30 Movies in 60 Sentences
Because why not
1. Yojimbo (1961) | Dir. Akira Kurosawa
A crafty ronin comes to a town divided by two criminal gangs and decides to play them against each other to free the town.1
There’s always been an overlap between Samurai and Western movies, but this has never been more explicitly drawn than in Kurosawa’s surprisingly funny, morally agnostic stranger-comes-to-town story. Toshiro Mifune’s effortlessly badass, mercurial ronin is the highlight, providing a template for Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name and, in doing so, influencing the development of American cinema for the next 30-plus years.
2. Office Space (1999) | Dir. Mike Judge
Three company workers who hate their jobs decide to rebel against their greedy boss.
The satirical bite of the film’s opening sections dissolves away by the time we reach the flabby third act, but the decision to contrast the stolid, stodgy greys of the workers’ bureaucratic environment with a hip-hop soundtrack remains a stroke of genius. A time capsule film that captures an office environment I never worked in (something was clearly in the water in 1999—Fight Club, Office Space, and The Matrix are all effectively the same movie).
3. Civil War (2024) | Dir. Alex Garland
A journey across a dystopian future America, following a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House.
Gotta admire the chutzpah of Alex Garland, who claimed to be making an “Anti-War” movie while populating it with a succession of sick needle drops.2 The film fails on Garland’s terms, but for all the hoo-ha about its lack of explicit left/right politics (a good decision), I haven’t seen enough about the exquisite final ‘siege of Washington’ setpiece, which, as a piece of immersive moviemaking, is as good as it gets.
4. Enter the Dragon (1973) | Dir. Robert Clouse
A Shaolin martial artist travels to an island fortress to spy on an opium lord - who is also a former monk from his temple - under the guise of attending a fighting tournament.
A better James Bond movie than most James Bond movies. I hadn’t seen this before, but its influence on many other films I love is so great that watching it felt like visiting an old friend.
5. Step Brothers (2008) | Dir. Adam McKay
Two aimless middle-aged losers still living at home are forced against their will to become roommates when their parents marry.
Still laugh-out-loud funny - it’s the little touches that make it, like Derek’s joyful arm pump when his son hits the opening notes to his Sweet Child of Mine solo and how Will Ferrell’s character is sitting in the back seat in the “I’m not gonna call him Dad” scene. This run of 2000s Adam McKay films is like the comedy version of the Mission Impossible franchise - start with the set pieces and reverse engineer a plot from there.
6. 12 Angry Men (1957) | Dir. Sidney Lumet
The jury in a New York City murder trial is frustrated by a single member whose skeptical caution forces them to more carefully consider the evidence before jumping to a hasty verdict.
Every now and again, watching classic films from this era can feel like homework, but not this one. Along with Blood Simple, a proud member of my “Sweatiest Films” Letterboxd list (two films, zero subscribers).
7. Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) | Dir. Robert Benton
After his wife leaves him, a work-obsessed Manhattan advertising executive is forced to learn long-neglected parenting skills, but a heated custody battle over the couple's young son deepens the wounds left by the separation.
Emotionally manipulative in the best possible way - despite our better instincts, it’s impossible not to get angry when the painstakingly cultivated relationship between Dustin Hoffman’s Ted Kramer and his son becomes threatened by Meryl Streep’s returning Joanna. A cop-out ending, but such is the extent to which you have been pulled into the movie that the emotional relief outweighs any sense of critical disbelief.
8. The Virgin Suicides (1999) | Dir. Sofia Coppola
A group of male friends become obsessed with five mysterious sisters who are sheltered by their strict, religious parents in suburban Detroit in the mid 1970s.
Jagged, disconnected, a series of hazy vignettes tied together not by a clear sequence of cause and effect but by a helpless, confused sense of yearning. No answers are offered, no conclusions are drawn, instead we are left confused, frustrated, granules of truth dissolving through our hands like sand.
9. The Producers (1967) | Dir. Mel Brooks
A stage-play producer devises a plan to make money by producing a sure-fire flop.
The Producers walked so Dr. Zaius and The Nightman Cometh could run. Too broad in parts, but the musical sequence had me belly-laughing.
10. Raising Arizona (1987) | Dir. The Coen Brothers
When a childless couple--an ex-con and an ex-cop--decide to help themselves to one of another family's quintuplets, their lives become more complicated than they anticipated.
