4v291o

Watched on Sunday May 25, 2025.

Comedy of emasculation taken to extremes: everything short of castration, drawn out at agonizing pace. I see others have focused on the documentary aspect of the film, and I suppose it's interesting as a slice of non-dramatic history. You could perhaps even argue there's something political here about the nature of bureaucracy and military rule as destructive of human agency and domestic happiness, but I think that's pushing it. This is about Grant's masculine humiliation through and through. And I gotta be honest: while there are a few terrific moments of banter between Grant and Sheridan (the best stuff is with Grant alone), that's not a marriage I'd want to be in--she treats him like crap!

I suppose from an auteurist POV this is interesting for the way it reverses the usual Hawksian plot of a woman gaining entrance to a male group. (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes reverses it in a different, and I think more successful, way.) But Grant is forced into the female group kicking and screaming, and there is nothing aspirational or even enjoyable about it (a far cry from Some Like It Hot). While a Hawksian woman can gain status by proving herself within or against male codes (even if she suffers a little humiliation along the way), a Hawksian man can only lose status and dignity when forced into female roles--though it should be noted that Hawks finds this very funny, and generally rewards his emasculated hero with love and restoration at the end.

Watched on Sunday May 25, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 18, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 17, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday May 14, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 3, 2025.

Watched on Thursday April 24, 2025.

Watched on Sunday April 20, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday April 15, 2025.

Watched on Saturday April 19, 2025.

Watched on Friday April 11, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday April 9, 2025.

I have no idea how to rate this. I’m seeing it for the first time after Megalopolis, which I loved, and they’re definitely the two films most like each other in style/ambition/insanity. These old guard New Hollywood directors just have a gusto that none of the younger generation can touch. Really wish I’d seen this one on a big screen rather than a laptop.

Watched on Monday March 24, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday March 25, 2025.

Watched on Monday March 24, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 22, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 14, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday March 12, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 7, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 7, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 7, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 7, 2025.

Watched on Thursday March 6, 2025.

Watched on Monday March 3, 2025.

Watched on Friday February 28, 2025.

Wasn't expecting an essay on AI!

Quite lovable, no flaws to speak of, but breaks no new ground for the series, and slips the mind rather easily. I very much appreciate the continued commitment to the old fashioned sense of Britishness, affirming the value of the English village even in the face of economic and technological change.

Watched on Thursday February 27, 2025.

Watched on Thursday February 27, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday February 25, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday February 25, 2025.

Watched on Thursday February 20, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday February 19, 2025.

Watched on Friday January 31, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday February 18, 2025.

Watched on Thursday February 13, 2025.

"Treads a delicate line between reverence and spoof"--in other words, it succeeds at neither, just weird trash.

Watched on Thursday February 6, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday January 28, 2025.

Watched on Sunday January 26, 2025.

Watched on Sunday January 26, 2025.

A couple strong scenes, especially the main house burning, but something about this adaptation doesn't work. I think part of it's the clash between the French culture onscreen and the deeply American culture of the novel, partly that I just don't really like any of the production design (though I love The Prisoner, which is in many ways similar). Mainly I think it's the fact we don't really get a sense of what this culture has lost without books. The televisual obsessions depicted seem terribly tame by the standards of 21st century screen time, and I suspect they were tame even in the '60s. And while the montages of burning books are beautiful and affecting, the act and experience of reading (so essential to the novel's effect and Montag's change of heart) is difficult if not impossible to convey through film; in any case, Truffaut didn't try very hard to achieve it.

Watched on Friday January 24, 2025.

Watched on Friday January 24, 2025.

Watched on Thursday January 23, 2025.

Watched on Friday January 10, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday January 15, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday January 14, 2025.

Watched on Sunday January 12, 2025.

I'm keeping this one fairly simple and broad. Any films directly from a Catholic perspective, any films made by Catholic directors that deal with faith issues, any about Catholic saints or Catholic history, any about Catholic characters where that seems like an important part of the plot. Also, just about any movie with major characters who are popes, bishops, priests, monks, or nuns. But I'm not looking to be totally comprehensive here: tiny amateur movies that no one's ever seen don't need to be included, nor does every random TV documentary with a Catholic subject. And while plenty of these films are critical from various angles, movies that are entirely about trashing Catholicism in extreme ways are generally excluded. Also pornography--I'm not putting a bunch of nunsploitation films on here.

