my year of rest and retrospection

I am always on the lookout for excuses to talk about my favorite films, and me getting older by another year is always a good reason—22, thank you very much—so I have decided to blog a nice curation of writings pertaining the films I enjoyed this year¹. My usual film retrospective comprises of me making some kind of list that ‘updates’ my ranking of the 100 best movies of all time, or something of that sort, but at this point that ranking is no longer as malleable as it used to be and I also don’t believe in long, ordered lists of movies anymore. Last year I tried instead making a list of ‘my personal canon.’ This listed about 270 films, but such a thing is quite useless as a retrospective—I never got around to writing even a one-line discussion of what the particular film does for me, so this year I will attempt to try something primarily verbose and hence more in-line with what I even intend to accomplish with these.

thoughts and prayers

The immediate impetus behind my curation of this list was this essay Negative Criticism by Sean Tatol written for The Point, in which he outlines the critical world’s increasing emphasis on positive criticism, a phenomenon I can summarize quite simply as ‘glazing’². There’s a lot of theatrics in this essay, which I mostly agree with—particularly his stance against ‘subjective absolutism,’ that passing value judgements on art is inherently a ridiculous exercise because ‘art is subjective,’³ whatever that means—but there’s also a key corner I disagree with, which is his insistence on what a critic ought to do. I suppose that I am a critic—I watch about 150 movies a year, and write about them, often passing qualitative judgements about the films—but the task he outlines is far more suited to someone who, for lack of better phrasing, does it as a job. In real life, of course, there is no reason for anyone to write about every film they watch or attempt to pass a qualitative judgement on them, but I do believe there is still merit in building up this repertoire of taste that he affirms: that is, it is still worth looking at things via a critical eye so that you are able to make some discernment between good and bad films, and so that you can better talk about exactly what it was about the film that you liked or disliked.

Since I moved to Paris I have been encountering quite a number of people who are into cinema, but unfortunately these experiences have proven almost universally frustrating. This is partly because cinema people have this annoying strain of easily passing qualitative judgement on certain kinds of films while also deifying others for no good reason whatsoever. Obviously what I mean is that cinema people find it quite easy to say that some or the other mid-tier Hollywood blockbuster is awful while reserving judgement for what they deem to be art films. Too much damage has been done to cinema criticism via this distinction. A film is a film. If you don’t like it you don’t like it. Of course my dad is not going to like Blue Velvet, or whatever qualifies as an art film these days, and of course he is going to think that this is bad. On the other hand, cinephiles will casually proclaim that Blue Velvet is a masterpiece while giving all kinds of ridiculous, paper-thin arguments that have very little footing, and the reason for this is because they have been approaching these art films with reverence instead of with an attempt to perform criticism, and so they have never developed the skills necessary to evaluate such films in the first place.

On the other hand, they can casually deconstruct Hollywood films with all kinds of technical metrics—my own embarrassing 17-year-old self (then contrarian as well) wrote a review of The Dark Knight which criticizes the poor nature of the action sequences by coming up with all kinds of arguments such as ‘shot length too small’ or ‘inconsistencies in framing’⁴—while not realizing the inherent difficulty in creating a good, successful Hollywood film.

My point is that my dad is right and you are wrong. When my dad says that Blue Velvet is crude and disgusting and that people should not be allowed to make movies like this, he is engaging with the actual content of the film instead of the form of the film. When you say ‘notice the blocking and how well Lynch engages the camera, how he wraps his characters in the shadows’ you are talking about things that are far besides the point. You are thinking in terms of a technician, which is fine, but the way Lynch is using his camera is as a vehicle to show you something, and you are not clever if you recognize the conceit—the whole point of the conceit is to show you what he in fact wants to show you. Surely it is your duty to engage with the ‘something’ and not with the vehicle? There are many films which use the same tricks that Lynch does. Just because Lynch does it better than others does not make his films inherently better. What makes his films better is what he says via these tricks, otherwise it is just empty formalism. And empty formalism is everywhere these days; there is a reason why the term ‘Oscar Bait’ was coined, which is a simple catch-all for films which use these tricks but have little actual content in them worth scrutinizing.

There are quite a number of responses I receive to these considerations, and I am now going to respond to them in the form of an FAQ.

