The Best (Older) Films I Watched in 2024

Ricochet (1991)

Last January, on an episode of The File Room, the podcast I started with my friend Michaela in which we talk about The X-Files (check it out! It's a pretty good podcast! We're just about to start covering the third season!) I lamented that I hadn't been watching enough films lately, and that to remedy that I would make "watch 1,000 films" my New Year's resolution for 2024. Even at the time I knew I was never going to do that, since there truly are not enough hours in the day to do that on top of having a job which doesn't involve film criticism, but it was always more of a "shoot for the moon, at least you'll land among the stars" goal to break me out of my rut and force me to finally watch films that I had been meaning to watch for, in some cases, decades. 

In an absolute sense, it was a total failure since I "only" watched 500 films over the course of the year, but in a spiritual sense, it was a roaring success. The overwhelming majority of the films I watched were first-time watches, and by forcing myself to watch anything and everything, I discovered new favourite films and filmmakers at a pace that I haven't experienced since I was first getting into movies in my early 20s. The films listed here are the cream of a very large crop, and I was very pleased to have finally seen some rightly revered masterpieces that I had been putting off for far too long, and discover some films that resonated with me in ways that I was not expecting.

Note: The list is purely chronological by year of release.

People on Sunday (dirs. Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer, Fred Zinnermann, 1930)

It’s wild looking through the crew of this and realizing that five of the most interesting Hollywood directors of the next 30 years all worked on it in some capacity (in addition to the three credited directors it was written by Billy Wilder and Curt Siodmak), and that it feels unlike most of the work they would go on to do. In its use of non-actors, lackadaisical structure and spiky rhythms, it feels like a direct precursor to the movements (such as the French New Wave and Italian Neo-realism) that would be react to and supplant its creators’ subsequent work. Somehow they managed to leapfrog themselves with this sprightly, experimental comedy brimming with life that doubles as a poignant snapshot of Weimar Germany.

Dishonored (dir. Josef von Sternberg, 1931) 

This was my first experience of the Marlene Dietrich/von Sternberg partnership and I can easily see why their work together is still held in such high regard. Dietrich is really incredible, exuding such an easy sensuality and confidence in her ability as a spy that you feel convinced that she can talk or seduce her way out of any situation, right up until the end. Her scenes with Victor McLaglen are a real treat, with the two dodging and feinting around each other, leaving you unsure who will end up with the upper hand. A gorgeous ride.

Street Scene (dir. King Vidor, 1931)

King by name, king by nature, I guess. A gorgeously wrought tragedy that spends its first 50 minutes or so sketching out a collection of funny, charming yet earthy characters in a lower East Side neighborhood before crashing a horrifying event through the middle. The scenes on the stoop have some staginess to them, which is only heightened by their contrast with the non-dialogue scenes of life around the city, which Vidor captures with tremendous energy and excitement, but the material and performances are entertaining enough to offset the limitations of early sound production. A film which captures something elemental about the nature of living in a society and a community, even if both of those things have shifted pretty wildly over the last nine decades.

The Music Box (dir. James Parrott, 1932)

This is a bit of a stand-in for a host of Laurel and Hardy shorts I watched this year. Despite being someone with a real interest in early film and the great silent comedians, I had never really taken the time to dive into their work, but I found plenty to love in their disastrous dynamic, and spirited ability to mess up the simplest of assignments. The Music Box, which largely consists of them trying to deliver a piano by pushing it up a flight of stairs, is brilliant in its simplicity, and the many ways it finds to prevent them from doing something that seems so straightforward. Honorable mention for the Frank Tashlin-scripted Tit For Tat (1935), in which Stan and Ollie run an electrical appliance store and wage war against a rival shop and their own merchandise.

Zero For Conduct (dir. Jean Vigo, 1933) 

Miraculous short with an anarchic spirit fitting for the subject matter of young boys causing trouble at their boarding school. Vigo brings an eye for finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, depicting kids messing around with a sense of whimsy that never veers too far to be annoying. One of the great films about being a little shit.

Meshes of the Afternoon (dirs. Maya Deren, Alexander Hammid, 1943)

One of the earlier mini-projects I set for myself this year was to go through as much of Maya Deren's work as possible, both because she's such a major figure in the history of experimental film and because most of her films are less than 20 minutes long, so it's really easy to pad the numbers if you're just trying to watch as many films as possible. Her first film remains her most striking, as she depicts a woman (played by Deren) returning home in a manner which is eerie and dreamlike in a way that few other films ever achieve.

