Post-Soviet cinema — Russia & Eastern Europe after 1991
Tarkovsky and Klimov are pre-1991. After that, an unsettled cinema: Zvyagintsev's cold landscapes, Sokurov's long takes, Loznitsa's documentaries that look like funerals.
Flow
foreign gembittersweetcozy
Tangerines
foreign gembittersweettender
Sniper: The White Raven
foreign gemgut punchoutsider
The Old Man and the Sea
foreign gembittersweetslow burn
U Are the Universe
foreign gembittersweetplayful
Mira
foreign gembittersweettender
Balkan Line
foreign gemepicslow burn
Leviathan
foreign gembittersweetdread
Loveless
foreign gembittersweetgut punch
The Return
foreign gembittersweetslow burn
Russian Ark
foreign gemcerebralslow burn
T-34
epicraw
Mavka: The Forest Song
cozyplayfulbittersweet
Salyut-7
epicraw
The Barber of Siberia
bittersweetepicoutsider
Flight Crew
epicraw
Invasion
neon soakeddreaduplifting
Three Seconds
playfultenderuplifting
Upon the Magic Roads
3am cultoutsiderplayful
Cargo 200
dreadgut punchraw
The Master and Margarita
bittersweetparanoidsurreal
Metro
dread
Attraction
bittersweettender
Major Grom: Plague Doctor
pitch blackrawunhinged
Mother and Son
dreadslow burntender
Atlantis
gut punchoutsiderraw
Hard to Be a God
cerebraldreadslow burn
The Blackout
dreadneon soakedparanoid
Major Grom
neon soakedplayfuluplifting
Coma
neon soakedoutsidermindfuck
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
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