1. So are the technical aspects of the film unimportant? It depends on the film. Just because a film is well-shot doesn't mean it’s good, and just because a film is poorly shot doesn't mean it’s bad. But what is important is that just because something is hard to do in practice doesn’t mean it’s worth doing. You are not rewarded for effort. A director could choose a technique that is very hard to pull off effectively and it could still be the wrong choice for the film in question. So even if you have beautiful still-life photography, if the film does nothing with it that makes it inherently valueless. There are many great films which have photography that is as good and are also able to deliver extraordinary content, while there are other films which have poorer photography and yet not brought down by this fact.
2. What is content? The underlying ethos, theme, whatever the filmmaker is attempting to communicate or evoke via the film. If a film wants to put you to sleep, that is the content.
3. A film should be judged by how well it accomplishes what it is trying to accomplish. No. You are wrong. There are many things that are not worth accomplishing, and if I feel that way I will believe that the film is atrocious. I think Birth of a Nation is trying to accomplish morally reprehensible things. It is a film that is certainly important to film history, and I think it is an extraordinary film that deserves to be studied, but I do not think it is a good film, nor would I ever recommend it (unless you particularly want to study the central conceit of how film can make people start believing in truly hateful things).
4. You think a movie should be something it is not trying to be. Yes, obviously. If I think a film is bad of course I will think that it should be something that it is not, because I don’t like what it currently is. Often I say things like ‘this would be better if it were a standard Hollywood movie,’ and I mean it, because Hollywood movies have a strong understanding of how to be entertaining, and if a film has failed on nearly all fronts it might as well be entertaining. Entertaining people is worthwhile. It’s not some kind of consolation prize.
5. You should read what the director says about the film. I’ll read about this if I find some merit in the film. I am not going to defer to the filmmaker’s intentions and judge the intentions. I will judge the actual finished product that was created. A filmmaker may be a swell guy with great intentions and still produce horrible art.
6. All you’re saying is that this particular film didn’t work for you. Yes, of course that is what I am saying. I do not need to undermine every point I try to make with a ‘but that’s just me, of course.’ I don’t know why me not liking a film breaks your worldview. You can choose to not take me seriously if you don’t want to—just because I don’t like The Godfather Part II doesn’t mean that it’s a bad movie, not does it mean I’m just being contrarian. It means I don’t like it, and I can also articulate why I don’t like it. You don’t need an excuse to dismiss me.

I have often found that a hallmark of a good review is whether you can omit all the proper nouns in the review and the review is still applicable only to the singular film in question.

Of course, I could keep going on and on about these cinephile pretensions, but really the point I want to make is that the reason this happens is because of a lack of willingness to issue judgments on films that you like/don’t like, which never builds the underlying muscle that actually allows you to actually understand and articulate what you like or don’t like about a film. The natural response to this is that when starting out people often dislike movies that are at all challenging and can become philistines in the process. I disagree that this is the case, and the reason is because taste evolves. It is indeed true that it is possible to dislike challenging films at first, but in articulating what you dislike about them you still earn experiences that allow you to watch challenging films that are more to your taste, and once you have a more refined set of tools for criticism you can return to the films you initially disliked and analyze them through your new lens. I didn’t like The Dark Knight when I was 17. Now I think it’s a great film. This is perfectly possible, and is in fact the norm—there are many movies I used to like but don’t, anymore, and there are many that I hated at first but now like. The reason for this is the newly refined critical taste I have.

The point is this—at some point you will watch Tarkovsky and think he is slow and boring and sucks. You will be right, not because you have formed the ‘correct’ opinion (there is no reason for you to maximize the number of correct opinions you have, anyway), but because you are engaging with the content of the film (in this case, the manner of delivery). Eventually, you might watch Béla Tarr and think that this is equally slow and boring, but that unlike Tarr, Tarkovsky at least seemed to be doing some kind of meditative contemplation rather than stretching out five minutes’ worth of content into 2 hours. Then you might watch something like Millennium Mambo and because you have gotten used to ‘slow’ cinema, you might engage with it in a more potent way and actually enjoy this film very much indeed—and then when you come back to Tarkovsky you notice that the only similarity between these films is that they are slow, and that is not enough to dislike a film, and then you might notice that Tarkovsky seems to be lingering on his alien landscapes which seem to externalize the psychologies of his characters, and now that you know what to look for the film might not seem so slow at all, really, while Tarr still remains a complete mystery to you. And you might think that actually, Tarkovsky is very good, and Tarr is very bad, and this is now your own developed critical taste borne out of engagement with cinema and not merely with the form—which would lead you to believe that everything slow is good, and yet not get anything out of these films that sticks with you when you’re at home alone.