Les Enfants du Paradis (dir. Marcel Carné, 1945)

The word that kept coming to mind while watching this story of a love triangle (or actually it may be a love pentangle) between various performers was “graceful.” Every camera move, every mime sequence, every story beat, it all moved so beautifully and with such elegance that it’s hard not to be swept away by the sheer craft of it all. But "graceful" also implies a kind of above-it-all artsiness or sterility, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s a beautiful romance full of life and big, bold characters. Funny, too. I was flagging a little at the end of Part One due to starting the film late at night after work, but the sheer energy and vim that Pierre Brasseur brings to the start of Part Two as his character careens towards and away from calamity woke me right back up. Truly one of the most entertaining performances I’ve seen in a movie in ages.

Fireworks (dir. Kenneth Anger, 1947)

Much like Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger was a filmmaker whose work I was familair with but never really delved into, and since most of his films are very short, it seemed like the perfect time to finally watch them. While there was a lot to like in some of his subsequent work, particularly Scorpio Rising (1963) and its for the time pretty radical use of rock music on the soundtrack, his earliest surviving film was the one that stuck out to me the most. While some of the craft is very rough, the way Anger depicts homosexuality, desire, violence and the way that all three can commingle remains thrilling, especially considering the conservatism of the time.

Culloden (dir. Peter Watkins, 1964)

A marvelous realisation of its concept - depicting the 1745 Battle of Culloden in the style of a contemporary news report - which manages to make the battle and its aftermath horribly real, while also wryly condemning people who could so easily be lionized in the history books. The contrast between the butchery of the British troops after the battle and the narrator relaying how they will be remembered as heroes is especially potent as a condemnation of the news media as sanitizers of reality.

The Young Girls of Rochefort (dir. Jacques Demy, 1967)

This was the first movie I watched in 2024 and it was a pretty incredible way to start the year. While it didn't have quite the same emotional pull for me as The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, the pastel colours and the elegant staging of the musical numbers lent it an aesthetic joy that I found really intoxicating. The only thing holding it back, apart from the lack of the same emotional punch of Cherbourg, is that it's really weird to hear someone else's voice coming out of Gene Kelly's mouth since his performance was dubbed into French. It was also nice to finally have a second association with this film besides the time we showed it at the Showroom in Sheffield and someone asked for a refund because it contained "too much singing."

I Don't Know (dir. Penelope Spheeris, 1971)

A very sweet, empathetic short about the relationship between Spheeris’ sister, Linda, and a trans person that is filled with an inquisitive, generous spirit and an appealingly goofy sense of humour. Linda Spheeris seems like the coolest person to ever live.

Beware of a Holy Whore (dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1971)

Fassbinder is another filmmaker whose work I was familiar with but had never engaged with fully until this year, and while I still have plenty of his films left to watch, this was the highlight for me. In part this is because I accidentally watched it out of order - I was going through his work chronologically and thought this was his 3rd film instead of his 10th or 11th - so the sudden leap in sophistication between his extremely rough but promising early efforts and this, in which the colours pop so vividly and he manages to balance a large ensemble cast while telling an entertainingly biting story of a film crew slowly falling apart, felt like a true artistic quantum leap. Since he was so prolific that the time between those first few films and this one was only three years, it's still pretty impressive.

Betty Tells Her Story (dir. Liane Brandon, 1972)

Wonderful short in which a woman tells the story of losing a dress twice, once focusing mainly on the details and the second time digging more into her emotions about the dress and what losing it meant to her. Betty is a great storyteller - funny, affable, able to draw out little details that add texture - and displays tremendous openness and vulnerability when it comes to discussing ideas of beauty and longing.

Mahler (dir. Ken Russell, 1974)

Becoming more familiar with Russell's filmography was another little project I set for myself this year and this was the film that impressed me the most, ranking up there with The Devils as one of my favourites. A film that is deeply curious about Gustav Mahler as both an artist and a man, but which is not constrained by the literalism of so many biopics. The fantasy sequences used to depict Mahler’s memories on his final train journey are vivid and inventive, with the highlight being the extended sequence depicting his conversion from Judaism to Catholicism, which mixes confrontational and borderline offensive imagery with a tone that somehow marks the meeting point between Kenneth Anger and Chuck Jones.

