This Week in Rankings

This Week in Rankings

Since the last update, I wrapped up my festival coverage for the year with reviews of Matsui Daigo’s Rewrite (my favorite film of the year so far), Miike Takashi’s Sham, Honeko Akebane’s Bodyguards, and Holy Night: Demon Hunters from the Fantasia Film Festival, Amoeba from the Toronto Film Festival, and Dear Stranger from Busan. Most of the rest of my reviews of new movies were for films with limited theatrical runs or which went straight-to-video, including Dongji Rescue, Prisoner of War, Affinity and Diablo, and Red Sonja (at Seattle Screen Scene). Reviews of older movies consist of Linda, Linda, Linda, and Evil Cat and The Cat. I also wrote about three Japanese TV series: Baby Assassins Everyday!, Glass Heart and CITY the Animation. Additionally, I served on the Best International Short Film jury at the San Diego Asian Film Festival, which was pretty wild.

You can get all those reviews and much much more by subscribing to The Chinese Cinema today for the low price of only $1/month or $10/year.

These are the movies I’ve watched and rewatched over the last few months, and where they place on my year-by-year rankings.

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (Bill Melendez) – 1, 1966
Three Days of the Condor (Sydney Pollack) – 15, 1975
Reds (Warren Beatty) – 3, 1981
Red Sonja (Richard Fleischer) – 58, 1985
Evil Cat (Dennis Yu) – 52, 1987

The Cat (Lam Nai-choi) – 26, 1992
Cure (Kurosawa Kiyoshi) – 4, 1997
Pulse (Kurosawa Kiyoshi) – 11, 2001
Gosford Park (Robert Altman) – 15, 2001
Bright Future (Kurosawa Kiyoshi) – 18, 2002
28 Days Later (Danny Boyle) – 50, 2002

Linda Linda Linda (Yamashita Nobuhiro) – 1, 2005
Runnin’ Down a Dream (Peter Bogdanovich) – 24, 2007
28 Weeks Later (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo) – 76, 2007
Moneyball (Bennett Miller) – 21, 2011
Conan the Barbarian (Marcus Nispel) – 55, 2011

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chobsky) – 73, 2012
Seventh Code (Kurosawa Kiyoshi) – 8, 2013
Creepy (Kurosawa Kiyoshi) – 35, 2016
Downton Abbey (Michael Engler) – 103, 2019
Baby Assassins (Sakamoto Yugo) – 13, 2021
Downton Abbey: A New Era (Simon Curtis) – 96, 2022

Baby Assassins: 2 Babies (Sakamoto Yugo) – 4, 2023
Baby Assassins Everyday! (Sakamoto Yugo) – 4, 2024
Baby Assassins: Nice Days (Sakamoto Yugo) – 9, 2024
Cloud (Kurosawa Kiyoshi) – 18, 2024

CITY the Animation (Ishidate Taishi) – 2, 2025
Fool Time (Jon Bois) – 10, 2025
Red Sonja (MJ Bassett) – 11, 2025
Amoeba (Tan Siyou) – 18, 2025
Ordinary Life (Mizushiri Yoriko) – 19, 2025
Water Sports (Whammy Alcazaran) – 20, 2025

Glass Heart (Goto Kotaro and Kakimoto Kensaku) – 21, 2025
Dongji Rescue (Guan Hu & Fei Zhenxiang) – 24, 2025
Through Your Eyes (Nelson Yeo) – 25, 025
Diablo (Ernesto Díaz Espinoza) – 26, 2025
A House of Dynamite (Kathryn Bigelow) – 27, 2025

Scorigami (Jon Bois) – 29, 2025
Ali (Adnan Al Rajeev) – 31, 2025
28 Years Later (Danny Boyle) – 32, 2025
Weapons (Zach Cregger) – 33, 2025
Ballerina (Len Wiseman) – 34, 2025
Prisoner of War (Louis Mandylor) – 36, 2025
Mr. Scorsese (Rebecca Miller) – 42, 2025

A Very Straight Neck (Sora Neo) – 49, 2025
Dear Stranger (Mariko Tetsuya) – 51, 2025
A South-Facing Window (Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir) – 52, 2025
Correct Me If I’m Wrong (Zhou Hao) – 54, 2025

John Candy: I Like Me (Colin Hanks) – 55, 2025
Thunderbolts* (Jake Schrier) – 56, 2025
Affinity (Brandon Slagle) – 62, 2025
The Red Banca (Nena Jane Achacoso) – 63, 2025

This Week in Rankings

Since the last update, festival season dominated my schedule, with coverage of Japan Cuts and the New York Asian Film Festival over at The Chinese Cinema and Fantasia and Cannes at InReview Online. I also put together a video introduction for a Tsui Hark retrospective that played at The Cinematheque in Vancouver.

At The Chinese Cinema, I’ve reviewed Scenes of City Life and Street Angel, Bullet Train and Bullet Train Explosion, Girl Students’ Dormitory, The Old Woman with the Knife, All the Wrong Clues (…For the Right Solution), 11 Rebels, and Ghost Killer.

Also, since it’s apparently quarter-century list season, I counted down the top Chinese Language and Non-Chinese Language films of the 2000s so far.

You can get all those reviews and much much more by subscribing to The Chinese Cinema today for the low price of only $1/month or $10/year.

These are the movies I’ve watched and rewatched over the last few months, and where they place on my year-by-year rankings.

