One common narrative about present-day mainstream (US) cinema is that it is too fast and shallow. The average shot-length of a Hollywood action-film is around 2 seconds. There is no time allotted to let the mind rest, it’s all constant action; fast editing, short shots, loud music and a lot of special effects. Now the meaning of the value of those films can all be debated, but it’s clear that mainstream cinema has gotten faster over the years. Such mainstream films often don’t demand anything from the viewer, no introspection of what is shown on screen, instead they are an almost desperate attempt to keep the viewers attention at all times in an era where there are many other distractions.

Slow cinema has often gone hand in hand with an appreciation for the symbolic and a love for the cinematic language. Slower films tend to become transcendental experiences, their demand of the viewer is part of what makes the film so rewarding, if done well. If, however, the filmmakers makes demands of the watcher but does not offer anything special a film can become extremely frustrating. A slow (and lengthy) film therefore has to go the extra mile.

It is therefore not to say that slower or more demanding cinema is inherently better. It is not., it just has different merits. Slow cinema works well for filmmakers and watchers that are interested in contemplative or existential cinema; that want to be taken on a meditative journey and like to have the space to think during a film. For those watchers here are ten masterpieces that you should not miss.

10. Solaris (1972)

Director Andrei Tarkovsky might be one of the most notoriously slow filmmakers. Tarkovsky’s films are characterised by their meditative pace, and often exhibit a dreamy quality. He tends to shoot movies according to an intuitive logic that demands the viewer to let go of standard film expectations, and instead let themselves float away in his highly symbolic and gorgeously shot scenes. ‘Solaris’ sees an astronaut go to a strange planet, consisting of a sea, where the previous crew has gone mad.

More so than director Tarkovsky’s other famous sci-fi work ‘Stalker’, ‘Solaris’ really takes its own pace and does not take the viewer by the hand. The film is a beautiful sometimes scary and often puzzling ride. It is not often that alien intelligence is portrayed as actually so very alien to our own way of thinking. Another must-watch for fans of slower cinema, and another classic from director Tarkovsky.

9. Harakiri (1962)

In 17th century Japan peace means the end of the usefulness of samurai. Without a purpose, one way to go out honourably is ritual suicide: hara-kiri. An old samurai (Tatsuya Nakadai) arrives at a clan’s house asking to be able to perform this ritual, but the clan doubts his seriousness, and tells him the story of another samurai that asked for the same thing last year.

‘Harakiri’ is a film about honour. Slowly but steadily the story unfolds itself, each time revealing more information about what actually happened. It asks difficult questions; what is honour truly, taking care for your family if it means abandoning sacred rituals and moral codes? Director Masaki Kobayashi shoots ‘Harakiri’ deliberately, with steady and well-placed shots, and takes a long time to build up his story and themes ending in an explosive conclusion. The film is a clear influence on Spaghetti-Westerns, with its duelling scenes, has inspired more action-oriented filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, and at the same time functions as a cinema masterpiece not afraid to ask difficult questions.

8. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011)

Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan (‘Three Monkeys’, ‘Winter Sleep’) is a Turkish director interested in existential themes, and prefers long takes, characters talking and a meditative pace. It is not surprising he is influenced by directors like Andrei Tarkovsky, Yasujiro Ozu and Michelangelo Antonioni. ‘Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’ tells the story of a group of policemen and doctors going out to the Anatolian countryside to find the body of a murder victim, but the suspect doesn’t remember the exact hiding place.

There is a lot of Tarkovsky in how the discussions of the men, stuck together for a day and a night, show the different viewpoints surrounding the themes director Ceylan wants to address. The children paying for the sins of the parents is an important one in ‘Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’, but also the complex and fleeting idea of ‘truth’. The film is shot as to be expected by director Ceylan, in long slow takes with a lot of attention to the setting and many Tarkovsky-esque symbolic shots. Beautiful, slowly unfolding drama from a filmmaker currently at the height of his prowess.

7. Love Streams (1984)

One of, if not the most, impenetrable film by director John Cassavetes. The multitalented filmmaker also plays one of the main characters, Robert Harmon, and the bad state of Cassavetes health adds to the character. It would be the last film he directed. ‘Love Streams’ tells the story of a brother Robert (Cassavetes) and a sister Sarah (Gena Rowland, Cassavetes wife and frequent collaborator) both lost in life and bereft of love. Robert is a miserable drunk who frequently pays prostitutes but pushes every real connection away, and Sarah relentlessly needs love from both ex-husband and her own daughter who is pushed away by her mental state.

‘Love Streams’ is a film which does everything slightly different. When an ex-wife drops of Robert’s supposed son, it’s not a story of reconnection. In fact Robert seems incapable to take care of anything including himself. Many scenes might have been played for laughs in other films, but in ‘Love Streams’ they’re just enormously tragic. It’s not a film with redemption arcs and has two thoroughly unlikeable, if pitiable, characters in the middle. Add to that little flourishes that director Cassavetes adds, like sudden jump cuts and abrupt music which make for a jarring effect, and you have a though demanding watch on your hands. ‘Love Streams’ is as unlikeable as its main characters, but it is a rich film for those who dare thread its waters. It goes to those corners of the human mind and human experience that we rather not visit.

6. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

Director Andrew Dominik is an interesting filmmaker. He has only made three full-length feature films since 2000, and all are wildly different in style. The only real connecting thread is his interest in violent and self-destructive characters. ‘The Assassination…’ follows Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) who is obsessed with Jesse James (Brad Pitt) and becomes part of his gang. It is a story easily extrapolated to current times, mindful of the dangers of celebrity worship and idolization. Indeed Jesse James can’t live up to his fabricated image, he is a tortured and self-destructive man, and the tensions between the possessive Ford and the outlaw James grow more and more.

