All-Time Favorite Movies List
Every Friday during my college years, I would attend an 8AM math class and then scour the video store for the latest independent and foreign films. Afterwards, I’d come home and watch a double feature before starting my weekend studies.
While I no longer have the luxury of watching movies on a Friday afternoon, I still love good cinema and have a reputation for picking memorable films.
One day after I am done traveling, I plan to curate a weekly film series. Until then, this is my virtual film festival.
Note that recent films I like are on my Recent Films Worth Watching list.
All-Time Favorites
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021)
An unexpected love triangle, a failed seduction trap and an encounter that results from a misunderstanding, told in three movements to depict three female characters and trace the trajectories between their choices and regrets.
A mother and her daughter embarks on a desperate journey to find her missing husband. She met a guy who promised to help her for money. With limited money it become difficult to continue the search which leads to anxiety and despair.
A telesales operative becomes disillusioned with his existence and begins to hunger for fresh excitement in his life. As he experiences a new awakening of the senses, his wife and daughter also undergo changes that seriously affect their family.
As the residents of Deadwood gather to commemorate Dakota’s statehood in 1889, saloon owner Al Swearengen clashes with Sheriff Seth Bullock.
After a nun observes Father Flynn’s closeness with Donald, a black student and the altar boy, she reports her suspicions to the principal. Together, they try to expose Flynn’s antics.
Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a young Irish immigrant released from prison. He returns to the Five Points seeking revenge against his father’s killer, William Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis), a powerful anti-immigrant gang leader. He knows that revenge can only be attained by infiltrating Cutting’s inner circle. Amsterdam’s journey becomes a fight for personal survival and to find a place for the Irish people in 1860’s New York.
Lara, a 15-year-old girl who was born in a boy’s body, is committed to becoming a professional ballerina.
This dark ensemble-comedy is centered on the three Jordan sisters. Joy (Jane Adams) moves through lackluster jobs with no sense of purpose. Now employed teaching adults, she is dating a student, Russian taxi-driver Vlad (Jared Harris). Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle) is an esteemed poet who becomes amused by her perverted neighbor, Allen (Philip Seymour Hoffman). And eldest sister Trish (Cynthia Stevenson) is married to Bill (Dylan Baker), a psychiatrist with a very disturbing secret life.
This unconventional Canadian film focuses on an acting troupe hired to stage a Passion play about the life of Jesus. Led by Daniel (Lothaire Bluteau), the actors, all struggling with their own issues, work on a bold interpretation of the Biblical tale that challenges accepted Christian thinking and brings a burst of outrage from the Roman Catholic priests who recruited them. As the story progresses, Daniel’s life starts to echo the trials of Jesus in unexpected and poignant ways.
Oscar flees from a life of poverty and moves with his family to Manila. They fall victim to the hardened locals until Oscar finds work with an armoured car company.
On the margins of Tokyo, a dysfunctional band of outsiders is united by fierce loyalty and a penchant for petty theft. When the young son is arrested, secrets are exposed that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence.
Islamic militants occupy the ancient Malian city of Timbuktu, imposing a regime of terror. Not far from there, cattle herder Kidane lives peacefully in the dunes with his family.
The last members of a dying Native American tribe, the Mohicans — Uncas (Eric Schweig), his father Chingachgook (Russell Means), and his adopted half-white brother Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) — live in peace alongside British colonists. But when the daughters (Madeleine Stowe, Jodhi May) of a British colonel are kidnapped by a traitorous scout, Hawkeye and Uncas must rescue them in the crossfire of a gruesome military conflict of which they wanted no part: the French and Indian War.
Two months after meeting him, Leila (Leila Hatami) marries Reza (Ali Mosaffa). When they find out Leila is unable to conceive, they initially ignore Reza’s mother’s (Jamileh Sheikhi) insistence that he must take a second wife who can bear children. Determined to be a devoted Muslim spouse, Leila eventually becomes convinced that her mother-in-law is right and urges Reza to consider the idea. Reza reluctantly agrees to begin interviewing prospective brides, and their marriage soon deteriorates.
