“Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.”
– Percy Bysshe Shelley

One the main reasons we enjoy movies so much is because of the love we naturally have toward the power of story; a love that is made even stronger by our deep, instinctive need to empathize with the characters we appreciate (or despise!) and their fate, unraveling before our eyes as we sit, powerless and captured on the edge of our seats.

But how come most of the movies that best demonstrate this fact are often the ones that make us desperate, and even end up causing a fair share of the audiences to sigh and cry? Here is a list of 10 films from this century that carried a particularly heavy emotional load on viewers, whatever their main aim may have been.

Some of these movies may leave you empty and depressed about life on a whole, while others are likely to bring you to tears while simultaneously putting a melancholic, sad smile on your face. Whenever you’re ready, prepare to hold your tears and enjoy your reading!

Please note that every single text related to the following entries featured on this list will contain heavy spoilers fully describing many key plot points and/or final scenes for each movie listed.

You’ve been warned!

10. A Single Man (2009)

Tom Ford’s directorial debut follows George Falconer (Colin Firth), a British college professor unable to cope with the unexpected death of his boyfriend Jim (Matthew Goode).

Set in 1962 and starting eight months after Jim’s death, “A Single Man” focuses on classic themes such as grief and memory, but does so while allowing us to empathize with a main character who is in many ways forced to hide his raw emotions and identity from everyday society.

Forbidden from attending the funeral by his partner’s family, George struggles to find some will to live in the sole support of his best friend Charley (Julianne Moore), who’s facing an harsh period herself and still believes she’s in love with George despite his sexual orientation.

Featuring a strong and heartbreaking ending scene, “A Single Man” is a thought-provoking movie reflecting our innermost fear of solitude and the need for sadness in our lives, which is most of the time the only emotional lever that can possibly help overcome seemingly unbearable pain.

As Ford’s camera delves deep into the minds of the broken characters put on film, the viewers are offered catharsis and find a way to hope for (maybe) future happiness just like George does when he decides not to commit suicide. But still, death comes for the finally peaceful professor in the form of a sudden heart attack, briefly allowing him to see Jim one last time, and maybe reunite with him in a supposed afterlife.

9. Call Me By Your Name (2017)

Released just months ago, Luca Guadagnino’s latest cinematic effort, recently chosen as one of the nine Oscar nominees for this year’s Academy Award for Best Picture, has already left its mark on many viewers, gaining a strong reputation as one of the most interesting romantic movies of this decade.

“Call Me By Your Name” is a tale of desire and personal growth set in 1983, revolving around 17-year-old Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and his summer stay with his family in the beautiful and green countryside of northern Italy.

Well-educated and loved by his parents, Elio spends most of his days reading and partying with his usual summer friends, at least until his father’s new American assistant Oliver (Armie Hammer) is invited to join them in their villa for six long weeks. Soon the young man will develop a strong attraction for the newcomer, starting a strong and secret relationship that will ultimately change Elio’s view on love and sexuality.

After an intense and unforgettable summer, things go sour when Oliver has to return to America and phones back to Italy days later with the news that he’s getting married, leaving Elio desperate and confused about the meaning of their bond and relationship.

We are left with a truly great monologue from Mr. Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg), expressing not only his unconditional support for his own son, but also a certain longing and envy for a kind of love that he has never been able to find and experience; moments later, the end credits roll over a shot of Elio, silently crying in front of the camera for minutes in one of this year’s most interesting long takes to date. Just like Elio, our heart is broken, too, and a life lesson is learned.

8. Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Long before all those American snipers and those trains to Paris, there was a time when even Clint Eastwood could direct a humane film. A critical and commercial success, “Million Dollar Baby” is one of the finest achievements in Eastwood’s filmography, and is widely regarded as one of the most moving and intense movies of this century because of its extremely painful and emotional final act.

Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) is a waitress from a small town in Missouri with the dream of starting a successful boxing career. Frankie Dunn (Eastwood himself), the owner of the old Los Angeles gym where Maggie starts looking for a coach, refuses to train her because of her age and gender while Eddie “Scrap-Iron” Dupris (Morgan Freeman), Frankie’s employee, persuades her to keep training by herself in the gym in order to be noticed.