Otherwise, it's just a big, long, chronological list. Use as you see fit.

See also: Orthodox Cinema. A Protestant Cinema.

1. The Temptation of St. Anthony
2. The Devil in a Convent
3. Joan of Arc
4. The Life and ion of Jesus Christ
5. The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ
6. The Parish Priest's Christmas
7. The Nativity
8. Dante's Inferno
9. Quo Vadis?
10. The Rosary

...plus 533 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

There's too many commie lists on this site!

Any movie that (1) has communist villains, (2) depicts communist atrocities or abuses, (3) is about war against communist forces, (4) parodies or satirizes communist ideology, or (5) critiques communist societies from the inside.

There's no need for all these to have western or capitalist heroes, but I did try to stay away from too many that depict the two sides as equally bad. I haven't seen a lot on this list, though, so some may have snuck in.

The first 10 are personal favorites, the rest are chronological order.

1. Ninotchka
2. Pickup on South Street
3. The Hand
4. The Killing Fields
5. The Death of Stalin
6. The Manchurian Candidate
7. GoldenEye
8. Red Dawn
9. White Nights
10. Breakfast on the Grass

...plus 422 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Any variety of Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox is welcome, though clearly the Russians predominate. The list is meant to be broad--basically anything with significant Orthodox characters or setting, or from Orthodox authors or filmmakers. Don't worry too much about the order.

See also: Roman Catholic Cinema. A Protestant Cinema.

1. Andrei Rublev
2. Nostalgia
3. The Island
4. War and Peace
5. Black Sunday
6. The Battle of Kerzhenets
7. The Knot
8. Simon of the Desert
9. Beyond the Hills
10. Prince Vladimir

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

1. Tobacco Road
2. One of Our Aircraft Is Missing
3. The Bitter Tea of General Yen
4. Rolling Thunder
5. The Last Unicorn
6. Don Quixote
7. The Grey Fox
8. Gummo
9. What Time Is It There?
10. Oh... Rosalinda!!

...plus 323 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Just to keep track. (Our shelves are not well-organized at the moment.)

• Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
• The Wind Rises
• Porco Rosso
• The Tale of The Princess Kaguya
• Only Yesterday
• Future Boy Conan
• Stardust
• High Noon
• Reservoir Dogs
• Metropolitan

...plus 596 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

This is what being at the center of the canon looks like. Reverse chronological order.

(I stole most of the titles here from a couple different programmed retrospectives that I found online, then added a few of my own.)

Updated. Originally posted like 6 or 8 years ago.

(Tags: Hitchcock, Pierre Boileau, San Francisco, homage, blonde, mystery)

1. Vertigo
2. Decision to Leave
3. Burning
4. Under the Silver Lake
5. The Green Fog
6. Personal Shopper
7. Gone Girl
8. Phoenix
9. The Dragon Is the Frame
10. The Skin I Live In

...plus 51 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

At the 2003 Laputa Animation Festival, held in Japan and named after the Studio Ghibli film Laputa: Castle in the Sky, 140 animators from around the world were asked what they thought were the greatest works of animation of all time. Their ballots were collated by the festival organizers and published in a limited edition booklet, and these are the results. (A very large number of these are available on YouTube and elsewhere online if you look.)

You can find this list in a few different places online. The most authoritative and informative place (and the site I depended on for this list) is at the Nishikata Film Review blog here: nishikataeiga.blogspot.com/2010/10/laputas-top-150-japanese-and-world.html

The results were not limited to feature films or short films, but could include any type of animation the animators polled wished to include. Consequently, there were several television series, several series of short films condensed into one spot, a credits sequence, a group of TV commercials, and a music video. The entries which Letterboxd did not include in its database are as follows:

60. Lupin III (1971 TV Series, dir. Masaaki Osumi/Hayao Miyazaki/Isao Takahata)
81. [TIE] Good Night Children (credits sequence for TV show, 2000, dir. Yuri Norstein)
127. [TIE] Rainbow Squadron Robin (TV series, 1966-1967, dir. Takeshi Tamiya)
133. [TIE] The Gutsy Frog (1972-74 TV Series, dir. Eiji Okabe, Tadao Nagahama)
133. [TIE] Yakult Miru Miru claymation commercials for probiotic drink (PMBB/Misseri Studios, ITALY/JAPAN, from 1980 on)
149. [TIE] music video for "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel (1986, dir. Brothers Quay, Aardman, et al.)

