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Watched on Tuesday May 27, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday May 27, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday May 27, 2025.

Watched on Monday May 26, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 25, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 25, 2025.

Watched on Friday May 23, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 22, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday May 20, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 17, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 17, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 10, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 4, 2025.

As the credits rolled, I walked out of the theater only to see a DUI arrest in progress. Fitting.

Watched on Thursday April 24, 2025.

“I just wanted you to know getting to be around you and Benicio was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

First time seeing this since high school. Went in expecting something more infantile than memory served and found it to be surprisingly robust. A full display of impeccable craftsmanship, from the neon-soaked use of chiaroscuro lighting to the Kuleshovian use of Ryan Gosling’s face. On that note, I almost forgot how little dialogue this had, relying heavily on looks, glances, and physicality, the latter of which is doled out in hypermasculine spades. The real kicker here is the meticulous choreography between actor and camera - the way the Driver and Irene walk to their respective apartments, the two of them positioned perfectly on opposite sides of the frame throughout. Or later on, when the Driver walks up to Nino on the beach and stops just in time to have his head haloed by a street lamp in the background, framing him like a brightly-clad angel of death. While there is more to be desired - ie. the presence of only two car chases (in a film called Drive) - the charm felt by the experience of watching this has certainly not been lost.

SIDE NOTE: Saw this in 35mm. Really enhanced the pseudo-grindhouse vibe.

Turned off by the jumpscare at 4:58. Turned on by seeing someone with the same surname as me in the credits (it's an uncommon surname)

Watched on Sunday April 20, 2025.

Watched on Saturday April 19, 2025.

So much to love about this:

A biopic about a fictional musician
A minimalist first half
A maximalist second half
Sia
The colors
Cultural critique
Long takes
Shouting and screaming

Grade A devil shit, c'mon man

An exercise in visceral tension. Garland’s minimalism is better served by this than Civil War. An experience primarily made up of sensations, of silence shattered by gunfire; of hearing drowned by voices both real and radioed. The incredible sound design is a staple in the abundance of sensory details. Garland has certainly improved.

Watched on Monday April 14, 2025.

Watched on Sunday April 13, 2025.

Watched on Saturday April 12, 2025.

Watched on Saturday April 12, 2025.

Watched on Friday April 11, 2025.

Watched on Sunday April 6, 2025.

Watched on Monday March 31, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 21, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 21, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday March 19, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 16, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 15, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 15, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 15, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday March 12, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 9, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 9, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 8, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 7, 2025.

Watched on Thursday March 6, 2025.

Watched on Monday March 3, 2025.

Watched on Monday March 3, 2025.

The Brown Bunny is a controversial movie, in no small part because of its filmmaker, the outspoken Vincent Gallo. It was controversial immediately on release, but it has slowly been undergoing a positive reevaluation. The film is a languidly paced road movie about a motorcycle racer who spends most of the runtime driving around in a van, visiting rundown towns, sharing unusual encounters with women, and being haunted by a mysterious past. Taken on its premise, the film might be all-too-familiar (aka clichéd) for some. Taken on its individual moments however, it offers up a poetic portrayal of fragile masculinity and relationship trauma. The camerawork is quite beautiful, with some shots of the Utah salt flats being a highlight as well as most of the scenes on the road. The way the film manages to coagulate its minimal production resources is also quite impressive. Viewing it in the context of Gallo's life at the time gives it some personal weight. At times, the film feels like his own cinematic introspection in which he bares his insecurities (and fetishes; and something else). It's a fascinating work, and for my money, it's an irable work of contemporary American independent filmmaking in league with Sean Baker, Kelly Reichardt, and the Safdie brothers.

A proto-Team America farce/satire with a Zucker brothers-type use of visual gags. It’s politically charged, furiously funny, and very short on subtext. Only text here. Uncomfortably close to home in some moments, this nevertheless was a good time.

I can’t believe the amount of notable actors that were in this thing: Delphine Seyrig from Jeanne Dielman, Philippe Noiret from Cinema Paradiso, a cameo from Serge Gainsbourg, and DONALD PLEASANCE?!

