Rankings: 2020-2029

2020:
2020 Endy Awards

1. The History of the Seattle Mariners
2. Lovers Rock
3. Septet: the Story of Hong Kong
4. Wife of a Spy
5. Undine
6. Days
7. Mangrove
8. The Woman Who Ran
9. Her Socialist Smile
10. Still Processing
11. Hold Me Back
12. Da 5 Bloods
13. Inside the Red Brick Wall
14. Tesla
15. We Have Boots
16. Monster Hunter
17. City Hall
18. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
19. Keep Rolling
20. Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes
21. Greyhound
22. The Cure
23. Shock Wave 2
24. The Calming
25. Hubie Halloween
26. Tenet
27. Point and Line to Plane
28. My Missing Valentine
29. Kung Fu Stuntmen
30. Debt Collectors
31. Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue
33. The Invisible Man
34. One Second
35. Hand Rolled Cigarette
36. World of Tomorrow 3
37. Hopper/Welles
38. Lost Bullet
39. Love Aaj Kal
40. Extraction
41. Crazy Samurai Musashi
42. The Eight Hundred
43. The Disciple
44. Love After Love
45. 12 Day Tale of the Monster that Died in 8
46. Birds of Prey
47. Minari
48. Demon Slayer: Mugen Train
49. Emma.
50. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
51. Another Round
52. American Utopia
53. Nomadland
54. Hamilton
55. Leap
56. The Paper Tigers
57. Palm Springs
58. The Rescue
59. Inventing the Future
60. MLK/FBI
61. Miss Agent
62. Sonic the Hedgehog
63. Mank
64. France Against the Robots
65. Promising Young Woman
66. October Rumbles
67. Class Action Park
68. The New Mutants
69. The Cube Phantom
70. Be Water
71. New York New York
72. Visit
73. Long Gone Summer
74. Trial of the Chicago 7
75. Wonder Woman 1984
76. Enter the Fat Dragon

2021:
2021 Endy Awards

1. The Heike Story
2. Drive My Car
3. Licorice Pizza
4. Shadow Kingdom
5. A New Old Play
6. Baby Assassins
7. In Front of Your Face
8. Karnan
9. Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched
10. West Side Story
11. Benedetta
12. The Night
13. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
14. Get Back
15. The French Dispatch
16. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair
17. Belle
18. A Writer’s Odyssey
19. Limbo
20. Yellow Dragon’s Village
21. Nothing Serious
22. The Velvet Underground
23. Inu-Oh
24. Matrix Resurrections
25. One Shot
26. The History of the Atlanta Falcons
27. Evangelion 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon a Time
28. Can’t Get You Out of My Head
29. Drifting Petals
30. Introduction
31. Old
32. Cliff Walkers
33. Sycorax
34. Just Remembering
35. Long Promised Road
36. Yanagawa
37. Dune
38. Hell Hath No Fury
39. The Green Knight
40. Queen of Triads
41. Bergman Island
42. The Falls
43. The Power of the Dog
44. Justice League
45. Coffin Homes
46. The Good Woman of Sichuan
47. The Sniper
48. The Worst Person in the World
49. Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time
50. Judas and the Black Messiah
51. Venom: Let There Be Carnage
52. The Battle at Lake Changjin
53. The Voyeurs
54. Kate
55. A Janitor
56. The Witches of the Orient
57. The Last Duel
58. Shaun the Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas
59. The Fable: The Killer Who Doesn’t Kill
60. Fight Against Evil
61. Cry Macho
62. Once Upon a Time in Uganda
63. Malignant
64. Pompo: The Cinephile
65. The Card Counter
66. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
67. Muppets Haunted Mansion
68. Mad God
69. Spider-Man: No Way Home
70. JFK Revisited: Through The Looking Glass
71. The Suicide Squad
72. Schemes in Antiques
73. Eternals
74. Raging Fire
75. Disney’s FastPass: A Complicated History
76. The Many Saints of Newark
77. No Time to Die
78. Nightmare Alley
79. The Mole Song: Final
80. Queenpins
81. The Great Director
82. The Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Dragon Tamer
83. King Richard
84. Kid 90
85. Black Widow
86. Cloudy Mountain
87. Who Are You, Charlie Brown?
88. New York Ninja
89. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
90. As We Like It
91. CODA
92. Don’t Look Up
93. House of Gucci
94. Eyes of Tammy Faye
95. Framing Britney Spears
96. Gunpowder Milkshake
97. Woodstock ’99: Peace Love and Rage

2022:

2022 Endy Awards

1. Showing Up
2. Hundreds of Beavers
3. The Novelist’s Film
4. Ponniyin Selvan: Part 1
5. The Fabelmans
6. Three Thousand Years of Longing
7. Walk Up
8. Trenque Lauquen
9. Shin Ultraman
10. Captain Ahab: The Story of Dave Stieb
11. Detective vs. Sleuths
12. Decision to Leave
13. The King of Wuxia
14. Apollo 10 1/2
15. Avatar: The Way of Water
16. Tár
17. Where
18. RRR
19. Nope
20. Thirteen Lives
21. Section 1
22. The First Slam Dunk
23. Remembering Every Night
24. The Battle at Lake Changjin II
25. Armageddon Time
26. Sayonara, Girls.
27. Crimes of the Future
28. White Noise
29. When Morning Comes I Feel Empty
30. Blue Island
31. The Banshees of Inishirin
32. Ambulance
33. Prey
34. Turn Every Page
35. Mondays
36. Fire of Love
37. How to Score Ten Runs in the First Inning and Lose
38. Vikram
39. Where the Wind Blows
40. Suzume
41. Hustle
42. Elvis
43. Confess, Fletch
44. The Munsters
45. Furies
46. Disney Channel’s Theme: A History Mystery
47. The Sparring Partner
48. The Eternal Daughter
49. The Princess
50. It’s What Each Person Needs
51. New Kung Fu Cult Master (Parts I & II)
52. Dead for a Dollar
53. Snipers
54. Fall
55. Special Delivery
56. The Roundup
57. Lost Bullet 2
58. Eye for an Eye: The Blind Swordsman
59. Bad City
60. Next Sohee
61. Enter the Girl Dragon
62. A Light Never Goes Out
63. There is a Stone
64. Lynch/Oz
65. Everything Everywhere All at Once
66. Eo
67. Hand
68. The Killer
69. Top Gun: Maverick
70. Female Special Police Officer
71. Confession
72. Emily the Criminal
73. Broker
74. The Woman King
75. Don’t Worry Darling
76. Glass Onion
77. The Northman
78. Warriors of Future
79. Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness
80. Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday
81. Mutant Ghost Wargirl
82. The Batman
83. The People You’re Paying to Be in Shorts
84. Barbarian
85. Day Shift
86. Queen of Triads 2
87. Death on the Nile
88. The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks
89. We Are Still Here
90. George Carlin’s American Dream
91. Hansan: Rising Dragon
92. Werewolf By Night
93. The Menu
94. Convenience Story
95. My Dear Bodyguard
96. Song of the Assassins
97. Downton Abbey: A New Era
98. Thor: Love and Thunder
99. Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me
100. I Want You Back
101. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules
102. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
103. Scream
104. Wolf Pack
105. Legendary in Action!
106. Morbius

