• The Last Battle (1983)
  Luc Besson's first feature film, a post-apocalyptic vision in which the few survivors lost the ability to speak. Gripping images and mesmerizing acting with almost zero special effects. Yes, before he became the pope of mass-produced B-movie action, Besson was a revolutionary. I thought the film was strongly misogynist, though, with the only two women as mere trophies for the men, without own initiative. Which is rather change when considering the prominence of strong female leads in Besson's later career.

• Lucy (2014)
  In Besson's latest, Scarlett Johansson plays a party girl who slowly turns into a near-omnipotent and omniscient being due to a mind-boosting drug. The "X percent of brain capacity" pseudo-science is annoying, and there is mass-produced action, but the special effects are beautiful.

• Days of Glory (2006)
  A film about the forgotten African soldiers of de Gaulle's Free French army in WWII (who actually made up two-thirds of the force). The first half-hour or so is slow, episodic, and slightly boring as in introduces the main cast. But in retrospect I thought this is actually effective later, when the denial of a front leave for the African soldiers becomes a main issue. The all-pervasiveness of racist discrimination slowly creeps into picture, peaking in the self-hating half-Arab officer. The Arab soldiers are portrayed as each believing the French Dream of liberté, égalité, fraternité, with more or less naivety. For the climax, I expected something sentimental, instead, I found it unremittingly cruel when the soldiers don't get the credit for their action (the scene with the weak clapping of the civilians stayed with me).

• The Saragossa Manuscript (1965)
  A three-hour classic from Poland based on a book from the Napoleon-era (hat tip to melvin for the recommendation). It is notable for its frame story structure: a story within a story within a story etc., and the disparate stories begin to connect towards the end.  The stories themselves are not too deep, centred around the obsessions of a decadent aristocrat. In particular, we have a mix of early-1800s and 1960s erotic fantasies about Muslims, which are rather weird when seen from the present. But the most memorable scene for me was at the start when the enemy officers send away their underlings to jointly read a book they found.

• 12 Years A Slave (2013)
  I was afraid that this movie will give me nothing new, just rage at the injustice. But there was stuff that captured me: the slaves differentiating between themselves, the role of religion in the master–slave relationship, the emotional damage the masters suffered. Also, while the film includes invented scenes, some that got me wondering turned out to have been historical.

• Memento (2000)
  Christopher Nolan's breakthrough film about a man with short-term memory loss. He really did the trick with telling a story backwards, but he chose such a cruel story with such unsympathetic characters that I omitted a second viewing, thank you.

• Flags Of Our Fathers (2006)
  I saw the other in Clint Eastwood's pair of movies about the Battle of Iwo Jima, Letters From Iwo Jima, when it came out, and I found this story about the reality and the propaganda behind the most famous war photo from the Pacific pretty good, too. I must admit I never knew the tragic real story behind the name Ira Hayes. What's sad is that with American Sniper, Clint Eastwood now made a movie that interprets the sniper of an invasion/occupation army killing locals as a hero (no word about what the killing is all about, and no pictures of sniping at ambulances and civilians like in Fallujah), and I doubt Eastwood will ever make a pair to that movie from the Iraqi, even "insurgent" viewpoint.

• Fair Game (2010)
  Sean Penn and Naomi Watts as Joseph C. Wilson and Valerie Plame. As a whole, I found this a weak film, be it due to the uninspired directing or because I already knew most of the story. However, it brought back the terror of the poisoned jingoism of the Dubya era: even with all the propaganda and web trolls today, IMHO it's not as bad in English-language areas as it was then. Also, the film's focus was on Wilson's obsessive quest to defeat the regime"'s character assassination with the truth brought the marriage to the brink, and the two lead actors managed to bring that across.

• The Company You Keep (2013)
  Robert Redford's thriller/road movie about fugitive Weather Underground men and women getting into the FBI's sight. Lots of elder actors with lots of screen presence, but for me the concept was a too cowardly approach of a 'controversial' subject: we get a family drama with the more edgy political stuff (the ideology, the revolutionary delusion in its separation from public support, the justifications for political violence, the police state, the jingoism, the selective justice of the state) made into a sideshow to a family drama, and Cointelpro was omitted. The film also distorts history (no one was killed by active Weathermen and the FBI stopped going after them).

