Horror is often about creating discomfort, but psychological horror goes for psychological fears more. We get to the inside of these morally ambiguous people’s minds. Those films try to explore darker parts of our minds that sometimes we repress or just don’t want to admit. No wonder it’s the favorite horror subgenre of so many people. Since they often overlap with psychological thrillers, it can be hard to tell them apart.

Hopefully these 10 selections on the list will appeal to those who’re looking for films that are heavier on the psychological horror side rather than the thriller. This subgenre has given us great movies like “Jacob’s Ladder,” “The Vanishing,” “The Silence of the Lambs” and most recently, “Saint Maud,” which maybe should’ve been here also but it needs its time. Hopefully it’ll find its audience. Some of those films reached cult film status and got popular among some fans, while the rest were ignored, but all of them deserve a certain kind of attention.

10. The Witch Who Came From The Sea (1976)

Molly is a young woman suffering from mental disorders, due to the repeated sexual abuses she suffered as a child by her father. She is an alcoholic and deranged. Strongly attracted to men, however, she fails to control her impulses of anger and repressed feeling of revenge against men, and so she kills casual partners, raging on their bodies. The spiral of sex and death becomes more intense.

Its title and poster might be misleading for some viewers. Its title refers to The Birth of Venus, which figures in the film, and the movie has actually something to say about problematic aspects of certain fairy tales and classic mythology. Even its plot description can make you think that it’s some sort of rape-revenge film in a slasher film form but no, it’s more than this. It’s incredibly ambitious with a complex character in its center, and Millie Perkins gives a terrific performance, making her a very interesting lead character. Have to note that the film has a wonderfully melancholic atmosphere. Credit has to go to Dean Cundey here, the cinematographer who later went to shoot John Carpenter’s films. A bizarre film for sure, but for viewers that love to be challenged by their films, it sure will be a fascinating experience.

9. Would You Rather (2012)

Iris, a young woman caring for her brother Raleigh, who is suffering from leukemia, cannot afford his treatment. Dr. Barden, the doctor who cares for Raleigh, introduces Iris to the noble philanthropist Shepard Lambrick, who makes her an offer: If she participates in a dinner game and wins, his charity will pay for the cost of her brother’s treatment and one donor organizes what Iris accepts.

For those cultures who’re not familiar with it, “would you rather” is a conversation or party game that poses a dilemma in the form of a question beginning with “would you rather.” So no wonder a game like this found a place for itself in the world of horror films. Admittedly, the film has some repetitive moments and doesn’t really go deep enough at certain moments, but it’s still an intriguing theme; how far will you go for the money so your loved one will survive? Unlike almost every film on the list, this is the only one that might feel like you’re watching “torture porn,” but the blood and guts are not just for shock value. All those violence in the film are actually thought-provoking. This is one of those horror films where the “monsters” are real people and every monster can come alive with the right price tag.

8. Emelie (2015)

There are certain actresses who just can’t get a breakthrough. Irish actress Sarah Bolger has been around for so long, she even got awards attention for “In America” (2002) and most recently received more praise for her turn in “A Good Woman is Hard to Find” (2020). She has certainly got the range as an actress. “Emelie” is possibly her most disturbing performance. Bolger plays a deranged woman with a secret who poses as a babysitter to enter the house of Dan and Joyce and their kids, 4-year-old Christopher, 9-year-old Sally, and 11-year-old Jacob. When the parents leave, Bolger’s Emelie starts to act truly weird and disturbing.

“Emelie” is made on a simple premise; it has no big conclusions or events, but the setting and the main character makes it all truly unsettling and involving. You don’t know what she’s up to and since the film takes its time to build the tension, you get more and more confused by this young woman and want to know her more. Those who’re into home invasion films will probably appreciate this more, even though the final might be slightly divisive. It also has possibly one of the best uses of end credits songs; it truly fits the mood of the movie.

7. Hounds of Love (2016)

Sadistic serial killers Evelyn (Emma Booth) and John White (Stephen Curry) are looking for a new victim. On a warm summer night, they discover the intelligent but fragile Vicki (Ashleigh Cummings), who a short time later finds herself tied up in a dark world of violence. Her instinct for survival picks up her mind and she realizes her only way to escape this madness is to drive a wedge between the couple.

Some Netflix subscribers probably watched the underwhelming (but with a fine twist!) sci-fi called “Extinction” without realizing that the Australian director Ben Young has actually made a great but unfortunately, lesser-seen film prior to this titled “Hounds of Love” inspired by that very same incident. It might sound like some sort of torture porn, but it definitely is more than that. Young manages to create a genuinely disturbing atmosphere, giving perspectives to all characters. The intelligent script and great directorial choices turns this movie into an actual exploration of the psychology of everybody in the film. Not without gut-punching scenes, “Hounds of Love” is definitely not for audiences who can’t take brutality. The film is based on the real life “Moorhouse murders,” when Australia couple David John and Catherine Margaret Birnie murdered four women at their home in 1986, and attempted to murder a fifth.

6. Joshua (2007)

If you’ve seen “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” you might think this one is inferior. Mostly because “Kevin” had much more of a disturbing tone and a richer cinematic language, but nevertheless, “Joshua” is worth checking out to see what a disconnection between a child and parents can lead to. Or maybe is it about something else? The movie is never too clear anyway but it’s not a negative side. It only adds to the ambiguity of the story.

The story follows the seemingly happy couple – Brad (Sam Rockwell) and Abby (the future scream queen Vera Farmiga). Brad is a successful stockbroker and Abby has just given birth to a baby girl. Their son Joshua is a child prodigy, but there’s a darker side of his intelligence. While the film has some clichés, like dying pets, the atmosphere being grounded in realistic settings makes the whole thing more engaging. Its slow-burn approach really works for the material, because it helps to build the suspense very carefully. Similar to many other successful psychological horror films, there’s no on-screen violence, but the ideas are horrifying enough. The lead performance is very effective as well. By watching the film, it’s crazy to think that directors once turned down “The Exorcist,” claiming a child can never be scary.

While not always the case, it is fair to say that the public and professional film critics do not always see eye-to-eye. Whether it be a different cinematic taste palette, a different degree of formal training in film theory, or a different approach to detail, some films spark a true disconnect among consumers. Negative reviews have a right to exist, but some lesser-praised movies deserve to be looked at again due to their fandom.

This is a list not to blindly ignore the flaws of the movies chosen, but to see their value and examine what created the divide between viewers and the art of formal film critique. Here is a list of the top 10 most entertaining movies with bad reviews.

1. Cruel Intentions (Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score: 55%)

Cruel Intentions may not be as witty as it thinks it is, but the film’s confidence convinces spectators otherwise. In the film, two Manhattan-elite stepsiblings, Sebastian (Ryan Phillippe) and Kathryn (Sarah Michelle Gellar), make a bet to deflower the new headmaster’s daughter, the abstinence advocate Annette (Reese Witherspoon), for simple kicks and proof anyone is corruptible. However, Sebastian starts to develop genuine feelings for Annette and begins to second guess if he can uphold the wager made with Kathryn.

One of the major factors that makes Cruel Intentions so entertaining is the movie’s tone and strong faith in its perceived cleverness. Whether deserved or not, there is a scandalous energy and style to the film that flocks people to it.

Along with its dangerous nature, it captures the dramatics of teen angst and cynicism at its finest. The whole cast work together well, but it is Gellar as Kathryn who steals every scene as the queen bee in charge. Kathryn is the brutal heart and soul of Cruel Intentions’ success among viewers rather than critics. She is the personification of teenage indulgence, viciousness, devotion, and obsession. Kathryn depicts a picture of morality so twisted that the only real “lesson” seems to be that most people are bad because they can be, and we are all going to die one day. Therefore, mankind might as well equip themselves with a few biting one-liners and look fabulous while journeying down the mean and shallow road of human existence.

Cruel Intentions may be criticized as a movie full of cheap teenage thrills, but this does not mean those surface-level delights are not enthralling.

2. Bride of Re-Animator (Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score: 37%)

This sequel to the legendary Re-Animator is a fun movie that combines solid humor, creativity, and horror homage. In Bride of Re-Animator, doctors Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) and Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) have been forced to hide in a Latin American MASH Unit following the horrific events of the past film that claimed the life of Cain’s beloved fiancée. During their time in Latin America, West and Cain create a serum that resurrects body parts and thus leads to the creation of life.

Bride of Re-Animator is a bold film that boasts several interesting ideas and references. It applies elements of Lovecraft’s short story “The Horror from The Shadows”, William Castle’s House on Haunted Hill, and the most notable, James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein. At times, these tributes and fan-based easter eggs may make the movie feel a bit jumbled, but this does not deter audiences from the film.

Even with missteps, Bride of Re-Animator retains the spirit of its celebrated predecessor. Combs as the returning egotistical Dr. West keeps his wicked, comedic demeanor that audiences know and love, and Abbot as Dan returns as well and remains the morally-fluid good guy whose sincere struggle audiences can invest in. The director, Brian Yuzna, also keeps the visceral scares, splatter humor, and quality effects that make Bride of Re-Animator both its own fresh film and a respectful follow up to Re-Animator.

Even with some of its unrefined elements, it cannot be said that Bride of Re-Animator is a lackluster sequel.

3. Ravenous (Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score: 49%)

While not receiving a glowing review from critics, Ravenous is an odd yet compelling mixture of fascinating concepts presented in one film. Ravenous follows Capt. John Boyd (Guy Pearce) as he receives reports of missing persons at Fort Spencer, an isolated Army outpost on the Western frontier. After arriving at his new post to investigate the missing persons, Boyd and his regiment aid a hurt frontiersman, F.W. Colghoun (Robert Carlyle), who tells them a terrifying story of a wagon train murdered by its supposed guide. Fearing the worst, the regiment voyages into the wilderness to confirm Colghoun’s gruesome tale.

The structure of Ravenous treads a unique cinematic path and deliberately avoids genre classification. The film plays with tone and shifts it constantly, which may be the main reason for its negative reviews. For example, the cast’s performances range from Pearce’s serious, humorless depiction of Boyd to the comedic idiosyncrasies of the outcasts of Fort Spencer. The music by Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn also swings between bleak thriller and good-humored silliness. There is a grim sense of fun to the score while the actors playfully commit to their oddball performances in several scenes. However, all of this is not to say there are not creepy or eerie atmospheric scares. Along with the humor, Ravenous maintains a level of dread below the surface and works on several levels, as great horror-comedies often do.

Because Ravenous does not label itself or commit to one genre, viewer appreciation is obtained through a variety of methods.

4. Deep Blue Sea (Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score: 59%)

Deep Blue Sea is a blend of real, animatronic, and CGI sharks that makes a splash with audiences. The plot revolves around an island research facility as Dr. Susan McAlester (Saffron Burrows) is running an experiment to harvest the brain tissue of sharks as a possible cure for Alzheimer’s disease. However, the scientifically altered sharks gain intelligence and begining to attack the employees. With sharks hunting their human captors, McAlester and her team must figure out how to stay alive and stop the sharks from escaping the facility.

Deep Blue Sea may not enrich anyone’s mind, but it is a tutorial in what makes monster movies so exciting to observe. It takes minimal time to introduce the characters and set up the situation, so the movie can proceed right to the action and carnage. And, once the chaos starts, tension builds and does not let up until the ending credits.

Now, just like any good creature feature, there is an element of humor that accompanies the terror. Luckily for viewers, the director Renny Harlin knows how to have a little fun with the story. There are some wildly campy moments that are too bizarre not to crack a smile. For example, it is not every day people see a super smart shark turn on an oven to lure out its prey. There is also some comic relief in the charismatic rapper-turned-actor LL Cool J, whose quotable lines stick with audiences long after the film is over. Stating the line, “You ate my bird” as he blows up a shark is just one of many that come to mind.

Deep Blue Sea promises on everything it aims to deliver: taut and gory thrills that leave movie-goers scared to put one toe in the ocean.

5. Broken Arrow (Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score: 52%)

Broken Arrow is a fast-paced, wild, and testosterone-filled ride viewers cannot help but enjoy. The film centers around Air Force pilots Vic Deakins (John Travolta) and Riley Hale (Christian Slater). They are sent on a top-secret mission with two nuclear weapons aboard their plane. Once the two men are in the air, Deakins tries to kill Hale and successfully steals the weapons. As it is revealed that Deakin intends to sell the stolen weapons to terrorists, Hale, who survives the murder attempt, teams up with park ranger Terry Carmichael (Samantha Mathis) to stop Deakins’ diabolical plan before it is too late.

The thrills presented in Broken Arrow are wonderfully intense, amazingly cartoonish, and perfectly absurd. Just in one movie, audiences get to witness a fight aboard a stealth bomber and the next minute they are taken to see a car chase across the flats of Utah. However, if that is not enough for viewers, they also get to see action set pieces in a deserted copper mine and a high-speed train. The pace of this film is relentless, which allows the excitement to never fade and for both leads to fully embrace the over-the-top action-packed nature of the film.

In the end, Broken Arrow will never be deemed a deep-thinking or subtle film, but it is an exhilarating experience that will have spectators exhausted in the best way.

There’s a very important principle in cinema that most of the people who work in movies, or who seriously studies the craft, understand, but that somewhat eludes the casual viewer: a good screenplay is meaningless in the face of bad execution.

Meaning, having a great story is far from enough to secure an actual great finished film; the power of a picture is almost completely dependent on a filmmaker’s skill with cinematic language – a narrative can only be as compelling as it’s director is talented.

This is a fundamental truth of any genre, but it’s most evident with horror, in which no amount of intelligent, competent writing can compensate for the lack of a supreme element of terror: atmosphere. After all, that chill in your spine that only the best horror movies can cause exists from the cumulative effect of a well-constructed atmosphere.

With that in mind, let’s celebrate the horror films that did it the best; the ones with an atmosphere so indelible that no self-respecting cinephile could ever banish their hellish images from their minds.

15. Cure (1997)

The fundamental feeling any horror movie should evoke is dread. Of course, this is an extremely fluid genre in which many tones can coexist – there’s space in horror for very serious films and also straight up comedies. But fundamentally, even the lightest entries need, on some level, to provoke a sense of discomfort and tension in the viewer – this is the basis upon which horror is constructed.

In that way, there are few horror movies more effective than Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Cure,” a film built entirely upon the concept of an existential ennui so dreadful that it can lead to terrible acts of violence. In fact, some may argue with its definition as a horror movie since, nominally, the film mostly works as a crime procedural, tracking a police officer’s quest to find a man who somehow tricks otherwise innocent citizens into committing murder. But Kurosawa’s mastery of atmosphere is such that “Cure” is one of the most frightening cinematic experiences of all time; it causes an overwhelming atmosphere of terror not based on any monsters or supernatural elements, but simply on the implications of just how much darkness lurks beneath our shared construct of civilization.

14. The Changeling (1980)

More than perhaps any other horror subgenre, the haunted house picture lives or dies by the quality of its atmosphere, because for most of its runtime, the film can only suggest a malignant presence rather than actually show frightening creatures or skate by with jump scares – meaning, it can only be scary if the filmmaker manages to create a sense of dread.

And that’s just what director Peter Medak achieves in “The Changeling,” one of the greatest classics of the haunted house genre – though calling it that is to diminish the impressive tonal balancing act at work in this film, which goes from an introspective character study of a grieving father to an investigative mystery without breaking a sweat. This mishmash of genres works so well because of Medak’s amazing grasp of cinematic language; the way he uses slow, prolonged tracking shots alone would be enough to disturb the viewer. Thankfully, the film has much to offer elsewhere too, be it the gothic production design or the methodical editing (the slow burn pacing is a fundamental element of the overall tension).

Low in explicit frights but heavy in mood, “The Changeling” is proof that atmosphere is everything one needs to create a truly scary movie – and this film could be the reigning champion of the haunted house genre were it not for a certain picture from 1961.

13. The Innocents (1961)

Fifty years on, Jack Clayton’s seminal masterpiece continues to be the pinnacle of the haunted house subgenre, the one by which all others are measured – and the one from which many a copycat have been born.

What else can even be said about “The Innocents” at this point that hasn’t already been widely dissected by critics and scholars over the decades? Safe to say, if you’re a horror fan, or even simply a cinephile with no particular affection for the genre, you’ve seen this classic adaptation of Henry James’s ghost story – such is its mark on cinema. But just in case a reader is unfamiliar with the film’s brilliance, it’s no hyperbole to call it one of the most formally formidable (the deep focus CinemaScope cinematography is an absolute stunner), ambiguous, and layered genre movies ever made.

And that’s not even going into the reason for why the film landed onto this list: the sublime atmosphere. Wide angles, damp swamps, spectral apparitions just on the edge of the frame – it all comes together to create this sense of losing one’s mind in the presence of other-worldly mysteries. A masterpiece.

12. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

German expressionism is the birthplace of cinematic horror; the seeds for every aesthetic and stylistic element that was to define the genre were first planted during the silent era by masters such as Fritz Lang and F. W. Murnau.

Though not as monolithic a name as those two, Robert Wiene made what is possibly the greatest movie of that whole movement, not only one of the best silent films there is, but also a horror nightmare worthy of any contemporary fright fest: “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.”

All of cinema is predicated on the strength of images to really affect the audience on a visceral, subconscious level: what truly separates good from great is that elusive ability to manipulate the elements of film language (composition, lighting, design, editing) and sharpen them into a delivery mechanism of pure feeling. And if that’s true of any genre, it’s particularly essential with horror, given that it’s very difficult to scare anyone with dialogue alone. So, all this to get to “Caligari” and this movie’s utter perfection with regards to that: the spectacular sets, the remarkable angles, the gobsmacking cross-cutting is visual storytelling at its purest; the apogee of gothic atmosphere in all of cinema.

“Nosferatu” is culturally the most remembered film of German expressionism, due, of course, to the greatness of the film, but also to elements outside of it, like the popularity of vampire stories and the myriad of remakes and derivatives that spawned from it. “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” doesn’t have those elements going for it, but make no mistake: it’s the best thing to come out of that time and place.

11. Vampyr (1932)

Coming a few years too late to be officially considered a part of the German expressionism canon, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s “Vampyr” is nevertheless every bit in keeping with the movement’s aesthetic principles; a sort of spiritual successor to the original pioneering classics.

It does have some notable differences from those films, mainly the fact that it’s actually spoken (and in multiple languages at that), but Dreyer, like his silent successors, is mostly interested in the power of abstract atmosphere, favoring mood over narrative. It might be a recipe for boredom in the hands of a lesser filmmaker, but Dreyer’s images are so sublime that it works in this film as pure visual poetry.

The canon of transcendental cinema (films that seek to portray that which is ineffable, that deal with spirituality through forme itself) is vast, and composed almost exclusively of stern art films, but “Vampyr” is not only transcendental, but very much a horror movie. Talk about atmosphere.