Finally, Frankie and Maggie start to bond over her hopes and increasing fighting ability, until he’s convinced that she’s ready for a titular fight. The big moment comes, and Maggie is hit by an illegal sucker punch that makes her fall on a misplaced stool in the ring that breaks her neck and leaves her a quadriplegic.

Alone and desperate, Maggie suffers a leg amputation and almost dies trying to bite off her own tongue in an attempt to bleed to death. The movie ends with Frankie secretly visiting Maggie in the hospital at night, allowing her to finally die with a fatal injection of adrenaline moments after their last goodbye.

7. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Written by brilliant screenwriter and director Charlie Kaufman, and by far Michel Gondry’s most interesting film along with “Be Kind Rewind,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” has been able to gain a cult status and become a landmark of contemporary filmmaking.

Starring an all-star cast (Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Elijah Wood, Kirsten Dunst and Mark Ruffalo all have major roles in the film) and full of genius ideas and psychology, this is not only one of the most moving films of the 21st century, but also one of the best.

Mixing the romantic film formula with complex sci-fi elements and even comedy, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” follows the story of Joel Barish (Carrey), a lonesome and sad individual who finds it hard to break out of his introverted attitude, who one day meets young and beautiful Clementine (Kate Winslet), a woman capable of changing his life forever thanks to her vibrant way of life and extroverted character.

We soon come to learn that the relationship between the two has already ended, leaving Joel hurt and lonesome once again, while Clementine has had him erased from her memory forever thanks to an imaginific agency appropriately called Lacuna Inc. When Joel decides to undergo the same procedure to finally forget Clem and maybe start living again, he repents and a fight rages on inside his brain to save every memory of the couple’s life together, revealing both their best and worst moments and the preciousness of their bond, as love complicates the lives of every Lacuna worker involved in the process, too.

In the finale, the couple realizes they should start over again together even if they know they may be doomed to fail once again, as every moment shared will be worth the future pain and definitely worth living through. Talk about bittersweet endings…

6. Big Fish (2003)

Tim Burton’s best movie to date in this century, “Big Fish” is an astonishing and creative fantasy film capable of striking all the right chords and, of course, succeeding in bringing audiences to tears thanks to an incredibly moving and brilliant grand finale, in which everything (and everyone!) we’ve seen up to that point comes back to sum up the essence and life of what must be one of the best characters Burton has ever been able to bring to the screen in his whole artistic career.

Edward Bloom (Albert Finney) is an old man with cancer who has spent his life telling stories full of giants, peaceful towns lost in the woods, witches, magic, and above all, a gigantic fish that can only be captured with a wedding ring.

All of these stories have one thing in common: he himself (portrayed in his young age by Ewan McGregor) is the protagonist of the various tales. Despised by his son Will (Billy Crudup) because of his attitude toward his vivid imagination, Edward has the chance to reconnect with Will when he comes to spend time with him before he dies.

Once again, Edward’s stories take the centre of the attention as viewers must decide whether to believe his incredible, unrealistic retelling of his life. At the end of the movie, Edward dies and all the different characters from his tales come to attend the service to everyone’s surprise, revealing how most of his beloved stories were indeed real memories turned into even more fantastical experiences, and a now reconciled Will promises to keep alive his father’s memory and narrations by illustrating them to his own son, as Burton’s camera deepens into the nearby lake, revealing the titular big fish swimming underwater.

Why do we love crime movies so much? Well, let’s see: we have gangsters, car chases, overcomplicated heists, infiltrated moles, choreographic and violent shoot-outs, and sometimes spectacular action set pieces. Plus, of course, there’s the sheer fun of empathizing with the bad guys… or the good guys who will try to take ‘em down.

One can prefer Tarantino’s over-the-top ear for dialogue or Sidney Lumet’s intelligent and calculated conversations, a more realistic attitude and tone or a funnier twist to the archetypal elements in the genre, but in the end, almost everyone enjoys a good crime movie… especially the ones in which something (or everything!) suddenly goes terribly wrong, leaving characters to handle the unexpected consequences of the ill-fated events.