2023:
2023 Endy Awards

1. Oppenheimer
2. Kubi
3. Rocky aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani
4. Baby Assassins: 2 Babies
5. 100 Yards
6. Jigarthanda DoubleX
7. Evil Does Not Exist
8. The Taste of Things
9. Godzilla Minus One
10. Hidden Blade
11. Afire
12. Killers of the Flower Moon
13. In Water
14. Kyrie
15. The Boy and the Heron
16. River
17. Menus Plaisirs-Les Troisgros
18. Fallen Leaves
19. Jawan
20. Fist of the Condor
21. The Final Game of Death
22. The Sniper: King of Snipers
23. All Ears
24. Mad Fate
25. Ponniyin Selvan Part 2
26. In Our Day
27. Plastic
28. Sleep
29. Full River Red
30. Asteroid City
31. A Guilty Conscience
32. Raid on the Lethal Zone
33. Only the River Flows
34. Barbie
35. Woman of the Hour
36. Ferrari
37. May December
38. Poor Things
39. Anatomy of a Fall
40. Perfect Days
41. John Wick Chapter 4
42. Hit Man
43. You Hurt My Feelings
44. The Killer
45. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret
46. Ballerina
47. Absence
48. The Lyricist Wannabe
49. Death Notice
50. Blackberry
51. Leo
52. Onlookers
53. The Holdovers
54. The History of the Minnesota Vikings
55. Pathaan
56. Sound! Euphonium: Ensemble Contest
57. Shin Kamen Rider
58. Silent Night
59. Saga Saga
60. Art College 1994
61. Enter the Clones of Bruce
62. Following the Sound
63. Bottoms
64. A Haunting in Venice
65. Extraction 2
66. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
67. Moscow Mission
68. Shadow of Fire
69. Napoleon
70. Eileen
71. Past Lives
72. The Zone of Interest
73. No Hard Feelings
74. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
75. The Wandering Earth II
76. The Roundup: No Way Out
77. Boudica: Queen of War
78. Indiana Jones & the Dial of Destiny
79. Between the White Key and the Black Key
80. Fight Against Evil 2
81. The White Storm 3: Heaven or Hell
82. The Breaking Ice
83. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse
84. Anyone But You
85. I Did It My Way
86. Albert Brooks: Defending My Life
87. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3
88. Queen of Triads 3
89. Self-Reliance
90. Maestro
91. The Marvels
92. The Pigeon Tunnel
93. The Super Marios Bros. Movie
94. Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
95. Sakra
96. Vital Sign
97. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
98. Scream VI
99. Kitty the Killer
100: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
101. Diary of a Wimpy Kid Christmas: Cabin Fever

2024:
2024 Endy Awards

1. Furiosa
2. Eephus
3. Baby Assassins Everyday!
4. Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1
5. Pavements
6. Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
7. Henry Fonda for President
8. She Taught Me Serendipity
9. Broken Rage
10. The Shadow Strays
11. Baby Assassins: Nice Days
12. Chime
13. Juror #2
14. 11 Rebels
15. Black Dog
16. Cloud
17. The Gesuidouz
18. A Traveler’s Needs
19. Look Back
20. Bushido
21. Megalopolis
22. Caught by the Tides
23. By the Stream
24. God Hates a Coward
25. I Saw the TV Glow
26. Abiding Nowhere
27. The Colors Within
28. The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel
29. Ghost Killer
30. Tomahawk Clouds
31. Rendez-vous avec Pol Pot
32. Here
33. The Killer
34. Vengeance Most Fowl
35. The Kadarius Toney Fan Club
36. Anora
37. Desert of Namibia
38. Trap
39. Escape from the 21st Century
40. Reform!
41. Second Life
42. Crisis Negotiators
43. Dead Talents Society
44. See You Tomorrow
45. Dahomey
46. Drive-Away Dolls
47. Hideko Akabane’s Bodyguards
48. The Fall Guy
49. That’s Not Entirely Accurate
50. One More Shot
51. The Bodyguard
52. Blade of Fury
53. Possession Street
54. Made in England
55. Eye for an Eye 2
56. Friendship
57. Nothing Can’t Be Undone By a Hotpot
58. Veteran 2: I, the Executioner
59. Challengers
60. Serpent’s Path
61. The Last Dance
62. Dune 2
63. Daughter’s Daughter
64. The History of Slipping on Banana Peels
65. Twisters
66. Drunken Prodigy
67. Conclave
68. Would You Like to Buy a Mattress?
69. A Complete Unknown
70. Striking Rescue
71. The Prosecutor
72. Alien: Romulus
73. Wild Agent 2: Peach Assassination
74. The Art of the Calendar
75. The Brutalist
76. Customs Frontline
77. Shell Girl
78. The Roundup: Punishment
79. Black Storm
80. Rainier: A Beer Odyssey
81. Sniper 2
82. Yacht Rock: A DOCKumentary
83. Cunk on Life
84. Once Upon a Time in China
85. The Captives
86. Nosferatu
87. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
88. Hot Blooded Angel
89. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
90. Steve!
91. Jim Henson Idea Man
92. Treasure Hunting
93. Civil War
94. Deadpool & Wolverine
95. Brats
96. An Arrow through the Heart
97. Madame Web
98. SWAT Angels in Mission

2025:

1. Rewrite
2. CITY the Animation
3. One Battle After Another
4. Sinners
5. Nemurubaka
6. Nouvelle Vague
7. The Mastermind
8. Lone Samurai
9. Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants
10. Resurrection
11. Blue Fight
12. The Sixth Robber
13. Shifty
14. In the Lost Lands
15. Muromachi Outsiders
16. WTO/99
17. Ella McCay
18. Videoheaven
19. Bullet Train Explosion
20. Red Sonja
21. Fool Time
22. I Fell in Love with a Z-Grade Director in Brooklyn
23. Blue Moon
24. Deep in the Mountains
25. Tunnels: Sun in the Dark
26. Honey Don’t
27. Fish, Fists, and Ambergris
28. Girl on Edge
29. Amoeba
30. Ordinary Life
31. Water Sports
32. Two Seasons, Two Strangers
33. The Forbidden City
34. Thug Life
35. The Phoenician Scheme
36. Sham
37. Glass Heart
38. Predator: Killer of Killers
39. Girls on Wire
40. Dongji Rescue
41. Superman
42. Morte Cucina
43. Avatar: Fire and Ash
44. Through Your Eyes
45. Diablo
46. All You Need is Kill
47. A House of Dynamite
48. It Was Just an Accident
49. A Useful Ghost
50. Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery
51. The Shadow’s Edge
52. Scorigami
53. Back to the Past
54. If I had Legs I’d Kick You
55. Predator: Badlands
56. Peter Hujar’s Day
57. Invincible Swordsman
58. Train Dreams
59. Ballerina
60. A Gilded Game
61. Pee-wee as Himself
62. Ali
63. 28 Years Later
64. Weapons
65. Den of Thieves 2: Pantera
66. Prisoner of War
67. The Legend of Condor Hero: What is Love
68. Frankenstein
69. Wake Up Dead Man
70. Fantastic Four
71. The Finder
72. Informant
73. We Beat the Dream Team
74. Happy Gilmore 2
75. Mr. Scorsese
76. Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale
77. Highest 2 Lowest
78. Billy Joel: And So It Goes
79. Holy Night: Demon Hunters
80. Becoming Led Zeppelin
81. Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning
82. Smashing Frank
83. Final Destination: Bloodlines
84. A Very Straight Neck
85. The Stone
86. Dear Stranger
87. A South Facing Window
88. Behind the Shadows
89. Correct Me If I’m Wrong
90. John Candy: I Like Me
91. Thunderbolts
92. The Prosecutor
93. Last Bullet
94. The Old Woman with the Knife
95. Under Current
96. So Beautiful Wonderful and Lovely
97. The Old Way
98. Affinity
99. Oh. What. Fun.
100. Eddington
101. The Red Banca
102. Another Simple Favor
103. Captain America: Brave New World

