What makes a movie beautiful? Some films gain recognition for the inherent beauty in their subject matter, such as sprawling landscapes or majestic movements of wildlife, while other films make aesthetic use of more unsightly subject matter by transforming things like death and decay into art using cinematic technique.

Though an undeniably subjective metric by which to judge a piece of art, beauty in cinema can be distilled into some less nebulous parameters such as framing, lighting, color coding, blocking, and set design to name a few. While some may argue that beauty is an aesthetic phenomenon, there is a strong case to be made that the beauty found in movement, lighting, and composition lends itself to the subject matter and has the potential to bring depth and complexity to the thematic elements of a film.

1. Cold Souls (2009)

Cold Souls stars an anxiety-ridden Paul Giamatti who plays an actor, who is a fictionalized version of Giamatti himself, with his mind set on deep freezing, and ultimately trying to recover his soul. It is simply but beautifully shot, using color grading and blocking dexterously. The cold bureaucracy of the soul-freezing business manifests in the light blues and stoic grays cast by fluorescent lights of anxiety-inducing offices and clinics. The presence of the warmth and comfort of human relationships is demonstrated by the softer, sepia lighting of a few quaint, incandescent lamps.

In the same vein, Giamatti is often shown sharing frames with the soul doctor, played by David Strathairn, but when conversing with his wife Claire, played by Emily Watson, with whom his relationship becomes more and more strained as the film progresses, they both occupy frames in increasing solitude. The film also makes use of slow, sweeping shots throughout; the camera gives the audience information in strides. This coupled with the close shots of small, frantic movements of human and machine, the camerawork reinforces the anxious intake of and fixation on cinematic happenings. A particularly striking piece of cinematography occurs on a plain white set piece, with Giamatti and a small child being the only interruptions on a completely blank landscape.

2. Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?: An Animated Conversation with Noam Chomsky (2013)

Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?: An Animated Conversation with Noam Chomsky is a 2013 animated documentary by Michel Gondry featuring renowned linguist, philosopher, and anarchist Noam Chomsky. On a very plain level, the animation of the film is nothing short of mesmerizing. Gondry makes use of somewhat simple animation, employing a sort of sketch style with neon bright colors and words, often over a plain black background.

Visually striking and seamlessly engaging, the film’s beauty is not limited to its interaction with the viewer’s eye, however. There is a subtle grace to the way the titular conversation dictates the flow of the animation; the frames unfold in real time with the contents of the interview as if the animation is in conversation with the conversation itself. While many documentaries make use of interview footage in a formulaic fashion, displaying the interviewee on camera as they profess their story, Gondry highlights the abstract and theoretical nature of Chomsky’s work by infusing these qualities into his visual representation of the subject matter.

3. Shigatsu no Nagai Yume [Summer Blooms] (2017)

Shigatsu no Nagai Yume, or Summer Blooms, is a Ryûtarô Nakagawa film centering on a student and a teacher’s relationship years after they have moved on from teaching and attending school. Tackling the topics of suicide, grief, abuse, and love, the movie makes ample use slow shots, savoring the emotional gravity of character interactions. Close shots bring intimacy to the narrative, and the use of natural and soft lighting creates a dreamy and melancholy atmosphere in which the characters can ruminate on their emotional burdens brought on by the trials of life.

Whether the composition is made up of hands, houses, or people, the deliberate presence of balanced shots creates a sense of interconnectedness and precarity between characters. As the narrative centers on people and their struggle to coexist, the camera quite literally places humans in the middle of the frame, whether it is a single person or two people together. All of these are choreographed with care to create a subtle but intense unfolding narrative. Sorrow and heartache tie the fates of characters together, and the cinematography and direction of the work brings a sadness to the framing and movement that allows the narrative to breathe.

4. Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

Also known by the name Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance, Koyaanisqatsi is Godfrey Reggio’s 1982 experimental film. With no narration or dialogue, the film is a pure meditation on a collection of images. Reggio, along with cinematographer Ron Fricke, give the landscapes and scenes they shoot full agency in conveying their own beauty. Time lapses are frequently used as a means of showing the progression of the day, the movement of clouds and of people, and the ever evolving interactions of light and movement in various landscapes.

Set to a hypnotic Philip Glass soundtrack, the film functions less a narrative piece than a visual collage. The footage is edited at a steadily loping pace, allowing for the viewer to find patterns in unlikely places, whether they are looking in the refracted heat lines emanating from a passenger plane, the window panes of a skyscraper, or the billows of smoke from an exploding rocket. Koyaanisqatsi, a hopi translation of “life out of balance”, respectfully gives the stage to images and allows them to speak for themselves. The beauty one finds in the unadulterated scenes of industrialized life is abundant.

5. Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)

Alfonso Cuarón’s 2001 Y Tu Mama Tambien, a road film starring Diego Luna, Gael García Bernal, and Maribel Verdú is a film that makes ample use of its setting to create a beautiful cinematic experience. Cuarón uses the sprawling landscape of Mexico to elucidate its themes of isolation, adolescence, intimacy, economic disparity, and the tensions of maintaining one’s social status. The unflinching shots of blue skies, meandering roads, and vast ocean lend a magical wistfulness to the film that strengthens and brings into relief the underlying aura of sadness and tension throughout the film. Three-shots and two-shots are also used throughout the film to display the sometimes uneven reality of the intimate relationships between the three main characters.

Shot with a handheld camera, the film also makes substantial use of natural lighting and minimal technological interference as a complement to the heavy reliance on improvisation in the script. The beauty of Y Tu Mama Tambien is in its hyper-realistic portrayal of people, landscapes, and relationships. Cuarón allows these elements of the film to unfold naturally on camera as opposed to artificially manufacturing them with scripted dialogue or studio lighting.

Sometimes, all you really need from a film is some cathartic beauty. Sure, exciting narratives and impressive form will never get old, but sometimes there is a cinematic void that can only be filled by stunning colours, or great wide shots, or even just a story so laid back and focused on heart-warming that it’s hard to focus on anything else. And sometimes a film can do all three – stun you with its beauty, excite you with its narrative and blow your mind with its form… this small list sums up all ten of the films we’re going to talk about in this list, ten beautiful films that you may have missed on your journey through cinema.

1. One from the Heart (Francis Ford Coppola, 1981)

Starting off with the most fantastical of all of the films listed, let’s take a look at Francis Ford Coppola’s bizarre, dreamy 1980s smooth musical classic One From The Heart! Following up his strenuous Apocalypse Now production with something much more laid back, utilising painted sets and an incredibly slick Tom Waits soundtrack, Francis Ford Coppola tried something with One From The Heart that he had avoided with his more prestigious films from the 1970s and focused intently on trying to express these deeply passionate feelings of love and heartbreak through music, dance and colour in this very simple story of a break-up and heartbroken night on the town. To say the film is gorgeous is an understatement.

It is maybe the ultimate 80s musical, taking the charm of its artificiality and wearing it proudly on its sleeve rather than trying to ashamedly cover it up, in turn becoming similar to the most memorable musicals of the 1950s with their beautiful and nostalgic painted backdrops and incredible set pieces. What the film may lack in narrative complexity, it makes up for tenfold in its unmatched formal bravado. Coppola never really made anything like it again, and it’s a damn shame, too.

2. Ludwig (Luchino Visconti, 1973)

Coming from Italian maestro Luchino Visconti, more than likely most notorious for his masterful adaptation of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, the four hour period drama epic following the life of Ludwig II is almost too beautiful for words… especially whenever snow gets involved.

Visconti is known for his zooms and his stunning wide cinematography, but it seems that in Ludwig both took a new step forward in terms of beauty, to the point that the shots just become overwhelming. Adding this to the general formal mastery and Visconti’s incredible control that seems so effortless over both camera and story, and Ludwig becomes one of the most impressive and difficult to contain/explain films of all time, and certainly one of the most beautiful.

3. Le Plaisir (Max Ophuls, 1952)

Of course, a list trying to collect together some beautiful films simply has to include at least one work of the incredible Max Ophuls – this time, we’ve chosen to talk about his anthology film Le Plaisir. Detailing three short stories and collecting them together in one film, Le Plaisir looks at adapting three short stories by Guy de Maupassant whilst tackling themes of art vs love and the power of secrets. For the most part, the focus is on the gorgeous cinematography, which flexes some of the finest wide shots ever committed to celluloid throughout, especially during the second story La Maison Tellier. Hell, the film even makes use of a POV shot towards the end.

Ophuls is generally a directors-director, having been praised endlessly by the likes of Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson (Ophuls’ The Earrings of Madame De… is supposedly a huge influence on Phantom Thread, for example), and it’s no surprise to see that his influence is lasting to this day considering the power and beauty of not just Le Plaisir but of his filmography collectively.

