Blaxploitation — Shaft, Pam Grier, and the 70s Black cinema boom
A genre born from the collision of 70s exploitation budgets and Black cultural assertion. Shaft (1971) and Super Fly (1972) opened the floodgates. Pam Grier became the genre's biggest star through Coffy and Foxy Brown. The soundtracks — Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, Bobby Womack — are as important as the films. Some aged badly, some aged into cult classics, a handful are genuine cinema. Tarantino's Jackie Brown is a late love letter. The list surfaces action, crime, and thriller films from the era with Black leads or directors.
The Godfather
bittersweetepicraw
The Godfather Part II
bittersweetcerebralepic
Star Wars
cozyepicplayful
A Clockwork Orange
comfort cultcerebraldread
Taxi Driver
dreadparanoidraw
The Sting
bittersweetplayfuluplifting
Chinatown
bittersweetdreadparanoid
Paper Moon
bittersweetplayfultender
Papillon
bittersweetrawuplifting
Dog Day Afternoon
bittersweetrawunhinged
All the President's Men
cerebralparanoidslow burn
Sleuth
bittersweetcerebralpitch black
Jaws
dreadrawslow burn
The Warriors
3am cultneon soakedplayful
Halloween
dreadraw
Serpico
bittersweetcerebralraw
The Day of the Jackal
paranoidslow burn
The Conversation
cerebralparanoidslow burn
The French Connection
raw
Badlands
outsiderrawbittersweet
Enter the Dragon
playfulrawuplifting
Duel
paranoidraw
The Omen
dreadgut punch
Dirty Harry
pitch blackrawneon soaked
The Long Goodbye
bittersweetparanoidraw
Sorcerer
dreadrawslow burn
Carrie
body horrordreadgut punch
Deliverance
dreadgut punchraw
Assault on Precinct 13
rawslow burndread
The Driver
neon soakedslow burnparanoid
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
French New Wave — Godard, Truffaut, Varda, Rivette, Rohmer
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