Also, it should be noted that several of the entires on this list that I have put on here are really stand-ins for the actual films or series, and I merely went with what was available on the Letterboxd database.

So, #6 Mirai Shounen Conan appears to be a condensed video version of the 1978 TV series directed by Hayao Miyazaki. #31 The Adventures of Gamba also appears to be a film-length condensation of the 1975 TV series, though both are listed under director Osamu Dezaki. Likewise, #46. Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth stands in for the complete 26-episode TV series Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-1996).

More confusingly, perhaps, #32: The Cat Concerto really stands for the entire Tom and Jerry series of short films directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. I chose it because it seems to be the most acclaimed single short of the series.

Other cases where an individual film or a video collection is made to stand in for an entire series include the Astro Boy; The Brave in Space (for the original 1963 TV series), Mobile Suit Gundam 1 movie (for the original 1979 TV series), Snow White 1933 (for the entire Betty Boop series of shorts), Cheburashka (for the series of 4 shorts by Roman Kachanov), Heidi torna Sui monti video (for the complete 1974 TV series Heidi, Girl of the Alps), Superman: The Mad Scientist (for the whole series of Fleischer Superman shorts), Marco: 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother movie (for the complete 1976 TV series), Anne of Green Gables: Road to Green Gables (for the complete 1979 TV series), Steamboat Willie (for the complete series of Mickey Mouse shorts starting in 1928), Fast and Furry-ous (for the complete series of Chuck Jones shorts), Popeye the Sailor (for the complete series of Fleischer shorts), Panda! Go Panda! (for both 1972-73 short films), Space Battleship Yamato movie (for the original 1974-75 series), Ashita no Joe 2 movie (for the complete 1980-81 series), Study No. 1 (for all 13 "Study" shorts by Oskar Fischinger), the 8 Man video (for complete 1963-63 TV series), and Peter Gabriel--Play the Videos (for "Sledgehammer").

1. Hedgehog in the Fog
2. Tale of Tales
3. Fantasia
4. The Man Who Planted Trees
5. The King and the Mockingbird
6. Future Boy Conan
7. My Neighbor Totoro
8. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
9. Yellow Submarine
10. The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon

...plus 132 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Everything new I saw last year, ranked.

I will add Ferrari once I'm finally able to watch it!

1. Killers of the Flower Moon
2. Oppenheimer
3. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
4. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
5. The Swan
6. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
7. Master Gardener
8. John Wick: Chapter 4
9. The Boy and the Heron
10. Return to Seoul

...plus 23 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The best older movies I saw for the first time in 2023, ranked.

1. The Color of Pomegranates
2. Rosemary's Baby
3. Dawn of the Dead
4. The Music Man
5. The Raid
6. The Hanging Tree
7. Tampopo
8. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
9. To Live and Die in L.A.
10. Zulu

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

My list of movies made by Studio Ghibli and precursors directed by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata.

There's a couple things I have yet to see (Tales from Earthsea, the rest of Heidi, Marco: 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother, Anne of Green Gables, The Story of Yanagawa's Canals, etc.) but this ranking pretty much sums up where I'd put these films in relation to each other. (Of course, I could easily switch things around a bit on another day.) Every single film on here is worth watching, and the first 9 or 10 are masterpieces. You aren't missing much if you don't check out Panda! Go Panda! because it's geared toward preschoolers, but it does have several design elements and character behavioral quirks that show up in later works from Future Boy Conan to My Neighbor Totoro to Ponyo.