10. The Beyond (1981)

As said in the previous entry, sometimes if the atmosphere is strong enough, it can take precedence over story, flipping the more traditional narrative-oriented mode of filmmaking. In terms of horror, that’s never been truer than in Lucio Fulci’s manic, illogical but incredible “The Beyond.”

The movie’s “story” is borderline incomprehensible past the core concept (a woman inherits a hotel that harbors a passage to Hell), with scenes blending into each other seemingly without any sense of continuity or logical progression. But that’s also where the movie’s strength comes from, that oniric quality that defies our preconceptions of narrative and takes the audience into pure nightmare territory, each new bizarre set piece contributing to the overwhelming sense of dread; the sensation that you’re being led into a wholly dangerous new plane of existence.

“The Beyond” is surrealistic cinema at its finest; abstract, chaotic and deeply disturbing, proving that Fulci, despite having a (admittedly well-earned) reputation for being a king of schlock and gore, was an equally adept master of the oniric.

9. Carnival of Souls (1962)

And in the topic of surreal, dread-filled oniric rides into a dangerous underworld of death, “Carnival of Souls” might be the greatest example of that very, very specific horror subgenre.

It’s a testament to this film’s inexorable power that despite its micro-budget (the cheapness of the production has only been highlighted by time), it not only held on to its status as a classic, but it also has, if anything, grown in appreciation over the decades. That’s because, budget issues aside, Herk Harvey’s film is wildly ahead of its time in almost every way. The sensitive, astute depiction of mental illness is unequaled even to this day; the disorienting, paranoid atmosphere predates Roman Polanski’s whole style by a few years and, in general, the sheer force of will necessary to achieve artistic greatness under harsh economical constraints is a prelude to the entire American movement that would only come to full power some decades later.

As is almost always the fate of truly visionary works, “Carnival of Souls” languished in obscurity in its own age, unappreciated – but, thankfully, unlike in the film’s doomed protagonist, in this case time was an ally and today the movie stands tall as an essential classic of horror.

We’ve all seen the classics, right? Those old school Hollywood films that feature the stars of yesteryear, appear in every Top 100 list, and shaped filmmaking throughout the generations. A growing passion for cinema often includes an early, formative viewing of Citizen Kane, or relishing in the magic of Casablanca, Rear Window and 12 Angry Men. But the Hollywood Golden Age was more than just a few iconic masterpieces; it was decades worth of studio productions, churned out by the magic factory with the finest creative minds of the era at the helm.

For all its shortcomings, the studio system gave us some of the finest films ever made, and dazzling stars to light up the screen. It’s a tragedy that so many wonderful films released prior to 1960 remain so little seen or known today. They may take some time and dedication to discover, but you’ll often find it was more than worth it once you do. Here are ten of the best Hollywood classics you may not have seen.

1. Captain Blood (1935)

The grandfather of all great pirate films, and one of the first true action blockbusters of its age. With Captain Blood, Michael Curtiz laid the groundwork for the first era of big budget action spectacles for sound cinema. In doing so, he claimed his place as the top director at Warner Bros. in the 30s, and crafted a genre formula so entertaining that Hollywood has rarely strayed too far from its path in the decades since.

There’s dashing heroes, dastardly villains, warm romance and comic relief, and a massive, explosive finale, accompanied by a rousing Korngold score. Everything that’s become synonymous with the genre can be found here, all packaged in the grandest of Golden Age productions. Curtiz does such a tremendous job bringing it all together, with stylish design, magnificent scope and excitement never waning for second. And in the process, he also helped to create two of the silver screen’s greatest ever legends.

Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland were both unknowns when Warner Bros took a risk on them for their largest production, a risk that paid off handsomely. Flynn just jumps off the screen, barking orders with such joyous enthusiasm that you’ll wish you were a part of his crew. In many ways, in a Hays Code Hollywood, Captain Peter Blood is one of the earliest screen anti-heroes, pillaging loot and causing mayhem as he tries to convince himself he’s fighting tyranny. And De Havilland, so sweet and genial, is the perfect counterbalance to Flynn’s roguish charm. She brings emotion into the story while still challenging Blood, forcing him to question what he is really fighting for. It’s their burgeoning romance that allows you into the story on an emotional level. Equally fresh faced and enthusiastic, the chemistry between them is undeniable. There’s something so endearing about them together; the kind of couple you can’t help but root for.

It’s clear as day to see why they were paired as co-stars again and again over the years. The iconic screen couple would share the billing in eight films throughout their careers, most famously in Curtiz’s masterful The Adventures of Robin Hood, and it all began with Captain Blood. For as good a job as Curtiz did crafting this swashbuckling adventure, what elevates it to that top tier is the undeniable appeal and charisma of its two lead stars. Never has being a pirate seemed more gallant, more daring and more romantic.

2. Dead End (1937)

For a film from the 1930s, Dead End is particularly hard-hitting. Sure, it’s got its melodramatic qualities, as well moments of lighter comedy and tender romance, but that was part and parcel of most studio productions from that era. Beneath that exterior though, there’s so much rich social commentary and impressive filmmaking. It’s the honest portrayal of poverty and class struggle that makes this social drama so effective, and sets it apart from its contemporaries.

Opening on a single take shot of a bustling New York street, Wyler dives right in the deep end with his social commentary. The camera weaves over every corner of this contained world, revealing all the little details and interconnected relationships. The spectacular single set (and it really is spectacular) perfectly contrasts the filthy, lowdown world of the working class with their sleek, highbrow, and very secluded upper-class neighbours. The film has complete sympathy with the struggles of its main characters, highlighting inequality and ignorance wherever it can be found. Gregg Toland’s wonderful cinematography frames everything so effectively, capturing striking images and tiny details with equal clarity. It’s through the images as much as the dialogue that Wyler reveals themes and character, making the world feel lived-in and alive despite its stagey setting.

Wyler paints a bleak picture of life at the bottom of the food chain. A never-ending, inescapable cycle of hardship and anguish, with nothing to comfort you but hope and togetherness. It’s sentiments that must’ve been felt all across America during the Depression years, but for a Hollywood director to bring it to the big screen unsanitised is very brave. He shows the strife that the young generation battle through, played mostly by the Dead End Kids in their film debut. They were a group of young actors from the late 30s, most famous for starring in Michael Curtiz’s Angels with Dirty Faces, and had played the same characters in the original Broadway production of Dead End two years prior. They bring camaraderie and street smarts, but also early signs of resignation to their status, already aware of the social barriers that will restrict them in life. In contrast, the adults show the bitter end of the road. Humphrey Bogart in particular embodies this sentiment – a truly nasty piece of work struggling to come to terms with where his decisions have left him.

Every character rails against the system in some way, and the film is socially conscious enough not to pretend it’ll all be okay in the end. Dreams and morals must be sacrificed in the name of simply getting by, with the story even reducing its characters to literally begging those above them for simple kindness and sympathy. There’s an inevitability to it all, and your heart just goes out to the unfortunate souls trapped in this gutter. Wyler’s socialist tendencies are blended throughout many of his best works, but it’s probably never been more pointed and scathing than here. It’s a surprisingly poignant effort from one of the era’s greatest directors.

3. The Tarnished Angels (1957)

Douglas Sirk is a director known for a certain type of film: deeply melodramatic dramas, often bursting with colour, stylish design and warm performances. So it’s quite surprising to find out that The Tarnished Angels is the film he allegedly considered to be his finest work. It’s a stark contrast to a typical Sirk film, taking to the sky to show the high-octane, low-morale, and all-round dangerous world of aviation and air-shows during the Great Depression. Presented in shadowy black and white, it follows hard, cynical people as they survive in an unforgiving world – a far cry from the cosy suburbs and lavish mansions seen in the likes of All That Heaven Allows and Written on the Wind. Sirk’s films were certainly not all warm and comforting, but this one more than any other gives you an inescapable feeling of unease. As he tightens the hopelessness that grips these characters lives, you increasingly feel that there just can’t be a happy ending to what you’re watching.

Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone and Robert Stack are all excellent, each one so flawed and completely compelling. All three starred in Sirk’s wonderful Written on the Wind, released the previous year, and their return is just as impressive. Hudson’s doing some of his best work, for once playing a guy who isn’t completely wholesome and well-intentioned. He begins as his usual honourable persona, but there’s always selfishness and egotism just beneath the surface. When he finally does get exactly what he wants, it’s in the worst way imaginable, and his struggles to come to terms with it are genuinely heartfelt. It’s some of the finest acting of Hudson’s career, under a director who always knew how best to use his particular talents.

Similarly, Dorothy Malone shows that the Oscar winning turn in Written on the Wind was no fluke. She can play a down-to-earth, put-upon mother, struggling with everything life throws at her, just as effortlessly as she can be a cold and manipulative brat. There are so many dimensions to her character, and the chemistry she shares with Hudson is palpable. Stack once again plays a feverish sort of man, but he does it so well, and his character arc feels particularly impactful come the end.

Sirk’s switch away from vibrant colour palettes to stark black and white imagery really works for the story. It makes it all feel moodier, bleaker, seedier, even during the simplest of conversations. The noir-ish lighting and framing make the stars look so good every time, especially Hudson and Malone. In a filmography of colour and romance, this black-and-white sheep of the group is a refreshing change of pace.

4. Street Angel (1928)

Things were a little different at the very first Academy Awards. As well as two awards for Best Picture (‘Outstanding’ and ‘Unique and Artistic’) and two for Best Director (‘Dramatic’ and ‘Comedy’), the Acting award recognised multiple films for each winner. In Janet Gaynor’s case, she won the inaugural Best Actress award for three performances. And while she’s sublime in both F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Frank Borzage’s 7th Heaven, it’s Borzage’s Street Angel that’s the pick of the trio. Performance-wise, it towers above the rest and, in spite of Gaynor’s tiny frame, stands tall as one of the greatest silent performances there is.

It’s so easy to be pulled into great silent film performances. They rely so much on the ability of the actors to emote and use their bodies to maximum effect. Gaynor covers just about every emotion imaginable – she has the sensitive eyes and melancholy expressions to match the tone of her characters’ plight, but enough moxie and resolve to stand out as a fiery spirit worth rooting for. It’s her patience on screen that really makes it all work, her willingness to let her feelings slowly seep out in the most delicate, natural way. In a landscape of large sets and tall actors, Gaynor’s huge eyes and petite frame act like magnets, drawing and keeping our eyes on her. With just her facial expressions and subtle movement she is able to chart the entire development of this character, complete with charm, tenderness and heartbreak.

Honestly, the rest of the film being brilliant is just an added bonus. This has some of the most stunning shots captured during in Hollywood’s silent age. Borzage utilises the enormous sets so impressively – the world feels massive, like it’s engulfing the tiny characters in a pit of despair. The endless staircases are maze-like confusing, in contrast to the brief moments of freedom, sunshine and happiness outside of the city. Impeccable framing and use of shadows make for some dazzling moments of cinematography, and it all moves along at a surprisingly thrilling pace for a romantic drama. It’s not a complicated story by any means, but nearly every moment is rich with drama. Just as Gaynor’s patience deserved plaudits, Borzage also deserves immense credit for holding on shots, to showcase the talent of his star. A truly moving story of love, secrets and redemption, and one of the best female performances put to film.

5. Sudden Fear (1952)

You can definitely make a case for Joan Crawford being the queen of film noir. Mostly cast as a snarky bombshell in her early years at MGM, from the mid-1940s onwards she found her calling as the leading lady in numerous crime thrillers and dark melodramas. It allowed her to utilize her distinct look – those arched eyebrows; those steely eyes – and exercise her sharp tongue that was so perfect for the genre. Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce may be Crawford’s most famous performance, but David Miller’s Sudden Fear is every bit as gripping. It’s a thriller that’s simple enough in its plot, but so effective in its execution. Starting off slowly, it shows a seemingly sweet romance bloom between Crawford and Jack Palance, with only small hints at a more dubious motive. One bombshell reveal later, and the film is set up for a relentless descent into pure noir thrills, wrought with suspense and tension at every turn.

As always, Crawford is terrific – much more sympathetic and vulnerable this time, but still with a gritty determination and fighting spirit. The film doesn’t overly complicate itself, always maintaining a focus on her, what she is learning and what she plans to do. She charts a journey from timid and naïve to resilient and resolute, shifting along a spectrum of emotions very convincingly. The twists and reveals are all extremely impactful, and Crawford always manages to make you emapthise with her predicament. She’s complemented by two other fantastic performances: Palance brings the right blend of friendly charm and calculated coldness to match his shady lover character, while Gloria Grahame absolutely kills it as the deceitful femme fatale – few play that role quite as well as she did. Honestly, a case could be made for Grahame herself being the Queen of Noir, so having these two women face off in a film is a treat for any fan of the genre.

The story delves into the darker sides of the human condition – how far someone is really willing to sink to get what they want, or to fight back and never give in. The finale is a masterclass of noir imagery, with the empty city streets and huge shadows conferring a real expressionist feel. The film crescendos beautifully, ratcheting up the stakes and tension as it builds and builds towards its thrilling conclusion. It gets its hooks in early on and doesn’t let up for a second – truly great stuff.

“When people ask me if I went to film school, I tell them no, I went to films”. We have all heard of Quentin Tarantino’s quote ad-infinitum, but it’s a statement that also applies to another of his contemporaries, Christopher Nolan. One thing is for sure, whatever he may lack in formal film education, he more than made up for in a longstanding interest in the history of the medium.

To talk about Nolan is to talk about the closest thing to a superstar there’s left in the business, a rare breed of director whose films are such box office smash hits that he can demand gargantuan budgets to any given studio and get away with it. Nolan seems comfortable operating through that grey line between conventional commerciality and creative freedom that has turned him into a household name overnight.

For such a high-profile director with a huge army of ardent followers, it’s nice to see how down to earth Nolan seems when giving praise to the masters of old that paved the way. From Spielberg to Kubrick, we recently covered ten of his favorite science-fiction movies, so it’s time now to shift our focus to the genre where he first made a name for himself; thrillers.

As loose and undefined as that specific label is, let’s take a look at ten nail-biting movies that had a profound effect on the British director.

1. Heat (1995)

If there’s a movie that Christopher Nolan has repeatedly geeked out over, it’s this gritty heist thriller courtesy of Michael Mann. The Academy hosted a Q&A for the movie celebrating its latest remaster in 2016, and moderating the conversation between Mann, Pacino and De Niro was none other than Nolan. To open the discourse, the director reminisced on the first review of the film he read upon release, lauding it as a “new American masterpiece” much to Nolan’s skepticism, who wondered if there could be more said about a “cops and robbers” story. Needless to say, the movie went on to become one of his favorite films of all time and one that served as a clear blueprint for some of his own, including The Dark Knight.

Speaking to Variety, Nolan referred to Heat as a “remarkable demonstration on how you can create a vast universe within one city and balance a very large number of characters and their emotional journeys in an effective manner”. It’s easy to draw parallels between Mann’s masterpiece and Dark Knight, starting with the oddly similar bank robbery scenes featured in both films. Nolan admitted Heat’s huge influence on his comic book sequel, citing director Michael Mann as a “fanatic for architecture that understands the grandeur of a city and how it can become a kind of epic playground”.

2. 12 Angry Men (1957)

For a director like Nolan that favors intricate set pieces and convoluted concepts over any semblance of characterization or non-expository dialogue, this pick comes quite as a surprise. Not that it’s not a worthy inclusion, after all, 12 Angry Men is to this day rightfully cited as one of the staples of American cinema and one of the most brilliant screenplays to ever put to film. But if you had to come up with a movie that proved to be the antithesis to everything that comes with Christopher Nolan, this would come close to it.

Sidney Lumet’s story exclusively takes place in a jury room, where twelve jurors ponder about the innocence of a young man waiting for the verdict of his trial. What starts as a foregone conclusion slowly reveals the prejudices and biases clouding most of the jurors in a perfect example of how powerful a minimal production can be when a great script, director and cast come under one roof.

Nolan picked Lumet’s ageless drama as his second favorite film in the Criterion Collection, claiming few have been able to capture the conflict between men better.

3. Primer (2004)

In the Hall of Fame of head-scratching, mind-boggling movies, Christopher Nolan can proudly boast about the fair share of contenders he can personally claim. From the non-linear chronology of Memento, the dizzy timelines of Inception, the physics seen in Interstellar or more recently, whatever Tenet was supposed to be about, part of Nolan’s DNA comes with making deliberately obtuse plots as to reaffirm his own cleverness as a director.

If you’re an enthusiast of constant info dumps and scientific jargon, dialogue as dry as IKEA’s assembly manuals and characters that serve as empty vessels for the sake of the plot; look no further, because we have just the movie for you. In a nutshell, Primer follows two young engineers who unintentionally build a time travel machine in their basement. Far from being the first movie to tackle that concept, what sets it apart is how it brings a methodical consistency to its premise, while also exploring the moral choices and existential implications that come with it.

4. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1984)

Checking in at number six in Nolan’s personally compiled list of favorite films in the Criterion Collection, we have a powerful historical thriller directed by Nagisa Ōshima, one of the most revered Japanese auteurs. Ōshima became an iconoclastic figure in cinema as one of the leading directors in the Japanese New Wave, a rebellious maverick who made films with the same sense of urgency of a man trying to erase decades-worth of prejudice and blind imperialism in his homeland.

This movie drops us in the exotic island of Java amid World War II, where two different cultures clash between Japanese soldiers and British prisoners. Nolan argues that “few films have been able to capture David Bowie’s charisma, but Ōshima’s wartime drama seems tailor-made for his talents”. Nolan’s statement rings true given how he’d eventually cast Bowie as the eccentric Nikola Tesla in his own thriller, The Prestige.

Cinema fosters empathy, and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is a perfect example of a movie setting out to do just that, bringing down cultural and ideological barriers in an uplifting reminder of human bonding and a bleak indictment on the morally rotten wars that corrupt men.

5. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)

This is not the first time Fritz Lang pops up in one of Christopher Nolan’s shortlist of favorites. You may have noticed the German director previously sneaked its way into Nolan’s preferred set of science-fiction movies, with Metropolis making the cut and being cited as “one of the key touchstones” of the genre along the likes of 2001 and Blade Runner.

This time around we have the second entry in his Dr. Mabuse saga, a set of films following the mischiefs of one of cinema’s greatest villains of all-time; the eponymous Dr. Mabuse. Nolan named the movie as his fourth favorite title in the Criterion Collection, hailing it as “essential research for anyone attempting to write a supervillain” that shows Lang “at his most wicked and entertaining”.

For anyone not acquainted with Mabuse, the most evident spiritual successor to this bug-eyed lunatic would be the Joker seen in Nolan’s Dark Knight. Nolan stated that he made Jonah (his brother and co-writer) watch Lang’s movie prior to writing the Batman’s nemesis, a character that borrows heavily from him. Dr. Mabuse is an equally deranged agent of chaos, a villain who stirs up the whole city of Berlin by committing an array of crimes and instigating a whole more in order to destabilize the current regime in power.