God Told Me To (dir. Larry Cohen, 1976)

One of those rare cases where I was watching a film and truly did not know what direction it was going from moment to moment. A destabilizing and galvanizing act of genre filmmaking in which Cohen tries to come to grips with seemingly random acts of violence in America in a way which is both extremely entertaining and disquietingly prescient.

The Devil, Probably (dir. Robert Bresson, 1977)

Glad to have finally seen this, if only to have context for the countless Twitter avatars I’ve seen being drawn from it over the years. A bleak film, for sure, but an extremely compelling one. Bresson’s compositions throughout are so stark and beautiful, casting the film’s philosophical and existential concerns in the coldest, harshest light possible.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (dir. Lau Kar-Leung, 1978) 

Literally the only thing wrong with this martial arts epic is that there isn't more of it. After an hour and a half of the hero (Gordon Liu) persevering through his training to become a Shaolin monk in order to seek revenge, he gets out of the temple and wraps everything up in about 20 minutes! It's no bad thing to leave an audience wanting more, but I would have liked to see more dishonorable reprobates get absolutely destroyed. I guess that's what the sequels are for.

Mur murs (dir. Agnès Varda, 1981)

What a charming film! Varda captures the idiosyncrasies and diversity of LA gorgeously, as well as the ephemeral beauty that comes from people putting so much of their self into art that will fade or be knocked down, but for a time will be enjoyed by anyone who happens to be driving down the street.

Hair Piece: A Film for Nappy Headed People (dir. Ayoka Chenzira, 1984)

Animated short about the history of the ways in which Black women have tried to control their natural hair and meet (generally white) standards of beauty, and celebrating the inherent beauty of natural hair. It’s full of great specifics and anecdotes, delivered with a funny and anarchic energy that informs the ignorant viewer like myself, while also being a good time.

Gap-Toothed Women (dir. Les Blank, 1987) 

I watched a whole lot of Les Blank's documentaries this year and while his films focused on the music and traditions of different American sub-cultures are all great and well worth seeking out, this simple short in which different women with gaps in their teeth talk about their lives and their experiences was the one that stuck with me the most. A rich film about beauty and what is possible when you love yourself.

An Autumn's Tale (dir. Mabel Cheung, 1987)

Lovely romance in which Cherie Chung plays a woman from Hong Kong newly arrived in New York and Chow Yun-fat plays a relative who tries to help her get used to her new home. It's a wonderful New York movie, particularly when it comes to capturing the enduring romanticism of the city and the specific air of danger and grime that the city had pre-Giuliani, and reminded me of The Apartment at times, which is about as high a compliment as I can give any film.

Black Rain (dir. Shôhei Imamura, 1989)

Jesus Christ.

An incredible and bleak piece of work. In following a group of survivors in the wake of the Hiroshima bombing, Imamura conveys the slow horror of radiation sickness and the trauma of war amid people just trying to live their lives. The contrast between the outright devastation of Hiroshima, briefly glimpsed in scenes of people cleaning up the devastation, and the quiet, pastoral lives of survivors who only gradually realize that they are sick, suffuses the whole thing with an inescapable dread, and really gets across the sense that those who were directly impacted by the bombing were the lucky ones. On top of that, Imamura’s command of tone and style is remarkable. The way he can shift from light comedy to moments of terrible sadness is masterful, as are the moments when he breaks from a more naturalistic form to illuminate the deteriorating mental state of one particular character.

Tetsuo: The Iron Man (dir. Shinya Tsukamoto, 1989)

Watching this for the first time reminded me of watching The Evil Dead for the first time in terms of how idiosyncratic, intimate and brutal it is. The sort of small, independent movie that retains its potential to shock and feel illicit, even decades later and after so many other filmmakers have taken inspiration from it and pushed its ideas either further than Tsukamoto, or sanded down the edges and made them more palatable. A perfect melding of arthouse and gross-out.