Today we count down some of the very best movies reflecting that situation, trying to individuate some of the different causes and variations in the context of these masterworks’ scripts. Please note that not every single “crime movie about plans going wrong” could make it into the list, so if your favourite heist movies didn’t make it into the list, well… that happens.

Also, this list will heavily focus on the plot and atmosphere of the films involved, focusing on the premises and consequences of whatever plan is central to their scripts while also trying to avoid any in-depth analysis in order to avoid (whenever that is possible!) a higher presence of spoilers. In case you haven’t seen any of the listed films, however, it would be safer to skip the pertaining text. You’ve been warned!

15. Baby Driver

“The moment you catch feelings is the moment you catch a bullet.”

What’s the plan: Employed as a getaway driver in the criminal underworld of Atlanta, Baby (Ansel Elgort) is about to quit his job after falling in love with Debora (Lily James), a waitress at a local diner. Forced to team up with Buddy (Jon Hamm), his wife Darling (Eiza González) and the crazed and impulsive Bats (Jamie Foxx) in order to settle an old score with the boss of the operation, Kevin Spacey’s Doc, Baby once again reluctantly accepts to take part in a new hazardous heist.

What goes wrong: Starting as an upbeat action movie, “Baby Driver” and the plan at its core suddenly take a turn for the worse because of Bats’ delirious psychology and actions.

Convinced that the team is about to be brought to justice by police forces, Bats hilariously decides to provoke an epic shootout that ends up killing everyone on the other side of the deal, and once again brings chaos to the planned scheme later, pressuring Baby into a desperate attempt against his former partners to save his own (and Debora’s) life.

14. Blood Simple

“Believe me. These things always have a logical explanation. Usually.”

What’s the plan: Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya) owns a bar in Texas, and is almost sure that his wife Abby (Frances McDormand) is cheating on him. When private eye Lorren (M. Emmet Walsh) brings him photographic evidence of Abby’s unfaithfulness with Ray (John Getz), who works as a bartender in Julian’s joint, Marty goes crazy and tries to kidnap his own wife; but when his attempt comically fails, he decides to pay the private investigator a sum to kill the newly formed couple.

What goes wrong: The first Coen brothers movie is an absolute blast, and feels like a blueprint for everything that will come in “Fargo” 12 years later; no one is ever really able to see the whole picture, and the fact that viewers can ironically heightens the tension.

The darkness and violence of the American lifestyle is mixed with a larger-than-life comedic vein that is portrayed by an incessant series of events that range from small, tragic mistakes to plain stupid acts, committed by pretty much everyone involved.

13. Drive

“A lot of guys mess around with married women, but you’re the only one I know who robs a joint just to pay back the husband. Crazy!”

What’s the plan: Los Angeles, California. Working at the same time as a mechanic, a stunt double and a getaway car driver, a quiet and unnamed “Driver” (Ryan Gosling) falls in love with his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) and starts to develop a friendship with her young son Benicio (Kaden Leos).

Things go sour when Standard Gabriel (Oscar Isaac), Irene’s husband, is released from incarceration and beaten into taking part in one last quick robbery to repay his prison debts. The plan is indeed very simple: get in, point guns, take the money, get out, get away.

What goes wrong: Of course, Driver offers his ability as a getaway car driver in order to help Standard protect his family: what he does not know is that the planned robbery really is a set-up. When a part of the team gets shot, the Driver flees from the scene and ends up in the middle of a deadly and brutal game playing against the mob, bringing out the most dangerous and dark side of the ultimately positive personality he deeply wants to believe he possesses.

12. Big Deal on Madonna Street

“Stealing is a serious profession, and it takes serious people. All you can do at your best is work.”

What’s the plan: Cosimo (Memmo Carotenuto) gets arrested for an attempted car theft in the streets of Rome just before putting in practice a planned heist on a pawn shop next to an empty apartment.

After Peppe (Vittorio Gassman) finds out of his plan after getting paid to take the blame for his crime (the first of many plans that will not work out so well), he puts together a group of desperately poor acquaintances (including Marcello Mastroianni’s Tiberio and Toto’s Dante Cruciani, an expert on safe-cracking) to carry out Cosimo’s seemingly brilliant theft.