In recent years there has been a noticeable dearth of sword-fights in films. This particular form of choreographed action is most indelibly associated with the swashbuckler, romantic action-adventures whose heyday was Classical Hollywood. Back then, audiences loved them for their speed, vitality, and dazzling visuals. Studios loved them because you could be as freely creative with history as you liked under the banner of escapism. Yet, far from being timeless, a unique quality of the swashbuckler has always been its persistent out-of-dateness, its formula of courtly love, elegant or balletic action scenes, and the idealistic simplification of politics, often viewed as sappy. However, the romantic charm of swashbucklers is not necessarily restricted to historical films, being something closer to an aesthetic, one that combines lusty optimism with the piquancy of style-over-substance, or what used to be described, nebulously, as ‘high spirits’. Perhaps one reason the genre seems to have been permanently out of fashion since the silent era is fairly few films have got the combination right.

The archetypal swashbuckling hero is a blithe, breezy idealist with no time for moody self-examination, and generally no need to discover that they are a ‘chosen one’ because they probably believed it already. Such characters owe their irascible swagger to the likes of Robin Hood, D’Artagnan, Zorro and the Scarlet Pimpernel, all dashing young men of noble birth who appoint themselves defenders of the established order against usurpers. This represents another, early quality of swashbucklers, the celebration of aristocratic entitlement, dressed up with pomp and ceremony. Classical Hollywood always featured some incarnation of this romantic daredevil. In the 20s it was the beaming, acrobatic Douglas Fairbanks. In the prewar years there was the stiff-upper lip gallantry of Leslie Howard and Ronald Colman, followed by the youthful insouciance of matinee idols such as Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power and Douglas Fairbanks Jr, bounding through the story with all the confidence of someone who knows, just as the audience did, that between the beginning and end, they are indestructible.

By the 50s, the swashbuckler’s costumed frippery was beginning to be seen as a joke, parodied in films like Singin’ in the Rain (1952) and The Court Jester (1955). Thirty years later, directors of the New Hollywood era like Richard Donner, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, created the modern blockbuster, in part, by romanticising their own childhood memories of swashbucklers, whose optimism was often reflected in sci-fi and fantasy films, if not always their romance. Around this time, the genre’s ghost was belatedly laid to rest by The Princess Bride (1987).

The swashbuckling hero had evolved, however, and arguably found its 80’s equivalent in the wisecracking hypermasculinity of action movie stars like Stallone and Schwarzenegger. This may seem ironic given that swashbuckling, even at its height, was seen as slightly effete, but although the colourful romance was missing, its myth of a heroism that could singlehandedly right the world’s wrongs remained intact, and also looks just as camp now as classic swashbucklers did to postwar audiences.

In later years, despite the best efforts of handsome, historical romances like Rob Roy (1995), The Mask of Zorro (1998) and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), sword-fighting remains fairly moribund in movies, whilst the occasional, mammoth success of a blockbuster like Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), if anything, seems to have encouraged its demise.

At their best, swashbucklers gave viewers the guiltlessly kitschy pleasure of excursions into ahistorical, hyperreal worlds of darknessless. Here are ten that managed it best:

1. The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)

One of the swashbuckler’s most familiar early tropes, established in nineteenth century literature, was the romanticisation of patriotism, reflecting contemporary anxieties about the collapse of empire. Such ideas are explored in Anthony Hope’s 1894 bestseller The Prisoner of Zenda, adapted three times during the silent era, but most famously filmed by David O. Selznick in 1937.

Rudolf Rassendyll (Ronald Colman) is an English gentleman on a fishing holiday in Ruritania, where he conveniently meets his doppelgänger, Prince Rudolf, who also happens to be his cousin. Rassendyll agrees to impersonate Rudolf at his coronation in order to protect him from a scheming half-brother (Raymond Massey) and his venal accomplice Rupert (Douglas Fairbanks Jr). Matters are complicated when Rudolf is kidnapped and Rassendyll falls in love with his fiancée, Princess Flavia (Madeleine Carroll).

Although faded now, this film’s success cast a long shadow. It was popular enough to get a shot-for-shot, colour remake in 1952, and has also been parodied in everything from Blake Edwards’ The Great Race (1965) to Richard Lester’s Royal Flash (1975), and Ivan Reitman’s Dave (1993), with a spoof version starring Peter Sellers in 1979.

Like many of its European contemporaries set in fictional countries, including Hitchcock’s similarly romantic thriller The Lady Vanishes (1938) or Geoffrey Household’s novel Rogue Male (1938), the film celebrates English ‘public school values’ in the face of real-world political upheavals. During their famous climactic duel, Rupert mocks Rassendyll’s Old Etonian sense of duty, positioning himself as a dangerous, youthful iconoclast (that he is also dressed like a fascist blackshirt may be coincidental). The film’s prologue sets the scene at a time, “when History still wore a Rose, and Politics had not yet outgrown the Waltz”. To contemporary eyes this seems to be asking the audience to suspend its disbelief, but with its slightly preachy, patrician sensibility, it is hard to tell just how seriously the film took itself.

2. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Released just as WWII was about to begin, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) may be the best swashbuckling film ever made. Warner Bros. reassembled the key creative personnel of their earlier action-adventure Captain Blood (1935), and it is remarkable just how primitive that film looks by comparison.

Set in a joyfully anachronistic version of medieval England, the story opens with ‘King Richard the Lionheart’ missing, later presumed dead. Meanwhile, in Nottingham, Sir Robin of Locksley (Errol Flynn) leads a band of Saxon rebels against the oppressive Norman regime of pretender Prince John (Claude Rains), and his heavy Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone). After an episodic game of cat-and-mouse, during which Robin woos the king’s ward Lady Marian (Olivia de Havilland) from below her balcony, Richard miraculously reappears and order is cleanly restored.

One of the first Hollywood epics in sparkling Technicolor, the film makes its romantic formula appear effortless, which may be why it was so difficult to replicate. With multiple directors and writers, it could only have been achieved by happy accident, very few films having succeeded in matching its energy. The heroes fight with miniaturised broadswords and smile during the final battle as if walking on water; King Richard wears chainmail armour in every scene, and yet, somehow, the prelapsarian confidence never frays. The giant, impractical sets and California countryside, together with Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Oscar-winning score, create an atmosphere not so much stylised as fantastical, whilst Flynn’s infectious exuberance makes him perhaps the one convincingly ‘merry’ screen version of Robin Hood, and a reminder how much more likeable he reportedly was onscreen than behind-the-scenes.

This is the kind of early colour film so rich, you could imagine the negative was several inches thick and tasted like red velvet meringue. Just as it appeared in its day as an unabashedly romanticised dream of history and warfare, it now looks like the romantic dream of a Hollywood cinema that (almost) never was.

3. The Sea Hawk (1940)

Following Robin Hood, Warner planned to put Errol Flynn in an adaptation of Don Juan, but the outbreak of war in Europe prompted them to instead do The Sea Hawk (1940), essentially a remake of the British historical drama Fire Over England (1937) on a bigger budget.

The almost entirely fictional story sees 17th-century privateer Geoffrey Thorpe (Flynn) dispatched by Elizabeth I (Flora Robson) to South America on a mission to sabotage Spain’s shipping fleet. After being captured thanks to high-placed spies in the English court, Thorpe and his crew escape in time to bring back news of Philip II’s secret invasion plans.

As in Fire Over England, Spain acts as a proxy for Nazi Germany, replacing a pro-interventionist message with an anti-isolationist one. It even gets delivered by the same actor, as Flora Robson played the queen in both. Part of the pleasure of swashbucklers comes from the circumscription of their stories within an hermetically-sealed world of heroic idealism. Here, a political allegory is combined with an escapist formula by applying a literal layer of gritty realism to the pageantry, the ‘dark’ scenes set in Panama being sepia-tinted (the rest is in black-and-white). Inevitably, real-world concerns tend to leave the wilful innocence looking dainty, and wartime audiences would soon lost interest in lavish swashbucklers.

Warner eventually made The Adventures of Don Juan in 1948. Although it failed at the box office, it is still an enjoyable return to the genre’s Technicolor glory days, even if Flynn’s alcoholism had started to show.

4. The Mark of Zorro (1940)

In the early 1800s, Diego de la Vega (Tyrone Power) returns to California from Spain to find his father’s former district being fleeced for gold by its corrupt new governor and his captain of the guard (Basil Rathbone). Springing into action, Diego starts acting the fop by day in order to play Zorro by night, whilst courting advances from the governor’s daughter (Linda Darnell) and wife (Gale Sondergaard). He quickly rouses the people to rebellion, restoring his father to power.

Directed by Rouben Mamoulian, The Mark of Zorro (1940) may be best remembered now as the film Bruce Wayne is supposed to have seen before his parents’ murder, but of all the classic swashbucklers, it is possibly the most fun. Produced by Twentieth Century Fox on a smaller scale than its more operatic Warner rivals, it benefits from cartoonishly fast pacing and a looser attitude to romance. The witty, cavalier Power is impossible not to like, even if his Diego seems to be doing little more than amusing himself from beginning to end. It also contains perhaps the finest sword-fight in all of classical Hollywood, dispensing with expressionistic shadows and rousing music in favour of polish and precision, for once giving Rathbone the defeat he deserved.

Keen to avoid typecasting, Power mostly avoided swashbucklers thereafter. The best of his later forays is Son of Fury: The Son of Benjamin Blake (1941), which made the innovation of replacing swords with boxing. This works well though it failed to set any trends.

5. Buccaneer’s Girl (1950)

Compared with most other genres in Classical Hollywood, swashbucklers were less restrictive when it came to reinforcing gender norms. From the mid-40s, audiences could particularly expect to see female protagonists in pirate-themed films. From Binnie Barnes in The Spanish Main (1945) to Jean Arthur as Anne of the Indies (1951) and Rhonda Flemyng in The Golden Hawk (1952), swashbucklers were the place women were most likely to be found in action-oriented roles. Maureen O’Hara even became a swashbuckling star herself after playing Athos’ daughter in Sons of the Musketeers (1952), before appearing as a pirate opposite Errol Flynn in Against All Flags (1952). Although more of a screwball comedy with music than a true swashbuckler, Buccaneer’s Girl (1950) is one of the genre’s most satisfying piratical adventures.

Yvonne de Carlo plays Bostonian singer Deborah McCoy, who stows away aboard a ship bound for New Orleans, meeting notorious pirate Baptiste (Philip Friend) along the way. Upon reaching her destination, she discovers Baptiste is leading a double-life as the world’s top pirate catcher in order to dupe a local, crooked businessman (Robert Douglas). Events lead to her joining his crew and becoming a pirate herself.

Directed by Fred de Cordova, the film was one of several produced during the ‘Red Scare’ – along with Jacques Tourneur’s The Flame and the Arrow (1950) and Robert Siodmak’s The Crimson Pirate (1952) – that playfully snuck anti-imperialist subversion into swashbucklers. It is also gorgeously colourful, with a supporting cast including genre veteran Henry Daniell and the great Elsa Lanchester, whilst Robert Douglas is one of cinema’s most overlooked moustache-twirling villains.

This list will not take a conventional take on 1980s animation films; rather, it has attempted to seek out movies that for better or worse have somewhat been left out of the mainstream radar, or have been forgotten and left unmentioned. This is not because they are not good movies; indeed, many of them have won international prizes and were presented at Cannes or even considered for an Oscar. Rather, they have been difficult movies, hard to understand or define. These include children’s movies that were not so childish, dark comedies that were much too dark, experimental animations that were perhaps too experimental, or spiritual analysis that left too many questions open. Today, with four decades passed, we can give them another look and truly recognize relevant contributions to their dystopian take on the future, its environmental considerations, or simply its purely nonsensical/visionary variations.

A careful reader will notice a golden thread connecting the Hungarian Animation school that has contributed to three of the titles, proving its importance on the international scale (it is worth mentioning that while writing this list, acclaimed director Marcell Jankovics has passed away). Also, it has been attempted to vary the countries of production and not concentrating strictly on US and Japan-based films, though it has been done with quite ease and in respect of quality. As judging was not felt attainable, they are listed by their year of release.

1. The Mystery of the Third Planet (1981, USSR)

In the year 2181, Alisa Seleznëva and her father, Professor Seleznëv, along with pilot Zelënyj, set out on a space expedition seeking rare alien animals for the Moscow Zoo. After encountering fabulous creatures such as a flying cow and a chattering bird, they accidentally get caught up in a space pirate conspiracy of the cruel Doctor Verchovcev.

Undisputed cult animation of the Soviet era (though I am curious of other options and opinions), with proud propaganda behind it, the film is entertaining and juvenile, taking four years of hand-drawn production and a unique synth-induced original score by Alexander Zatsepin. Repetitive releases have been attempted in the US and on European television, albeit with re-dubbings and alterations, shading its sense and possibly shadowing its success.

2. Son of the White Mare (1981, Hungary)

Nominated by some critics as the greatest psychedelic movie ever made, and yet tainted by tragic ‘course’, whereas the restored movie was due to be released in the US in 2020 only to be halted by the pandemic, and its director passed away in the same year. This movie is indeed filled with symbolism and spiritual imagery. It narrates, as with many epic storylines, the quest of the super-powerful Son, a goddess, to avenge and defeat the creatures that have taken over the world.

With over three years of research by late director Jankovics Marcell on Hungarian legends and tales, the movie appears indeed cursed. Not only was it a technical production and budgetary hamper, but it was panned, ignored at its release, and forgotten for decades until its recent 4K restoration. If one allows some repetition in its truly striking imagery, along with its powerful narration and the power of the original dubbing itself, this movie is truly a masterpiece: one we may seek in a peaceful return to the cinema.

3. Heavy Metal (1981, Canada-USA)

In 2031 a deadly and fundamentally evil green meteorite known as Loc-Nar falls on future earth. After killing her father, it corners a little girl sharing some of his deeds that will be episodes the animation is divided into, from futuristic neo-noir to zombie apocalypse.

A mix of genres and styles that saw an epic collaboration of names such as Moebius, Dan O’Bannon, and Richard Corben, this not-perfect yet now-cult animation has opened a sex-craving, surreal and drug-induced universe, whose atmospheres are rightfully irresistible.

Uncountable are the number of sci-fi movies that will take inspiration from it – one among many is (allegedly) the ‘taxi’ chase in Luc Besson’s “The Fifth Element.” Again, this is not to say the movie is perfect, nor all-in-all enjoyable, or if it actually makes any sense till the end. But that said, just like heavy metal music, when you get down to it is surely a “hell of a ride.”

4. The Last Unicorn (1982, USA)

Perplexed by the mysterious words of a passing group of hunters, mentioning the tragic fate of the last of her kind, the last living Unicorn leaves her magical forest – and thus jeopardizes her immortality – to find the truth of her fate. Facing witches, harpies, wizards, and semi-divine creatures she will seek out the mysterious King Haggard, who might know where all the Unicorns have gone, and why.

Written with an outstanding depth (what an opening!) and playing back and forth with metaphysical considerations over truth, illusion, magic and destiny, this animation is important on an uncountable number of levels, most of which are sadly reduced only to cult status. We have the quality of the animation, somewhat childish at a first glance, then absolutely enchanting and somewhat raw at the same time, inspired (as proven in the opening titles) by renaissance tapestry.

The well-curated visuals, engaging in the character depiction as well as landscaping, are also enriched by a star-based cast of voice actors, with Mia Farrow, Jeff Bridges and Christopher Lee, among others. Furthermore, rendering the animation truly enjoyable for both children and adults, its story is based on an important novel (and screenplay) with the same name by Peter S. Beagle. Last but not least, the producing studio of Rankin/Bass joint with the Japanese Topcraft will later join together to film Nausicaa and establish the world-renowned Studio Ghibli.

5. Time Masters/Les Maîtres du temps (1982, France)

Following a fatal spaceship crash, Claude leaves his son Piel on the apparently desolate planet Perdide, begging him to get in touch with his friend Jaffar, an adventurer of the galaxy. Communicating through a special transceiver, an adventure will take place across space (and time) to save him.

This is the second filming effort of the legendary Rene Laloux, this time with a strict collaboration with Moebius. Here we also see the contribution of the Hungarian school of animation, and the inspiration from the same sci-fi writer, Stephan Wul. The result is not as striking and ‘revolutionary’ (read also political) as the previous “Planet Savauge,” but the visual and metaphysical considerations – along with the scenic visual and characterizations – remain as impressive as ever.

Each and every artistic field boasts its representative, trailblazing works that have ensured that field’s lastingness in the cultural patrimony as well as in the minds of dozens of current (and future) societies. Yet, because of the implacable forces of time or other inexplicable factors, a myriad of fine, praiseworthy oeuvres have been regrettably lost, and the field of cinematography happens to find itself among those afflicted.

From East to West, the little known filmography of virtually every country has been dismally shadowed at some point or another by the staple movies of that particular region. For example, Italy, with Fellini’s intensely profound “La Dolce Vita” (1960) that baffled the nation; France, which attracted worldwide attention due to Godard’s existentialist “Vivre Sa Vie” (1962); or Romania with her thought-provoking 1992 “The Oak” directed by Lucian Pintilie, to name but a few.

Courtesy of an increasingly higher number of platforms dedicated to unearthing lost gems from cinematography’s recesses, we now have access to less heard-of or entirely unheard-of directors and masterpieces – something that reignites our faith in the embracive, timeless nature of cinema.

The movies below are part of this category, and even if they might not be the most high-profile, they nevertheless touch upon and spread compelling ideas and messages. From the strong-mindedness and zeal of Carlos Saura’s “Antonieta” to the ethereal nebulosity of Edward Yang’s “The Terrorizers” or the cringey comicality of Nae Caranfil’s “Asphalt Tango,” these insufficiently celebrated compositions serve to remind us that what’s hidden can sometimes have the power to shine the brightest.

1. Partner (1968)

Although rather obscure compared to its more popular counterparts such as ‘’Last Tango in Paris’’(1972) or ‘’The Dreamers’’(2003), “Partner,” directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and produced by his cousin, Giovanni Bertolucci, nevertheless beguiles the viewer with its radical ideas and aura of eccentricity.

With a stellar performance delivered by Pierre Clémenti, and a sombre yet enchanting soundtrack by Ennio Morricone, the film portrays the budding, idealist drama teacher, Giacobbe, in whose eyes theater is the ultimate, truth-encompassing reality. The socially maladjusted character prepares his class for a coming ‘’revolutionary’’ play while simultaneously repressing multifarious types of thoughts and impulses that will come to be embodied by his uninhibited, mischievous doppelgänger, Giacobbe II (played by the same Clémenti).

Slowly but surely, the overpowering, nefarious influence the second Giacobbe has over the first is unveiled throughout the string of murders taking place in completely unexpected, rather pleasant moments. What begins as the story of a repressed young man, trying to grapple with his seemingly bifurcated identity, ends with the incapacity to disjoin these conflicting sides even in the face of doom and irreversible dissolution.