The tonal shift from the tightly wound, darkly comic Blood Simple (The Coens’ debut feature) to this loose, earnest, messy, funny, moving second film is whiplash-inducing. Nicholas Cage is as good as he’s ever been, and the centrepiece chase sequence still slaps (I love Simon Pegg’s description of it as a “living, breathing Looney Tunes cartoon.”)
11. Alphaville (1965) | Dir. Jean-Luc Godard
A U.S. secret agent is sent to the distant space city of Alphaville where he must find a missing person and free the city from its tyrannical ruler.
The execution scene - in which blindfolded men who are guilty of illogical behaviour are lined up next to a swimming pool, shot, and then stabbed by a group of synchronised swimmers - is one of the most provocatively absurd things I’ve ever seen. A couple of all-timer tracking shots and an effectively unsettling tone cap off this still-relevant sci-fi noir, which I expect will experience a renaissance in the coming years.
12. Rear Window (1954) | Dir. Alfred Hitchcock
A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his Greenwich Village courtyard apartment window and, despite the skepticism of his fashion-model girlfriend, becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
I’ve been on a Hitchcock run recently and found myself running up against this one despite it feeling, in many ways, the most relevant to contemporary society. It may be because, having recently watched Blow Out and Body Double, I, to paraphrase Tarantino, prefer the De Palma versions of this story.
13. Monkey Man (2004) | Dir. Dev Patel
An anonymous young man unleashes a campaign of vengeance against the corrupt leaders who murdered his mother and continue to systemically victimize the poor and powerless.
Like John Wick, Monkey Man seeks to elevate its action movie shenanigans by draping them in the cloak of mythology, but unlike John Wick, it tells a nominally ‘real world’ story that uses myth not as a world-building tool but as a metaphor-delivery device. Its attempt to Have Something to Say is admirable (and probably more effective to someone familiar with Indian politics) but also a tad over-engineered - the film’s true power lies not in its somewhat nebulous allegorical significance but in the loose, visceral quality of the violence and the effortlessly compelling, Leone-esque silence of Dev Patel’s protagonist.3
14. The Insider (1999) | Dir. Michael Mann
A research chemist comes under personal and professional attack when he decides to appear in a 60 Minutes exposé on Big Tobacco.
The only thing that has aged about Mann’s third and final masterpiece (until Heat 2, of course) is the idea that a big press exposé would change anything rather than just being dismissed as fake news by those who disagree with it. The inner and outer turmoil experienced by Russell Crowe’s morally conflicted Jeffrey Wigand is uncomfortably precise.
15. Con Air (1997) | Dir. Simon West
Newly-paroled ex-con and former U.S. Ranger Cameron Poe finds himself trapped in a prisoner-transport plane when the passengers seize control.
“Why couldn't you put the bunny back in the box?”
Nicholas Cage's characteristically restrained, delicate, and measured performance grounds this thoughtful, slow-moving, and tightly plotted prestige drama.
16. May December (2023) | Dir. Todd Haynes
Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.
Infinite layers of performance stacked upon shifting sands. Haynes manages to meld substance with soapy sensationalism, capped off by an absolutely delicious pair of pay-offs in the closing sequences.
17. Drive (2011) | Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
A mysterious Hollywood action film stuntman gets in trouble with gangsters when he tries to help his neighbor's husband rob a pawn shop while serving as his getaway driver.
Hey, have you heard of this tiny little indie film called Drive?
Having rewatched this on a big screen, I am pleased to report that it firmly deserves its place in the Filmbro canon.
18. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) | Dir. Adam Wingard
Two ancient titans, Godzilla and Kong, clash in an epic battle as humans unravel their intertwined origins and connection to Skull Island's mysteries.
From my review:
“About 90 minutes into the film, I’d finished my beer and was beginning to question whether this was the way I wanted to spend my Friday nights. At around the same time, I realised that under the careful stewardship of Adam Wingard, the MonsterVerse franchise is turning into the Transformers of the 2020s, complete with characters so thinly drawn that to call them one-dimensional would be an insult to dimensions, CGI violence that forces you to watch with all the enthusiasm of doomscrolling Twitter and one-liners so unfunny that I can feel my sense of humour contracting just through exposure.”
19. The Promised Land (2023) | Dir. Nikolaj Arcel
The story of Ludvig Kahlen who pursued his lifelong dream: To make the heath bring him wealth and honor.
What could have been a meat-and-potatoes historical epic is elevated by Mikkelsen’s lead performance (he has got to be one of the best actors alive) and a surprising dose of Park Chan-wook-style psychosexual revenge. It has slipped under the radar but is worth your time.
