Two years of watching Movies You must See Before You Die

Listed in this post are my favorite films that I’ve watched since October 2014 from the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. You can read more about the first year, but I do have a couple of things I’d add to my initial commentary: In case you hadn’t noticed already, I place a heavy emphasis on cinematography. Also, I just realized that I don’t have a column for (the mostly useless) MPAA ratings. I’ll leave that up to you to research. More on the technical details after the list…

• Ugetsu Monogatari (1953, Japan) – Mizoguchi lays out this traditional 16th century ghost tale like an ancient scroll.
• A Man Escaped (1956, France) – A seemingly simple prison escape film, but every element is carefully crafted.
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962) – I was prepared to be bored, but the cinematography and more importantly the international and personal politics of this WWI true story were quite gripping.
• 8 1/2 (1963, Italy) – Fellini’s autobiographical hopes, dreams, and worries.
• Gaav (The Cow, 1969, Iran) – A fable about a man in a small village whose beloved cow dies.
• The Spirit of the Beehive (1973, Spain) – One of those films that has such a unique pathos that it’s nearly impossible to summarize in just a few words. A child’s response to Frankenstein. Compare to Pan’s Labyrinth.
• Network (1976) – Satirical take on the TV news industry. Not much has changed. Brilliant performances by all.
• Mad Max (1979) – You should know the basic idea on this one: gritty, unique, fast-paced, and great sound & visual design.
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) – So many iconic elements in this film. I love Freddy’s theme music – Wes Craven 80s music gold.
• Europa Europa (1990, Poland) – Dark humor, based on a true story about a Jewish orphan who becomes a part of the Hitler Youth.
• The Big Lebowski (1998)* – Bowling, Dudeism, classic music.
• All About My Mother (1999, Spain) – Totally engrossing film about love, loss, and caring for one another.
• Boyhood (2014)* – Director Richard Linklater explores a common theme in all of his movies: time. This one required a 12 year commitment for the entire cast (particularly noticeable is the young boy who goes from age 6 to 18), collapsed into 165 minutes. A first in cinematic history, but also a captivating story about how society and families change over the years.

In last year’s roundup, I mentioned that I had watched 110 movies on the list from October 2013 to October 2014. I’ve watched about 50 this year. It’s getting harder to find films on the list (a) that I have an interest in seeing and (b) that are available in high definition. I’ve about run out of the ones I want to see that are currently streaming on Netflix; Louisville’s beloved Wild and Woolly Video store closed in late March; and the Louisville Library does not carry Blu-rays.

Below is a simplified spreadsheet of the films from the past two years, or you can download my entire spreadsheet xlsx file which includes a “Favs from 1001 book” tab (details in my movie spreadsheet post).

Title	My	Directors	AVG critic	Year	# of IMDb vote	Fem. dir.	Bech-del	LGBTQ Russo	Foreig.	JJ watched
The Adventures of Prince Achmed	8	Lotte Reiniger	82	1926	2510	Y			Germany	14review
M	9	Fritz Lang	92	1931	66092		3		Germany	14review
The Wizard of Oz	9	Victor Fleming	82	1939	183475		3			14review
Dance, Girl, Dance	8	Dorothy Arzner	67	1940	805	Y	3			14review
Children of Paradise	9	Marcel Carné	91	1945	10974		2		France	14review
A Streetcar Named Desire	9	Elia Kazan	89	1951	57949		3			14review
Ugetsu Monogatari	9	Kenji Mizoguchi	90	1953	9728		2		Japan	15review
Night and Fog	10	Alain Resnais	93	1955	8717		0		France	14review
A Man Escaped	9	Robert Bresson	90	1956	7640		0		France	15review
Lawrence of Arabia	10	David Lean	94	1962	125284		0			15review
8½	9	Federico Fellini	89	1963	52101		3		Italy	15review
The House Is Black	9	Forugh Farrokhzad	89	1963	1393	Y			Iran	14review
Winter Light	9	Ingmar Bergman	79	1963	9133		1?		Sweden	14review
2001: A Space Odyssey	10	Stanley Kubrick	88	1968	274938		0			14review
The Cow (Gaav)	9	Dariush Mehrjui	86	1969	2860				Iran	15review
The Conformist	9	Bernardo Bertolucci	90	1970	11285		3		Italy	14review
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory	10	Mel Stuart	78	1971	83710		2			14review
The Spirit of the Beehive	9	Víctor Erice	88	1973	7831		3		Spain	15review
Network	9	Sidney Lumet	85	1976	66736		3			15review
Taxi Driver	9	Martin Scorsese	92	1976	308887		1			14review
Star Wars	9	George Lucas	88	1977	563201		1			14review
Mad Max	9	George Miller	70	1979	85086					15review
Blade Runner	9	Ridley Scott	83	1982	313190		1			14review
A Nightmare on Elm Street	9	Wes Craven	76	1984	95510		3			15review
Vagabond (Without Roof or Rule)	9	Agnès Varda	87	1985	2959	Y	3		Belgium	14review
Broadcast News	9	James L. Brooks	84	1987	16033		3			14review
The Princess Bride	10	Rob Reiner	81	1987	199210		2			14review
Grave of the Fireflies	9	Isao Takahata	90	1988	72633				Japan	14review
Rain Man	10	Barry Levinson	80	1988	264938		1			14review
Dances with Wolves	10	Kevin Costner	77	1990	127227					14review
Europa Europa	9	Agnieszka Holland	88	1990	9500	Y	2		Poland	15review
My Own Private Idaho	9	Gus Van Sant	77	1991	27076			3		14review
Terminator 2: Judgment Day	10	James Cameron	82	1991	460795		3			14review
The Silence of the Lambs	9	Jonathan Demme	88	1991	506266		3			14review
Groundhog Day	9	Harold Ramis	81	1993	270655		1			14review
The Big Lebowski	9	Ethan Coen, Joel Coen	77	1998	447351		1			15review
All About My Mother	10	Pedro Almodóvar	88	1999	51780		3	3	Spain	15review
The Matrix	10	The Wachowski Brothers, The Wachowski Brothers	82	1999	741159		3	?		14review
The Dark Knight	9	Christopher Nolan	90	2008	1009750		3			14review
In a Better World	9	Susanne Bier	72	2010	23161	Y			Denmark	14review
Nostalgia for the Light	10	Patricio Guzmán	73	2010	1606				Intl.	14review
Senna	9	Asif Kapadia	85	2010	28528					14review
A Separation	10	Asghar Farhadi	93	2011	102396		3		France	14review
Drive	9	Nicolas Winding Refn	83	2011	299385		3			14review
Amour	10	Michael Haneke	88	2012	42037		3		France	14review
The Act of Killing	10	Joshua Oppenheimer, Anonymous, Christine Cynn	89	2012	6483	Y	0			14review
In a World	9	Lake Bell	81	2013	1514	Y	3			14review
Boyhood	9	Richard Linklater	89	2014	13017		3			15review

I think I’ll do a post soon about movies I love that are NOT in the 1001 Movies, like Virunga, The Babadook, Before Midnight, The Innocents, Paris Is Burning, and The Holy Mountain.

* Films I’d seen before last November but revisited in 2015.

La Agrado’s monologue from All About My Mother (YouTube)