A special note should be made for the work of cinematographer Roger Deakins who really outdoes himself here, the train robbery scene at the beginning of the film alone offers some of the most beautiful and memorable cinematography in a long time. Cinematographer Deakins is definitely one of the main reasons that the film has such an ethereal quality to it, especially notable because ‘The Assassination…’ follows such brutish characters. It is a beautiful film about not-so beautiful, conflicted people.

The word masterpiece is thrown around mercilessly these days and a lot of pictures that don’t really amount to the actual standards of quality get labeled masterpieces by generous critics and unknowledgable audiences. Truth to be told, the definition of the word is not completely defined, nor is it universally agreed upon by film buffs of differing levels of proficiency in the seventh art.

Once upon a time, the word masterpiece was used to denote the best work in the career of an artist. Now, that is generally not the case: although some still use the word in that context, magnum opus is generally considered to be a better fit. Masterpiece, on the other hand, can be any work of art that is outstanding in all, or most, of its aspects. By that definition, a creator can make as many masterpieces as humanely possible over the course of his hopefully fruitful life.

Unlike classic, which must be held in high regard by the general public to achieve its status and is often erroneously used interchangeably with the word of our special interest today, masterpiece doesn’t have to be widely enjoyed and celebrated to achieve its status. That is why there are dozens of films that you probably never heard of that could rightfully be considered masterpieces of their respective genres and cinema in general.

Here a few carefully picked motion pictures of splendid quality that you should check out as soon as possible:

1. Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) – dir. Philip Noyce

Rabbit Proof Fence was the film that marked the filmmaking career of Peter Noyce, proving to be his most successful work to date. That’s not to say that it is a particularly well known one. Despite being Noyce’s finest work by far, it still is far from the mainstream.

Vaguely based on an actual event and the book Follow the Rabbit Fence by Doris Pilkington, the film analyzes the position of native Australians, the Aboriginals, in a white society that considers them subhuman. In particular, it concerns the fate of three girls on three run, who escaped their Anglo tormentors and are trying to come back home to their families while being chased by a force much more powerful than they are and having to navigate through the Australian outback.

It opened to welcoming reviews, almost universally so abroad, while the domestic viewers and reviewers remained more polarized, with some considering an attack on Australian nationhood, in a fashion similar to another one of the films we will feature on this list.

But even those who had moral issues with this motion picture, couldn’t deny that it was masterfully made, with every aspect of it mastered to perfection, from the cinematography to the acting and the writing.

2. The 4th Man (1983) – dir. Paul Verhoeven

We mostly remember the Dutch director Paul Verhoeven for his involvement in RoboCop, but his career in the homeland has also been a fruitful one.

The 4th Man is a gripping tale of a man suspecting his partner of being a murderer. The realization comes to him both supernaturally, through multiple visions, but also through sheer common sense that he isn’t too keen on using early on in the film.

Marked by beautiful scenery and stellar performances, but also plenty of graphic violence and excessive, prolonged scenes of sexual intercourse, it was a great hit back in the day, winning the Dutch film lovers in a heartbeat, but it also proved to be a great hit for the Americans as well, having unforeseen commercial and critical success in the United States, especially for a European, non English, motion picture.

The same couldn’t be argued about The Fourth Man nowadays. While it is not exactly the most underrated flick of all time, it is still overshadowed by more famous works of Verhoeven, and could certainly benefit from a large rediscovery by the film buffs around the world.

3. Stand and Deliver (1988) – dir. Ramon Menendez

A beautiful rendition of everything we love about the eighties, Stand and Deliver is a wonderful ode to the decade, made in the manner of the classroom greats such as Dead Poets Society, through a fantastic lens of a Latino American filmmaker Ramon Menendez, who gave the entire film a special groove.

The motion picture was largely based on the true life story of Jaime Escalante, a maths teacher who reformed the lives of students at James A. Garfield High School to the core, making the band of mostly Latino students unusually successful in mathematics. The makers of the film mostly stuck with the real life happenings, with some minor, intentional and unintentional mistakes, that don’t take away much from the story unless you are exceptionally knowledgeable about the life and work of Jaime Escalante.

It opened to favorable critical reviews, with eminent critics particularly praising the film’s jolly tone and the performance of the lead actors, most notably Edward James Olmos as the hero of the picture.. The commercial success didn’t quite match up to its critical reputation, and although film can be considered a moderate box office success when considering its budget, it still wasn’t a major blockbuster of 1988.

4. Iron Monkey (1993) – dir. Woo-Ping Yuen

The style that Yuen Woo Ping so delicately made became widely copied and parodied in martial arts cinema. Making a fruitful career as a filmmaker, choreographer, and sometimes both, he left an unerasable mark on the way we view kung fu on the silver screen.

Iron Monkey is one of his lesser known features. Famously loved by Quentin Tarantino, who secured the film’s American release (we still suggest you find the original version, though), it is a fantastic blend of comedic exaggeration and choreographic brilliance.

5. Closely Watched Trains (1966) – dir. Jiri Menzel

A chilling tale of coming of age, Closely Watched Trains explores the themes of sexuality, as well as platonic love, resistance and utterly indifferent passivity. Set in a railroad station the Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, it is one of the brightest examples of country’s post war cinema.

The success the film garnered upon its release could make it be labeled popular at the time, especially by the standards of popularity in the Eastern Block. It, among other things, won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Fifty five years have passed since, though, and now it is nothing more than an obscure little remnant of the times long past.

It’s common wisdom that a director’s best work happens midway through their career, when they’ve left behind youthful insecurities and mistakes, honed in their craft, and matured their style. It’s such a widespread belief that Quentin Tarantino claims his reason for retiring after just one more movie is precisely because he thinks late work, even from great filmmakers, is always subpar.

