The world has long underestimated what movies are capable of. At their best they’ve inoculated us against tyrannical ideologies, shattered our naivety, given us courage to live better lives, saved our sanity in times of crisis, and helped us to see a more wondrous world. They still have much work to do. Narrative film operates in mysterious ways, often below the level of consciousness, and this website aims to penetrate its mysteries, applying methods of a detective or a psychoanalyst to find insights that could reshape discourse on cinema.
List of 211 film essays
| RELEASE DATE | TITLE | DIRECTOR |
|---|---|---|
| 1920-02-26 | Cabinet of Dr. Caligari | Wiene |
| 1923-10-16 | Warning Shadows | Robison |
| 1924-04-17 | Sherlock Jr. | Keaton |
| 1926-11-06 | Exit Smiling | Taylor |
| 1927-09-23 | Sunrise | Murnau |
| 1930-04-08 | Earth | Dovzhenko |
| 1931-01-30 | City Lights | Chaplin |
| 1932-01-20 | Blood of a Poet | Cocteau |
| 1932-05-06 | Vampyr | Dreyer |
| 1932-06-03 | I Was Born, But... | Ozu |
| 1932-06-25 | Red-Headed Woman | Conway |
| 1934-04-24 | Atalante | Vigo |
| 1935-06-06 | 39 Steps | Hitchcock |
| 1936-02-05 | Modern Times | Chaplin |
| 1936-02-27 | Mr. Thank You | Shimizu |
| 1938-10-07 | Lady Vanishes | Hitchcock |
| 1939-01-27 | Idiot's Delight | Brown |
| 1939-03-17 | Midnight | Leisen |
| 1939-08-11 | Wizard of Oz | Fleming et al. |
| 1940-03-21 | Rebecca | Hitchcock |
| 1941-03-21 | Sea Wolf | Curtiz |
| 1941-08-26 | Ornamental Hairpin | Shimizu |
| 1941-09-09 | Ladies in Retirement | Vidor |
| 1941-10-03 | Maltese Falcon | Huston |
| 1941-10-16 | Assassination of Père Noël | Christian-Jaque |
| 1941-10-31 | I Wake Up Screaming | Humberstone |
| 1941-11-08 | Suspicion | Hitchcock |
| 1942-04-22 | Saboteur | Hitchcock |
| 1942-07-10 | Nuit fantastique | L'Herbier |
| 1942-07-31 | Holiday Inn | Sandrich |
| 1942-11-26 | Casablanca | Curtiz |
| 1943-00-00 | Meshes of the Afternoon | Deren/Hammid |
| 1943-01-12 | Shadow of a Doubt | Hitchcock |
| 1943-04-08 | I Walked with a Zombie | Tourneur, J. |
| 1943-04-14 | Goupi Mains Rouges | Becker |
| 1943-04-21 | Hand of the Devil | Tourneur, M. |
| 1943-05-26 | Lumière d'été | Grémillon |
| 1943-11-13 | Day of Wrath | Dreyer |
| 1944-10-11 | Laura | Preminger |
| 1945-09-09 | Dead of Night | Dearden et al. |
| 1945-09-28 | Mildred Pierce | Curtiz |
| 1945-10-31 | Spellbound | Hitchcock |
| 1945-11-14 | Detour | Ulmer |
| 1945-11-19 | Brief Encounter | Lean |
| 1946-08-22 | Big Sleep | Hawks |
| 1946-09-25 | Beauty and the Beast | Cocteau |
| 1946-11-01 | Matter of Life and Death | Powell/Pressburger |
| 1946-12-07 | Green for Danger | Gilliat |
| 1947-04-11 | Monsieur Verdoux | Chaplin |
| 1947-04-24 | Black Narcissus | Powell/Pressburger |
| 1947-05-25 | Ghost and Mrs. Muir | Mankiewicz |
| 1948-12-01 | Parents terribles | Cocteau |
| 1949-01-19 | Such a Pretty Little Beach | Allégret |
| 1949-01-20 | Letter to Three Wives | Mankiewicz |
| 1949-09-01 | Third Man | Reed |
| 1949-09-13 | Late Spring | Ozu |
| 1950-02-23 | Stage Fright | Hitchcock |
| 1950-03-01 | Orphée | Cocteau |
| 1950-03-29 | Enfants terribles | Melville |
| 1950-08-10 | Sunset Boulevard | Wilder |
| 1950-10-13 | All About Eve | Mankiewicz |
| 1950-12-25 | Born Yesterday | Cukor |