4. Sunset Song (Terence Davies, 2015)

What is there to be said about Terence Davies that hasn’t already been said? The British veteran could just be cinema’s greatest ever visual poet, to say the least, and Sunset Song is living proof (as well as one other film we’ll discuss later on!) Taking a more relaxed tone in this film compared to many of his others, Sunset Song is just a breathtaking period drama detailing the life of a young Scottish woman (Chris, played by Agyness Deyn) coming of age and becoming a woman, gaining experience around the time of the first World War.

Based on the book of the same name penned by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Davies directs the story of Chris in a blindingly beautiful way, creating such a tender film in spite of the harsher topics and characters (as usual, Peter Mullan is incredible… and quite petrifying when he needs to be) and makes one of the finest films of the 2010s in the process (again – Davies always seems to hit it out of the park and his two other films released in the 2010s were just as great, with The Deep Blue Sea and A Quiet Passion). As said before, Davies could just be cinema’s best poet to ever do it, and each and every one of his films deserves a watch – he is one of the greats.

5. La Cienaga (Lucrecia Martel, 2001)

Few films are as tranquil as Lucrecia Martel’s 2001 film La Cienaga. With one of the most beautiful settings close to the titular La Cienaga, the film is mostly incredibly peaceful despite this slight feeling of tension and angst bubbling away beneath the surface. The film is mostly made beautiful thanks to the frankly overwhelming colours (mainly deep greens and surprisingly stunning camouflage colours in general) and the unique use of diegetic sound with the almost constant sound of chirping birds and crickets.

It’s hard to really describe it effectively, but there is such a feeling of comfort and natural beauty generated by this simple ambience that it’s hard to believe that this isn’t something used in most films. It brings to mind the work of other directors such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul who rely on the natural (and often making it slightly unnatural, too), but takes it in a new direction that’s exciting enough to make for one of the best films of the 21st century so far, and definitely one of the most beautiful.

What constitutes a beautiful film varies from one person to another, but some aspects of filmmaking must be counted when stating that a film is “beautiful.” The word ‘beautiful’ usually refers to something with a pleasing appearance, but when it comes to moving images with sounds, characters, narratives, and a mental and emotional connection, it’s not about just appearance anymore.

To constitute a beautiful film, the film must be pleasing to all the senses and deliberately created by the artist (the filmmaker) to feed the audience’s senses. Whether choosing a certain camera lens or a specific piece of music or a certain decision taken by a character in the plot, every decision taken by the filmmaker counts in creating a piece of art that we can consider “beautiful,” hence using their own unique and original ideas. And since we live in a world of mainstreams where you can easily find out what films other people think are beautiful, here are 10 films you probably haven’t seen that provide all the elements above to be as beautiful as can be.

10. Macbeth (2015, Justin Kurzel)

The latest mainstream adaptation of the famous play directed by Justin Kurzel and starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard has all the elements that make for a great Shakespearean production, with mesmerizing performances from Fassbender and Cotillard as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, as they experience the madness of power and ego. The beautiful yet brutal medieval atmosphere of the story is represented as a grimy dark fairy tale that enriches the characters and the complex insanity of the story.

“Macbeth” (2015) delivers a modern take of the classical play, benefiting from all of the modern aspects of filmmaking and using the Shakespearean poetic and romantic language with the magnificent scenery and scary acting from its leads, to create a solid beautiful adaptation of “Macbeth” that is awfully brutal yet aesthetically pleasing.

9. Silent Wedding (2008, Horatiu Malaele)

Co-written and directed by Horatiu Malaele, “Silent Wedding” is a sarcastic yet painful story from Eastern Europe where two lovebirds are forced to have a silent wedding because of the death of Stalin. The film is filled with joyful moments as well as moments that are heartbreaking.

Horatiu Malaele’s Silent Wedding is a beautiful look at a different era and different culture, blending the beautiful realism and minimalism of the Romanian New Wave with the horrific historical events of living under a dictatorship, which gives the film a unique sense of tragedy and comedy while feeding the senses with its weirdness and aesthetic.

8. Museum Hours (2012, Jem Cohen)

“Museum Hours” is an intimate low-budget drama written, edited, shot, produced and directed by independent filmmaker Jem Cohen. The film stars Mary Margaret O’Hara as Anne, a woman called to Austria for a family medical emergency, and who becomes friends with Johann (portrayed by Bobby Sommer) who works as a guard at the grand Kunsthistorisches Museum. Cohen’s independent artistic approach explores friendship and the state of loneliness set against the magical sentimental atmosphere of Vienna’s winter and the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

The film concentrates on the value of art in mending people’s lonely existence. The dialogue is simple and intimate as it expresses the warmth of its main characters as they get out of the harsh loneliness that surrounds them, a loneliness that is as harsh as the European winter they experience. Filled with heartwarming moments and a unique cinematic touch, “Museum Hours” is a love letter to art and friendship with its visual achievement and intimate composition. It’s a film that feels like a warm hug against the horrors of loneliness.

