiets conception. Shhhhhhhh, off and quiet now, this is an aesthetic incantation. this dawn, is one to , and recall.

• Killer of Sheep

  Because an antidote to essentialization is the medicine of the mundane. once ingested, one’s cells stop their bit, and the mind-body is free to tend to its wounds.

• Field Niggas

  Because the ‘chops of American culture have always licked especially for Black folks’. let the suspension of narrative find its way to music, and we will play the soot away.

• Love Is the Message, the Message Is Death

  Because love is the message and the message is death, in not to be mistaken for yours.

• All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt

  Because the poet and the grave digger share drives, and surely together sigh, their errant gaze at steam from coffee. it is here the past and present equilibrium.

• Time

  Because, time.

This year's winning films at the 2025 EE BAFTA Film Awards.

Click 'Read Notes' to see each film's win(s).

• Conclave

  4 wins - Best Film, Outstanding British Film, Adapted Screenplay, Editing

• The Brutalist

  4 wins - Best Director, Leading Actor (Adrien Brody), Cinematography, Original Score

• Emilia Pérez

  2 wins - Best Film Not in the English Language, ing Actress (Zoe Saldaña)

• Anora

  2 wins - Leading Actress (Mikey Madison), Casting

• Dune: Part Two

  2 wins - Special Visual Effects, Sound

• Wicked

  2 wins - Costume Design, Production Design

• Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

  2 wins - Best Animated Film, Best Children's & Family Film

• A Real Pain

  2 wins - ing Actor (Kieran Culkin), Original Screenplay

• The Substance

  1 win - Make Up & Hair

• Kneecap

  1 win - Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director, or Producer

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

For Valentine’s Day, Letterboxd staff and contributors celebrate the cinematic couples who make us swoon, sigh and shout, “Love is real!”—from Jackie Brown and Max Cherry to Charles Grodin and Miss Piggy.

Read the full story on Journal to see what everyone has to say about their selections.

• Down with Love

  Selected by Mia Lee Vicino

• Jackie Brown

  Selected by Mitchell Beaupre

• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

  Selected by Ella Kemp

• A Room with a View

  Selected by Gemma Gracewood

• Secretary

  Selected by Samm Ruppersberger

• Phantom Thread

  Selected by Annie Lyons

• Hiroshima Mon Amour

  Selected by Jack Moulton

• Decision to Leave

  Selected by Ariel LeBeau

• Beginners

  Selected by Adesola Thomas

• Maurice

  Selected by Marya E. Gates

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

To mark the release of The Gorge, streaming now on AppleTV+, director Scott Derrickson shares ten films that influenced his latest work, starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy.

Make sure to read the notes to see what Derrickson has to say about each selection.

• Alien

  And not just because of Sigourney Weaver. It may be the best creature/gunplay film ever made, so it’s an inevitable influence.

• Titanic

  Before most movies have ended, the ship hadn’t even hit the iceberg yet. I don’t draw that much time building up the romantic connection between the leads, but the bifurcated sections of patient romance vs all hell breaking loose are structurally quite similar.

• Sleepless in Seattle

  The best rom-com ever? Even though The Gorge isn’t any kind of rom-com, it does have a large section of our romantic pair physically separate from each other.

• The Ritual

  My friend David Bruckner made a brilliantly executed horror film with a rather unique mythology that has some relevancy to some of what is actually inside The Gorge.

• Black Sabbath

  Mario Bava’s use of bold color was a definite influence on the second half of my film.

• The Day of the Triffids

  Another genre film with unique mythology that I thought about while rewriting some of the mythology for The Gorge.

• Curtains

  Probably the least known of any film on this list, but this gritty little horror film from 1983 directly inspired one of my set pieces. If you’ve see Curtains, the homage will be very obvious when you see it.

• The Bourne Identity

  Definitely drew on this for one particular scene — to avoid spoilers I will say no more.

• Blade Runner 2049

  The gorgeous-yet-sickly use of colored mist (for more than just aesthetic purposes) had a visual influence for sure.

• Invasion of the Body Snatchers

  Again, without giving any spoilers, the visual design of one scene in particular was very inspired by my memories of seeing this masterful and disturbing remake at the drive-in when I was thirteen.

Ahead of Valentine’s Day, Letterboxd asked filmmakers over the last few months for the movie(s) that make them believe in the power of romance. From About Time to In the Mood for Love, many heartbreakers and gamechangers get a mention. Hit the notes to see who chose which film.

