Favourite Movies

I tend to like anything by Terry Gilliam, Mike Leigh, Ron Fricke, Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, Guy Ritchie and Sean Baker. I like arthouse and independent movies that are about humanity. Here are some of my favourites. I rather detest the whole Marvel and DC cinematic universe rubbish.

I quite enjoy watching Patrick (H) Willems on YouTube.

Film festivals

Cannes film festival

• Jury Prize
• Grand Prix
• Palme d’Or
• https://tribecafilm.com/festival

Dark

• Girl, Interrupted (1999)
• Brazil (1985)
• Winter’s Bone (2010)
• Boys Don’t Cry (1999)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
• A Clockwork Orange (1971)
• The Tracey Fragments (2007)
• Thoroughbreds (2017)

Animations

• From Up on Poppy Hill (2011)
• My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
• Ponyo (2008)
• The Red Turtle (2016

Human

• Toni Erdmann (2016)
• The Savages (2007)
• Life Is Sweet (1990)
• High Hopes (1988)
• All or Nothing (2002)
• Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)
• Another Year (2010)
• Nebraska (2013)
• Shiva Baby (2020)
• Lady Bird (2017)
• The Florida Project (2017)
• Polish Wedding (1998)
• Babyteeth (2019)
• Hot Milk (205)
• Women Talking (2022)
• The Fault in Our Stars (2014)

Dissociative / reality-unstable

• K-PAX (2001)
• Donnie Darko (2001)
• I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020) - this reminds of my experiences of delirium, psychosis and desiccative episodes - this is a bit of a trigger movie for people who know

Fantasy

• The Fall (2006)
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)

Time travel / tight logical construction

• Predestination (2014)
• The Butterfly Effect (2004)
• Primer (2004)

Comedy

• Clockwise (1986)
• Wilt (1989)

Period drama

• The Favourite (2018)

Alternative

• Shortbus (2006)
• Crystal Fairy & the Magic Cactus (2013)

Near future human

• Her (2013)
• Robot & Frank (2012)

To be categorised / defying easy description

• Upstream Color (2013)
• Short Term 12 (2013)
• Micmacs (2009)
• Amélie (2001)
• Leave No Trace (2018)
• Disobedience (2017)
• I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017)
• Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)
• The Langoliers (1995)

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Watchlist

I’ve not seen these yet, but they have been recommended to me.

Human

• Secrets & Lies (1996), Mike Leigh - rewatch as I’ve forgotten it completely
• Wendy and Lucy (2008), Kelly Reichardt - spare, quiet, devastating
• Certain Women (2016), Reichardt again - three loosely connected stories, beautifully observed
• 45 Years (2015), Andrew Haigh - a marriage quietly unravelling over one week
• You Were Never Really Here (2017), Lynne Ramsay - bleaker, but extraordinary

Dissociative/reality-unstable

• Synecdoche, New York (2008), Kaufman again - overwhelming in the best way
• The Double (2013), Richard Ayoade - Kafka via Dostoevsky, visually striking
• Enemy (2013), Denis Villeneuve - unsettling identity horror, very Donnie Darko adjacent

Fantasy/visual imagination

• Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) - magical realist, raw, extraordinary debut
• The Lighthouse (2019), Robert Eggers - oppressive, mythic, visually extraordinary
• A Field in England (2013), Ben Wheatley - very strange, very British

Time travel / tight logical construction

• Timecrimes (2007), Nacho Vigalondo - Spanish, elegant and unsettling

To be categorised / defying easy description

• Swiss Army Man (2016) - absurd, tender, genuinely unlike anything else
• After Yang (2021) - quiet, philosophical, near-future, very Her adjacent
• The Wailing (2016) - Korean, long, genre-defying, extraordinary
• Beau Is Afraid (2023), Ari Aster - polarising but fits my tolerance for difficulty

Animation

• Wolfwalkers (2020), Cartoon Saloon - stunning Irish animation
• Persepolis (2007)