February is Black History Month, so I made a list of must-see movies by Black filmmakers for the students in my African American Studies course. Rather than focusing on films that are frequently mentioned in lists like these, such as Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing or Jordan Peele’s Get Out, or well-watched classics from the 1990s, such as Forest Whitaker’s Waiting to Exhale or F. Gary Gray’s Friday, I wanted to highlight lesser-known movies that deserve more attention than they usually get in mainstream media.
Read more125 Best Films from the Past 25 Years
Since folks have been sending me the New York Times “Century’s Best Movies” list, I decided to make my own. There is some overlap, of course, but my list is better, in my humble opinion. My process was not very scientific, but I tried to consider the totality of each film in terms of cinematography, script, direction, editing, and performance, as well as the uniqueness of the subject matter. So, here are 125 of the best films from 2000 to 2025, listed in chronological order.
Read moreWomen Directors Have Made Some of the Greatest Films Ever. Here Are 11 You Might Not Know.
March is Women’s History Month, and there is no better time to watch some outstanding films made by women directors. Directors like Agnès Varda, Julie Dash, or Chantal Ackerman might not be household names, but they have made an indelible imprint on hundreds of films and filmmakers that came after them. From the feminist psychedelia of Daises to the anti-colonialist, coming-of-age drama Chocolat, these are eleven films directed by women internationally you might not have heard of but would not want to miss.
Read moreSplit Screen Cinema
Over many years of studying film, I have collected over 500 instances of visual influences, homages, and rip-offs in movies and art, and I will continually update them here.
Read moreBest Films of the 2000s (So Far)
Here is a list of my favorite films from 2000 to 2030. As of now, I have seen over 1200 movies from the 2000s, and this list has about 400 of them, with about 100 of them being worthy of “great film” status. I have watched over 3300 films across all genres and countries from the start of cinema to the present. If the film is in bold, that means I think it is one of the best films of the twenty-first century so far and belongs in a “must-see” category. As for everything else, a movie made the list if I believe it meets one of the following criteria: quality writing, acting, and directing that may not be “high art” but at least it is not the typical Hollywood schlock; interesting artistically or thematically, even if it does not come together as best as one could hope; solidly funny, delightfully weird, or at least just does something interesting for a change.
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