right now this is just gonna be pulled fom my 5-star ratings on letterboxd. they are in no particular order.

	Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015) | An incredibly unsettling, largely improvised found footage movie, about a man trying to convince Anne Hathaway to star in his upcoming film. I am legitimagely upset at how many times I scrolled past this over the years. Deeply captivating and frustrating.
	Dogs Don't Wear Pants (2019) | A widower who has been going through the motions while raising his teenage daughter has a chance encounter with a dominatrix versed in breathplay. He discovers that being choked to the point of passing out gives him visions of his late wife. That's not really what the movie is about, but I don't know how to describe it.
	Noriko's Dinner Table (2005) | This is a prequel/sequel to Suicide Club (2001) which is also on this list. It follows a teen girl who runs away to join an online friend of hers, who works with a small group of people that are hired by strangers to pretend to be their loving, devoted family members. I love this movie. It hurts.
	Paranoia Agent (2004) | An anime series by the late, great Satoshi Kon, in which Tokyo is inflicted with a social phenomenon caused by a young boy on golden rollerblades assaulting people with a baseball bat. And okay no this isn't technically a movie, but it feels weird not mentioning it here. Also this is my website, so deal with it.
	the Dentist (1996) | A dentist discovers his wife cheating on him and loses his mind. This is a wacky slasher directed by Brian Yuzna, and it serves as an incredible criticism of late-80's materialism and classism. It's also just real silly, I love it.
	House of 1,000 Corpses (2003) | A group of friends are on their way home after a road trip checking out weird roadside attractions. They encounter Captain Spaulding (played by the late Sid Haig) who tips them off to another weird landmark nearby. Their car breaks down and they take shelter in the house of a local family, which turns out to be the worst thing they could have done. This movie is bonkers, and to this day it's Rob Zombie's best. It's colorful and chaotic and you can just tell, like, "oh this guy definitely directs his own music videos." So good.
	Resident Evil (2002) | The workers in a high-tech underground laboratory are killed off by the AI running the place, in order to most effectively quarantine the lab from the rest of the world, due to the accidental release of a proprietary biological agent. And then a bunch of fucking geniuses are like "huh gee I sure do wonder why the AI programmed to lock the place down and kill everyone in the event of a biological weapon of mass destruction being released decided to lock the place down and kill everyone, I guess we'd better breach the quarantine to investigate, I'm sure that won't go poorly in a way that results in a media series spanning 6 feature length films, a reboot of the series, and a failed one-season spinoff show." Anyway this movie fucks, the end.
	Burn After Reading (2008) | There is nothing I can tell you about this movie that will do it justice. It's the Coen brothers. It ends like this Go watch it.
	Paul Dood's Deadly Lunch Break (2021) | A man tries his damndest to get himself and his mom to the tryouts for a talent show, but is thwarted at basically every turn by a variety of assholes. Tragedy ensues, followed by largely unintentional vengeance. It's weirdly lovely.
	Pulp Fiction (1994) | I don't have to tell you what Pulp Fiction is.
	Knives Out (2019) | A famous detective is brought in to solve the murder of an acclaimed murder mystery writer, only to find that 1. the man left everything to his home care nurse, and 2. literally every member of the family has motive, means, and opportunity. Hijinks ensue. Also Chris Evans is in it.
	Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) | A teen struggling to find a balance between his love for his city and his parents' dreams is bitten by a radioactive spider, becomning the one and only Spider-Man. And then he meets a bunch of other Spider-Men. Anyway if you don't get choked up at the "what's up danger" scene you're probably dead inside, the end.
	Wild Wild West (1999) | Ok so it's a Bond movie, except that it's a Western, and Bond is Black, and Q gets to be the Bond Girl, and also the song is by the Bond actor, in character, and Sisqo does the hook, and also the whole thing is steampunk and there's a spider mech and Kenneth Branagh is there.
	Audition (1999) | A widower is convinced by a friend to hold auditions to find an actress for a role that doesn't exist, in order to find a new wife. And then he picks, just, the worst possible option. This Takashi Miike movie is a horror classic, starring Ryo Ishibashi who is a total babe if you're into very normal looking men (which I am). That all said, if you're not signed-on for a whole movie of this, you can just watch the My Chemical Romance video for Honey, This Mirror Isn't Big Enough for the Two of Us, which was based on this film.
	Reservoir Dogs (1992) | Non-linear storytelling, a heist gone wrong, young hot Tim Roth covered in his own blood, what more do you want?
