70s American paranoia — the post-Watergate canon
Surveillance, conspiracy, distrust of every institution. Pakula's trilogy, Coppola's wiretaps, Polanski's noir, the cop dramas where the cops are the problem. The decade where Hollywood briefly didn't believe its own myths.
The Godfather
bittersweetepicraw
The Godfather Part II
bittersweetcerebralepic
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
bittersweetcerebralgut punch
Apocalypse Now
mindfuckneon soakedslow burn
A Clockwork Orange
comfort cultcerebraldread
Taxi Driver
dreadparanoidraw
The Sting
bittersweetplayfuluplifting
Barry Lyndon
bittersweetepicslow burn
The Deer Hunter
epicgut punchraw
Chinatown
bittersweetdreadparanoid
Paper Moon
bittersweetplayfultender
Papillon
bittersweetrawuplifting
Dog Day Afternoon
bittersweetrawunhinged
Rocky
bittersweettenderuplifting
Network
cerebralparanoid
A Woman Under the Influence
gut punchrawslow burn
Fiddler on the Roof
bittersweetcozytender
The Exorcist
dreadgut punchparanoid
Annie Hall
bittersweetcerebraltender
Manhattan
bittersweetcerebralneon soaked
All the President's Men
cerebralparanoidslow burn
Sleuth
bittersweetcerebralpitch black
Jaws
dreadrawslow burn
The Warriors
3am cultneon soakedplayful
The Last Picture Show
bittersweetoutsiderslow burn
Harold and Maude
bittersweetcozyoutsider
Opening Night
bittersweetslow burntender
Kramer vs. Kramer
bittersweettender
Halloween
dreadraw
Serpico
bittersweetcerebralraw
Other canon collections
Comfort-cult — the ones you rewatch forever
Deep-cut rewatchables — off the beaten path, on endless repeat
Japanese New Wave — the essentials
80s horror everyone has forgotten
Giallo — Italy's blood-red mystery genre
Korean cinema essentials beyond Parasite
Post-Soviet cinema — Russia & Eastern Europe after 1991
The Romanian New Wave
Essential anime that isn't Studio Ghibli
Slow cinema — the long-take canon
First features by directors who later mattered
Documentaries that hold up as cinema
Scandinavian noir beyond the Stieg Larsson franchises
Iranian new wave — Kiarostami, Farhadi, and the rest
Argentine cinema — beyond Wild Tales
British kitchen-sink and what it became
First features directed by cinematographers
German New Wave — Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders, Schlöndorff
Hong Kong action — Woo, Lam, Tsui, To
Spaghetti westerns — Leone, Corbucci, Sollima, and the second tier
Mumblecore — the American indie movement nobody named
Czech New Wave — Forman, Chytilová, Menzel, before they fled
French New Wave — Godard, Truffaut, Varda, Rivette, Rohmer
Blaxploitation — Shaft, Pam Grier, and the 70s Black cinema boom
Dogme 95 — von Trier, Vinterberg, and the vow of chastity
Australian New Wave — Weir, Miller, Armstrong, Campion
African cinema — Sembène, Sissako, Mambéty, and beyond
Italian neorealism — the rubble and the real
Commedia all'italiana — Italy laughing at itself
German expressionism — shadows, angles, madness
Taiwanese New Cinema — Hou, Yang, Tsai, and the island's quiet revolution
New Queer Cinema — Haynes, Araki, Van Sant, and the 90s insurgency
Wuxia and martial arts — flying swords, hidden masters