2026:

1. Blades of the Guardians
2. The Sheep Detectives
3. All the Lovers in the Night
4. The Great Money Robbery
5. The Fly: Abyss of Mutation

This Week in Rankings

AAAABdj1kmuHUee1k13IRbXNY35DgbVPyZTAmLiVoLdgtr2cbs-x0p-rPymEC39p5mDE-UIhfTXK7rzMiB2vDVuxgLXhIfyT

Since the last update I haven’t done much of anything. It was on March 14th, school was shut down the day before and I’ve been trapped here with my kids ever since then, and will be for the foreseeable future. So while I have watched some movies, the only review I’ve published in the last several weeks was on Sound! Euphonium: The Movie – Our Promise: A Brand New Day. Otherwise I’ve just been making my kids watch classic Hollywood movies while I watch a bunch of classic Bollywood movies I really should have seen by now (so far I’ve almost doubled the number of Indian movies I’ve seen in my life, I’ve got a running list of them at letterboxd of course.

If you like what I do here or at Seattle Screen SceneThe Chinese Cinema, or anywhere else, please consider donating at my kofi page. Every little bit helps.

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

Safety Last! (Sam Taylor & Fred C. Newmeyer) – 2, 1923
Metropolis (Fritz Lang) – 2, 1927
Devdas (PC Barua) – 4, 1936
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz) – 1, 1942
Kismet (Gyan Mukherjee) – 18, 1943

Aag (Raj Kapoor) – 6, 1948
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford) – 4, 1949
A Star is Born (George Cukor) – 11, 1954
Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje (V. Shantaram) – 7, 1955
Mother India (Mehboob Khan) – 6, 1957

North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock) – 2, 1959
Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder) – 13, 1959
Mughal-e-azam (K. Asif) – 2, 1960
A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester) – 14, 1964

Duvidha (Mani Kaul) – 7, 1973
Deewar (Yash Chopra) – 8, 1975
Day of the Dead (George Romero) – 13, 1985
The Princess Bride (Rob Reiner) – 3, 1987

Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg) – 23, 1993
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (Aditya Chopra) – 27, 1995
Dil Se.. (Mani Ratnam) – 13, 1998
The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson) – 3, 2001
Lagaan (Ashutosh Gowariker) – 5, 2001

The Two Towers (Peter Jackson) – 8, 2002
The Return of the King (Peter Jackson) – 11, 2003
Madness in the Desert (Satyajit Bhatkal) – 32, 2003
Main Hoon Na (Farah Khan) – 19, 2004

Miami Vice (Michael Mann) – 1, 2006
Om Shanti Om (Farah Khan) – 3, 2007
Happy New Year (Farah Khan) – 48, 2014
Sound! Euphonium: The Movie – Our Promise: A Brand New Day (Ishihara Tatsuya) – 45, 2019
The Sky is Clear and Blue Today (Ricky D’Ambrose) – 79, 2019

This Week in Rankings

etude1

Since the last update the new year has come and gone along with award season. I counted down my favorite film discoveries of 2019, my favorites of the books I read in 2019, my favorite 220 movies of the 2010s, and handed out the Endy Awards for 2019. I contributed some capsule reviews to InReview Online’s Best of the Decade series (on Meek’s Cutoff, Romancing in Thin Air, Uncle Boonmee and some others), and I wrote yet another Ash is Purest White blurb for their end of the year list. For Frame.land’s Directors of the Decade feature, I wrote about Hong Sangsoo. I also participated in end of the year polls and awards by Senses of Cinema, the Murials and the Seattle Film Critics Society. And I appeared on SIFFcast’s two-part end of the year show. For the Mubi Notebook’s end of the year festivities I contributed an image for the 2010s and fantasy double features for 2019.

Also at The Notebook I wrote about Only Cloud Knows and Ip Man 4, Jia Zhangke’s I Wish I Knew, the Hong Kong series at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, and Fruit Chan’s Made in Hong Kong. At Seattle Screen Scene I reviewed Enter the Fat Dragon, and The Rise of Skywalker. On the Film Stage Podcast I talked about the Shaun the Sheep movie Farmageddon.

If you like what I do here or at Seattle Screen SceneThe Chinese Cinema, or anywhere else, please consider donating at my kofi page. Every little bit helps.

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

King Kong (Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack) – 6, 1933
Song of the South (Harve Foster & Wilfred Jackson) – 38, 1946
The Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad (James Algar, Clyde Geronimi & Jack Kinney) – 28, 1949
Night of the Living Dead (George Romero) – 5, 1968

Columbo: Murder by the Book (Steven Spielberg) – 16, 1971
Columbo: Dead Weight (Jack Smight) – 19, 1971
Columbo: Lady in Waiting (Norman Lloyd) – 22, 1971
Columbo: Suitable for Framing (Hy Averback) – 24, 1971
Columbo: Death Lends a Hand (Bernard Kowalski) – 25, 1971

The Harder They Come (Perry Henzell) – 2, 1972
Columbo: Etude in Black (Nicholas Colasanto) – 9, 1972
Columbo: Blueprint for Murder (Peter Falk) – 18, 1972
Columbo: Short Fuse (Edward M. Abroms) – 29, 1972
The Crazies (George Romero) – 13, 1973
The Delinquent (Kuei Chih-heung & Chang Cheh) – 23, 1973

Dawn of the Dead (George Romero) – 7, 1978
Escape from New York (John Carpenter) – 17, 1981
Long Arm of the Law (Johhny Mak) – 11, 1984
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Robert Zemeckis) – 14, 1988
Gangs (Lawrence Ah Mon) – 35, 1988

Cageman (Jacob Cheung) – 11, 1992
Made in Hong Kong (Fruit Chan) – 4, 1997
Fight Club (David Fincher) – 10, 1999
Ordinary Heroes (Ann Hui) – 26, 1999
Iron Man (Jon Favreau) – 39, 2008

Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt) – 3, 2010
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) – 5, 2010
I Wish I Knew (Jia Zhangke) – 17, 2010
Iron Man 2 (Jon Favreau) – 67, 2010
Thor (Kenneth Branagh) – 40, 2011
Captain America (Joe Johnston) – 46, 2011