7. Upstream Color (2013, Shane Carruth)

From Shane Carruth (the director of “Primer”) in his second feature film, “Upstream Color” is a smart science fiction film that breaks all the rules of creating a narrative, and uses the technical aesthetics to create an artistic experience. Starring Carruth himself with Amy Seimetz, the film explores the shaky relationships between a man and a woman in an unstructured reality.

With its atmosphere that feels like an illusion, the film takes a beautiful journey into undiscovered territory where the brilliant composing of the scenes takes you beyond the traditional normal aspects of filmmaking that dictate that narrative is not something to observe and understand but to experience. “Upstream Color” provides the audience with an other-worldly experience, with an original concept and an amazing composition. It’s a film to be experienced as a reflection of Carruth’s unique talent and brilliant mind.

6. The Rider (2017, Chloé Zhao)

Written and directed by female Chinese-American director Chloé Zhao, “The Rider” is a study on masculinity and dreams. The film stars Brady Jandreau in his first acting project as Brady Blackburn (a real portrayal of himself) as a cowboy who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a rodeo accident as he tries to get his life back and discover the meaning of his existence after the loss of his dream.

With a sensational performance from Jandreau and a beautiful scenery and music, “The Rider” is a beautiful piece of film that speaks to the audience on a very emotional level about loss and dreams, and it put Zhao as one of the names that needs to be followed in the next few years as a director with a real artistic vision and the capability to make meaningful beautiful pictures.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” – this popular phrase says it all. Beauty cannot be explained or defined; it depends on who is watching. Therefore, it is quite difficult to verbalize exactly what makes particular movie beautiful. Is it the plot, the music, photography, or maybe specific scene in a movie?

Also, when it comes to deciding what exactly attracts viewers to watch a movie, criteria are different. For critics, it may be an artistic or even philosophical impact; whereas the public sometimes only wants to be entertained for a couple of hours.

Harmony may be the key for reaching aesthetics impact on viewers. Symmetry of all elements in the script and plot, added to harmony in portraying different characters, may lead to general beauty of the movie.

In the following list, you will read about beautiful movies that you probably have not seen. These movies have specific beauty in a visual and artistic way, but were kind of forgotten by viewers in recent years.

1. White Oleander

This movie is a true depiction of how a self-absorbed, narcissistic mother can affect future life of her daughter. Ingrid (Michelle Pfeiffer), a free but selfish artist, lives with her daughter Astrid (Alison Lohman) in Los Angeles. After finding out that her current partner is cheating on her, Ingrid poisons him with a substance made from white oleander, and ends up in prison for life. Astrid, alone but still under her mother’s control and influence, faces many challenges while she changes foster families and gets to know life as it is – messy and unpredictable.

Filmed in 2002, it received mostly positive reviews. Based on Janet Fitch’s 1999 novel of the same name, directed by Peter Kosminsky, it goes without saying that in this film,  Pfeiffer gave one of the best performances of her career and proved her acting versatility.

The beauty of this film lies in its authenticity and raw representation of Astrid’s existential despair. Despair and anger, which are Astrid’s main emotions throughout the film, are represented by hand-held camera techniques. The camera destabilized movements in some moments to show the constant anxiety and fear that surround Astrid.

It is not common to see so many strong female characters who can be cruel, manipulative, capable, and destructive, but also kind, warm, and compassionate. It goes without saying that this movie is so refreshing because it unapologetically represents the bittersweet mother-daughter relationship, but also the awakening of female sexuality, which is not so common topic in male-oriented cinematography. Even though this movie may not be for everyone, it has undeniable artistic beauty.

2. The Best Offer

“The Best Offer” (“La migliore offerta”) is an Italian mystery drama from 2013, in English, directed by Guiseppe Tornatore. It has psychological thriller elements, alongside a mystery from the beginning to the very end. In the center of the story is Virgil Oldman (Geoffrey Rush), a director of an auction house. He has OCD, and is afraid of women in general; he does not look directly at them while speaking.

To compensate for this fear, he collects portraits of women and enjoys them on a daily basis. He is hired by a mysterious woman, Claire Ibbetson (Sylvia Hoeks) whose parents have recently died, to auction her property. He becomes fascinated by her, because she hasn’t left her room in years due to a serious case of agoraphobia and emotional trauma from her past.