What goes wrong: Featuring great humor and a magnificent cast (Claudia Cardinale also has a small part as Michele’s Sicilian sister), “Big Deal on Madonna Street” is able to address some serious social issues, such as the increasing poverty in Rome and the harsh everyday life of those poor people in 1950’s Italy, all themes that seep through the witty dialogue and gags in the film, leading to a bittersweet finale in which the gang risks everything only to be fooled by their incompetence, and the only reward will be an humble plate of pasta with chickpeas, leading some of them to do what seemed impossible: start looking for a job.

11. The Killing

“Anytime you take a chance, you better be sure the rewards are worth the risk.”

What’s the plan: Just released from prison, Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) starts assembling a team of friends and cons planning to score a $2 million hit on the local horse racetrack. His accomplices will include a financer, a corrupt cop, a capable sharpshooter, a track bartender, a wrestler and teller George Peatty (Elisha Cook Jr.); every single move has been perfectly planned and timed based on exact maps of the building. How could anything go wrong?

What goes wrong: The plan for the heist itself works out just fine, even if the marksman gets fatally wounded because of plain bad luck (literally, as a tossed lucky horseshoe will ironically pierce his car’s tire, causing him to be shot at by police forces).

While George Peatty’s wife Sherry (Marie Windsor) sets up a trap for the team with her lover’s help, resulting in a massive shoot-out with many casualties, the money is apparently safe in Johnny’s and his future wife’s hands… until another chain of coincidental events claims the entirety of the sum that’s just been illegally earned.

10. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

“That’s what I said. A Mom and Pop operation.”

What’s the plan: Hank Henson (Ethan Hawke) is a sad and penniless divorced man full of debts who’s even unable to pay for his daughter’s school fees, while his brother Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is an executive at a NYC real estate firm who’s in need of some quick and easy cash to leave the country before a scandal hits him.

And then, Andy proposes to a reluctant Hank they rob their own parents’ jewelry store with a toy gun, as the insurance will cover the amount of every item stolen during the heist.

What goes wrong: Told in a nonlinear narrative style, Lumet decides to show us the disastrous results of the planned “quick and victimless” robbery right at the beginning of the movie.

Unable to commit a crime, Hank Henson hires small-time crook Bobby (Brian F. O’Byrne) to enter the store and hold what he believes to be elderly employee Doris at gunpoint, resulting in a brief gunfight that leaves Bobby wounded and kills Hank’s mother, filling in for Doris for the day. The consequences of the murder will be even darker…

9. The French Connection

“Last time you were dead certain we had a dead cop.”

What’s the plan: William Friedkin’s seminal noir film follows the everyday life and struggle of violent police investigator Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) and his partner Buddy “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Scheider) as they work to close in on the drug trafficking underworld of New York City, just as wealthy French smuggler Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey) arrives in New York ready to sell his best product.

When the two discover that a huge shipment of heroin is about to enter the city, they begin to wiretap criminal Salvatore Boca (Tony Lo Bianco) and his wife Angie (Arlene Farber) to gain more information…

What goes wrong: With the purchase taking longer than expected, Charnier soon realizes he’s being followed by Doyle. While his henchman Pierre Nicoli (Marcel Bozzuffi) sets off to kill the detective, the car in which the heroin has been hidden is found and the heroin is retrieved, unbeknownst to both the car’s unsuspecting owner and Mr. Charnier. When the exchange is finally rushed to take place, everyone’s in for a bitter surprise.

2017 has finally come to its end, leaving behind a year’s worth of interesting American independent and blockbuster films mixed with the usual amount of messy, standardized movies and dozens of mediocre or just plain bad films. But what about Europe?

As every year, there have been dozens of good European movies, but only a few of these were really able to stand out from the rest and gain their own place on this specific list. Sometimes both critical and commercial successes and sometimes not at all very well received, every single one of these films listed here definitely deserves a watch for its own artistic and cinematic value.

Along with some of the most talented filmmakers in recent years’ new films (yes, of course Yorgos Lanthimos is on the list!), two directors are included with their first directorial debuts. What are your favorite European films of the year?