As with most platitudes, this one has some base in reality, since it is a fact that many filmmakers hit their stride early rather than later. However, it is also a wildly exaggerated and unquestioned belief that ignores the several examples of masterpieces that only came about in the tail end of directors’ careers.

Of those, there are a few that stand out that are frequently discussed and analysed, like Bergman’s “Fanny & Alexander” and Kurosawa’s “Ran.” But there are some that often don’t receive their due praise and this list will focus on those movies, flicks by world-renowned filmmakers who aren’t always remembered as late-career masterpieces but should be.

10. A Room in Town (1982, Jacques Demy)

Jacques Demy, perhaps more than any other director in the history of cinema (even more than American icons like Vincent Minelli and Stanley Donen), is synonymous with the movie musical. His hyper-colorful, joyful and yet ultimately melancholic style has cast an insurmountable shadow over the genre, one that has informed each subsequent attempt to create an original musical conceived for the big screen (look no further than “La La Land” to see just how relevant and present his mark on cinema still is).

“Une Chambre en Ville” is an odd beast in his canon: on one hand, it features many of his trademarks, from the heightened quality of the drama to the brightly-colored production design. But on the other, it’s also distinctly more serious in tone, with a tragic storyline and pointed social commentary. A sung-through musical (like his most famous film, “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”), “Une Chambre en Ville” takes place during a strike that is shaking up the French town of Nantes. In the midst of the turmoil, one of the workers falls in love with the daughter of his landlady, a troubled middle-class woman trapped in an abusive relationship.

This was an extremely difficult production to get off the ground for Demy: it took more than 30 years to actually become a movie, mainly because the filmmaker was continually met with refusal by some of his key collaborators, including Catherine Deneuve and composer Michel Legrand (who apparently resented the movie’s political themes). That may help to explain why the finished product feels different from the rest of his filmography: it’s still very clearly Demy, but there’s an added layer of anger, a screaming rage against societal oppression of the working class, and even the attempts to escape that through personal relationships are doomed from the start.

Bleak, for sure, but there’s still lots of beauty to be found in this movie, not least of which are Demy’s stylistically flourishes and the music, by far the most operatic in all his musicals, that find grand meaning even in the most banal moments of life.

9. Faces Places (2017, Agnes Varda)

It’s interesting to compare Demy’s late career output with his wife’s, Agnes Varda. While he was mostly known for making bittersweet, heartfelt melodramas, nearing the end of his run he came out with the politically minded tragedy of “Une Chambre En Ville.” Varda spent her entire life directing complex movies that often dealt with thorny social issues, and yet, in her later efforts, pivoted more to feel-good human stories, especially in documentary form, from “The Gleaners And I” to “Faces Places.” The latter is perhaps her most internationally successful movie, being the only time she was ever nominated for an Oscar; a fact that speaks more to the blindness of the Academy than of Varda herself, who truly has one the richest and most distinguished careers ever.

But it’s also understandable why this movie specifically warranted that kind of reaction: it came out on the cusp of a widespread conversation about the place of women in the film industry, a time when Varda’s own standing in cinema history was therefore being recontextualized and reconsidered more than ever by general audiences (critics, of course, had always supported her genius) – and a brand new project by her was, naturally, met with eager enthusiasm. But also, this is one of the most pleasant and good-natured movies of the 2010s so, even in a different socio-political context, there’s still a good chance it would have connected with people as much as it did.

“Faces Places,” in a career spanning over 50 years, also marked a first for Varda, proving there was truly no end to her thirst for experimentation. It was the only time she ever co-directed a movie, sharing the job with muralist artist JR, who accompanied her on a road trip through French villages to create murals celebrating the history (and stories) of the places and people they came across.

What follows is pure joie de vivre, shot through with Varda’s bubbly personality and a with an ever-present, touching interest in the small banalities of everyday life. But the humanist nature of the film doesn’t stop the filmmaker from some formal inventiveness, and the frequent dramatized interludes are all wonderful, especially the opening montage chronicling a fictionalized version of how Varda and JR kept crossing paths before knowing each other.

And for those who’ve seen it, a question: am I the only one who thinks that Godard scene was staged?

8. Nightcap (2000, Claude Chabrol)

Like many of his fellow French New Wave filmmakers (Alain Resnains and Agnes Varda, for example) Claude Chabrol’s late period is riddled with great movies that rival his early classics, from “La Cérémonie” to “The Bridesmaid” (both also strongly recommended). While both of those received ample international recognition, one of the very best of his twilight years, “Merci pour le Chocolat,” has seemingly faded away from collective cinephile memory and deserves to be reevaluated as one Chabrol’s all time career highlights.

Starring the muse from his final phase, Isabelle Huppert, the plot is classic Chabrol, concerning the sinister doings inside the French bourgeoisie; in this case, the family of a famous pianist, who starts to unravel once a woman claiming to be his daughter switched at birth shows up, causing his son and wife (Huppert) to reveal the dark secrets, suspicions, and resentments bubbling just underneath the surface of domestic tranquility.

With this movie, Chabrol had reached that point only masters with long careers ever achieve: he had perfected his particular style to its utmost effectiveness. The dramatic tension of the narrative, as was often the case with him, is built between the juxtaposition of the melodramatic events in the story and the low-key, observational tone with which they are told. Chabrol, unlike many other thriller maestros (like Hitchcock) rarely ever resorted to elaborate framing or camera moves, nor did he rely on the score to suggest the suspense, opting instead for a more subdued style that allow for the story to slowly reveal its many facets to the audience.