The movie itself looks like a renaissance painting; every frame is carefully planned so you get a chance to dive deep into the world of antiques. The director paid special attention to details, like he paints a picture of himself. Not only does the beauty of the movie lie in general aesthetics, but also in Rush’s sophisticated acting. His method acting is on such a high level that you do not feel like he is acting. While watching, you think that he has lived like this his entire life.

The elegance of this movie is in its constant curiosity, confusion, mystery, and beautifully crafted dialogues. A contrast is achieved through Virgil’s character; he seems like an emotionally distant and cold old man, while in reality he just wants to give his love to someone. That love turns into grief and sorrow when the mystery unravels in front of his eyes.

“There is always something authentic in every forgery,” is the main motto of the movie. Even though Virgil is forgered, the question remains – “Was he ever loved?” – as the main test of authenticity of his life. That dilemma is what makes this movie an outstanding piece of art and beauty.

3. The Wife

This film is about a Nobel Prize for Literature winner (Jonathan Pryce) who goes to Stockholm to accept the award, and his wife (portrayed by Glenn Close) who follows him blindly throughout the plot. Even though they are a typical American couple, they are not equal. Everything is subordinated to his will, talent, work, and life in general.

The movie raises an important question – how many times has any woman consciously given up on herself so that a man in her life could be satisfied? Regardless of whether it’s a husband, father, or brother – in a social context, it implies that the woman is the one who must sacrifice herself. Silent feminism is something that makes this movie stunning. The idea of sacrifice and hiding the truth in order to keep fake peace is too familiar because of the toxic masculinity promoted through media.

The script is based on the novel of the same name, written by Meg Wolitzer, and this drama was directed by Bjorn L. Runge in 2017. Close’s performance with so many words unspoken, yet felt under the surface, is so delicate and subtle.

The film has many layers, a secret unravelling in front of our eyes, and gives away the feeling of absurdity and despair because of the consciously wasted life. “The Wife,” although visually appealing, leaves a bitter feeling after watching. One’s whole life is wasted due to a love toward man that becomes an existential cage.

4. Flower

This American coming-of-age comedy-drama from 2017 is directed by Max Winkler. It tells a story about Erica (Zoey Deutch), a teenager who has occasional sex encounters with older men so she can later blackmail them and extort money. She collects money because her father is in jail and she wants to help him get out. She lives with her mother (Kathryn Hahn), whose new boyfriend Bob (Tim Heidecker) comes to move in with his son Luke (Joey Morgan). Luke is emotionally unstable and he develops an implausible friendship with Erica.

Even though “Flower” has some inconsistencies throughout its plot, it has an unexpected beauty in two ways. First, its visual identity is spectacular, considering the color and light. Second, there are emotional scenes in the movie that are deeply and profoundly moving.

The movie is intensely sarcastic, and although that may not have been its primary goal, it has a strong social message. In an almost satirical way, it shows society’s double standards (a police officer who sleeps with a minor) and its detrimental effects on younger generations (Luke has strong panic attacks because of trauma from his past that is not his fault; he accused his teacher of sexual assault).

This movie may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it spreads a truth, that is for sure. It realistically outlines a teenager’s good intentions, a form of vigilantism, and bad decisions which lead to evident consequences.

5. Equals

This is a 2015 American science-fiction drama directed by Drake Doremus and stars Nicholas Hoult as Silas, and Kristen Stewart as Nia. The story is set in a futuristic dystopian society, where citizens do not have the ability to feel. They are all monitored by Collective (a body which controls their actions). Silas is one of the citizens, an illustrator for Atmos, who finds out that he is infected by SOS (Switched-On Syndrome), which means that he started to store emotions.

That disease could lead him to suicide, because if not treated, he could develop stage four and detained to institution DEN which no one leaves for life. He starts to develop emotions for Nia, his coworker, who also shows emotional reactions. Soon, they become emotionally involved, both scared of consequences, because any kind of emphatic involvement could lead to their separation or painful treatments in DEN.

The plot of this movie seems to be inspired by George Orwell’s “1984,” with characters who dress the same, talk the same, and have no empathy or compassion for each other. And there are also characters from the other side, who are different and still want to remain humans with emotions, heart, hope, and love.

This movie is not colorful, but yet it succeeds in keeping attention. It is beautifully put together over contrast in the “no-feelings society” and Silas and Nia’s relationship on the other side. The white costumes metaphorically represent the distance and coldness of society. The scenery stunningly represents an idea of how future cities could appear.

This movie did not bring anything new to the table in a cinematographic or artistic way, but there is no doubt that it is worth watching. A marvelous visual representation alongside a love story with its ups and downs that will keep you glued to your seats.