In any case, that is enough hedging, and it is time to turn to the actual retrospective.

first watches

These are films that I watched for the first time this year—they are not necessarily new films that were released during this period.

the best

1. Miami Vice (2006) dir. Micheal Mann

Easily one of the greatest action/crime films ever made—there’s an overwhelming plot that is logistically impossible to follow and a digital camera elevating the gritty cops played by Farrell and Foxx to mythological demigods in their consummate professionalism, but it’s also a film that completely understands that the logistics of the action are secondary. Mann’s thesis statement—in all that neon haze all that Mann’s camera is zooming in on is the things that broken people do for each other. All that matters is love, or the absence of it. Not a better scene than Gong Li and Colin Farrell on the speedboat—the ending with her speeding away to Mogwai while Farrell walks back to the car in the rain might literally be the most sublime thing I’ve ever seen. A movie about time, and a movie about luck, and a movie about how those are the same thing. Better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.

2. Rachel Getting Married (2008) dir. Jonathan Demme

The great film about being an outsider in your family—there’s a lot I could say about it, but I already have.

3. Haru (1996) dir. Yoshimitsu Morita

Part of it is that it’s a time-capsule of both Japan and the internet at a very particular time, but also because it’s a movie that’s actually about the process of falling in love in the internet age—a lot of movies skip over this aspect entirely, but that really is the central conceit of Haru, which treats its characters with an empathic reverence that is really rare in films of this kind; they’re not perfect, nor are they trying to be. There’s so much here about the dynamics of male-female friendships that is impossible to capture; when she stops responding but he never stops talking to her, because to him she’s so intimately tied to the way that he processes his day and his life that to end their contact is akin to him snipping off a piece of himself permanently—the way they decide to meet each other for a fleeting moment, waving a handkerchief in the wind and flashing by with a glimpse at 200 miles per hour. The handheld camerawork at the end is spine-tingling… probably the best film about romantic love I’ve seen since Before Sunrise.

4. Paper Moon (1973) dir. Peter Bogdanovich

Obviously a feel-good film for the ages, but also a lamentation for a certain kind of rogue who could was ethically compromised but never morally, if you know what I mean—Moses Pray, one of the great movie characters and one of the great movie dads—teaching his daughter all the wrong lessons about how to live in the world but all the right ones as to how to survive in it. Tatum O’Neal is obviously the best child actor I’ve ever seen, but the genuine love the movie has for her and the ways of life she partakes in is heartbreaking. Another Bogdanovich masterpiece, proving that there is no one out there who possesses a greater understanding of the soul of the American way of life and what was lost. We don’t get these fundamentally good guys, anymore; true American hero, Moses Pray.

5. Blow-Out (1981) dir. Brian de Palma

The great film about American institutional fallout and the devastation that comes with it. It’s so incriminating because the reason that Travolta ‘fails’ has less to do with any mistake on his part or the fact that the institutions are occupied by bad people—it’s the institutional infrastructure itself which works against him, be it the media or the governor’s office, completely neutralizing innocents and destroying any chance he has at ‘justice,’ or whatever that means—is justice worth anything after Sally’s death, anyway? The irony of the ending is of course the ultimate justification that capitalism loves turning itself into entertainment; even bleaker today once you realize that the fact that there was ultimately no meaning afforded to the incident of the blow-out is a function today not of ignorance, but of uncaring. A gunshot straight into the American dream.

6. His Motorbike, Her Island (1986) dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi

Another story about the process of people falling in love, but this one’s basically the closest thing to a modern fairy tale rather than anything concrete like Haru, complete with the ambivalent but ultimately tragic ending. There’s a liveliness to how Obayashi frames this with the switching between the color and the black and white that ultimately transforms these motorbikes into living, breathing creatures, not particularly different from David Cronenberg’s Crash, but less clinically erotic, more genuinely sensual.

7. Persona (1966) dir. Ingmar Bergman

Bergman’s anti-therapy masterpiece, peeling back the soul to reveal nothing but emptiness inside. Bodies burst into flames and melt into each other. Don’t empty out your soul to a void and be surprised when the void fills itself with the ugliest things about you.

the worst

1. Norbit (2007) dir. Eddie Murphy

Really, really wanted this to be some kind of misunderstood masterpiece but nope—couldn’t even finish it, it was so aggressively unfunny and garish with Murphy partaking in some of the most offensive acting I’ve seen in my life. Nothing at all funny about it, just gross-out potty humor.