Scenes of City Life (Yuan Muzhi) – 4, 1935
Street Angel (Yuan Muzhi) – 4, 1937
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz) – 1, 1942
Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly) – 1, 1952

Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean) – 6, 1962
The Bullet Train (Sato Jun’ya) – 11, 1975
All the Wrong Clues (…For the Right Solution) (Tsui Hark) – 32, 1981
Girl Students’ Dormitory (Shi Shujun) – 5, 1983

Love Hotel (Somai Shinji) – 16, 1985
Working Class (Tsui Hark) – 23, 1985
Bull Durham (Ron Shelton) – 1, 1988
The Naked Gun (David Zucker) – 20, 1988
Glory (Edward Zwick) – 17, 1989

Love Letter (Iwai Shunji) – 13, 1995
The Chinese Feast (Tsui Hark) – 41, 1995
I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times (Don Was) – 51, 1995
Carrotblanca (Douglas McCarthy, Spike Brandt, Tony Cervone) – 108, 1995
Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma) – 20, 1996

Serpent’s Path (Kurosawa Kiyoshi) – 23, 1998
License to Live (Kurosawa Kiyoshi) – 27, 1998
Mission: Impossible 2 (John Woo) – 24, 2000
Final Destination (James Wong) – 42, 2000
Final Destination 2 (David R. Ellis) – 45, 2003

Beautiful Dreamer (David Leaf) – 66, 2004
Final Destination 3 (James Wong) – 43, 2006
Mission: Impossible 3 (JJ Abrams) – 48, 2006
Tom Waits: Under Review (Unknown) – 60, 2006
The Simpsons Movie (David Silverman) – 50, 2007

The Final Destination (David R. Ellis) – 81, 2009
Hugo (Martin Scorsese) – 19, 2011
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (Brad Bird) – 20, 2011
Final Destination 5 (Steven Quale) – 59, 2011
42 (Brian Helgeland) – 73, 2013

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (Christopher McQuarrie) – 92, 2015
Rogue One (Gareth Edwards) – 23, 2016
Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie) – 132, 2018
Long Promised Road (Brent Wilson) – 35, 2021
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (Christopher McQuarrie) – 73, 2023

She Taught Me Serendipity (Ohku Akiko) – 5, 2024
11 Rebels (Shiraishi Kazuya) – 10, 2024
The Gesuidouz (Ugana Kenichi) – 18, 2024
Ghost Killer (Sonomura Kensuke) – 25, 2024
See You Tomorrow (Michimoto Saki) – 39, 2024

Honeko Akabane’s Bodyguards (Ishikawa Junichi) – 42, 2024
Possession Street (Jack Lai) – 48, 2024
Serpent’s Path (Kurosawa Kiyoshi) – 54, 2024
Striking Rescue (Cheng Siyu) – 64, 2024

Rewrite (Matsui Daigo) – 1, 2025
Shifty (Adam Curtis) – 2, 2025
Sinners (Ryan Coogler) – 3, 2025
Muromachi Outsiders (Irie Yu) – 7, 2025
Bullet Train Explosion (Higuchi Shinji) – 8, 2025

Deep in the Mountains (Li Yongyi) – 9, 2025
Superman (James Gunn) – 10, 2025
Girl on Edge (Zhou Jinghao) – 11, 2025
Thug Life (Mani Ratnam) – 12, 2025
The Phoenician Scheme (Wes Anderson) – 13, 2025

Sham (Miike Takashi) – 14, 2025
Pee Wee as Himself (Matt Wolf) – 15, 2025
Predator: Killer of Killers (Dan Trachtenberg) – 16, 2025
Girls on Wire (Vivian Qu) – 17, 2025
A Useful Ghost (Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke) – 18, 2025

Fantastic Four: First Steps (Matt Shakman) – 19, 2025
Informant (Kim Seok) – 22, 2025
Happy Gilmore 2 (Kyle Newacheck) – 24, 2025
Billy Joel: And So It Goes (Jessica Levin & Susan Lacy) – 25, 2025
Holy Night: Demon Hunters (Lim Daehee) – 26, 2025

Becoming Led Zeppelin (Bernard MacMahon) – 27, 2025
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (Christopher McQuarrie) – 28, 2025
Smashing Frank (Trevor Choi) – 29, 2025
Final Destination: Bloodlines (Directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein) – 30, 2025
The Stone (Arak Amornsupasiri and Vuthipong Sukhanindr) – 31, 2025
Behind the Shadows (Jonathan Li and Chou Man You) – 32, 2025

Lost Bullet 3 (Guillaume Pierret) – 34, 2025
The Old Woman with the Knife (Min Kyudong) – 35, 2025
So Beautiful, Wonderful, and Lovely (Okawara Megumi) – 36, 2025
The Old Way (Fan Xiang) – 37, 2025
Another Simple Favor (Paul Feig) – 38, 2025
Captain America: Brave New World (Julius Onah) – 39, 2025

This Week in Rankings

Since the last update, 2024 ended and I listed my favorite books of the year as well as my favorite older movies I saw for the first time. I also handed out the Endy Awards for the year.

I dusted off Seattle Screen Scene in order to review Paul WS Anderson’s In the Lost Lands. Over at InReview Online I reviewed a couple of films for the International Film Festival Rotterdam (Miike Takashi’s Blazing Fists and Anselm Chan’s The Last Dance), Rendez-vous with French Cinema (Rithy Panh’s Rendez-vous avec Pol Pot), and First Look ’25 (Yamanaka Yoko’s Desert of Namibia).

At The Chinese Cinema, I continued to explore the emergent iQIYI cinema with a look at seven films starring Raquel Xu Dongdong (The Raquel Report) and two starring Muqi Miya (The MIYA Memo), as well as two adaptations of Louis Cha’s Condor Heroes series (More Condors, More Heroes). The latter of those coincided with the release of Tsui Hark’s theatrical adaptation, Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants.

Speaking of legendary filmmakers, I also reviewed Kitano Takeshi’s Broken Rage, Kuei Chih-hung’s Killer Constable, Donnie Yen’s The Prosecutor, and Ram Gopal Varma’s Enter the Girl Dragon, and saw a martial arts triple feature at the now-homeless Grand Illusion Cinema which included films by Chang Cheh and Lau Kar-leung. Finally, I started what I hope will be an extended exploration of Shanghai Cinema with a pair of Li Li-li movies: Fei Mu’s Blood on Wolf Mountain and National Customs, the final film made by actress Ruan Lingyu.

