I try to watch a film a day. I only select movies that don’t contain gun violence or open political messages. I avoid horror films and everything war-related, be it historical, modern, or science fiction. If it is about war, I don’t watch it. End of the world and apocalypse, only if it is not war-related, like Don’t Look Up a few years back or the Obama feature with Julia Roberts. I watched the latter in part. Technically, I can’t watch 90% of the films due to concerning subject matter outlined above that I consider a danger to a free and democratic society and humanity as a whole. Everything else is on the table.
I keep handwritten notes while I watch and then compile titles in a separate List of Watchables for movies I’d like to see again. This year, less than 15 movies made the list since January. These are the movies I’d pay money to watch again, with links to trailers.
- Fallen Leaves by Aki Kaurismäki
- Godzilla vs Kong, The New Empire
- Godzilla minus One (I made a war exception for this one, because I only heard good things, it was depressing but also deeply moving and contained a strong anti-war message)
- Embrassez qui vous voudrez (made in 2002 but I only accessed it this year and was so impressed, I started digging into more French movies and went through the entire Cannes line-up from last year)
- Marie-Line et son juge
- Une année difficile
- Entre nous (Between Us) (very moving LGBT themed)
- 3 jours max (Light physical comedy, you laugh from start to end)
- La Petite
- Complètement crammé (John Malkovitch speaks French lines and sounds great)
- La passion de Dodin Bouffant (first half is hypnotizing)
- La Chimère (Italian film, breathtakingly beautiful and very emotional, characters you remember, loved everything, can’t wait to see it again)
- Mme Mills, Une voisine si parfaite by Sophie Marceau (made in 2018, accessed on Netflix)
- Cocorico (a blast, great script, unequaled dialogue)
I would’ve absolutely loved the film La Bête . It has an Inception-ish vibe, but contains unnecessary scenes of animal abuse, without these scenes it would be in my list.