	Paprika (2006) | Another Satoshi Kon piece (but this one is a movie). A machine that allows therapists to enter patients' dreams is stolen, unleashing chaos on an unsuspecting world. This is a beautiful, surreal movie, and you probably have to watch it at least twice to follow the plot. Worth it.
	May (2002) | An awkward young woman has trouble forming relationships, so she decides to make a new friend. I love this movie. Also she's right, the film-within-a-film about the lovers eating each other is sweet, I will not be taking questions at this time.
	The Mummy (1999) | A librarian (Rachel WeiszHOT), joins forces with a treasure hunter (Brendan FraserSO HOT) and her older brother (John HannahCUTIE) to seek out Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead. They accidentally awaken the spirit of Imhotep (Arnold VoslooBABE), a disgraced high priest with supernatural powers, who regains his form and begins his quest to bring back his forbidden love Anck-su-namun (Patricia VelásquezWOW). Specifically, he wants to bring her back in the librarian's body. Also Oded FehrDREAMBOAT is there. This one's for the bisexuals, y'all.
	Dave Made a Maze (2017) | Dave is an artist who never finishes anything, and he's feeling down on himself. He builds a cardboard fort in his apartment, which becomes a proper labyrinth. Dave gets stuck, and his girlfriend and some friends enter the labyrinth despite his warnings, to try to find him. Also there's a minotaur. If NOTHING else, watch this for the set design. Incredible.
	Kill Bill: Vol 1 (2003) | A former assassin attemts to leave her crew. They respond by massacring her wedding. Years later, she awakes from a coma and begins her quest for vengeance. This is one of the greatest action films ever made. Don't bother with Vol 2.
	Cigarette Burns (2005) | A Masters of Horror episode, directed by John Carpenter, it follows Norman Reedus as a guy who operates a run-down movie theater and hunts down obscure films. He needs a lot of cash to keep the theater, and is hired by a weird dude to track down a copy of La Fin Absolue du Monde, a film that supposedly drives anyone who views it into a violent frenzy. As he searches, the line between reality and fiction begins to blur. Anyway this movie features a scene of a man feeding his own intestines into a film projector, which is hands-down one of my favorite moments in all of media, ever, forever.
	Grave Encounters (2011) | A group of ghost hunters are filming their 3rd episode at a supposedly-haunted abandoned mental asylum. It doesn't go well for them.
	Garth Marenghi's DARKPLACE (2004) | Another item on the list that's technically a show, but whatever, sue me. Also, I don't really know how to explain this in a way that does it justice. The whole thing is on YouTube, you can just go watch it.
	Parasite (2019) | I watched this movie at a local indie theater without knowing anything about it other than "it's so, so good." If you've somehow made it this far without knowing what it's about, go in blind.
	Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) | In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, water is a form of currency being horded by Immortan Joe, a dictator and cult leader. Max is captured by members of the cult (known as War Boys) in order to serve as a blood donor to a sickly War Boy. Meanqhile, Immortan Joe's lieutenant, Imperator Furiosa, is sent off in a huge truck to trade produce and water for petrol and ammo. Except that she's actually liberated Joe's five wives and is helping them flee to somewhere better. At a certain point, Max (and eventually his designated War Boy, Nux), joins forces with Furiosa and the wives. Earlier, I referred to Kill Bill: Vol 1 as "one of" the greatest action films ever made." This movie is THE greatest action film ever made. It's not even close.
	Magic Mike XXL (2015) | If you've seen the first movie, forget it. Totally different vibe. This is a feelgood road trip movie about the power of forgiveness, friendship, and sexy dancing. If you aren't convinced, please watch this beautiful scene in which a bunch of guys on MDMA encourage their friend (also on MDMA) to go improvise a sexy dance to make a sad-looking gas station worker smile. Look how stoked they are for their bro. This is a beautiful movie, I will not be taking questions.
	The Truman Show (1998) | Truman has a perfectly normal life. He has a steady job, a lovely wife, a nice house, and a lifelong best friend. Also, Truman's entire town is a television studio and everyone in it is an actor, having been raised his entire life as the unknowing star of a television show. One day, a massive filming light crashes to the ground from seemingly nowhere, kicking off a series of events that have Truman questioning his entire existence. I am emotional.
	Videodrome (1983)| A television producer comes across a pirate snuff channel and becomes obsessed with it. Things get weird. A local indie theater showed this a few months back and the next day I ordered a CRT TV on ebay.