10. Thelma (Joachim Trier) – Norway, France, Denmark, Sweden

Directed by talented director Joachim Trier (“Oslo, August 31st”, “Reprise”, “Louder Than Bombs”), “Thelma” tells the story of a young Norwegian girl (Eili Harboe) who suddenly experiences a violent seizure just moments after meeting Anja (Kaya Wilkins), a fellow student at the university of Oslo. Deeply religious and very sensitive, Thelma will have to confront increasingly more threatening seizures and her strong but self-restrained attraction to the beautiful Anja, while her supernatural capabilities slowly emerge along with a hidden secret from the past.

A seemingly overly derivative horror film, “Thelma” is something more than a simple-minded Norwegian take on Brian DePalma’s “Carrie”, and at times feel incredibly fresh and original. With an elegant and ominous score by Ola Fløttum, the film has the audacity to maintain a slow pace throughout, letting the tension build for some of the most exceptional horror sequences of the year while also shaping two wholly relatable and complex personalities for its main characters.

The movie also works as a slow burn psychological thriller dealing with such themes as personal faith, lesbian relationships and the repression of desire, and contains some of the strongest acting of 2017. Also, if you have run out of X-Men films to watch or rewatch, give this film a chance: you won’t (probably) be left disappointed.

9. I Figli della Notte (Children of the Night – Andrea De Sica) – Italy, Belgium

The first directorial debut on this list, Andrea De Sica’s “Children of the Night” is a stunning and twisted coming-of-age story set in the Alps. Giulio (Vincenzo Crea) is a smart teenager who is sent by his mother to a luxurious boarding school set in the mountains of northern Italy, conveniently distant enough from any other form of human civilization.

Upon his arrival, Giulio befriends the even smarter Edoardo (Ludovico Succio) while trying to adjust to the strict rules and teachings of the school, whose aim is that of forming the Italian ruling class of tomorrow. It is only after dark that they are able to silently leave the boarding school’s grounds and roam the woods nearby. The two friends’ destiny will change with the discovery of a lonely lodge hidden in the snow, where young prostitute Elena (Yuliia Sobol) works: but are their escapades really a secret?

Andrea De Sica (nephew of neorealist filmmaker Vittorio De Sica) manages to direct a movie that is almost always incredibly dark and grim, and yet is capable to attract viewers thanks to its gorgeous locations and brilliant acting. Directly influenced by the works of Stanley Kubrick, the film is also a divertissement for the constant mixture of cinematic references scattered throughout: from “Shining” and “Suspiria” to Lynch’s “Twin Peaks”, “Children of the Night” is equal part social commentary and ingenious mystery.

8. Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas) – France, Germany

Imagine buying expensive clothes you like and are not even allowed to try on for a bossy rich girl that doesn’t have time to make her own errands. That is exactly Maureen Cartwright’s job, but there is definitely more to her than her particular position of employment: Maureen is a medium too, and the real reason why she is stuck in Paris is to somehow contact the soul of her dead twin brother Lewis, who shared with her the same generally harmless congenital heart condition.

A fine example of good writing and visual elegance, “Personal Shopper” has often been described as a ghost story for the iPhone age; and while that is in part adequate and true, what really is memorable about the film is that the paranormal phenomena depicted express a profound sense of sadness and melancholy that is rare to retrieve in most of contemporary horror and thriller cinema. Also, some of these scenes (especially the ones involving texting) can be easily seen as little cinematic lessons on tension and Hitchcockian suspense, making for some really intense moments throughout.

Besides Olivier Assayas’ usual brilliant camera work, the film also deserves credit for Yorick Le Saux’s inspired cinematography and of course Kristen Stewart’s great performance, once again hard proof of her talent after many years of undeserved hate for her role as the main character in the mediocre “Twilight” film saga.

7. Lady Macbeth (William Oldroyd) – UK

Known as a stage director in London, director William Oldroyd’s first effort in filmmaking is an adaptation of Nikolaj Leskov’s short story “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”.