Although imbued with imagery and existential themes typically associated with the cinema of Jean-Luc Godard (as admitted by Bertolucci himself), “Partner” exudes gloominess and forebodes a malfeasant turn of events from the very beginning – for instance, through the scene when the camera closes in only to reveal a pocket pistol hidden in the ruffling pages of the book Giacobbe I was reading.

Yet, in spite of this, the film is equally peppered with humour, exemplified by the scene when Giacobbe goofily dances in front of Clara (Stefania Sandrelli) to impress her, or in the closely following scene when he is thrown out of her house and ends up in an imaginary scuffle with his double, ludicrously kicking and punching the air.

Even though “Partner” treats subjects commonly approached at the time, such as the imprecision of reality and unreality, there are, however, a couple of aspects that distinguish the movie from its period. For example, Bertolucci’s film introduces us to a realm punctuated not only with aesthetic politics but also with political aestheticism, bearing in mind the social context – a May 1968 marked by students’ protests – one can see a social and political commentary that serves to reinforce the idea of art as a necessary political tool.

Discernible are also the Shakespearian concept of ‘’play-within-a play‘’ as well as the fine line between cinematography and theatre. Giacobbe prepares and rehearses a play with his students while he himself is an actor in Bertolucci’s motion picture and, to some extent, in the grander scheme (and stage!) of life.

While the scene depicting Giacobbe with his props, fervidly declaiming his lines, might prompt one to think one is witnessing a theatre performance instead of a cinematographic one, this does nothing but underscore Bertolucci’s deftness to symphonize these two artistic spheres, with all the existential and societal implications they entail.

2. Asphalt Tango (1996)

Typically, Romanian humour and a peculiarly captivating kitschiness are at their peak in Nae Caranfil’s second directorial piece “Asphalt Tango.” This Romanian-French co-production starring film doyens Charlotte Rampling, Mircea Diaconu and Florin Călinescu manages to broach a diversity of topics in such a droll manner one can easily dissolve into laughter.

The plot of this comedy is a simple one, quite standard for the (Romanian) cinematographic period portrayed: 2 quasipimps – Gigi (Florin Călinescu) and his driver (Constantin Cotimanis) in cahoots with a French ex-dancer named Marion (Charlotte Rampling) – are looking forward to making money at the expense of 11 girls promised work as cabaret dancers. A mechanic named Andrei Lungu (Mircea Diaconu), who happened to fix the car that was to bring the girls to France, is told by one of the pimps about their intentions to prostitute the girls. Coming back home and realising his wife Dora (Cătălina Răhăianu) had left him and joined the project the pimp was talking about, he alarmedly reports the situation to the police but is met with indifference and thus takes the matter into his own hands. What follows is an apparently endless sequence of the most insane of events, all meant to bring Dora home and back to the “right” path she had strayed from.

In spite of its general typicality, “Asphalt Tango” doesn’t have quite the ending a viewer might expect, judging by its genre and storyline, nor does it conform to the social conventions held at the time. The latter is best illustrated by the striking inversion of gender roles, with the female counterpart (Marion) taking the initiative and instilling respect while the male counterpart (Gigi) merely putting up the pretense of dominance and reliability. With her chic tinted glasses and enviable self-assuredness, Marion manages to coordinate chaotic situations and make herself listened to (if not obeyed) as is the case with her nearly persuading Andrei to let Dora go, as against “monsieur” Gigi, who vainly tries to play hardball but fails miserably time and again.

Those acquainted with Rampling’s previous roles, such as that of Lucia in Liliana Cavani’s “The Night Porter,” might be struck by how contrasting the character of Marion is with that from Cavani’s 1974 film. While in “The Night Porter” she plays the part of the submissive woman, bent on satisfying a man’s every whim, in “Asphalt Tango” her character becomes the dominant party, coaxing others into doing her bidding – two opposing instances that demonstrate Rampling’s prodigious acting skills.

At the end of the day, “Asphalt Tango” is, as was previously described, a “dramedy,” with serious subjects that sublimely entwine with laughs and ridiculousness, forming a tango that makes a sunny, pleasing spectacle. This movie is a total must-see for those looking forward to being thrown into fits of uncontrollable laughter or of awe at Charlotte Rampling’s unparalleled performance.

3. Mélo (1986)

Reportedly shot in only 21 days and one of Susan Sontag’s favourite movies according to MUBI, Alain Resnais’s “Mélo” gracefully pictures the fragile yet intricate interrelations that so mark our human lives. This French hidden gem, based on Henri Bernstein’s 1930 eponymous play, reminds the viewer of how easy sin and virtue juxtapose with one another, until the point of an indiscernibility that will ultimately render the sufferers helpless in the face of destiny.

Starring world-renowned actors such as Pierre Arditi, Sabine Azéma – Resnais’s future wife – and Fanny Ardant in the minor role of good-natured Christiane, “Mélo” portrays the ill-fated love triangle between a couple and a family friend, in a manner slightly reminiscent of Philip Kaufman’s 1988 “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” The drama unfolds around the 1920s, in a setting at the juncture of cinema and theatre – just like Bertolucci’s “Partner” – in a Paris suburb called Montrouge.

The vivacious Romaine (Sabine Azéma) and the light-hearted Pierre Belcroix (Pierre Arditi) invite Pierre’s friend, the world-famous violinist Marcel Blanc, to dine with them and wistfully reminisce about the good old days. At one point – in a riveting monologue bound to render one wide-eyed and speechless – Marcel discloses a heartbreaking story of amorous deception suffered at the hands of a former lover, Hélène.

This personal anecdote mesmerizes the impressionable Romaine and marks the beginning of an all-consuming, clandestine love affair with shattering and ultimately fatal consequences. Though initially disapproving of Romaine’s adulterous intentions and bent on upholding his honour, Marcel nevertheless gives in to his impulses, thus ironically turning into the living embodiment of what he professes to hate the most – dishonesty and betrayal.

What immediately strikes one upon watching “Mélo” are its bewitching Parisian overtones dotted with a sometimes vibrant, sometimes pastel chromaticity that incline the viewer to ask themself whether this artistic representation is a play, a film, a mixture of the two, or something otherworldly altogether.

Moreover, the presence of music plays a significant part throughout the movie, creating some sort of full circle, since the sweet-sounding tunes of Brahms’s sonatas and classical music as a whole are what reunites the trio in the beginning and what also provides an all too necessary consolation toward the ending.

Although eclipsed by Resnais’s better known masterpieces such as “Hiroshima, mon amour” (1959), “Mélo” nonetheless manages to successfully capture the unpredictability and vagueness that characterize the human essence. Through the childlike, giddy sounds emitted by Pierre in some of his scenes with Romaine or through her somersaults and behavior bordering on madness in the later part of the movie, gestures that contrast starkly with the more down-to-earth Marcel, one can better grasp how comedy and tragedy can both come under similar guises when one least expects them to.

With the aid of Romaine’s final action and Marcel’s duplicity, “Mélo” re-emphasizes the effortlessness with which impetuous feelings can destabilize that which seems most unbendable.

4. Antonieta (1982)

“Antonieta,” director Carlos Saura’s film featuring the dazzling Isabelle Adjani as its main protagonist, might be one of the best choices for anyone interested in female power and the inextricable connection between society and individuality. During the runtime of only one hour and 40 minutes, one manages to witness the tracing of a prolific, forward-looking life, whose high aspirations and consequently high disappointments will lead to disillusionment, incertitude, and ultimately downfall.

“Antonieta” is a memorable cinematographic artwork for a number of reasons. First, it strikes one by its opening scene that showcases a couple of screens broadcasting a cooking show hosted by an apparently ordinary, joyful woman who will blow up her brains in the middle of the live streaming. What’s interesting are both the unexpected locations for suicide chosen by the TV host – a live broadcast; and by Antonieta – Notre Dame of Paris; as well as the stark contrast between what these two settings symbolize: conventionality on one hand and saintliness on the other.

Further, one of the aspects that sets “Antonieta” apart is Adjani’s impeccable performance as the self-possessed, intellectually progressive character of Antonieta, a woman unafraid to take life into her own hands, to impose herself and unabashedly fight for the cause she believes in.

What’s more, by audaciously deciding to end a no longer fulfilling marriage with her first husband, Antonieta embodies the paragon of feminism, a symbol meant to remind generations to come of women’s independence and their extraordinary capabilities to promote and bring about positive changes in a society perpetually needful of betterment.

Seemingly uneventful as compared to other, more action-packed movies from the ‘80s, “Antonieta” nevertheless treats crucial subjects that are worth mulling over, such as the saddening complexness of love coupled with the undividedness of art and society, two elements that can step toward improvement under the apt guidance of women.

5. The Howl (1968)

Admirers of surrealist cinematography (I’m looking at you, Jodorowsky lovers) are in for a treat upon embarking to watch Tinto Brass’s extravagant, off-kilter “The Howl” (“L’urlo”).

Banned for seven years after its initial release in 1968 – according to its MUBI description – this oddball film shows how easy it is for the line between reality and fantasy to be blurred.

This kaleidoscope of scenes is no piece of cake when it comes to being summed up. Yet it can be aptly described as the psychotropic incursion in various parallel realities of the jocularly-named duo Anita Annigoni (Tina Aumont) and Berto Bertuccioli (Nino Segurini), where they will successively stumble upon different entities and obstacles. Through their apparently nonsensical adventures, ranging from witnessing orgies with birds to meeting a half-naked cannibal in the woods calling himself the supreme philosopher, Tinto Brass parodies the oppressiveness of those political and social systems that woefully disrupted the course of history.

This political satire slash whimsical account oozes with Jodorowskian vibes through its depiction of queer activities and behaviours, such as women hatching eggs or a naked guy running in a barrel in quest for “Ecce Hommo” (“The Man”). Though they might look absurd at first, these actions abound in a profundity – albeit comically displayed – whose aim is to befuddle, aesthetically please, and invite to introspection all at once.

Moreover, not only does “The Howl” resemble Jodorowsky’s uncanny cinematography, but it also brings to mind the bizarreness of Věra Chytilová’s “Daisies” (1966), as well as the outlandishness of David Lynch’s movies – though to a considerably limited extent.

With its playful soundtrack serving as the background for the couple’s roaming around or running for their dear lives, the movie bears some resemblance to the scenes featuring the equally wacky duo of Marie the Blonde and Marie the Brunette from Chytilová’s “Daisies.” Nevertheless, “The Howl” falls toward the grotesque, reaching levels of a sick and twisted abnormality diametrically opposed to those from its 1966 predecessor.

In the end, similar to the likes of Lynch or Jodorowsky, “The Howl” is not meant to be deconstructed and analyzed piece by piece, rather it should be admired and cherished as a composite, just like Picasso’s paintings. Movies like this, with lionesses ambling in cemeteries or eccentrically painted women sitting for decades in the middle of a railway, are designed to have their essence extracted, or formed through each individual’s unique consciousness and frame of mind.

If what you are interested in is a mélange of both subtle and direct political criticism and partly delusional partly philosophical ramblings chaotically depicted, then “The Howl” constitutes a totally unmissable film choice.

By all accounts, the ’80s were a very exciting time to live in. Major technological advances and a newfound mass media led the way for blockbuster films to reach a cultural peak. The decade felt like a relative era of peace in comparison to the corruption of the Nixon era and the violence of the Vietnam war. But under the glam and tech progression was a dark and seedy underbelly that lent itself to horror. The faux satisfaction everyone had with their lives was marred by a feeling that something in society was off-kilter. Horror films capitalized on this like never before.

Horror movies, more so than almost any other genre, are a series of films in constant conversation with themselves. Horror flicks are constantly pulling on tropes established in previous horror films and subverting them to mine scares. As a result, horror was constantly reinventing itself at every turn. The ’70s may have put horror into the mainstream, but the ’80s perfected it with New Hollywood directors cranking out every iteration of horror viewers could imagine.

Though the slasher genre almost died in the ’80s as the horror market became oversaturated, some of the greatest films came out of the era. These were bold, unique horror movies that not only pushed the boundaries of horror itself but laid the groundwork for decades of fantastic movies to come. These are the ten most influential ‘80s horror movies that helped shape the genre as we know it today.

10. Child’s Play (1988)

Child’s Play was not the first film to use a creepy doll to terrifying effect. However, any conversation about the killer doll genre will inevitably turn into a conversation about Chucky. Chucky is inarguably the most iconic killer doll in film history. Child’s Play immediately made a name for itself by drawing on the killer doll films of the ’70s and melding them with the rough and gritty serial killers that pervaded 90’s films. The result was unlike anything filmgoers had seen before. A violent, swearing, wisecracking serial killer doll that made viewers think twice about their toys.

Child’s Play follows a young boy named Andy who receives a “Good Guy Doll” that at first seems innocuous. But when people around him start to disappear, it’s up to Andy to prove his innocence and stop Chucky from killing again. Chucky was based on the Cabbage Patch Kids craze that was incredibly popular during the ’90s. Child’s Play stands as one of the first horror movies to mine current pop culture fads for horror. It paved the way for countless horror movies that satirize the new trends in consumerism.

But over time, the Chucky franchise slowly grew into something else. After two luke-warm sequels that didn’t perform well, Bride of Chucky posed something new for horror: a sequel that parodies itself. These days, self-aware comedy within horror films is standard. But no other franchise had previously made the leap from straightforward horror to the wink-wink-nudge-nudge pandemonium that the late 2000s Child’s Play movies represented. This laid the groundwork for a cacophony of self-aware horror films that weren’t afraid to lean into the insanity of their premises.

Upon release, Child’s Play was so popular that it spawned a slew of knock-offs and imitators. Some examples include Dollface and Lauphrachaun. The kills in Child’s Play weren’t revolutionary, but no one had seen them executed with such an innocuous and unsettling figure like Chucky.

Since the 2000s, Chucky has long endured on the home video market. Over the years, director Don Mancini has been quietly grinding out solid sequels that return to the serious tone of the original film. It was even remade in 2019. With films like Annabelle and The Boy pulling from Chucky for inspiration, the killer doll genre will always owe a debt to Child’s Play. It modernized the genre and changed the way we think about dolls forever.

9. Poltergeist (1982)

Of all the films on this list, Poltergiest may have been the movie that was most well-received immediately. Combining the childlike wonder of a Spielberg film with the overt horrific sensibilities of Tobe Hooper, Poltergeist created an uncanny filmgoing experience. It’s not only seen as one of the best films of 1982 but one of the best horror films of all time. Following a family who is plagued by angry spirits, the film created a perfect balance between childhood nostalgia and visceral terror.

Previous to Poltergeist, most ghost films dealt with possession from a religious angle. The Exorcist is one of the most iconic films to showcase the battle between religion and demonic forces. Poltergeist, on the other hand, introduced the concept of ghost hunters, scientifically minded individuals who are experts in the paranormal. This concept was lifted and used heavily in the Blumhouse film Insidious. But the impact of Poltergiest can be felt through the majority of Blumhouse’s oveour, including films like Paranormal Activity, The Conjuring, and Sinister.

Poltergeist has been the foundation for the majority of 21st century paranormal films. Audiences were shocked at how the film was willing to put children in harm’s way. It’s a trope that’s well worn these days, but the demonic entities and the distorted screams from a little girl trapped in a spirit realm inspired fear never seen before in audiences and critics alike.

The film is also notable for its effect on the MPAA, the organization responsible for rating films. The film was initially rated R, but Hooper and Spielberg got the film appealed and it was released with a PG rating. Poltergeist is one of the main movies credited with the MPAA creating the PG-13 rating in 1984, due to the film’s graphic and visceral content.

8. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

In 1984, a wise-cracking child molester and burn victim named Freddy Krueger slashed his way through dreams and made a whole generation of teenagers afraid to fall asleep. He also changed the course of horror forever.

A Nightmare on Elm Street soared into theaters at the height of the slasher genre. During the ’80s, both Halloween and Friday the 13th had multiple sequels released. The slasher genre seemed to be dying a slow death as the repetitive nature of these films jaded audiences. Many of these films had a gimmick down pat, a silent large hulking character hidden behind a mask, killing off teenagers anonymously.

Freddy Krueger went in the opposite direction, opening the door for a slew of horror villains with distinct personalities. Though it seems commonplace now, Freddy was the first mainstream horror villain to spout quips and jokes before killing his victims. Saying lines like “I’m your boyfriend now, Nancy” and “Why are you screaming? I haven’t even caught you yet” didn’t diminish the horror. In fact, it added a cognitive dissonance that disoriented viewers.

The marriage of childhood trauma with grotesque killings was emphasized in numerous ways. One primary example is how the film distorts childhood songs into nightmare fuel. The film also grapples with concepts of inherited punishment, useless adults, and the loss of innocence. These elements combined with a taunting, harsh sense of caustic humor amplifies the film’s piercing effects. It paved the way for other killers, from Chucky to Ghostface, to have personality and a sick sense of humor.

The film is credited with saving New Line Cinema, who, up to this point, had only distributed movies. The production company was eventually nicknamed “The House That Freddy Built”. A Nightmare on Elm Street went on to inspire a slew of horror films that played with more abstract concepts like dreams vs. reality. The franchise now has six sequels, one remake, and even a crossover with the Friday the 13th series. Though the Freddy character has slowly morphed from a disturbing malevolent force to a serial killer stand-up comedian, you can still see the impact of Nightmare in the genre today.

7. The Thing (1982)

John Carpenter’s The Thing is one of those universally lauded films that show up on almost every best-of list. It’s so well regarded in the modern age that it’s easy to forget just how hard it flopped upon release in 1982. Going up against E.T. Extra-Terrestrial, and sporting practical effects that didn’t quite measure up to the newly emerging CGI of the time, The Thing was dismissed as D-list exploitation trash. The backlash nearly ended Carpenter’s career.

Yet, the very effects that made Carpenter a mockery at the time have helped preserve The Thing as a modern classic. The cruel tone and ambiguous feel-bad ending came at a time when filmgoers were used to lighter fare. But as time has passed, the film fits in perfectly as a touchstone for paranoia horror, and practical effects.

The Thing is a loose reworking of the 1951 classic The Thing From Another Place, which itself is based on a novel. It follows a group of American scientists who come across a Norweigan research facility in Antarctica. After slowly putting together the horrid history of the facility, they find that an alien with the ability to shapeshift is amongst them.

Using themes of claustrophobia, paranoia, and otherwordly creatures, The Thing owes a lot to Alien. However, The Thing differentiates itself by having the aliens shape-shift. This breeds distrust among the characters. These themes and motifs were borrowed heavily by filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino was directly inspired by The Thing to create another “one-setting” film, Reservoir Dogs in 1992. Tarantino would revisit these themes again in 2018 with The Hateful Eight. The Hateful Eight was also inspired by The Thing, replicating the isolated snowy setting and distrust among its characters.