2. The Dreamers (2003) dir. Bernardo Bertolucci

Transgressive for the sake of transgression, but more so just cinephile wish-fulfillment. Wouldn’t it be great if you sucked but film-obsessed Eva Green fell in love with you anyway? Very bad stuff, just Ready Player One for very annoying people.

3. World of Tomorrow (2015) dir. Don Hertzfeldt

Completely inauthentic faux-deep bullshit that purports to say something about existence but is interested only in the least interesting parts of existence. What if I fell in love with a robot and nothing interesting happened? AI-generated melodrama.

4. To the Wonder (2012) dir. Terrence Malick

Honestly not that bad in terms of composition but it basically devolves into a bunch of completely trite and unearned proclamations. “I have begun to doubt in God,” says a preacher. How original—cue First Reformed; that’s a premise, not an emotional climax. Although it really is very beautiful, and everything with Ben Affleck is visually perfect.

5. A Fish called Wanda (1988) dir. Charles Crichton

Aggressively unfunny and very, very mean to its characters—I understand that this is basically just the Monty Python gang riffing but they used to be funny when riffing, dammit. Continues my streak of wondering how Jamie Lee Curtis ever made it as a comedy actress considering that she can’t pull off any bit at all. The favorite comedy of the most annoying person you know—I’m sorry but I just don’t find people being completely idiotic compelling or funny, and I want to punch Kevin Kline in the face.

6. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) dir. Nicholas Stoller

Actively evil, unlike the others, purporting that you can suck and treat everyone around you like trash and Mila Kunis will inexplicably come and fix you. It’s somewhat funny when Paul Rudd is in it, but Segel’s ego is so high and so misplaced that whatever allure this has ultimately doesn’t matter.

surprise masterpieces

1. Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) dir. Woody Allen

Obviously this would be good, considering it’s Allen, but I didn’t think for a second that it would be his best—the great feel-bad film of the age, chronicling cosmic injustice before it became cool. Both stories are already incredibly compelling in form and function but the ending makes you filled with the kind of underlying rage at the world that only the greatest of all time can channel successfully. It’s too spoiler-heavy to give more of my thoughts here, unfortunately.

2. Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) dir. John Patrick Shanley

Easily the best Hanks/Ryan romcom, partly because it’s less of a romcom and more like the single most life-affirming movie I’ve seen in ages—absolutely and unbashedly committed to sincerity and love, with the plot literally stopping for a scene in which Hanks looks up at the moon and thanks God for the wonderful gift that is life—and you know what, you believe it.

3. Field of Dreams (1989) dir. Phil Alden Robinson

The second-best Kevin Costner baseball film, and also the second-best Iowa film (goes to Bridges of Madison County) but maybe the #1 dad classic, like, ever? It uses up all the sense that it could make just to engineer a final game where a man plays catch with his dead dad, proving that once what was the only thing that ever mattered. And that’s a damn good trade.

4. My Boyfriend’s Back (1993) dir. Bob Balaban

Almost unheard of but the greatest movie about the eternal recurrence ever made—character gets another chance and makes not necessarily the right choices but the choices which would ensure that he never regrets another moment of his life. Complete and total self-actualization in 90 minutes with some of the funniest dream sequences of all time placed one after the other. It’s not wish-fulfillment if you’ve gotta take the leap.

5. October Sky (1999) dir. Joe Johnston

One of the purest expressions of American propaganda: full review here.

6. Paycheck (2003) dir. John Woo

One of Woo’s best—a masterclass in the specific elevation of pulp above all else; not camp, not kitsch, but the specific melodramatic pulp element that propels science fiction from being about the science to being about the fiction. Affleck is exceptional, like always; I suppose this is one of my core contrarian instincts, but there’s almost no role in which I’ve ever found him lacking, and his bizarre cluelessness really adds to an uncouth everyman charm, especially here, where he’s almost instinctively unintelligent because he’s so smug but is convincing enough in his haphazard improvisation that you start to think of him as something like John McClane by the end. The timeskip aspect is used for genuinely intelligent ends and the aerogel atmosphere transforms it into something sublime—better than Minority Report because it has so much more fun with the premise. Not all sci-fi is dystopic—sometimes things just suck in a pretty okay world.

letdowns

1. Night of the Hunter (1955) dir. Charles Laughton

This has grown on me since I first saw it, but the nightmare fairy-tale imagery of the boat and the spiders followed by the business at the old woman’s house is still far more compelling than the sheer nightmare of the first half, which really is just slow, formalist horror that is completely unappealing to me and forms the backdrop of all the modern ‘elevated’ stuff I dislike—this isn’t just the template, it’s the entire playbook. Doesn’t mean I’m going to like it though.

