Blue Velvet (1986)
Lynch's 1986 small-town surrealist thriller. MacLachlan, Rossellini, Hopper as Frank Booth.
Tag: American Decay (Page 12)
1990sPulp Fiction (1994)
Tarantino's 1994 anthology crime film. The film that made indie a commercial proposition.
2000sRequiem for a Dream (2000)
Aronofsky's 2000 addiction film. Four people destroyed in parallel tracks.
2010sLeviathan (2014)
Zvyagintsev's 2014 Russian drama. A man fighting a corrupt mayor over his coastal property.
2000sMesrine (2008)
Richet's 2008 two-part French gangster epic. Vincent Cassel as Jacques Mesrine.
1960sLa Dolce Vita (1960)
Fellini's 1960 Rome decadence drama. Three hours of Marcello Mastroianni drifting through high society.
1960s
1940sCitizen Kane (1941)
The film film school built itself around. Deep focus, ceiling shots, fractured timeline.
1970sChinatown (1974)
Polanski's 1974 Los Angeles neo-noir. The water-rights conspiracy that defined New Hollywood pessimism.
1940sDouble Indemnity (1944)
Chandler co-wrote with Wilder. Double Indemnity is the Billy Wilder-directed Paramount Pictures noir that became the canonical template for the genre's mature middle period.
1940sThe Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Ford's 1940 Steinbeck adaptation. The film that established American social-realist cinema.
1990sA Shock to the System (1990)
Michael Caine as an executive who discovers he can kill his way to the top and nobody will notice. A Shock to the System is the Jan Egleson-directed dark comedy adapted from Simon Brett's 1984 novel of the same title.