Those in the special effects industry laud The Thing as the gold standard for practical effects. The film’s effects are emulated by many directors, including James Gunn with his throwback horror-comedy Slither, JJ Abrahms who used it as an inspiration for Super 8, and David Robert Mitchell for It Follows. The film also inspired more one-location confinement horror films to crop up. The TV show The X-Files took both the icy setting and the basic plot of The Thing for their episode Ice. Many movies since, from Green Room to The Descent have used confined claustrophobia to great effect.

The lasting impact of The Thing’s endurance is a lesson to filmmakers across genres. Going against the grain can result in great success, even if the film is not immediately appreciated. All it takes is dedication and a strong artistic vision.

6. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

Most horror films live comfortably in a heightened reality. Horror movies are usually bursting at the seams with recognizable tropes, predictable music cues, and a sense of gleeful violence. While horror films were constantly trying to terrify their audience, the majority of films never strayed away from the feeling of fun that necessitated most horror films in the Drive-In days. That is, until Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer shocked audiences with a realistic and frank depiction of a serial killer.

Shot on 16mm, the movie follows protagonist Henry, as he goes on a seemingly random killing spree through America. While most films follow a protagonist that viewers can root for, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer squarely focuses on the killer. This technique forces you to see the murders from his perspective. The film manages to reach a type of unsettling discomfort most horror movies didn’t even think to aim for. Gone were the fun kills, memorable setpieces, and glorification of violence. This was a movie that set out to capture the gritty realism of a serial killer, rather than tease out a story meant to entertain moviegoers.

While the film did not have any explicit criticism of the horror genre, the frank depiction of stripped-down killings prompted widespread conversation regarding why we enjoy horror. It forced filmgoers to ponder why they feel comfortable with watching violence in the first place. This meta-conversation of horror films that question the social value of the genre has been replicated by many auteur filmmakers. Gaspar Noe later went on to create Irreversible, a commentary on the rape-revenge genre. Michael Haneke also created Funny Games, which featured characters literally preaching to the audience about how sick they were for wanting to see a family die.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer also influenced the MPAA’s decision to create the NC-17 rating. NC-17 distinguishes films that were too intense to carry an R rating from pornographic films, which often received the dreaded “X” rated. The movie was a revolution, both in the genre of mundane horror and the meta-conversation that filmmakers continue to have about genres and the social merit of these films today.

We have yet to really return to normalcy following a worldwide pandemic that uprooted millions of lives. That being said, we’re getting closer. Concerts are back on the menu, television shows are resuming production, and movie theaters are open for business. After low-budget cinema dominated last year, we’re finally seeing blockbuster releases. Black Widow, A Quiet Place Part II, and F9 have finally seen the light of day after frustrating but necessary delays.

Still, even after the release of some of the most anticipated action movies of the year, artsy movies continue to dominate when it comes to sheer quality. Outside of a few lazy cash grabs, the box office champions actually have been fairly well-received. At the same time, they mostly failed to provide anything beyond a quick endorphin rush.

Regardless of the lack of top-notch genre films, the best motion pictures of the year remain varied. In the list below, you’ll find a solid mix of comedy, horror, and social commentary. There’s no guarantee that the entries will consistently land for everyone, but there should be a wide enough assortment to keep readers satiated.

Before reading the list, there are a couple things to keep in mind. First, this list was finalized prior to the release of several critically acclaimed releases. Most of the late-summer favorites have been excluded so that the list didn’t have to be dramatically restructured at the last minute. Second, first-quarter release dates are somewhat foggy due to the ever-changing film distribution methods. Qualifying films were released in North America digitally or theatrically this year. Film festival debuts will not be counted as official release dates.

1. Quo vadis, Aida?

Roughly twenty-six years ago, thousands of Bosniaks were killed under the command of Ratko Mladić. This was known as the Srebrenica massacre, and it’s considered one of the worst mass killings on European soil. Even though its role in history is undeniable, it took over two decades for a filmmaker to accurately capture the gravity of the event.

With Quo vadis, Aida?, Jasmila Žbanić has delivered the most compelling movie of 2021. Given the subject matter, it’s obviously a devastating movie to sit through, but that’s the intended effect. Viewers should feel uncomfortable considering the fact that this was a gruelling experience for everyone involved.

The film primarily focuses on the events leading up to the genocide. Specifically, it focuses on a fictional family comprised of a translator, her husband, and her sons. While she learns important information about the harmful foreign affairs, she must also keep people sane by softening each and every blow. Throughout the film, you’ll see her lie about the severity of the issues, but she’s panicking just as much as everyone else. Her family is at risk, and she’s well aware of that. Her crumbling mental health eventually becomes the central focus.

On the one hand, it can be hard to sit through; on the other, it’s appropriately grim considering the subject matter. It goes beyond accuracy and emotional impact though. Quo vadis, Aida? is simply a well-made movie. It has everything you would want in a war drama, and in some cases, it even rises above the highest expectations. It’s not exactly feel-good entertainment, but it serves its purpose.

2. Judas and the Black Messiah

In 1967, the FBI labeled Frederick Allen Hampton, the chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, a radical threat. Two years later, he was gunned down in his apartment at the age of 21. Shortly after his assassination, this was ruled a justifiable homicide. As time passed, more information began to surface regarding Hampton’s death. Now, over fifty years later, we finally have a film that does justice to the controversial figure’s story.

Like most biographical films, Judas and the Black Messiah takes its share of liberties. Will Berson and Shaka King fill in some blanks and add some melodrama, but overall, they successfully bring all of the tragedy to the screen. They unravel the necessary information in a way that’s simultaneously engaging and maddening. After nearly two hours of twist-filled political intrigue, in comes the justifiably rage-inducing finale to cap everything off.

With all of that out of the way, it’s important to remember that a quality script can only do so much. Casting should be up to par as well, especially when it comes to a biopic like this. People want to see an actor who can really step into the shoes of the central subject. Daniel Kaluuya is the Fred Hampton we deserve. He disappears into the role with relative ease.

The Oscars recognized this when they handed him the Oscar back in April. They weren’t alone either. Judas and the Black Messiah was inundated with awards and nominations shortly after it debuted in February. Say what you will about awards, but this time around, the recognition was necessary.

3. Shiva Baby

If you were forced to categorize Shiva Baby as one genre, you’d probably call it a comedy. The premise, which involves a woman running into her sugar daddy at a funeral service, certainly sounds funny. In a lot of cases, it actually is laugh-out-loud funny, but it still feels wrong to put it in the same category as something like Superbad or Bridesmaids.

If the Golden Globes have taught us anything, it’s that genres can be hard to pinpoint. In a lot of ways, these simple labels are just too reductive. When you call The Martian a comedy, people go into that movie with a set of expectations. That’s frustrating because a lot of films go beyond one specific genre. This is especially true of Shiva Baby.

There are absolutely comedic elements in Emma Seligman’s film, but there are also elements of drama, romance, and outright horror. Those horror elements stand out more than anything else. Shiva Baby isn’t going to give people nightmares or anything, but it’s edited in a way that makes it consistently uncomfortable to sit through. Obviously, that’s the intended effect, but if you don’t like squirming in your seat, you may want to sit this one out.

Thanks to the unconventional combination of genres and styles, Shiva Baby is a one-of-a-kind motion picture. In-between laughs, it will leave you feeling positively rattled. This leads to a cinematic experience unlike any other.

4. The Killing of Two Lovers

The Killing of Two Lovers makes a strong first impression. Within the first five minutes, viewers are presented with a shot of a man pointing a gun at a sleeping couple. There is no exposition prior to this scene, so the audience must draw conclusions based on the limited information available. It’s easy to make assumptions based on the title, but things aren’t as straightforward as they initially appear.

Following that scene, viewers are thrown headfirst into a tense marriage drama that will have most people on edge until the very end. Every scene is more uncomfortable than the scene before. For nearly ninety straight minutes, Clayne Crawford has an inescapable grip on the audience; the momentum never dies down.

This is particularly impressive because The Killing of Two Lovers isn’t fast-paced in the traditional sense. The plot unravels itself slowly because the time frame is relatively modest. In spite of this, there’s a magnetic quality attached to just about everything that happens on-screen. It all seems so simple, but if you let your guard down, it will knock the wind right out of you.

5. Rose Plays Julie

The #MeToo movement has had a profound effect on the world. Hundreds of high-profile individuals faced accusations of sexual assault starting in 2017. Once the movement began to gain traction, women felt solidarity, which allowed them to speak up about traumatic experiences they faced. It has been roughly four years since Harvey Weinstein was exposed, and since that day, people continue to come forward about powerful people abusing their statuses.

The true stories continue to hit the hardest, but the movement also convinced people to use their storytelling abilities to weave complex fictional tales that draw attention to the movement. Filmmakers have been using their preferred storytelling medium to draw attention to the ongoing crisis. Critics have begun to label certain films #MeToo movies. In other words, the movement led to an entire subgenre. In the right hands, these films can be devastating in all the right ways.

Rose Plays Julie is an example of a #MeToo movie, and it’s certainly in the right hands. Co-directors Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy have crafted an unnerving psychological drama about a young woman who uncovers information about her mysterious biological parents. Considering the opening paragraphs, it’s easy to make assumptions about what that information is, but we’ll leave some things open to the imagination in order to avoid significant spoilers.

Thankfully, it’s not a spoiler to say that Rose Plays Julie is a triumph in every sense of the word. Considering the recent popularity of #MeToo inspired movies, this could have easily been a run-of-the-mill copycat. Instead, it’s a hair-raising psychological thriller that refuses to sugar-coat its disturbing content.

6. Little Fish

Little Fish is the most refreshing and ambitious science fiction movie of the year so far. Sure, it eventually has to duke it out with Dune and Eternals, but for the time being, this is the reigning champion. Considering the frequent regurgitation of ideas within the genre, it’s nice to see something that approaches familiar topics in unique ways.

The film revolves around a virus that wipes people’s memories. Sometimes the memory loss is instantaneous; sometimes it’s more of a gradual process. Regardless of the circumstances, those affected by the virus cannot be cured. Once it hits you, it sticks with you.

The film focuses on one couple facing the effects of the virus. Oftentimes, films like this choose to focus on the widespread effects of some fictional disease. Viewers are frequently given the big picture, and while that can be gripping, it’s refreshing to see something with a narrower focus. Little Fish is far more intimate than something like Contagion because it gives us a peek into the lives of only two individuals.

Character development takes precedence over everything else, and because the characters are fleshed-out, it’s hard not to get invested. Olivia Cooke and Jack O’Connell give career-defining performances that add additional spark to a fascinating story. By the time the credits roll, you will sympathize with these characters because you were able to watch them develop.

Although the idea for Little Fish came before the pandemic hit, it’s still somewhat serendipitous to watch the story play out while a deadly disease continues to run rampant. Viewers are liable to put themselves in the protagonists’ shoes. Although we are not facing a memory-erasing virus, we are still facing a similar conflict. That’s why Little Fish matters in 2021.

7. Zola

It all started with a series of tweets. In 2015, Aziah “Zola” Wells went viral after posting a 148-tweet thread about her spontaneous trip to Florida with a mysterious woman who is not-so-affectionately referred to as “this white bitch.” Readers learned that Zola, a part-time stripper, went to Florida with a young woman named Jessica expecting an opportunity to earn some money dancing. When she arrived, she was confronted by Jessica’s hot-tempered Nigerian pimp who attempted to push the ladies into prostitution.

Shortly after the tweets were published, Zola’s story was covered by Rolling Stone, which added traction to the already popular tale. This led to the eventual film adaptation starring Taylour Paige and Riley Keough. Aside from tweaks to the timeline, the screen version remains mostly true to the Twitter thread. Zola’s natural storytelling prowess meant that the adaptation didn’t need significant changes. It was entertaining enough as is.

Major changes to the story weren’t necessary, but a strong cast was. Luckily, Zola features a bevy of talented performers who bring the human qualities of the characters to life. In particular, the two leading ladies command the screen. Riley Keough’s exaggerated blaccent is appropriately offensive, while Taylour Paige’s more stoic mannerisms provide a counterbalance to the insanity.

When Twitter was introduced over a decade ago, nobody really thought of it as a way to tell intricate stories. Somehow, over a decade later, we have a movie based on a Twitter thread. More importantly, we have a great movie based on a Twitter thread. Zola is a gripping analysis of sex work and psychological manipulation. It carefully balances humor with drama, giving viewers an experience that will have them laughing one minute and shaking their heads the next.

The process of gathering a shortlist of recommended films can be a daunting task when talking about a self-declared cinephile with such a longstanding knowledge about the history of the medium like Martin Scorsese. There’s probably no director dead or alive who has been so vocal about his passionate love for cinema as the Italian American, and after decades worth of interviews and articles recollecting his thoughts, it felt necessary to narrow them down to some extent.

Our primary source for this list comes in the form of an extensive, four-hour long interview carried out by Fast Company in 2012 where Scorsese spoke at length about eighty-five of his all-time favorite movies. Additionally, there’s a 39-movie list personally compiled and sent by the auteur to a young filmmaker called Colin Levy almost a decade ago, in which he intended to provide a solid introduction to the wonders of foreign cinema. At last, we also have all-time rankings such as his ten favorite titles in the Criterion Collection and his top ten films sent for a Sight and Sound poll, plus further interviews with legendary critic Roger Ebert and The Daily Beast.

With no further ado, let’s take a look at ten of Martin Scorsese’s all-time favorite thrillers, from neglected masterpieces to films that served as boundless source of inspiration and could be traced back to his own work.

1. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)

From obnoxious stockbrokers and abusive boxers to deranged vets and murderous gangsters, there’s no shortage of troubled antiheroes within Scorsese’s filmography. One of his strengths as a director stems from how he manages to craft multilayered characters that defy a simple label of ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but who rather fit into a more nuanced scale of moral greys instead.

It’s easy to get carried away by Scorsese’s energetic storytelling and mistake his films as judgements of character. Far from endorsing their heinous acts, his films are not as interested in preachy moral takeaways as they are in laying out the whole picture, both the good and the ugly, of their three-dimensional characters.

Directed by Paul Schrader, the same man who penned Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Last Temptation of Christ, comes this sweeping biography of Yukio Mishima, one of the most controversial but influential Japanese writers of the past century. The movie approaches a figure clouded by ardent nationalism and a profound connection with art as a form of expression, through a brilliant retelling of his life and demise intermixed with segments from his literary works.

The result is a visually stunning and poignant epic that was rightfully regarded by Scorsese as a ‘deeply inspiring masterpiece’ and one of his 85 essential viewings listed during his lengthy interview for Fast Company.

2. Ace in the Hole (1951)

By any means, this movie was ahead of its time. As a razor-sharp hit piece on the predatory sensationalism that corrupts journalism, Billy Wilder’s classic is closer to modern thrillers like Lumet’s Network or Gilroy’s Nightcrawler than it is to any of its contemporaries. Scorsese highlighted how modern a reporter Chuck Tatum (brought to life by the great Kirk Douglas) is, in that “he’ll do anything to get the story, to make up the story! He risks not only his reputation, but also the life of this guy who’s trapped in the mine”.

The movie follows a morally rotten journalist who exploits a fortuitous accident near the outskirts of Albuquerque for his own gain, creating a media circus around it with no regard for the victim’s survival. Scorsese cited it among his 85 essential films during his interview for Fast Company, noticing how “tough and brutal” Billy Wilder was in its cynicism and attributing the movie’s dark themes to its sudden death at the box office.

Wilder, one of the brightest directors to ever pick up a camera, received countless praise from Martin Scorsese throughout the years. Marty lauded him as “our last great link to the old classic Hollywood cinema” and met the Vienna-born legend for the last time in 1998.

3. The Player (1992)

It’s hard not to think about Robert Altman with the recent controversy that’s emerged between Martin Scorsese and the army of corporate apologists who took to heart his voiced opinion against studios’ risk-averse business model that currently favors creatively bankrupt sequels and written-by-committee scripts. The rift between a legend who champions auteurism and artistic integrity and those who worship media conglomerates and box office monopolies is a cultural war years in the making.

Robert Altman knows a thing or two about Hollywood’s rotten principles, being blacklisted himself for over two decades before coming back in style with this unapologetic satire on the entertainment business. The Player follows an insufferable studio producer who starts receiving death threats from an anonymous screenwriter who he recently rejected. This kickstarts a self-aware witch hunt that’s deliberately presented to challenge our preconceptions of the film industry and take a good jab at Hollywood’s formulaic system that ostracizes creativity and talent.

Scorsese mentioned The Player among his 85 essential films for Fast Company, claiming that all the narrative approaches that Altman experimented throughout the years culminated with this movie and “took him onto a whole other level”.

4. Death by Hanging (1968)

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more thought-provoking film than this political thriller courtesy of Japanese master Nagisa Ōshima, featured in Martin Scorsese’s shortlist of 39 essential foreign movies. Death by Hanging is an open letter against capital punishment and oppression, raging with the sense of urgency of a movie trying to erase decades-worth of prejudice and blind imperialism.

The premise of the story is fairly straightforward; a Korean man is sentenced to death and hung by Japanese officials, with the twist that he survives his own execution, losing all his memories and identity in the process. The movie swiftly shifts from a playful legal drama to a full-blown thesis on self-identity, chauvinism and the vicious cycle of hate that has clouded modern Japan.

As “R”, the Korean prisoner, gradually pieces together his past, he finds that neither of the preconceived ideas pitched by the hateful Japanese officials truly define him. Considering himself neither a foreign intruder nor a righteous martyr, it’s only when he realizes how shallow and arbitrary concepts like ‘nation’ are that he’s able to find his own self; by refusing to be killed by the same abstraction that led him to a life of misfortune.

5. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)

Back when he was a young filmmaker making his way through the New York indie scene, one director showed Scorsese the ropes like no other; the great John Cassavetes. Not only was he a direct inspiration to his gritty underground style, but he helped him with his scripts, let him sleep at one of his shooting locations and gave him an assistant sound editor’s credit for one of his movies.

Simply put, there’d be no Scorsese without John Cassavetes. To this day, Scorsese deeply admires what he meant to him and to American cinema. As Marty puts it, “Cassavetes wiped away the old vocabulary of doing films and exemplified independence in doing what he felt and what was in his heart, always looking for some kind of truth, maybe even a revelation”. He refers to him as “fearless renegade that embodied the emergence of a new school of guerrilla filmmaking in NY”.

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie follows a charming nightclub owner who runs into trouble with some local loan sharks after falling into debt in one of his degenerate gambling sprees. As is the case with the rest of his work, Chinese Bookie puts us in the shoes of a dysfunctional character embroiled in an almost unbearable scenario. Similarly to Scorsese, Cassavetes’ characters were deliberately problematic, morally ambiguous and deeply flawed, but also infinitely relatable, in an attempt to force the viewers to, if not pity, at least sympathize with them.

Whatever happened to the political thriller?