Selected by Dylan O’Brien, Alexander Skarsgård, Stephanie Hsu, River L. Ramirez, Jack Quaid, Molly Gordon, Logan Lerman, Steven Yeun, Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Paul Mescal, Leo Woodall, Patrick Wilson, Sophie Brooks, José Lourenço, Andrew Ahn, Bowen Yang, Nicholas Hoult, Micheal Ward, Paul Raci, Evan Twohy, Himesh Patel, Mike Flanagan, Wregas Bhanuteja, David Jonsson, Storm Reid, John Reynolds, AnnaSophia Robb, Natasha Lyonne, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña, Hannah Waddingham, Elizabeth Sankey, Richard E. Grant, Sean Baker, Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Jason Patel, Renée Zellweger, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Barry Jenkins, Jharrel Jerome, Son Suk-ku, Katy O’Brian, Halina Reijn, Ernest Prakasa, Yandy Laurens, Neo Sora, Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh, John Crowley.

Watch the full supercut here.

• Titanic

  Selected by Dylan O’Brien

• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

  Selected by Alexander Skarsgård, Stephanie Hsu, River L. Ramirez, Jack Quaid

• When Harry Met Sally...

  Selected by Molly Gordon, Logan Lerman, Steven Yeun, Nicole Kidman

• You've Got Mail

  Selected by Logan Lerman, Steven Yeun

• Blue Valentine

  Selected by Harris Dickinson

• About Time

  Selected by Paul Mescal

• Love Actually

  Selected by Leo Woodall, Patrick Wilson

• Notting Hill

  Selected by Patrick Wilson, Sophie Brooks, José Lourenço, Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh

• Four Weddings and a Funeral

  Selected by Sophie Brooks, Florence Pugh

• Pride & Prejudice

  Selected by Andrew Ahn

...plus 39 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The Festiville team’s highlights from the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, as selected by our correspondents Adesola Thomas, Annie Lyons, Ella Kemp, Katie Rife, Leo Koziol, Rafa Sales Ross and Zachary Lee.

Read more about why these features resonated with Letterboxd and our crew.

• All That’s Left of You
• BLKNWS: & Conditions
• Cactus Pears
• Free Leonard Peltier
• If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
• Lurker
• The Perfect Neighbor
• Predators
• Prime Minister
• Ricky

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

The 75th Berlin International Film Festival will run from February 13–23, 2025.

• A Complete Unknown
• Mickey 17
• Dirty Harry
• Shoah
• Looking for Langston
• The Goddess
• If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
• Hell's Angels
• Yella
• Dressed in Blue

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

Consensus for Showdown № 205: The Favourite (BAFTA Outstanding British Film nominees)

1. Shaun of the Dead
2. Aftersun
3. The Banshees of Inisherin
4. Poor Things
5. Lawrence of Arabia
6. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
7. Paddington 2
8. The Favourite
9. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
10. The Third Man

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

We crunched the numbers to see which films nominated for Best Animated Feature Film—an Oscar category since 2001—appeared the most in our ’ four favorite films. Here’s how the top 50 shook out.

The 2025 Oscars air live on ABC and Hulu on Sunday March 2nd, 4pm PST. Check out this year’s nominations on the official Oscars Letterboxd page.

1. Coraline
2. Fantastic Mr. Fox
3. Spirited Away
4. Howl's Moving Castle
5. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
6. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
7. Ratatouille
8. Shrek 2
9. How to Train Your Dragon
10. Corpse Bride

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

We crunched the numbers to see which films nominated for Best International Feature Film appeared the most in our ’ four favorite films. Here’s how the top 100 shook out.

This award was first a special Oscar that was handed out semi-annually from 1947-1955 that became an annual competitive Academy Awards category in 1956.

The 2025 Oscars air live on ABC and Hulu on Sunday March 2nd, 4pm PST. Check out this year’s nominations on the official Oscars Letterboxd page.

1. Parasite
2. Amélie
3. Cinema Paradiso
4. The Worst Person in the World
5. Pan's Labyrinth
6. Perfect Days
7. Life Is Beautiful
8. Central Station
9. Incendies
10. Close

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

We crunched the numbers to see which films nominated for Best Picture—across the entire history of the Oscars—appeared the most in our ’ four favorite films. Here’s how the top 100 shook out.

The 2025 Oscars air live on ABC and Hulu on Sunday March 2nd, 4pm PST. Check out this year’s nominations on the official Oscars Letterboxd page.

1. La La Land
2. Dead Poets Society
3. Everything Everywhere All at Once
4. Little Women
5. Whiplash
6. Parasite
7. Call Me by Your Name
8. Good Will Hunting
9. Pulp Fiction
10. The Shawshank Redemption

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

• Heart Eyes
• The Monkey
• Captain America: Brave New World
• Love Hurts
• The Gorge
• Bring Them Down
• Paddington in Peru
• Armand
• Old Guy
• Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

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