Described as a story which emphasizes the psychology of its characters and their unstable emotional states, the following films are benchmarks for what a successful psychological thriller should aspire to be. Instead of displaying legions of gore and violence, their main objective is to play with your mind. To leave it up to you to construct the tension of what… Read more »
If you aren’t into Hong Kong cinema, you might not know the name Johnnie To and you would be forgiven. Hardly any of his films have shown in regular theatrical runs outside of Asia, so even though the man has a forty plus year career in his native Hong Kong, starting out as a messenger boy at the age of… Read more »
Even in this modern world of Amazon, Netflix, Redbox, I-tunes and various forms of distribution, some great films still remain hard to find and in relative obscurity. Some films need that extra push in order to get a proper release, be it fan petitions, letters to producers and distributors by fans, and all other variety and manor of things. For… Read more »
The long and arduous history of Spanish cinema finds its roots primarily in the Francoist regime. With Franco’s forty-year stronghold on Spanish culture, Spain’s film industry took new and interesting forms. Outside influence was seen as dangerous, and films were dubbed into Castilian and severely cut to remove any controversial elements (in the case of Mogambo, an adulterous plot line… Read more »
“The Night of the Hunter” is Charles Laughton’s Southern Gothic masterpiece of American cinema and is sadly the only film he ever directed. A horror film of its time that meshes fantastical, dream-like visuals along with the terror of a religious zealot. The film stars Robert Mitchum as a traveling preacher named Harry Powell that lures unsuspecting women into marrying… Read more »
As mentioned in the introduction to our previous article on the best neo-noir films of the 1970s, arguments will always exist over what films should be called horror films, suspense thrillers, classic film noir and neo-noir. Those disagreements aside, the milestone cinema decade of the 1970s produced some classic neo-noir films and the 1980s kept the dark crime ball rolling… Read more »
As a popular narrative device used in film, first-person narrative makes it easy for audiences to identify with the protagonists, we see the whole event unfold on the screen in the narrator’s point of view. Some of the greatest examples in cinema history include Double Indemnity, Goodfellas and The Shawshank Redemption. However, this narrative mode can be tricky, the narrator… Read more »
Star Wars’ artistic and technical innovations made a profound impact on Hollywood. After its release audiences moved away from gritty, violent thrillers like French Connection and The Godfather and moved towards fun summer blockbusters like Superman and Ghostbusters. Yet, despite breaking box office records, its artistic achievements are repeatedly scoffed at. The New Yorker’s film critic, Pauline Kael, famously criticised… Read more »
Film critics, film writers and ardent fans are bound to disagree as to what films should be classified as being part of a particular genre. Arguments over what films should be called horror films or suspense thrillers are commonplace as are disputes over what films should fall into the category of film noir. Naturally these disputes extend to films in the… Read more »
There are so many film lists that chastise documentaries that distort the so called “truth”and dismiss certain journalistic etiquettes. From “Top 10 documentaries that lied to you”, to “6 Famous Documentaries That Were Shockingly Full of Crap”; documentary filmmakers can expect a cinematic vasectomy if they even remotely alter a ‘real event’. German filmmaker Werner Herzog famously presented his ‘ecstatic… Read more »
Considered by many as one of the greatest directors to ever live, to ever hold a camera or to ever peer inside the human soul. Ingmar Bergman dubbed as the Swedish miserablist for his dark and foreboding works most often chronicling the human condition in all sorts of maligned forms. From doomed love affairs to internal demons tormenting the exterior… Read more »
Clint Eastwood and Dirty Harry. Sylvester Stallone and Rocky. Harrison Ford and Indiana Jones. These actors and the roles they’ve played have become synonymous. One cannot think of the fictional character without conjuring up the image of the actor. That is the power of brilliant casting. But, of course, that doesn’t always happen. Studios and producers in a mad dash… Read more »
All movies are exploitation movies, if you really think about it. Each one seeks to elicit interest from viewers, attempts to exploit something in them that will cause them to take time out of their busy schedules and consume whatever visual story has been conceived by the filmmakers. However, generally when people call something an “exploitation movie”, the implication is… Read more »
This list simply offers a wide selection of films which unfold almost entirely (or entirely) at night time; whether it be action, comedy, horror, a classic, a modern feature, a classic film, a blockbuster or a low-key indie feature – they all take place when the sun has set. Sometimes, the night is so much a part of these films… Read more »
Everyone likes good surprises in life, sometimes movies can provide that, especially those thriller/suspense films. Most movies put the big twist in the end, these movies on the list put it in the middle. Watching this kind of movies is just like riding a roller-coaster, you slowly climb to the top, then it’s a sudden shift of direction all the… Read more »
If you are serious about your love for cinema, you have got to know your essentials so it would be nice to compile a list of ten undisputed masterpieces from ten different nations. If you are a real cinema aficionado, you might have already seen all of these but maybe there are few that are still on your list of… Read more »
Style in cinema can be the ultimate creative expression. Every great film has a distinct style, and many times the most memorable movies are those that give the viewer an experience that let them see and feel things they couldn’t normally do. Whether it be an action scene that simultaneously breaks the laws of physics and inspires a true “wow”… Read more »
Every story has an opposing force that the protagonist has to face in order to triumph. Some face nature, some face themselves, but most do face the ever famous antagonist. Not all villains are all that evil, just misunderstood; the people on this list are just plain easy to hate. They have no redeeming qualities and relating to them just… Read more »
Gangster movie, or mob movie, has history. Its first golden period is the 1930s, the time Warner Brothers gangster films became some of the biggest hits in the box office, the time film stars like James Cagney, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson made their name well known. In the early 1970s, an Italian-American made a gangster movie that became… Read more »
