| 1. The Tree of Life | Terrence Malick | 2011 |
| 2. Roma | Alfonso Cuarón | 2018 |
| 3. The Turin Horse | Béla Tarr | 2011 |
| 4. Dunkirk | Christopher Nolan | 2017 |
| 5. The Master | Paul Thomas Anderson | 2012 |
| 6. The Revenant | Alejandro Iñárritu | 2015 |
| 7. Birdman | Alejandro Iñárritu | 2014 |
| 8. Cold War | Paweł Pawlikowski | 2018 |
| 9. La La Land | Damien Chazelle | 2016 |
| 10. Melancholia | Lars von Trier | 2011 |
| 11. Ida | Paweł Pawlikowski | 2013 |
| 12. Mad Max: Fury Road | George Miller | 2015 |
| 13. The Grand Budapest Hotel | Wes Anderson | 2014 |
| 14. Vitalina Varela | Pedro Costa | 2019 |
| 15. Inside Llewyn Davis | The Coen Brothers | 2013 |
| 16. Midsommar | Ari Aster | 2019 |
| 17. About Endlessness | Roy Andersson | 2019 |
| 18. The Favourite | Yorgos Lanthimos | 2018 |
| 19. Moonrise Kingdom | Wes Anderson | 2012 |
| 20. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood | Quentin Tarantino | 2019 |
| 21. The Social Network | David Fincher | 2010 |
| 22. Inception | Christopher Nolan | 2010 |
| 23. Parasite | Bong Joon-ho | 2019 |
| 24. Black Swan | Darren Aronofsky | 2010 |
| 25. The Handmaiden | Park Chan-wook | 2016 |
| 26. Shame | Steve McQueen | 2011 |
| 27. Ad Astra | James Gray | 2019 |
| 28. Blade Runner 2049 | Denis Villeneuve | 2017 |
| 29. Columbus | Koganada | 2017 |
| 30. Moonlight | Barry Jenkins | 2016 |
| 31. The Irishman | Martin Scorsese | 2019 |
| 32. Waves | Trey Edward Shults | 2019 |
| 33. Burning | Lee Chang-dong | 2018 |
| 34. Whiplash | Damien Chazelle | 2014 |
| 35. First Reformed | Paul Schrader | 2017 |
| 36. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence | Roy Andersson | 2014 |
| 37. A Hidden Life | Terrence Malick | 2019 |
| 38. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives | Apichatpong Weerasetkul | 2010 |
| 39. 1917 | Sam Mendes | 2019 |
| 40. Mr. Turner | Mike Leigh | 2014 |
| 41. Son of Saul | László Nemes | 2015 |
| 42. Enemy | Denis Villeneuve | 2013 |
| 43. Long Day’s Journey Into Night | Bi Gan | 2018 |
| 44. Under the Skin | Jonathan Glazer | 2013 |
| 45. Little Women | Greta Gerwig | 2019 |
| 46. Marriage Story | Noah Baumbach | 2019 |
| 47. Hereditary | Ari Aster | 2018 |
| 48. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse | Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman | 2018 |
| 49. Holy Motors | Leos Carax | 2012 |
| 50. Twin Peaks: The Return | David Lynch | 2017 |
| 51. Gravity | Alfonso Cuarón | 2013 |
| 52. The Great Beauty | Paolo Sorrentino | 2013 |
| 53. We Need to Talk About Kevin | Lynne Ramsey | 2011 |
| 54. Only God Forgives | Nicolas Winding Refn | 2013 |
| 55. Call Me By Your Name | Luca Guadagnino | 2017 |
| 56. Good Time | The Safdie Brothers | 2017 |
| 57. Django Unchained | Quentin Tarantino | 2012 |
| 58. Paterson | Jim Jarmusch | 2016 |
| 59. Gone Girl | David Fincher | 2014 |
| 60. The Dark Knight Rises | Christopher Nolan | 2012 |
| 61. 12 Years a Slave | Steve McQueen | 2013 |
| 62. The Lighthouse | Robert Eggers | 2019 |
| 63. The Grandmaster | Wong Kar-wai | 2013 |
| 64. The Deep Blue Sea | Terence Davies | 2011 |
| 65. Certified Copy | Abbas Kiarostami | 2010 |
| 66. Drive | Nicolas Winding Refn | 2011 |
| 67. The Assassin | Hou Hsiao-hsien | 2015 |
| 68. Phantom Thread | Paul Thomas Anderson | 2017 |
| 69. Victoria | Sebastian Schipper | 2015 |
| 70. Mommy | Xavier Dolan | 2014 |
| 71. The Neon Demon | Nicolas Winding Refn | 2016 |
| 72. Lincoln | Steven Spielberg | 2012 |
| 73. Widows | Steve McQueen | 2018 |
| 74. Laurence Anyways | Xavier Dolan | 2012 |
| 75. The Shape of Water | Guillermo del Toro | 2017 |
| 76. Before Midnight | Richard Linklater | 2013 |
| 77. Climax | Gaspar Noé | 2018 |
