Dogme 95 — von Trier, Vinterberg, and the vow of chastity
In 1995 Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg wrote a manifesto: no artificial lighting, no props brought to location, no genre films, handheld camera only, no directorial credit. Then they broke most of the rules. Vinterberg's Festen (The Celebration) is the purest Dogme film and one of the best. Von Trier's The Idiots pushed further. Harmony Korine, Lone Scherfig, Susanne Bier, Kristian Levring each took a certified number. The movement burned out fast — by 2005 it was over — but its low-budget, natural-light DNA lives in every mumblecore and Dardenne-influenced film since. Danish and Scandinavian cinema from the period.
Lilya 4-ever
Adam's Apples
Evil
Saraband
Pusher II
As It Is in Heaven
Songs from the Second Floor
Show Me Love
Together
Pusher
Manderlay
Bleeder
Weitere Kanon-Sammlungen
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
70s American paranoia — the post-Watergate 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
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