griggs's - Ari Aster’s Favourite Movies: 58 Films the Director Wants You to See List

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Milos Hrma, a bumbling dispatcher's apprentice at a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, longs to liberate himself from his virginity.

Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, he embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot. Milos becomes involved in a plot to blow up a German ammunition train, but when the plan backfires, he is forced to commit the ultimate act of courage.

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A satirical, subversive, surreal and irreverent story of rebellion, Vera Chytilova's classic film is arguably the most adventurous and anarchic Czech movie of the 1960's.

Two young women, both named Marie (Ivana Karbanová / Jitka Cerhová), revolt against a degenerate and decayed society by attacking symbols of wealth and bourgeois culture in hilarious and mind-warpingly innovative ways. Defiant feminist statement? Nihilistic, avant-garde comedy? Refreshingly uncompromising, Daisies is a riotous, punk-rock poem of a film that remains a cinematic enigma and continues to provoke, stimulate and entertain audiences and influence filmmakers even today.

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Based on a true story, Haneke's first theatrical feature is a disturbing portrait of familial disintegration which he describes as a depiction of his native Austria's 'progressive emotional glaciation'.

Set over a three year period, it documents how the mundane day to day routines of a middle class family alienate them from the world and each other until, suddenly and shockingly, their lives self-destruct. Addressing themes that would inform much of his later work - the breakdown of society, violence and the media - 'The Seventh Continent' is both intelligent and masterfully composed.

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To fill the void of his middle class existence, 14-year-old Benny (Arno Frisch) immerses himself in the world of home video recordings, and becomes increasingly distant from his family and the world around him.

After inviting a girl to his house, events take a nasty turn when he re-enacts a scene from one of his favourite videos - the slaughtering of a pig.

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Haneke's articulate critique of the isolating effects of western society, the media and television in particular, is composed of an intricate series of unrelated scenes, culminating in an apparently motiveless act of violence.

Perfectly paced and executed, Haneke's skilful weaving of these tableaux into a coherent and compelling whole is mesmerising and strangely beautiful.

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A series of murders have been committed by ordinary people who claim to have had no control over their actions, many of them having killed friends, co-workers or even their spouse.

There are only two links between each crime: an X carved into the neck of each victim, and a mysterious stranger who seems to have had brief contact with the perpetrator a short period of time before each killing. But to follow these leads and end a seemingly inexplicable wave of terror, police detective Kenichi Takabe (Koji Yakusho) will need to put his own sanity on the line and endure a descent into hell.

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Paris, January 1942 - art dealer Robert Klein (Alain Delon) is making a killing. For this loyal Frenchman the Nazi occupation is a unique business opportunity. He stands to profit from the Jewish people's misfortune, as they sell their possessions in a hurry to leave the country.

But when a Jewish newspaper turns up on Klein's doorstep, his comfortable life begins to unravel. It seems there is another Robert Klein, a suspected Jewish Resistance fighter, who is content to live in the shadows and let his namesake take the fall. As Klein's investigation of his double progresses, the mood shifts from Hitchcock to Kafka and proving his innocence becomes less important than confronting his doppelgänger...

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In his remarkable second feature, Spanish-born filmmaker Antonio Méndez Esparza follows-up his debut drama Aquí y allá with another sensitive portrait of a struggling family. Stressed by her job in a diner, single mother Regina (Regina Williams) is raising her two children in northern Florida.

When her 14-year-old son Andrew (Andrew Bleechington) has another brush with the law, she worries he’ll wind up in prison like his father. Méndez Esparza employs documentary-style realism in this snapshot of race, class and the bonds of family in contemporary America.

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Michel Simon plays Paul Braconnier, a man with designs on murdering his wife Blandine (Germaine Reuver) - a woman with similar designs on her husband.

When Braconnier visits Paris to consult with a lawyer about the perfect way of killing a spouse - that is, the way in which he can get away with it - an acid comedy unfolds that reaches its peak in a courtroom scene for the ages.

Based on the true story, this sweeping saga tells the tale of Pocahontas, the impetuous Native American beauty (Q'orianka Kilcher) whose relationship with Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell) sets off a battle for a new nation.

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As the title suggests, 'Walkabout' is a journey not only in distance, but also in the transition for one Australian aborigine, from adolescence to manhood. While on a family picnic a beautiful teenager and her brother suddenly find themselves very much alone after the tragic death of their father.

As they wander through the outback they meet the young aborigine. The film unfolds and tells the tale of survival, resourcefulness and sexual awareness, as the travellers become lost in the Australian wilderness.

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When teacher Junpei Niki misses his last bus home after a day out collecting insects on a remote stretch of coast, he is invited by a local villager to take shelter in a young widow's ramshackle hut.

Ignoring the fact that her home is at the bottom of a sandpit accessible only by rope ladder, he accepts this hospitality without realising he is the victim of a cruel trick. Trapped, he is forced into an uneasy life with this woman, sharing with her the Sisyphean task of shoveling the sand that threatens to engulf them.

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One of the greatest American films of the 1950s and a high point in the careers of both the lead actor James Mason and director Nicholas Ray.

Mason gives a towering performance as Ed Avery, a happily married schoolteacher who agrees to take a new 'miracle drug' when diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease. It is not long before the drug begins producing malevolent and murderous side-effects that bring to the fore all of Ed's long-repressed frustrations with his life. Mason's support is, exceptional: Barbara Rush as Ed's devoted wife, Christopher Olsen a s his cruelly punished son and Walter Matthau as his faithful colleague. One of cinema's most persuasive portraits of psychological turmoil, the film also succeeds magnificently as searing melodrama and subversive social critique, with Ray, his scriptwriters and cinematographer achieving a perfect balance between emotional realism and exprer;sionist allegory.

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Partly based on his own memoirs (Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War), Che: Part One follows Ernesto Che Guevara's transformation from humble physician to military leader during the Cuban Revolution, depicting his eventual overthrowing of the repressive Batista regime.

Meticulously researched and containing intense and realistic depictions of guerrilla warfare, this is a captivating portrait of one of the most controversial figures of the Twentieth Century. An astounding and moving story of one man's belief and the events that would eventually shape him into becoming a legendary symbol of rebellion and hope.

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Following the successful Cuban uprising, Ernesto Che Guevara's strong beliefs led him into the savage terrain of the Bolivian jungle to aide the revolutionaries in their own uprising against a military regime. This was to be his final tragic mission.

'Che: Part Two' is a poignant and masterful portrayal of a complex icon that constantly challenged himself and the world around him.