After a 25-year marriage to Irma (Jessica Lange), Roy Applewood (Tom Wilkinson) shocks his family when he reveals that he has a gender identity disorder. The Applewood family is further thrown into turmoil when Roy decides to have a sex change operation to relieve the pain of being trapped in a man’s body. Roy’s co-workers are baffled, his church rejects him and his son, Wayne (Joe Sikora), struggles with the humiliation of having a father who now goes by the name Ruth.
After the father of Riyo (Youki Kudoh) dies, she becomes the arranged wife of Matsuji (Akira Takayama), a migrant worker in Hawaii. Riyo travels from Japan to the United States, but finds it difficult adapting to the hard life working on a sugar plantation and living with Matsuji. Riyo becomes friends with another woman, Kana (Tamlyn Tomita), who came over as a bride as well. Riyo begins saving money to return to Japan, but tragic events make her evaluate where she belongs.
Rodrigues and Garupe, two Catholic missionaries, travel to Japan in search of their missing mentor, Ferreira, who is believed to have been promoting Catholicism by going against the law.
Life is looking pretty bleak for theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman). His wife and daughter have left him, his therapist is more interested in plugging her new book than helping him with his problems, and a strange disease is causing his body to shut down. Caden leaves his home in Schenectady, New York, and heads to New York City, where he gathers a cast of actors and tells them to live their lives within the constructs of a mock-up of the city.
Young Chinese Kuang Yishan (Sun Daolin), an apt player of the ancient strategy game Go, is sent to Japan to study with one of its great masters, Rinsaku Matsunami (Rentarô Mikuni). Through Matsunami’s tutelage, the boy grows into a champion. But during World War II, he’s forced to swear allegiance to Japan. When his son with a local woman is killed in combat, he attempts to get revenge through the game, challenging his former master to a match that lasts for more than three decades.
A 38-year-old bodybuilder takes a trip to Thailand to find a woman to marry.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
Renowned oceanographer Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) has sworn vengeance upon the rare shark that devoured a member of his crew. In addition to his regular team, he is joined on his boat by Ned (Owen Wilson), a man who believes Zissou to be his father, and Jane (Cate Blanchett), a journalist pregnant by a married man. They travel the sea, all too often running into pirates and, perhaps more traumatically, various figures from Zissou’s past, including his estranged wife, Eleanor (Anjelica Huston).
The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988)
In Cumbria, England, in the year 1348, a village prepares for the dreadful onslaught of the Black Plague. Their only hope comes from an unlikely source — Griffin (Hamish McFarlane), a boy who envisions salvation by journeying on a quest into another world. With his brother (Bruce Lyons) and four companions, Griffin leads them into a time portal to the 20th century. Suddenly, they find themselves in New Zealand in 1988, facing challenges even more frightening than the world they know.
The Squid and the Whale (2005)
A pair of brothers living in Brooklyn are caught in the middle of, and deeply affected by, the divorce of their erudite parents, Bernard (Jeff Daniels) and Joan Berkman (Laura Linney). Older sibling Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) sides with dad and acts out at school, while younger brother Frank (Owen Kline) quietly backs up mom. The household tension rises further when Joan’s writing career takes off and surpasses the failed ambitions of her professor ex-husband.
The story of Nisha, daughter of a Pakistani-Norwegian family, who is kidnapped to Pakistan by her parents when her father finds her in bed with a man.
Camille (Pascale Bussières) is a mythology lecturer at a conservative Christian college. She’s engaged to be married and is on the path to a stable career. But, when her dog dies, Camille finds her life unraveling. At a low ebb, she crosses paths with fiery circus performer Petra (Rachael Crawford) in a laundromat, and sparks fly. With Petra pursuing her ardently, Camille experiences a sexual awakening and must confront the daunting prospect of changing her entire existence.
Offered a plea deal by the FBI, William O’Neal infiltrates the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party to gather intelligence on Chairman Fred Hampton.