You can get all those reviews and much much more by subscribing to The Chinese Cinema today for the low price of only $1/month or $10/year.

These are the movies I’ve watched and rewatched over the last few months, and where they place on my year-by-year rankings.

National Customs (Zhu Shilin & Luo Mingyou) – 13, 1935
Blood on Wolf Mountain (Fei Mu) – 8, 1936
The Old Mill (Wilfred Jackson & Graham Heid) – 6, 1937
Confucius (Fei Mu) – 21, 940
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles) – 1, 1941

Bugs and Thugs (Friz Freleng) – 34, 1954
Funny Face (Stanley Donen) – 1, 1957
The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola) – 3, 1972
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah) – 7, 1973
Enter the Dragon (Robert Clouse) – 11, 1973

The Brave Archer (Chang Cheh) – 24, 1977
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (Lau Kar-leung) – 2, 1978
Crippled Avengers (Chang Cheh) – 7, 1978
Killer Constable (Kuei Chih-hung) – 9, 1980
The Clones of Bruce Lee (Joseph Kong Hung & Nam Ki-nam) – 42, 1980
Revenge of the Ninja (Sam Firstenberg) – 47, 1983

Silverado (Lawrence Kasdan) – 23, 1985
Blue Velvet (David Lynch) – 6, 1986
Die Hard (John McTiernan) – 8, 1988
Young Guns (Christopher Cain) – 55, 1988
Cocktail (Roger Donaldson) – 69, 1988
Wild at Heart (David Lynch) – 11, 1990

Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai) – 1, 1994
Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants (David Mamet) – 25, 1996
The Rock (Michael Bay) – 31, 1996
Fat Choi Spirit (Johnnie To & Wai Ka-fai) – 6, 2002

The Hours (Stephen Daldry) – 47, 2002
The Stepford Wives (Franz Oz) – 62, 2004
David Lynch: The Art Life (Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes, & Olivia Neergaard-Holm) – 148, 2016
Ash is Purest White (Jia Zhangke) – 1, 2018
The Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jarmusch) – 23, 2019

Miss Agent (Zeng Li) – 61, 2020
Queen of Triads (Venus Keung & Wong Jing) – 39, 2021
The Sniper (Chris Huo) – 46, 2021
The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Dragon Tamer (Zhu Lingfeng & Yu Diao) – 81, 2021
Enter the Girl Dragon (Ram Gopal Varma) – 62, 2022

Lynch/Oz (Alexandre O. Philippe) – 65, 2022
Female Special Police Officer (Zhang Zhen) – 71, 2022
Queen of Triads 2 (Venus Keung & Wong Jing) – 87, 2022
Queen of Triads 3 (Kam Ka-wai) – 87, 2023

Broken Rage (Kitano Takeshi) – 7, 2024
Rendez-vous avec Pol Pot (Rithy Panh) – 22, 2024
Desert of Namibia (Yamanaka Yoko) – 27, 2024
The Last Dance (Anselm Chan) – 46, 2024
The Prosecutor (Donnie Yen) – 55, 2024

Wild Agent 2: Peach Assassination (Huang He) – 57, 2024
The Art of the Calendar (Kier-La Janisse) – 58, 2024
Shell Girl (Wang Xia) – 61, 2024
Sniper 2 (Shen Zhaoqing) – 65, 2024
Cunk on Life (Al Campbell) – 67, 2024

Blazing Fists (Miike Takashi) – 1, 2025
Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants (Tsui Hark) – 2, 2025
In the Lost Lands (Paul WS Anderson) – 3, 2025
Den of Thieves 2: Pantera (Christian Gudegast) – 4, 2025
The Legend of Condor Hero: What is love (Lin Zhenzhao) – 5, 2025
We Beat the Dream Team (Michael Tolajian) – 6, 2025

This Week in Rankings

Since the last update, it was announced that I’ve written another liner notes essay. This time, it’s for the Chameleon Films release of Johnnie To’s Sparrow and it’s available for preorder right now. Over at InReview Online, I contributed write-ups of George Miller’s Furiosa and Soi Cheang’s Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In to their Best of the Year countdown.

At The Chinese Cinema, I wrote about Hong Sangsoo’s A Traveler’s Needs and By the Stream, the Yuen Clan’s Magic Movies (Miracle Fighters, Shaolin Drunkard, Taoism Drunkard, Young Taoism Fighter), Qin Pengfei’s The Bodyguard and Blade of Fury, Yamada Naoko’s The Heike Story, and Tsai Ming-liang’s Abiding Nowhere.

You can get all those reviews and much much more by subscribing to The Chinese Cinema today for the low price of only $1/month or $10/year.

These are the movies I’ve watched and rewatched over the last few months, and where they place on my year-by-year rankings.


A Charlie Brown Christmas (Bill Melendez) – 3, 1965
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (Bill Melendez) – 1, 1966
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (Chuck Jones) – 15, 1966
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (Bill Melendez & Phil Roman) – 40, 1973

The Miracle Fighters (Yuen Woo-ping) – 4, 1982
Shaolin Drunkard (Yuen Woo-ping) – 41, 1983
Taoism Drunkard (Yuen Cheung-yan) – 51, 1984
The Young Taoism Fighter (Chen Chi-hwa) – 62, 1986
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Kevin Reynolds) – 54, 1991

The Heike Story (Yamada Naoko) – 1, 2021
Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik) – 5, 2022
Woman of the Hour (Anna Kendrick) – 34, 2023

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller) – 1, 2024
Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood) – 6, 2024
A Traveler’s Needs (Hong Sangsoo) – 7, 2024
The Colors Within (Yamada Naoko) – 8, 2024
By the Stream (Hong Sangsoo) – 14, 2024

