This is another film that went straight to the top of all of the critics’ lists. I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about this one as I had it stereotyped as a cowboy film but it turned out to be better than I had expected. Most surprising of all is that its director Chloé Zhao was born in China, yet she somehow managed to make a very authentic film about modern rodeo riders in the US.

This is the second part of Hou Hsiao-hsien’s coming-of-age trilogy that began with A Summer at Grandpa’s. Considering what a great film that was, it would always be a hard act to follow and indeed this one is a much less impressive effort. It is not of course actually a sequel as it has an entirely different set of characters but it roughly covers the teenage years of its main male character and so can be thought of as a spiritual successor.

It’s been a while since we last a quirky independent science-fiction film and what could be more indie than a project in which the two directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are also the lead actors. This project was made with a tiny budget and involved no one who is well known. Nonetheless it earned sufficient notice and praise from critics to make it worth paying attention to.

This came to my attention when I read about critics including it as one of the most important films of the 21st century so far. I also found the premise of a long documentary about post-industrial decline in China very interesting. Tracking down a watchable copy was a real chore however and that’s not surprising as not many people would likely want to watch a documentary film with a total running time that exceeds nine hours. My wife and I spread out the experience over many days, treating it essentially as if we were watching a television series.

Right on the heels of The Bridge on the River Kwai, we have another Western film set in Thailand, this one set in modern times and based on the apparently real story of a Briton who was sentenced to prison in the country. It appeared on some lists of best films of the year but apart from being well shot, it doesn’t seem all that special to me.

This is another of those films that are so famous as to be a household name. I remember that I did see it as a kid on television but was far too young to understand it. Watching it properly was long overdue and everything in it is new to me so I don’t remember anything at all except for the iconic marching tune. As with all such famous films, you tend to build up a mental picture of it even if you haven’t seen it due to cultural osmosis and I have to confess that I was shocked as this is nothing at all like what I thought it would be.

I probably got this pick from one of those lists of the best films ever made though I don’t remember which one. I do know that this is so little known outside of South Korea that it doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia page. It is however legally available for viewing on YouTube, being a project of the Korean Film Archive.