Khrong Kam (2019 Thai TV series)
Keen to maintain her family’s station in life, a wealthy matriarch seeks to rein in her sons’ marital affairs as love, lust and class collide.
Alice, a happy and perfect wife and mother has her life turned upside down when she discovers her husband is living a secret life.
Written by Ang Lee (“Brokeback Mountain”) and director Sylvia Chang, this film tells the story of a woman who pays a gambler to marry her for a green card. As Siao and her boyfriend, Gang, both illegal immigrants in New York, try to become citizens, they face a hurdle. When older gambler Mario decides to help by marrying Siao, a surprising relationship begins.
True History of the Kelly Gang (2020)
Based on Peter Carey’s novel. The story of Australian bushranger Ned Kelly and his gang as they flee from authorities during the 1870s.
When their entire lives shatter, two Bedouin women struggle to change the unchangeable rules, each in her own individual way.
A young woman becomes the fourth wife of a wealthy lord, and must learn to live with the strict rules and tensions within the household.
A young German boy in the Hitler Youth whose hero and imaginary friend is the country’s dictator is shocked to discover that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their home.
A drama that charts ten years in a transgender woman’s relationship with her lover.
American car designer Carroll Shelby and driver Ken Miles battle corporate interference and the laws of physics to build a revolutionary race car for Ford in order to defeat Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966.
Boy, an 11-year-old child and devout Michael Jackson fan who lives on the east coast of New Zealand in 1984, gets a chance to know his absentee criminal father, who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years ago.
A French photographer is kidnapped and held hostage in a war-torn Beirut. Slowly but surely his integrity and self-respect is broken.
The story of the legendary British rock band Queen and lead singer Freddie Mercury, leading up to their famous performance at Live Aid (1985).
In eastern Ukraine, society begins to degrade as the effects of propaganda and manipulation begin to surface in this post-truth era.
A novelist struggling with writer’s block finds romance in a most unusual way: by creating a female character he thinks will love him, then willing her into existence.
Martin Eden struggles to rise above his destitute, proletarian circumstances through an intense and passionate pursuit of self-education, hoping to achieve a place among the literary elite.
A widowed father and taxi driver who drives a German reporter from Seoul to Gwangju to cover the 1980 uprising, soon finds himself regretting his decision after being caught in the violence around him.
Burning (2018, Lee Chang-dong)
Jong-su bumps into a girl who used to live in the same neighborhood, who asks him to look after her cat while she’s on a trip to Africa. When back, she introduces Ben, a mysterious guy she met there, who confesses his secret hobby.
The Fallen Leaf TV series (2019)
The Fallen Leaf is a 2019 Thai drama about a transgender woman who is caught up in a love triangle with her uncle-in-law and her father.
A show set in the late 1800s, revolving around the characters of Deadwood, South Dakota; a town of deep corruption and crime.
The claustrophobic world of a WWII German U-boat; boredom, filth and sheer terror.
An in-depth examination of the ways in which the Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of several friends in a small steel mill town in Pennsylvania.
Jerrod Carmichael makes his directorial debut and stars in On the Count of Three, a darkly comic feature about two best friends, Val (Carmichael) and Kevin (Christopher Abbott), on the last day of their lives.
A love letter to journalists set in an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional twentieth century French city that brings to life a collection of stories published in “The French Dispatch Magazine”.
Set inside a pre-war duplex in downtown Manhattan, The Humans follows the course of an evening in which the Blake family gathers to celebrate Thanksgiving. As darkness falls outside the crumbling building, mysterious things start to go bump in the night and family tensions reach a boiling point.
After being sent to Nigeria against his will, a stubborn Nigerian-American teenager joins forces with an Internet scammer in order to return to the United States.
A young migrant battles hordes of monkeys in the heart of New Delhi as a contractual monkey repeller.
A young woman, dealing with anorexia, meets an unconventional doctor who challenges her to face her condition and embrace life.
Rahim is in prison because of a debt he was unable to repay. During a two-day leave, he tries to convince his creditor to withdraw his complaint against the payment of part of the sum. But things don’t go as planned.
