It seems like we could say this every week, but Netflix has made its biggest acquisition yet. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the streaming service has purchased the rights for Will Smith vehicle, Bright. With David Ayer (End of Watch, Suicide Squad) attached to direct, the film is known to be a gritty cop movie and sci-fi/fantasy mash-up, with human Smith teaming up with orc Joel Edgerton to work a case involving a powerful wand. The film was written by Max Landis, so it is sure to be divisive, if nothing else. After a mega deal with international star Adam Sandler and a number of awards contenders and festival favorites, Netflix has now expanded their original film into the bigger budget action territory. We are probably a long ways away from the release of Bright, but it certainly shows that business is picking up for Netflix. They are showing off their deep pockets, which could keep growing if films like Bright become streaming successes.

Netflix

Victoria (Sebastian Schipper, 2015)

It’s easy to be especially cautious about films that have a unique and specific filmmaking hook—in the case of Sebastian Schipper’s Victoria, it’s the 140 minutes taking place in one shot, a single take. Whenever a gimmick like this is used, you have to wonder if there is anything deeper than the bravura filmmaking, that a competent and entertaining story will unfold, as well. Victoria is the perfect marriage of technical skill, unique filmmaking and rich narrative experience. The truest mark is that Victoria‘s kinetic storytelling would still be compelling without the presentation. It even becomes enhanced by it, as the character and narrative arcs change in real-time while taking cues in the beats of never cutting to something else. An invigorating, purely cinematic adventure, Victoria is now available to stream on Netflix. For a different take on the film, see our TIFF review.

Other titles new to Netflix this week:
The Blue Hour (Anucha Boonyawatana, 2015)
Flaked (Series, Season 1)
The Forbidden Room (Guy Maddin & Evan Johnson, 2015)
Hateship Loveship (Liza Johnson, 2013)
The Returned (Series, Season 1)

Fandor

River of Grass (Kelly Reichardt, 1994)

With Kelly Reichardt’s debut film getting a limited re-release this weekend, Fandor allows a wider audience to check out the nearly unseen indie. Set in the southern Florida Everglades, the film is a mix of comedy and crime with many of the auteur’s narrative and thematic fingerprints. River of Grass debuted at the Sundance Film Festival alongside Clerks and Spanking the Monkey, two other debuts that launched the careers of major filmmakers, but it took Reichardt a little longer to catch on. If you are a fan of Reichardt’s work or ’90s indie film, River of Grass is a must watch. For more on the film, check out our full review.

Other titles new to Fandor this week:
Boyhood (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1952)
Forbidden Zone (Richard Elfman, 1980)
Les hautes solitudes (Philippe Garrel, 1974)
On the Way to School (Pascal Plisson, 2012)
Ratcatcher (Lynne Ramsay, 1999)

MUBI

Our Nixon (Penny Lane, 2013)

As we are fully in the presidential primary season, MUBI is offering an interesting look at one of the country’s most controversial presidents. Using only archival footage taken from video recorded by Nixon’s aides during the early years of his presidency, Our Nixon delves deep into his personal and political life, revealing perhaps a more complicated character than the one history has remembered. If you were captivated by the way Amy pushed the documentary form, Our Nixon works in a very similar way with a more relevant and tricky profile. And because all of the film’s footage comes from private sources, it has a much more intimate feeling—unique access for any government official, let alone a man who has become either reviled or a punchline over time. You can watch Our Nixon on MUBI until April 9.

Other titles new to MUBI this week:
A Band Called Death (Mark Christopher Covino & Jeff Howlett, 2012)
City of God (Fernando Meirelles, 2002)
Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (José Padilha, 2010)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
Two Drifters (João Pedro Rodrigues, 2005)

iTunes & Video On-Demand

Macbeth (Justin Kurzel, 2015)

It may not have been the critical or awards favorite that it projected to be, but there weren’t many more striking films from 2015 than Macbeth. Cold and dark, the film challenges the viewer with difficult Shakespearean dialogue spoken in thick accents, never holding hands through the narrative. It’s the strong look and tone of the film, however, that is likely to captivate. Second-time filmmaker Justin Kurzel (The Snowtown Murders) shows an incredible amount of skill and confidence in making a film with a big cast completely uncompromising, unlike any Shakespeare adaptation you’ve ever seen. Michael Fassbender delivers a chilling performance as the title character, with Marion Cotillard, Paddy Considine, David Thewlis and others all doing great, austere work.