Romancing in Thin Air (Johnnie To) – 2, 2012
Eega (SS Rjamouli) – 11, 2012
The Avengers (Joss Whedon) – 54, 2012
Iron Man 3 (Shane Black) – 43, 2013
The Winter Soldier (Joe & Anthony Russo) – 63, 2014

The Force Awakens (JJ Abrams) – 40, 2015
Sleeping with Other People (Leslye Headland) – 59, 2015
Age of Ultron (Joss Whedon) – 76, 2015
Civil War (Joe & Anthony Russo) – 77, 2016
The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson) – 10, 2017

Peterloo (Mike Leigh) – 15, 2018
Her Smell (Alex Ross Perry) – 46, 2018
Little Women (Greta Gerwig) – 1, 2019
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese) – 2, 2019
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino) – 5, 2019

Uncut Gems (Josh & Benny Safdie) – 7, 2019
Chasing Dream (Johnnie To ) – 8, 2019
Ride Your Wave (Yuasa Masaaki) – 9, 2019
Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello) – 10, 2019
Parasite (Bong Joonho) – 15, 2019

Dolemite is My Name (Craig Brewer) – 16, 2019
Dark Waters (Todd Haynes) – 22, 2019
Promare (Imaishi Hiroyuki) – 24, 2019
Weathering with You (Shinkai Makoto) – 25, 2019
Atlantics (Mati Diop) – 28, 2019

Farmageddon (Will Becher & Richard Phelan) – 33, 2019
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma) – 34, 2019
Alita: Battle Angel (Robert Rodriguez) – 36, 2019
Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller) – 48, 2019

Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood) – 50, 2019
The Farewell (Lulu Wang) – 59, 2019
The Rise of Skywalker (JJ Abrams) – 70, 2019
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Marielle Heller) – 73, 2019

Only Cloud Knows (Feng Xiaogang) – 74, 2019
Ip Man 4 (Wilson Yip) – 75, 2019
The Good Liar (Bill Condon) – 87, 2019
Bombshell (Jay Roach) – 91, 2019
1917 (Sam Mendes) – 92, 2019

Birds of Prey (Cathy Yan) – 1, 2020
We Have Boots (Evans Chan) – 2, 2020
The Cube Phantom (Alan Lau) – 3, 2020
Enter the Fat Dragon (Wong Jing & Tanigaki Kenji) – 4, 2020

This Week in Rankings

a-silent-voice-1020920-1280x0

Since the last update, I reviewed Derek Tsang’s Better Days and wrote an overview of Fruit Chan’s career at the Notebook. At Seattle Screen Scene I reviewed Andrew Lau’s The Captain and Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, and also recorded a VIFF Recap episode of The Frances Farmer Show. At The Chinese Cinema I wrote about a Women in Chinese Cinema series in Washington, DC and published the notes I sent to the Filmspotting podcast regarding their Contemporary Chinese Cinema marathon, which I helped curate.

If you like what I do here or at Seattle Screen SceneThe Chinese Cinema, or anywhere else, please consider donating at my kofi page. Every little bit helps.

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

Long Live the Missus! (Sang Hu) – 12, 1947
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (Bill Melendez) – 3, 1966
Columbo: Ransom for a Dead Man (Richard Irving) – 17, 1971
Star Wars (George Lucas) – 3, 1977
The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner) – 1, 1980

Halloween II (Rick Rosenthal) – 35, 1981
The Slumber Party Massacre (Amy Holden Jones) – 15, 1982
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (Tommy Lee Wallace) – 21, 1982
Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand) – 13, 1983
Sleepaway Camp (Robert Hiltzik) – 32, 1983

Slumber Party Massacre II (Deborah Brock) – 29, 1987
Woman Demon Human (Huang Shuqin) – 46, 1987
Finale in Blood (Fruit Chan) – 41, 1993
Made in Hong Kong (Fruit Chan) – 8, 1997
Little Cheung (Fruit Chan) – 11, 1999

Durian Durian (Fruit Chan) – 6, 2000
Hollywood Hong Kong (Fruit Chan) – 20, 2001
Public Toilet (Fruit Chan) – 27, 2002
Dumplings (Fruit Chan) – 43, 2004
Lust, Caution (Ang Lee) – 34, 2007

The Midnight After (Fruit Chan) – 1, 2014
A Silent Voice (Naoko Yamada) – 6, 2016
Rogue One (Gareth Edwards) – 23, 2016
Kill Time (Fruit Chan) – 77, 2016
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (Peter Ramsey, Bob Persichetti & Rodney Rothman) – 14, 2018
Three Husbands (Fruit Chan) – 129, 2018

The Irishman (Martin Scorsese) – 1, 2019
Little Women (Greta Gerwig) – 2, 2019
Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach) – 9, 2019
Knives Out (Rian Johnson) – 22, 2019
Better Days (Derek Tsang) – 26, 2019

Avengers: Endgame (Joe & Anthony Russo) – 35, 2019
Ford v Ferrari (James Mangold) – 38, 2019
Mister America (Eric Notarnicola) – 40, 2019
Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria) – 44, 2019
The Captain (Andrew Lau) – 46, 2019

The Invincible Dragon (Fruit Chan) – 49, 2019
Midsommar (Ari Aster) – 54, 2019
Joker (Todd Phillips) – 57, 2019
JoJo Rabbit (Taika Waititi) – 59, 2019
Captain Marvel (Anna Bolden & Ryan Fleck) – 64, 2019
Hail Satan? (Penny Lane) – 69, 2019

 

This Week in Rankings

149409-sd

Since the last update, I posted my annual Top 100 Films of All-Time along with the latest entry in our decade-long Seattle Screen Scene Top 100 Films of All-Time Project. I went to the Vancouver Film Festival once again, where I wrote about The Wild Goose Lake, The Lighthouse, The Shadow Play, and White Lie (at InReview Online). At Seattle Screen Scene I wrote about Takashi Miike’s First Love, Tony Leung Ka-fai’s Midnight Diner, and Shunji Iwai’s The Case of Hana and Alice. And over at the Mubi Notebook, I wrote about Heiward Mak’s Fagara.

If you like what I do here or at Seattle Screen SceneThe Chinese Cinema, or anywhere else, please consider donating at my kofi page. Every little bit helps.