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022)
Nancy Stokes, a 55-year-old widow, is yearning for some adventure, human connection, and some sex–some good sex.
The film tells the story of a young girl who travels from Shanghai to Hong Kong in pursuit of education, but ends up working for her aunt seducing rich and powerful men.
Boss, a high end club owner living in New York, who receives a call from his friend in Thailand, Aood, revealing he is in the last stages of terminal cancer.
Honorable Mention
While not quite as good as the films above, they still are well worth your viewing time.
A couple retreat to the island that inspired Ingmar Bergman to write screenplays for their upcoming films when the lines between reality and fiction start to blur.
A renowned stage actor and director learns to cope with his wife’s unexpected passing when he receives an offer to direct a production of Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima.
The tale of two socially-awkward misfits and the strange ways they try to find love: through revenge on high-school bullies, burgers, and video games.
A River Runs Through It (1992)
The Maclean brothers, Paul (Brad Pitt) and Norman (Craig Sheffer), live a relatively idyllic life in rural Montana, spending much of their time fly fishing. The sons of a minister (Tom Skerritt), the boys eventually part company when Norman moves east to attend college, leaving his rebellious brother to find trouble back home. When Norman finally returns, the siblings resume their fishing outings, and assess both where they’ve been and where they’re going.
A married couple are faced with a difficult decision – to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer’s disease.
Four outcasts on the edges of a rapidly changing China channel their rage into a bloody rampage.
This lauded Indian drama focuses on the life of Phoolan Devi (Seema Biswas), a revered criminal who eventually went on to become a politician. The film details the hardships that Phoolan faced in her youth as a female member of a lower caste. Subject to sexual abuse at the hands of numerous men, Phoolan isn’t treated with respect until she falls in with a gang led by Vikram Mallah (Nirmal Pandey). Later, Phoolan forms her own gang and gains a remarkable level of notoriety across India.
Despite living a life of extreme poverty in Brooklyn, graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (Jeffrey Wright) strives to rise up through the heady New York art scene of the 1970s and 1980s. He becomes the brightest star of neo-Expressionist painting and one of the most successful painters of his time, and even develops a friendship with Andy Warhol (David Bowie). But Basquiat’s tumultuous life, specifically his addiction to heroin, overshadows his rise to fame, threatening all.
In West Africa, the life of young Agu (Abraham Attah) is disrupted when his father is slaughtered in a civil war and he is inscripted as a child soldier into a mercenary unit led by the sadistic Commandant (Idris Elba).
After serving his country in the Second Sino-Japanese War, hardened soldier Lt. Kyuzo Kurokawa (Shima Ônishi) returns home a changed man. Since he lost his arms and legs in battle, his wife, Shigeko (Shinobu Terajima), contemplates putting him out of his misery until she discovers he still has the will to live. But, despite welcoming the prominence that comes with being the loving caretaker of the village war hero, Shigeko quietly begins to take her revenge for Kyuzo’s past transgressions.
Young Salvatore Di Vita (Salvatore Cascio) discovers the perfect escape from life in his war-torn Sicilian village: the Cinema Paradiso movie house, where projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret) instills in the boy a deep love of films. When Salvatore grows up, falls in love with a beautiful local girl (Agnese Nano) and takes over as the Paradiso’s projectionist, Alfredo must convince Salvatore to leave his small town and pursue his passion for filmmaking.
Japanese forces invaded Nanjing, the former capital of the Republic of China on December 9th 1937. Throughout the following six weeks, soldiers raped thousands of women and annihilated hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians – with mass executions, crowds mown down by firing squads and victims digging their own graves.
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
Lovable Englishman Charles (Hugh Grant) and his group of friends seem to be unlucky in love. When Charles meets a beautiful American named Carrie (Andie MacDowell) at a wedding, he thinks his luck may have changed. But, after one magical night, Carrie returns to the States, ending what might have been. As Charles and Carrie’s paths continue to cross — over a handful of nuptials and one funeral — he comes to believe they are meant to be together, even if their timing always seems to be off.