Born on the Fourth of July (dir. Oliver Stone, 1989)

Kind of surprised that I never watched this when I went through a big Oliver Stone phase as a teen. Probably seemed too Worthy compared to some of his other movies, which also tackled big subjects but had a reputation for being a bit more audacious and gonzo. Which is not to say that this isn’t audacious - it’s very provocative in how much of the blood and grime of Ron Kovic’s experience in Vietnam and afterwards it includes, and it pulls hardly any punches in depicting him as a man who struggled with his disillusionment with America - but stylistically it’s restrained by Stone’s standards. 

Tom Cruise is extremely good in the lead role, particularly during the first half when he has to sell both Kovic’s fervent belief in America and then the long, brutal process of him realizing his sacrifice was for nothing after he’s paralyzed. The wide-eyed intensity that he brings to so many of his roles is used to devastating and unnerving effect on multiple occasions, and while some of the louder, shoutier scenes veer into Oscar Bait territory, they don’t detract from how effective Cruise is in the quieter moments.

Jacob's Ladder (dir. Adrian Lyne, 1990)

A good litmus test for a great film is whether it still retains the power to shock and surprise even if you know all the major points through cultural osmosis. Jacob's Ladder is one such example; even though I knew exactly what the revealation at the end was, I still found the journey to that point really compelling. A masterpiece of mood and atmosphere with an incredible central performance from Tim Robbins.

Life is Sweet (dir. Mike Leigh, 1990)

A film full of characters so indelible that I immediately felt sad that Leigh never revisited them. Would have loved a Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight-type check in where we got to see how all the quietly dysfunctional members of this suburban London family were getting on. 

Seeing how deranged Timothy Spall’s character, in particular, might have become over the decades could have been incredible. Like a proto-Tim Robinson character, full of unwarranted grandeur and a seeming inability to have a single normal interaction with another human being.

A Brighter Summer Day (dir. Edward Yang, 1991)

Probably the most ecstatic experience I had watching a film all year. Realizing as it came to its climax that Yang had recreated the Taipei of his youth as a means to explore and possibly explain one specific event, but also used that event as a way to explain what that whole society felt like to live in, was genuinely revelatory in a way that few films have ever achieved for me. Yang not only paints a portrait of a young man, but also the trap he set for himself. I was already sad about Yang's death at a young age because it's an inherently tragic thing, but now being aware of the work he was able to make while he was alive only compounds it.

Ricochet (dir. Russell Mulcahy, 1991)

Absolutely deranged. Denzel Washington is on top form as a cop who puts away a dangerous criminal and uses that to build his career as an attorney, while Lithgow is otherworldly as the criminal who escapes from prison years later and starts systemically tearing Washington's life to pieces. A film that operates at a feverish pitch befitting the strange machinations of Lithgow's plans, and one in which every performance is so highly strung it feels like only dogs should be capable of perceiving them. One of the most purely enjoyable films I saw all year.

Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (dir. Simon Lau, 1991)

It may lack the grace and style that the best Hong Kong action films of this era boast, but it more than makes up for it by finding new and horrible ways to obliterate the human body. The tagline really should have been "You’ll believe a man can punch another man’s fist to pieces."

Sátántangó (dir. Béla Tarr, 1994) 

A monumental achievement. Funny, absurd, deeply disturbing - all seven hours flew by with the exception of the section with the cat, which was intensely distressing - and altogether a triumph of mood and pacing. The slow yet constant rhythm of the editing and the long shots draw you in and make every scene so compelling, and Tarr’s compositions - and how he shifts between multiple compositions in a single shot - lend the whole thing an intensity and sense of urgency that belies the running time and the lack of traditional incident. A deeply rewarding experience that I’m glad I finally got around to. Truly nothing like it.

Amateur (dir. Hal Hartley, 1994)

The news that Hartley was beginning work on a new film provided me with the push I needed to dig into some of his films that I had not previously watched, of which this was the standout. I’ve always found amnesia stories compelling, especially ones about evil people having their memories wiped and having to confront the actions of the person they were, and if they can stand being that person again. Amateur is an especially great spin on this, as Martin Donovan spends half the film running around with Isabelle Huppert - captivating, sad and hilarious as a nymphomaniac virgin (she’s choosy) - trying to figure out what he did that got him pushed out a window, and the other half being confronted by one of the people he hurt the most. As ever, particularly during this early run of his career, Hartley’s script is witty, literate and poignant, while his camerawork is sensuous and lends an earthiness to a story which otherwise could be too cold or arch. The people in his movies may not talk like normal people, but their emotions feel real, and that’s what matters.