UPDATE: Added Tales From Earthsea. It's quite a beautiful movie, actually, with some remarkable colors and background work, certainly much more interesting to look at than The Cat Returns. But the latter is simple and fun and knows it, delivering something very satisfying within a limited range, while Earthsea wants to be an epic on weighty themes of guilt and life, and it ends up undercooked and incoherent. So that's why it's near the bottom.

UPDATE 2: Added The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. A masterpiece, definitely Top 5 material, I'm just not sure what to bump out to make room.

UPDATE 3: Added the Ghiblies shorts, which I had seen but kind of forgotten about. They're kinda weird little things, but the second one has a few nice moments in it that make it worth checking out if you're the comprehensive sort.

UPDATE 4: Added When Marnie Was There.

1. Spirited Away
2. My Neighbor Totoro
3. Whisper of the Heart
4. Only Yesterday
5. The Wind Rises
6. The Tale of The Princess Kaguya
7. Princess Mononoke
8. Grave of the Fireflies
9. Pom Poko
10. Porco Rosso

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

1. Marnie
2. The Green Ray
3. Man with a Movie Camera
4. The Insider
5. The Bridges of Madison County
6. Top Hat
7. Shanghai Express
8. Big Wednesday
9. A Tale of Winter
10. American Gigolo

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

1. Canyon age
2. Stars in My Crown
3. I Walked with a Zombie
4. Out of the Past
5. The Leopard Man
6. Nightfall
7. Cat People
8. Great Day in the Morning
9. Way of a Gaucho
10. Stranger on Horseback

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

The first director whose filmography I ever completed, scrounging as an undergrad for VHS tapes in the bowels of Buswell Library. Memories.

I had the Trailer for Citizen Kane on here, but it was removed from Letterboxd. Savages.

1. The Magnificent Ambersons
2. Citizen Kane
3. F for Fake
4. Chimes at Midnight
5. Touch of Evil
6. The Fountain of Youth
7. Macbeth
8. The Stranger
9. The Lady from Shanghai
10. Mr. Arkadin

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

1. Monsieur Verdoux
2. Europe '51
3. Cléo from 5 to 7
4. Paisan
5. Carlito's Way
6. , Year Zero
7. My Night at Maud's
8. Inland Empire
9. Claire's Knee
10. Stromboli

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

1. Silence
2. Knight of Cups
3. Manchester by the Sea
4. Sunset Song
5. O.J.: Made in America
6. Everybody Wants Some!!
7. Love & Friendship
8. Francofonia
9. Sully
10. The Witch

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

John Ford is probably my favorite director. His filmography is so large and varied, filled with so many wonderful films, that very few directors can compete. One of the things I love about him is the way his films seem to be in dialogue with each other--they take up similar plots and characters, re-do certain scenes and situations, and in the process create a constantly expanding understanding of history and human behavior. (Judge Priest, Young Mr. Lincoln, Sergeant Rutledge are all structured around court cases with surprise verdicts, but theme and character emerge differently each time.) His subject is the individual vs. community, tradition vs. progress, freedom vs. intolerance, and his setting is usually America, occasionally Ireland or Wales. His Ireland is a make-believe place for people of Irish descent, but his America is a living, breathing land of myth and reality, where the drama of the American experiment is played out again and again--and the end is uncertain. Is our history a triumph or a tragedy? Every generation, every isolated community must make that choice for themselves, must determine how their ideals and values function when faced with external and internal threats, as big as a World War or as small as a tarnished woman who just wants to be buried among Christians.

More than any other filmmaker, Ford seems to me a source of wisdom. His films never underestimate the depth and complexity of human nature, even as they are filled with comical caricatures and occasionally faceless adversaries. Like Dickens and Shakespeare, his caricatures are illustrations of genuine human characteristics, exaggerated so that we may recognize and understand them. There is no condescension in Ford; even his lowest characters are afforded sympathy and respect. Neither is there human perfection; even his greatest heroes are shadowed by the possibility of corruption or the knowledge of past failures. Original sin infects all men, death comes for all. Life is brief, and as easily filled with woe as it is happiness; perhaps more easily. Yet there is happiness, and good humor, and love, and kindness to be found, for all that. The family and the community (even the military) can preserve tradition and uphold virtue, despite the risk of hardening into oppression and prejudice. Civilization can emerge from wilderness and barbarism, and heroes can arise to preserve it, though they risk their virtue to do so. History and myth are two sides of the same coin, for they both describe how we see our past and therefore ourselves. Sometimes it is important to rip away the false myth and expose the ugliness of history to the light. And sometimes the myth tells us something we need to hear, need to believe, in order to preserve our moral order. Sometimes a myth must be preserved, even at the cost of the truth, and sometimes the truth makes no difference--the myth is what we feel in our bones.