In that way, he couldn’t have found a better partner than Huppert, whose understated approach to acting fits in perfectly with Chabrol’s directorial qualities. The entire progression of her character could be seen through her eyes alone, with their mysterious and expressive gaze that reveal a whole world of suppressed darkness and becomes scarier and scarier as the secrets come out.

A masterclass in suspense, from one of the best who ever did it.

7. Raining in the Mountain (1979, King Hu)

One of King Hu’s greatest balancing acts, “Raining in the Mountain” is simultaneously a heist movie; an espionage tale full of intrigue and double crosses; and an exploration of spirituality and the corrupting forces of power, all set within a Buddhist monastery in ancient China. What else could one want out of cinema, really?

The story is set in motion when the dying abbot of the temple begins the process of choosing his successor, for which reason a few outside forces come in to give counsel, including an esquire and a general. Both of them, however, are more interested in stealing a priceless scroll guarded within the monastery. Meanwhile, two monks are fighting and scheming to become the next abbot, but their plans are upset by the arrival of a prisoner asking to be taken in as a disciple.

This is, as can be perceived from the above synopsis, a very busy movie; there’s enough dangling plot threads here to give John le Carré a headache. But Hu’s writing is skilled enough to seamlessly jump between seemingly disparate story elements (and even between genres), uniting it all through a carefully structured narrative that builds its separate strains into a breathtaking climax.

But the screenplay is still the least of this film’s many attractions, most of which are courtesy of Hu himself: not only did he write and direct the movie, he was also the art director and editor. The last one, particularly, may very well be his greatest skill (and that’s saying something); bodies in motion have rarely looked as graceful as they do in his films, due in large part to the meticulousness of the cutting, going from movement to movement with the elegance of a ballet choreography (which, in the martial arts scenes, is purposefully juxtaposed with jagged quick cutting).

“Raining in the Mountain,” like many King Hu films, has a very serious-minded message about the need for spiritual enlightenment in an amoral world, but packed within a hugely entertaining genre Russian doll.

6. La Vérité (1960, Henri Georges Clouzot)

At his peak, Henri Georges Clouzot was one of the biggest and most important names in the French film industry, reaching worldwide acclaim with stellar thrillers like “The Wages of Fear” and “Diabolique.” As is sadly the case with many masters, however, as he grew older it became increasingly difficult to find financial support for his projects – not to mention personal tragedies that also hampered the work.

“La Verité” was the last hurrah for Clouzot, the final time he enjoyed ample acclaim and recognition before a long stretch of unproduced screenplays and critical panning. The film is a courtroom drama with a twist: it’s set entirely during the trial, as a woman (played by Brigite Bardot) faces the death penalty for killing her former lover. Through flashbacks, we see what led her to that act of violence.

This is a much more straightforward drama than Clouzout’s most famous outings; it never veers into thriller territory, rather focusing on a character-driven tale of one woman’s slow emotional disintegration. Therefore, it was absolutely essential to have a central performance that carried the narrative, and Bardot absolutely rose to the occasion: hers is a much more morally complex character than the pristine leading ladies she was accustomed to (the movie goes to great lengths highlight her flaws), but the actress demonstrates incredible humanity, vivacity and, as the events roll to their inevitably tragic outcome, real pathos.

The story makes for a fascinating study on morality and storytelling itself; in fact, in many ways, it’s aiming for similar themes that Kurosawa explored in “Rashomon.” But if in that movie the events changed depending on who was telling them, here every single person is hearing the same story, but taking wildly different conclusions from it, all informed by their own particular idea of moral righteousness. And if the film itself initially seems to have aged badly in its portrayal of gender (many of the complaints made against Bardot’s character revolve around her being a “loose woman”), that soon reveals itself as another layer of the overall theme of the elusive nature of truth (hence the title), with the movie proving to be surprisingly progressive.

Cannes Film Festival ranks at the very top in the eyes of cinema lovers when it comes to a consistent stream of quality pictures and artists. With a tradition dating back to 1930s, born out of spite and a wish to succeed, it never failed to give proper space to the established legends of the seventh art, as well the newcomers to the world of cinema.

However, it did have its fair share of misshaps every now and then. Sometimes spontaneously, and often intentionally in order to avoid the harsh political climates of the past times, the jury of the festival gave out accolades to motion pictures that were subpar to their competition in their respective years.

Here are a few that, due to a number of reasons, failed to take home the main prize at Cannes (some of them were accoladed other awards, such as Grand Prix, though):

10. No Country for Old Men (2007) – dir. Joel & Ethan Coen

Considered the magnum opus of Coen brothers, No Country for Old Men is the ultimate mash up of everything Ethan and Joel are so well known for: gritty, dark humor, excessive violence, silent villains without an obvious cause and a morally gray hero of the story are some of the Coenian elements present in this one.

It was an absolute hit in movie theatres around the world, garnering well over $ 150 million against a $ 25 million budget. It was a darling of the critics as well, receiving universal acclaim in the United States as well as abroad and many critics dubbed it one of the boldest works of the 21st century, and one of the best ones.

The film’s fate at the 80th Academy Awards ceremony was nothing short of phenomal, too: it took four Oscars from some of the most important categories, such as Best Picture and Best Directing.

Its reception at Cannes was not as fruitful. No Country for Old Men lost its only nomination to a fairly unremarkable Romanian film called 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

While this film’s reception in general is far from what one would consider polarizing (on the contrary, it was an almost instant classic), the fact that it didn’t win one of Europe’s biggest film prizes is quite unfortunate.

9. Drive (2011) – dir. Nicolas Winding Refn

The career of Nicolas Winding Refn has mostly been hit and miss. Even with that in mind, he is still one of the most revered Danish and Scandinavian directors of this century and this film is considered to be his best English language work to date by many.