Theodore Twombly, an introvert writer, buys an Artificial Intelligence system to help him write. However, amazed by the AI’s ability to learn and adapt, he falls in love with it.
A Hong Kong romantic drama that tells the story of a man and a woman whose spouses have an affair together and who slowly develop feelings for each other.
A woman’s (Monica Bellucci) lover (Vincent Cassel) and her former boyfriend (Albert Dupontel) take justice into their own hands after she becomes the victim of a rapist.
The year is 1893 and India is under British occupation. In a small village, the tyrannical Captain Russell (Paul Blackthorne) has imposed an unprecedented land tax on its citizens. Outraged, Bhuvan (Aamir Khan), a rebellious farmer, rallies the villagers to publicly oppose the tax. Russell offers a novel way to settle the dispute: he challenges Bhuvan and his men to a game of cricket, a sport completely foreign to India. If Bhuvan and his men can defeat Russell’s team, the tax will be repealed.
Extremely shy Lars (Ryan Gosling) finds it impossible to make friends or socialize. His brother (Paul Schneider) and sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer) worry about him, so when he announces that he has a girlfriend he met on the Internet, they are overjoyed. But Lars’ new lady is a life-size plastic woman.
Adrian Lyne’s adaptation of Nabokov’s controversial novel, the classic tale of a man’s inappropriate obsession with a beautiful young girl.
Two characters: old and young; teacher and pupil; man and woman. Four walls within which they conjure intellectualism, relive the profession (journalism), explore politics and discover each other.
A village is left without women due to their practice of female infanticide. When Ramsharan finally finds a young woman to marry his son, his entire village lusts after the only available woman.
A British diplomat (Anthony Higgins) in Paris learns his chic wife (Charlotte Rampling) is monkeying around with a chimpanzee.
Leonard (Guy Pearce) is tracking down the man who raped and murdered his wife. The difficulty, however, of locating his wife’s killer is compounded by the fact that he suffers from a rare, untreatable form of memory loss. Although he can recall details of life before his accident, Leonard cannot remember what happened fifteen minutes ago, where he’s going, or why.
Moscow Never Sleep interweaves five compelling narratives in a provocative statement on Putin’s Russia.
Barbara Covett (Judi Dench), a veteran teacher at St. George’s, senses a kindred spirit in Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), the school’s new art teacher. The younger woman’s charisma intensely draws in the older, and the two become friends. Then Barbara learns of Sheba’s affair with a teenage student and becomes the keeper of the explosive secret.
Numbers whiz Max Cohen (Sean Gullette) is stunted by psychological delusions of paranoia and debilitating headaches. He lives in a messy Chinatown apartment, where he tinkers with equations and his homemade, super-advanced computer. One day, however, Cohen encounters a mysterious number. Soon after reporting his discovery to his mentor (Mark Margolis) and to a religious friend (Ben Shenkman), he finds himself the target of ill-intentioned Wall Street agents bent on using the number for profit.
After realizing his stolen phone belongs to a famous actress, a scheming daydreamer uses the opportunity to blackmail her into posing as his fiancee.
A middleweight ascends through the ranks to achieve his first shot at a boxing title. But his personal life, laden with paranoia, jealousy and rage, scuttles his professional growth.
Cleo is one of two domestic workers who help Antonio and Sofía take care of their four children in 1970s Mexico City. Complications soon arise when Antonio suddenly runs away with his mistress and Cleo finds out that she’s pregnant. When Sofía decides to take the kids on vacation, she invites Cleo for a much-needed getaway to clear her mind and bond with the family.
Archbishop Óscar Romero (Raul Julia) is reluctant to get involved in a war that rages on between the military elite and guerrilla Marxists in his country of El Salvador. As conditions worsen and more churches are desecrated, however, he finds he cannot remain an observer. So Romero resorts to what he knows best: making speeches. The tenets he preaches are simply freedom and justice, but even so, he is seen as dangerous by the government and they are ready to retaliate.