Film is, fundamentally, built to make us feel. At its best, its a sensory experience that allows us a greater understanding of ourselves, the world around us, and our fellow man. One of the ways we can best feel through film, or any art, is with the presence of beauty. Beauty, particularly in filmmaking, can serve a number of purposes. Beauty is most frequently associated with whatever is visually pleasing or striking on the surface – perhaps with a nice looking shot or an attractive looking actor. But the function of beauty in film goes far deeper than that.

Beauty in cinema is found when a film reveals a deeper truth about the world; when the images and sounds on screen open a new appreciation of reality. Beauty in film should, ultimately, make the viewer feel more deliberately and more fully. The following list focuses on underappreciated or overlooked films with this sort of cinematic beauty at their core.

1. Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

Being the first in a trilogy of three films, Koyaanisqatsi is an experimental documentary directed by Godfery Reggio, studying the motion, serenity, and entropy of the earth. The title of the film is a Hopi word that roughly translates to “life out of balance.” Through a series of brilliantly photographed montages, the film chronicles man’s relationship with nature and himself; whether this is a positive or negative relationship is left open to interpretation.

Koyaanisqatsi is a film of staggering visual beauty, just as impressive of a cinematographic spectacle today as it was in 1982. But the film is far more than a visual marvel. With aid from Phillip Glass’s hypnotic score, Koyaanisqatsi becomes a testament to all life – humanity’s constant turmoil with itself, its environment, and its creations. It is a film equal parts futurist and dystopian in its vision of man’s progress and place in the modern world. The scope of the film is unmatched; it contextualizes even the most mundane functions of society into a wholistic, kinetic portrait of life. Never before, or never again, will a montage of hotdog packaging be so emotionally riveting.

2. Love & Pop (1998)

Hideaki Anno is most frequently talked about for his iconic (and ongoing) animated pop culture phenomenon, Neon Genesis Evangelion, consisting of a television series, two film sequels, and a reboot series that will (supposedly) conclude with its fourth film entry in 2020. Evangelion deserves all the praise it has received and then some, but the franchise has unfortunately overshadowed Anno’s more personal, intimate work in live-action film. Love & Pop is Anno’s first live-action film, and one of the most underappreciated works in Japanese cinema to date.

Adapted from Ryu Murakami’s novel Topaz II and shot almost entirely with small, handheld digital cameras, Love & Pop focuses on the exploits of four Japanese schoolgirls and their descent into the compensated dating culture in Japan.

It’s a film of delicate subject matter that takes incredible risks formally; Anno is unafraid to break down the conventions of cinematic language with the grimy little cameras the film is shot on. But while most directors would use the subject matter of the film to turn it into a depressive, cruel experience, Anno handles his subject matter with incredible grace and empathy. Love & Pop is, fundamentally, a coming of age story. It’s about young women finding their place in the world and discovering what it means to be close to someone – to love and be loved. It’s a kinetic, colorful, but ultimately melancholy portrait of youth, criminally underrated and completely unforgettable.

3. Shiki-Jitsu (2000)

Shiki-Jitsu, translated to Ritual in the U.S., is Hideaki Anno’s second live-action film, released two years after Love & Pop. Starring Japanese independent filmmaker Shunji Iwai, the film is a stylized and lively depiction of rediscovering purpose in one’s life.

The film follows a director who, upon returning to his hometown, meets a strange girl on the train tracks. Every day, she tells herself that tomorrow is her birthday. The director, who wishes to create a live-action film, forms a bond with the girl, who seems to be unable to escape her own fantasy world.

Like much of Anno’s work, both in animation and live-action, Shiki-Jitsu elicits a melancholy sort of nostalgia – it’s a moody and comfortable feeling film, full of visual treats and quirky moments. The whole film seems incredibly personal to Anno and his own desire to reconnect with reality and combat depression. It’s a cozy and eccentric slice of life film, beautiful in its intimacy, humor, and honesty.

4. Angel’s Egg (1985)

Angel’s Egg is an OVA directed by Mamoru Oshii of Ghost in the Shell (1995) fame.

The film was disregarded upon its release critically and has only recently built up a cult following. It is undoubtedly one of the most haunting animated films ever created.

There’s not much to be said about the film in terms of plot. Consisting of only a few lines of dialogue, Angel’s Egg follows a mysterious young girl holding a large egg as she traverses across a barren, gothic wasteland.