This list is somewhat arbitrary. It's order should not be taken as absolute, and is liable to change. I would be willing to describe the first twelve as masterpieces, and all of them as "good" movies. Even The Horse Soldiers, currently at the bottom because of its unbelievable character actions and drawn-out plot, has a couple remarkable scenes, most notably the march of the boy cadets.

1. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
2. Young Mr. Lincoln
3. My Darling Clementine
4. Stagecoach
5. Wagon Master
6. The Sun Shines Bright
7. The Searchers
8. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
9. The Quiet Man
10. How Green Was My Valley

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

1. Children of Paradise
2. Where Is the Friend's House?
3. Daughters of the Dust
4. Point Break
5. Night of the Living Dead
6. The House of Mirth
7. I Walked with a Zombie
8. Risky Business
9. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
10. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

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

Ranked list of the movies I've seen from 2015. The first 10 are rock-solid, as are the bottom 5. In the middle it gets more complicated and ambiguous, but I'd say I *really* liked everything down to number 20, and it's not until about Tomorrowland where I start thinking, "These movies have massive, crippling problems." Even then, it's only around The End of the Tour that I start saying I'm actually definitely negative on the movie, and only about at Focus that I start to really hate the movie. So that's your guide if you're wondering.

And still lots to see, of course.

1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. Blackhat
3. It Follows
4. Inside Out
5. The Assassin
6. Spotlight
7. Creed
8. Ex Machina
9. The Martian
10. Office

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

1. War and Peace
2. Silent Light
3. The Gleaners and I
4. Brigadoon
5. The Conversation
6. Eyes Without a Face
7. The Young Girls of Rochefort
8. Window Water Baby Moving
9. Wings of Desire
10. Coherence

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

1. The Tree of Life
2. Twin Peaks: The Return
3. Silence
4. Blackhat
5. Mad Max: Fury Road
6. The Tale of The Princess Kaguya
7. Certified Copy
8. The Wind Rises
9. Moonrise Kingdom
10. Phantom Thread

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

“By 'the Permanent Things' [T. S. Eliot] meant those elements in the human condition that give us our nature, without which we are as the beasts that perish. They work upon us all in the sense that both they and we are bound up in that continuity of belief and institution called the great mysterious incorporation of the human race."
******

"Now the permanent things for which Eliot stands . . . are not difficult to make out. First, he is governed by what Unamuno called 'the tragic sense of life' . . . Second, Eliot abides by the wisdom of our ancestors: the Christian and Judaic and classical patrimony, incorporated in tradition. . . . Third, Eliot seeks to recover the idea of a Christian society, in which order and justice and freedom obtain their fullest possible expression in a world irremediably flawed. . . .

"These standards--the tragic view of life, the adherence to real tradition, the Christian community expressed in the political order--are Eliot's fundamentals. We cannot retain or regain normative principles, he reasons, without an authoritative source for knowledge. And that fountain of authority, for Eliot, is the revelation--from prophets and from poets--which we possess already."

*****
"Genuine relevance in literature, on the contrary, is relatedness to what Eliot described as 'the permanent things': to the splendor and tragedy of the human condition, to constant moral insights, to the spectacle of human history, to love of community and country, to the achievements of right reason."

― Russell Kirk

1. Andrei Rublev
2. Window Water Baby Moving
3. Au Hasard Balthazar
4. The Battle of Kerzhenets
5. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
6. Tokyo Story
7. Stalker
8. The Tree of Life
9. Daughters of the Dust
10. Distant Voices, Still Lives

...plus 190 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Bad Luck Blackie
2. Dumb-Hounded
3. Who Killed Who?
4. A Wild Hare
5. Red Hot Riding Hood
6. King-Size Canary
7. Blitz Wolf
8. Tortoise Beats Hare
9. Out-Foxed
10. Daffy Duck in Hollywood

#1 is really reserved for the entire "Hunting Trilogy," made up of Rabbit Fire (1951), Rabbit Seasoning (1952), and Duck! Rabbit! Duck! (1953).