Based on the eponymous novel by James Sallis, it was wonderfully brought to screen with combined efforts of the aforementioned director, as well as a handful of other creative workers, such as the Iranian screenwriter Hossein Amini who adapted Sallis’ story for the silver screen, and the great acting ensemble, with names such as Ryan Gosling and Bryan Cranston taking the lead roles in this one.

The film was met with widespread acclaim by the critics, though the audiences were a tad more divided with some labeling Refn and his body of work pretentious. It lost the Palme d’Or that year to Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, a powerful comeback of a great master that, despite its numerous qualities, doesn’t match up to Drive in our opinion.

8. Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962) – dir. Agnes Varda

Agnes Varda just might be the greatest female director of all time. And one of the greatest in general. Her passing last year sent shockwaves through the film community. Starting her career during the period of French New Wave, a time of exceptional innovation, she never lacked what it takes to make a brave motion picture.

Cleo from 5 to 7 is generally considered her best effort, or at least her best one from the earlier stage of her career. Telling the tale of the titular heroine, a charming woman awaiting results after getting tested for cancer, it won the hearts of many worldwide with its relatable characters and subtly packed social commentary on the status of women in modern society.

It is now considered one of the genre defining works of feminist cinema, but back when it was released, the criticism of Cleo went as far as it being dubbed an anti-feminist film and a pro colonialist one that tries to portray women as simple minded and uncapable of caring for themselves.

The top prize at Cannes that year went to Anselmo Duarte’s The Given Word.

7. A Prophet (2009) – dir. Jacques Audiard

Malik El Djebena, a petty French criminal of Arab origin, is sent to prison. There he soon learns that life behind the bars is wildly different than anything he ever imagined. In a tale of betrayal and paranoia, Malik will walk out a completely different person.

Made by the great Jacques Audiard, A Prophet is a downright perfect, brutally honest portrayal of everything wrong in French prison system in particular and the country’s society in general.

It lost to another great, Michael Haneke and his The White Ribbon. While we hold that one in unusually high regard, we still believe Un Prophete was the film that deserved the Palme d’Or at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival, though the difference in quality between two motion pictures isn’t that huge.

6. Kwaidan (1965) – dir. Masaki Kobayashi

Masaki Kobayashi, a legend of Japanese cinema, is the epitome of slow burn filmmaking. His works are certainly not for everyone but if you give them a chance, they certainly won’t dissapoint. Some of the more famous ones are the Human Condition trilogy, Harakiri, and this one.

Richard Lester’s The Knack… and How to Get It took the prize in 1965, although it was one of the weaker titles in selection that year. Kwaidan, a deeply disturbing and extremely visually appealing nod to Japanese tradition didn’t fare as good among the Europeans as among the native audiences.

As a sort of sister list to the earlier published “10 Great Horror Movies that Were Booed or Walked Out On”, the following non-horror movies also received an intense negative response from audiences. Ranging from graphic content to just finding the movie boring, there are many reasons why people choose to boo or walk out and this list will show you 10 movies that caused audiences to do so.

10. Nymphomaniac

Late form Lars von Trier hasn’t failed to generate controversy and Nymphomaniac may be his most triggering to date. A 5-and-a-half-hour sex odyssey that many people deemed porn at its festival premiere, Nymphomaniac provides audiences with an endurance test like no other. Graphic close-ups of actions too vulgar to write here had audiences leaving well before the run time was finished. Had those people stayed, they may have been around for when audience members fainted at a scene of self-administered abortion.

With that said, viewing Nymphomaniac as a movie beyond a “trolling” exercise turns out to be very rewarding. For all the graphic imagery and taboo subject matter, there’s greater points being made throughout. In fact, it becomes a Foucault-esque examination of sexuality with just enough self-awareness to be accessible. Though many people will struggle to set aside the fact that they may very well be watching pornographic imagery, it makes for a far greater movie-going experience to do so.

9. Hard to Be a God

Clocking in at just under 3 hours, audiences found their senses put to the test by this black and white religious allegory. Viewers’ disgust rose to peak levels upon seeing the movie’s willingness to show graphic nudity (not just of humans) as well as the handling of various bodily excretions. The religious themes juxtaposed with such imagery did not go over well with certain groups either. Unsurprisingly then, they made their way to the exits early.

While some of the imagery is undeniably revolting, it’s in the name of making a greater point. It’s a bleak vision of humanity at its most depraved. It conjures up important philosophical questions though like, we know humans are capable of such depravity but what does it say about God then that they were created in his image? Is God nothing more than ideological stability that when challenged offers futile push back? If so, then perhaps the argument over God’s existence is a dangerous one because it alters a unified belief in something which then descends to the chaos, displayed uncompromisingly in this movie.

8. The Last Temptation of Christ

Based off the controversial book and sparking, not just walk outs but, boycotts from prominent religious organizations and riots outside theaters, The Last Temptation of Christ unsurprisingly garnered divisive attention.

The Last Temptation of Christ portrays Jesus as a severely troubled man, struggling with the idea that his purpose ultimately is to die for a creation he isn’t convinced is worth it. The premise goes further as to probe the idea that Jesus saved himself from the cross, marrying Mary Magdalene and living the rest of his life as a normal man. Conceptually, it’s not hard to see why religious advocates condemned the film on its release.

The reaction did a grave disservice to the film as it is now an overlooked gem by Martin Scorsese. Audiences didn’t give the movie a chance evidenced by the fact that in the movie Jesus ultimately does make the decision to die for the people’s sins. Such attention took away from the fact that the movie is a beautifully directed, brilliantly acted think-piece that, naturally, provokes conversation and debate but not with any malicious intent towards one belief system or another.