Watched on Tuesday February 25, 2025.

Watched on Friday February 21, 2025.

Watched on Saturday February 15, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday February 4, 2025.

Watched on Thursday January 30, 2025.

• Waves
• Krisha
• Hurry Up Tomorrow
• It Comes at Night

• Asteroid City
• The Game
• The 13th Picture
• The Novelist's Film
• Close-Up
• Caché
• Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One
• Blow Out

1. Feel and Stay
2. Strummer
3. Bed
4. Rachael Hunger
5. No Shark
6. Mute Date
7. Invisible Shark
8. Stock Shark
9. Subway Shark
10. Tiny Plastic Sharks

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

1. Eraserhead
2. Twin Peaks: The Return
3. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
4. Twin Peaks
5. Inland Empire
6. Lost Highway
7. Blue Velvet
8. The Elephant Man
9. Dune

Favorites
Favorite Films | Favorite Film of Each Year

Top Ten of the Year lists
1986 | 1997 | 1999 | 2001 | 2003 | 2004 | 2007 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024

Directors’ Works Ranked lists
Woody Allen | Paul Thomas Anderson | Wes Anderson | Hideaki Anno | Robert Bresson | Tim Burton | John Carpenter | Cody Clarke | Joel & Ethan Coen | David Cronenberg | Jonathan Demme | Brian De Palma | David Fincher | Alfred Hitchcock | Mamoru Hosoda | Bong Joon-ho | Wong Kar-Wai | Satoshi Kon | Stanley Kubrick | Akira Kurosawa | Spike Lee | Sidney Lumet | David Lynch | Martin McDonagh | Jeff Nichols | Christopher Nolan | Roman Polanski | Lynne Ramsay | Hong Sang-soo | Martin Scorsese | Makoto Shinkai | Steven Soderbergh | Steven Spielberg | Quentin Tarantino | Denis Villeneuve | Wim Wenders | Billy Wilder

Misc.
My Movies | Editing Inspiration | ArtsQuest

Summer 100s
2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023

Themed
Dancing Without Bursting into Song | Turn Off Your Sunday Brain | Down the Rabbit Hole | Terror Down Below

Other Ranked Lists
A24 | Black Mirror

• The Silence of the Lambs

A complete list of the AFI Movies of the Year, listed in chronological order from 2000 to 2023. While I personally don’t see all of these movies as definitively the best, I like making lists, and I saw fit to make one for this.

If you check the notes section on this page, you’ll see I’ve included the AFI’s written commemorations for these movies. Even though I’m mixed on the movies the AFI chooses, I enjoy reading their commemorations. They’re well written and they at least partially give a sense of what makes those movies praiseworthy.

• Almost Famous

  At the center of ALMOST FAMOUS lies a question: When it would be easier not to, do you write the truth? Cameron Crowe writes the truth in this story of a young rock journalist in the 1970s with a profound understanding that can come only from living it - and he directs with an uncommon attention to detail of time, place and character, capturing how deeply music affects us.

• Before Night Falls

  Julian Schnabel invigorates the biographical movie in his sensual, lyrical and searing memorial to the late Cuban novelist and poet Reinaldo Arenas, played by Javier Bardem with a riveting mixture of ion and playfulness. BEFORE NIGHT FALLS is a moving testament to artistic and sexual freedom, and Schnabel brings to it a painter’s eye and a documentarian’s attention to cultural detail.

• Best in Show

  With BEST IN SHOW, director Christopher Guest and the ensemble cast elevate the mock-documentary form to new artistic heights. The film raises comedy to the level of insight and weaves a seamless narrative fabric from actors’ improvisation around a central theme. Fred Willard’s performance is worthy of special recognition.

• Erin Brockovich

  This finely-crafted studio picture goes beyond the familiar with humor, texture and a fine attention to detail — an increasingly rare experience. ERIN BROCKOVICH, with its luminescent performance by Julia Roberts, accomplishes what all Hollywood films should aspire to: to excel both as art and as entertainment.

