Slow cinema — the long-take canon
Long takes, minimal cuts, contemplation as method. Tarr, Akerman, Costa, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang, Reygadas. If you can sit through a single shot for ten minutes, this is where you live.
The Godfather Trilogy: 1901-1980
bittersweetepicslow burn
The Green Mile
bittersweetslow burntender
Harakiri
foreign gembittersweetcerebral
The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer
foreign gembittersweetdread
Once Upon a Time in America
bittersweetepicslow burn
The Pianist
gut punchslow burntender
High and Low
foreign gemcerebralparanoid
Princess Mononoke
foreign gembittersweetepic
A Brighter Summer Day
foreign gembittersweetoutsider
Le Trou
foreign gemslow burn
Once Upon a Time in the West
foreign gemepicneon soaked
The Shining
dreadmindfuckparanoid
Be With You
foreign gembittersweetslow burn
Red Beard
foreign gembittersweetcerebral
The Human Condition I: No Greater Love
foreign gemgut punchoutsider
Undercurrent
foreign gembittersweetslow burn
Seven Weeks
foreign gembittersweetcerebral
Scenes from a Marriage
foreign gembittersweetcerebral
Paris, Texas
bittersweetslow burntender
Stalker
foreign gemcerebraldread
Incendies
foreign gemgut punchslow burn
Das Boot
foreign gemdreadraw
Memories of Murder
foreign gemdreadraw
The Best of Youth
foreign gembittersweetslow burn
Oppenheimer
cerebraldreadepic
The Wages of Fear
foreign gemdreadslow burn
After the Quake
foreign gembittersweetslow burn
Satantango
foreign gemdreadoutsider
Barry Lyndon
bittersweetepicslow burn
Lawrence of Arabia
epicoutsiderslow burn
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
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