A tragic Victorian tale of love and despair set in the british moorland, “Lady Macbeth” retells the story of Katherine (Florence Pugh), a young woman forced into a convenience marriage with the older Alexander Lester (Paul Hilton), whom she does not love. When both Alexander and his father Boris finally have to leave the house, Katherine will discover her true self by starting an affair with Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis), a worker at the estate, while also slowly descending in a moral abyss of violence and revenge.

Critically acclaimed and winner of five prizes at the British Independent Film Award 2017, “Lady Macbeth” is a great costume drama solidly built around Florence Pugh’s brilliant performance and a subtle, immersive camera work that conveys the stillness of the main character’s forcedly regulated and surveilled everyday life.

Visually striking, the director makes the most out of the magnificent English landscapes the tale is set in, relating Katherine’s feelings and emotion to the state of nature around her as if it were a Romantic novel. Definitely a movie not to miss.

6. The Square (Ruben Östlund) – Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden

Christian (Claes Bang), curator of an art museum recently established in the Stockholm Palace after the fall of the Swedish monarchy, finds himself in a troubling position while trying to successfully promote a particular art piece entitled “The Square”, a simple but (maybe) thought-provoking work of art. In addition to this, Christian must deal with other personal matters and problems: his failing relationship with his daughters, and even a mugging with the most unexpected of consequences.

Winner of the Palme d’or at the 70th Cannes Film Festival, the movie succeeds as a grotesque commentary on contemporary art and society. Despite its slow pace and the constant attention the film demands from the viewers, Östlund directs a film clever enough to allow space for a few laughs and a clear message.

A film about art (and cinema) itself, “The Square” explicitly explains how and why important artistic achievements are sometimes hard to pinpoint and understand, but is also a satire on supposed artists incapable to deliver coherent and meaningful messages to their audience. Possibly the greatest satire of this last year, “The Square” is a rewarding and excessive tale about the real essence of an artist and the man behind that appearance.

Here is a list including ten of these directors. However, before we begin, please note that this list absolutely does not aim to comprehensiveness (which would be impossible to obtain in less than, say, eighty names).

10. Christopher Nolan

“You know when Hollywood does a great big blockbuster that really wraps you up in a world, and lets you believe in extraordinary things that move you in some way, in an almost operatic sensibility? That to me is the most fun I have at the movies.”

One of the most divisive contemporary filmmakers, Christopher Nolan began his adventure behind the camera with “Following”, a little independent film that he was able to write, produce, direct, photograph and edit with an undoubtedly low budget. His success continued with “Memento”, arguably one of his best films, also thanks to his collaboration with his brother Jonathan, a talented scriptwriter that will go on to co-write some of Christopher’s most important films (including “The Prestige” and “The Dark Knight”).

Since his debut, the English director has shown his talent in portraying psychologically complex characters with common, distinctive traits: the anti-heroes in his films are all afraid of something and are often incapable of protecting their loved ones, hurting them and themselves in the process (Leonard Shelby from “Memento”, Dom Cobb from “Inception”, Cooper from “Interstellar” are the most obvious examples,but Bruce Wayne also fits in this character archetype).

Perfectly aware of his talent and directing skills, Christopher Nolan today represents to mainstream audiences the essence of contemporary Cinema, intelligently manipulating storytelling and narrative time in order to always remain original and interesting to the wider possible audience, while also experimenting the newest cinematic techniques and formats for the sake of his most recent and imperfect but always visually striking experiences.

9. Paul Thomas Anderson

“It’s a gamble you take, the risk of alienating an audience. But there’s a theory – sometimes it’s better to confuse them for five minutes than let them get ahead of you for ten seconds.”

The first thing one notices about Paul Thomas Anderson’s works is their structure: even when the narrative revolves around a single main character, their cast has to be vast and colorful, vital, capable of portraying the widest possible range of human positive and negative emotions in a multidimensional and realistic way.

Often compared to Altman and widely recognized as an actor’s director, P.T.A. usually works with the best possible actors and character actors (just think of Magnolia’s magnificent ensemble cast), and can easily bring not-so-good actors to their best performances yet, as Adam Sandler’s Barry demonstrates in “Punch-Drunk Love”.

