Arthouse Werner Herzog Germany German 1979 74 Somewhat disappointing, if beautifully shot, version of the Büchner play, without Klaus Kinski absurdly miscast as a madman. 3 Yes 12 Thriller Jacques Becker France French 1960 132 Marvellous prison escape film, in which four men are forced to involve a fifth man in their plot to escape when he's moved into their cell. 9 Yes 12 Arthouse Nagisa Oshima Japan Japanese 1960 87 Wonderful film set in post-war Japan, taking in gang-culture and the illegal blood-trade - but mostly a whither Japan piece, full of people trying to go on living whose entire belief systems have been shattered. 8 Yes 11 Manga Kenji Kamiyama Japan Japanese 2006 108 Fascinating Manga SF about some sort of cyber-crime. 7 Yes 10 B-Movie Ishiro Honda Japan Japanese 1962 91 ...er..let's forget we ever sat through this movie. 0 Yes 10 Action Adventure Cooper / Schoedsack USA English 1933 100 Original and best. (It's interesting how much of the tedious set-up in the Peter Jackson version is skipped over in about 5 minutes in this one). Special effects are still really impressive. 8 Yes 10 Comedy Woody Allen France French 1975 85 Allen does Tolstoy in reasonably ineffective manner. 3 Yes 10 Comedy Woody Allen USA English 1971 82 South American dictatorship comedy. 1 Yes 10 Comedy Woody Allen USA English 1972 88 Essentially a series of comedy sketches, each shot in a different cinematic style. 3 Yes 10 Thriller Guillaume Canet France French 2007 131 Pretty good thriller, though the more I think back on it the more absurd the plot seems. 4 Yes 7 Arthouse Kenji Mizoguchi Japan Japanese 1955 98 Film based on a old Chinese myth of female self-sacrifice (cf Iphigenia). Beautiful usage of colour. 8 Yes 7 Arthouse Kenji Mizoguchi Japan Japanese 1956 86 Largely realistic film about Japanese prostitution and the threat of its impending illegalisation. 6 Yes 7 Arthouse Aki Kaurismäki Finland Finnish 1988 69 Man drifts about, meets woman, go to jail, escapes - all in a very downbeat manner. 5 Yes 6 Arthouse Aki Kaurismäki Finland Finnish 1986 71 Somewhat uninteresting account of an awkward relationship. 2 Yes 6 Arthouse Ben Hopkins UK English 2000 83 Strange, apocalyptic film. 4 Yes 6 Arthouse John Cassavetes USA English 1959 78 Neo-realist (and anti-Hollywood) tale of 3 young African-Americans and their adventures in the big city, with a soundtrack by Charles Mingus. 8 Yes 6 Arthouse Ben Hopkins UK English 2000 101 A strange film, for an English film. A tale of an outcast set in a Jewish community somewhere in the Pale of Settlement, although in fact clearly set in England with an entirely English cast and seeming very English. (Actually, it turns out it was shot in Wales; and it has Rutger Hauer in it). 2 Yes 6 Detective Jules Dassin USA English 1948 96 A semi-documentary style detective film, particularly enjoyable for the street shots of New York. 5 Yes 6 Martial Arts/Arthouse Xiaogang Feng China Chinese 2008 131 Slow, tedious recounting of Hamlet-like plot, unalleviated by moments of balletic violence. 1 Yes 6 Bollywood Sangeeth Sivan India Hindi 2009 139 A film in which Bobby Deol is (surprise! surprise!) a hitman, who finds his soul - and love - in a rural village, partially through the medium of dance. 1 Yes 6 Comedy Woody Allen USA English 1973 89 As a boy, I think this was my favourite Woody Allen film - possibly just because it was set in the future. Doesn't seem quite as good now. 3 Yes 6 Horror Carl Theodor Dreyer Germany German 1932 83 I find Dreyer's films incredibly boring; this is less so, perhaps just because it's bizarre (in a sort of Lynchian way). Hasn't quite come to terms with the invention of sound. 3 Yes 6 Action Adventure Jon Turteltaub USA English 2007 124 American follow clues round the world until he finds lost Olmec city of gold in .. er .. Dakota. Possibly started life as a training film for US citizenship. 0 Yes 6 Sci-Fi Don Taylor USA English 1980 103 Absurd time-travel film, in which the aircraft carrier Nimitz goes back in time to the moment of Pearl Harbour. It would be hard to come up with a less interesting way of pursuing this premise. 