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
25th Anniversary Studio Ghibli Concert
foreign gembittersweetcozy
Madonna: The Immaculate Collection
cozyneon soakedplayful
The Dark Knight
epicneon soakedparanoid
Unreachable
foreign gembittersweetslow burn
Twin Peaks
paranoiddreadslow burn
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
bittersweetepicuplifting
Pulp Fiction
comfort cultcomfort cultneon soaked
Your Name.
foreign gembittersweetplayful
Interstellar
bittersweetcerebralepic
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
cozyepictender
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
epicraw
Lemonade
cerebralupliftingtender
Inception
cerebralepicmindfuck
American History X
gut punchparanoidraw
Paths of Glory
gut punchraw
Baraka
slow burntendersurreal
Inglourious Basterds
comfort cultneon soakedpitch black
The Prestige
bittersweetcerebralmindfuck
The Shining
dreadmindfuckparanoid
Django Unchained
comfort cultpitch blackraw
A Clockwork Orange
comfort cultcerebraldread
Memento
comfort cultcerebralmindfuck
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
epicneon soakedraw
Togo
bittersweetcozyraw
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
cerebralpitch blackunhinged
Full Metal Jacket
cerebraldreadparanoid
Reservoir Dogs
comfort cultbittersweetparanoid
The Salt of the Earth
foreign gembittersweettender
Seven Weeks
foreign gembittersweetcerebral
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
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