Cold Water (dir. Olivier Assayas, 1994)

An incredible work of mood and tone. The opening scenes establishing the main characters' home and school lives ground the film in a kind of kitchen sink realism, then the extended party sequence in the middle takes it to a whole different register, one of escapism through music and drugs and teenage love that is so deeply felt. Reminded me of Raymond Carver short stories in how it captures the feeling of a single, intimate event irrevocably changing lives. Wonderful soundtrack, too, with each ‘60s and ‘70s rock cut deployed surgically for maximum impact.

U.S. Go Home (dir. Claire Denis)

One of the great coming of age movies. I love how unaffected it is in its approach to depicting the ‘60s; everyone is in period-appropriate clothing, but it doesn’t try to ape the visual style of the era or over-emphasize the ‘60s-ness at all, instead focusing on the characters and their emotions. Really captures the mix of excitement and fear of being a teen and going out in pursuit of sex without really understanding what you’re doing.

The God of Cookery (dirs. Stephen Chow, Lee Lik-Ch, 1996)

I still slightly prefer Chow’s later work when CGI allowed him to get really wacky and more fully realize his brand of live-action cartoon, but there is something so funny about the way this film pushes practical stunts and filmmaking to the absolute limit. The half-impressive, half-slapdash way some of the cooking is depicted in this (characters throwing ingredients in the air then only sort of hitting them with knives) is consistently hilarious. Chow is really in his element during the first two-thirds, when he gets to play a real prick and works hard to make him as pompous and awful as he can without becoming totally unsympathetic. It'll feel overly familiar to anyone who has seen Shaolin Soccer or Kung Fu Hustle since those films follow the blueprint of this one pretty closely, but familiarity need not breed contempt when the results are this much fun.

Erin Brockovich (dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2000)

I seem to remember at the time that Traffic was the Soderbergh-directed, Best Picture nominee from 2000 that was held in higher regard, but I think this one has aged better (even if Traffic is still very good). Everyone is great in it, with Julia Roberts being the undeniable standout as she applies her star wattage to a character who is funny, acerbic, and indefatigable: every time Erin Brockovich walks into a conference room it’s like Jackie Chan walking into a room full of ladders. Considering what a boom decade the ‘90s were for legal thrillers, it feels fitting that Soderbergh leapt in at the end and delivered one of the best.

Pulse (dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001)

The first hour of this is one of the greatest horror movies ever made, full of quiet, unsettling moments and exquisite sound design which posit the Internet as a malevolent background hum that occasionally turns its attention on unfortunate people. Kurosawa’s locations, all dour apartments and crumbling infrastructure, also create a holistic vision of a world falling apart on its own without the help of the dead.

The Old Internet aesthetics of the film are also most prominent early on, and it’s these images that really lend it an air of unease. Particularly now when every image online is HD and crisp, there’s something almost taboo about the grainy videos of people in dissociative states that populate the film. Every time someone turns on a computer it feels like they (and by extension the audience) are watching a snuff film. As digital video tech has gotten better since 2001, conversely the images in Pulse feel more and more real, and more distressing.

The second hour is also pretty good, but the more things are explained and the bigger the scale gets, the less unnerving the film is. Kurosawa still finds plenty of moments of horror and beauty, but the film has the unenviable task of competing with itself.

Chinese Odyssey 2002 (dir. Jeffrey Lau, 2002)

Appealingly goofy comedy specifically based on and lampooning The Kingdom and the Beauty, but with an eye to mocking Chinese epics more broadly, that also manages to key into the emotions of the genre enough for the ending to land. 

It helps that the film is anchored by Tony Leung and Faye Wong, two of the most charismatic people ever to appear on screen, getting to play much bigger and sillier than their work together in Chungking Express, as a disreputable restauranteur and a runaway Princess pretending to be a man, respectively. They’re both very funny and handle the film’s onslaught of slapstick and visual gags with aplomb - Leung’s absurdly melodramatic reaction when he realizes that Wong is a woman and that he’s technically stolen her away from his sister (a luminous Zhao Wei) who has also fallen in love with her is a particular highlight - while also making you cheer when they inevitably get together.