| 1951-02-07 | Diary of a Country Priest | Bresson |
| 1951-04-15 | Juliette, or the Key of Dreams | Carné |
| 1951-06-27 | Strangers on a Train | Hitchcock |
| 1951-10-03 | Early Summer | Ozu |
| 1952-01-17 | Phone Call from a Stranger | Negulesco |
| 1952-02-22 | 5 Fingers | Mankiewicz |
| 1952-10-01 | Flavor of Green Tea over Rice | Ozu |
| 1953-02-25 | Monsieur Hulot's Holiday | Tati |
| 1953-03-26 | Ugetsu monogatari | Mizoguchi |
| 1953-08-20 | Roman Holiday | Wyler |
| 1953-11-03 | Tokyo Story | Ozu |
| 1954-03-03 | Naked Jungle | Haskin |
| 1954-08-04 | Rear Window | Hitchcock |
| 1955-01-10 | Ordet | Dreyer |
| 1955-05-09 | Death of a Cyclist | Bardem |
| 1955-07-26 | Night of the Hunter | Laughton |
| 1955-08-26 | Pather Panchali | Ray |
| 1956-08-29 | Burmese Harp | Ichikawa |
| 1956-11-11 | Man Escaped | Bresson |
| 1957-12-26 | Wild Strawberries | Bergman |
| 1958-01-16 | Chase a Crooked Shadow | Anderson |
| 1958-01-20 | Cairo Station | Chahine |
| 1958-05-09 | Vertigo | Hitchcock |
| 1958-06-06 | Beau Serge | Chabrol |
| 1958-08-19 | Conflagration | Ichikawa |
| 1958-08-26 | Eighth Day of the Week | Ford |
| 1958-09-07 | Equinox Flower | Ozu |
| 1958-10-10 | Music Room | Ray |
| 1959-05-08 | Hiroshima mon amour | Resnais |
| 1959-05-12 | Good Morning | Ozu |
| 1959-08-26 | Night Train | Kawalerowicz |
| 1959-11-03 | Fires on the Plain | Ichikawa |
| 1959-11-17 | Floating Weeds | Ozu |
| 1959-12-05 | Fever Mounts at El Pao | Buñuel |
| 1959-12-16 | Pickpocket | Bresson |
| 1960-02-19 | Devi | Ray |
| 1960-03-10 | Plein soleil | Clément |
| 1960-04-14 | Cloud-Capped Star | Ghatak |
| 1960-04-22 | Bonnes femmes | Chabrol |
| 1960-05-15 | Avventura | Antonioni |
| 1960-06-16 | Psycho | Hitchcock |
| 1960-11-13 | Late Autumn | Ozu |
| 1961-01-24 | Notte | Antonioni |
| 1961-07-01 | Woman Is a Woman | Godard |
| 1961-08-29 | Last Year at Marienbad | Resnais |
| 1961-10-29 | End of Summer | Ozu |
| 1962-03-09 | Knife in the Water | Polański |
| 1962-04-11 | Cléo from 5 to 7 | Varda |
| 1962-04-12 | Eclisse | Antonioni |
| 1962-05-16 | Exterminating Angel | Buñuel |
| 1962-08-28 | Vivre sa vie | Godard |
| 1962-11-18 | Autumn Afternoon | Ozu |
| 1963-02-09 | Winter Light | Bergman |
| 1963-05-31 | Carabiniers | Godard |
| 1963-09-03 | Servant | Losey |
| 1963-09-27 | Big City | Ray |
| 1964-04-17 | Charulata | Ray |
| 1964-07-09 | Marnie | Hitchcock |
| 1964-07-29 | Band of Outsiders | Godard |
| 1964-09-07 | Red Desert | Antonioni |
| 1964-12-18 | Gertrud | Dreyer |
| 1965-05-05 | Alphaville | Godard |
| 1965-08-27 | Simón of the Desert | Buñuel |
| 1965-08-29 | Pierrot le fou | Godard |
| 1965-12-01 | I Knew Her Well | Pietrangeli |
| 1966-03-17 | Black Girl | Sembène |
| 1966-05-15 | Au hasard Balthazar | Bresson |
| 1966-05-16 | Seconds | Frankenheimer |
| 1966-08-31 | Battle of Algiers | Pontecorvo |
| 1966-10-18 | Persona | Bergman |
| 1966-11-10 | Quiller Memorandum | Anderson |
| 1966-12-03 | Made in U.S.A. | Godard |
| 1966-12-05 | Time Walks Through the City | Grikevičius |
| 1966-12-16 | Andrei Rublev | Tarkovsky |
| 1966-12-18 | Blow-Up | Antonioni |
| 1967-03-17 | 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her | Godard |
| 1967-12-29 | Weekend | Godard |
| 1968-04-02 | 2001: A Space Odyssey | Kubrick |