Angel’s Egg is a film that must be experienced rather than explained. The film utilizes images of decay alongside religious iconography as a personal testament to Oshii’s own experience with, and ultimate rejection of, Christianity and faith. In this way, there’s a sense of lingering loss in the film, as if we are seeing the exoskeleton of something that was once whole and beautiful, but is now forgotten. A boy instructs the mysterious girl early on in the film, “keep precious things inside you or you will lose them.” Angel’s Egg could be looked at as an impression of something precious that was lost, the eerie afterglow of warmth and hope. It’s a film of staggering beauty and depth, and essential viewing for anyone interested in animation.

5. Mysterious Skin (2004)

Greg Araki is perhaps most frequently recognized as the forefront of the New Queer Cinema movement and the director of the subversive Teen Apocalypse trilogy. Although the majority of his filmography is cherished exclusively by fans of transgressive independent filmmaking, Mysterious Skin is a film that has proven both timeless and universally powerful in its unpretentious, sensitive approach toward its difficult subject matter.

Starring a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mysterious Skin follows two teen men who seemingly have nothing in common – one is sexually active and rebellious, the other sheltered and obsessed with alien abductions. In spite of their differences, the two slowly discover a shared connection to an event in their childhood. To reveal more of the film’s plot detracts from its weight.

Many people are aware of this film’s existence, but choose not to see it because of its themes and unfortunate NC-17 rating. In reality, Mysterious Skin is one of the greatest and most mature films to deal with sexual trauma and adolescence. It is unflinching in its approach to difficult subjects – it refuses to beat around the bush. But because of this, the film is ultimately able to transcend the tragedy at its core, accenting the moments of genuine beauty between broken youth and the slow process of healing. It’s a difficult film to watch, but an absolutely essential and moving work of fiction, and one of the greatest teen films ever created.

There is something complicated about the concept of beauty. In addition to not being able to define or direct it exactly, due to its subjective character, it seems difficult to identify something as purely beautiful, since throughout our lives we have become accustomed to cataloging everything that pleases us aesthetically as beautiful.

However, as we bring this issue into the field of art, it can become even more complex. What would be, after all, a beautiful movie? Throughout the various centuries of art history we can follow how this concept has changed and expanded. What was once considered not beautiful could be considered wonderful shortly thereafter.

Starting from the etymology of the word, we find something curious that helps us understand a little of why this happens: the Greek term for the adjective of beautiful is koine, originating from the same term that originated the word ‘hour’, hōraios. Thus, from its origins, beauty was directly associated with being in agreement with its moment, in tune with its time, or even at its best moment.

Anyway, we can think that there is also something beautiful about the complexity of this term, and think that many films may have been considered beautiful at some point in history and later forgotten, or even not having their beauty understood at the moment of realization.

The choice of the films listed below had as their main criterion, in addition to selecting films that are probably not well known even to the cinephile audience, films that have a beauty that is more than simply aesthetic or narrative; films that somehow managed to find beauty in unconventional situations and images.

10. Shower (1999, Zhang Yang)

Master Liu is an elderly man who, with the help of his younger son Er Ming, maintains a thriving traditional bathhouse in a small town in China, which has had a loyal clientele for many years. He prides himself on working hard every day and keeping his establishment running for so many years, and always skeptically positioning himself for any kind of innovation his clients propose. Master Liu, however, has a great frustration in his life, which is that his eldest son, Da Ming, did not choose to work in the bathhouse and decided to move to the large city of Shenzhen.

Er Ming has mental problems and one day decides to send a letter to Da Ming saying he misses him, with a drawing that made his brother think that Master Liu had died. Da Ming rushes back to his hometown and discovers the misunderstanding, yet decides to stay for a while. From then on, the inevitable generational conflict and an emotional reckoning with his father and his past began to take place.

“Shower” is a comedy with dramatic tones that deals with a very recurring theme in contemporary Chinese cinema, which is the dichotomy between tradition and modernity, permeated by the great and rapid economic and social transformations that the country has been going through in the last decades, and both fraternal and father-son relations are treated with great tenderness and grace. It is remarkable how the film seems to build from this approach a very mature view of reality, valuing traditions at the right point but not sounding reactionary.

9. The Amorous Ones (1968, Walter Hugo Khouri)

Walter Hugo Khouri is known in his country for (at a time when the cinematic movement that would later become known as Cinema Novo, where filmmakers like Glauber Rocha made politically and aesthetically engaged cinema, preferred to make films outside this scope, addressing more intimate and psychological themes) being sometimes compared to the Italian Michlangelo Antonionni, or even the Swedish Ingmar Bergman.