2. It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012), dir. Don Hertzfeldt

Certainly better than the awful World of Tomorrow, but almost nothing about its upbeat premise that things are beautiful and things will get better registers—part of it is that the protagonist has a neurological problem (something akin to dementia) rather than any regular mental illness, and part of it is that the sincerity manifests as patronizing. The best part is the stuff with the ancestors, everything else seems to be besides the point.

3. Metropolitan (1990) dir. Whit Stillman

Admittedly I watched this while very high, but the dialogue seemed a lot more performative than in The Last Days of Disco, and I think Stillman lends himself better to older protagonists—though it must be said that Metropolitan didn’t have Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny to deliver Stillman’s mouthfuls. Comes off as a bit glib, really, and the conversational progression is too slow. That said, the last 1/3rds of this were basically incomprehensible in my state and so I can’t really judge.

4. The Devil, Probably (1977) dir. Robert Bresson

Apparently he’s described as an ‘ascetic’ or something but for a film with a truly exceptional thesis statement—could you continue to exist if you were a very product of the society that you so despised—Bresson takes the least interesting approach both formally and narratively. An annoying teenager sleeps around with a bunch of girls, getting increasingly edgier until he asks someone to shoot him. Is there not a better way to deliver these themes than through dialogue and a guy walking around aimlessly? What Lynch could have done with this premise—that said, it’s not the worst, just a disappointment through and through.

5. My Sex Life… or How I Got into an Argument (1996) dir. Arnaud Desplechin

Not at all a bad film but a predictable one, which makes things unfortunate. It’s fun watching Amalric and his group of friends live and love in Paris but it never really manages to get its foot off that trodden Pialat/Rohmer ground into something radical, and as it stands it’s ‘merely’ a good film about a philosophy student who can’t commit. Is it really worth watching yourself on screen? I see it every day in the very life I’m living. Far more of an entry to the genre than one of its crowning jewels.

6. Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) dir. Chantal Akerman

I’ve wasted too much time on this thing already—read my full review here.

7. Liz and the Blue Bird (2018) dir. Naoko Yamada

Genuinely one of the strangest experiences of my life, where it put me into this trance-like state where it became astonishingly difficult to make heads or tails of what was happening, but definitely unintentionally. This is normally the kind of film that I like—but Yamada is committed to shooting it and framing it in the least nominally interesting way, with her weird shots of elongated feet over a Japanese voiceover I can’t really make heads or tails of. It seemed like it was proceeding through something other than ‘scenes,’ if that makes sense—the nature of the dutch angles made me confused enough that it seemed I was navigating some kind of puzzle box instead of a movie. Never have had such a visceral reaction to a film before. By the time it was over I couldn’t remember anything that had happened.

misc.

Heretic (2024) — not bad! Pretty stupid at times but doesn’t purport to take itself seriously.

Billy Elliot (2000) — great movie, but pretty funny as to how it’s basically the most masculine punk-rock you could make a movie about a boy wanting to do ballet.

Peanuts Specials (1965-1967) — similar to the Winnie-the-Pooh movies; genuine life lessons for kids and adults wrapped up in a thick blanket and a cup of coffee.

A Short Film About Killing (1988) — brutal stuff by Kieślowski, phenomenally sad.

I Hired a Contract Killer (1990) — a worse version of Joe Versus the Volcano, but has that proletariat Kaurismäki sensibility.

Reality Bites (1994) — extremely strong and nostalgic first hour that doesn’t know what to do with the remains of the climax.

Bewitched (1976) — very strange pseudo-erotic Argentine drama, but also one of the great anarcho-primitivist films.

Dirty Harry (1971) — ain’t nothing dirty about what my boy Harry was doing.

Canoa: A Shameful Memory (1976) — too sparse to really talk about. It’s a sufficient dramatization, but I can’t ever imagine thinking of it independently.

House (1977) — worst viewing experience of my life and the film is completely inseparable from it. But even so, like Liz and the Blue Bird it’s kind of hypnotizing in a bad way.

Knife in the Water (1962) — psychological masterpiece by Polanski.

One Battle After Another (2025) — good in all the essentials, but I have no interest in swallowing what it’s delivering.

Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning (2025) — inseparable from the extraordinary theatrical experience.