| 1969-10-00 | Structure of Crystal | Zanussi |
| 1969-12-17 | Topaz | Hitchcock |
| 1970-02-09 | Zabriskie Point | Antonioni |
| 1970-02-27 | Boucher | Chabrol |
| 1970-06-27 | Man Who Left His Will on Film | Oshima |
| 1970-08-26 | Rupture | Chabrol |
| 1971-06-02 | Whity | Fassbinder |
| 1971-12-19 | Clockwork Orange | Kubrick |
| 1972-02-05 | Solaris | Tarkovsky |
| 1972-05-19 | Frenzy | Hitchcock |
| 1972-06-25 | Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant | Fassbinder |
| 1972-08-00 | Nathalie Granger | Duras |
| 1972-12-21 | Cries and Whispers | Bergman |
| 1974-06-20 | Chinatown | Polański |
| 1975-02-28 | Passenger | Antonioni |
| 1975-06-04 | India Song | Duras |
| 1975-12-11 | Barry Lyndon | Kubrick |
| 1976-11-13 | Heart of Glass | Herzog |
| 1977-06-08 | Baxter, Véra Baxter | Duras |
| 1978-09-00 | Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting | Ruiz |
| 1979-05-25 | Stalker | Tarkovsky |
| 1980-05-23 | Shining | Kubrick |
| 1981-03-11 | Diva | Beineix |
| 1982-02-18 | Veronika Voss | Fassbinder |
| 1982-06-25 | Blade Runner | Scott |
| 1983-05-12 | Moon in the Gutter | Beineix |
| 1983-05-16 | Argent | Bresson |
| 1983-05-17 | Nostalghia | Tarkovsky |
| 1986-05-09 | Sacrifice | Tarkovsky |
| 1986-08-30 | Blue Velvet | Lynch |
| 1987-02-01 | Where Is My Friend's Home? | Kiarostami |
| 1987-06-17 | Full Metal Jacket | Kubrick |
| 1988-03-14 | Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown | Almodóvar |
| 1989-04-12 | Roselyne and the Lions | Beineix |
| 1989-09-04 | Cook the Thief His Wife and Her Lover | Greenaway |
| 1991-09-10 | Raise the Red Lantern | Zhang |
| 1993-00-00 | Antareen | Sen |
| 1994-01-30 | Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert | Elliott |
| 1995-08-30 | Cérémonie | Chabrol |
| 1996-05-13 | Breaking the Waves | Von Trier |
| 1997-05-14 | L.A. Confidential | Hanson |
| 1998-06-01 | Truman Show | Weir |
| 1998-08-20 | Run Lola Run | Tykwer |
| 1999-04-08 | All About My Mother | Almodóvar |
| 1999-07-13 | Eyes Wide Shut | Kubrick |
| 1999-09-06 | Wind Will Carry Us | Kiarostami |
| 2000-05-17 | Dancer in the Dark | Von Trier |
| 2000-05-20 | In the Mood for Love | Wong |
| 2000-12-08 | Italian for Beginners | Scherfig |
| 2001-02-09 | Hannibal | Scott |
| 2001-05-16 | Mulholland Drive | Lynch |
| 2003-05-19 | Dogville | Von Trier |
| 2003-09-02 | Matchstick Men | Scott |
| 2005-05-14 | Caché | Haneke |
| 2006-05-27 | Pan's Labyrinth | Del Toro |
| 2006-09-01 | Dry Season | Haroun |
| 2006-09-06 | Inland Empire | Lynch |
| 2006-09-21 | Boss of It All | Von Trier |
| 2007-09-05 | In the City of Sylvia | Guerín |
| 2011-05-18 | Melancholia | Von Trier |
| 2011-05-19 | Day He Arrives | Hong |
| 2013-09-08 | Enemy | Villeneuve |
| 2013-10-03 | Counselor | Scott |
| 2014-05-17 | Wild Tales | Szifron |
| 2015-09-11 | Martian | Scott |
| 2016-09-01 | Arrival | Villeneuve |
| 2017-01-23 | Get Out | Peele |
| 2018-05-16 | Burning | Lee |
| 2019-05-21 | Parasite | Bong |
| 2022-09-09 | No Bears | Panahi |
| 2023-05-19 | About Dry Grasses | Ceylan |
Newest essays:
1. In the Mood for Love
2000, Wong Kar-Wai
added 11 July 2025
2. An Autumn Afternoon
1962, Yasujiro Ozu
added 1 July 2025
3. Late Autumn
1960, Yasujiro Ozu
added 13 June 2025
4. Good Morning
1959, Yasujiro Ozu
added 31 May 2025