God Hates a Coward (Jon Bois) – 15, 2024
Abiding Nowhere (Tsai Ming-liang) – 17, 2024
Look Back (Oshiyama Kiyotaka) – 18, 2024
Here (Robert Zemeckis) – 21, 2024
Vengeance Most Fowl (Merlin Crossingham & Nick Park) – 23, 2024

Anora (Sean Baker) – 25, 2024
Trap (M. Night Shyamalan) – 26, 2024
Crisis Negotiators (Herman Yau) – 30, 2024
Dahomey (Mati Diop) – 32, 2024
Drive-Away Dolls (Ethan Coen) – 33, 2024

The Fall Guy (David Leitch) – 34, 2024
The Bodyguard (Qin Pengfei) – 37, 2024
Blade of Fury (Qin Pengfei) – 38, 2024
Made in England (David Hinton) – 39, 2024
Challengers (Luca Guadagnino) – 43, 2024

Conclave (Edward Berger) – 49, 2024
Would You Like to Buy a Mattress (Jon Bois) – 50, 2024
A Complete Unknown (James Mangold) – 51, 2024
Alien: Romulus (Fede Álvarez) – 52, 2024
The Brutalist (Brady Corbet) – 53, 2024

Rainier: A Beer Odyssey (Isaac Olsen) – 57, 2024
Yacht Rock: A DOCKumentary (Garret Price) – 58, 2024
Nosferatu (Robert Eggers) – 59, 2024
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Tim Burton) – 60, 2024
Treasure Hunting (Qin Pengfei) – 64, 2024

Civil War (Alex Garland) – 65, 2024
Deadpool & Wolverine (Shawn Levy) – 66, 2024
Madame Web (SJ Clarkson) – 69, 2024
SWAT Angels in Mission (Liu Meng & Xue Wen Hua) – 70, 2024

This Week in Rankings

Since the last update it was announced that I’ve written another liner notes essay for a Criterion Collection release. This one is for Sammo Hung’s Eastern Condors, and it’s available for pre-order right now. I’ve continued on the festival beat over at InReview Online, where I reviewed Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s Cloud, Yang Li’s Escape from the 21st Century, Huang Xi’s Daughter’s Daughter, John Hsu’s Dead Talents Society, Jia Zhangke’s Caught by the Tides, and Timo Tjahjanto’s The Shadow Strays.

I’ve compiled all my InRO Festival Reviews from this year into one convenient spot over at The Chinese Cinema, where I’ve also recently reviewed Soi Cheang’s Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, John Woo’s remake of his own The Killer, the documentary about cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-ping Let the Wind Carry Me, Corey Yuen’s The Bodyguard from Beijing, Jason Yu’s Sleep, Ryoo Seungwan’s Veteran 2: I, the Executioner, and a handful of movies that are streaming on the iQIYI channel (Fight Against Evil 2, Black Storm, Drunken Prodigy, Second Life, An Arrow through the Heart).

You can get all those reviews and much much more by subscribing to The Chinese Cinema today for the low price of only $1/month or $10/year.

These are the movies I’ve watched and rewatched over the last few months, and where they place on my year-by-year rankings.

The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin) – 1, 1925
The Untouchables (Brian De Palma) – 28, 1987
The Bodyguard from Beijing (Corey Yuen) – 79, 1994
Bad Boys (Michael Bay) – 66, 1995
The Waterboy (Frank Coraci) – 72, 1998

Let the Wind Carry Me (Kwan Pung-Leung & Chiang Hsiu-Chiung) – 48, 2009
Prometheus (Ridley Scott) – 65, 2012
Veteran (Ryoo Seungwan) – 37, 2015
Alien: Covenant (Ridley Scott) – 144, 2017
The Night Comes for Us (Timo Tjahjanto) – 64, 2018

Dune (Denis Villeneuve) – 35, 2021
Fight Against Evil (Qin Pengfei) – 56, 2021
Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik) – 23, 2022
Sleep (Jason Yu) – 27, 2023
Fight Against Evil 2 (Qin Pengfei) – 78, 2023
Anyone But You (Will Gluck) – 82, 2023

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 (Kevin Costner) – 2, 2024
Eephus (Carson Lund) – 3, 2024
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Soi Cheang) – 4, 2024
Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola) – 6, 2024
Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke) – 8, 2024

Chime (Kurosawa Kiyoshi) – 9, 2024
The Shadow Strays (Timo Tjahjanto) – 10, 2024
Cloud (Kurosawa Kiyoshi) – 13, 2024
The Kadarius Toney Fan Club (Jon Bois) – 14, 2024
The Killer (John Woo) – 15, 2024

Escape from the 21st Century (Yang Li) – 16, 2024
Second Life (Chris Huo) – 18, 2024
Dead Talents Society (John Hsu) – 22, 2024
Veteran 2: I, the Executioner (Ryoo Seungwan) – 24, 2024
Dune 2 (Denis Villeneuve) – 25, 2024

Daughter’s Daughter (Huang Xi) – 26, 2024
Drunken Prodigy (Ashton Chen) – 29, 2024
Black Storm (Qin Pengfei) – 32, 2024
An Arrow through the Heart (Guo Yubo) – 37, 2024

This Week in Rankings

Since the last update I wrote the liner notes essay for Vinegar Syndrome’s release of Johnnie To’s Lifeline. I’ve got a couple of other essays in the works, expected announcements for those in the next couple of months. In the meantime, I’ve been covering film festivals. At InReview Online, I wrote about Guan Yu’s Black Dog, which played Cannes, and for the New York Asian Film festival I covered Baby Assassins: Nice Days, Customs Frontline, and The Lyricist Wannabe. I covered Japan Cuts over at my own site, with reviews of Shin Godzilla: Orthochromatic, Kubi, Kyrie, Between the White Key and the Black Key, Sayonara Girls, Shadow of Fire, Mermaid Legend, August in the Water, and Moving.

