2000s

Though the title I Killed My Mother explicitly refers to Hubert’s lie that his titular parent is dead, it also becomes apparent that this is something she painfully experiences every single day, revealing a remarkably mature voice in 19-year-old director Xavier Dolan who radiates these complex character dynamics out into a neatly composed visual style…

Classical Hollywood filmmaker Howard Hughes is the tragic centrepiece of Martin Scorsese’s treatise on an industry that is both extravagantly pioneering and detrimentally obsessive, and in its Technicolor experimentations, The Aviator fully recognises both sides of this glamorous culture and the bright-minded pioneer it consumed.

As David Fincher’s pressing darkness infiltrates the crevices of the claustrophobic townhouse in Panic Room, so too does he send three thieves inside with the intention of stealing its hidden treasure, with the camera’s exhilarating, omniscient perspective instilling in us an even greater dread than any single character experiences alone.

The Departed’s intricate construction of double-crosses and manipulations propels its gripping narrative forward with impeccable pacing, teasing out the parallels between an undercover cop and a criminal spy hellbent on uncovering each other’s identities, and yet in Martin Scorsese’s sly formal motifs there remains a nihilistic despair that these opposing forces may just cancel each…

Though it mourns the souls of the deceased in the way its title suggests, Requiem for a Dream even more fully evokes a nightmare of disorientating maximalism that oversees a total degradation of humanity, as Darren Aronofsky draws on the existential horror of drug addiction in his aggressive editing to pessimistically conjure up an ensemble…