1 Yes 5 Thriller Claude Chabrol France French 1985 104 Perhaps my favourite of all these Claude Chabrol films I've been watching. The plot is never really explained; there are a few murders; and a policeman whose methods of investigation become increasingly extreme. 7 Yes 5 Thriller Claude Chabrol France French 1975 120 Fine, if towards the end somewhat absurd, thriller about a murder, in which for a long time you're left uncertain what is happening and who, if anyone, has been murdered. 6 Yes 5 Thriller Claude Chabrol France French 1975 96 Wife-swapping? In the 70s? Directed by Claude Chabrol? - It can only end one way: murder. 3 Yes 5 Comedy Thriller Claude Chabrol France French 1967 96 Absurd comedy "thriller". 4 Yes 5 Thriller Jacques Becker France French 1954 92 The second in Becker's trilogy: underworld turf-war erupts around the proceeds of a robbery. 7 Yes 4 Arthouse Wong Kar-Wai Hong Kong Chinese 1995 102 Two vaguely related story of cops falling in love: the second more engaging than the first, and with the wonderful Faye Wong. For once the DVD extras were interesting: an interview with Wong Kar-Wai shows how the original plot of the first story has almost entirely disappeared in the finished film. 8 Yes 4 Thriller Jacques Becker France French 1952 96 The first in Becker's influential trilogy, this one about petty gang culture in late c19th France: man and woman fall in love, are separated, it ends in violence and death. 8 Yes 4 Silent Era E.A.Dupont England English 1929 109 Silent film about jazz club-land in 1920s London, with Anna May Wong stealing the show as a Chinese dancer and femme fatale. Some wonderful direction at times. 8 Yes 4 Martial Arts/Arthouse Chen Kaige China Chinese 2005 121 A sad tale of a once great director resigned to making martial arts films. Still, it's very beautiful, as you'd expect from Chen Kaige. 4 Yes 4 Arthouse René Allio France French 1976 124 Account of a real-life matricide in 1835 by our eponymous hero, told in a documentary style with talking head interviews etc. and from various different points of view. 7 Yes 3 Arthouse Ingmar Bergman Sweden Swedish 1960 83 The Devil returns Don Juan to Earth to seduce a virtuous maiden. 8 Yes 3 Arthouse Pier Paolo Pasolini Italy Italian 1974 125 Pasolini's wonderful rendition of a few interwoven stories from the Arabian Nights, full - as you'd expect - of joyful and uninhibited sexuality. Such a world away from his next and last film, Salo. 10 Yes 3 Arthouse Noboru Tanaka Japan Japanese 1976 76 Typical 70s Japanese erotica - repressed emotions, weird perversions and the like. I enjoyed it. 6 Yes 3 Arthouse Wim Wenders Germany German 1973 107 Some beautiful direction, but otherwise a rather unengaging tale. A man has to look after a young girl for a few days: it bothers him at first, but guess what? - They gradually form a bond. 4 Yes 3 Arthouse Ingmar Bergman Sweden Swedish 1956 93 Carny folk have hard time; can't even beat up weak middle-class folk; lose self-respect. Amusing expressionist cat. 9 Yes 3 Silent Era Victor Sjöström Sweden Swedish 1921 103 Ancient morality tale, somewhat in the manner of A Christmas Carol. 1 Yes 3 Thriller Allen Coulter USA English 2006 126 Interesting private eye type thing about the murder / suicide of Superman actor George Reeves. Mind you: the more I think about it, the more badly acted and miscast it seems. 5 Yes 3 Arthouse Seijun Suzuki Japan Japanese 1964 90 Set in immediate post-war Japan and shot in Technicolor like some American musical of the 50s, it recounts the violent and extreme lives of a group of prostitutes who pledge themselves only to sleep with men for money, under pain of ritualised naked sado-masochism. 7 Yes 3 Arthouse Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck Germany German 2007 137 Stasi spy on artists, with tragic consequences. 8 Yes 3 French New Wave Eric Rohmer France French 1963 54 The second of Rohmer's "Moral Tales". Some young people enter into various relationships (what else?) against the backdrop of Paris. 