• Gladiator

  GLADIATOR updates the traditional American genre - the epic costume film - through cutting-edge technology. Its hero, a noble and unselfish man, is a type movies have celebrated for generations, but the modern methods used to create the world he lives in give viewers a new kind of spectacle for the new millennium.

• High Fidelity

  Is an offbeat odyssey about a 30-something record store owner who knows everything about pop music but nothing about life. A terrific ensemble cast includes music as a central character. The film effortlessly breaks the fourth wall and, rather then shoe-horning its quirky characters into a tidy resolution, chooses a real world ending.

• Requiem for a Dream

  Darren Aronofsky takes no prisoners in his harrowing second film, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. Utilizing the language of cinema to startling film effect, he condenses information through multiple points-of-view and propulsive editing. Ellen Burstyn and Jared Leto give electrifying performances as a drug-addicted mother and son.

• Traffic

  Steven Soderbergh balances a complex narrative structure that includes three separate stories and multiple outstanding performances. TRAFFIC moves with clarity, grace and intelligence through a broad strata of American and Mexican society in this uncompromising tale about the never-ending fight to win a war against drugs.

• Wonder Boys

  This sophisticated, beautifully-written comedy of manners is a melancholy and funny coming-of-middle-age story. In WONDER BOYS, Curtis Hanson displays a sure comic-satiric touch and draws remarkable performances from his ensemble, particularly Michael Douglas as a literary one-hit-wonder and Tobey Maguire as his precocious student.

• You Can Count on Me

  In YOU CAN COUNT ON ME, writer/director Kenneth Lonergan surprises time and again with his affecting story of a complicated, funny and emotional sister/brother relationship. Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo create heart-breakingly real characters in this underexplored thematic territory.

...plus 257 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

*List order and movie selections subject to change

1. Stand by Me
2. Blue Velvet
3. Something Wild
4. Hannah and Her Sisters
5. She's Gotta Have It
6. The Fly
7. April Fool's Day
8. The Great Mouse Detective
9. Aliens
10. Poison for the Fairies

*List order and movie selections subject to change

1. We Need to Talk About Kevin
2. Hugo
3. Drive
4. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
5. Melancholia
6. Samsara
7. Midnight in Paris
8. The Muppets
9. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
10. Take Shelter

1. The Beast
2. Strange Darling
3. The Brutalist
4. I Saw the TV Glow
5. Anora
6. Rachael Hunger
7. Finger Laced Crown
8. Oddity
9. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
10. All of Us Strangers

*List order and movie selections subject to change

1. Liz and the Blue Bird
2. Climax
3. Roma
4. Burning
5. Won't You Be My Neighbor?
6. Hereditary
7. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
8. Mandy
9. Vox Lux
10. Black Panther

• Intersections
• Hoodies
• Lost + Found
• A Runner Finds Boots by a River
• Owen's Going
• Alexandra and Nicolay Chocolate
• The Gym Girl
• In Sickness
• Brother Sister Keeper

1. The Silence of the Lambs
2. The Master
3. You Were Never Really Here
4. Metropolis
5. Buffalo '66
6. Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion
7. The Shawshank Redemption
8. Kiki's Delivery Service
9. The Social Network
10. Wolf Children

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

One of my top favorite theaters

• Sing
• Silent Nights
• Timecode
• Enemies Within
• The Railroad Lady
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
• The Shape of Water
• Won't You Be My Neighbor?
• The Favourite
• A Star Is Born

...plus 58 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Mother
2. Parasite
3. Memories of Murder
4. Snowpiercer
5. The Host
6. Mickey 17

1. Jaws
2. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
3. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark
5. Duel
6. The Fabelmans
7. West Side Story
8. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
9. Catch Me If You Can
10. Minority Report

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

*List order and movie selections subject to change

1. Right Now, Wrong Then
2. Inside Out
3. Mad Max: Fury Road
4. Carol
5. The Big Short
6. The Boy and the Beast
7. The Witch
8. The Childhood of a Leader
9. The Lobster
10. Sicario

• Skinamarink
• The Brown Bunny
• The Truth About Charlie
• Mank

• After Fall, Winter
• Aftersun
• All of Us Strangers
• Anora
• Apocalypse Beach
• The Appointment
• April Fool's Day
• The Beast
• Caché
• Dune: Part Two

...plus 28 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Eyes Wide Shut
2. Audition
3. The Sixth Sense
4. Magnolia
5. Toy Story 2
6. Dogma
7. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
8. Ratcatcher
9. Fight Club
10. The Talented Mr. Ripley

Non-musical movies with at least one scene of dancing.