Other titles new to VOD this week:
Camino (Josh C. Waller, 2015)
Coming Home (Zhang Yimou, 2014)
Daddy’s Home (Sean Anders, 2015)
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (Francis Lawrence, 2015)
Paris Belongs to Us (Jacques Rivette, 1961)

It’s almost Oscar time again, and I’ve followed the Academy Awards for long enough now to know that they don’t always represent the quality and scope of the year’s best movies. Yet, there’s something about the award season’s glitziest bash that turns me into the film buff equivalent of a WWE fan, who knows deep down that the fighting isn’t actually real, but can’t help going mental when the contenders start hurling themselves from the top turnbuckle.

In anticipation of the 88th Academy Awards nominations, here’s a list of Oscar’s worst and weirdest oversights in the Best Picture category.

10 Films That Should’ve Won Best Picture

#10. Pan’s Labyrinth

Dark-hued, dangerous and melancholy, Guillermo del Toro’s visionary fairytale grows in stature year by year, already looking like one of the films of the young century. It is a deeply textured masterwork, creating a fully realised reality and alternative reality for its young heroine Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), who seeks refuge from the horrors of post-civil war Spain in a fantasy world, only to find it as dark and violent as real life.

Evoking the primal, ancient morality tales of old rather than the sanitized hokum of Disney, it strikes a resonant chord in our deepest wishes and fears. It was probably a bit too obscure for voters—foreign language films rarely get much recognition in the Best Picture category, although lightweight fare such as Il Postino has made a showing in modern times. Martin Scorsese’s The Departed took Best Pic, and it had the misfortune to go up against the excellent The Lives of Others in the Best Foreign Language Film category. I’m sure time will separate Pan’s Labyrinth from both movies significantly.

#9. Pulp Fiction

Quentin Tarantino’s burst of pure cinema is arguably the most influential film of the past twenty-five years. It changed the way people made, wrote and thought about movies ever since. Two decades later, QT is an auteur who can make whatever he wants, please the critics (most of the time), and pack out theatres across the world. Hell, he could even adapt his grocery list for the screen and it would still be a hit.

Pulp Fiction was the perfect blend of attitude, style, music, dialogue, set pieces, dance moves, top shelf performances, and sheer, balls-out bravado. It was sensational, and struck at exactly the right time.

#8. Field of Dreams

The 62nd Awards were arguably the nadir for Oscar, with the twee Driving Miss Daisy beating a strong field including Born on the Forth of July, Dead Poet’s Society, My Left Foot, and my pick, Field of Dreams to Best Picture.

You don’t need to be a baseball fan to be enchanted by this tale of Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner), compelled by ghostly voices to build a baseball diamond over his crops. Told straight and featuring Costner at his most disarming and sincere, it’s a wonderful piece of modern myth-making. It’s a film about nostalgia and regret, but also an optimistic, magic hour celebration of the dreamer in all of us.

#7. The Killing Fields

Losing to Milos Forman’s grandiose, gaudy and rather campy Amadeus, Roland Joffe’s The Killing Fields is an impassioned yet sensitive depiction of the apocalyptic Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. It’s centred on the relationship between two journalists, American Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterson) and Cambodian Dith Pran (Dr. Haing S Ngor) caught amid the brutal regime change.

Working from a grown up screenplay by Bruce Robinson (Withnail & I), Joffe captures the chaos and turmoil of those years in great detail, with escalating panic as the US ditches its Cambodian allies. Schanberg is reluctantly forced to follow suit, leaving Pran to fend for himself in Year Zero. Ngor’s dignified, resolute performance is humbling—a first-time actor, he survived the ordeal in real life before making it to the States in 1980.