• The last three Harry Potter movies (2009–2011)
  The one thing that captivated me in the earlier instalments of this franchise was Alan Rickman's character. So I was rather pleased to find that it became a tragic central character fit for an opera, and there was a reason Rowling asked Rickman for the part. Other than that, I thought the films also managed to 'grow up' with the main characters, but not enough, and some scenes could have been much more with better directing.

• Pacific Ring (2013)
  Giant robot fights giant monster appearing from the sea: Godzilla redux? Well that's the first few minutes. Then fast forward a few years when the robots are worn and losing the battle. An interesting twist, but unfortunately the end of the storyline is more traditional.

• Message From Space (1976)
  I saw this on TV one Saturday afternoon when I was about 7 or 8, and tried to find it for a very long time. A space opera, the story is absolutely mindless, but it has landmark special effects. This film is called the "Japanese answer to Star Wars, but the weird thing is that some of the most similar stuff are pre-dates the American movies: the chase across an asteroid belt in The Empire Strikes Back or the flight through the inside of a giant spaceship from The Return Of The Jedi.

• The Funeral (1984)
  A family gathering for the funeral of the grandfather, with family members revealing all kinds of hypocrisies. What the film achieved is a blend of subdued comedy and serious drama/character study. It was the directional début and first major success of Juzo Itami, a dominant figure in Japanese film in the 1980s.

• Tampopo (1985)
  Itami's next, and most well-known, work is a hilarious comedy about a widow running a ramen [Japanese noodles soup] shop who gathers a strange team of advisers for improving the shop. The main story is broken by various stories about food with other characters, with a bit of Monthy Python feeling. (The film had several re-runs on public TVs I can access but I always missed the start and even snippets convinced me I should watch from the start.)

• A Taxing Woman (1987)
  Itami's third film is about a tax investigator going after a real estate shark. It is labelled a comedy, but IMHO it is much more of a serious drama, and pretty good at that. I found it a defining portrait of a Japan now long gone: the thoroughly corrupt Japan of the 1980s real estate bubble. (The film also has an IMHO very much inferior sequel, A Taxing Woman's Return, but that film was at least daring in attacking religious sects, years before Aum Shinrikyo gave occasion to public criticisms of religious groups.)

• The Anti-Extortion Woman (1992)
  This is not your usual yakuza movie. In this Itami comedy, while the gangsters are scary and violent like in other movies, the story doesn't bother much with their honour code, and shows them as basically stupid and uncouth tricksters. The film is also a how-to manual for businesses on how to get rid of the yakuza (on the example of a hotel). The real yakuza were furious and Itami got subjected to a severe beating. He was undeterred and was about to film another yakuza-themed movie when he died in an apparent suicide jump. A few years later a yakuza told a journalist that the suicide was staged by his gang.

• Outrage (2010)
  Takeshi Kitano (of Hana-bi fame) returned to the yakuza genre with this film about a gang war. IMHO Kitano focused too much on explicit violence, to the extent that it takes away from the film's otherwise interesting themes: the sacred honour code is hollow in the eyes of scheming bosses (it is feigned to trick opponents or demanded to force people onto a suicidal path), and an apparently powerless and corrupt police can rein in the mob with a little manipulation.

• Beyond Outrage (2012)
  The sequel to Outrage is like its anti-thesis: gone is the explicit violence, and a yakuza following the honour code defeats the victorious boss of the previous film, as well as the scheming police officer.

• Sumo Do, Sumo Don't (1992)
  A story about a university sumo club with a pretty standard sports genre script (misfits pull themselves together and achieve victory). The characters and situation comedy are especially hilarious, however.

• Shall We Dance? (1996)
  A bored salaryman joins a Western dance course, initially to get near a teacher, but then dancing changes his life as it does that of his classmates. That's a short summary for a long but strong sentimental film made special by the fact that couples dancing together was against traditional Japanese customs. (There is a re-make starring Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez which I shall avoid.)

