• Battleship Potemkin

  Eisenstein not only laid the theoretical foundation—a dialectical toolkit—for much of 20th century film narrative, but in 1924 made one of cinema’s great classics, applying theory to montage, composition and meaning. Its influence on British, Weimar and American cinema is huge. 3c1l6h

• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

  The whole of Dr. Strangelove is a high-energy third act, all denouement. Its assault on Cold War policy and military culture is devastating because its modality is ridicule. It’s hilarious and eternal while it’s contemporary morality plays are forgotten.

• Biutiful

  The profound struggle through the lower depths of Barcelona street life of a human soul resplendent with grace, pathos and love. Pure poetry.

• Raging Bull

  We are immersed into the failing and besotted life of LaMotta and his need for and pursuit of redemption. The humanity of the picture is extraordinary, as is Marty’s execution. It’s nearly perfect in its editorial economy, staging, blocking and compositions.

• Incendies

  A masterpiece of remembrance of things past and present with a visceral associative poetry and authentic ions. It’s strong, human, and authentic.

• Pale Flower

  For its incredible sequence of opening scenes alone, a striking piece of Japanese post-war noir, the people feel like you’re there, walking past them on the street.

• L'Atalante

  From the smallest piece of set decoration through performances that are timeless to the thrust of its story and working-class milieu, it’s a masterpiece from Vigo at the beginning of a body of work that never happened because he died of TB at 29.

• The Asphalt Jungle

  With a screenplay by W. R. Burnett, it’s a post-war drive into highly internalized characters whose lives so conflict with rage and yearning, like Calhern’s for young Marilyn Monroe. The most powerful performance is by the stunningly authentic Sterling Hayden. It’s Huston at his most brilliant.

• Poor Things

  Wildly, expressionistically torqued. Kafka, if he was droll. Brilliant.

• Apocalypse Now

  Coppola’s dark, high-voltage identity quest, journeying through nihilism and wildness into overload. An operatic masterpiece.

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