	Batman Forever (1995) | OKAY LOOK. I have heard all kinds of criticisms of this movie, and I can tell you that with exactly zero exceptions, NONE of those criticisms have been legitimate, because they were ALL coming from a place of assuming that the things they were talking about were unintentional. And I'm sorry, but no. This movie is a masterwork of camp, and understands more about the technicolor near-dystopia of 90s Gotham city. Literally there is a part of this movie where a guy fakes a suicide note for his boss, assuring the police that they'll "find it matches his handwriting perfectly, as well as sentence structure and spelling," and then the note literally reads: To: Whom It May Concern. From: Fred Stickley Re: My suicide GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD! Yours Sincerely, F.S. That doesn't happen by accident, friends. It just doesn't.
	The Thing (1982) | Body horror scifi royalty starring Kurt Russel at his second-hottest. A group of researchers in Antarctica cross paths with an extraterrestrial creature that takes the form of, y'know, like, them. The guys. And the dog. Well, it starts as a dog. Is that a spoiler? I dunno, if you've made it this far without knowing what The Thing (1982) is about, I'm not sure what to tell you.
	Wayne's World (1992) | A couple of guys with a cable access show get syndicated, which is bad, actually. This has been my favorite movie for literally my entire life.
	Best In Show (2000) | A beautiful mockumentary about a (fictional) dog show, and some of the more colorful personalities showing their dogs. My biggest endorsement for this movie is that, despite knowing full well that it was a movie and that none of these people were actual contestants in an actual dog show, I still got very invested in rooting for one of the contestants.
	the Fifth Element (1997) | An incredible sci-fi action movie that I honestly don't know how to describe in a way that would do it justice.
	Event Horizon (1997) | In this scifi-horror gem, a deep-space resserach vessel with the purported ability to bend space-time (for faster transport across the galaxy) has just resurfaced after disappearing seven years earlier. The ship has sent out a distress signal, consisting mostly of horriffic screams. A rescue crew, joined by the man who designed the ship, sets out to respond to the signal. They don't have a great time. When I was still in elementary school, my biodad let me watch this movie over and over again during one of my visits to his house, which was a Bad Parenting Decision. That said, this movie holds a great deal of responsibility for my love of horror, and despite having watched it at least once or twice a year for ~25ish years, there are parts that still kinda get to me. Wild.
	Poltergeist (1982) | A little girl is abducted into her television by some otherworldly entities.
	Hackers (1995) | A bunch of teenage hackers accidentally discover that this skeevy corpo tech guy is planning to basically destroy the world and blame it on hackers so he can make bank off the ensuing chaos, aaand they have to stop him. I love this movie. They had to try to figure out a way to take a movie about computers and make it feel like an action movie, and they succeeded. I love it. Also, shout out to 90's Matthew Lillard, gotta be one of my favorite genders.
	Mystery Men (1999) | When a local supervillain is released from the asylum and captures the town's favorite superhero, a bunch of wannabe heroes have to band together to save the city. This is another one of those movies that gets a lot of crap from people who don't know what camp is. Whatever.
	Silent Hill (2006) | A woman takes her adopted daughter to the abandoned town that the daughter has nightmares about, hoping to resolve the issue. When her daughter goes missing after a car accident, the mother finds herself in a hellscape of creatures and cultists, and has to face both in spades to find her daughter. The design and choreography for the creatures in this movie is just *chef kiss*. No notes. Do NOT watch the sequel if you enjoy movies that are good.
	Clown (2014) | A man finds a clown costume in a trunk at a house he's... working on? Selling? I don't remember, anyway he finds the clown costume and puts it on to surprise his son on his birthday. Fun is had. And then, the next day, he wakes up still in the suit and finds that he can't remove it. Because it isn't a suit. It is actually the skin of a creature that eats children, and he's beginning to turn into one. Oh boy.
	Suicide Club (2001) A popular girl group. An epidemic of mass suicides. A mysterious roll of human skin. An ominous website. A narcissistic glam rock sadist. This movie is so weird. I love it. Also it's got Ryo Ishibashi (of Audition), who I continue to be So Normal about.
	What We Do in the Shadows (2014) | A mockumentary about a group of affable vampires. I've never seen the show.
	The Menu (2022) | Eat the rich, y'all.
	Hereditary (2018) | A woman attempting to cope with the death of her mother and the accidental death of her young daughter (for which her teen son was responsible) meets a kind, superstitious woman at a grief support group who helps her speak to her daughter's spirit. Shit gets weird.
	It Follows (2014) | A constant pursuer, which never stops hunting, and is spread by sexual contact. My favorite thing about this movie is that, according to the creators, the answer to any quesiton you might have about how the monster works or anything else is "the scariest answer you can think of."
