1980s

At first glance, The Elephant Man does not hold to David Lynch’s usual trademark of dreamlike narrative structures, and yet a dark thread of surrealism nevertheless emerges in this gorgeously photographed biopic of the severely deformed John Merrick, locating the true key to his dignified self-acceptance through the hypnotic landscape of his own mind.

For all of Akira Kurosawa’s jaw-dropping historical battles staged with colourful splendour and imposing characters that fill out Ran’s immense narrative, at its core is a seething bitterness towards humanity’s existential isolation, propelling the dramatic power struggles between three jealous brothers in feudal Japan.

David Cronenberg’s blending of intellectual musings on modern mass media with grotesque body horror makes Videodrome’s dire warnings all the more visceral, robbing brainwashed individuals of their humanity by fusing them with the technology they have become reliant on, and marking a triumphant success in transgressive genre filmmaking for the young auteur.

There is soulful inspiration found in two old friends simply sharing food and conversation in My Dinner with Andre, compensating for a lack of cinematic panache with a hearty, three-course meal of provocative screenwriting, and representing humanity’s conflicting desires for grand meaning and simple pleasures within the most common of modern-day settings.

It is only fitting that the melancholy lament of changing historical eras in Heaven’s Gate would be reflected in a film so often blamed for ending the New Hollywood movement, and yet time has been kind to this historical box-office bomb, where Michael Cimino skilfully stages an epic Western confrontation between the landowners and European immigrants of late 19th century Wyoming.

Armed with a penchant for riveting visual storytelling, the Coen Brothers deliver a neo-noir vision of Texas in Blood Simple made up of grimy, low-lit bars and fatefully botched murders, navigating this moral wasteland with profuse dramatic irony and an omniscient perspective that seeks to understand its place in a godless universe.