Post #106685 by DaneTiki on Fri, Aug 6, 2004 2:27 PM

Here's 5 that I think everyone should see, but only some do:

1. Le Samourai (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)
   This is my favorite New Wave/noir film ever. Alain Delon redefines "cool."

2. Underground (Emir Kusturica, 1995)
   The best film I've seen so far about the collapse of Eastern European Communism. And it has interesting post-modern things to say about memory, heroism, nationality and ideology.

3. The Criminal Life of Archibaldo De La Cruz (Luis Buñuel, 1962)
   Of course, everyone should see ALL of Buñuel's films, but this one is both accessible and obscure. And funny as hell.

4. The Cockettes (Bill Weber and Dave Weissman, 2002)
   This is getting pretty obscure, since I don't think it ever got serious distribution, but it's a great documentary that cuts through a lot of the fog of marketing and politics around San Francisco's gay culture in the 1960s and 1970s.

5. Sonatine (Kitano "Beat" Takeshi, 1993)
   Takeshi's "Hana-bi (Fireworks)" is the one that really got him noticed in U.S. art house circles, but I think "Sonatine" best captures his blend of Yakuza violence and absurd, slapstick humor.

Also, as far as "famous" movies, everybody needs to see M (Fritz Lang, 1931), Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau, 1922), Gummo (Harmony Korine, 1997), Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983), Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch, 1995), Slacker (Richard Linklater, 1991), The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson, 1961) and The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960) [Has tiki bar scene!]