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

Shaolin vs. Lama (Lee Tso Nam) – 28, 1983
Manhunter (Michael Mann) – 8, 1986
The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme) – 8, 1991
Casino (Martin Scorsese) – 12, 1995
Drop Dead Gorgeous (Michael Patrick Jann) – 55, 1999

Memories of Murder (Bong Joonho) – 7, 2003
Linda Linda Linda (Nobuhiro Yamashita) – 1, 2005
The Host (Bong Joonho) – 13, 2006
Dusty Stacks of Mom (Jodie Mack) – 10, 2013
The Case of Hana and Alice (Shunji Iwai) – 23, 2015

Amanda (Mikhaël Hers) – 7, 2018
Every Day a Good Day (Tatsushi Omori) – 59, 2018
Vanishing Days (Zhu Xin) – 90, 2018
The Shadow Play (Lou Ye) – 119, 2018

First Love (Takashi Miike) -1,  2019
Fourteen (Dan Sallitt) – 3, 2019
MS Slavic 7 (Sofia Bohdanowicz & Deragh Campbell) – 6, 2019
Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho) – 7, 2019
The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers) – 8, 2019

A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick) – 10, 2019
A Voluntary Year (Ulrich Köhler & Henner Winckler) – 15, 2019
The Wild Goose Lake (Diao Yinan) – 16, 2019
Parasite (Bong Joonho) – 17, 2019
Fagara (Heiward Mak) – 19, 2019

Synonyms (Nadav Lapid) – 20, 2019
Varda by Agnès (Agnès Varda) – 24, 2019
To Live to Sing (Johnny Ma) – 25, 2019
Anne at 13,000 Ft. (Kazik Radwanski) – 26, 2019
Wet Season (Anthony Chen) – 27, 2019

Clifton Hill (Albert Shin) – 33, 2019
The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumboiu) – 34, 2019
Who You Think I Am (Safy Nebbou) – 38, 2019
Young Ahmed (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne) – 39, 2019
The Twentieth Century (Matthew Rankin) – 40, 2019
Aquí y Allá (Lina Rodriguez) – 42, 2019

White Lie (Lev Lewis & Calvin Thomas) – 44, 2019
Ridge (John Skoog) – 48, 2019
Killer Queen (Ramin Fahrenheit) – 49, 2019
Midnight Diner (Tony Leung Ka-fai) – 51, 2019
Send Me to the Clouds (Teng Congcong) – 52, 2019
Joan of Arc (Bruno Dumont) – 58, 2019

This Week in Rankings

1836r00uxs3tkjpg

Since the last update we passed the midpoint of the year and so I listed the Best Movies of 2019 (So Far), including my favorite discoveries of 2019. I also made a list of the Top 113 Chinese Language Movies of the 2010s.

At the Mubi Notebook I wrote about The Metrograph’s Shaw Sisters series, Jeffrey Lau and Stephen Chow’s A Chinese Odyssey, Herman Yau’s The White Storm 2: Drug Lords, Zhang Yimou’s Shadow, and New King of Comedy & Hidden Man, by Stephen Chow and Jiang Wen, respectively. I also wrote about the New York Asian Film Festival and Japan Cuts.

At InReview Online I contributed a review of Suzhou River to their look at Lou Ye, and at Frame.land I revised my old timeline of Shaolin related movies into The Shaolin Cinematic Universe. At Seattle Screen Scene, I reviewed Once Upon a Time in HollywoodChasing the Dragon II: Wild Wild Bunch, Savageand Suburban Birds. And as part of our coverage of the Seattle International Film Festival, I wrote about Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, Storm in My Heart, and Lynch: A History. We also discussed a number of other SIFF movies on an episode of The Frances Farmer Show.

At The Chinese Cinema, I wrote about a few films from the Austin Asian American Film Festival (Girls Always Happy, Chinese Portrait, House of Hummingbird and The Third Wife). And I also finally finished re-editing and reformatting all my old writings on Chinese film. The Index is now up to date, and I can get to work filling in all the massive blind spots I still have, after years and years and hundreds of movies watched.

If you like what I do here or at Seattle Screen SceneThe Chinese Cinema, or anywhere else, please consider donating at my kofi page. Every little bit helps.

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

City Lights (Charles Chaplin) – 1, 1931
Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy) – 5, 1933
To Be or Not To Be (Ernst Lubitsch) – 8, 1942
Between the Lines (Joan Micklin Silver) – 10, 1977
All that Jazz (Bob Fosse) – 1, 1979
The Secret (Ann Hui) – 14, 1979

The Spooky Bunch (Ann Hui) – 25, 1980
The Story of Woo Viet (Ann Hui) – 9, 1981
Buddha’s Palm (Taylor Wong) – 22, 1982
Love in a Fallen City (Ann Hui) – 16, 1984
The Siamese Twins (Angela Mak) – 38, 1984

My Name Ain’t Suzie (Angie Chen) – 12, 1985
The Illegal Immigrant (Mabel Cheung) – 23, 1985
Legend of the Stardust Brothers (Makoto Tezuka) – 28, 1985
Puppy Love (So Jing-man) – 42, 1985
Howard the Duck (Willard Huyck) – 49, 1986
An Autumn’s Tale (Mabel Cheung) – 18, 1987
The Romance of Book and Sword/Princess Fragrance (Ann Hui) – 20, 1987

My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki) – 1, 1988
Starry is the Night (Ann Hui) – 27, 1988
The Twin Bracelets (Huang Yu-shan) – 28, 1991
Don’t Fool Me (Herman Yau) – 61, 1991
Iron Monkey (Yuen Woo-ping) – 5, 1993
Taxi Hunter (Herman Yau) – 22, 1993
The Untold Story (Herman Yau) – 30, 1993
The Eagle-Shooting Heroes (Jeffrey Lau) – 54, 1993

A Chinese Odyssey: Pandora’s Box/Cinderella (Jeffrey Lau) – 13, 1995
Bullet Ballet (Shinya Tsukamoto) – 20, 1998
Troublesome Night 3 (Herman Yau) – 23, 1998
The Untold Story III (Herman Yau) – 22, 1999
Suzhou River (Lou Ye) – 13, 2000

From the Queen to the Chief Executive (Herman Yau) – 14, 2001
Spider-Man (Sam Raimi) – 33, 2002
Face to Face (Casey Chan) – 40, 2002
The Mindscape of Alan Moore (Dez Vylenz) – 34, 2003
Spider-Man 2 (Sam Raimi) – 31, 2004
Mean Girls (Mark Waters) – 34, 2004

Spider-Man 3 (Sam Raimi) – 24, 2007
Speed Racer (Lana & Lilly Wachowski) – 2, 2008
Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown (Andrew Beall & Frank Molieri) – 14, 2011
K-On! the Movie (Naoko Yamada) – 18, 2011
The White Storm (Benny Chan) – 71, 2013
See You Tomorrow (Zhang Jiajia) – 90, 2016

Liz and the Blue Bird (Naoko Yamada) – 4, 2018
The Crossing (Bai Xue) – 26, 2018
Classical Period (Ted Fendt) – 32, 2018
Suburban Birds (Qiu Sheng) – 40, 2018
Chinese Portrait (Wang Xiaoshuai) – 43, 2018
The Kamagasaki Cauldron War (Leo Sato) – 46, 2018
A Star is Born (Bradley Cooper) – 49, 2018

Shadow (Zhang Yimou) – 64, 2018
And Your Bird Can Sing (Sho Miyake) – 77, 2018
Killing (Shinya Tsukamoto) – 82, 2018
The Third Wife (Ash Mayfair) – 85, 2018
House of Hummingbird (Kim Bora) – 86, 2018
Storm in My Heart (Mark Cousins) – 92, 2018

Song Lang (Leon Le) – 100, 2018
Jam (Sabu) – 114, 2018
Savage (Cui Siwei) – 124, 2018
Hard-Core (Nobuhiro Yamashita) – 130, 2018
Barbara Rubin & the Exploding NY Underground (Chuck Smith) – 135, 2018
Invest in Failure (Notes on Film 06-C, Monologue 03) (Norbert Pfaffenbichler) – 155, 2018