	Tusk (2014) | Okay, back in 2015, my buddy described this movie as "a guy gets turned into a walrus." And while, yes, that is what happens, the way he'd worded it made me assume that it was some kind of magical/supernatural transormation. Which meant that I spent another five years not watching one of the greatest body horror films I've ever seen, because I didn't know it was body horror. Ugh. Anyway, this movie is about a guy that gets turned into a walrus. His name is Wallace.
	Escape From New York (1981) | New York has been cut off from the rest of the world and turned into a prison, where anyone who does any kind of crime is sent forever and ever. On a probably not unrelated note, a group of terrorists hijack the president's plane and he ejects himself and crashes into, well, Crime City. Fortunately, infamous mercenary(?) Snake Plissken (Kurt Russel at his hottest) is about to be sent to New York for like, Mercenary reasons. Instead, the military offers him a deal: go in, save the president, and we'll scrub your record. This movie has everything. There's a car with chandeliers as headlights. There's a wrestling match (sort-of). There's a drag revue singing a jaunty song about crime at the theater. It's everything.
	Host (2020) | A seance taking place over Zoom goes awry. I can't praise this movie enough for its incredible use of format.
	Imprint (2006) | Another Masters of Horror episode, this one by Takashi Miike (of Audition). An American man travels to Japanese Brothel Island to find the love of his life, who he'd promised to come back for. Instead, he finds another woman who offers to tell him what happened to his love. Turns out: nothing good. And then shit gets weird.
	American Mary (2012) | A broke medical student is raped by her professor at a party. She starts using her medical training to help some local crime dudes, which then turns into her performing extreme body modification for customers who pay incredibly well. She practices these modifications on her (kidnapped) creep professor. Is it weird that this is one of my comfort movies? That might be a little weird.
	The Silence of the Lambs (1991) | An FBI trainee is tasked with interviewing notorious serial killer and cannibal, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, to get his feedback on a current case, involving a man who kidnaps plus-size women and skins them. She winds up working the case herself, due to Dr. Lecter's insistence to only speak with her. There aren't a lot of movies I would consider literally perfect, but I also can't think of a single change I would make to this movie.
	Sick Nurses (2007) | This is a Thai movie about a group of nurses who sell dead bodies on the black market under the instruction of a handsome doctor. When one of the nurses finds out that the doctor (her fiance) has been having an affair with her sister (another one of the nurses), she threatens to tell the authorities about their black market business, and the group murders her. And then her spirit kills the nurses by preying on their various character flaws. Note: This is the one movie on here where I feel like I need to give a content warning that is inherently a spoiler. Highlight the following for that: The reveal in this movie is transmisogynistic: it turns out that the nurse was previously a male best friend and lover of the handsome doctor, whose internalized homophobia kept him from committing to their relationship. As such, his friend transitioned into a woman so the two of them could marry. And then the doctor goes and gets her sister knocked up, and that brings us to the inciting incident. (end spoiler)
	The Boondock Saints (1999) | I don't know how to describe this movie, here's the Wikipedia description: [This movie] follows Irish fraternal twin brothers Connor and Murphy MacManus who become vigilantes after killing two members of the Russian mafia in self defense. After both experience an epiphany, the twins, together with their best friend "Funny Man" Rocco, set out on a mission to rid Boston of the criminal underworld in the name of God, all the while being pursued by FBI Special Agent Paul Smecker It's frankly stupid how good this movie is.
	The Cabin in the Woods (2011) | If you don't know, go in blind.
	Get Out (2017) | A young Black man meets his white girlfriend's family for the first time, and things get even weirder than you might expect.
	Party Monster (2003) | This movie is an adaptation of the book "Disco Bloodbath: A Fabulous but True Tale of Murder in Clubland" (later renamed "Party Monster"), a memoir by celebutante and former Club Kid, James St. James. The book and the film both chronicle life in the club scene of the late 80s and early 90's, focused primarily on the rise of St. James' mentee/friend/rival Michael Alig and Alig's eventual murder and dismemberment of fellow club kid and drug dealer Angel Melendez. The summer between 5th and 6th grade, I was often tasked with staying up with my baby sibling, and for a while there Party Monster was on Starz every night at like 10pm. I watched it over and over (and over) and I think it must be at least partially responsible for my general faggotry and gender nonsense.
	Mayhem (2017) | I'll be real with you. If this movie didn't heavily feature Steven YeunIRRESPONSIBLY HOT sweaty and covered in blood, it would probably be like... 3.5 stars. I'm not apologizing for this, just being transparent.

last updated mar 9, 2025