#6. Raging Bull / The Elephant Man

Take your pick, either film would have been a worthier winner than Robert Redford’s Ordinary People, which no one has seen since it took the Best Picture trophy at the 53rd awards. Both biopics shot in wondrous black and white, Scorsese and David Lynch’s films examine opposite ends of the human spectrum—Robert De Niro’s repugnant, self-destructive Middleweight Champ Jake La Motta, and John Hurt’s gentle and intelligent John Merrick, trapped inside a hideously deformed body.

Raging Bull is brutal and depressing, The Elephant Man ethereal and heartbreaking. Both have become modern masterpieces.

#5. The Exorcist

William Friedkin’s iconic horror has lost some of its shock value over the years, and I think it is all the better for it. Once you’re over all the head-spinning and spider-walking, you can concentrate on the story itself, and it always amazes me each time I see it how positive the film is. The Exorcist is a good movie in the purest sense of the word, and I think that you can draw encouragement from it no matter what your theological standpoint.

If you’re a person of faith, it makes great propaganda for the church, showing the Devil as crude and debased, while God’s humble servants selflessly lay down their lives to save a possessed little girl. If you’re agnostic, you can be buoyed by the sheer decency of the human characters in the film. If a bomb goes off in a public place, there are always people who run towards the explosion, disregarding their own safety in the hope of saving others.

That’s what the characters in The Exorcist are like, especially old and dispirited Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) and young and doubting Father Karras (Jason Miller)—on blind faith they ride to the rescue with no evidence that God has their backs. Despite its diabolical reputation, I find The Exorcist such an incredibly uplifting film.

#4. Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Like Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick didn’t get much love from the Academy—between them, they won a grand total of zero awards for Best Director. 2001: A Space Odyssey wasn’t even nominated for Best Picture, but I’m listing Dr. Strangelove because I absolutely hate the film that beat it, George Cukor’s smug, shrieking My Fair Lady. (Interesting side note: Audrey Hepburn sported one of two dodgy Cockney accents in the Best Pic category that year, along with Dick Van Dyke’s chimney sweep in Mary Poppins.)

Perhaps coming a little too soon after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Strangelove‘s acerbic satire has become synonymous with the insanity of war. Comedy madman Peter Seller’s three performances are rightly celebrated, but it is the supporting trio of Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens and George C Scott that really stick with you, ultra believable as crazed military men deliriously willing to push the world over the brink of mutually assured destruction to get one over on the Ruskies. Kubrick observes all this madness with a sardonic, deadpan gaze, and the film concludes with one of the most terrifyingly beautiful scenes of all time – the end of the world set to Dame Vera Lynn’s We’ll Meet Again.

#3. Vertigo

No popular filmmaker quite flaunted his kinks and fetishes on the screen quite as obsessively as the Portly Pervert (aka Master of Suspense) Alfred Hitchcock. Vertigo, his most personal vision, was met with a mixed reaction by critics and making little impact at the Oscars, only picking up a couple of technical awards.

These days we’re all amateur psychologists, so I think the modern audience is better positioned to appreciate Hitchcock’s masterpiece. It’s the eerie, twisted tale of a detective ruthlessly shaping a shop girl into the object of his obsessions, an icy blonde (what else in Hitchcock?) that he couldn’t prevent committing suicide because of his fear of heights. James Stewart is magnificent, tainting his good guy image to queasy effect.

#2. The Third Man

Orson Welles already had the greatest film of all time under his belt (Citizen Kane), and a few years later he gave us the greatest movie entrance of all time in Carol Reed’s funny, thrilling and fatalistic The Third Man. We follow Joseph Cotten’s gullible pulp novelist through the noirish, expressionistic underworld of post-war Vienna in search of his old best friend Harry Lime (Welles), wanted by the authorities for peddling dodgy penicillin. Anton Karas’s fabulous zither theme perfectly captures the tone of the film, managing to be jaunty and slightly sinister at the same time. A thing of joy.

#1. Citizen Kane

Although regarded as a cornerstone of modern cinema, Orson Welles’s masterpiece lost out on Outstanding Motion Picture to a film well-regarded but little-seen these days, How Green Was My Valley. Maybe it isn’t so difficult to see why – the Oscars have always been a popularity contest, and I think you need to be a bit of a cinephile to get the most out of Citizen Kane. The film is like Charles Foster Kane’s Xanadu, a magnificent, chilly mausoleum to its creator’s limitless talent, ambition and vanity. A miraculous piece of film making, but there’s little warmth within.