Gamer (dirs. Neveldine/Taylor, 2009)

Is this a good movie about video games? Only kinda, but in very obvious and silly ways. The mechanics and aesthetics of the actual games shown - Slayers and Society - are very surface level. Society's depiction of a massively multiplayer game where everyone could live out their wildest, most depraved fantasies was already pretty passe by 2009 since Second Life had been going for years at that point. Slayers does admittedly nail the ugly grey look of most shooters of the era, but it seems like a really boring game and it strains credulity that watching it would be the most popular show.

But beyond the gaming aspect, Gamer is prescient when it comes to the ways in which the Internet has evolved since its release. Mainly in how social media encourages users to dehumanize the other people they encounter, which is stated explicitly the first time that Gerard Butler talks to the teenager controlling him, who expresses no sympathy for the other real human beings being obliterated in Slayers. Obviously arguments on Facebook or Twitter are (mostly) not life or death, but the ease with which people embrace cruelty is recognizable in Gamer and how the players view the real people they interact with as disposable. 

It also offers a cogent vision of how the Internet would come to dominate more and more of peoples' lives, how billionaires would come to exercise greater control over the space, and how that would in turn give them considerable influence over global politics. Separated from its central conceit, the broader view the film takes of how digital life would evolve has proven to be more right than wrong.

The Odyssey (dir. Asif Kapadia, 2012)

Part of a series of short films commissioned to commemorate the London Olympics, Kapadia's short documentary chronicling the seven years between London winning the bid and the games themselves is poignant on two levels. On the basic level of retelling British history from 2005-12, it rapidly runs through an extremely tumultuous period that included the London Tube bombings (which famously took place the very day after the success of the Olympic bid was announced), the financial crisis, the 2010 election and the subsequent push into deeply harmful austerity, and captures the mixed emotions of ordinary Londoners confronted with the cost and disruption of the Olympics which, despite their eventual success, were viewed as a disaster in the making by a lot of people in the lead-up. All of this Kapadia presents in a pretty unvarnished way, capturing the complexity of the period and how people felt about it in a way which feels extremely honest. On another level, viewed from 2024, it also feels like a time capsule of a radically different Britain, one that seemed more hopeful and capable of big, impressive things.

Contemporary Color (dirs. Bill Ross, Turner Ross, Laura Obiols, 2016)

Hugely enjoyable doc/concert movie capturing an event put on by David Byrne in which various musicians were paired up with color guard teams from different high schools to perform original pieces. The performances are all fun and creative, but the real joy comes in the brief glimpses of the teams preparing their routines or talking about their love of performing and connecting with the musicians over it. David Byrne’s boyish enthusiasm for the whole event is also really infectious.

America (dir. Garrett Bradley, 2019)

What’s remarkable about America is how Bradley takes a concept that could be too abstract - she uses Lime Kiln Club Field Day, an at the time recently rediscovered silent film with an all-Black cast, as a starting point to create a centuries worth of imagery of Black people in America - and makes it feel solid. The iconography she creates is rooted in the everyday - kids playing, baseball, baptisms - and depicted in gorgeous black-and-white digital photography that bridges that century-plus old film and today. It’s a film that says “we’re here, we’ve always been here, let me show you.”

The Nest (dir. Sean Durkin, 2020)

Terrific drama about a family who move to England in the late ‘80s, buy a big house in the country, and gradually fall to pieces. I loved how much of the tension hinges on mundane things like commutes making it difficult for the parents to see each other and their children, and how that small distance widens and fractures them. As someone who grew up in rural England, I saw that kind of separation a lot, and now looking back on it realize how lucky I was that my parents owned their own business so that, stressful as it was, they were always around and the difficulties of traveling long distances to take me and my sister to school or to visit friends wasn’t exacerbated by them also having to go to a third location for their jobs. And that they weren’t so driven by the desire to make money that they were driven insane, that’s a plus too. Also, Carrie Coon is one of our finest actors, in every sense.

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (dir. Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, 2021)

Three perfect stories built around sudden shifts and twists that reframe everything up to that point, which run the gamut from funny to sad, sweet to suspenseful. I loved how the third film dips into speculative fiction by having a computer virus render email unusable, positing a kind of anti-Covid world in which everyone is healthy, but our easy means of connection disappear. Not to diminish the success that Hamaguchi had with Drive My Car, which came out the same year and was rightly recognized as a major work, but to me this is so clearly the superior film and it's a shame that it was overshadowed by its - again, very, very good - sister work.