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
foreign gemepicplayful
Wolfman vs. Godzilla
foreign gemplayfulunhinged
Hero of the Red Light District
foreign gembittersweetoutsider
Harakiri
foreign gemdreadgut punch
The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer
foreign gemcerebralgut punch
High and Low
foreign gemdreadraw
Tomorrow's Joe The Movie
foreign gembittersweettender
The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity
foreign gemdreadgut punch
Woman in the Dunes
foreign gemdreadsexy
Samurai Rebellion
foreign gembittersweetslow burn
Red Beard
foreign gembittersweetcerebral
The Human Condition I: No Greater Love
foreign gemepicgut punch
Yearning
foreign gembittersweetslow burn
The Izu Dancer
foreign gembittersweettender
Yojimbo
foreign gemoutsiderplayful
Space Runaway Ideon: Be Invoked
foreign gemdreadepic
The Naked Island
foreign gembittersweetslow burn
Ran
foreign gemdreadepic
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
foreign gembittersweetraw
Ken
foreign gemcerebralslow burn
Space Battleship Yamato
foreign gemcozyepic
Portrait of Hell
foreign gemdreadoutsider
Throne of Blood
foreign gemdreadslow burn
An Autumn Afternoon
foreign gembittersweetslow burn
Bamboo Doll of Echizen
foreign gembittersweetslow burn
The Burmese Harp
foreign gembittersweetoutsider
Foundry Town
foreign gembittersweettender
The Face of Another
foreign gemcerebraloutsider
The Battle of Okinawa
foreign gemdreadgut punch
Proof of the Man
foreign gemoutsiderraw
Other canon collections
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