Once one of the most reliable sources of smart, gripping, and socially-engaged entertainment (think of Alan J. Pakula’s work in the ‘70s), the genre has slowly faded away, being left behind by a changing industry that’s no longer invested in making mainstream movies geared toward adults.

So for those us fans of the political thriller, all that’s left to do is reminisce about the genre’s golden years, especially the less celebrated ones, those gems neglected by the canon, the great movies in need of rediscovery – something this list can hopefully help achieve.

10. The Day of the Jackal (1973)

One of the most fascinating aspects of the political thriller as a genre is how it serves as a very accurate barometer of the paranoias of an era – one need only take a look at the political thrillers of each decade to realize what were the main concerns of the time.

“The Day of the Jackal” is the direct product of one of the great collective traumas of the ‘60s: the epidemic of assassinations. After a decade that saw so many of its most prominent figures gunned down in public by assassins, it was only natural that the concept of assassinations would become part of the collective subconscious – something this movie addressed better than any other, before or since.

It’s a marvelous procedural, one of the purest ever made, in the sense that it’s ruthlessly devoted to its own internal mechanics and everything else is superfluous. So what it lacks in character development, it more than makes up for in extensive detail into the process of an assassination, following every single step, from planning to execution – all delivered via incredibly precise, hall-of-fame editing.

9. Foreign Correspondent (1940)

Perhaps the greatest examples of the political thriller as a reflection of troubled times are the stealth war propaganda movies of the late 1930s and early 1940s – ostensibly made as regular commercial pictures, but with the sole purpose of encouraging the war effort.

One of the best of the bunch is Alfred Hitchcocks’s “Foreign Correspondent,” his second American feature and one that actually predates the United States’s involvelment in World War II. Which is maybe why this movie is such a standout in comparison to most other narrative war propaganda films, because it was less bound by the necessity to pontificate at all times and instead focuses primarily on functioning as a piece of cinema.

There’s no shortage of patriotic speeches here to be sure, but “Foreign Correspondent” works mainly as a pure thriller, featuring some of Hitch’s greatest ever set pieces – especially, of course, the climactic plane crash that was an absolute technical marvel for its time.

8. Missing (1982)

Greek filmmaker Costa-Gavras made one of the finest, most renowned political thrillers of all time with “Z” – the rare foreign film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, such was its worldwide critical adoration.

The closest he ever came to that level of widespread acclaim again was with “Missing,” another Oscar favorite that was also the winner of the Palme d’Or in Cannes – but though reception at the time of its release was effervescent, this movie, unlike “Z”, has not held on to its status as an essential classic, being relegated today to a place of relative cinematic obscurity.

The reasons for this may be that this is a far more conventional film, both narratively and formally: there are no traces here of the unusual structure of “Z” or its frantic editing rhythm. Intead, we get traditional, clearly defined character arcs and a far more restrained formal style. But “Missing” is every bit as involving and thematically rich as anything else Costa-Gavras has ever done – one of the most rigorous investigations of the Pinochet regime that cinema has ever produced.

7. Seven Days in May (1964)

John Frankenheimer is one of the most important founding fathers of the political thriller in cinema; it’s a genre that can be cleanly divided into before and after him.

Of course, Frankenheimer was far from the first filmmaker to mine urgent public matters as material for suspense pictures (as mentioned above, filmmakers like Hitchock were already doing it 20 years earlier), but his particular style came to define most of the stylistic tricks we now associate with the modern political thriller. Basically, his greatest efforts are influential to the point of ubiquity; it’s hard to imagine the celebrated paranoid thrillers of directors like Alan J. Pakula without him.

“Seven Days in May” gets somewhat overlooked due to the ubiquity of “The Manchurian Candidate,” but it’s every bit as impressive as a miracle of tone and aesthetics, functioning perfectly as a straight thriller (tense and propulsive) and as broad satire of the failure of democratic institutions. Also, it’s gorgeously lensed and composed, an endless treat to simply look at.

6. Spartan (2004)

There’s nothing quite like the lean, mean simplicity of a good David Mamet thriller – his best works on film, both as a writer/director and simply as a screenwriter, are the ones where his mastery of language is used in service of pure genre thrills.

Think of “The Untouchables” or “House of Games,” proudly pulpy material that’s absolutely perfect for Mamet’s particular vernacular; his expletive-ridden dialogue and mannered spoken rhythms always work best in an atmosphere of greater artifice.

“Spartan” is one of his very best in that regard: a deliriously entertaining thriller,  ingeniously plotted and exquisitely paced, with a terrific sense of information delivery of when to withhold and reveal – a key element in all of storytelling, but particularly essential in thrillers, and yet something very rarely achieved with the easiness of Mamet.

Perfectionist, slick, cerebral, visionary… Some would say he’s methodical to a fault, a certified workaholic whose films tread the narrow line between edgy pretentiousness and genius self-awareness. The jury is still out on him, but if there’s something certain with David Fincher is that with him you get the whole package, a thorough professional that’ll go the extra mile to put up the best movie he can possibly assemble and will never cater to anybody’s taste.

Fincher’s trajectory speaks for itself; a former visual effects producer who started out directing music videos and commercials before being forever worshipped for capturing the Millennials’ generational zeitgeist with a string of pop culture tentpoles (some of which have been painfully misunderstood at a thematic level by general audiences).

Fast forward to almost thirty years later, and Fincher might very well be the closest thing to a superstar we have left in the thriller genre today. Lately, he’s banked on his fame to branch out to television (Mindhunter) and artsy passion projects (Mank), but at his heart, David Fincher will always be remembered as one of the best to do it when it comes to nail-biting psychological thrillers. And as is the case with any worthy director to ever pick up a camera, his impressive body of work has been influenced by countless films that came before. With no further ado, let’s go through ten of Fincher’s all-time favorite thrillers.

1. All the President’s Men (1976)

During a press tour in 2008, Fincher published a handwritten note featuring twenty-six of his all-time favorite movies. The list still resurfaces from time to time, and one movie that made the cut was this riveting thriller by Alan Pakula. All the President’s Men chronicles the Washington Post’s heroic investigation into Watergate, where Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered a presidential scandal involving a whole array of higher-ups among the Nixon administration including the man himself.

Above all, what ties President’s Men to Zodiac and the rest of Fincher’s work is the unflinching search for truth that preoccupies and consumes its characters. Not only both movies share a similar period setting, but they weave through a gargantuan set of clues, moving pieces and detective work with surgical precision. Fincher loved President’s Men to the point that he reached out to David Shire, the composer for the movie, to score Zodiac.

During an interview, Fincher lamented that “there’s no time for character in movies anymore” with today’s movies sacrificing characterization in favor of plot development and pace. As a counter, he cited President’s Men as a script where “everything is character” and an example where even “five pages of two people in a car sipping coffee can offer a fascinating power dynamic where I can learn something about them”.

2. Incendies (2010)

If you’re about to watch any of David Fincher’s thrillers, chances are it’s going to come with a healthy dose of nihilism. If there’s something that’s rather not negotiable when it comes to his films, it’s that Fincher is not a guy willing to bow down to his audience to try to please it. Happy resolutions and satisfying endings are something you shouldn’t hold out for in a director whose films are not for the faint of heart.

Similarly, Incendies is a movie that hits you like a freight train, an unflinching story about hate, civil war and broken families that’s especially unforgettable if you watch it going blind. When it comes to Denis Villeneuve everyone’s seen his latest hits, but this early French-speaking masterpiece is wrongly overlooked despite being his finest movie yet.

Incendies has a multilayered narrative with two main storylines, one follows a pair of twins embarking on a revelatory journey through the Middle East as they uncover their family roots, while the second recounts their late mother’s life and hardships through a set of flashbacks. Both eventually come together in a gut-wrenching climax that will stay with you long after you’ve finished with the movie.

3. Chinatown (1974)

Nowadays, Fincher is deservedly hailed as the king of cynics given a lengthy body of work drenched in themes like narcissism, self-hatred, obsession and social alienation. But in the Hall of Fame of downer cinema, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more demoralizing study on the rotten corruption festering society than this Polanski’s classic.

During a recent interview, Fincher claimed he was plotting to make a limited series that stands as “sort of a prequel” to Chinatown and would revisit Jake Gittes’ past. As it happens, Fincher is a big fan of the film, not only featuring it among his top 26 of all time but also sitting down with Robert Towne (Chinatown’s writer) to talk about it in a commentary track for its new Blu-Ray release.

In their conversation, Fincher praised the visual motifs as being “unbelievably relentless and perfectly formulated”, admiring the shot structure and set design of the movie. He also gave props to the powerful script and most of the performances from Dunaway’s captivating presence as a ‘woman of mystery’ to Jack Nicholson’s in what he considers to be his defining role.

4. Caché (2005)

Movies like Fight Club became such a cultural hit at the turn of the millennium in no small part because they reflected a lot of the problems that’d been troubling a whole generation. Throughout the decades, countless fans have regrettably taken Fight Club quite literally, misjudging it as an endorsement for nihilist anarchism, anti-consumerism and unchecked uber-masculinity. Even though the movie was conceived as a slick satire to all of those principles, there’s no denying that it resonated with a big chunk of audiences by bringing up uncomfortable truths about contemporary urban malaise.

Caché is similar to Fight Club in that way, masking itself as a conventional, gritty thriller before showing its true colors as an iconoclastic tale of class warfare, guilt and race privilege. The movie follows a bourgeois middle-aged couple who’s suddenly triggered by uninvited videotape recordings of themselves planted in their front porch.

Just as Fincher’s cult classic, this movie by Michael Haneke is one begging for repeated viewings, one that can be appreciated at a surface level, but which is better enjoyed by peeling off its layered symbolism.

5. Rear Window (1954)

There’s no shortage of Hitchcock’s blueprint among David Fincher’s oeuvre. Take for example The Game, the film where he put his own twisted spin on A Christmas Carol, and one that undeniably owes a thing or two to Hitchcock’s Vertigo (including its San Francisco setting). It should come as no surprise that one generational talent was inspired by another, especially two that converge so much in style like Fincher and Hitchcock.

But if there’s one movie from the master of suspense that struck a chord with Fincher, that is Rear Window, his quintessential mystery thriller starring James Stewart as a handicapped photographer who unwittingly stumbles upon a murder.

During an interview, Fincher reminisced on the profound effect the movie had on him when he first watched it at the age of 9 with his father. He particularly pointed out the moment where he realized the dark deed done by the film’s murderer. As he puts it, “despite not knowing these people and what was going on, I was being led to this conclusion and thinking the same horrible thought that everyone else was thinking. Except I’m 9!”. If there were any doubts left about Fincher’s deep admiration for Rear Window, he would pay Hitchcock’s classic a tribute with his own claustrophobic domestic thriller in Panic Room.

The references to cinema of days past are never subtle when it comes to Quentin Tarantino’s filmography. From the very beginning of his career, he set out to pay tribute to and make art just like his heroes, ranging across all eras of the industry. However, there’s one specific era, the time in which his love for cinema was ignited as a child, that most of his passion stems from; the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

It’s just that type of nostalgia that makes his latest film, Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood, so personal, and ergo, so reference filled. Set in 1969 on the advent of the shocking Manson Tate/La Bianca murders, the film follows Rick Dalton (Leonard DiCaprio), a once great T.V. Cowboy struggling to fit in with the ever evolving counterculture, and his best friend by way of stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), the effortlessly cool war hero with intriguingly dark secrets. They fit into a world of real industry icons on both sides of the culture divide in this lovingly recreated swinging Hollywood, coming across the likes of Roman Polanski (Rafał Zawierucha), Charles Manson (Damon Herriman) and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie).

Because of film industry setting, Tarantino carefully selected films from the era that his fictional characters could feasibly have starred in or seen, and uses them to build the world around them. Now, with the recently published novelisation of the film, a greater insight into the films that made Rick, Cliff and this world has been granted, adding to ones mentioned by Tarantino at the time of OUATIH’s release. Below are just a handful of the cinematic jigsaw puzzle pieces that made the film the 60’s cinema lover’s dream that it is.

1. The Born Losers (1967)

Eagle-eyed viewers will have noticed from the very first press shots of the film that Booth, Rick’s best friend and stunt double, wears a particularly interesting and appropriate denim jacket and black t-shirt combination. As stated in the novelisation, it’s the wardrobe for Billy Jack, the central character in Tom Laughlin’s 1967’s outlaw film The Born Losers. And just like the story states, if Cliff were a real stuntman at the time, there is no doubt he’d have worked on that film and kept the clothes.

Charming Vietnam war veteran Billy Jack (Laughlin), a half American half Indian, has taken to a life of loneliness and occasional vigilantism. However, when a deadly biker gang ride through a small California beach town, he sets into action to prevent them terrorising the locals.

Already, the central character is Cliff Booth all over. Laughlin plays the role without bravado, letting his charm simply be a by product as he rather violently and unapologetically gains justice. Scenes of him fighting the gang members so viscerally echo OUATIH moments in which Booth does the same to the Manson family, that what Tarantino writes in the novel feels very relevant; not only did the stuntman work on the film, but he remained good friends with Laughlin. A lot of the former’s personality comes through the film, and becomes an increasingly obvious inspiration for Booth and the type of films he would have conceivably worked on, creating deeper layers of understanding for the character through a real, cinematic language.

While Booth was inspired by many real stuntmen of the era, most notably using Burt Reynolds and his close friend and stunt double Hal Needham as a model for Rick and Cliff, both on and off screen, he seems far closer to Laughlin. With the similar Vietnam war veteran angle, he’s poised as somewhat of an onlooker to the film industry, not having fully devoted his career to it like the people surrounding him. Similarly, Laughlin would venture in and out of Hollywood, and just like Cliff, never really figured out his place within the changing tide of tinseltown.

2. Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (1970)

Though released a year after OUATIH is set, and the fact there are plenty of other objectively better counterculture films from the era, this gonzo Russ Meyer directed trip is one of the absolute essential films in capturing the youth spirit of the late 60’s. From the free love to the insanely campy performances to the ritualistic drug use, Meyer and co-writer Roger Ebert worked to ‘damn the man’ in more ways than one, and crafted many party scenes and plot elements that Tarantino would use as a touchstone some 50 years later.

In an effort to secure a promised inheritance for their front-woman, hip rock group The Kelly Affair head to L.A.. Though they find instant success upon arrival, heartbreak, melodrama and even violence are just around the corner for Kelly (Dolly Read), Casey (Cynthia Meyers) and Petronella (Marcia McBroom).

Incredibly controversial at the time of release due to it’s sexual content, the party film has become a staple of cult classic cinema in the years since. It’s everything the youth at the time believed in; drugs, rock n roll, sex, and disillusionment with Hollywood, which is were the film dovetails well with OUATIH. Aside from the style, music and party scenes being a clear influence on the film (just compare it to the Playboy Mansion scene), Beyond is so heavily layered with biting satire of Hollywood that it demonstrates Cliff and Rick’s own struggles with the industry, albeit from a different perspective.

All of this culminates in what is possibly the most related scene, in which screenwriter Roger Ebert cheekily penned in a mass murder sequence that’s all too eerily similar to the Tate/La Bianca murders. At his Hollywood Hills home, famous record producer Z-Man Barzell (John LaZar) hosts a ritualistic drug fuelled night that results in him going on a murderous rampage and brutally killing some of the guests. It effectively tapped on the paranoia of the real murders of the time, adding to the mystic of the film. Tarantino uses this pulped up version of the event to his advantage for OUATIH’s final scene, similarly rewriting history, albeit in a much more violent fashion.

3. Gas-s-s-s! (1970)

“Are you now or have you ever been a member of any organisation that advocates the violent overthrow of the government of the United States of America?”. “Yes… the Paul Revere & The Raiders Fan Club”. This kind of sharp political satire was oozing out of the counterculture at this time, especially through hippie cinema. This Roger Corman directed romp will be instantly recognisable to fans of OUATIH’s soundtrack with the use of a song from the film, but it has much more relevance to Tarantino’s latest than meets the ears.

After a deadly gas explodes across the globe, everyone over the age of 25 instantly dies, leaving the hippy youth to fend for themselves. Two teens in particular, Coel (Robert Corff) and Cilla (Elaine Giftos), navigate the desert in search of allies and supplies, and come across increasingly wackier scenarios. Expect car stealing cowboys, golf playing biker gangs and Edgar Allan Poe.

If there’s one film that audience’s can imagine Rick Dalton avoiding, it’s most definitely this one. It represents everything behind his now famous quote near the beginning of the film – “Fuckin’ hippie motherfuckers”. It’s send up of authority and willingness to let these ‘hippie motherfuckers’ take over is key in understanding Dalton’s distant for them, as it’s just further proof that his former T.V. cowboy fame is fading faster and faster in favour of this new, more youthful approach. The idea that these androgynous long hairs, the total opposite of his clean cut, macho ideal take control in the dream world of this film, is exactly what Dalton didn’t want.

The one scene that seals this is a shootout between Coel and the cowboys that he and Cilla meet in the desert, in which they accompany every shot at each other by shouting the name of a famous film or T.V. cowboy. Commenting on the blurred lines between the fantasied violence and the real, it’s all too appropriate to imagine Rick’s name thrown in among the rest.

The political satire Corman weaves through the film is so overt that it’s hard to believe there were any fans of the old Hollywood left at this point. With this being released a year after the Manson murders, and the Vietnam war raging even more, it’s a perfect snapshot of the culture war that Tarantino so dutifully recreates.

4. The Wrecking Crew (1968)

Though it can be argued that Sharon Tate doesn’t get enough screen time in OUATIH, especially compared to her fictional counterparts, the scene in which she cautiously enters a movie theatre to see her latest film on the big screen is pure cinematic joy. As Tarantino intended, it preserves the memory of her in a good light, as a rising ingenue as opposed to murder victim. Though the director has made his distaste for this film clear, and even going as far as to add in the film’s novelisation how much Cliff hates it too, it’s another key puzzle piece for this world.

The fourth in the Matt Helm series of comedy spy films, the titular hero played by ‘king of cool’ Dean Martin is sent on a mission to prevent an evil count (Nigel Green) from destabilising global financial stability. Along the way he teams up with Frey Carlson (Sharon Tate), and the duo travel across the globe before battling the mastermind and his accomplices, Wen Yu Rang (Nancy Kwan) and Linka (Elke Sommer).

Not much more than the lighthearted, pulpy James Bond rip off it was intended to be, this product of spy-mania was even a relic by the time of it’s release in 1968. Being lead by an actor cut from the same cloth as Old Hollywood staples such as Rick Dalton, it’s attempts to be hip this late into the counterculture movement fall woefully flat. However, in that, it makes for a great companion piece to OUATIH in demonstrating how Hollywood was shifting at the time.

