Complete Nonsense

In John Carpenter's finest hour, he conjures up terror cold enough to freeze your blood.

Buckle in, baby, this shit is over 10,000 words long.

I do the digging so you don't have to

Finding the art in the trash.

The most noteworthy debuts behind the camera in a stellar decade for the horror genre.

Spike Lee's late-career masterwork is both a warning and a call to action for a nation teetering on the precipice.

A thematically potent, haunting masterpiece, from some of the most gifted filmmakers in the prolific history of Japanese cinema.

A vicious dystopian crime drama from Stanley Kubrick at arguably his most cynical.

Of the many incredible horror debuts in the 2010s, Ari Aster stands above the rest, with a debut that transcended genre and made him an instant legend.

A surreal folk horror from fascinating genre newcomer Ali Abbasi.

Lynne Ramsay continues her needed work of shining a spotlight on dark human traumas.

Coppola's devastating anti-war film that's more horror than drama. 

Barry Jenkins's coming-of-age drama is a landmark for both African-American and LGBTQ+ cinema.

Genre newcomer Leigh Janiak shows compelling potential in her subtle, slow-burning debut.

Sean Baker continues to be one of the most important independent filmmakers in contemporary American cinema.

Television star Richard Ayoade's directorial film debut is one of the smartest, most playful comedies of the 2010s.

The existential horror of the marginalized takes root in Japanese surrealist Hiroshi Teshigahara's feature debut.

Actress/director Mélanie Laurent sensitively explores the ways abuse is passed down through generations.

Park Chan-wook's brutal revenge thriller opened the world to the Korean New Wave.

Released when he was 56, Pawlikowski's patient but dense drama proved it's never too late for talented arthouse filmmakers to launch their career into international acclaim.

Boots Riley of The Coup takes his talents from the music world to the film world in his fresh, provocative, and outlandishly funny directorial debut.

Bo Burnham's leap into the film world is a shockingly understanding coming-of-age story.

Reflections of the Past, Visions of the Future

  Make It Darker

  The New Wave and Beyond

An innovative psychological horror masterpiece that exemplifies the notion that the genre works best when humanity is at its core.

Stanley Kubrick chills our spines with his ice cold interpretation of Stephen King's venerated novel.

Jake Gyllenhaal delivers a show-stopping performance in this creepy neo-noir debut from screenwriter Dan Gilroy.

Master director Kelly Reichardt spins an understated but unforgettable feminist revisionist Western about 19th century settlers.

Slow cinema is pushing closer to the mainstream thanks to films like Paul Schrader's late-career masterpiece,  First Reformed .

A heady sci-fi with one of the best executions of cosmic horror that I've ever seen on film.

The multi-talented Cocteau made the famous fairy tale his own with this fascinatingly surreal adaptation.

The underrated Brian De Palma delivers a gripping neo-noir political thriller on par with the best of what the 1970s had to offer.