Also over at The Chinese Cinema, I wrote about Only the River Flows, Beijing Watermelon, July Rhapsody, Nothing Can’t Be Undone by a Hotpot, The Valiant Ones, and three movies called Once a Thief.

You can get all those reviews and much much more by subscribing for the low price of only $1/month or $10/year.

These are the movies I’ve watched and rewatched over the last few months, and where they place on my year-by-year rankings.

Baseball Bugs (Friz Freleng) – 10, 1946
Pickpocket (Robert Bresson) – 7, 1959
The World of Suzie Wong (Richard Quine) – 21, 1960
Topkapi (Jules Dassin) – 21, 1964

Once a Thief (Ralph Nelson) – 32, 1965
Le Samouraï (Jean-Pierre Melville) – 5, 1967
The Thomas Crown Affair (Norman Jewison) – 16, 1968
Le cercle rouge (Jean-Pierre Melville) – 5, 1970

Harry in Your Pocket (Bruce Geller) – 31, 1973
The Valiant Ones (King Hu) – 7, 1975
Carry On Pickpocket (Sammo Hung) – 22, 1982
Fantasy Mission Force (Kevin Chu Yen-ping) – 34, 1983

Mermaid Legend (Ikeda Toshiharu) – 16, 1984
The Killing Fields (Roland Joffé) – 38, 1984
Beverly Hills Cop (Martin Brest) – 48, 1984
Typhoon Club (Somai Shinji) – 6, 1985
Rambo: First Blood Part II (George P. Cosmatos) – 45, 1985

Golden Eighties (Chantal Akerman) – 14, 1986
Eastern Condors (Sammo Hung) – 10, 1987
Beverly Hills Cops II (Tony Scott) – 51, 1987
Beijing Watermelon (Obayashi Nobuhiko) – 6, 1989
Field of Dreams (Phil Alden Robinson) – 23, 1989

She Shoots Straight (Corey Yuen) – 36, 1990
Once a Thief (John Woo) – 26, 1991
The Raid (Tsui Hark) – 43, 1991
Moving (Somai Shinji) – 4, 1993
August in the Water (Ishii Gakuryu) – 40, 1995

Once a Thief (John Woo) – 90, 1996
Can’t Hardly Wait (Deborah Kaplan & Harry Elfont) – 69, 1998
Go (Doug Limon) – 56, 1999
July Rhapsody (Ann Hui) – 18, 2002

Yesterday Once More (Johnnie To) – 17, 2004
Sparrow (Johnnie To) – 2, 2008
Linger (Johnnie To) – 41, 2008
Open City (Lee Sang-gi) – 81, 2008

Shin Godzilla (Anno Hideaki & Higuchi Shinji) – 8, 2016
Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold (Griffin Dunne) – 121, 2017
Destination Wedding (Victor Levin) – 79, 2018
The Booksellers (DW Young) – 100, 2019

Sayonara, Girls. (Shun Nakagawa) – 25, 2022
Kubi (Kitano Takeshi) – 2, 2023
Kyrie (Iwai Shunji) – 14, 2023
Only the River Flows (Wei Shujun) – 24, 2023

Hit Man (Richard Linklater) – 39, 2023
The Lyricist Wannabe (Norris Wong) – 45, 2023
Shadow of Fire (Tsukamoto Shin’ya) – 59, 2023
Between the White Key and the Black Key (Tominaga Masanori) – 76, 2023

Furiosa (George Miller) – 1, 2024
Baby Assassins: Nice Days (Sakamoto Yugo) – 2, 2024
Black Dog (Guan Hu) – 3, 2024
I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun) – 4, 2024
The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel (Jenny Nicholson) – 5, 2024
Reform! (Jon Bois) – 6, 2024
That’s Not Entirely Accurate (Jon Bois) – 7, 2024
Nothing Can’t Be Undone by a Hotpot (Ding Sheng) – 10, 2024

The History of Slipping on Banana Peels (Jon Bois) – 11, 2024
Twisters (Lee Isaac Chung) – 12, 2024
Customs Frontline (Herman Yau) – 13, 2024
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (Mark Molloy) – 15, 2024
Jim Henson Idea Man (Ron Howard) – 17, 2024
Brats (Andrew McCarthy) – 18, 2024

This Week in Rankings

Since the last update, I handed out the 2023 Endy Awards. Over at the Criterion Collection’s online magazine Current, I wrote about Hou Hsiao-hsien’s early films. And for InReview Online I reviewed Ann Hui’s latest film, Elegies, which played at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

At The Chinese Cinema, I reviewed: Onlookers, The Heroic Trio and Executioners, Death Notice, Eye for an Eye 2, The Mystery of Chess Boxing, Beach of the War Gods, Visible Secret, Dancing with the Dead, The Mad Monk, Art College 1994, The Roundup: Punishment, Sailor Suit and Machine Gun, and Casino Raiders. You can get all those and much much more for the low price of only $1/month or $10/year.

These are the movies I’ve watched and rewatched over the last few months, and where they place on my year-by-year rankings.