A police officer confronts his teenage daughter while they are on holiday together after learning she is moonlighting as a prostitute with the help of a friend.
Same Same But Different (2009)
Benjamin (David Kross), a German high school student, is a backpacker on his first major tour. In a nightclub in Phnom Penh, he meets a young local girl, Sreykeo (played by Apinya Sakuljaroensuk), and rapidly falls in love with her. Ben opts for this love, even though Sreykeo turns out to be HIV positive and seems to be a prostitute.
In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police, conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives.
The Naked Director (Netflix TV series)
The Naked Director follows the story of Muranishi’s unusual and dramatic life filled with big ambitions as well as spectacular setbacks in his attempt to turn Japan’s porn industry on its head.
Day is stranded in a partially filled deep pool next to a crocodile farm.
Nagito has a fetish for calligraphy on the human body and meets ideal soul-mate Jerome, an English translator sent to Japan. However, once Nagiko’s father’s gay publisher rejoins the scene, the story is overtaken by treachery and bloodlust.
In this true story of a 19th-century nun who achieved sainthood, Thérèse Martin (Catherine Mouchet) hopes to follow in the footsteps of her two older sisters, who became members of the Carmelite order of nuns. Although the church resists initially because of her age, Thérèse stubbornly continues her quest to serve God, and even lobbies Pope Leo XIII (Armand Meppiel). Her wish is granted at age 15, when she joins the order and performs extraordinary works in a life abbreviated by illness.
Heroin addict Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) stumbles through bad ideas and sobriety attempts with his unreliable friends — Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Begbie (Robert Carlyle), Spud (Ewen Bremner) and Tommy (Kevin McKidd). He also has an underage girlfriend, Diane (Kelly Macdonald), along for the ride. After cleaning up and moving from Edinburgh to London, Mark finds he can’t escape the life he left behind when Begbie shows up at his front door on the lam, and a scheming Sick Boy follows.
After a failed suicide attempt, brilliant New York misanthrope Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David) forsakes his posh upper-class existence for meager accommodations in Chinatown. He meets his exact opposite in Melody (Evan Rachel Wood), a pageant queen from the Deep South who’s long on sweetness but short on smarts. Surprisingly, Boris and Melody marry, but the sparks really fly when Melody’s born-again Christian mother (Patricia Clarkson) arrives and finds liberation instead of damnation.
Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? (1989)
Kibong (Won-Sop Sin), a young Buddhist monk on a quest to achieve peace and enlightenment, ventures to a monastery in the mountains of South Korea to commune with the elderly and reclusive Hyegok (Pan-Yong Yi) in hopes of gaining the answers he craves. With the aid of Haejin (Hae-Jin Huang), the young orphan who lives with him, Hyegok attempts to impart his wisdom onto Kibong. Yet, the young man still feels torn between his old life in the city and the path toward inner peace.
Alex, a 15-year-old girl with both male and female sexual organs, begins to explore her sexuality. Her mother invites friends from Buenos Aires and their 16-year-old son Alvaro to visit them at their house on the gorgeous Uruguayan shore. Alex is immediately attracted to the young man, which adds yet another level of complexity to her personal search for identity and forces both families to face their worst fears.
Set in New York City’s Chinatown, an ornery, chain-smoking Chinese grandma goes all in at the casino, landing herself on the wrong side of luck – and in the middle of a gang war.
Ina, whose ex-boyfriend runs off, leaving her in debt, manages to catch on a cunning con artist who tries to con her. But instead of turning him to the police, she hires this con artist to swindle her ex-boyfriend to get revenge.
A new FBI profiler, Elizabeth Keen, has her entire life uprooted when a mysterious criminal, Raymond Reddington, who has eluded capture for decades, turns himself in and insists on speaking only to her.
In 1959, Truman Capote learns of the murder of a Kansas family and decides to write a book about the case. While researching for his novel In Cold Blood, Capote forms a relationship with one of the killers, Perry Smith, who is on death row.
First They Killed My Father (2017)
Cambodian author and human rights activist Loung Ung recounts the horrors she suffered as a child under the rule of the deadly Khmer Rouge.
