Japanese New Wave — the essentials
The 1960s-70s wave that broke from the studio system. Imamura, Oshima, Yoshida, Suzuki, Wakamatsu — political, formally restless, often shot in colours that look like they're trying to leave the print.
Godzilla Fantasia
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Wolfman vs. Godzilla
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Hero of the Red Light District
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Harakiri
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The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer
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High and Low
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Tomorrow's Joe The Movie
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The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity
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Woman in the Dunes
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Samurai Rebellion
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Red Beard
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The Human Condition I: No Greater Love
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Yearning
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The Izu Dancer
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Yojimbo
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Space Runaway Ideon: Be Invoked
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The Naked Island
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Ran
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When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
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Ken
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Space Battleship Yamato
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Portrait of Hell
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Throne of Blood
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An Autumn Afternoon
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Bamboo Doll of Echizen
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The Burmese Harp
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Foundry Town
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The Face of Another
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The Battle of Okinawa
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Proof of the Man
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Altre collezioni canone
Comfort-cult — the ones you rewatch forever
Deep-cut rewatchables — off the beaten path, on endless repeat
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
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