From Beyond (1986) — nothing to write home about, but sufficiently fun horror flick.

The Holdovers (2023) — probably going to become a Christmas classic, and another truly empathetic piece from Alexander Payne. Devastating stuff.

Point Break (1991) — Swayze is phenomenal but I can’t get over Keanu. Really ballsy movie though; up there with Die Hard as a solid A-tier action classic.

Days of Thunder (1990) — average but I’ll eat up anything with Cruise in it.

Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) — masterful meditation on emptiness and the art we leave behind.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) — maybe my favorite western? One of the great American nostalgia movies and the originator of so much of the bromance magic that the movies today themselves lament…

The Long Day Closes (1992) — a bit boring but ultimately great exploration of sadness, grief and living at a time when living felt weighty. You can feel the sadness poring through the glass. What a world we created.

Death Ray on Coral Island (1980) — obviously it sucks but I was the one who translated it to English, so I love it.

Dragon Inn (1967) — not my favorite Wuxia but obviously one of the classics. The stuff with the inn is really something.

Fist of Fury (1972) — honestly a masterpiece. Bruce Lee enveloped in shadow is startling imagery; some of the most visually compelling scenes of all time. He’s a god.

Smokey and the Bandit (1977) — if every film was this fun we’d be in paradise. Here’s to zigzagging through cops in that Alabama sunshine.

Aloha (2015) — very misunderstood film with a truly experimental approach to dialogue that doesn’t always work, but when it does it screams ELECTRIC.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012) — one of my new favorites, one of the best love stories of the 2010s and a film that truly respects mental illness and provides all the right coping mechanisms.

The Stuff (1985) — fun ‘80s schlock with an excellent anti-capitalist message.

Yannick (2023) — probably too French for me but a perfectly fine way to spend an hour.

The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter (1984) — action choreography had me drooling.

American Ninja (1985) — underrated pulp classic. Not a film that should necessarily be watched, but a film that should exist to be found by unassuming 8th graders.

Bloodsport (1988) — dad classic, on the list—my kids are gonna see it day one.

F1 (2025) — the best pure sports movie of this decade (Challengers as romance/drama, of course).

Invincible (2006) — schlock but Wahlberg sports schlock will never fail to make me cry.

The Secret World of Arrietty (2010) — not my favorite movie but there was a making-of segment after this that made me cry as to how much it meant to the ones making it.

Love & Pop (1998) — truly disturbing masterpiece about the modern world, more relevant than ever. The cruelty people inflict upon each other is heartbreaking.

Bee Movie (2007) — the absurdity of the bee jokes really got me so I can’t say this is all that bad in good conscience.

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) — excellent but meant for people who don’t know Mishima; I already knew everything in it so didn’t hit me too hard.

Tokyo Decadence (1992) — interesting Ryu Murakami thriller about enforced depravation, but too pornographic for my taste.

The Book of Life (1998) — nothing too special but I’ll never hate a movie with the message that people are fundamentally good.

Moonrise Kingdom (2012) — one of my new favorites and one of the greatest, most heartwarming portraits of young love ever put on screen. If I could live in it I would.

Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011) — first 3/4ths is a complete masterpiece and probably the funniest movie I’ve seen in a long time but it builds up to a climax that it can’t live up to and falls apart.

Love Exposure (2008) — jesus christ I can’t believe this was made, but I’m glad it was. Truly operatic epic about what it means to love and another masterpiece.

A New Leaf (1971) — I mean the studio fucked up her movie, but it could have been genuinely genius if they let May get away with it. Increased my reverence for her even though I didn’t love it.

Julien Donkey-Boy (1999) — true masterpiece about mental illness, but I can’t put into words how awful it makes me feel about the injustices people have to suffer through.

Ghost in the Shell (1995) — ahead of its time then but not anymore, although still extraordinary as a vibe.

Art School Confidential (2006) — very funny in the beginning but doesn’t know what to do with itself after the tonal shift.

The Lobster (2015) — not my thing but very lovely and heartwarming.

Rouge (1987) — sad, sad stuff walking Anita Mui walk through the bus stop quietly devastated.

Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) — queen of quirk obviously but very heartwarming stuff about love and the many ways in which it manifests.

2046 (2004) — maybe Kar-Wai’s best? The Zhang Ziyi segment is tremendous.

The Lady from Shanghai (1947) — mostly boring melodrama culminating in the greatest 15 seconds of any ending ever.

Mirrored Mind (2005) — astonishing vibe cultivation but can’t make heads or tails of it.