20. Blood Simple (1984) | Dir. The Coen Brothers
The owner of a seedy small-town Texas bar discovers that one of his employees is having an affair with his wife. A chaotic chain of misunderstandings, lies, and mischief ensues after he devises a plot to have them murdered.
Razor-sharp screenplay still packs a punch. Its contorted plot, M. Emmet Walsh’s demonic killer, and bursts of confused violence and darkly comic ineptitude all provide a glimpse of the peccadillos that would go on to define the Coen Brothers’ filmography.
21. Starship Troopers (1997) | Dir. Paul Verhoeven
Humans, in a fascist militaristic future, wage war with giant alien bugs.
I can understand why this anti-fascist satire went over people’s heads at the time—barring a few exceptions, Verhoeven’s commitment to the bit is so unflinching that it can become tempting to take it at face value. The special effects have actually held up… really well?
22. They Live (1988) | Dir. John Carpenter
They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realising it. They live.
WWE wrestler Roddy Piper wears glasses that let him see aliens before having a six-minute-long fight scene with Keith David that has zero relevance to the plot! Fuck yeah!
23. Persona (1966) | Dir. Ingmar Bergman
A nurse is put in charge of a mute actress and finds that their personae are melding together.
Doesn’t really lend itself to the pithy two-sentence format (by writing that I’ve just lost myself a sentence). This was my first time watching - an intellectual and sensory experience, but I feel that I need to rewatch and/or write about it to properly get to grips with my thoughts.
24. Basic Instinct (1992) | Dir. Paul Verhoeven
A violent police detective investigates a brutal murder that might involve a manipulative and seductive novelist.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
25. Thoroughbreds (2017) | Dir. Cory Finley
Two upper-class teenage girls in suburban Connecticut rekindle their unlikely friendship after years of growing apart. Together, they hatch a plan to solve both of their problems-no matter what the cost.
A whipsmart thriller that has more going on beneath the surface than you first think. The long take that constitutes the film’s climax is <chef’s kiss>.
26. Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) | Dir. John Carpenter
A Highway Patrol Officer, two criminals and a station secretary defend a defunct Los Angeles precinct office against a siege by a bloodthirsty street gang.
It should be mandatory for all directors to do their own version of Rio Grande at some point in their careers.
Carpenter’s decision to make the villains of this film—nominally a street gang—effectively vampiric creatures, complete with unexplained blood-letting rituals and dead-eyed, bloodless faces, gives proceedings an uneasy supernatural edge that is compounded by Carpenter’s eerie synthetic soundtrack.
27. Paris, Texas (1984) | Dir. Wim Wenders
Travis Henderson, an aimless drifter who has been missing for four years, wanders out of the desert and must reconnect with society, himself, his life, and his family.
So tonally delicate, shifting from mystery to tenderness, to devastation, and then finally to an uneasy balance between the three. It manages to be hazy, opaque and open-ended without ever becoming undefined or unsatisfying, and it still looks astonishing.
28. Vertigo (1958) | Dir. Alfred Hitchcock
A former San Francisco police detective juggles wrestling with his personal demons and becoming obsessed with the hauntingly beautiful woman he has been hired to trail, who may be deeply disturbed.
Keeps its cards close to its chest until suddenly we realise that we’re not watching the movie we think we are. Less outright thrilling but more pervasively unsettling than some of Hitchcock’s other classics.
29. Hard Boiled (1992) | Dir. John Woo
A tough-as-nails cop teams up with an undercover agent to shut down a sinister mobster and his crew.
I’m not sure if anyone has ever cooked harder than John Woo did in the three-minute hospital tracking sequence that forms the centrepiece of this film’s climax. The plot gets a bit dense, but there is a charm to its endless twists and turns, which also provide sufficient stakes to ground the brilliantly bombastic action sequences.
30. Speed (1994) | Dir. Jan de Bont
A young police officer must prevent a bomb exploding aboard a city bus by keeping its speed above 50 mph.
The platonic ideal of a summer action movie. I find something so funny about the fact that the sequel is set on a cruise ship.
All descriptions (in italics) taken from IMDB
I’m being a tad facetious here - there is intention behind Garland’s choice of soundtrack, I just don’t think it worked in the way he wanted it to.
With this ludicrously long sentence, the limitations of my arbitrary two-sentence per review restriction begin to present themselves.
"I find something so funny about the fact that the sequel is set on a cruise ship."
I've never seen the sequel, but I don't need to. The one line description has always been enough for me, and what I imagine is probably as good or better than the actual film!