I give an honorable mention to The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics (1965), since I consider that more of a Maurice Noble film than a Chuck Jones film.

1. Rabbit Fire

   Alongside Rabbit Seasoning (1952) and Duck! Rabbit! Duck! (1953) constitutes the "Hunting Trilogy."

2. The Dover Boys at Pimento University or The Rivals of Roquefort Hall
3. What's Opera, Doc?
4. Duck Amuck
5. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
6. Beep, Beep
7. Long-Haired Hare
8. Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century
9. The Ducksters
10. Now Hear This

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

1. The Great Piggy Bank Robbery
2. Porky in Wackyland
3. Wagon Heels
4. Tortoise Wins by a Hare
5. Wabbit Twouble
6. Kitty Kornered
7. The Wise Quacking Duck
8. The Wacky Wabbit
9. Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs
10. Porky in Egypt

1. The Pink Phink
2. Baseball Bugs
3. Ballot Box Bunny
4. You Ought to Be in Pictures
5. Bugs Bunny Rides Again
6. Pink Pajamas
7. Little Red Riding Rabbit
8. Birds Anonymous
9. Three Little Bops
10. Sunday Go to Meetin' Time

1. Porky Pig's Feat
2. Plane Daffy
3. Nasty Quacks
4. The Stupid Cupid
5. Puss n' Booty

1. Until the End of the World
2. The Best Years of Our Lives
3. The Leopard
4. Early Summer
5. Vagabond
6. Charade
7. Black Sunday
8. Ran
9. Make Way for Tomorrow
10. Ménilmontant

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

Very belated, I know. Everything 2021 I've seen. Not a great list, not a great year. I do still have some pretty big blindspots though.

I included the Disney+ Marvel shows for some reason.
*Get Back is unranked.*

1. Dune
2. The French Dispatch
3. Old
4. Licorice Pizza
5. The Card Counter
6. Zack Snyder's Justice League
7. Nobody
8. Cry Macho
9. Bo Burnham: Inside
10. West Side Story

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

What are the aesthetics of film Protestantism?

It often seems like there are a million movies that deal with, depict, or faithfully struggle with Catholicism and Catholic culture. Filmmakers from Ford and Hitchcock to Rossellini and Bresson to Scorsese and Ferrara have suffused the aesthetics and moral questions of their faith into their cinema. But are there Protestant filmmakers who have done the same? Are there movies by non-Protestant filmmakers which explore the styles and culture and traditions of Protestantism, or of particular Protestant denominations? Those are the questions I've been thinking of.

Initially threw this together after the Reformation's 500th anniversary, decided to resurrect it. Suggestions welcome; ranking is more about grouping films and how the list looks to me than anything else.

EDIT 3: Revised and updated again! This time I removed all documentaries. They're great, but they should be on another list, and this freed up more space for new discoveries.

1. Ordet
2. Stars in My Crown
3. The Night of the Hunter
4. Babette's Feast
5. Hallelujah
6. Silent Light
7. Winter Light
8. Days of Heaven
9. First Reformed
10. The Witch

...plus 85 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Maybe my standards have gotten too high, but I saw a lot of movies from last year that I really liked but couldn't love. I don't consider anything here a masterpiece, I think even the top few have significant limitations, but at the same time, I would eagerly watch again and recommend to others the top 15 or so movies on the list this minute.

Also, having a baby last year throws off your movie-watching schedule like crazy, so that's why I haven't seen all those other movies I'm sure are great. Also why this list is late.

1. Top Gun: Maverick
2. The Worst Person in the World
3. Benediction
4. Blonde
5. The Northman
6. Thirteen Lives
7. Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special
8. The Fabelmans
9. Everything Everywhere All at Once
10. EO

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

Having a baby this year slowed down some of my movie watching. I saw fewer new-to-me stone cold masterpieces than in recent years. The ones toward the bottom of this list are all flawed, but I'm glad I watched them.