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino) -1,  2019
A Home with a View (Herman Yau) – 2, 2019
Lynch: A History (David Shields) – 3, 2019
The Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jarmusch) – 4, 2019
Rolling Thunder Revue (Martin Scorsese) – 5, 2019

Deadwood: The Movie (Daniel Minahan) – 6, 2019
Jeux de plage (Aimi Natsuto) – 8, 2019
The White Storm 2: Drug Lords (Herman Yau) – 11, 2019
White Snake (Amp Wong & Zhao Ji) – 15, 2019
Booksmart (Olivia Wilde) – 16, 2019

Demolition Girl (Genta Matsugami) – 17,2019
Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley) – 19, 2019
John Wick 3: Parabellum (Chad Stahelski) – 20, 2019
Spider-Man: Far from Home (Jon Watts) – 21, 2019
Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (Stanley Nelson, Jr) – 23, 2019

Blue Hour (Yuko Hakota) – 25, 2019
Always By My Maybe (Nahnatchka Khan) – 26, 2019
Chasing the Dragon II: Wild Wild Bunch (Wong Jing & Jason Kwan) – 28, 2019
The Journalist (Michihito Fujii) – 2019
Dark Phoenix (Simon Kinberg) – 2019

This Week in Rankings

ashes08020203-r-cDUPE-Web

Since the last Rankings update, I watched all of Jia Zhangke’s movies in order, and then all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies in order, and then watched some more Jia Zhangke movies. I watched a bunch of other stuff too. I wrote about Jia at Mubi, and again about his use of music in his films at the VIFF blog, in the lead up to a lecture on his films I did in Vancouver. I also appeared on the Film Stage podcast to talk about Jia’s Ash is Purest White.

Also at Mubi I wrote about this year’s crop of Lunar New Year films, the rerelease of King Hu’s The Fate of Lee Khan, and Yuen Woo-ping’s Master Z. At InReview Online I wrote about the documentary Father, and at Seattle Screen Scene I reviewed: Ramen ShopWar and PeaceTriple Threat, What is Democracy?FurieCaptain Marvel, Legend of the Demon CatMissbehavior, and Hotel by the River.

Awards season passed by as well. I handed out the 2018 Endy Awards and revised a bunch of older awards and added new ones for the years 1979-1987.

If you like what I do here or at Seattle Screen SceneThe Chinese Cinema, or anywhere else, please consider donating at my kofi page. Every little bit helps.

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

War and Peace (Sergey Bondarchuk) – 9, 1966
The Fate of Lee Khan (King Hu) – 5, 1973
Murder on the Orient Express (Sidney Lumet) – 35, 1974
Harlan County, USA (Barbara Kopple) – 1, 1976
Excalibur (John Boorman) – 4, 1981

The Thing (John Carpenter) – 6, 1982
Breakin’ (Joel Silberg) – 47, 1984
Desperately Seeking Susan (Susan Seidelman) – 4, 1985
Platoon (Oliver Stone) – 11, 1986
Pretty in Pink (Howard Deutch) – 28, 1986

Tragic Hero (Taylor Wong) – 54, 1987
Heathers (Michael Lehmann) – 13, 1988
Ju Dou (Zhang Yimou & Yang Fenliang) – 31, 1990
Fight Back to School (Gordon Chan) – 23, 1991
Fist of Fury 1991 (Cho Chung-sing) – 59, 1991

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola) – 7, 1992
From Beijing with Love (Stephen Chow & lee Lik-chi) – 19, 1994
Love on Delivery (Stephen Chow & Lee Lik-chi) – 39, 1994
Xiao Shan Going Home (Jia Zhangke) – 48, 1995
Scream (Wes Craven) – 18, 1996

The God of Cookery (Stephen Chow & Lee Lik-chi) – 20, 1996
Xiao Wu (Jia Zhangke) – 4, 1997
The King of Comedy (Stephen Chow & Lee Lik-chi) – 9, 1999
Office Space (Mike Judge) – 11, 1999
Platform (Jia Zhangke) – 2, 2000

In Public (Jia Zhangke) – 41, 2001
The Condition of Dogs (Jia Zhangke) – 58, 2001
Unknown Pleasures (Jia Zhangke) – 5, 2002
The World (Jia Zhangke) – 7, 2004
War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg) – 11, 2005

Still Life (Jia Zhangke) – 5, 2006
Dong (Jia Zhangke) – 29, 2006
Useless (Jia Zhangke) – 23, 2007
24 City (Jia Zhangke) – 7, 2008
Cry My a River (Jia Zhangke) – 16, 2008

Iron Man (Jon Favreau) – 39, 2008
Ip Man (Wilson Yip) – 49, 2008
The Incredible Hulk (Louis Letterier) – 56, 2008
The Clone Wars (Dave Filoni) – 59, 2008
Let the Bullets Fly (Jiang Wen) – 4, 2010

The Legend is Born: Ip Man (Herman Yau) – 21, 2010
I Wish I Knew (Jia Zhangke) – 22, 2010
Ip Man 2 (Wilson Yip) – 53, 2010
Iron Man 2 (Jon Favreau) – 67, 2010
Thor (Kenneth Branagh) – 39, 2011

Captain America: The First Avenger (Joe Johnston) – 45, 2011
The Avengers (Joss Whedon) – 53, 2012
The Grandmaster (Wong Kar-wai) – 1, 2013
A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke) – 2, 2013
Ip Man: The Final Fight (Herman Yau) – 21, 2013

Iron Man 3 (Shane Black) – 43, 2013
Thor: The Dark World (Alan Taylor) – 73, 2013
Gone with the Bullets (Jiang Wen) – 18, 2014
Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn) – 55, 2014
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Joe & Anthony Russo) – 63, 2014

Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang (Walter Salles) – 84, 2014
Mountains May Depart (Jia Zhangke) – 4, 2015
Jupiter Ascending (Lilly & Lana Wachowski) – 22, 2015
Avengers: Age of Ultron (Joss Whedon) – 75, 2015
Ant-Man (Peyton Reed) – 92, 2015

Ip Man 3 (Wilson Yip) – 110, 2015
The Hedonists (Jia Zhangke) – 12, 2016
Mrs. K (Ho Yuhang) – 65, 2016
Captain America: Civil War (Joe & Anthony Russo) – 72, 2016
Doctor Strange (Scott Derrickson) – 111, 2016

Thor: Ragnorak (Taika Waititi) – 40, 2017
Spider-Man: Homecoming (Jon Watts) – 49, 2017
Legend of the Demon Cat (Chen Kaige) – 54, 2017
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2 (James Gunn) – 57, 2017
Father (Yang Li-chou) – 100, 2017

Ash is Purest White (Jia Zhangke) – 1, 2018
Blackkklansman (Spike Lee) – 4, 2018
Hidden Man (Jiang Wen) – 38, 2018
Hotel by the River (Hong Sangsoo) – 39, 2018
Avengers: Infinity War (Joe & Anthony Russo) – 44, 2018
Black Panther (Ryan Coogler) – 48, 2018

An Elephant Sitting Still (Hu Bo) – 58, 2018
Master Z: Ip Man Legacy (Yuen Woo-ping) – 72, 2018
Ant-Man and the Wasp (Peyton Reed) – 76, 2018
What is Democracy? (Astra Taylor) – 90, 2018
Projet Gutenberg (Felix Chong) – 117, 2018
Mary Queen of Scots (Josie Rourke) – 120, 2018

