Surprising standouts
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I should probably just call this list "almost a favorite." Each film here turned out to be better than it looked to me, or at least different in tone or subject matter in a way that I found more satisfying than expected. A few were on my radar for a long time before I finally watched them, and I wished I hadn't waited. A few looked like they were made for mainstream and wouldn't be my style or not what I wanted, but whoa. Some were praised while others were never popular with critics, but I must be exactly the audience they were going for. These haven't quite risen to or stayed at the top in my massive collection, but they deserve more than "honorable mention."
My interest in documentaries and music
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I am pretty selective in what I collect when it comes to live music features, music documentaries, and assorted other documentaries, but I have enough to reflect a particular taste. Here is an unranked selection of documentary and music features (not TV series) that represent what I like. In a way, this list tells as much or more about my personality as my extensive ranked movie lists.
Of course you like that movie
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You're a guy aged 25-55 who likes edgy and quirky movies, especially with action and humor and maybe a surprise twist. Of course you like these movies.
Deserving of a broader audience
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These are some assorted movies I think more people should see. Sometimes when I like a movie that is a bit obscure, I am tempted to throw it onto my favorites list just to remind myself how surprisingly good or boldly experimental it was. I have this list as a place to keep some of those when I realize they are noteworthy but still not as personally meaningful as my top tier list. Still, a few of these are by my favorite directors, and a few more are really fantastic filmmaking, not merely better than my low expectations. A couple of these made some decent money, but since some time has passed, not many people know or talk about them.
What counts as a cult film?
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The term cult film gets thrown around in so many ways. I used to equate it with B movies, but the double-feature format is long gone from movie theaters, so that term is no clearer. It can't just mean that it has a dedicated following because then something so known and highly praised as The Princess Bride becomes a cult classic. We've been through VHS and DVD straight-to-video, and the 2020 pandemic pushed the straight-to-streaming approach further into normality for even the biggest film studios, so distribution doesn't define cult films anymore, especially with so many boutique hi-def labels entering the market. Grindhouse, genre films, schlock, psychotronic, exploitation, none of these terms clarify what people mean when they call something a cult classic. That means I can put just about anything here that wasn't hyper-successful in the mainstream and it arguably has to count. The odd thing is that if I see a list or collection labeled as "cult," I do know pretty much what to expect. But it was when I started to add Aguirre, the Wrath of God to this list that I realized I do want to distinguish cult films from art house.
Asian films that represent what I like best
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Kung fu cinema as a genre is a huge part of my taste in movies, but it's hard for me to know how to include it in my other lists of favorite movies, so Asian movies are getting their own list. Of course there is more to Asian cinema than martial arts movies and historical epics. But I have really only been exposed to post-1970 martial arts films, and even those have been disproportionately Golden Harvest over Shaw. So I admit that when I enjoy Asian comedy and drama, it's typically paired with action, and this list isn't even a good history of Asian action films. Japanese cinema is poorly represented here, and Indian films aren't present in my collection at all. Still, as limited in scope as this may be, here are some recommendations.
What counts as arthouse?
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I recently refined a list called "What counts as a cult film?" to explore that broad label. By the time I was done, I decided there was one label that deserved distinct clarification, arthouse cinema. The main distinctions I'm making from cult films is that arthouse films are often experimental, innovative, and meant to be taken seriously, where cult films often make do with low budgets, treading familiar ground in niche genres with some self awareness of being silly or over the top. Those descriptions aren't adequate, but it does mean that arthouse films can open to critical acclaim from the beginning, while cult films typically don't. In the case of a film that could clearly be called either, I've used whether it was meant to be taken seriously to decide which list to put it in. Arthouse can be funny, but the humor is often dark, satirical, and surreal. One big disclaimer, this list is more about whether anything I'd typically watch can be considered arthouse than exploring its roots in what Americans consider "foreign language films" or its conflation with independent films in general. Remember it's just a sampler to define what I mean, so there are huge Fellini-sized gaps. And I tried not to overwhelm the list with too much art horror.
Movie limbo
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I keep lists all over the place, and yet for whatever reason, I have digital copies of these titles but don't want them on DVD or Blu-ray.
I thought you bought good movies
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I do have these titles in my collection, but if I sat you down in front of this line-up, you'd end up concluding I have no taste in movies at all. Some of them prove that obvious concepts or big stars can still end up in surprisingly weak final products. Others have some serious artistic merit but are just a chore to watch. But I keep them for some reason. I mean, some people liked a few of them.
My hall of shame
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My physical movie collection is roughly 3100 titles, but for whatever reason, I don't want these that I've watched. A movie has to be a pretty big oops for me to decide to watch it and then not want it in the collection.