• Departures (2008)
  This is an absolutely stunning film. It is about a failed cellist ending up in the profession of an "encoffiner", someone who, in the place and in front of the family of the deceased, conducts the preparing and placing of corpses into a coffin as a ritual ceremony (one not widely known and practised even across Japan). The idea is that the ritual gives dignity to the dead and solace to the bereaved. The film was the brainchild of the main actor, and he and the actor playing his mentor (incidentally, the male lead in Tampopo) have a big part in both getting that across and making a film about the dead watch-able.

• Grave Of The Fireflies (1987)
  Japanese anime is not restricted to films for children and families, and this tragic story about war orphans surviving the fire-bombing of Kobe but eventually dying of malnourishment is rather adult material. It is also one of, if not the best anime, and I can't find fault with any of the praise I read heaped on it before I finally saw it.

• My Neighbour Totoro (1987)
  A story with not much of a story about two sisters who move into the countryside and befriend a nature god dwelling on the neighbouring hill. At least half of any proper top ten list of best anime should be works of Hayao Miyazaki, and critics usually name this one as his best. (Personally I am still partial to Spirited Away.)

• Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)
  Miyazaki's next film was, like most of his work, magical steampunk: a young witch from the countryside moves into a big city with cars and airships and finds work doing deliveries. The setting was modelled on Swedish cities. From Japanese films, anime and manga, it is my impression that, in spite of the much stronger historical ties, Europe had a greater cultural impact on Japan than the USA, and a fascination with the diversity of historical European architecture has a great part in that.

• Porco Rosso (1992)
  Another Miyazaki magical steampunk: at the time of the rise of fascism but in a world dominated by hydroplanes, we get a story of chivalric pilots in the Adriatic Sea. I thought the setting will be Italy, but most of the story actually takes place along the Croatian coast, with maps showing place-names all familiar to me (though re-juggled). I read the darker rise of fascism setting was brought in due to the Yugoslaw Wars. It's also notable that Miyazaki managed to capture the light-hearted spirit of 1950s Italian films.

• Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
  After Chihiro, Miyazaki made yet another magical steampunk movie with a European-inspired setting (this time the Alsace) about a wizard trying to sabotage a WWI-style war fought with outlandish flapping aeroplanes. It's as ambitious as any other Miyazaki work, but I saw a lot of elements resembling those of his earlier works.

• Royal Space Force: The Wings Of Honnêamise (1988)
  This landmark non-magical steampunk tells an alternative story of man's first flight into space: there is no space race, just one project in one country that is stagnating at the start and then turns serious, but there are competing militaristic great powers resembling WWI-time Europe, and the governments are only interested in the possible military aspects of the project. Yet, the first spaceflight still manages to transpire all that. This is another anime for adults, and a stunning amount of creativity went into it. The weird part is the prominent role given to an invented religion modelled on pacifist versions of Christianity.

• 5 Centimeters Per Second (2007)
  A film about separating from loved ones: three episodes in the life of a boy who kept dreaming of his childhood sweetheart. The animation is absolutely stunning and hyper-detailed, and captures beauty in real settings. (I checked some locations on Google Street View.) This film could have been made as a live-action film but I guess it would have been too difficult to capture all the right lights.

I'm drawn to the Miyamoto series. That for me is all that I need of the superhero genre. Rashomon, Sanjuro, Yojimbo are some others that I like to re-view occasionally. Dreams had several vignettes with superbly executed surprise twists.

There were several films with post-war settings that caught me, too. One of them - though I'm not sure that it was a Kurosawa film - was about a local bureaucracy where the head of a department tries to rediscover his humanity before he dies by standing up for building of a small park that the local citizens requested. He dies, and the other members of his department get drunk at his wake and promise to follow his example. Then the following workday they are back to reviewing documents and passing them to the next bureaucrat around the staff table, never accomplishing anything. Rather pessimistic, but the park does get built.

paul spencer