The New King of Comedy (Stephen Chow) – 1, 2019
Avengers: Endgame (Joe & Anthony Russo) – 2, 2019
Us (Jordan Peele) – 3, 2019
Missbehavior (Pang Ho-cheung) – 4, 2019
Furie (Lê Văn Kiệt) – 5, 2019

Pegasus (Han Han) – 6, 2019
Triple Threat (Jesse V. Johnson) – 7, 2019
Captain Marvel (Ryan Fleck & Anna Boden) – 8, 2019
The Wandering Earth (Frant Gwo) – 9, 2019
Integrity (Alan Mak) – 10, 2019
Peppa Celebrates Chinese New Year (Zhang Dapeng) – 11, 2019

This Week in Rankings

Chan Is Missing - 1981

A lot of end of the year stuff since the last update: the nominees for the 2018 Endy Awards, the Best Books I Read in 2018, my favorite Film Discoveries of the Year, and the Seattle Film Critics Society Awards. I contributed to Frame.land’s Favorite Cinematic Moments of 2018 and Underseen and Unloved Films of 2018 (on Ash is Purest White and Liz and the Blue Bird, respectively), InReview’s Top 20 Films of 2018 (on Blackkklansman) and the Mubi Notebook’s annual Fantasy Double Features collection.

Also at the Notebook I had a column on the Best Chinese Films of the year and a retrospective on the work of the late Ringo Lam. Only one review over at Seattle Screen Scene, on Mojin: The Worm Valley, where we also have a round-up of our Favorite Things of 2018.

If you like what I do here or at Seattle Screen SceneThe Chinese Cinema, or anywhere else, please consider donating at my kofi page. Every little bit helps.

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

Something Good–Negro Kiss (William Selig) – 1, 1898
Street Angel (Yuan Muzhi) – 4, 1937
Spring in a Small Town (Fei Mu) – 3, 1948
A Charlie Brown Christmas (Bill Melendez) – 4, 1965
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Chuck Jones) – 13, 1966
Three Sad Tigers (Raúl Ruiz) – 15, 1968

Chan is Missing (Wayne Wang) – 3, 1982
Yellow Earth (Chen Kaige) – 13, 1984
The Horse Thief (Tain Zhuangzhuang) – 17, 1986
City on Fire (Ringo Lam) – 2, 1987
Red Sorghum (Zhang Yimou) – 5, 1987

School on Fire (Ringo Lam) – 2, 1988
Full Contact (Ringo Lam) – 11, 1992
Farewell, My Concubine (Chen Kaige) – 62, 1993
Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants (David Mamet) – 29, 1996
Maximum Risk (Ringo Lam) – 53, 1996

Full Alert (Ringo Lam) – 17, 1997
X-Men (Bryan Singer) – 37, 2000
Replicant (Ringo Lam) – 39, 2001
Springtime in a Small Town (Tian Zhuangzhuang) – 21, 2002
Looking for Mr. Perfect (Ringo Lam) – 15, 2003
X2 (Bryan Singer) – 33, 2003

In Hell (Ringo Lam) – 44, 2003
Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright) – 18, 2004
X-Men: The Last Stand (Brett Ratner) – 68, 2006
Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright) – 32, 2007
X-Men: First Class (Matthew Vaughn) – 65, 2011

Flowers of Taipei: Taiwan New Cinema (Chinlin Hsieh) – 48, 2014
X-Men: Days of Future Past (Bryan Singer) – 76, 2014
X-Men: Apocalypse (Bryan Singer) – 121, 2016
Deadpool (Tim Miller) – 137, 2016
Paddington 2 (Paul King) – 99, 2017

Blackkklansman (Spike Lee) – 4, 2018
If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins) – 6, 2018
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (Peter Ramsey, Robert Persichetti Jr. & Rodney Rothman) – 16, 2018
Blue (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) – 21, 2018
Us and Them (René Liu) – 41, 2018

Venom (Ruben Fleischer) – 47, 2018
Aquaman (James Wan) – 48, 2018
Animal World (Han Yan) – 54, 2018
Happy as Lazzaro (Alice Rohrwacher) – 58, 2018
Avengers: Infinity War (Anthony & Joe Russo) – 61, 2018
Black Panther (Ryan Coogler) – 69, 2018

The Sisters Brothers (Jacques Audiard) – 72, 2018
A Quiet Place (John Krasinski) – 76, 2018
Deadpool 2 (David Leitch) – 78, 2018
At Eternity’s Gate (Julian Schnabel) – 79, 2018
Roma (Alfonso Cuarón) – 81, 2018

A Cool Fish (Rao Xiaozhi) – 85, 2018
Blockers (Kay Cannon) – 91, 2018
The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos) – 93, 2018
The Leakers (Herman Yau) – 98, 2018
Springsteen on Broadway (Thom Zimney) – 110, 2018

Mojin: The Worm Valley (Fei Xing) – 112, 2018
Destroyer (Karyn Kusama) – 113, 2018
Fat Buddies (Bao Beier) – 126, 2018
Green Book (Peter Farrelly) – 128, 2018
Vox Lux (Brady Corbett) – 134, 2018
Vice (Adam McKay) – 137, 2018

This Week in Rankings

Ash-Is-Purest-White-film-review-1140x650

Since the last rankings update, I’ve been to the Vancouver Film Festival, where I saw a whole lot of movies and wrote about a few of them: Mirai, Asako I & II, Diamantino, Spice It Up; and talked about a few more on The Frances Farmer Show. Also at Seattle Screen Scene I’ve written about Bisbee ’17, Golden Job, The Great Battle, In the Intense Now, Cieloand Big Brother. Here at The End I posted my annual Top 100 Films of All-Time list.

Over at The Chinese Cinema, I wrote about Hong Sangsoo’s short film List, and A City of Sadness and the Hou Hsiao-hsien series that played in Austin. At Mubi I wrote about the Shaw Brothers Horror series playing at the Metrograph. At InReview Online I’m contributing to their retrospective on the career of Hong Sangsoo, with my look at On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate up already and a couple more (on Our Sunhi and Claire’s Camera) going up in the next few days.

If you like what I do here or at Seattle Screen Scene, The Chinese Cinema, or anywhere else, please consider donating at my kofi page. Every little bit helps.