My Winnipeg (2007) — sucks. College student film vibes.

The Last Days of Disco (1998) — one of my new favorites, and Stillman’s masterpiece about growing up and finally needing to do something with your life. Soundtrack is something else.

Irma Vep (1996) — the only movie about what movies actually are, fundamentally: compelling images.

Afternoon Breezes (1980) — so sad that it borders on abusing the viewer, but it’s a lament worth making.

Demonlover (2002) — kind of tailor-made for my sensibilities so I can’t really judge it but yeah this is dope.

April Story (1998) — love how Iwai treats his characters with dignity. Very very cute.

Pumping Iron (1977) — more inspirational than Rocky.

Wild at Heart (1990) — no words. Masterpiece.

Napoleon (2023) — ugh, why make a movie about a guy you thoroughly hate?

French Fried Vacation 2 (1979) — hilarious shit and good prep for France.

Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021) — I mean I’m not going to say it’s a masterpiece or anything but I really did enjoy it, and the opening montage was excellent.

The Beast (2023) — still mixed feelings. I hate what it’s doing but can’t look away.

Twins (1988) — surprisingly fun buddy comedy, and solidifies Schwarzenegger as one of the great actors of our time.

The Witches of Eastwick (1987) — really this is notable for blonde vs brunette vs redhead but it’s also perfectly entertaining stuff with some crazy zaniness.

Horrible Bosses (2011) — perfectly satisfactory but nothing too special.

Proximity (2020) — awful Christian propaganda after a good start.

Flight Risk (2025) — good theater experience but haven’t thought of it since then.

The Wave (2015) — good disaster film but not sincere enough for the hall of fame (Twister, Deep Impact, etc).

Zoolander (2001) — bit shallow outside of the iconic scenes.

Not Another Teen Movie (2001) — best swallowed as a bunch of short-form clips of the funny scenes.

The VVitch (2015) — sucks. Template for all the bad modern horror, does nothing with the premise. Should’ve just been shot like a regular Hollywood movie.

Face/Off (1997) — good Woo stuff and very entertaining.

Con Air (1997) — now THAT’s a movie. True Bruckheimer masterpiece and a crowning jewel on the American film industry.

Masculin Feminin (1966) — extraordinary mise en scène but drags.

Elf (2003) — fun Christmas romp with a good message and a funny Zooey Deschanel.

The Goldfinch (2019) — probably a template for why movies and books are different.

Absolutely Anything (2015) — very good stuff reminiscent of Click. Be a good person.

Indecent Proposal (1993) — the worst version of what it could have been but with a plot like THAT there’s no way it can be bad, can it?

Wheels on Meals (1984) — Jackie classic with the Benny fight almost the peak of his career.

Anora (2024) — overrated therapy schlock but it’s funny at times.

Johnny Mnemonic (1995) — not good but entertaining as an artifact of what sci-fi used to be as a genre.

Empire Records (1995) — loved it but it’s too cheesy.

Astro Boy (2009) — objectively mediocre but has nostalgia vibes.

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) — Woody makes pulp! And surprise, surprise, it’s very good.

Bad Lieutenant (1992) — very good Ferrera but it’s so bleak that it borderlines on hate-watching.

re-watches

Films that I had watched before and decided to revisit this year.

no change

1. Manhattan (1979) dir. Woody Allen

Was a 5, still a 5. Saw in theatres—still the greatest cinematography in an Allen film and maybe ever, and the central thesis of postmodern human existence in the mythological center of the universe is still as bleak as ever. 42 and dating a dating a 17-year-old while being in love with a girl who won’t commit; that’s the price of living in the greatest place on earth.

2. Dazed and Confused (1993) dir. Richard Linklater

Yes, still my favorite film of all time, yada yada yada. #1 through-and-through.

3. Vertigo (1958) dir. Alfred Hitchcock

Structurally richer than I had previously noticed, but I also watched it with a girl who reminded me tremendously of my ex. What were the chances?

4. Manchester by the Sea (2016) dir. Kenneth Lonergan

Probably used to hold this to a bit more reverential standpoint, but it’s still a great deconstruction of masculine grief. What stood out to me on this viewing is just how much he’s trying.

5. Good Will Hunting (1997) dir. Gus van Sant

Yep, one of the greatest to ever do it. Could watch it every day of my life and not get bored—I’m better at articulating why it’s that good now, however, and the answer is that Damon’s ‘solution’ to his dilemma is perfectly correct: your homies and the girl are, in fact, more important than your mathematical talents. Hits hard as a very young and disproportionately successful PhD student working in cryptography.

