The “A” List

A running list of the films to which I’ve given an “A” or “A-” rating. The Samterion Collection:

July 2024
Rap World – Conner O’Malley, Danny Scharar (2024)

June 2024
Vagabond – Agnès Varda (1985)
RoboCop – Paul Verhoeven (1987)
Showgirls – Paul Verhoeven (1995)

May 2024
Three Times – Hou Hsiao-Hsien (2005)
Green Fish – Lee Chang-dong (1997)
Poetry – Lee Chang-dong (2010)
Total Recall – Paul Verhoeven (1990)

April 2024
Late Spring – Yasujirō Ozu (1949)
The Red Balloon – Albert Lamorisse (1956)
The Lusty Men – Nicholas Ray (1952)
A Man Escaped – Robert Bresson (1956)

March 2024
Priscilla – Sofia Coppola (2023)
The Green, Green Grass of Home – Hou Hsiao-Hsien (1982)
Fallen Angels – Wong Kar Wai (1995)
Widows – Steve McQueen (2018)
Once Upon a Time in America – Sergio Leone (1984)
For a Few Dollars More – Sergio Leone (1965)

February 2024
Berlin Alexanderplatz – Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1980)
Sunset Boulevard – Billy Wilder (1950)
Some Like it Hot – Billy Wilder (1959)
Double Indemnity – Billy Wilder (1944)
Chungking Express – Wong Kar Wai (1994)
The Apartment – Billy Wilder (1960)
The Holdovers – Alexander Payne (2023)
Imitation of Life – Douglas Sirk (1959)
Once Upon a Time in the West – Sergio Leone (1968)
Dune: Part Two – Denis Villeneuve (2024)

January 2024
Mahjong – Edward Yang (1996)
The Godfather – Francis Ford Coppola (1972)
Blow Out – Brian De Palma (1981)
The Godfather: Part II – Francis Ford Coppola (1974)

December 2023
Dust in the Wind – Hou Hsiao-Hsien (1986)
Carol – Todd Haynes (2015)
The Daytrippers – Greg Mottola (1996)
The Battle of Algiers – Gillo Pontecorvo (1966)
News From Home – Chantal Akerman (1976)

November 2023
28 Days Later – Danny Boyle (2002)
The Age of Innocence – Martin Scorsese (1993)
The Beatles: Get Back – Peter Jackson (2021)

October 2023
Killers of the Flower Moon – Martin Scorsese (2023)

September 2023
The Time to Live and the Time to Die – Hou Hsiao-Hsien (1985)
The Iron Giant – Brad Bird (1999)
Petite Maman – Céline Sciamma (2021)

August 2023
The Boys from Fengkuei – Hou Hsiao-Hsien (1983)
Le Bonheur – Agnès Varda (1965)
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol – Brad Bird (2011)
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation – Christopher McQuarrie (2015)
Shiva Baby – Emma Seligman (2020)
Mission: Impossible – Fallout – Christopher McQuarrie (2018)
Documenteur – Agnès Varda (1982)
Night and Fog – Alain Resnais (1956)
A City of Sadness – Hou Hsiao-Hsien (1989)

July 2023
Intervista – Federico Fellini (1987)
Mission: Impossible III – J.J. Abrams (2006)
Barbie – Greta Gerwig (2023)

June 2023
Crooklyn – Spike Lee (1994)
Legally Blonde – Robert Luketic (2001)
The Mummy – Stephen Sommers (1999)

April 2023
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles – Chantal Akerman (1975)

March 2023
Seven Samurai – Akira Kurosawa (1954)
That Day, on the Beach – Edward Yang (1983)
Dog Day Afternoon – Sidney Lumet (1975)
The Color of Money – Martin Scorsese (1986)
Aftersun – Charlotte Wells (2022)
Silence – Martin Scorsese (2016)
Secret Sunshine – Lee Chang-dong (2007)
Tokyo Story – Yasujirō Ozu (1953)