• Titane
• Pretend That You Love Me
• Little Women
• Burning
• Pulp Fiction
• The Silence of the Lambs
• Do the Right Thing
• Walkabout
• Peeping Tom
• Irreversible

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

1. Feel and Stay
2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
3. Past Lives
4. May December
5. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
6. Things Could Always Be Worse
7. Eileen
8. Knock at the Cabin

   
   

9. Invisible Shark

   
   

10. Godzilla Minus One

    
    

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

• The Dark Knight
• Mommy
• Prisoners
• Heat
• The Usual Suspects
• Nightcrawler
• Columbus
• Moon
• Babylon
• Carnival of Souls

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

1. Dog Day Afternoon
2. 12 Angry Men
3. Serpico
4. The Verdict
5. Prince of the City
6. Network
7. Murder on the Orient Express
8. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

A lot of movies have that one song that's hard to dissociate from the movie itself. In the film industry, this is called a "needle drop." This list is a compilation of all the films that include a needle drop, most of them pretty iconic because of it. Use "Read notes" to see the names of the songs and artists.

• 10 Things I Hate About You

  "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons

• 2001: A Space Odyssey

  "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss
  "The Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss II

• All of Us Strangers

  "Death of a Party" by Blur
  "The Power of Love" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood

• Almost Famous

  "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John

• American Psycho

  "Hip to be Square" by Huey Lewis & The News

• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

  "Afternoon Delight" by Starland Vocal Band

• Baby Driver

  "Bellbottoms" by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

• Back to the Future

  "Johnny B. Goode" by Chuck Berry

• Beetlejuice

  "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" by Harry Belafonte

• Billy Elliot

  "Cosmic Dancer" by T. Rex
  "Town Called Malice" by The Jam

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

It’s good to not stress so much about shot plans every night before a shoot. Sometimes, it’s okay to watch a movie the night before.

• Tampopo

  Watched the night before the first day of shooting The Gym Girl

• Persona
• (500) Days of Summer

  Watched the night before the last day of shooting The Gym Girl

• Little Women
• The Killer

  Watched the night before the first day of shooting Plague of Fire

1. School of Rock
2. Tokyo Godfathers
3. Finding Nemo
4. Memories of Murder
5. The Brown Bunny
6. Lost in Translation
7. Kill Bill: Vol. 1
8. Goodbye, Dragon Inn
9. The Triplets of Belleville
10. Oldboy

1. May December
2. I'm Not There
3. The Velvet Underground
4. Carol
5. Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story
6. Poison
7. Safe
8. Wonderstruck

1. Zodiac
2. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
3. Ratatouille
4. There Will Be Blood
5. No Country for Old Men
6. Hot Fuzz
7. I'm Not There
8. Enchanted
9. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
10. The Mist

1. Spirited Away
2. In the Bedroom
3. Monsters, Inc.
4. Ocean's Eleven
5. Mulholland Drive
6. Shrek
7. Pulse
8. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
9. Millennium Actress
10. Cowboy Bebop: The Movie

• Midnight Special
• The Bikeriders
• Take Shelter
• Loving

1. Pretend That You Love Me
2. Strummer
3. Soul
4. Kajillionaire
5. The Empty Man
6. Mank
7. I'm Thinking of Ending Things
8. Possessor
9. Nomadland
10. The Invisible Man

• I Saw the TV Glow
• Feel and Stay
• TÁR
• Drive My Car
• Pretend That You Love Me
• Parasite
• Liz and the Blue Bird
• You Were Never Really Here
• The Handmaiden
• Right Now, Wrong Then