Seven Samurai (Kurosawa Akira) – 1, 1954
Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean) – 6, 1962
The Taming of the Shrew (Franco Zeffirelli) – 26, 1967
The Italian Job (Peter Collinson) – 13, 1969
Beach of the War Gods (Jimmy Wang Yu) – 24, 1973

Cloud of Romance (Chan Hung-lit) – 22, 1977
The Fall of Ako Castle (Fukasaku Kinji) – 18, 1978
Lover on the Wave (Chen Kun-hou) – 30, 1978
The Mystery of Chess (Joseph Kuo) – 13, 1979
Chu Lien (Lai Cheng-ying) – 27, 1979

Cute Girl (Hou Hsiao-hsien) – 18, 1980
Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (Somai Shinji) – 17, 1981
Cheerful Wind (Hou Hsiao-hsien) – 38, 1981
Conan the Barbarian (John Milius) – 6, 1982
The Green, Green Grass of Home (Hou Hsiao-hsien) – 21, 1982
The Boys from Fengkuei (Hou Hsiao-hsien) – 7, 1983

Bull Durham (Ron Shelton) – 2, 1988
Les sièges des l’Alcazar (Luc Moullet) – 15, 1989
Major League (David S. Ward) – 37, 1989
Casino Raiders (Wong Jing & Jimmy Heung) – 50, 1989
Hamlet (Franco Zeffirelli) – 28, 1990

Backdraft (Ron Howard) – 47, 1991
Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven) – 25, 1992
Noises Off… (Peter Bogdanovich) – 34, 1992
Wayne’s World (Penelope Spheeris) – 59, 1992
When Cinema Reflects the Times: Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang (Kore-eda Hirokazu) – 30, 1993

Executioners (Johnnie To & Ching Siu-tung) – 33, 1993
The Heroic Trio (Johnnie To) – 43, 1993
The Mad Monk (Johnnie To) – 93, 1993
Loving You (Johnnie To) – 38, 1995
Get Shorty (Barry Sonnenfeld) – 44, 1995

Romeo + Juliet (Baz Luhrmann) – 10, 1996
Twister (Jan de Bont) – 44, 1996
Lifeline (Johnnie To) – 22, 1997
Expect the Unexpected (Patrick Yau) – 10, 998
Out of Sight (Steven Soderbergh) – 18, 1998
Shakespeare in Love (John Madden) – 47, 1998

The Matrix (Lilly and Lana Wachowski) – 2, 1999
Help!!! (Johnnie To & Wai Ka-fai) – 29, 2000
Center Stage (Nicholas Hytner) – 43, 2000
Visible Secret (Ann Hui) – 10, 2001

Ocean’s Eleven (Steven Soderbergh) – 24, 2001
Ocean’s Twelve (Steven Soderbergh) – 40, 2004
Red Eye (Wes Craven) – 32, 2005
Classic Albums: Nirvana – Nevermind (Bob Smeaton) – 66, 2005
Ocean’s Thirteen (Steven Soderbergh) – 54, 2007

Burn After Reading (Joel & Ethan Coen) – 35, 2008
The Lone Ranger (Gore Verbinski) – 20, 2013
Gyeongju (Zhang Lü) – 34, 2014
The Intern (Nancy Meyers) – 53, 2015
Love and… (Zhang Lü) – 126, 2015

Everybody Wants Some!! (Richard Linklater) – 26, 2016
A Quiet Dream (Zhang Lü) – 31, 2016
Table 19 (Jeffrey Blitz) – 147, 2017
Ode to the Goose (Zhang Lü) – 12, 2018
Fukuoka (Zhang Lü) – 25, 2019
Sound! Euphonium the Movie: Our Promise – A Brand New Day (Ishihara Tatsuya) – 57, 2019
Yanagawa (Zhang Lü) – 34, 2021

Evil Does Not Exist (Hamaguchi Ryusuke) – 5, 2023
Death Notice (Herman Yau) – 41, 2023
Onlookers (Kimi Takesue) – 44, 2023
Sound! Euphonium: Ensemble Contest (Ishihara Tatsuya) – 49, 2023
Art College 1994 (Liu Jian) – 56, 2023
Self-Reliance (Jake Johnson) – 76, 2023
The Marvels (Nia DaCosta) – 78, 2023

Eye for an Eye 2 (Yang Bingjia) -2, 2024
The Roundup: Punishment (Heo Myeong-haeng) – 3, 2024
Steve! (Morgan Neville) – 4, 2024

This Week in Rankings

Since my last update, the end of 2023 came and went. I nominated a bunch of movies for the Endy Awards, and listed my favorite Film Discoveries and Books of the past year. I submitted a list to the annual Sense of Cinema World Poll and wrote about Rocky aur Rani for InReview Online’s end of the year list. And I wrote about Ozu Yasujiro’s A Hen in the Wind for Criterion.

Over at The Chinese Cinema, I wrote about Where the Wind Blows, Silent Night, Raid on the Lethal Zone and Moscow Mission, All Ears, Last Hero in China, I Did It My Way, and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

If you like what I do here, there, or anywhere else, please consider subscribing to The Chinese Cinema. It’s only $1/month or $10/year for a whole lot of exclusive reviews.

These are the movies I’ve watched and rewatched over the last few months, and where they place on my year-by-year rankings.

Godzilla (Honda Ishiro) – 9, 1954
A Charlie Brown Christmas (Bill Melendez) – 3, 1965
Don’t Look Back (DA Pennebaker) – 4, 1967
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (Bill Melendez & Phil Roman) – 38, 1973

Mad Max (George Miller) – 22, 1979
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (George Miller) – 6, 1981
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Obayashi Nobuhiko) – 5, 1983
Gremlins (Joe Dante) – 7, 1984
This is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner) – 12, 1984

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (George Miller & George Ogilve) – 32, 1985
The Magic Crystal (Wong Jing) – 58, 1986
A Muppet Family Christmas (Eric Till & Peter Harris) – 67, 1987
Scrooged (Richard Donner) – 56, 1988
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (Chris Columbus) – 80, 1992

Last Hero in China (Wong Jing) – 37, 1993
From Beijing with Love (Stephen Chow & Lee Lik-chi) – 20, 1994
Made in Hong Kong (Fruit Chan) – 2, 1997
Sideways (Alexander Payne) – 20, 2004
Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson) – 3, 2009

Skyline (Colin & Greg Strouse) – 67, 2010
The Muppets (James Bobin) – 41, 2011
Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller) – 2, 2015
One Shot (James Nunn) – 24, 2021
Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Swinton O. Scott III) – 82, 2021

Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt) – 1, 2022
Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella) – 6, 2022
Where the Wind Blows (Philip Yung) – 37, 2022
Eye for an Eye: The Blind Swordsman (Yang Bingjia) – 56, 2022

Bad City (Sonomura Kensuke) – 57, 2022
Death on the Nile (Kenneth Branagh) – 81, 2022
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules (Luke Cormican) – 94, 2022

Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (Karan Johar) – 1, 2023
Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan) – 4, 2023
Godzilla Minus One (Yamazaki Takashi) – 5, 2023
The Taste of Things (Trần Anh Hùng) – 6, 2023
Afire (Christian Petzold) – 7, 2023

Jigarthanda DoubleX (Karthik Subbaraj) – 8, 2023
Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese) – 10, 2023
The Boy and the Heron (Miyazaki Hayao) – 12, 2023
Menus Plaisirs – Les Troisgros (Frederick Wiseman) – 14, 2023
Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismaki) – 15, 2023

Jawan (Atlee) – 16, 2023
All Ears (Liu Jiayin) – 19, 2023
Ferrari (Michael Mann) – 26, 2023
May December (Todd Haynes) – 28, 2023
Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos) – 30, 2023

Perfect Days (Wim Wenders) – 32, 023
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret (Kelly Fremon Craig) – 37, 2023
Ballerina (Lee Chung-hyeon) – 38, 2023
Leo (Lokesh Kanagaraj) – 41, 2023
The Holdovers (Alexander Payne) – 42, 2023

Pathaan (Siddharth Anand) – 45, 2023
Silent Night (John Woo) – 47, 2023
A Haunting in Venice (Kenneth Branagh) – 49, 2023
Napoleon (Ridley Scott) – 50, 2023
Eileen (William Oldroyd) – 52, 2023

The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer) – 56, 2023
Moscow Mission (Herman Yau) – 57, 2023
No Hard Feelings (Gene Stupnitsky) – 58, 2023
I Did It My Way (Jason Kwan) – 68, 2023

Albert Brooks: Defending My Life (Rob Reiner) – 69, 2023
Maestro (Bradley Cooper) – 71, 2023
The Pigeon Tunnel (Errol Morris) – 72, 2023
Diary of a Wimpy Kid Christmas: Cabin Fever (Luke Cormican) – 81, 2023

One More Shot (James Nunn) – 2024

This Week in Rankings

Since the last update, I wrote about some more festival films at InReview Online: Following the Sound, The Breaking Ice, 100 Yards, and A Light Never Goes Out. At SeattleScreenScene I wrote about Boudica: Queen of War. Over at The Chinese Cinema, I wrote about The White Storm 3: Heaven or Hell, The Imp, Gen-X Cops and Gen-Y Cops, The Mr. Vampire Sequels, The Arrow Bruce Lee Boxset, New Fist of Fury, and Baby Assassins: 2 Babies. I appeared, along with my daughter, on The Wiseman Podcast to talk about Ballet, and I recorded a commentary track for the upcoming Kino/Metrograph Bluray of Fruit Chan’s Made in Hong Kong.

These are the movies I’ve watched or rewatched over the last few weeks, and where they place on my year-by-year rankings.

Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (Ozu Yasujiro) – 14, 1941
Record of a Tenement Gentleman (Ozu Yasujiro) – 15, 1947
A Hen in the Wind (Ozu Yasujiro) – 23, 1948
Zulu (Cy Endfield) – 4, 1964
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (Bill Melendez) – 1, 1966

The Big Boss (Lo Wei) – 6, 1971
The Way of the Dragon (Bruce Lee) – 15, 1972
Fist of Fury (Lo Wei) – 19, 1972
Enter the Dragon (Robert Clouse) – 11, 1973
New Fist of Fury (Lo Wei) – 36, 1976
Game of Death (Robert Clouse) – 36, 1978

The Happenings (Yim Ho) – 20, 1980
The Imp (Dennis Yu) – 26, 1981
Once Bitten (Howard Storm) – 50, 1985
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (John Hughes) – 30, 1986

Mr. Vampire II (Ricky Lau) – 53, 1986
Mr. Vampire 3 (Ricky Lau) – 36, 1987
Mr. Vampire Saga 4 (Ricky Lau) – 45, 1988
Vampire vs. Vampire (Lam Ching-ying) – 67, 1989

Searching for Bobby Fischer (Steven Zaillian) – 18, 1993
Heaven and Earth (David Lai) – 49, 1994
Made in Hong Kong (Fruit Chan) – 2, 1997
Bio Zombie (Wilson Yip) – 21, 1998

Gen-X Cops (Benny Chan) – 61, 1999
Gen-Y Cops (Benny Chan) – 50, 2000
Millennium Mambo (Hou Hsiao-hsien) – 1, 2001
U-Man (Cheung Chi-sing) – 52, 2002

La La Land (Damien Chazelle) – 82, 2016
Murder on the Orient Express (Kenneth Branagh) – 141, 2017
In Search of Ozu (Daniel Raim) – 105, 2018
Hydra (Sonomura Kensuke) – 67, 2019
Ponniyin Selvan Part 1 (Mani Ratnam) – 3, 2022

100 Yards (Xu Haofeng and Xu Junfeng) – 1, 2023
Baby Assassins: 2 Babies (Sakamoto Yugo) – 2, 2023
The Final Game of Death (James Flower) – 5, 2023
Ponniyin Selvan Part 2 (Mani Ratnam) – 8, 2023
Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet) – 15, 2023

The Killer (David Fincher) – 20, 2023
Blackberry (Matt Johnson) – 22, 2023
The History of the Minnesota Vikings (Jon Bois) – 23, 2023
Raid on the Lethal Zone (Herman Yau, 26, 2023
Bottoms (Emma Seligman) – 27, 2023