February 2023
The Fly – David Cronenberg (1986)
Black Narcissus – Emeric Powell, Michael Pressburger (1947)
The Red Shoes – Emeric Powell, Michael Pressburger (1948)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp – Emeric Powell, Michael Pressburger (1943)
Au Hasard Balthazar – Robert Bresson (1966)
Boogie Nights – Paul Thomas Anderson (1997)

January 2023
C’mon C’mon – Mike Mills (2021)
Possessor – Brandon Cronenberg (2020)

December 2022
The Squid and the Whale – Noah Baumbach (2005)
Crimes of the Future – David Cronenberg (2022)
His Girl Friday – Howard Hawks (1940)

October 2022
Shoah – Claude Lanzmann (1985)

September 2022
Children of Men – Alfonso Cuarón (2006)
Under the Silver Lake – David Robert Mitchell (2018)

August 2022
Come and See – Elem Klimov (1985)
Amarcord – Federico Fellini (1973)
There Will Be Blood – Paul Thomas Anderson (2007)
Contagion – Steven Soderbergh (2011)

July 2022
Dekalog: Six – Krzysztof Kieślowski (1988)
RRR – S. S. Rajamouli (2022)
Dekalog IX – Krzysztof Kieślowski (1988)
Dekalog X – Krzysztof Kieślowski (1988)
Clouds of Sils Maria – Olivier Assayas (2014)
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul – Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1974)
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai – Jim Jarmusch (1999)

June 2022
Irma Vep – Olivier Assayas (1996)
Big Trouble in Little China – John Carpenter (1986)
Thief – Michael Mann (1981)
Everything Everywhere All at Once – Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert (2022)
Top Gun: Maverick – Joseph Kosinski (2022)

May 2022
Cha Cha Real Smooth – Cooper Raiff (2022)

April 2022
Drive My Car -Ryusuke Hamaguchi (2021)
Flowers of Shanghai -Hou Hsiao-Hsien (1998)
The Worst Person in the World -Joachim Trier (2021)
Saving Private Ryan – Steven Spielberg (1998)

March 2022
Dekalog: One -Krzysztof Kieślowski (1988)

February 2022
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – David Fincher (2011)
The Beta Test – Jim Cummings, PJ McCabe (2021)
Licorice Pizza – Paul Thomas Anderson (2021)

January 2022
The Power of the Dog – Jane Campion (2021)
Talk to Her – Pedro Almodóvar (2002)

December 2021
Seven Beauties -Lina Wertmüller (1975)

November 2021
Fat Girl – Catherine Breillat (2001)

October 2021
Dune – Denis Villeneuve (2021)

September 2021
Shithouse – Cooper Raiff (2020)

August 2021
Roma – Federico Fellini (1972)
Y Tu Mamá También – Alfonso Cuarón (2001)
Ratatouille – Brad Bird (2007)

July 2021
Solaris – Andrei Tarkovsky (1972)

June 2021
The Last Detail – Hal Ashby (1973)
Bo Burnham: Inside – Bo Burnham (2021)
The Parallax View – Alan J. Pakula (1974)

May 2021
Blood Simple – The Coen Brothers (1984)
Burn After Reading – The Coen Brothers (2008)

April 2021
Cléo from 5 to 7 – Agnès Varda (1962)
The Long Goodbye – Robert Altman (1973)
The Grand Budapest Hotel – Wes Anderson (2014)
California Split – Robert Altman (1974)
La Ciénaga – Lucrecia Martel (2001)

March 2021
Mustang -Deniz Gamze Ergüven (2015)
Varda by Agnès – Agnès Varda (2019)
Coming to America  – John Landis (1998)

February 2021
Judas and the Black Messiah – Shaka King (2021)
Soul – Pete Docter (2020)
Michael Clayton – Tony Gilroy (2007)
Barking Dogs Never Bite – Bong Joon-ho (2000)
Nomadland – Chloé Zhao (2020)

