Here are some films that fit outside of the other categories I’ve written about recently (particularly the 1001 Movies list [1]) with a focus on my favorites from 2015.
11 out of 52 of these are currently streaming on Netflix (N). More details below the list.
- A Song of Love (1950, France)
- The Innocents (1961, B)
- The Holy Mountain (1973, Chile)
- Silent Movie (1976)
- Rocky IV (1985)
- Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
- Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)
- Spaceballs (1987, B)
- My Neighbor Totoro (1988, B, P)
- Willow (1988)
- Paris Is Burning (1990, B, N, P, R)
- Ed Wood (1994, B)
- Léon: The Professional (1994, B)
- Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002, Australia, B, P, N)
- Lost in Translation (2003, B)
- An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
- Rape of Europa (2006, N)
- For the Bible Tells Me So (2007)
- WALL·E (2008)
- The End of America (2008)
- Waltz With Bashir (2008, P)
- RiP: A Remix Manifesto (2009)
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009, Denmark, B, N)
- The National Parks: America’s Best Idea (2009)
- The Cove (2009)
- The Secret in Their Eyes (2009, Argentinia)
- Beginners (2010, N, R)
- Restrepo (2010, N)
- Monsieur Lazhar (2011, Canada)
- Polisse (2011, Canada, B)
- Weekend (2011, N, R)
- Samsara (2011, N)
- Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012, B, P)
- Charles Bradley: Soul of America (2012)
- Cloud Atlas (2012, B, R)
- Coldplay Live 2012 (2012)
- Stories We Tell (2012, B)
- 42 (2013)
- Before Midnight (2013, B)
- Her (2013)
- Pride (2014, B, R)
- Virunga (2014, P, N)
- The Babadook (2014, B, N)
- Selma (2015 Jan., B, P)
- The Overnight (2015 Jun., B, N)
- Mad Max: Fury Road (2015 May, B)
- When Marnie Was There (2015, B, P)
- Roger Waters: The Wall (2015 Sep.)
- The Walk (2015 Sep.)
- Room (2015 Sep., B)
- Carol (2015 Nov., B, R)
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015 Dec., B, P?)
One of the main reasons I started documenting movies in such detail was to discover movies with more character diversity. Watching the same types of people (read: white men) in films all the time is boring to me, which I’ve written about before. I’ve decided to add a “People of Color” (designated as “P” above, aka Racial Test) column to my spreadsheet, basically the same number system as the Bechdel Test (B), and the Russo Test (R). The month listed for the 2015 films refers to the wide(est) release date in the US. Many of these are currently streaming on Netflix (N).
[1] The 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die books (yearly editions) are compiled by a few editors and critics who have put together a wide variety of the “best” films, with almost a full page of text for each one. It’s much handier than clicking on website lists, and one of the few hard cover reference books I’ve bought in the past 20 years. This post is basically a companion piece to to November’s “Two years of watching Movies You Must See Before You Die” where I listed my favorites from the book… so far, since I haven’t seen them all – nor will I ever, really.