Tarantino even goes as far as to show Sharon having flashbacks to her fond memories of stunt training for the film with none other than Bruce Lee, who of course made a memorable and now controversial appearance in the film. Keeping these moments, in which Robbie portrays Sharon as opposed to stock footage from The Wrecking Crew that she is seen watching, short and sweet helps in using this film as a great jumping off point for understanding her as a character within Tarantino’s fictionalised world. Mixing Robbie’s Tate in with the real, albeit briefly, so effectively places his film in reality that it’s impossible not be engrossed.

5. Gunman’s Walk (1958)

In one of the many inspirations that formed DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton, Tab Hunter in this film, as the dashing yet conflicted cowboy Ed Hackett, can arguably be considered chief among them. Displaying serious acting chops in what is really quite a brilliant screenplay for a western of this era, the connections between Hunter’s misunderstood anti hero are all too clear to connect with Dalton in his fictitious show Bounty Law, and later roles in Spaghetti Westerns.

The two sons of Lee Hackett (Van Heflin), Davy (James Darren) and Ed (Tab Hunter), land in a Shakespearian feud as the half French/half Sioux love interest Cecily (Kathryn Grant) comes between them. After a fierce competition between Ed and Cecily’s brother Paul (Bert Convy), Ed is under fire as his riding results in the death of one of Paul’s fellow Indians, and Ed’s prejudice, family and loyalty all come into question.

Just as with OUATIH’s Rick, the late 50’s were Hunter’s golden era. Known as a clean-cut cowboy, he was somewhat of a Hollywood heartthrob who didn’t mind being typecast. After all, with both actors, it was how they made their fame. However, as OUATIH makes it clear, that high doesn’t last forever, with Dalton following in Hunter’s footsteps and relocating to Europe to star in Italian westerns by the end of the 60’s in a risky move to reignite their careers. What makes Gunman’s Walk so special, and more in line with Tarantino’s latest, is it’s surprising subversion of the western genre and how it echoes similar cultural tensions to ones that would be depicted in the film.

Most of our time with Dalton is spent seeing him come to terms with playing ‘the heavy’ on Western T.V. show pilot Lancer, in what is implied to be part of a string of similar roles as his heroic star fades. Though Hunter’s Ed Hackett is the lead of Gunman’s Walk and still a heartthrob, his evil actions here essentially make him ‘the heavy’ of the film, and put his star status at the time in an interesting context. Additionally, the distain he holds for the native Indian’s echo similar racial tensions that would occur through the majority of the next decade, and hint at Dalton’s prejudices in the culture war between he and the hippies of 1969.

The 1970s were a golden age for the Hollywood thriller. In 1968, the MPAA film rating system replaced the Hays Code of self-censorship, allowing for a greater degree of sex and violence to be depicted on screen. Similar restrictions were relaxed by the British Board of Film Censors across the pond, and in both countries a young, new generation of filmmakers was being given a chance to make movies. The fallout from Watergate struck a mood of paranoia that informed some of the most celebrated thrillers of the decade, such as “The Conversation,” (1974), “The Parallax View” (1974), and “All the President’s Men” (1976). “The French Connection” (1971), “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” (1974), and “Three Days of the Condor” (1975) are other hallmarks of the period.

In a decade that produced so many classic thrillers, there are bound to be some great suspense films that are overlooked. These are 10 thrillers that were either overlooked upon their release or, for one reason or another, remain underrated today.

1. Marathon Man (1976)

“Marathon Man” begins with a road rage altercation between a Yiddish-speaking Jew and an antisemtic, German-speaking motorist that turns fatal and sets up a key theme of the film: reckoning with history and the not-so-distant past of World War II. Based on a novel of the same name, “Marathon Man” stars Dustin Hoffman as Thomas “Babe” Levy, an everyman PhD student and runner who becomes embroiled in a conspiracy involving quasi-government agents and an infamous Nazi war criminal, Christian Szell, portrayed by Laurence Olivier, who must travel to the United States to collect his stolen diamonds. The film is set in the paranoid, hostile New York of “Taxi Driver” (1976”) and “Death Wish” (1974), and features scenes of extreme violence juxtaposed by the moral ambivalence of do-nothing onlookers.

While the plot of “Marathon Man” is fantastical and not without holes, the film works scene for scene, and features some of the most thrilling, gut-wrenching scenes of the thriller genre. One of the most memorable sequences in the film features the war criminal Szell pacing through Manhattan’s heavily Jewish Diamond District, becoming increasingly paranoid as he is slowly recognized by Holocaust survivors who, unlike other extras in the film, are not afraid to shout at evil when they see it. While Hoffman’s Babe begins the film as a hapless innocent, he grows through direct and decisive action. By the time he is face to face with evil he, like other survivors in the film, knows what to do — confront it head on, with the intensity of a marathon runner.

Though “Marathon Man” was successful upon its release, the film was largely ignored by the Academy Awards, save for a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Olivier. The film has grown in notoriety in recent years, and in 2001 was included in AFI’s 100 Years…100 Thrills list.

2. The Silent Partner (1978)

“The Silent Partner” is about a bank teller who, in anticipation of a robbery, skims $50,000 from a bank deposit — effectively cheating the eventual robber of his good fortune. When the robbery goes down and the load is light, the bank robber makes the teller for the one with his loot, setting off a cat-and-mouse game between a professional criminal and an office worker who may have a little more up his sleeve than he lets on.

The bank teller and “silent partner” of the film’s title is played by Elliot Gould, who, with a wry, unassuming nature, lets the opening premise of the movie unfold with minimal dialogue. While Gould may fancy himself the smooth criminal, he has found his match in Christopher Plummer, who plays the bank robber seeking to recoup the fifty grand. Where Gould is cool, Plummer is chilling, bordering on the psychotic. The interplay between the two leads develops through a complicated, intelligent plot that includes a romance between Gould’s teller and a coworker played by Susannah York. The film also features beautiful shots of Toronto landmarks, a score by Oscar Peterson, and a young John Candy.

Produced under Canada’s “Capital Cost Allowance” program — a tax incentive program that allowed investors to deduct 100% of their investment in a film, regardless of (and often at cross purposes with) a film’s success — “The Silent Partner” did little business in the United States upon its release, and remains in relative obscurity today.

3. The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

“The Friends of Eddie Coyle” tells the story of Eddie Coyle (Robert Mitchum), a weary, over-the-hill gunrunner who must rethink his life and loyalties as he weighs the prospect of snitching on his “friends” against several years of jail time in a New Hampshire prison. Through a succession of sit-downs and meetings, Coyle and his associates barter for information, guns, and nothing less than their own lives.

Unlike other flashier, romanticized gangster films of the era, “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” is told with a realism that reveals the loneliness, ugliness, and fear at the heart of the hard-living characters that populate the lower rungs of the criminal underworld. Most of the film takes place in broad daylight, set amongst the blight and decay of gritty 1970s Boston.

“The Friends of Eddie Coyle” has the melancholy of an art film, and a kinetic tension that hangs on every word of dialogue. While director Peter Yates’ prior two crime films, “Bullitt” (1968) and “Robbery” (1967) feature high-octane car chases and shootouts, only a few gunshots are fired in “The Friends of Eddie Coyle.” But while there is little over-the-top action, the threat of violence looms throughout, paced by the languid speech of Robert Mitchum in one of the best performances of his career. The film also features a bank robbery sequence and Robert Boyle as an unflinching bartender and hitman.

4. Black Sunday (1977)

Directed by John Frankenheimer and produced by Robert Evans, “Black Sunday” is a political thriller centered on the terrorist plot to detonate a blimp full of explosives at Super Bowl X. The plot is orchestrated out by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, whose real-life massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich served as an inspiration for the story.

The film centers on femme fatale Palestinian terrorist Dahlia Iyad (Marthe Keller) and the PTSD-suffering blimp pilot (Bruce Dern) who she seduces into carrying out the attack. The pilot, Captain Michael Lander, was tortured for years as a POW in the Vietnam War, and can sympathize with Iyad in her hatred of American imperialism. As Iyad and Lander plan their attack, they are tracked by a team of FBI agents, leading to a number of memorable action sequences across a variety of globetrotting locations.

The film culminates in one of the most grandiose action sequences of the era, involving a helicopter-blimp chase over a crowd of tens of thousands spectators. Aided by a tense John Williams score that helps keep the film on a tight pace, “Black Sunday” is a solid thriller that seriously engages with the politics of the era.

5. The Boys from Brazil (1978)

Based on a novel of the same name, “The Boys from Brazil” follows aging Nazi hunter Ezra Leiberman (Laurence Olivier) around the world as he slowly uncovers a global plot set forth by Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele (Gregory Peck, playing wonderfully against type) to resurrect the Third Reich. The main, mysterious element of Mengele’s plan is the assassination of 94 men, mostly civil service workers around retirement age and seemingly innocuous, across nine different countries. Through Lieberman, the audience learns of even more similarities among the targets — many were abusive or neglectful towards their wives, and all have remarkably similar-looking sons, whose jet-black hair, icy blue eyes, and cold demeanor bear an uncanny resemblance to someone quite familiar to the Nazi hunter….

“The Boys from Brazil” fantastically merges elements of thriller and science fiction, and poses philosophical questions about the morality of genetic engineering and the nature of evil. And while the film’s story was criticized as “dumb” and “far-fetched” upon its release, recent events — including developments in reproductive cloning and the rise in right-wing nationalism in Europe — make “The Boys from Brazil” more relevant than ever. The film garnered three Academy Award nominations, including a nomination for Best Actor for Laurence Olivier.

After discussing a bunch of Edgar Wright recommendations in a few different genres, we now move away from genres with this list and instead discuss some recommendations that came out of the Brit’s home country.

British cinema is often compared to that of the US, probably since big British properties like Harry Potter and James Bond are co-produced and tend to have some US values slipping in. Even so, British films have a rich variety of unique characteristics, maybe most obviously noticeable in British humour. More so, the UK has given us plenty of auteurs who are celebrated around the world for their body of work. Think Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, and Michael Powell. Or makers still working like Ridley Scott, Mike Leigh, and Steve McQueen.

Wright always seems to be proud of his country’s film history and deservingly so. With this list, we want to celebrate some of these British films, some popular and some underrated. Without further ado, here are 10 great British films recommended by Edgar Wright.

1. Sexy Beast (2000)

Of course this has a place on Wright’s 1000 favourite films list, but before that list came to light, this film was already mentioned by Wright on an earlier occasion as one of his favourite British films from the past 25 years. Although that occasion was more than a decade ago, we still want to talk about “Sexy Beast” under the assumption his opinion of the film hasn’t changed. Gal, retired from a life as a gangster, now lives a good life with his wife Deedee in his house in Spain. As one day he’s sunbathing next to his pool, a boulder comes racing down a hill, barely missing him. Soon, this boulder that caused a near-death experience gets replaced for another boulder, this time in the form of Don Logan. Don is an old ‘friend’ wanting Gal back for one more job, but Gal enjoys his retired life and declines the offer. Too bad for Gal, Don doesn’t take no for an answer.

Jonathan Glazer is of course best known for his film “Under the Skin,” but “Sexy Beast,” although totally different, is just as good or arguably even better. Of course we can’t dismiss his film “Birth” either, but this entry is reserved for “Sexy Beast,” and when talking about “Sexy Beast,” of course that killer performance from Ben Kingsley as the despicable Don can’t go unmentioned.

2. The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

In a ‘Phantom of the Paradise’ fashion, a madman is on the loose, hiding out mostly in his room playing the organ. In between his musical outbursts, he plots to murder doctors, each in a gruesome way that represents one of the nine Biblical plagues. Detectives on the case are stumped at first, but soon discover that each of the victims assisted Dr. Vesalius on an unsuccessful operation involving the wife of organist Dr. Phibes. But Dr. Phibes couldn’t be the killer, since he was killed in a car crash upon learning of his wife’s death.

What Ben Kingsley is for Sexy Beast, Vincent Price is for Dr. Phibes. His brilliant portrayal of this spite-filled madman is one to admire. Price is a joy to watch, even though he murders doctors in the most sadistic, gruesome ways that could as well be in a “Saw” movie. Aside from Phibes and his killings, there’s plenty more to love, especially the stylized look of it all.

3. Brief Encounter (1945)

We mentioned him in the intro of this article already, but of course we have to dedicate an entry to the most influential Sir David Lean. Lean originally started out as a movie editor, which is a big part of why he became such an influential filmmaker, since even when making the shift to directing, he still kept inventing new editing techniques for his epic films.

“Brief Encounter” is not one of his three-hour-long epics, but still one of his best films. The film is an intimate story of love, once voted to be the best romantic film of all time. The story follows Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) and Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard), who meet at a railway station. Both are married and have children, but that doesn’t stop them from gradually falling in love. Each Thursday they meet and with each Thursday passing they feel closer to each other, but simultaneously realize they don’t have any future.

“Brief Encounter” is a first hand witness of the experience of falling in love. It being named the best romantic film by over a hundred industry professionals (a group including Edgar Wright) should be enough reason to pique your interest if you haven’t watched it already.

4. The Hunger (1983)

Miriam Blaylock (Catherine Deneuve) is a vampire who has already lived for thousands of years. During her time alive, she had many mortal lovers, who she injected with her blood to make them live for centuries. However, after these centuries their lives come to a sudden end as they start aging rapidly. This is also the case for Miriam’s latest love, John (David Bowie). Together they seek help from a scientist, Sarah (Susan Sarandon), who claims to have discovered the secret to eternal youth. As this claim turns out to be false, Miriam ends up seducing Sarah, while John is declining fast.

Tony Scott’s feature debut is a film nothing like his later work. While known for being an action director, in his first attempt at making a movie he already proved he could do much more than just action. The film is a dramatic and horrific look at the curse that is death, or rather the curse that is not being able to die. He does this by crafting an incredibly stylized tale of a love triangle. These three leads brilliantly portray their life-obsessed characters and make a good movie into a great one.

5. The Italian Job (1969)

Here we have a title more people will know as F. Gary Gray’s “Ocean’s Eleven meets Fast and the Furious.” Although that remake is quite fun, we believe the original British film is the superior one.

Sir Michael Caine plays Charlie, fresh out of prison and ready for a big job. He hears from a job involving stealing four million dollars’ worth of gold in Italy; a job that a friend unsuccessfully attempted. With his crew assembled he comes up with a plan to shut down all traffic in Turin, Italy in order to make it a hard task for the authorities to catch them. Using three Minis as getaway vehicles, they have the advantage, since the cars are small enough to get through many obstacles.

Edgar Wright praised the film on multiple occasions; he recommended it as a double bill with “The Hot Rock” (1972) and even named it as a source of inspiration for “Baby Driver.” He notes that just like in “Baby Driver,” the chases in “The Italian Job” are great practical moments, but eventually it’s the characters in the center of all that count. He especially had high praise for the bold cliffhanger ending that “The Italian Job” is known for.

Lists are for groceries. At least, that’s what Denis Villeneuve stated during an interview with the New York Times in which he was prompted to name his favorite movies of the century. The French-Canadian director explained that he’s decided not to judge films but to champion them instead, and one can’t fault him for his sentiment. But when talking about the leading man in the sci-fi genre, a name that has experienced a meteoric rise in the past decade and one of the brightest talents working today, you can hardly fault people for wanting to pick his brain either.

To talk about Villeneuve is to talk about a director with an impeccable career trajectory, an auteur whose unique vision has not only endured the unrelenting machine of Hollywood but is thriving in it with the perfect storm of critical darlings and pop culture tentpoles. Long before A-list actors flocked their way to join each of his new projects, Villeneuve burst onto scene in Canada with hard-hitting thrillers like Incendies and Polytechnique. He followed up his early success by trying his luck in Hollywood with two hard-boiled dramas in Prisoners and Enemy before taking the world by storm with a string of all-time sci-fi epics in Arrival and Blade Runner 2049.

With Dune looming in the horizon and finally finding its way to theaters this upcoming fall, anticipation is off the charts for a movie that right now stands as the best hope to revitalize a watered-down genre. As we count down the weeks for its release, there’s no better time than now to recollect ten of Villeneuve’s favorite movies, listing both those that served as inspiration for his own or, in the case of Blade Runner, directly reshaped his career.

1. Under the Skin (2013)

In a decade full of polarizing sci-fi flicks, this one takes the cake. Under the Skin’s glacial pace and bold narrative alienated a big chunk of the general audience upon release, but time has been kind to it and the movie has experienced a newly found appreciation throughout the years. A lot has been said about its unsettling atmosphere, intriguing plot and stunning visuals, but at its heart, Under the Skin is a straightforward slasher with a cool narrative twist where the hunter becomes the hunted.

The movie follows Scarlett Johansson’s character, an alien wandering through Earth disguised as a beautiful human female. She is a stone-cold predator, using her looks to prowl and seduce unsuspecting men, luring them into an alien nest where they serve as meat for her species. What starts as an emotionally distant observation of humanity, eventually champions empathy and compassion as the hunter takes pity on her prey and forgoes her mission.

Villeneuve is no stranger to thought-provoking movies involving extraterrestrial visitors, and cited Jonathan Glazer’s movie among his favorites of the 21st century during a survey for the New York Times, specifically mentioning the scene where Scarlett enters a pool of darkness as the moment that stayed with him the most.

2. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

In an interview for the Toronto Film Critics Association, Villeneuve admitted that his first ‘cinematic crush’ came with the films of Steven Spielberg, where he first recognized the mark of an artist and a strong storyteller. From Jaws to E.T., Spielberg provided some of the ‘big artistic shocks’ of his life, and he recalls suddenly being attracted to his movies as a kid and discovering the essence and job of a director. Not only that, but the casting of French director François Truffaut in Close Encounters introduced him to the wonders of the French New Wave, one of Villeneuve’s biggest cinematic influences.

Spielberg’s classic follows an ordinary family man from Indiana who stumbles upon an UFO, changing his life forever. When talking about Close Encounters it’s impossible not to think of Villeneuve’s own Arrival, a movie that’s undeniably soaked with Spielberg’s blueprint and which also presents a similar ‘first contact’ scenario as the film that kickstarted the whole subgenre.

The 40th anniversary release for the movie is preceded by a documentary where Villeneuve once again expressed his love for the sci-fi epic, suggesting that it is a personal favorite beyond his obvious fascination with the material. He suggests that the movie is not only about man’s insatiable curiosity and the terrorizing burden of enlightenment, but also about filmmaking itself.

3. Upstream Color (2013)

Anyone acquainted with Shane Carruth will know by now that trying to come up with a proper synopsis to any of his films is a futile exercise doomed to fail, and one that misses their whole point. If anything, his movies seem to be in open rebellion with conventional storytelling, in the sense that you’re better off letting the whole experience wash over you as they work far better as the sum of its parts than as a collection of individual scenes.

Primer, his cerebral debut, proved to be a head-scratcher for the ages, exploring the ethical ramifications that come with discovering (and exploiting) time-travel. Carruth doubled down on his elliptical storytelling in Upstream Color, but whereas in his first movie the character dynamics serve the plot, this time around the sci-fi elements take a backseat to the main romance.

