Giallo — Italy's blood-red mystery genre
Argento and Bava are the entry points. The rest of the catalogue runs deep: pulpier, sleazier, sometimes more inventive. Black gloves, neon kills, score by Goblin or Morricone.
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
foreign gemcerebralpitch black
Deep Red
foreign gemdreadsurreal
Slap the Monster on Page One
foreign gemparanoid
One Way or Another
foreign gemdreadslow burn
Suspiria
foreign gembody horrordread
Caliber 9
foreign gemneon soakedparanoid
The Passenger
foreign gemcerebraloutsider
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
dreadparanoidslow burn
The Psychic
dreadparanoidslow burn
Theorem
cerebralsurrealbittersweet
The Girl Who Knew Too Much
dreadparanoidneon soaked
Tenebre
body horrordreadmindfuck
Godzilla
dreadepic
The Cat o' Nine Tails
dreadparanoidraw
Opera
cerebraldread
Demons
3am cultdreadunhinged
A Bay of Blood
3am cultunhingeddread
Planet of the Vampires
dreadmindfucksurreal
The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue
3am cultdreadraw
The Whip and the Body
dreadneon soakedparanoid
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
body horrordreadgut punch
Cannibal Holocaust
dreadgut punchraw
The Church
dreadsurrealbody horror
Demons 2
3am cultunhingedbody horror
Autres collections 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
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