Boudica: Queen of War (Jesse V. Johnson) – 37, 2023
The Breaking Ice (Anthony Chen) – 39, 2023
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (Davis Guggenheim) – 41, 2023
The White Storm 3: Heaven or Hell (Herman Yau) – 43, 2023

This Week in Rankings

Since the last update, I’ve covered a number of films for various film festivals: In Our Day for Cannes, Enter the Clones of Bruce for Tribeca, Vital Sign, Kitty the Killer, A Light Never Goes Out, and Nomad for the New York Asian Film Festival, Shin Kamen Rider, My Heart is that Eternal Rose, Take Care of My Cat, and River for Fantasia, and When Morning Comes I Feel Empty, Mondays, The First Slam Dunk, Convenience Story, Saga Saga, Hand, and Plastic for Japan Cuts. I also wrote about The Roundup: No Way Out at InReview Online and Barbie, Once Upon a Time in Uganda, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny at Seattle Screen Scene.

At The Chinese Cinema, to which you can subscribe for a mere $1/month or $10/year, I wrote about the Swordsman of All Swordsmen Trilogy, Mutant Ghost Wargirl, The Sparring Partner and A Guilty Conscience, Heart of Dragon, A Janitor and Yellow Dragon’s Village, High Risk, Woman Basketball Player No. 5, Mad Fate, two versions of The Red Detachment of Women, and The Avenging Eagle.

These are the movies I’ve watched or rewatched over the last few weeks, and where they place on my year-by-year rankings.

How to Play Golf (Jack Kinney) – 15, 1944
A Study in Choreography for Camera (Maya Deren) – 13, 1945
Woman Basketball Player No. 5 (Xie Jin) – 19, 1957
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Blake Edwards) – 5, 1961
The Red Detachment of Women (Xie Jin) – 9, 1961

The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly (Sergio Leone) – 1, 1966
The Swordsman of All Swordsmen (Joseph Kuo) – 12, 1968
The Red Detachment of Women (Pan Wenzhan & Fu Jie) – 11, 1970
The Bravest Revenge (Chien Lung) – 14, 1970
The Ghost Hill (Ting Shan-hsi) – 8, 1971
The Avenging Eagle (Sun Chang) – 19, 1978

Nomad (Patrick Tam) – 1, 1982
Repo Man (Alex Cox) – 22, 1984
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (Tim Burton) – 21, 1985
Heart of Dragon (Sammo Hung) – 31, 1985
My Heart is that Eternal Rose (Patrick Tam) – 9, 1989

Dances with Wolves (Kevin Costner) – 39, 1990
Ballet (Frederick Wiseman) – 5, 1995
High Risk (Wong Jing) – 21, 1995
Happy Gilmore (Dennis Dugan) – 36, 1996
Take Care of My Cat (Jeong Jae-eun) – 15, 2001
The Princess Diaries (Garry Marshall) – 58, 2001

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin’ Down a Dream (Peter Bogdanovich) – 24, 2007
Transformers (Michael Bay) – 55, 2007
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Michael Bay) – 83, 2009
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Michael Bay) – 65, 2011
Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson) – 2, 2012
Transformers: Age of Extinction (Michael Bay) – 82, 2014

The American Ballet Theatre: A History (Ric Burns) – 143, 2015
Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan) – 85, 2017
Transformers: The Last Knight (Michael Bay) – 88, 2017
Bumblebee (Travis Knight) – 83, 2018
Extraction (Sam Hargrave) – 40, 2020

Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson) – 6, 2021
Yellow Dragon’s Village (Sakamoto Yugo) – 19, 2021
A Janitor (Sakamoto Yugo) – 50, 2021
Once Upon a Time in Uganda (Cathryne Czubek) – 55, 2021

The First Slam Dunk (Inoue Takehiko) – 19, 2022
When Morning Comes, I Feel Empty (Ichibashi Yuho) – 24, 2022
Mondays (Takebayashi Ryo) – 31, 2022
The Sparring Partner (Ho Cheuk-tin) – 42, 2022
It’s What Each Person Needs (Sophy Romvari) – 45, 2022

A Light Never Goes Out (Anastasia Tsang) – 54, 2022
Hand (Matsui Daigo) – 58, 2022
Mutant Ghost Wargirl (Liu Binjie) – 71, 2022
Convenience Story (Miki Satoshi) – 82, 2022

Asteroid City (Wes Anderson) – 1, 2023
Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan) – 3, 2023
In Our Day (Hong Sangsoo) – 5, 2023
Barbie (Greta Gerwig) – 6, 2023
Mad Fate (Soi Cheang) – 7, 2023

Plastic (Miyazaki Daisuke) – 8, 2023
A Guilty Conscience (Jack Ng) – 11, 2023
John Wick Chapter 4 (Chad Stahelski) – 12, 2023
River (Yamaguchi Junta) – 13, 2023
You Hurt My Feelings (NIcole Holofcener) – 14, 2023

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One (Christopher McQuarrie) – 16, 2023
Shin Kamen Rider (Anno Hideaki) – 17, 2023
Saga Saga (Natsuto Aimi) – 18, 2023
Past Lives (Celine Song) – 19, 2023
Extraction 2 (Sam Hargrave) – 20, 2023

The Roundup: No Way Out (Lee Sang-yong) – 22, 2023
Indiana Jones & the Dial of Destiny (James Mangold) – 23, 2023
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse (Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, Kemp Powers) – 24, 2023
Enter the Clones of Bruce (David Gregory) – 25, 2023
Following the Sound (Sugita Kyoshi) – 26, 2023

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein) – 27, 2023
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 (James Gunn) – 29, 2023
Vital Sign (Cheuk Wan-chi) – 31, 2023
Kitty the Killer (Lee Thongkham) – 33, 2023
Scream VI (Tyler Gillett & Matt Bettinelli-Olpin) – 34, 2023
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (Steven Caple) – 35, 2023