griggs's - Ari Aster’s Favourite Movies: 58 Films the Director Wants You to See List
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Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)Hiroshima, My Love
A French actress (Emmanuelle Riva) and a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada) engage in a brief, passionate affair in post war Hiroshima. Their deeply intense connection brings out scarred but fading memories of love and suffering, which Resnais communicates with the use of flashback techniques innovative to the time. - Director:
- Alain Resnais
- Cast:
- Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada, Stella Dassas
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The Headless Woman (2008)La Mujer Sin Cabeza
Lucrecia Martel is now recognised as one of the leading new film-makers in the world. This mystery is her third feature, and was released to huge acclaim. Driving in the country Veronica is distracted and apparently hits something. Disturbed, she does not investigate but drives off. After the accident she becomes disconnected from her daily life. She Eventually tells her husband - they return to the scene and only find a dead dog. But then news emerges that a child has disappeared. Her family joins to erase all traces of the accident ever having occurred. - Director:
- Lucrecia Martel
- Cast:
- María Onetto, Claudia Cantero, César Bordón
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Beyond the Hills (2012)Dupa Dealuri
Two best friends who grew up together in an orphanage are emotionally reunited after years apart. Voichita has taken religious orders while Alina wants them to both relocate to a new life of freedom in Germany. While staying together in Voichita's remote and austere nunnery their relationship and sexuality begin to tear apart the tight-knit fabric of the sect, resulting in a terrifying act that would send a shockwave through the church. - Director:
- Cristian Mungiu
- Cast:
- Cosmina Stratan, Cristina Flutur, Valeriu Andriuta
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Persona (1966)Kinematografi
Bergman's masterpiece of self-doubt, identity and eroticism is an audacious example of cinematic art. The notional story centres on newly mute actor Elisabet (Liv Ullmann) recuperating at her coastal holiday home in the care of a nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson). As tensions between the pair grow, their very selves seem to blur, chronology becomes uncertain and what is real and unreal loses significance. Yet the true impact of Persona goes beyond mere storytelling, touching, as Bergman said, 'wordless secrets that only the cinema can discover'. - Director:
- Ingmar Bergman
- Cast:
- Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Margaretha Krook
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Cries and Whispers (1972)Viskningar och rop
In rural Sweden around the turn of the century, three sisters reside in a vast manor house with their housekeeper. Agnes (Harriet Andersson) lives out the last days of her life in pain, hoping for companionship and affection. Surrounded by her sisters, Karin (Ingrid Thulin) and Maria (Liv Ullmann), Agnes takes comfort in the fact that her remaining time can be spent with those close to her. However, dissatisfaction in their day-to-day-lives, and the estrangement that they feel from one another, causes the sisters to become increasingly self-absorbed. - Director:
- Ingmar Bergman
- Cast:
- Harriet Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Kari Sylwan
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Fanny and Alexander (1982)Fanny och Alexander
"Fanny and Alexander" is Bergman's dreamlike family chronicle. The Ekdahl's are an upper-middle-class theatrical family sheltered by their own theatrics from the deepening chaos of the outside world. One tumultuous year in the life of the Ekdahl family is viewed through the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander (Bertil Guve), whose imagination fuels the magical goings-on leading up to and following the death of his father. His mother's remarriage to a stern prelate banishes Alexander and his sister Fanny (Pernilla Allwin) from all known joys, and thrusts them and the movie into a kind of gothic horror. The bishop is a Bergmanesque character whose severity has gone awry - he has become sinister - and the film's round rejection of him in favour of "kindness, affection and goodness" may be Bergman's fondest farewell to cinema. - Director:
- Ingmar Bergman
- Cast:
- Bertil Guve, Pernilla Allwin, Kristina Adolphson
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Autumn Sonata (1978)Hostsonaten
After a prolonged period of separation, world famous pianist Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman) decides to visit her daughter, Eva (Liv Ullman). Once there, she is surprised to find that her other daughter, Helena (Lena Nyman), is no longer staying at the mental institution where Charlotte placed her, but is now living with Eva. As day moves into night, mother and daughter open up about their feelings and misgivings toward one another. Before long, Charlotte, who chose her musical career over fulfilling her role as a mother, is forced to reappraise her life and the choices she has made. By the time the night is over, the relationship between these two women undergoes a profound change. Winner of a host of international awards, this stunning and beautifully observed film features an historic union of two of Sweden's greatest international talents, Ingrid Bergman and Ingmar Bergman, working together for the first and only time. - Director:
- Ingmar Bergman
- Cast:
- Ingmar Bergman, Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann
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Cul-De-Sac (1966)Ćorsokak