The story follows Kris and Jeff, two former victims to a complex money scheme that employed parasitic bugs that, if ingested, makes its users highly susceptible to hypnotic suggestion. Their past and memories blur together, but these two martyrs find solace in each other’s company. Upstream Color may be just as powerful as an obtuse abstraction, but it also proved to be a poignant exploration on free will, self-consciousness, faith and bonding over suppressed trauma.

4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

What can be said about 2001 that hasn’t been said a billion times before? Any praise is redundant when talking about one of the most influential and celebrated films of all time. You could break down a whole set of reasons why, all these decades later, we still religiously come back and revisit Kubrick’s magnum opus. Generation upon generation still gazes in disbelief at the star gate sequence, filled with wonder at the first sight of Discovery One as it slowly drifts through space to the tunes of Strauss’ Blue Danube.

During a screening of 2001’s latest restoration, Villeneuve admitted that his own foray into science fiction was triggered by his deep admiration for the space epic. As he recalls, he first caught glimpses of the film from the staircase of his home as a kid. It wouldn’t be until a couple of years later that he’d watch the entire film on television, feeling struck by “the sense of vertigo that he managed to create”.

It comes as no surprise that a director like Villeneuve, who relies so heavily on visual storytelling to convey emotion, found this almost dialogue-free story as a boundless source of inspiration, one that could easily be traced back to two of his directorial efforts in Arrival and Blade Runner 2049.

5. Children of Men (2006)

During the early stages of his career, Villeneuve repeatedly explored themes of hope, faith and empathy in the face of overwhelming misery and despair. From his bleak depiction of a real-life college shooting in Polytechnique, the abduction of two young girls in Prisoners and the horrors of civil war and child soldiers in the Middle East in Incendies, Villeneuve has never shied away from reminding us the ugly truths of life.

If you’re looking for another uncompromising look at humanity that covers those very same themes with a similar nihilist flair, look no further than to Alfonso Cuarón’s modern masterpiece. The movie, which Villeneuve cited as one of his favorites of the 21st century during a survey for the New York Times, paints a chaotic world in a near-future in which humans can no longer procreate, and in which warmongering and immigrant vilification has pushed society to the brink of collapse. The only hope in the fight for survival comes from a pair of unlikely heroes when a disillusioned bureaucrat agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea.

Continuing the series of great films recommended by Guillermo del Toro, today we’re taking a look at crime thrillers – a genre the filmmaker is about to work in for the first time with his upcoming “Nightmare Alley.”

It may seem like a sudden change of pace for a director better known for his fantasy and horror films, but as this list demonstrates, del Toro is no stranger to the genre – his knowledge about it and passion for it are well proven.

1. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

There’s no living filmmaker in the world who doesn’t owe a debt to Hitchcock; his imprint in filmmaking is so vast it’s impossible for anyone to escape his shadow. Yet even such a monumental director like him has hidden gems, which is no surprise considering how vast a career he had.

“Shadow of a Doubt,” despite being dubbed by the man himself as his favorite of his own movies and enjoying infinite adoration by critical bodies, still somewhat eludes a wider recognition as his more monolithic classics, such as “Vertigo” or “Psycho.” But regardless of that, it’s one of his very best, marrying his unparalleled formal mastery (this movie was a huge jump forward for him in that regard) and the layered psychological pathos that would define his more mature and haunting later work.

As del Toro defines it, “Shadow of a Doubt” is, “The true start of Hitchcock’s American narrative period and one of his most complex, personal films.”

2. The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

And speaking of monolithic filmmakers, who can escape the towering figure of Orson Welles?

One of the most pernicious and ridiculous film commonplaces is the idea that Welles only made one true masterpiece (you know the one) and spent the rest of his career languishing with one flawed or failed project after another. But the fact is Welles has a plethora of masterpieces under his belt, not the least of which is his exceptional noir “The Lady from Shanghai.”

As with everything else Welles ever directed, this film was ahead of its time; as avant-garde as a piece of supposedly mainstream art can get — the movie does have pretty clear narrative and traditional arcs, but those things subdued in favor of an onirical tone, elliptical pacing and most of all, a focus on fabulous imagery — the kind only Welles was capable of conjuring.

In del Toro’s words, “The Lady From Shanghai” is a “delirious, fever dream Noir. Barb-like images embed into your brain without the alibi of plot.”

3. Nightmare Alley (1947)

It’s probably safe to assume that whoever is reading this list is aware that del Toro is currently deep in post-production for his next feature, a remake of this classic 1947 noir – or rather, a new adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s novel.

Usually, remakes are reserved for either well-known ip or films that had good ideas but bad execution. Neither is the case for “Nightmare Alley,” a remarkably daring thriller for it’s time; sordid, violent, and featuring one of the first (and best) cases of subversion of a star’s image. Then primarily known for his swashbuckling heroes, Tyrone Powers gives his best performance ever as the morally bankrupt protagonist; a classically dubious noir character that the actor imbues with a terrific sense of malice and ruthlessness.

Unsurprisingly, del Toro has admitted in the past to being a fan of this film, calling it “truly bizarre and dark. Tod Browning-esque nightmare.” He made sure to highlight that “the book it’s based on is equally recommended” – a sign of things that were to come. Considering he already believes this to be a very good adaptation, one’s curiosity is thickened by what his take could be.

4. Un Flic (1972)

As many filmmakers with a predilection for a genre cinema, del Toro has professed a passion for the work of Jean Pierre Melville; not only for his most beloved classics like “Le Samourai” and “Army of Shadows,” but even for the lesser celebrated “Un Flic.”

Melville’s final movie plays like a greatest hits of the director, starring one of his most frequent collaborators, Alain Delon, and featuring all of his stylistic trademarks such as cool criminals; an existential underpinning; a gorgeously muted monochromatic color palette; and bravura sequences of silent set pieces (there’s a train heist here that is simply spectacular). For fans of said style, “Un Flic” is a balm; a supremely refined crime picture made by one of the genre’s greatest ever artisans.

5. Rolling Thunder (1977)

One of the nastiest, most underrated and overall best American crime movies of the ‘70s, “Rolling Thunder” is the perfect meeting of director John Flynn’s purely pulp exploitation sensibilities and screenwriter Paul Schrader’s serious studies of American male anxiety.

For most of its runtime, the movie functions as a sober, adult examination of a man’s struggle with PTSD and serves as an overall commentary of the Vietnam War’s effect in the collective american psyche – so, a classically Schrader-esque look into the dark depths of a broken man. Eventually, though, the film morphs into a no-nonsense revenge thriller, climaxing in a brutal shootout in Mexico that’s straight out of a grindhouse picture.

What’s most impressive about “Rolling Thunder” is that those disparate tones somehow work very well together, making for a film that’s both thought-provoking and adrenaline-inducing.

If there’s something that defines the Coen Brothers, it’s their range. No matter how hard you look, you will find no director working today capable of shifting through different genres, moods and styles quite like this Minnesotan duo. In an industry where almost every other auteur doubles down on their preferred genre to try to become a household name in a specific niche, the Coens are something of a rare breed, two mavericks who go against the tide and are not afraid to try their luck outside their comfort zone. In fact, their chameleonic body of work seems to deliberately defy any label, genre or trope.

Yes, for the most part they might be known for their cynical humor, oddball characters and quirky dialogue recurrently featured in the best of their dark comedies. But with that being said, the Coens have proven time and time again that they’re second to none when it comes to making thrillers. They showed great potential ever since they burst into scene with their electric debut, Blood Simple, a hard-boiled noir following a mysterious murder, and most recently with Miller’s Crossing, a sharp gangster epic set in the Prohibition Era. No Country for Old Men, widely considered to be one of their best films overall, happens to be one of the most acclaimed thrillers of the past twenty years.

As complete masters of their craft, throughout the years they have given flowers to films that had a significant influence in their own work. With no further ado, here are ten of his all-time favorites, recollected from decades’ worth of interviews with Joel and Ethan.

1. The Conformist (1970)

The Conformist is a cautionary tale of fascism and a poignant character study of a man’s fragile ego. Bertolucci’s political thriller follows Marcello Clerici, an errant boy for Mussollinni’s fascist regime who is tasked with murdering one former teacher that’s now a political dissident in France.

Far from being a sympathetic character, The Conformist weaves through Marcello’s early life in a series of flashbacks as we get a sense of how he became a man devoid of any personality and continuously obsessed with fitting into society. Ostracized and sexually molested as a kid, everything Marcello does in his adulthood, be it becoming a loyal fascist militant or marrying a young woman, comes not out of true conviction but as a futile attempt at feeling accepted and quieting his subconscious. But for all the money, status and class Marcello eventually acquires, he never finds fulfillment in his facade life.

Barry Sonnenfeld, a common collaborator with the Coens, recently said in a podcast interview Joel and Ethan would always watch The Conformist while preparing for their shoots. Not only is it breathtaking to look at, the movie perfectly depicts how ideological extremism traps vulnerable people the most, and how evil regimes are enabled by people with no principles.

2. The American Friend (1977)

Wim Wenders is easily one of the most celebrated German directors, bursting into scene with two spiritual masterpieces in Wings of Desire and Paris, Texas. Sadly, this gritty neo-noir that preceded both is often swept under the rug, when in reality it stands tall as one of his sharpest works.

The movie focuses on an American con artist (Dennis Hopper) who makes a living selling art forgeries in Germany. In Hamburg, he befriends a modest art picture framer who’s dying of cancer and is desperate to leave some extra inheritance to his family. In his anguish, the art framer takes up a job as a hit man for his new acquaintance, but things soon turn sour.

Barry Sonnenfeld, the cinematographer for the Coens’ Blood Simple, Raising Arizona and Miller’s Crossing, claims he first met Joel and Ethan at a party in 1982. As he recalls in an interview, “we got talking about how great the cinematography was in The American Friend”. Film critic Pauline Kael once referred to Wenders style as “poetic urban masochism”, and that statement rings true, especially with this movie. If there’s something consistent with the German auteur, it’s the way he uses space, city landscapes and nature to bring alive his stories, capturing the world around him in all its glory.

3. North by Northwest (1959)

When it comes to Hitchcock’s thrillers, North by Northwest is the whole package. The movie came at a point where the master of suspense was at the height of his powers, crammed between Vertigo and Psycho but emerging as one of his most entertaining and funniest ones to date. The story follows Roger Thornhill, a playful but naive ad executive who is falsely accused of being a foreign spy, triggering a cross-country chase full of twists, romance and Hitchcock’s signature razor-sharp tension.

The movie pokes a little fun at the Cold War’s spionage paranoia that was at its apex in the late 50’s, to the point that it’s been hailed as a better James Bond story than any Bond movie ever released. In any case, it is the quintessential example of Hitchcock’s strengths and range, full of iconic scenes like the crop duster chase sequence or the hilarious final train gag.

It should come as no surprise that this found its way into the Coens all-time favorite list. Be it Fargo, The Big Lebowski or The Man Who Wasn’t There, if there’s a recurrent narrative among their films, is that of an innocent bystander who finds himself entangled in a dangerous series of events and unwittingly gets into trouble. Surely enough, North by Northwest could easily be traced back to each one of their criminal comedies as the movie that kickstarted that whole trope.

4. Z (1969)

“Any similarity to actual persons or events is deliberate!” This political thriller by Costa Garvas is preceded by that incendiary opening line, an unsubtle reminder of the reality that it is trying to condemn on screen. When it comes to political activism in celluloid, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more thought-provoking and penetrating movie than Z.

Loosely based on the Greek Junta dictatorship that ran rampant during the 60’s, a decade that set new highs in anti-establishment sentiment and popular mistrust in governments, Z is a harsh reminder of the dangers of totalitarianism, corruption and oppression. The story opens with a prominent activist who is assassinated during a leftist peace demonstration. The right wing government tries to cover it up through a web of lies spread by their minions in the police and military forces. The hidden truth only comes to light after the main character and moral compass of the film, the local magistrate, acts as detective and slowly unravels the facts.

Z is an poignant indictment on a country that had lost its way, and a razor-sharp depiction on how easily those in power shield themselves behind rotten institutions.

5. The Night of the Hunter (1955)

One of the distinctive traits of the Coens is how embedded in American culture their films are, having explored most of its landscape and period eras throughout their careers. From their skewed depiction of California and the shady film industry to their chilly hometown of Minnesota, it’s impossible to understand their work without acknowledging their roots. But curiously enough, their most recurrent backdrop is the Deep South, with up to six of their films set in that region, including Blood Simple, No Country for Old Men or their Homeric musical, O Brother Where Art Thou.

Set in a small town in the Cotton Belt, Charles Laughton’s terrifying tale of greed and religious hypocrisy puts us in the shoes of Reverend Powell, a menacing ex-convict who marries a naive widow in order to obtain a big stash of money hidden by her late husband. The Coen Brothers have referenced Laughton’s classic in several of their own films. Leaning on the Everlasting Arms is used both in The Ladykillers and in True Grit, while the quintessential line “the Dude abides” from the Big Lebowski echoes the closing line from this movie (“They abide, and they endure”).

In an industry dominated by risk-averse studios and soulless sequels, where almost every other auteur has been relegated to straight-to-streaming releases, Christopher Nolan is the closest thing to a superstar there is left in the business, a dying breed of auteurs who can still get away with demanding gargantuan budgets and full creative freedom to any given studio.

You would be hard-pressed to find a name in the business that creates as much fuzz, anticipation and polarizing takes than him. And for all his faults, there’s probably no director that better encapsulates Gen Z’s cinema tastes than Nolan, with both casual moviegoers and hardcore cinephiles flocking to each of his new releases. He’s become something of a rarity among filmmakers, a box office darling with a foolproof blend of critical success and an army of worshiping stans. His films have proven to be the perfect storm in that they’re infinitely more accessible than arthouse cinema, but a tad bit more sophisticated than your average summer blockbuster. What he lacks in subtlety and characterization, he makes up for in jaw-dropping set pieces and mind-blowing concepts.

But long before he took audiences by storm with his labyrinthine brain melters, Christopher Nolan was your average nerd who grew up with cultural behemoths like Star Wars, Blade Runner and Superman and who learned to dream big in the golden age of science fiction. From Inception and Interstellar to his latest movie, Tenet, Nolan has repeatedly taken cues from some staples of the genre. He’s always been vocal about his biggest inspirations and influences growing up, giving filmmakers that paved the way their flowers too. Up next are ten of his all-time favorite sci-fi flicks.

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

No surprises here. Kubrick’s epic could surely be traced back to any given sci-fi film of the last fifty years, but anyone who’s seen a Nolan movie (especially Interstellar) can recognize how integral 2001 was in defining his visual and narrative style.

Nolan fondly remembers being blown away by the movie when he first watched it with his dad as a 7-year-old in the biggest cinema theater in London, feeling “the extraordinary experience of being taken to another world onto a journey you never thought possible”.

With Kubrick, Nolan says, there’s a trust on simple storytelling and visuals to make an impression and convey emotions to the viewer, a “larger than life” quality that makes him embarrassed of his own work. If there was any remaining doubt of his reverence to 2001, Nolan recently oversaw and helped develop the latest restoration of a 70 mm print of the space classic, touring it around the world and screening it in the most prestigious film festivals.

2. Solaris (1972)

Not everyone was as enthusiastic about Kubrick’s epic as Nolan, starting with legendary soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky, who notoriously disliked it as cold and sterile. Almost as a counter, he came up with Solaris, a deeply spiritual film that employs a similar premise to explore the human condition. 2001 did it externally by looking ahead to the future of mankind, while Solaris did so introspectively, haunted by demons of the past and reminding us of our roots.

The movie follows a troubled psychologist dispatched to a space station near a planet with mysterious powers that brings out repressed memories and obsessions to those in its orbit. Through the materialized memory of his deceased wife, who interacts with the main character in the station, the movie masterfully explores themes of love, identity, self-consciousness and grief.

The cinematographer Nolan worked with in Interstellar introduced him to Solaris, which in his own words had an influence on elemental things in the story to do with wind, dust and water. The parallels don’t stop there, especially since both stories follow a widowed astronaut sent for a high-stakes intergalactic mission where they’re forced to confront their grief.

3. Primer (2004)

If after watching Memento or Inception you instantly jumped online and desperately looked for timeline diagrams to grasp the plot logistics, behold, because chances are you will need a handful more to wrap your head around Primer. In a nutshell, the movie follows two young engineers who unintentionally build a time travel machine in their basement. If that premise sounds too straightforward, rest assured, what follows is a totally bonkers story full of time-shifts, scientific jargon and existential implications.

In a sense, this Shane Carruth’s thriller is bursting with Nolan’s DNA, especially in how despite the constant info dumps, it’s deliberately obtuse as to reaffirm its own cleverness. Primer is certainly not the first movie to tackle the concept of time-travel, but what sets it apart is its methodical attention to detail, bringing some authenticity and consistency to the narrative rules and, more importantly, exploring the moral choices that come with such a godlike power.

4. Paprika (2006)

Everyone who has seen Inception surely remembers the dream-sharing devices, that memorable hallway fight scene where gravity constantly rotates, or the use of shattering mirrors to represent the real consciousness of the user leaking in and disrupting the dream. But Nolan’s seminal thriller owes a whole lot to Satoshi Kon, the man who introduced all those concepts four years earlier in his own mind-melting drama.

Paprika features futuristic machines used by therapists to enter their patient’s dreams, infiltrating their subconscious in a dreamscape that follows a particular set of laws and physics reminiscent of those seen in Inception. This gadget is originally designed to treat patients, but an unfinished prototype gets stolen, kicking off a psychedelic hunt to crack down the culprit where the layers between dream and reality blur together.

Only a genius like Kon could effortlessly replicate the disorienting and disjointed pace of dreams, thrusting the viewer into the character’s headspace and projecting their internalized trauma, insecurities and guilts. Inception is a fine imitation, but one that falls short when it comes to reaching the emotional highs of the original.

5. O-Bi O-Ba: The End of Civilization (1985)

This bleak Polish thriller is set in a dystopian underground bunker where the remaining human survivors reside after a nuclear holocaust made the earth’s surface inhabitable. We follow Soft, a cynical government official tasked with convincing most of the restless population that the Ark, a miraculous savior ship, will soon come to their aid and bring them to paradise. As we follow our protagonist, we explore life inside the bunker through each of the survivor’s mental gymnastics as they cope with their impending doom.

Naturally, Soft and the rest of the top brass know the Ark is nothing more than an empty fabrication deliberately designed to appease the masses. But what starts as a political tool of distraction is eventually hailed as the ultimate salvation, with even the most skeptic holding a glimmer of hope.

Made in the tail-end of the Cold War, O-Bi O-Ba is a product of its time that reflects on the desolation and dreadful prospect of nuclear annihilation. It’s also a theological allegory that perfectly summarizes the need for myth and delusion in light of a completely hopeless reality.