A Korean family starts a farm in 1980s Arkansas.
“Parn” is a stubborn old woman in her 70’s who one day learns that her son is planning to send her off to a nursing home. While wondering around the street in grave, she is drawn to a mysterious light and walks into a photo studio to take a nice photo for her funeral. After she comes out of the studio, she’s gone back to being a vibrant 20-year-old young woman again!
Magically transported two decades back in time, a rebellious teenager chases romance and dreams in this fantasy comedy
Nick meets the impulsive photographer Ali, who believes in destiny and carpe diem despite living with a congenital heart disease. Ali then challenges Nick to seize every moment of his life before it’s too late.
A struggling salesman takes custody of his son as he’s poised to begin a life-changing professional career
The story of 7 people on trial stemming from various charges surrounding the uprising at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.
A man refuses all assistance from his daughter as he ages. As he tries to make sense of his changing circumstances, he begins to doubt his loved ones, his own mind and even the fabric of his reality.
A downhearted 40-year-old man needs to step outside his safe zone to unlock the mystery which his late girlfriend left to him. While travelling, he meets a lively 20-year-old guesthouse attendant, there she helps him find more clues to the mystery and also to his lonely life.
Details the year leading to the assassination of Israel’s Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995), from the point of view of the assassin.
A Thai woman tries to avoid working in the red-light district of Bangkok and seeks some security by living with a European man.
A young boy and his working-class Belfast family experience the tumultuous late 1960s.
Servant of the People (Ukrainian TV show)
Ukrainian school teachers- is elected as the country’s president.
A young boy and Individually, Sanjay and Karina don’t earn enough to be able to buy a home, so they enter into a marriage of convenience.
Disgruntled Korean War veteran Walt Kowalski sets out to reform his neighbor, Thao Lor, a Hmong teenager who tried to steal Kowalski’s prized possession: a 1972 Gran Torino.
Charismatic rancher Phil Burbank inspires fear and awe in those around him. When his brother brings home a new wife and her son, Phil torments them until he finds himself exposed to the possibility of love.
Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.
A year after their father’s funeral, three brothers travel across India by train in an attempt to bond with each other.
Pedestrian
Films I’ve seen that were average. But I list them here to be a completist. Most aren’t bad. They just don’t stick with you the way that the above films do.
- 1898, Our Last Men in the Philippines (2016)
- On the Rocks (2020)
- Wolf Warrior (2015)
- Wolf Warrior 2 (2017)
- Atlantics (2019)
- A Tale of Legendary Libido (2008)
- Bitter Moon (1992)
- Burning (2018)
- Confucius (2010)
- El Norte (1983)
- Escape from Pretoria (2020)
- Goyo: The Boy General (2018)
- Heneral Luna (2015)
- Kingmaker (2019)
- Leviathan (2014)
- Life During Wartime (2009)
- Life is Beautiful (1997)
- Life Itself (2014)
- Man on a Wire (2008)
- Memoir of War (2017)
- Nefarious: Merchant of Souls (2011)
- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
- Operation Odessa (2018)
- Parasite (2019)
- Phantom Thread (2017)
- Power Project (2020)
- Queen at Katwe (2016)
- Rafiki (2018)
- Romance (1999)
- Tanna (2014)
- Train to Busan (2016)
- The Big Short (2015)
- The Lovers (1992)
- The Post (2017)
- The Raid (2011)
- Under the Shadow (2016)
- #Alive
- Xtreme (2021)
- After Yang (2022)
- Moneyball (2011)
- Draft Day (2014)
- I Care a Lot (2021)
- Dune (2021)
- Foxhole (2021)
- Unbroken (2014)
- Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
- Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
- Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021)
- Come and See (2019)
Overview
Peter is living in Nairobi, Kenya and helping couples and singles have stronger relationships through Kowalke Relationship Coaching. He also oversees content marketing firm, EdChief, runs the multi-faith org, American Vedanta, and spends part of his year in San Francisco and Bangkok. Read blog.