6. Before Sunrise (1995) dir. Richard Linklater

I’m going to stop watching this for a bit, honestly, being my perennial on-the-plane-to-Paris film, but I think I’ve extracted all there is to extract from it. Still great, though.

7. The Graduate (1967) dir. Mike Nichols

Another top 3 favorite, still there, no change. The greatest movie about being aimless ever made.

8. Everybody Wants Some!! (2016) dir. Richard Linklater

No change, still Dazed-lite. I do enjoy the lower stakes but it strips it a little bit of Dazed’s life affirmation.

9. Bahubali: The Beginning (2015) dir. SS Rajamouli

Perfectly good romp—maybe less compelling than when I was 13, but still great stuff.

10. The Star Wars Trilogy (1977-1983) dir. Several

I mean, it’s basically perfect, and I still believe that there shouldn’t have been a single additional piece of lore apart from whatever was contained in these. I don’t want to know anything more about these characters. Things are only good because they end.

11. Steve Jobs (2015) dir. Danny Boyle

Still an underrated masterpiece, on par with The Social Network. The lack of recognition is criminal. Everything about it is perfect.

even better

1. Ocean’s Eleven (2001) dir. Steven Soderbergh

I mean, come on—nothing approaches this structurally, really, with the two overlapping plots of Danny getting the money and Danny getting the girl becoming inseparable from each other via an elaborate series of fake-outs. They’re one and the same, and interspersed in the middle are some of the coolest sequences of raw superhuman charisma put on screen. Not just a great film but a true masterpiece.

2. Breathless (1960) dir. Jean-Luc Godard

Used to be a good nouvelle vague film, now I think it’s the most important film ever made. Wrote a whole thesis about it in this article for High on Film.

3. Eyes Wide Shut (1999) dir. Stanley Kubrick

Kubrick’s best, and another bonafide masterpiece. Used to be scared by the party, now I’m scared by Alice’s confession. The only film that understands what being in an actual relationship is like.

4. Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (2013) dir. Ayan Mukerji

Watched with my dumbass white American friend, which was funny, but HOLY SHIT does it have good music. Really, never noticed just how great the music was.

5. Risky Business (1983) dir. Paul Brickman

The intricacies of how this deals with Reagan-era capitalism just went over my head on previous viewing; this is the perfect synthesis of red scare-era excess and a truly rich-suburban fantasy. One of those films that takes place in a world so divorced from the current one that it’s hard to believe this was ever really a thing.

6. Mallrats (1995) dir. Kevin Smith

Say what you want, this might be the funniest mainstream studio film of all time, and it gets funnier with each year I gain. Hits hard when you actually just are living the slacker lifestyle.

worse

1. High Fidelity (2000) dir. Stephen Frears

Don’t hate it or anything but unfortunately he’s uncool and a little annoying, and the film registers as a bit mopey when you’re older. It’s fundamentally still a nice little film, though—just not the life-defying one it used to seem.

2. Three Colors: Red (1994) dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski

Still think this is genius, but I’m not as moved by its purely compositional nature as much anymore—more so by the way the plot works around everything. The thematic dual to Persona; the external to Persona’s internal.

conclusions

A pretty good year in terms of cinema, all things considered—widespread variety in terms of genres and origin (did a lot of Hong Kong action and Asian cinema in general this year) along with my usual 80s-90s stuff.

There are a few things I have for next year that I’d like to do:

1. More Hong Kong. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite genres, and I need to complete the classics.
2. Less Romance. I think I watch too many of these ‘doomed romance’ films, and I’m also running out of them. For them time being I’ll hope to focus on other aspects of cinema.
3. More 80s-90s genre schlock. As much as I love these I don’t do enough of them.
4. More European cinema. I’ve lost track of a lot of this and I’m not done with the classics, but as I learn French better next year I’ll probably start spending increasing amounts of time watching these.
5. Slightly more experimental works. I’ve stuck to very standard things this year, but as I have access to more cinemas around here I’ll probably spend more time watching those.
6. More 70s drama. The American New Wave still can’t be beat.

Directors I plan to watch more of: Robert Altman, Woody Allen, Mike Nichols, Peter Bogdanovich, John Woo, Akira Kurosawa, David Cronenberg, Ang Lee, Eric Rohmer, Lars von Trier, Michael Mann