7. L’Avventura

One of the more infamous Cannes screenings ever, L’Avventura was so vigorously booed and reviled that director Michelangelo Antonioni and lead actress Monica Vitti left while the lights were still down, ironically, walking out on their own movie. Their decision to do so was probably a wise one as audience members furiously demanded their money back. It’s hard to say exactly why the response was so negative, but many attribute it to Antonioni’s observational style not clicking with the audience’s expectations for entertainment value. Perhaps the content of the story promised something more thrilling than what the end result was.

Antonioni’s style is not an easily classifiable one. He takes plots that in the hands of other directors would be high-paced, thrilling, and dramatic and grounds them in introspective reality. Antonioni’s movies aren’t about stories but rather the people in them. The emotions, thought-processes, and conflicts of the characters are the true propelling factors in Antonioni’s movies and that’s how they should be perceived.

Antonioni is very much a director that audiences should be aware of before blindly walking in to one of his movies and the initial audiences of L’Avventura were not. It is now recognized as one of the most renowned movies of its time period with many contemporary directors citing it as an influence.

6. A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess’ novel was already controversial as it dealt with themes of rape and ultra-violence so audiences were on edge to see just how it would be translated to the screen. Viewers flocked to the theaters with many people walking out in disgust at the level of violence and sexual imagery in the movie.

The reception of an X rating as well as bans in numerous countries quickly established A Clockwork Orange as one of the most divisive and controversial movies ever. Like other movies on this list, audiences acted on their visceral response to the surface-level content without entertaining the idea that there may be something deeper.

A Clockwork Orange is an interesting morality tale that begs the questions of “can we ever change human nature?” and “if so, do we have the right?”. Its graphic content is present in the name of a greater societal point being made and, as time has shown, the movie’s depth has come to be more respected and appreciated and the film is now considered an American classic.

To the serious cineaste there’s something much more satisfying about quirky, cult oddities that were always intended for niche markets with very little chance of ever attaining mass appeal. The arthouse film, often the product of auteur filmmakers or non-traditional genre directors looking for more cerebral experiences and often transgressive tales deemed too avant-garde or messed up to be blockbusters or mainstream movies.

The following films may not be all that obscure to true cinephiles, but it’s likely that these 10 films have largely alluded modern audiences, unless they live in a large city with a well-run and cultured arthouse or repertory cinema. So, if you take art films seriously, study this list closely and track down those you haven’t yet seen. For rewarding treasures await, and who knows, your new cinematic obsession may well be listed amongst the titles below. Enjoy!

10. Belladonna of Sadness (1973)

A swirling dervish of psychedelic light-show imagery that also doubles as a dubious reading of medieval tarot-card imagery with phallic symbols in blood-splattered haunted forests, Japanese director Eiichi Yamamoto (Astro Boy and Kimba The White Lion) hit a transgressive high water mark of 1970s animation with Belladonna of Sadness.

One of the great lost masterworks of Japanese animation, Yamamoto’s film was never officially released theatrically in North America, due largely to its controversial subject matter.

Adapted from French Jules Michelet‘s 1862 book “Satanism and Witchcraft”, it’s a sordid, highly sexualized rape-revenge tale concerning a peasant woman who is savagely raped by the local lord on her wedding night, she swears revenge and makes a pact with the Devil that, of course, goes awry.

The art of the film, which blends illustrations and full animation, recalls the mist-shrouded Middle Earth esoterica of J.R.R. Tolkien while the explicit eroticism suggests a lusty Gustav Klimt, and it’s all augmented by a psych-rock soundtrack from avant-garde Japanese jazz composer Masahiko Satoh. As far as arthouse animation goes, very little matches the visceral impact of the delightfully mad Sadness of Belladonna.

9. Bad Timing (1980)

Perhaps the most polarizing film from Nicolas Roeg (Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth), Bad Timing is a scandalous, X-rated mini-epic that explores some very upsetting places as we get familiar with expat American psychiatrist Alex Linden (Art Garfunkel).

Living in Vienna, and not a particularly likeable lad, Alex has a potentially dangerous, and certainly unhealthy sexual obsession with Milena (Theresa Russell), a married American woman with more than a few vices.

Also added to the jigsaw-puzzle-that’s-missing-a-few-pieces narrative is Harvey Keitel’s police inspector Netusil, a man convinced that Milena’s hospitalization isn’t as cut and dry as Alex has made it out to be, and this is illustrated via the detective’s fantasized replaying of what could have gone awry.

Told in Roeg’s atypical nonlinear fashion, Bad Timing may read as experimental arthouse inanity for non-fans or those not so adventurous. But Roeg takes pains to detail the voyeuristic psychoanalysis of a wronged relationship, as well as the wistful and lascivious elements of an affair; how despairing people still hold powerful passions, and how some actions are too horrible to be easily or ever forgiven.

8. Velvet Goldmine (1998)

In Velvet Goldmine the glitter rock androgyny and artifice mixes with Oscar Wildean affectation and embellishment thriving through the ages –– though mostly during 1970s London.

There’s a playfully camp and intellectually bright glow to Todd Haynes’s substantial analysis of Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a Bowie-esque pop performance icon and his lavish fandom, including a genre-defying contemporary in Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor, in a role that alloys aspects of both Iggy Pop and Lou Reed), and Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale), a sexually conflicted rock journalist and super fan.

Surreal, theatrical, erotically charged, and also something of an homage to Welles’s Citizen Kane, this is an operatic and fierce fever dream of a film. For fans of art, music, and free expression, Velvet Goldmine is the chiming and melodious mother lode.