“The Amorous Ones,” made in 1968, already set in the midst of the toughest years of Brazil’s military dictatorship, may be one of Khouri’s most political films but nonetheless doing so in a very particular and different way than what Glauber Rocha, Leon Hirzman, and other Brazilian filmmakers were doing.

The film follows the life of Marcelo, a young college student plagued by indecision about his future, regrets about the past, and anxiety about his present. He is almost always broke and lives on hard terms with his friends. All of Marcelo’s frustrations are gradually more pessimistic about life in general, and what once seemed to be a kind of existentialism is gradually becoming increasingly strong nihilism.

Marcelo is always looking for a meaning for life, and this search will lead him to the most diverse experiences with different love affairs and relationships with other exotic characters. What is most beautiful about the film, aside from this search for the meaning of life in the blasé attitude toward the meaning of life, is this new vision that the film engenders about the existential crisis of a young university student, permeated by the context of psychedelia and tropicalism of Brazil from the 1960s, with emphasis on the participation of the band Os Mutantes, a very influential psychedelic rock group in the Brazilian music scene of the time.

8. Woodpeckers Don’t Get Headaches (1974, Dinara Asanova)

Dinara Asanova is perhaps one of the most talented and at the same time unknown filmmakers of the 1970s. Born in Kyrgyzstan, part of the Soviet Union at the time, she directed about eight films; the most well-known of them – yet somewhat obscure to the greater audience – is this coming-of-age film that delicately portrays the protagonist’s childhood dilemmas.

Mukha is a boy who dreams of becoming famous as a drummer in a rock-and-roll band. However, it annoys him that few call him by name, only reminding him that his brother Mukhin is a successful basketball player, the true pride of his family and local community. Such frustration facing the boy is also shared with his school friends, each with their own problems and dilemmas.

At one point, Mukha falls in love with Ira, a girl he knows at school, and the film’s narrative focuses on these three main aspects: the way Mukha faces the fact that he is always in the shadow of his famous brother; his attraction and attempt at conquering Ira; and his dream of becoming a great rock drummer.

Although rock is the protagonist’s dream, it is free jazz that permeates the soundtrack of the film, making in many sequences an efficient relationship with the montage and creating scenes of remarkable rhythm and musicality that helps set the tone of mess and the confusion of the youth of Mukha and his friends, and even of building the boys’ own identity.

7. Kauwboy (2012, Boudewijn Koole)

There are a huge number of films about childhood that portray it beautifully, but few films can do so by addressing a less prosperous or troubled context. This seems to be the case with “Kauwboy,” a film that accompanies the childhood of Jojo, a 10-year-old boy living with his father, a middle-aged man with alcohol problems and depressed by his wife’s departure.

Jojo’s relationship with his father is not very easy, but everything gets even more complicated when the boy finds an abandoned bird and decides to bring him home. Jojo knows that his father will never allow an animal to be present inside the house, and tries to keep it hidden until his mother’s birthday, as he still believes she will return to their lives.

“Kauwboy” is a film that deals mainly with relationships and the beauty that coexists, not always harmoniously, between the different personalities of Jojo and his father. We see all the early maturity necessary for the boy to deal with his volatile and unstable father, as well as all the love he has for his distant mother being directed to the fragile bird he decides to take care of, and his relationship with the jackdaw that somewhat resembles Ken Loach’s classic movie “Kes.”

6. Kamome Diner (2006, Naoko Ogigami)

Failure is more commonly portrayed negatively in film, and it does not seem difficult to imagine why. In “Kamome Diner,” however, Naoko Ogigami seems to reverse this logic a bit by finding beauty in the resignation and willpower of a Japanese woman who decides to open a small restaurant in Helsinki’s city center.

The film tells the story of Sachie, a young Japanese woman who travels alone to Finland, where she decides to live and try her luck by opening Kamome Diner, a small restaurant whose main attraction is its famous rice balls. The start of business is complicated, and Sachie has trouble getting regulars. His first customer is Tommi, a friendly young Finnish man who earns free coffee for being the first customer in Sachie’s short restaurant history. Shortly thereafter she meets Midori, who will help her at the restaurant, and further on Masako, a middle-aged Japanese woman who has lost her luggage, and they decide to help.

Despite all the diligence and whim of Sachi and Midori, it will not be easy to win the clientele, which will start to frustrate the expectations of the two young women, but it is precisely in this daily life of resilience and empathy that we will find the most beautiful elements in the film. At one point, a mysterious man reveals a simple technique that will help Sachie make almost perfect coffee, some old women will be conquered by the taste of the rice balls, and little by little, life will go on with its ups and downs.