January 2021
8 1/2 – Federico Fellini (1963)
Nights of Cabiria – Federico Fellini (1957)
Three Colours: Blue – Krzysztof Kieślowski (1993)
Three Colours: Red – Krzysztof Kieślowski (1994)
Kicking and Screaming – Noah Baumbach (1995)
Memories of Murder – Bong Joon-ho (2003)
Jules and Jim – François Truffaut (1962)

December 2020
La Strada – Federico Fellini (1954)
Time – Garrett Bradley (2020)
Mangrove – Steve McQueen (2020)
Lovers Rock – Steve McQueen (2020)
Education – Steve McQueen (2020)

November  2020
Fish Tank – Andrea Arnold (2009)
The Last Waltz – Martin Scorsese (1978)
Dazed and Confused – Richard Linklater (1993)
Beau Travail – Claire Denis (1999)
Citizen Kane – Orson Welles (1941)
Me and You and Everyone We Know – Miranda July (2005)
Boyz n the Hood – John Singleton (1991)
The Forty-Year-Old Version – Radha Blank (2020)

October 2020
Halloween – John Carpenter (1978)

September 2020
The Social Network – David Fincher (2010)

August 2020
Career Girls – Mike Leigh (1997)
On the Waterfront – Elia Kazan (1954)
Arrival – Denis Villeneuve (2016)
The Big Short – Adam McKay (2015)
Psycho – Alfred Hitchcock (1960)
Rear Window – Alfred Hitchcock (1954)
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood – Marielle Heller (2019)
Bringing Up Baby – Howard Hawks (1938)

July 2020
Secrets & Lies – Mike Leigh (1996)
High Hopes – Mike Leigh (1988)
Happy-Go-Lucky – Mike Leigh (2008)
Naked – Mike Leigh (1993)
Another Year – Mike Leigh (2010)
Taipei Story – Edward Yang (1985)
Palm Springs – Max Barbakow (2020)

April 2020
Lost in Translation – Sofia Coppola (2003)
Old Joy – Kelly Reichardt (2006)

March 2020
Frances Ha – Noah Baumbach (2012)
Selma – Ava DuVernay (2014)
Toni Erdmann – Maren Ade (2016)

February 2020
The Master – Paul Thomas Anderson (2012)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire – Céline Sciamma (2019)
A Brighter Summer Day – Edward Yang (1991)
Waiting for Guffman – Christopher Guest (1996)
Nashville – Robert Altman (1975)
In the Mood for Love – Wong Kar-wai (2000)

January 2020
Annihilation – Alex Garland (2018)
The Player – Robert Altman (1992)
Water Lilies – Céline Sciamma (2007)
Tomboy – Céline Sciamma (2011)
Paddington – Paul King (2014)
Paddington 2 – Paul King (2017)
Uncut Gems – Safdie Brothers (2019)
The Souvenir – Joanna Hogg (2019)
Ex Machina  – Alex Garland (2014)

December 2019
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope – George Lucas (1977)
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back – Irvin Kershner (1980)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – Gareth Edwards (2016)
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens – J.J. Abrams (2015)
Minding the Gap – Bing Liu (2018)
Little Women – Greta Gerwig (2019)
35 Shots of Rum – Claire Denis (2008)

November 2019
Knives Out – Rian Johnson (2019)
Gattaca – Andrew Niccol (1997)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – Tobe Hooper (1974)
I Love You, Man – John Hamburg (2009)
Days of Heaven – Terrence Malick (1978)
Green Room – Jeremey Saulnier (2016)
Rosemary’s Baby – Roman Polanski (1968)
The Thing – John Carpenter (1982)
The Irishman – Martin Scorsese (2019)
The Martian – Ridley Scott (2015)

October 2019
The Third Man – Carol Reed (1949)
Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud (2007)
Mean Streets – Martin Scorsese (1973)
My Neighbor Totoro – Hayao Miyazaki (1988)
Parasite – Bong Joon-Ho (2019)
Carrie – Brian De Palma (1978)

