Grizzly Man (2005)

Recommended

USA

Feature Documentary

Writer/Director/Narrator: Werner Herzog

Cinematographer: Peter Zeitlinger

Composer: Richard Thompson

Though some of the interviews feel rehearsed and written, and the narration is perhaps a little overly analytical, Herzog’s portrait of Timothy Treadwell, a deeply deluded nature enthusiast, who spent each summer in the wilds of Alaska alongside his beloved grizzly bears, who he gave cute names to and talked to in a silly babyish voice, until he and his girlfriend were finally killed by one in October 2003, is a painfully compelling viewing experience. Iain.Stott

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Still Walking (2008)

Recommended

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 歩いても 歩いても

Writer/Director: Koreeda Hirokazu

Cinematographer: Yamasaki Yutaka

Composer: Gonchichi

Cast: Abe Hiroshi, Natsukawa Yui, You, Takahashi Kazuya, Tanaka Shohei, Kiki Kirin, Harada Yoshio

Koreeda’s gently moving, quietly humorous, and beautifully observed slice-of-life family drama depicts the gathering of a family to commemorate the 12th anniversary of its eldest child’s death – he died saving the life of a drowning boy at the nearby beach – which, though generally incident free, gradually highlights their hopes, fears, prejudices, and resentments. Iain.Stott

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Up in the Air (2009)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Jason Reitman

Writers: Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner, Walter Kirn

Cinematographer: Eric Steelberg

Composer: Rolfe Kent

Cast: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman, Amy Morton, Melanie Lynskey, Danny McBride

Based on Walter Kirn’s novel, Reitman’s bitter-sweet follow-up to the ridiculously popular Juno (2007), with a typically melancholically charismatic performance from Clooney and an affecting turn from Kendrick, depicts the emotional awakening of a perma-travelling employee of a company which specialises in third party firings, catering to companies not wishing to do the dirty deed for themselves, as he shows the ropes to a young employee who hopes to implement an internet-based technique to make the process even more heinously impersonal. Iain.Stott

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The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

Essential Viewing

France

Feature Film

Original Title: La passion de Jeanne d'Arc

Director: Carl Th. Dreyer

Writers: Carl Th. Dreyer, Joseph Delteil

Cinematographer: Rudolph Maté

Cast: Melle Falconetti, Eugène Silvain, André Berley, Maurice Schutz, Antonin Artaud, Michel Simon, Jean d'Yd, Louis Ravet

With a truly great and tremendously affecting performance from Falconetti in the title role, Dreyer’s majestic film – told mainly in the form of close-ups of the expressive face of the aforementioned revered stage actress (here making a rare big screen appearance) – details the trial (right up till its fiery conclusion) of Joan of Arc, the French teenaged freedom fighter, who claimed to have been tasked by God to rid France of the English. Iain.Stott

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Memento (2000)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Christopher Nolan

Writers: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan

Cinematographer: Wally Pfister

Composer: David Julyan

Cast: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Mark Boone Junior, Jorja Fox, Stephen Tobolowsky, Harriet Sansom Harris, Callum Keith Rennie, Larry Holden

Nolan’s dazzlingly and disorientatingly brilliant film – told in reverse order, in order to keep us in a state similar to its memory challenged hero, with each scene finishing where the previous one began – follows the progress of a former insurance investigator, who is unable to make new memories, as he attempts to track down and kill the man who raped and murdered his wife. Iain.Stott

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Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Leo McCarey

Writers: Viña Delmar, Josephine Lawrence, Helen Leary, Noah Leary

Cinematographer: William C. Mellor

Composers: George Antheil, Victor Young

Cast: Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi, Fay Bainter, Thomas Mitchell, Porter Hall, Barbara Read, Maurice Moscovitch, Elisabeth Risdon, Minna Gombell

McCarey’s beautifully observed, achingly sad, and almost unbearably poignant film depicts the housing troubles of a 50-years-long married couple, who can no longer afford to live in their family home, and find themselves separated and shipped around the abodes of their generally ungrateful children, to the point where they realise that they may soon be separated for good. Iain.Stott

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100 Films of Kurosawa's Choice

Taken from the 1999 book A Dream Is a Genius, based on conversations between Kurosawa Akira and his daughter Kazuko.

• Broken Blossoms (1919)
• The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920)
• Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922)
• The Gold Rush (1925)
• The Fall of the House of Usher (1928, Epstein)
• Un Chien Andalou (1929)
• Earth (1930)
• Morocco (1930)
• Der Kongress Tanzt (1931)
• The Threepenny Opera (1931)
• Lover Divine (1933)
• Our Neighbour (1934)
• The Thin Man (1934)
• Tange Sazen and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo (1935)
• Capricious Young Man (1936)
• La Grande Illusion (1937)
• Stella Dallas (1937)
• Composition Class (1938)
• Ninotchka (1939)
• The Big Sleep (1946)
• It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
• Ivan the Terrible (1944-1946)
• My Darling Clementine (1946)
• Bicycle Thieves (1948)
• The Green Mountains (1949)
• Late Spring (1949)
• The Third Man (1949)
• Orpheus (1950)
• Carmen Comes Home (1951)
• A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
• The Life of Oharu (1952)
• Thérèse Raquin (1953)
• Godzilla (1954)
• La Strada (1954)
• Viaggio in Italia (1954)
• Daddy Long Legs (1955)
• Floating Clouds (1955)
• Pather Panchali (1955)
• The Proud Ones (1956)
• The Sun Legend of the End of the Tokugawa Era (1957)
• The Young Lions (1958)
• Ben-Hur (1959)
• The Four Hundred Blows (1959)
• Les Cousins (1959)
• À Bout de Souffle (1960)
• Her Brother (1960)
• Plein Soleil (1960)
• Stowaway in the Sky (1960)
• Zazie dans le Métro (1960)
• Last Year in Marienbad (1961)
• The Long Absence (1961)
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
• What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
• The Big Snatch (1963)
• The Birds (1963)
• The Red Desert (1964)
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
• Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
• In the Heat of the Night (1967)
• The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)
• Midnight Cowboy (1969)
• MASH (1970)
• French Connection (1971)
• Johnny Got His Gun (1971)
• Solaris (1972)
• The Day of the Jackal (1973)
• The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)
• Conversation Piece (1974)
• The Godfather: Part II (1974)
• Sandakan 8 (1974)
• Barry Lyndon (1975)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
• The Travelling Players (1975)
• Lullaby of the Earth (1976)
• Annie Hall (1977)
• Padre Padrone (1977)
• An Unfinished Piece for a Player Piano (1977)
• A Distant Cry from Spring (1980)
• Gloria (1980)
• Fanny and Alexander (1982)
• Fitzcarraldo (1982)
• The King of Comedy (1982)
• La Traviata (1982)
• Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983)
• The Killing Fields (1984)
• Paris, Texas (1984)
• Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
• A Summer at Grandpa's (1984)
• The Trip to Bountiful (1985)
• When Father Was Away on Business (1985)
• Witness (1985)
• Bagdad Cafe (1987)
• The Dead (1987)
• The Whales of August (1987)
• Where Is My Friend's House? (1987)
• My Neighbour Totoro (1988)
• Running on Empty (1988)
• Buddies (1989)
• La Belle Noiseuse (1991)
• Hana-Bi (1997)

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