For too long the world has 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 critics have missed.
List of 201 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 |
| 1958-10-10 | Music Room | Ray |
| 1959-05-08 | Hiroshima mon amour | Resnais |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 1998-06-01 | Truman Show | Weir |
| 1998-08-20 | Run Lola Run | Tykwer |
| 1999-07-13 | Eyes Wide Shut | Kubrick |
| 1999-09-06 | Wind Will Carry Us | Kiarostami |
| 2000-05-17 | Dancer in the Dark | Von Trier |
| 2000-12-08 | 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 |
| 2022-09-09 | No Bears | Panahi |
Newest essays:
1. Suspicion
1941, Alfred Hitchcock
added 1 March 2025
2. Chase a Crooked Shadow
1958, Michael Anderson
added 19 February 2025
3. Diva
1981, Jean-Jacques Beineix
added 7 February 2025
4. Frenzy
1972, Alfred Hitchcock
added 27 January 2025