| 78. Spring Breakers | Harmony Korine | 2012 |
| 79. Snowpiercer | Bong Joon-ho | 2013 |
| 80. The Ghost Writer | Roman Polanski | 2010 |
| 81. Boyhood | Richard Linklater | 2014 |
| 82. Blue Valentine | Derek Cianfrance | 2010 |
| 83. Carol | Todd Haynes | 2015 |
| 84. Interstellar | Christopher Nolan | 2014 |
| 85. The Lobster | Yorgos Lanthimos | 2015 |
| 86. Portrait of a Lady on Fire | Céline Sciamma | 2019 |
| 87. Her | Spike Jonze | 2013 |
| 88. Only Lovers Left Alive | Jim Jarmusch | 2013 |
| 89. Swallow | Carlo Mirabella-Davis | 2019 |
| 90. Jackie | Pablo Larraín | 2016 |
| 91. The Scott Pilgrim vs. the World | Edgar Wright | 2010 |
| 92. A Separation | Asghar Farhadi | 2011 |
| 93. Frances Ha | Noah Baumbach | 2012 |
| 94. Tale of Tales | Matteo Garrone | 2015 |
| 95. Skyfall | Sam Mendes | 2012 |
| 96. Silence | Martin Scorsese | 2016 |
| 97. True Grit | The Coen Brothers | 2010 |
| 98. If Beale Street Could Talk | Barry Jenkins | 2018 |
| 99. Uncut Gems | The Safdie Brothers | 2019 |
| 100. Joker | Todd Phillips | 2019 |
Have you seen Twin Peaks: The Return yet? (I’m currently on Part 11)
If not, I’d highly recommend you at least watch Part 8 in isolation. I haven’t seen anyone who uses The Cinema Archives’ system give an individual episode a grade yet, and I would love to see your review.
I haven’t yet, first I will need to prioritise a rewatch of season 1 and then get through season 2. It may take some time but I would like to get to The Return eventually.
Part 8 can work in isolation if you don’t have the patience for the rest. It’s a myth that Season 2 is mostly bad, it actually has some of the best episodes of the show. I know the consensus is that Part 8 is peak Twin Peaks, but I would still pick the Season 2 finale.
Will you review the original show when you finish it?
I’m not too sure yet – it’s possible I will, but this may be a project for next year.
Do you know of any other tv shows that have impressed you from a cinematic style perspective? For me, its only Twin Peaks (and even then only certain episodes and scenes), but I’ve only seen a few shows. I’ve never seen Breaking Bad.
Largely auteur-driven shows. There’s been a good number in recent years – The Underground Railroad, Small Axe, Copenhagen Cowboy, or more recently Ripley. Going back further, Kieslowski’s Dekalog is pretty remarkable.
I’m not a expert on Twin Peaks by any means. But I would recommend you skip Season 2 and go straight from Season 1 to Season 3(or The Return). Lynch’s involvement is minimal in that season barring 2-3 episodes and there are like 18 episodes in total. The Return is the one to prioritize.
I would definitely watch every Lynch-directed episode of the first two seasons (there are 6), ESPECIALLY the series finale (of the original). As for the rest of the show, this guy I think summarizes the quality pretty well.
Twin Peaks Review
This blog I think summarizes the quality of the show quite well:
https://www.alternateending.com/2017/06/twin-peaks-1990-1991-2017.html
(I accidentally made a duplicate)
I really struggle with Nolan, Birdman, and La La Land. Don’t get me wrong, I really like all three. But you have Birdman and La La Land as not just masterpieces, but some of the biggest masterpieces of all time, and I’m just not there. On a frame by frame level, neither those two films nor Nolan have the kind of compositions and images that I expect from a masterpiece. They all seem to have a habit for careless staging. It almost seems to me that their blur of movement (editing or camera) obscures some weakness moment by moment. Again, in no universe are they bad. I just really struggle with the tremendous regard other haves for them.