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
devastatingslow burn
The Godfather Part II
slow burndevastating
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
cozyslow burndevastating
Apocalypse Now
surrealweirddevastating
A Clockwork Orange
mindfuckslow burn
Taxi Driver
neon soakedslow burndevastating
The Sting
cultdevastating
Barry Lyndon
devastatingcultslow burn
The Deer Hunter
cozydevastatingautumnal
Chinatown
neon soakeddevastatingcult
Paper Moon
cozycultdevastating
Papillon
cultslow burndevastating
Dog Day Afternoon
cultdevastatingdread
Rocky
devastating
Network
cultdevastating
A Woman Under the Influence
cultslow burndevastating
Fiddler on the Roof
cultslow burndevastating
The Exorcist
late nightdreaddevastating
Annie Hall
cozycultdevastating
Manhattan
cozycultdevastating
All the President's Men
cultslow burndevastating
Sleuth
cultdreadslow burn
Jaws
devastatinglate nightdread
The Warriors
cultdread
The Last Picture Show
cozyautumnalcult
Harold and Maude
devastatingcozycult
Opening Night
cultslow burndevastating
Kramer vs. Kramer
cultdevastating
Halloween
late nightdread
Serpico
cultdevastating
Other canon collections
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