10. The Sum of All Fears (2002)
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan has such a strange relationship with screen adapations. Some of them are enduring classings, like The Hunt for the Red October, which many others are quickly forgotten. This one is not very well receieved, but I put it here nonetheless. I just can’t argue with the fact that I found this movie riveting. It’s just a solid geopolitical thriller that’s not afraid to swing for the fences. It doesn’t land as well as some of the bests in that genre, but I had a great time anyway.
9. Yojimbo (1961) and Sanjuro (1962)
I decided to make going through my Kurosawa backlog a priority this year. In addition to these two, I watched Rashomon, Ran, and Throne of Blood. Prior to this year I also greatly enjoyed watching Seven Samurai. Mifune features in nearly all of those films, but I think this is my personal favorite performance of his. The nameless-ish ronin fits so well Mifune’s effortless charm and confidence.
The first film, Yojimbo may be more familiar to some in its unauthorized remake, A Fistful of Dollars. A wanderer arrives in a town with two warring factions and plays them both of each other to his benefit. As much as I am a fan of Leone (Duck, You Sucker!/A Fistful of Dunamite barely missed being on this list), I definitely perfer Kurosawa’s version of this story.
Sanjuro is also about playing factions off another, but instead takes place in a feudal lord’s estate as a rebellion is happening. There’s a lot of great moments of tension along with beautiful filmmaking, but the part that sticks with me the most is the anti-violence message. The through-line of the inherent destructiveness of the skills of our protagonist carries through the whole proceeding.
8. The Wages of Fear (1953)
Thrillers are some of my favorite movies and this one is an all-time classic. It takes a dead simple premise–in order to stop a fire in an oil well, four men in two truck need to transport violite nitroglycerin across dangerous mountain roads–and just does the crap out of it. The movie follows a pair of men: Frenchmen Mario and Jo who are stuck in a rural town in South America which they cannot leave as the only way out is by plane and cannot afford tickets. This leads them to volunteer to take the nitro job in order to get enough money to leave. They are joined by German Bimba and Italian Luigi in a second truck. Each literal twist and turn ratchets up the tension as sudden death is always a risk for each of them. I won’t spoil the rest, but suffice to say this movie keeps you so close to the edge of your seat, I’m surprised I didn’t fall off.
7. The Long Goodbye (1973)
In addition to Kurosawa, I’ve been trying to shore up my classic noir/neo-noir backlog. Up until this film, most of them were interesting from an academic perspective–showing the inception of things I’d seen done again (and parodied) many times later–but I wasn’t exactly blown away either. This film on the other hand really worked for me. Very much in the same 70s vein as Network, but deliberately doing a classic noir detective story–Chandler’s Marlowe in fact. Gould’s lackadaisical doggedness as Marlowe is instantly iconic. The mystery itself is well told such that the answer is both hard to predict and appropriate once revealed. In order words, a the ideal myster–a bar hard to meet anymore.
There is one scene which aged particurly badly where there is gratutious intimate partner violence which is justified in a very narratively suspect way. This is somewhat par for the course for the era and genre, but it’s worth calling out anyway.
6. Enemy of the State (1998)
This movie has aged like a fine wine, which is great as a movie viewer and terrible as person who lives in modern society. This thriller is all about how the government is watching people, which was criticized by contemporary critics as unrealistic. Depressing parallels with reality aside however, this is an above-average Bruckeheimer-produced action thriller. However, playing off the themes surveillance elevates it to something uniquely enjoyable. It also can be see as a sort of spiritual sequel to The Conversation (1974), also starring Gene Hackman. Also starring an arguably career peak Will Smith, this may have also been the last time that he starred in back-to-back good movies, since this was his followup to Men in Black and would followup this will Wild Wild West.
5. Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Another genre I’ve been trying to shore up is Musicals, and boy this one did not disappoint. Very fun ’60s throwback aesthetic which has some incredibly catchy and fun numbers, chief among them being “Skid Row”, “Dentist”, and the eponymous theme song. The story itself, is extremely compelling and unique, with Moranis doing a ton of great work to ingriate ourselves to his Seymour. I love the harmonizing ’60s-styled “chorus” who sing on a number of the songs, especially though.
4. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
World War I is a very interesting piece of history to me, because it shows humanity at among its ugliest. And All Quiet is all about showing the systems that show that ugliness. Following a group of young Germans who sign up to fight “for the Fatherland” after hearing a rousing speech from their teacher about how they will find glory in war. The rest of the film is about how they are killed seemingly at random and with nothing resmbling glory. This movie is I think one of the greatest anti-war pieces of all time, and teaches an unfortunatley timeless message.
3. Bo Burnham: Inside (2021)
I debated including this, since it’s technically a comedy special and not a “movie” per se, but the difference seemed pretty academic to me. This is the only from this past year (and nearly 20 before) on this list. I’m not really sure why that is, but here we are. People have said a lot of words about this work and I doubt I’ll be able to say anything you haven’t already seen before. But god damn this is a deeply affecting piece. The soundtrack alone is filled with catchy, funny, affecting songs. “Welcome to the Internet” and “All Eyes on Me” were instant hits, but “30” affected me a lot since it voiced a lot of the thoughts I had about turning 30 and this came out about a month after that happened for me. Ultimately, Burnham is just a master at articulating a particular anxiety that it seems like it shared by many, especially in my generation. The relationship of this work to that general anxiety plus covid anxiety on top of that was crytsalized so precisely here in a way I don’t know if anyone else will ever top or frankly get even within a goddamn parsec of.
2. The Third Man (1949)
As I mentioned above, I tried to shore up my noir backlog this year, and this one gets put at the top of a lot of lists. And holy fuck, does it deserve it. First of all, this movie is goddamn gorgeous. It uses contrast in a black and white to create honest-to-goodness paintings in some of its frames. It has an interesting metanarrative aspect by having our protagonist be a pulp mystery writer who is directly criticized for being lowbrow. And the central mystery itself is extremely well done (actually in the same way as The Long Goodbye, in the broad strokes). The setting of post-WW2 Vienna is also excellent in that it shows how in the bureaucracy of that time–which was contemporary–was brutal in a systemic way, in the many people who fell through the cracks. There’s a lot more I want to say, but in the interest of avoiding spoilers I’ll stop here.
1. Duel (1971)
I mentioned above how much I like thrillers and this one is an all-timer. This is actually Steven Spielberg’s first feature film–in fact a tv film originally–and his skill is already apparent. The premise of this movie is dead simple: our protagonist is driving to a business meeting through a rural area when a semi truck starts trying to run him off the road. The driver of the truck is never seen and almost seems to be toying with our hero. Every moment either serves to ratchet the tension or to give just enough temporary relief to make the next time even more tense. With such a simple premise, this movie is perfect as an exactly 90 minute film.