7. Permanent Vacation (1980)

Jim Jarmusch (Down By Law, Only Lovers Left Alive) made his auspicious debut with Permanent Vacation, and won the Josef von Sternberg Award at the 1980 Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival, indicating that while it may be his most novice project, it also in many ways is Jarmusch’s quintessential film. Not only does this artful 16mm minimalist production radiate a low-key cool, it also shows the emergence of his original formalism and character design.

Set in a smirched and near colorless Manhattan, a young drifter (Chris Parker) shuffles about in a half-hearted search for meaning that has him mingling with a peanut gallery of eccentrics including his girlfriend (Leila Gastil), a gifted sax player (John Lurie, who also provided the memorable score), a French traveller (Chris Hamoen) and more.

Permanent Vacation was Jarmusch’s final year university project, and while it never got a theatrical release, it’s an enjoyable detour displaying the wry emotion and urban ambient of his most personal and venerated works.

6. Lucifer Rising (1972)

Is there a filmmaker alive today that’s as notorious, and otherworldly as nonagenarian and old hand, Kenneth Anger? Of course not!

Easily Anger’s most ambitious and expansive film, Lucifer Rising (the final film in Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle) was an elaborate production filmed largely in Egypt with Anger playing the role of the Magus, Marianne Faithfull as Lilith, Chris Jagger (Mick’s brother) as the Man in the Yellow Tunic, Scottish filmmaker Donald Cammell as Osiris, and Myriam Gibril as Isis, rounding out the cast.

Alien spacecraft, Egyptian symbolism, and locales pertinent to Aleister Crowley’s famed “The Book of the Law” (1904), regarded as the sacred text of Thelema, populate and navigate the film. Lava flowing, skies swollen with storm clouds, glimpses of Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids compete with cobras, crocodiles, and stampeding elephants, all mid-magick formula, a blue-skinned Faithfull (looking authentically strung-out), green-fleshed Cammell, the genealogical Sphinx, all enigma and ancient, everything alien and oracle.

Lucifer Rising is a classic of experimental arthouse cinema, and the crowning work of a true visionary.

Like music, like painting, like all the other arts, cinema in its artistic form has been looking for its own essence since its beginning, and hasn’t yet found a definitive, fixed one. We could say that its very essence is to look for that essence, through all the possible combinations of its components (sound, silence, image, color, editing…). When it is art and not merely entertainment, cinema is always experimental, because it searches the right way to convey exactly what each film struggles to say.

Throughout the history of cinema many directors have tried to find their precise way of treating films, ways that weren’t just aesthetic options, but that were closely linked to ethical standpoints. Art is never for art’s sake.

From this perspective, it is possible to pinpoint some very special films that managed to create a meaningful form that transformed deeply the way we understand cinema. They broadened our understanding of cinema as art. When they were released, they were difficult to grasp, and many were misunderstood and undervalued. Since they were so new in different aspects, critics and viewers needed some time to assimilate them.

This newness hasn’t anything to do with spectacular technique. Nowadays, when 3D and all the possibilities made available by computers are so easy to use, we value more than ever the sheer reflexive, poetic films.

Fortunately, cinema has provided us with many films of this essential cinema. Let us talk about some of them.

1. The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)

Many films have been made about Joan of Arc, the French martyr and saint burned at the stake by the catholic church and the English in 1431, beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920. We can mention, as the almost best, the renditions by Rossellini (1954, with Ingrid Bergman) and Bresson (1962). But the one that comes to mind to any cinephile is the silent film by Carl Theodor Dreyer, a landmark in the history of cinema, and one of the best films by the Danish director, along with The Word (Ordet), Vampyr and Gertrud.

The reasons why this film is so unforgettable are artistic, but they go beyond the mere technical aspects. Dreyer (who was given by the producers the option to choose a historic figure as a subject-matter of his film, and apparently chose Joan of Arc because of her recent beatification) wanted to show the plight of a being of flesh and blood facing the cruelty of her sadistic accusers in a trial for heresy.

He eschewed making a celebratory film, a heroic biopic or nationalistic propaganda, and decided instead to show the suffering of an individual person in her commitment to her religious faith, despite psychological and physical torture. The film is often qualified as transcendental, and it is rightly so, as long as we don’t forget its deep human concern.

Dreyer managed his artistic goal by destroying conventional ways of filming and by creating a new cinematographic writing. Whereas the overall narrative is chronological and linear (although the 29 days that lasted the historic trial are condensed in just one), images are worked to show the inner life of Joan, played by a memorable Renée Jeanne Falconetti.

Here I merely mention, without explaining, the main features of this new cinematographic style, that ninety years after the release of the film are still as revolutionary and compelling as the first day: the foremost, the extreme close-ups of the human face, especially that of Falconetti, of course (landmark images of all the history of cinema), but also of the sinister faces of the clergymen and the English governor who judge her.

Expressionist low-angle, inverted shots, that reflect the anguish of Joan. Broken composition, lack of continuity between shots that stress the existential loneliness of Joan. Erased depth of field and perspective that increase the intense effect of the close-ups, bringing the faces to the foreground.

All this options, combined, create an intense effect of human plight and spiritual struggle that have remained deeply fixed in the minds of cinema-lovers.

2. Vivre sa vie (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)

Nana (Anna Karina), a young Parisian, sees Joan of Arc-Falconetti at the cinema and decides to follow her example and fulfil what she feels as her destiny. She quits her husband and her little child to becomes an actress, the dream of her life. But things won’t go as desired and she will end up being a prostitute in the hands of pimps, and killed in a gunfire.

The film reflects the problem of prostitution in Paris, criticizes consumer society and the commodification of women bodies. But he treats viewers as grown-ups, and avoids delivering an edifying lecture. He uses many alienation techniques to prevent spectators from getting leisurely involved in the, to remind them of their role as moral consciousness that observe and must decide about what they see.

