First features directed by cinematographers
Films where the DP took the chair and made something with an eye that already knew the medium. Roger Deakins-school graduates, Christopher Doyle in front of his own camera, the Wally Pfister exit pattern.
Close Up
atmospheric
25th Anniversary Studio Ghibli Concert
foreign gemautumnalcult
Madonna: The Immaculate Collection
cult
The Dark Knight
mindfuckneon soakeddread
Twin Peaks
devastatingcultdread
Unreachable
cozyforeign gemdevastating
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
atmospheric
Pulp Fiction
neon soakeddreadslow burn
Your Name.
devastatingforeign gemcozy
Interstellar
neon soakedslow burndevastating
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
atmospheric
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
atmospheric
Lemonade
Inception
neon soakedmindfuck
American History X
cozydevastating
Paths of Glory
devastatingcult
Baraka
cultatmospheric
Inglourious Basterds
devastatingslow burndread
The Prestige
mindfuckdevastatingslow burn
The Shining
dreadsurrealweird
Django Unchained
cozyslow burndevastating
A Clockwork Orange
mindfuckslow burn
Memento
neon soakeddevastatingdread
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
neon soakeddreadmindfuck
Togo
cozy
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
weirddevastatingcozy
Full Metal Jacket
devastating
Reservoir Dogs
dread
The Salt of the Earth
weirdforeign gematmospheric
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair
neon soakedslow burn
Altre collezioni canone
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
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