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

Attack on a China Mission (James Williamson) – 1, 1900
Black Magic (Ho Meng-hua) – 24, 1975
Black Magic II (Ho Meng-hua) – 32, 1976
The Ghost Story (Li Han-hsiang) – 31, 1979
Bewitched (Kuei Chih-hung) – 25, 1981

Human Lanterns (Sun Chung) – 33, 1982
Centipede Horror (Keith Li) – 38, 1982
The Boxer’s Omen (Kuei Chih-hung) – 14, 1983
Seeding of a Ghost (Richard Yeung Kuen) – 29, 1983
A City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien) – 3, 1989

Cabin Boy (Adam Resnick) – 17, 1994
The Matrix (Lana & Lilly Wachowski) – 3, 1999
The Matrix Reloaded (Lana & Lilly Wachowski) – 14, 2003
The Matrix Revolutions (Lana & Lilly Wachowski) – 30, 2003
List (Hong Sangsoo) – 8, 2011
Boundless (Ferris Lin) – 35, 2013
Maybe If It Were a Nice Room (Alicia Harris) – 149, 2016

Pumpkin Movie (Sophy Romvari) – 29, 2017
One Cut of the Dead (Shinichirou Ueda) – 46, 2017
The Running Actress (Moon Sori) – 51, 2017
In the Intense Now (João Moreira Salles) – 59, 2017
Cielo (Alison McAlpine) – 87, 2017

Ash is Purest White (Jia Zhangke) – 1, 2018
Asako I & II (Ryusūke Hamaguchi) – 2, 2018
Blackkklansman (Spike Lee) – 5, 2018
Transit (Christian Petzold) – 6, 2018
Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski) – 7, 2018

The Grand Bizarre (Jodie Mack) – 8, 2018
Long Day’s Journey into Night (Bi Gan) – 9, 2018
What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? (Roberto Minervini) – 10, 2018
Bisbee ’17 (Robert Greene) – 11, 2018
A Simple Favor (Paul Feig) – 13, 2018

John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection (Julien Faraut) – 15, 2018
Non-Fiction (Olivier Assayas) – 16, 2018
Mirai (Mamoru Hosada) – 20, 2018
La cartographe (Nathan Douglas) – 21, 2018
Hotel by the River (Hong Sangsoo) – 22, 2018

Veslemøy’s Song (Sofia Bohdanowicz) – 23, 2018
No. 1 Chung Ying Street (Derek Chiu) – 24, 2018
Norman Norman (Sophy Romvari) – 25, 2018
Where (Sofia Bohdanowicz) – 26, 2018
The Eyes of Orson Welles (Mark Cousins) – 27, 2018

The Image Book (Jean-Luc Godard) – 28, 2018
Spice It Up (Lev Lewis, Yonah Lewis & Calvin Thomas) – 29, 2018
Roy Thomson (Sofia Bohdanowicz) – 30, 2018
Diamantino (Gabriel Abrantes & Daniel Schmidt) – 32, 2018
Mangoshake (Terry Chiu) – 33, 2018

Shoplifters (Koreeda Hirokazu) – 34, 2018
A Land Imagined (Siew Hua Yeo) – 35, 2018
The Wolf House (Cristóbal León & Joaquín Cociña) – 36, 2018
Turbine (Alex Boya) – 46, 2018
The Wild Pear Tree (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) – 47, 2018

Lush Reeds (Yang Yishu) – 49, 2018
Manta Ray (Phuttiphong Aroonpheng) – 50, 2018
Hole (G. Goletski) – 52, 2018
A Family Tour (Ying Liang) – 53, 2018
The Old Man & the Gun (David Lowery) – 55, 2018

The Great Battle (Kim Kwangsik) – 63, 2018
The Darling (Lee Seungyup) – 66, 2018
From Across the Street and Through Two Sets of Windows (Steven McCarthy) – 68, 2018
The Soft Space (Sofia Bohdanowicz) – 70, 2018
Waiting for April (Olivier Godin) – 71, 2018

Shadow (Zhang Yimou) – 72, 2018
Set It Up (Claire Scanlon) – 73, 2018
Golden Job (Chin Ka-lok) – 77, 2018
Big Brother (Kam Ka-wai) – 78, 2018
7A (Zachary Russell) – 79, 2018
Seder-Masochism (Nina Paley) – 83, 2018
Paddock (Michel Kandinsky) – 84, 2018

This Week in Rankings

30-h_2017

Since the last update I wrote about Lau Kar-leung on the occasion of his retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, and also about the Japan Cuts festival at the Japan Society in New York. Also at Mubi my July column was on Tsui Hark’s Detective Dee: Four Heavenly Kings, at Seattle Screen Scene I wrote about Huang Bo’s The Island, and at Frame.land I contributed a brief review of Fruit Chan’s The Longest Summer. At InReview Online, I have brief reviews as part of their coverage of Japan Cuts and the NYAFF, on Ramen Shop and Men on the Dragon, respectively. Here at The End, I posted my annual look at The Year in Film (So Far).

If you like what I do here or at Seattle Screen Scene, The Chinese Cinema, or anywhere else, please consider donating at my kofi page. Every little bit helps.

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

The Elusive Pimpernel (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger) – 31, 1950
Wanda (Barbara Loden) – 1, 1970
Challenge of the Masters (Lau Kar-leung) – 16, 1976
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (Lau Kar-leung) – 2, 1978
Dirty Ho (Lau Kar-leung) – 5, 1979
Mad Monkey Kung Fu (Lau Kar-leung) – 24, 1979

Nine to Five (Colin Higgins) – 11, 1980
Return to the 36th Chamber (Lau Kar-leung) – 28, 1980
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg) – 1, 1981
My Young Auntie (Lau Kar-leung) – 12, 1981
Martial Club (Lau Kar-leung) – 15, 1981
Masked Avengers (Chang Cheh) – 29, 1981

Legendary Weapons of China (Lau Kar-leung) – 25, 1982
The Eight-Diagram Pole Fighter (Lau Kar-leung) – 6, 1984
Abnormal Family: Older Brother’s Bride (Masayuki Suo) – 52, 1984
Clue (Jonathan Lynn) – 15, 1985

Bound for the Mountains, the Fields, and the Seacoast (Nobuhiko Obayashi) – 4, 1986
Big Trouble in Little China (John Carpenter) – 10, 1986
Martial Arts of Shaolin (Lau Kar-leung) – 34, 1986
Die Hard (John McTiernan) – 6, 1988
The Longest Summer (Fruit Chan) – 8, 1998

Mind Game (Masaaki Yuasa) – 17, 2004
Constantine (Francis Lawrence) – 25, 2005
The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel) – 35, 2006
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (Tsui Hark) – 31, 2010

GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (Brett Whitcomb) – 78, 2012
Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon (Tsui Hark) – 23, 2013
Man of Steel (Zack Snyder) – 35, 2013
Batman v Super: Dawn of Justice (Zack Snyder) – 88, 2016

Night is Short, Walk on Girl (Masaaki Yuasa) – 12, 2017
Hanagatami (Nobuhiko Obayashi) – 13, 2017
Tremble All You Want (Akiko Ohku) – 18, 2017
Amiko (Yoko Yamanaka) – 89, 2017
Justice League (Zack Snyder) – 102, 2017

Support the Girls (Andrew Bujalski) – 2, 2018
Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley) – 3, 2018
Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings (Tsui Hark) – 5, 2018
Tourism (Daisuke Miyazaki) – 7, 2018
The Island (Huang Bo) – 13, 2018

Teen Titans Go! to the Movies (Peter Rida Michail & Aaron Horvath) – 15, 2018
Skate Kitchen (Crystal Moselle) – 16, 2018
Ant-Man and the Wasp (Peyton Reed) – 20, 2018
Ramen Shop (Eric Khoo) – 25, 2018
Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie) – 30, 2018
Men on the Dragon (Sunny Chan) – 36, 2018