French New Wave — Godard, Truffaut, Varda, Rivette, Rohmer
The movement that broke everything open. Godard made Breathless in 1960 with a handheld camera and jump cuts nobody had tried in narrative film. Truffaut turned autobiography into The 400 Blows. Varda was there before both of them — Cléo from 5 to 7 is as formally adventurous as anything Godard did, with more heart. Rivette, Rohmer, Resnais, Chabrol, Demy, Marker. The catalogue runs from the late 1950s through the mid-1970s, but the ripples never stopped. The list filters French-language films from the core era, scored 6.5 or above.
Le Trou
foreign gemslow burndread
The 400 Blows
foreign gembittersweettender
Army of Shadows
foreign gemdreadraw
Le Samouraï
foreign gemcerebraldread
Z
foreign gemparanoidraw
Day for Night
foreign gembittersweetcerebral
Crooks in Clover
foreign gemcozyplayful
Vivre Sa Vie
foreign gembittersweetcerebral
PlayTime
foreign gemcerebraloutsider
The Young Girls of Rochefort
foreign gemcozyplayful
My Night at Maud's
foreign gemslow burnbittersweet
Cléo from 5 to 7
foreign gembittersweetslow burn
Fantastic Planet
foreign gemsurrealslow burn
Purple Noon
foreign gembittersweetneon soaked
Jules and Jim
foreign gembittersweettender
The Old Gun
foreign gembittersweetgut punch
Au Hasard Balthazar
foreign gembittersweetdread
Breathless
foreign gemneon soakedparanoid
Band of Outsiders
foreign gembittersweetoutsider
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
foreign gembittersweetcerebral
The Phantom of Liberty
foreign gemplayfulsurreal
Last Year at Marienbad
foreign gemcerebralslow burn
Mon Oncle
foreign gembittersweetplayful
Mouchette
foreign gemdreadgut punch
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
foreign gembittersweetneon soaked
Happiness
foreign gembittersweetslow burn
F for Fake
foreign gembittersweetcerebral
The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob
foreign gemcozyplayful
Pierrot le Fou
foreign gembittersweetplayful
Oscar
foreign gemcozyplayful
Otras colecciones canon
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
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
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