September 2019
Kiki’s Delivery Service – Hayao Miyazaki (1989)
Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse –Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, & Rodney Rothman (2018)
Yi Yi – Edward Yang (2000)
Porco Rosso – Hayao Miyazaki (1992)
Network – Sidney Lumet (1976)
Rebecca – Alfred Hitchcock (1940)
The Shawshank Redemption – Frank Darabont (1994)

August 2019
Babette’s Feast – Gabriel Axel (1987)
Spirited Away – Hayao Miyazaki (2002)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown – Pedro Almodóvar (1988)
Harold and Maude – Hal Ashby (1971)

July 2019
Midsommar – Ari Aster (2019)
Midnight Family – Luke Lorentzen (2019)
Moneyball – Bennett Miller (2011)
Bottle Rocket – Wes Anderson (1996)
Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood – Quentin Tarantino (2019)
Rolling Thunder Revue – Martin Scorsese (2019)
Girlfriends – Claudia Weill (1978)
His Master’s Voice -György Pálfi (2018)

June 2019
LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring – Peter Jackson (2001)
LOTR: The Two Towers – Peter Jackson (2002)
LOTR: The Return of the King – Peter Jackson (2003)

May 2019
Lady Bird – Greta Gerwig (2017)

April 2019
Everybody Wants Some!! – Richard Linklater (2016)
Bicycle Thieves – Vittoria De Sica (1948)
Rashomon – Akira Kurosawa (1950)

March 2019
Before Sunset – Richard Linklater (2004)
Heat – Michael Mann (1995)
The Graduate – Mike Nichols (1967)
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot – Gus Van Sant (2018)
Transit – Christian Petzold (2018)
Us – Jordan Peele (2019)

February 2019
Roma – Alfonso Cuarón (2018)

January 2019
A Serious Man – The Coen Brothers (2009)
If Beale Street Could Talk – Barry Jenkins (2018)

December 2018
Burning – Lee Chang-dong (2018)
All the President’s Men – Alan Pakula (1976)
Shoplifters -Hirokazu Kore-eda (2018)
The Favourite– Yorgos Lanthimos (2018)

November 2018
First Reformed – Paul Schrader (2018)
Tampopo – Juzo Itami (1987)
Raging Bull – Martin Scorsese (1980)
Paris, Texas – Wim Wenders (1984)

October 2018
Young Frankenstein – Mel Brooks (1974)
Suspiria -Luca Guadagnino (2018)

July 2018
The Big Lebowski – Coen Brothers (1998)
Stand by Me – Rob Reiner (1986)

June 2018
Barry Lyndon – Stanley Kubrick (1975)
Eyes Wide Shut – Stanley Kubrick (1999)
Taxi Driver – Martin Scorsese (1976)
Bull Durham – Ron Shelton (1988)
History of the Eagles – Alison Ellwood (2013)
Die Hard – John McTiernan (1988)
The Piano – Jane Campion (1993)
Bound – Lilly Wachowski, Lana Wachowski (1996)
The Witch – Robert Eggers (2015)

May 2018
My Dinner with Andre – Louis Malle (1981)
Hoop Dreams – Steve James & Simon Schumann (1994)
Almost Famous – Cameron Crowe (2000)

April 2018
The Florida Project – Sean Baker (2017)
Meantime – Mike Leigh (1983)
Life is Sweet – Mike Leigh (1990)

March 2018
Schindler’s List – Steven Spielberg (1993)
Badlands – Terrence Malick (1973)
Goodfellas – Martin Scorsese (1990)

February 2018
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – David Yates (2009)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – Alfonso Cuarón (2004)
Jackie – Pablo Larraín (2016)
The End of The Tour – James Ponsoldt (2015)

January 2018
Before Midnight – Richard Linklater (2013)
Boyhood – Richard Linklater (2014)
Good Time – Safdie Brothers (2017)
Call Me by Your Name – Luca Guadagnino (2017)
Phantom Thread – Paul Thomas Anderson (2017)
Spotlight – Tom McCarthy (2015)
20th Century Women – Mike Mills (2016)
Get Out – Jordan Peele (2017)
Zodiac – David Fincher (2007)