Also worth mentioning is another losing Best Pic nominee at the 1942 ceremony, a tight, atmospheric detective thriller called The Maltese Falcon. While small in scope, it crystallised our notion of noir, and its influence can be seen in movies as diverse as Chinatown, Blade Runner and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Over the past 28 years the Independent Spirit Awards have recognized and awarded independent films that often get overshadowed during the popularity contest that surrounds most award shows. Many of the previous Spirit Award winners are now household names (Darren Aronofksy, Coen brothers, Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh, David O. Russell), and furthered their careers from the recognition they received. As we wait to see what films will join the already impressive list of former winners, our staff at Way Too Indie shares their favorite 10 Best Film Spirit Award Winners of All Time.

Fargo

When the Coen brothers gifted their sixth feature film, Fargo, to us in 1996, Roger Ebert called it “one of the best films I’ve ever seen.” It was, and still is, a virtually universal sentiment among movie lovers across the world, and the film stands as a shining star in the Coen’s ever-expanding oeuvre. The Coens represent independent film with Fargo as well as any film from the ’90s, setting their outlandishly funny tale in one of the most offbeat, curiously charming corners of the country, a stroke of genius. Frances McDormand’s Marge Gunderson is a treasure of American cinema, and the “Minnesota nice” accent worn by the cast is now inextricably linked to the film. Aside from the film winning the Independent Spirit award for best picture, the Coens won a BAFTA and Cannes award for direction, an Oscar for Best Screenplay, and McDormand won an Oscar for Best Actress. [Bernard]

Black Swan

After reinventing himself with The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky merged his new Dardennes-influenced style with psychological horror in Black Swan. As a ballerina slowly going insane as she fights for a lead in Swan Lake, Natalie Portman gave her best performance to date. The film was a smash hit too, earning over $300 million worldwide on a $13 million budget. Aronofsky’s visceral and elegant direction resonated with audiences, and understandably with Indie Spirit as well. With the $100+ million budgeted Noah coming out this year, Aronofsky has become yet another quintessential indie success story. [CJ]

Memento

Famously known for its backwards storytelling, Memento follows the story of Leonard, a man whose short term memory loss means he can’t remember anything since his wife’s brutal death, and his need to avenge her. As with any such thriller that involves the thorough confusion of the audience, plot holes could be found if we looked hard enough. But to do so would defeat the point – the film exists not to tell a story but rather to evoke an experience. Nolan’s film became a well known success not just because he could successfully tell his story in an untraditional manner, but also because this confusion was far more than just an interesting narrative device. The fact that we don’t know what happened 5 minutes prior to the scene we’re watching is incredibly effective in making us empathize with Leonard, who did know, but has forgotten. Paired with an astounding performance from Guy Pearce, it’s no surprise this film is ironically so memorable. [Pavi]

Little Miss Sunshine

Little Miss Sunshine has always been one of those films you either love or hate. I’ve met plenty of people that have said that it’s outrageous awkwardness is a bit of a turn off, but others like my self have found that the inner quality and beauty of Little Miss Sunshine can have a profound effect. It’s a wonderful story focusing on the struggle a middle class family endures whilst traveling across states to get to a child beauty pageant. The family deals with a lot of problems that arise along the way and learn to make room for each others imperfections. [Amy]

Short Cuts

Robert Altman is a pretty huge deal when it comes to the Independent Spirit Awards. For most of his directorial career he was deemed as noncommercial by Hollywood, meaning he was limited in terms of budget and distribution compared to other prominent filmmakers at the time. The notorious director now has an entire award category dedicated to him at the Independent Spirit Awards, and a lot credit for this comes from his 1993 independent hit Short Cuts. Stacked with a bunch of stars (Julianne Moore, Tim Robbins, Andie MacDowell, Robert Downey Jr., and Jack Lemmon), Short Cuts followed numerous strangers living in L.A. whose lives would eventually intersect with one another in various points. Altman’s masterpiece influenced other films with similar interweaving narratives like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia. Having recently revisited the film, I can confirm Short Cuts still holds up 20 years later. [Dustin]

Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playbook was also up for quite a few gold men at last year’s Oscars, including Best Picture, but winning Best Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards is a more fitting accolade for this black sheep film about, well, black sheep. The heart of indie filmmaking, while it might  have a lot to do with budget, is all about covering uncommercial topics, and a romantic dramedy involving two certifiably mentally unbalanced adults falls squarely into that category. This film stars Bradley Cooper as Pat, a bipolar and recently released psych hospital patient forced to move back in with his parents while he works toward winning back his estranged wife. When he meets a depressed and aggressive widow, Tiffany, played by Jennifer Lawrence, she promises to help him get his wife back if he agrees to dance as her partner in a competition. Together they develop their own kind of therapy in dealing through their issues, as well as find in each other a sense of sanity that works for them. David O. Russell’s adapted screenplay is hilarious but never makes light of mental illness, and though the cast is decidedly A-list, each of them gives a performance transcendent of genre or label. [Ananda]

Pulp Fiction

Quentin Tarantino’s second film cemented itself into pop culture history when it came out in 1994, and for good reason. Its dialogue, time jumping structure and circular storyline (among many other things) combined to make a wholly unique and wildly entertaining film. Audiences loved the film, and Tarantino’s distinct style made him become one of the most influential filmmakers working today. The Academy Awards handed their Best Picture statue over to the schmaltzy Forrest Gump, but time has shown that the Spirit Awards made the right choice. [CJ]

Juno

Charming, genius, quick-witted, touching, unique: all of these and many more similar adjectives are frequently used to describe Jason Reitman’s tale of a young girl and her journey through pregnancy. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t sing Juno’s praises, and this is with good reason. A beautiful script from Diablo Cody with excellent comedic pacing, a performance from the immensely talented Ellen Page that will genuinely make you fall in love, and a fantastic supporting cast, from Michael Cera to J.K. Simmons – this film has a whole lot going for it. More than anything, though, what really makes it stand out is that in the same instant that it makes you cry with laughter, it will make you cry with emotion. For every smart, snappy joke is an even smarter, thoughtful take on life. Juno, the 16 year old girl who is wise beyond her years, is a paradox; it seems only right that the film is too. [Pavi]

Lost in Translation

In 2004 Sofia Coppola took home spirit awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay in addition to the Best Feature award for her intimate mood piece Lost in Translation. Having already piqued the interest of the film world with her directorial debut The Virgin Suicides four years previously, Lost in Translation proved that she wasn’t just another Coppola, but an artist in her own right. She wrote the script based on her own experiences traveling to Tokyo in her 20’s and had Bill Murray in mind while writing to play Bob Harris, the aging movie star in the midst of a mid-life and mid-career crisis. This perfect tale of Bob and Charlotte, the young American wife left contemplating life as her husband photographs celebrities–played by a young but exemplary Scarlett Johansson–focuses less on love and more on companionship in the midst of life’s periods of question in quite literally a place of complete cultural confusion . Despite being oddly juxtaposed against the anti-indie-film-of-all-films, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, which also came out in 2003, it speaks to the excellent filmmaking and performances that Lost in Translation held it’s own that year and continues to be a perfect example of the ingenuity the Spirit Awards strive to reward.  [Ananda]

The Wrestler

Darren Aronofsky couldn’t have found a better suited star for his gritty character portrait of a deteriorating man who sacrifices his body and mind for his craft than Mickey Rourke. It’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role of Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a has-been professional wrestler who is a veritable amalgamation of many wrestling superstars from the ’80s (Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Terry Funk, and more). Watching Randy’s life fall apart bit by tragic bit is painful, and utterly engrossing; a scene in which Randy holds his hysterically heartbroken daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) in his arms on the floor of her living room is earth-shattering. The film had stiff competition in the 2008 Independent Spirit Awards, running against Kelly Reichhart’s sublime Wendy and Lucy and Lance Hammer’s powerful, contemplative Ballast, which speaks to the idiosyncratic brilliance of Aronofsky and Rourke’s collaboration. [Bernard]

In the spirit of the Cannes Film Festival having recently announced this year’s winners, the staff here at Way Too Indie have decided to compile our favorite films that have previously won an award at the Cannes Film Festival. In order to give ourselves the most freedom, we voted on films that have won any award at the festival, instead of just ones that have won the top prize of the Palme d’Or. Not only are these films our favorite Cannes winners, but these are films that all film lovers should make an effort to watch.