1. Dekalog
2. The Duellists
3. Black Sabbath
4. Shall We Dance
5. Swing Time
6. Force Majeure
7. The Queen's Gambit
8. The More the Merrier
9. A Simple Plan
10. The Hunchback of Notre Dame

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

The best older movies I saw for the first time in 2021.

1. The Dead

   This one's a bit of a cheat, since I did see it once, 15 years ago. But I had forgotten it, so watching it again this year was a revelation! A truly perfect film.

2. Paris, Texas
3. The Apostle
4. Jazz on a Summer's Day
5. Love Affair
6. An Affair to
7. Son of the White Mare
8. Day of the Outlaw
9. Homicide
10. Pulse

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

I know, this list sucks, but it's all I've seen from last year.

1. Nomadland
2. Tenet
3. The Last Dance
4. Minari
5. Monster Hunter
6. Mr. Jones
7. Ride Your Wave
8. The Croods: A New Age
9. World of Tomorrow Episode Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime
10. Da 5 Bloods

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

Just a personal watchlist of Merrie England.

• Robin Hood
• The Adventures of Robin Hood
• The Bandit of Sherwood Forest
• The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men
• Robin Hood
• Robin and Marian
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
• Robin Hood: Men in Tights
• Princess of Thieves
• Robin Hood

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

Self-explanatory.

• Young Mr. Lincoln
• Stars in My Crown
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
• It's a Wonderful Life
• Meet Me in St. Louis
• The Legend of Johnny Appleseed
• Over the Garden Wall
• Tome of the Unknown
• Take Me Out to the Ball Game
• My Darling Clementine

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

Everything I've seen this year.

1. The Irishman
2. A Hidden Life
3. Long Day's Journey into Night
4. Mirai
5. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
6. Parasite
7. Under the Silver Lake
8. Ash Is Purest White
9. Uncut Gems
10. Us

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

Except for The Mission and Exiled, this is based on a single viewing each. Except for Fulltime Killer, I would watch each and every one of these again at a moment's notice. And I will no doubt juggle these around quite a bit as I both re-watch and see more.

1. The Mission
2. Don't Go Breaking My Heart
3. Sparrow
4. Running on Karma
5. Exiled
6. Breaking News
7. Drug War
8. Office
9. Vengeance
10. Romancing in Thin Air

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

best to worst

1. Roma
2. 24 Frames
3. First Reformed
4. The Rider
5. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
6. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
7. Isle of Dogs
8. Night Is Short, Walk On Girl
9. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
10. Annihilation

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

RIP, Paku-san.

1. The Tale of The Princess Kaguya
2. Marco: Carry a Dream
3. Only Yesterday
4. Grave of the Fireflies
5. Pom Poko
6. Horus: Prince of the Sun
7. My Neighbors the Yamadas
8. Gauche the Cellist
9. Chie the Brat
10. Panda! Go Panda!: Rainy Day Circus

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

I should probably take "Oh, Hello" and "Celtics/Lakers" off here, but eh.

1. Twin Peaks: The Return
2. Phantom Thread
3. Good Time
4. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
5. Columbus
6. John Wick: Chapter 2
7. Dunkirk
8. Song to Song
9. The Lost City of Z
10. Faces Places

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

Top 30 only. The order is somewhat loose, and I refuse to be bound by it in the future. The most significant directors I've been exploring in the last year and a half have been Lubitsch, Michael Mann, Johnnie To, and Brian De Palma, all of whom have other movies I saw as well that just missed this list.

1. Heaven Can Wait
2. The Shop Around the Corner
3. The Women
4. Kiss Me Deadly
5. Thief
6. The Lady Eve
7. Femme Fatale
8. Ninotchka
9. Videodrome
10. Vivre Sa Vie

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

Just the Top 25. My ranking is loose, and I refuse to be bound by it in the future.

1. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
2. The Elephant Man
3. Tokyo Story
4. Trouble in Paradise
5. Mulholland Drive
6. Heathers
7. Dazed and Confused
8. Laura
9. The Wind Will Carry Us
10. They Live by Night

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