8 Yes 3 Action Adventure Timur Bekmambetov Russia Russian 2007 146 Sequel to Night Watch, which I could quite well have done watching again since parts of this were incomprehensible and clearly required a working knowledge of it. Mostly quite silly fun. 3 Yes 3 French New Wave Eric Rohmer France French 1962 22 Short film by Rohmer, about a sort of love triangle (what else?). The first of his "Moral Tales". 7 Yes 3 Horror Georgi Kropachyov and Konstantin Yershov Russia Russian 1967 77 For the most part, almost a Hammer-horror version of The Exorcist, but there's some seriously weird stuff (and good special-effects) at the end when the incubi and succubi appear. 4 Yes 3 French New Wave Eric Rohmer France French 1962 103 A man thinks he's inherited a fortune, but in fact hasn't and finds himself living on the streets. Rohmer's first film. 6 Yes 3 Bollywood Guddu Dhanoa India Hindi 2000 160 Bollywood remake of Leon. I can't come up with any justification for suggesting it's better than the original, but I enjoyed it a lot. The character of Rani Mukherjee (the "little girl" from the original) seems only to have been half re-written to take into account that she's clearly grown up and falls in love with "Leon". 6 Yes 2 Arthouse Alain Robbe-Grillet Alain Robbe-Grillet France French 1983 90 More or less what you'd expect from a film by Robbe-Grillet. A sort of vampiric detective story. I couldn't decide which was the worse constraint on its success: Robbe-Grillet's involvement or the fact that it was shot like an early 80s B-movie. 0 Yes 2 Anime Mashahiko Maesawa Japan Japanese 2004 73 At some point watching this it struck me that it was structured like a computer game: a man wakes not knowing where or who he is; has to overcome in combat increasingly difficult opponents. Needless to say, that's how it started life. 4 Yes 2 Arthouse Vera Chytilová Czechoslovakia Czech 1966 73 Wonderful, absurd slice of Prague Spring psychedelia, in which the characters spend much of their time eating, laughing and prancing about. 8 Yes 2 Arthouse Milos Forman Czechoslovakia Czech 2001 70 Foreman's last Czech film: a somewhat tedious account of, oddly enough, a fireman's ball. 1 Yes 2 Action Adventure Peter Hyams US English 1995 98 A Jean-Claude van Damme vehicle. This is about as bad as cinema gets. It makes me wonder why, if you're going to spend money on a movie, you don't bother hiring any writers. 0 Yes 2 Romance Robert Luketic US English 2001 96 I think I'd seen this before. It's best not to think about the plot, if you don't want to realise how bad it is. Entertaining enough otherwise. 1 Yes 2 Thriller Claude Chabrol France French 1974 193 A terrorist cell kidnap an American; it all ends in a bloodbath. 7 Yes 2 Thriller Claude Chabrol France French 1973 A couple embark on an affair and kill all those in their way. 5 Yes 2 Thriller Claude Chabrol France French 1971 193 A man kills his best friend's wife - perhaps accidentally, perhaps deliberately - and cannot bear the guilt. 6 Yes 1 Animation Brad Bird US English 2004 115 Remarkably well-written film about superheroes forced to live an ordinary life. Packed with many wonderful ideas. 8 Yes 1 Thriller Nicholas Ray US English 1952 82 A cop is sick of the everyday violence he witnesses, so is sent to investigate a rural crime and rediscover his humanity. Bit of a sentimental ending. 6 Yes 1 Thriller Claude Chabrol France French 1970 193 A man is driven to kill young girls. 5 Yes 1 Thriller Claude Chabrol France French 1969 193 A woman has an affair, so her husband kills her lover. 4 Yes 1 Thriller Claude Chabrol France French 1969 193 A man kills a child in a hit and run. The child's father plots to murder him in vengeance. He soon discovers he's not the only one. 6 Yes 1 Action Adventure Gore Verbinski US English 2006 151 I seem to be watching the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy backwards (I've watched the third already). Pretty good mindless entertainment. 5 Yes 1