Top 10 Cannes Winners

#10 – Dogtooth

Dogtooth is nothing if not original. In 2009, the film was the winner of the Un Certain Regard category, a selection of film at Cannes that tend to be of the “edgier” fare, though surprisingly it did go on to earn a Best Foreign Language nomination at the Oscars. The film is about a brother and two sisters that are completely fenced in from the outside world by their over-protective parents. The parents instill fear into their children by telling them the cat they sometimes see in the backyard is a vicious creature that they should stay away from. Pairing well with the unique story is the brilliant camera work that carefully keeps everything in the center of the frame. This fixed camera technique means that you are only allowed to see what is inside the frame, detaining the viewer similar to how the high-wall fence around the house detains the children. Dogtooth is a wonderfully disturbing satire on censorship. [Dustin]

Dogtooth movie review

#9 – Taste of Cherry

Abbas Kiarostami is one of the most unique and poetic directors in film today, and Taste of Cherry is as good an example of his vision as any. Mr. Badii, middle-aged man, scours Tehran looking for someone who will aid him in killing himself. He is willing to offer quite a sum of cash to any who will help, but to his surprise, no one is willing to carry that weight. Badii’s potential accomplices try desperately to talk him down from the ledge, but he’s a stubborn one. Winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1997, Kiarostami’s life-affirming masterpiece is one of the great indie treasures of the ‘90s. [Bernard]

#8 – Apocalypse Now

Francis Ford Coppola’s film is one of the best ever made about man’s decent into hell. Taking place during the Vietnam War, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is tasked with exterminating (with extreme prejudice) a Colonel (Marlon Brando) who has lost his mind. Traveling up the Nung River on a boat into Combodia, Willard is joined by a small group of soldiers who all seem to be at their breaking point. Coppola fills his film with exciting, visceral images that will haunt you long after the film finishes. Sure some of it is extreme, in one scene has an ox hacked to death with a machete in another Willard’s boat passes a slew of decapitated human heads on large sticks, but certainly you cannot deny how powerful the film is. Dennis Hopper, Robert “I love the smell of Napalm in the Morning” Duvall, Harrison Ford and Laurence Fishburne populate this frightening film. While the film is definitely hard to watch at times, it is one that is not to be missed. Coppola’s vision of the Vietnam War is the best that cinema has ever produced; unrelenting, disgusting, nightmarish, deplorable, fascinating all at the same time. [Blake]

#7 – The Piano

Told with a sweeping paintbrush of emotion, Jane Campion’s 1993 Palme d’Or winner, is a haunting film. Mute Ada arrives from Scotland on the shores of 19th century New Zealand to enter into an arranged marriage. With only her daughter Flora to interpret her sign language, Ada prefers to communicate by playing her piano. So when her husband-to-be decides the piano isn’t worth the trip through the swamps to their home, she’s understandably upset. Their neighbor Baines retrieves the piano and bargains with Ada to earn it back by teaching him to play; lessons that quickly turn into something more. Holly Hunter truly earned her Oscar that year, making each stroke of the piano keys more sincerely intense than any line uttered (for only her “mind’s voice” is heard in narration), and for fogging glasses with a sexually charged romance with a blue-tattooed Harvey Keitel. Anna Paquin made history as the second youngest actress to win an Oscar for her role as Flora, the contrarily verbose and imaginative daughter to silent Ada. Resonating with imagery, one almost feels damp as the characters traipse through New Zealand’s unsettled land. And accompanied by a flawless score written by Michael Nyman, a librettist who understands how to allow a piano to do most the speaking, The Piano is evocative and unforgettable. [Ananda]