...plus 88 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Uncut Gems
2. Past Lives
3. Climax
4. Hereditary
5. Under the Skin
6. Lady Bird
7. I Saw the TV Glow
8. The Lighthouse
9. Waves
10. Good Time

...plus 38 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Inglourious Basterds
• Jackie Brown
• Kill Bill: Vol. 1
• Pulp Fiction
• Kill Bill: Vol. 2
• Reservoir Dogs
• Death Proof
• Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
• The Hateful Eight

• The Lighthouse
• Waves
• Uncut Gems
• Weathering with You
• The Invisible Man
• The Sparks Brothers
• The Black Phone
• M3GAN
• Bones and All
• Eileen

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

1. Vertigo
2. Rear Window
3. Strangers on a Train
4. North by Northwest
5. Suspicion
6. Rebecca
7. Psycho
8. The Lady Vanishes
9. Shadow of a Doubt
10. The 39 Steps

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

1. Taxi Driver
2. The Irishman
3. The Last Waltz
4. Raging Bull
5. The Departed
6. Hugo
7. GoodFellas
8. Killers of the Flower Moon
9. The Wolf of Wall Street
10. The Aviator

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

1. Drive My Car
2. Licorice Pizza
3. Titane
4. Flee
5. Red Rocket
6. In Front of Your Face
7. Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time
8. West Side Story
9. The Worst Person in the World
10. Dune

*List order and movie selections subject to change

1. The Master
2. Wolf Children
3. After Fall, Winter
4. Berberian Sound Studio
5. Ernest & Celestine
6. Side by Side
7. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
8. Wreck-It Ralph
9. The Avengers
10. Frankenweenie

• Liz and the Blue Bird
• Feel and Stay
• The Brown Bunny
• Hunger
• The Garden
• Past Lives
• 3 Women
• Brief Encounter
• The Fisher King
• I Know Where I'm Going!

...plus 35 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

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

Movies I watched at the right moment in my life, that comforted and enlightened me when I needed it badly, that challenged me when I needed to be challenged. I was in the right state of mind to watch these movies, and these movies were the right movies for me to watch at the time that I did.

• Mary and Max
• Spirited Away
• Night Is Short, Walk On Girl
• Drive My Car
• Werckmeister Harmonies
• Buffalo '66

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

This is it. This is it this time. 100 movies here we go

***UPDATE***

100 movies watched! I made my fourth (and probably final) attempt to watch 100 movies in one summer, and this time, I managed to make it!

Movie counts:
28 in a non-English language
16 seen in a theater
14 released in 2023
12 directed by women
9 animated (6 anime)
5 directed by John Carpenter
3 directed by Steve McQueen, Hong Sang-soo, and the Archers
3 silent

1. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
2. Lucky Louie
3. Wild Tales
4. House of Tolerance
5. The Love Witch
6. Targets
7. Showing Up
8. Three Thousand Years of Longing
9. Top Gun: Maverick
10. Liz and the Blue Bird

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

1. Pickpocket
2. Diary of a Country Priest
3. A Man Escaped
4. Mouchette
5. Au Hasard Balthazar
6. L'Argent

1. Peeping Tom
2. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
3. I Know Where I'm Going!
4. The Red Shoes
5. Black Narcissus
6. A Matter of Life and Death

1. The Thing
2. In the Mouth of Madness
3. Christine
4. Halloween
5. Assault on Precinct 13
6. The Fog
7. Escape from New York
8. Prince of Darkness
9. They Live
10. Dark Star

1. Right Now, Wrong Then
2. On the Beach at Night Alone
3. The Novelist's Film
4. In Front of Your Face
5. Hotel by the River
6. Claire's Camera
7. Introduction

1. The Grand Budapest Hotel
2. Fantastic Mr. Fox
3. The French Dispatch
4. Isle of Dogs
5. The Royal Tenenbaums
6. Asteroid City
7. Rushmore
8. Moonrise Kingdom