Donald Pleasence and Francoise Dorleac play a mismatched couple - he effeminate and petulant, she sensual and enigmatic - who share a bizzare sexual relationship, living in a remote castle. Their very isolation from the world prevents their eccentric partnership from foundering. Only an outsider can disrupt their make-believe lifestyle. That disruption arrives in the belligerent form of Richard and Albert, two oddball gangsters straight out of a 1940's film noir, wounded, desperate and on the run. They demand shelter, and as Richard waits for instructions from his gangland boss, he slips into a dangerous round of gameplaying with his unwilling hosts. But it seems that Richard is not always to have the upper hand. With its larger-than-life performances, wicked black humour and superb use of striking outdoor locations - the film was shot on Holy Island in Northumberland - Polanski has created an exceptional film which is very different to but no less memorable than Repulsion. - Director:
- Roman Polanski
- Cast:
- Donald Pleasence, Françoise Dorléac, Lionel Stander
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Carol (Catherine Deneuve), a young French girl living in Sixties' London, is repelled, yet fascinated by men. Her radiant beauty attracts the opposite sex, but she shrinks from their advances. Her days are spent in an intensely feminine atmosphere: working in a beauty salon, and clinging to her sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux) for love. Things start to unwind however when Helen goes away with her married boyfriend (Ian Hendry). As Carol incarcerates herself in her sinister, shadowy flat, men begin to invade her dreams night and day, mixing her terror with delight as bizarre hallucinations take hold of her mind. The walls start to crack, literally, before her eyes. Finally, racked and depraved through her delirium, she is left with only one instinct towards the men who invade her life - that of a killer... - Director:
- Roman Polanski
- Cast:
- Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser
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Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) are newlyweds, but Rosemary has no idea that her wedded bliss is about to come to a horrific end. Her husband's ambition as a struggling actor is about to plunge her into an abyss of terror like she has never known. In exchange for a taste of fame, Guy makes a deal with the devil that puts his wife and soul in jeopardy. When Rosemary becomes pregnant, her husband becomes odd, her neighbours (Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon) border on obsessive, and her normal life turns into a surreal nightmare. Slowly, she begins to realise that a seed of evil has been planted... and she is its host. - Director:
- Roman Polanski
- Cast:
- Mia Farrow, Gail Bonney, Tony Curtis
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Macbeth (1971)The Tragedy of Macbeth
Roman Polanski presents his nightmarish vision of Shakespeares classic tragedy about the lust for powerand its bloody consequences. Jon Finch is Macbeth, the Scottish war hero whose insane ambition unleashes a cycle of violence. Prompted by the supernatural prophecy of three witches, Macbeth is goaded by his Lady (Francesca Annis) into slaying King Duncan (Nicholas Selby) and assuming his throne. Macbeth plunges further into murder and moral decay to keep the unsteady crown on his head. While his wife crumbles away in guilt and madness, the haunted Macbeth fights to prevent another dark forecast which may doom him. - Director:
- Roman Polanski
- Cast:
- Jon Finch, Francesca Annis, Martin Shaw
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Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)Ugetsu / Tales of Ugetsu
In 16th century Japan, amidst the pandemonium of civil war, potter Genjuro (Mori Masayuki) and samurai-aspirant Tobei (Ozawa Sakae) set out with their wives in search of wealth and military glory, respectively. Two parallel tales ensue when the men are lured from their wives: Genjuro by the ghostly charm of Lady Wakasa (Kyo Machiko); Tobei by the dream of military glory. - Director:
- Kenji Mizoguchi
- Cast:
- Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyô, Kinuyo Tanaka
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The Life of O-Haru (1952)Saikaku ichidai onna
Winner of the 1952 Venice Film Festival silver lion award, Kenji Mizoguchi's tragic tale, set in the 17th Century, of a young noblewoman's fall from grace established his reputation as one of Japan's greatest directors. Kinuyo Tanaka stars as O-Haru, a beautiful courtesan who surrenders to her passion for a commoner, played by Toshiro Mifune. As punishment, she and her parents are banished into exile where O-Haru desperately attempts to escape her past. A compelling and powerful critique of feudal Japan as seen through the eyes of a woman, 'The Life of O-Haru' portrays the human dramas and historical settings with unflinching realism and atmospheric detail, demonstrating Mizoguchi's complete mastery of the medium. - Director:
- Kenji Mizoguchi
- Cast:
- Kinuyo Tanaka, Tsukie Matsuura, Ichirô Sugai
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Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) leads a group of Anglican nuns to a remote Himalayan range of mountains, there to set up a mission in an abandoned harem. This is her first position of authority and she finds both her physical and her spiritual limits being taxed as she has to maintain order and discipline in a claustrophobically hostile environment. Slowly but surely, however, the privations and hardship they must endure, the extremes of climate and the peculiar amorality of the local natives all combine to slowly corrupt the women's faith, pushing them further into jealousy, anger and madness... - Director:
- Michael Powell
- Cast:
- Deborah Kerr, David Farrar, Flora Robson
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This Powell and Pressburger classic is widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever made. Vicky Page (Moira Shearer), a young ballerina, becomes torn between her love for composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring) and artistic devotion to her profession, which is dominated by impresario Lermontov. - Director:
- Michael Powell
- Cast:
- Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moira Shearer
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