#6 – Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

As he prepares to die from kidney failure, Uncle Boonmee goes to the countryside with his family to live out his final days. Ghosts, monkey creatures and princesses are only a few of the oddities that pop up throughout Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s masterpiece, a film about moving on to the afterlife that feels like it exists between our world and the next. Despite its bizarre content and free-flowing narrative, including a 15 minute detour involving sex with a catfish, the film walked away with the Palme D’Or in 2010. It was one of the few years at Cannes where the Palme was given to the most deserving film in competition. [CJ]

#5 – The Seventh Seal

Still (for my money) the best example of cinema at its most lyrical and literary, Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal is one of cinema’s most essential works. When it won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1957, it alerted the entire film community of the genius of Bergman and the silver-screen titan that is Max Von Sydow. Set in an exquisitely realized middle ages, a knight on the way home from the crusades engages in a high-stakes chess game with death himself (one of cinema’s most enduring images) as he treks a plague-ridden countryside with his partner, the squire. Bergman used The Seventh Seal, like many of his other films, as a way to visually articulate his inner-struggle with mortality and God’s muteness. Says the knight, “I want God to put out his hand, show his face, speak to me. I cry out to him in the dark, but there is no one there.” [Bernard]

#4 – The Tree of Life

Terrence Malick’s The Tree Of Life took home the coveted Palme d’Or in 2011 for his visual masterpiece of a film. Despite winning over many critics and picking up Oscar nominations, the film had a difficult time winning over the general audience and has the box office numbers to prove it. But Malick is one of those directors who is in the rare position to not depend on commercial success, which allows him to make such daring and experimental films such as this. The Tree Of Life is a mesmerizing cinematic experience that contains some of the most visually stunning scenes you will ever see in film. It is too bad its theatrical run was cut short, this is a film that deserves to be seen on the big screen. [Dustin]

The Tree Of Life movie review

#3 – Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver was amid the first few films that kick started De Niro’s career, and one that won the Palme d’Or award in 1976. Argued to be one of the greatest films of all time by Roger Ebert, it holds great cultural and historical significance to American history in regards to the post-Vietnam era. De Niro’s character, Travis Bickle is a war veteran who received honourable discharge from the U.S Marines. He is an extremely lonely and depressive man whose chronic insomnia allows him to take a job as a taxi driver. Travis soon finds himself being overwhelmed and angered by the street crime and prostitution he is witnessing on a daily basis and turns this built up frustration into training his body and his mind into a man capable of doing anything. Taxi Driver is a great classic that has imprinted profoundly within film history and definitely worth a watch. [Amy]

#2 – Pulp Fiction

Resevoir Dogs was a hit for Quentin Tarantino in 1992, but it wasn’t utnil 2 years later when he premiered his highly influential game changing masterpiece Pulp Fiction to the world. The film shot Tarantino into the stratosphere of filmdom’s elite and to countless year-end awards. Pulp Fiction tells three tales of blood, mayhem and hilarity. Two hit men, their boss’ wife, the prize fighter they hunt and a special briefcase that is an enigma unto itself. Tarantino and screenwriting partner Roger Avery expertly weave these three stories from back to front to middle to the back again. Tarantino’s dialogue glides off the actor’s tongues like an ice cube in the heat. A career best performance from John Travolta leads the numerous supporting turns from Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Eric Stolz, Frank Whaley, Harvey Keitel, Ving Rhames and Christopher Walken in a single scene stealing cameo. This is one of the most invigorating film going experiences that cinema has to offer; one that only becomes richer and richer the more it’s viewed. [Blake]

#1 – Oldboy

It is unbelievably difficult to summarize this film in just a few short sentences, seeing as the storyline is so complex and vastly different to anything you may be expecting. Oldboy focuses on the painfully playful torment and torture of Dae-su Oh who has been kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen years without any known reason. His mission, once released, is to find his captor and confront him. As Western popular film audiences have only been introduced to Asian cinema through the horror genre, Oldboy is an excellent example of modern East Asian cinema. Oldboy was a phenomenal stylistic achievement and along with the soundtrack and intense original storyline makes it essential viewing to any film fan. [Amy]