Some of the techniques displayed are the ostensible division of the film in 12 tableaux, the use of intertitles that announce what will happen in the next episode, an edition that breaks narrative apparently seamless flow, the shooting of characters from behind even when they are talking, in a way that hides their faces, comments on social issues by a voice-over…

On the other hand, the film goes beyond all the social questions it raises and shows us the naked soul of a woman. The face of Anna Karina, like that of Falconetti, conveys with an unforgettable intensity the inner life of her character, the nuances of her moral decisions, her determination of living her life.

This is why we don’t feel sorry for her, even when she encounters the worst difficulties: we understand that she must face all the consequences of her decision to reach her inner truth. The artistic miracle of this effect -stronger and stronger with each viewing- is created both by the acting of Anna Karina and the way Godard (by time her loving husband) manages to film her face.

3. Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)

Ingmar’s Bergman masterpiece (without forgetting The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, of course, and some will add Through a Glass Darkly, The Silence…) has troubled critics and spectators alike since it was released. Almost plotless, with many cryptic images and apparently unconnected events, it resists any summary or definitive explanation.

What can be surely said about Persona is that its main characters are the actress Elisabeth Vogler (Liv Ullman) who went silent when acting Electra and hasn’t talked again for months, without anyone knowing why, and the nurse Alma (Bibi Andersson), in charge of taking care of her and of trying to help her to recover.

A large part of the film consists of both of them interacting in a very strange relationship: Elisabeth closed in her hermetic silence, and Alma talking to great extents, until she reveals secrets and traumas she would have preferred to keep to herself. Elizabeth’s strong will and determination undermines Alma’s delicate, weak personality.

As we don’t know why Elisabeth keeps silent, we struggle to understand the sense of the film. Is Elizabeth speechless because of the horrors of our world? Does she represent the impotence of art to say anything significant to our existence? Or even, should we understand the film in a symbolic perspective and see Elizabeth as our deepest level of consciousness, and Alma as an attempt to express and reach the other (the Other)?

If the close-ups of Falconetti’s and Anna Karina’s faces have remained as iconic moments of cinema, close-ups of Ullman and Andersson have become so, too. Especially the ones of Ullman, so close, so intimate, so personal, that they almost hurt. The final, interlinked close-up of the faces of both actresses seems to suggest that their personalities merge into one.

The mystery of this avant-gardist film (the most artistically radical by Bergman) is stressed by images that are more than cryptic: they just don’t make sense. The Swedish director and his cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, made a very original use of black and white, with lights and shadows that become part of the argument and a dimension of both personas, and that stress the deep effect caused by the close-ups.

4. Au hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)

Probably the best film by Bresson (although one should bear also in mind A Man Escaped, Pickpocket and L’argent), Balthazar shows the French director’s original language at its peak, a mature style that had consolidated through two decades.

The film tells the story of a donkey that stays with many humans and is able to see the evil that pervades our world. Most of his owners treat him with cruelty, beat him and starve him, and he keeps staring at all this callousness with a serene impassibility.

Balthazar is shown as a martyr, as a saint. Bresson (a catholic believer) gives him a Christian sense, even creates a Christ-like figure, in his resistance, pardon and agony. The donkey sees the evil in human nature and withstands, seems to forgive it. With his passage through human world, he redeems human evil.

The destiny of Balthazhar is linked to that of Marie (Anne Wiazemsky), a peasant girl that knew and loved him as a child, and that loses her purity because of the same human cruelty that abuses the donkey. Both suffer the sheer callousness of the same people, but Marie choses to sink in sin and evil, and after being almost raped by a wrongdoer, she abandons herself to the gang of rogues he leads. In spite of all this, we feel she has kept, very hidden, the integrity of her soul

Bresson conveys his understanding of our vicious world through his distinctive ascetic directorial style, naturalistic and minimalist. He casted nonprofessional actors and made them act in a deliberately inexpressive fashion, to create a characteristic realism that doesn’t affect sensibility directly, but that first crosses the mind.

He made abundant and very significant use of ellipsis, that is, the device of not showing scenes and leave the spectator to imagine them, which in Bresson has a stronger impact than if the scenes were seen. Similarly, he avoids general composition and prefers displaying just isolated parts -a hand, a leg- leaving the rest offscreen.

5. Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961)

Resnais’ Marienbad puts the artistry blatantly in the foreground and impedes any emotion, bringing the viewer to a philosophical field where what counts is the question about the literal (not moral) sense of the film.

The glacial story is set in a luxury hotel, where a man and a woman (nameless) ask themselves if last year they had an affair in the same scenery, and a second man (maybe the husband) takes part in the debate as a minor character. The same or very similar questions are made once and again to try to make sense of what happened last year at Marienbad, but nobody seems to be able to understand their memories, or to make them coherent, to articulate them.

The first man claims that he and the woman started an affair and that she decided to take a year to think about their relationship, the woman denies it, while the hypothetic husband makes himself present through his playing a table game against the hypothetic lover.

Assertions, refutations, questions, doubts are refashioned and repeated by voices over while we see the long corridors and large rooms full of mirrors of the baroque hotel, the geometry of its rococo gardens, and we are kept ignorant of what is happening, or happened.

Among the viewers who enjoy the film in a philosophical manner, there have been many renderings: that all the dialogues (or parallel monologues) take place inside the woman’s (or man’s); that it is an interchange between a psychoanalyst and his client or that all is a dream (or a dream inside a dream, like Russian dolls) or that everything consists of a ghostly conversation between disembodied souls. One can add many alternative interpretations.

In any case, they can agree that the film problematizes all the structures we tend to take for granted in order to lead a reasonable life: the unequivocal flow of time, the stability and reliability of our memories, the one-sidedness of our personalities.