With a particular love for tracking shots and generally fast-paced, immersive camera movements, Paul Thomas Anderson’s visual style is one of the most distinguishable in contemporary Cinema. Love, hate, family, human relationships and greed are all different keys to his films’ main underlying theme, which ultimately is redemption: it is very easy to find that almost every character in the different films is in some way damned and has to fight for his own peace of mind.

This does not only happen to mostly negative or highly conflicted characters, but to anyone involved, like for example John C. Reilly’s and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s characters in “Magnolia”, a film that Anderson brilliantly chose to end with an original song from Aimee Mann titled, guess what, “Save me”.

8. Kim Ki-Duk

“A director should not define everything. For me, the movie is a form of a question I pose to the others or to the audience. I want to ask their opinion on my point of view and discuss it with them.”

Kim Ki-Duk is among the most important and acknowledged South Korean filmmakers, perhaps mostly known to general audiences for films like “3-Iron” and “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring”. A very harsh critic of Korean society and culture, Kim Ki-Duk’s screenplays tend to be full of complicated, flawed characters that lead uncommon lives and are mostly difficult to relate to. Be it a Buddhist monk or a mute pimp, a homeless man or a prostitute, a soldier or a violent debt collector, every character becomes an example and metaphor for some greater and generally starker human trait.

A controversial and divisive figure because of his depiction of women and everyday society, Kim Ki-Duk chose to make movies that are almost always difficult to watch, creating a world in which violent scenes and raw emotions are among the main objects used to fascinate viewers while depicting shocking, brutal and at the same time poetic events.

Rarely providing a happy ending and containing little to no dialogue (although there are memorable exceptions, such as “Time”), the auteur focuses on human relationships that can never be easily explained or catalogued, and are open to interpretation: is it all about love or hate, happiness or misery, life or death? Or both? Take your guess.

7. Terrence Malick

“I knew it would have a slow, rolling pace. Just get into it; let it roll over you. It’s more of an experience film. I leave you to fend for yourself, figure things out yourself.

Whenever philosophy and aesthetics meet, a Terrence Malick film is born. Adored by many film critics and almost despised by the general public, Malick began his career as a movie director with “Badlands” in 1973 and went on to become a renowned film auteur with his second film, “Days of Heaven”(1978), which to this day remains one of his best and most praised movies. While pretty much every Malick film is at least amazing and distinctive in its visual style, what really stands out throughout his works is their content and meaning.

“The Thin Red Line”, “To The Wonder” and “The Tree of Life” are all perfect examples of this aspect. War, love and life itself serve not only as the focuses and themes of a single movie, but as mere facts exploited in order to say something more.

With Emmanuel Lubezki as his most frequent collaborator, Malick wants to take audiences on a journey that always requires some patience and endurance, ending up rewarding some individuals way more than others. Unconventional and unique, Terrence Malick’s style possess more than enough reasons to help him make it into this list, even as pointless and odd his efforts in cinematic technique may seem.

6. Woody Allen

“This is my perspective and has always been my perspective on life: I have a very grim, pessimistic view of it. I always have, since I was a little boy. It hasn’t gotten worse with age or anything. I do feel that it’s a grim, painful, nightmarish, meaningless experience, and that the only way that you can be happy is if you tell yourself some lies and deceive yourself.”

It is not easy to be a pessimistic comedian in a world that appears to be meaningless and full of people you can’t really understand. And when the only cure for your own neurotic and sad personality is love, things are bound to get worse. A lot worse.

In love with the works of Ingmar Bergman and jazz music, Woody Allen masters the art of scriptwriting filling up his movies with a fair share of both memorable deep quotations about our reality and brilliant, hilarious one-liners. Equally skilled in visual gags and verbal jokes, the director always manages to light up his movies with a dreamy, melancholic feel and mood that most of us cannot help but empathize with.

A capable playwright and actor, Allen has frequently cast himself in the lead role (something he once again did in 2016 for his first ever television series, the Amazon Prime original project “Crisis in six scenes”), and even when he does not star in his films, an alter-ego of his can pretty much always be identified among the characters. Not afraid to break the fourth wall and challenge conventional cinematic storytelling, some of his best works (like “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan” just to name a few) can truly be described as masterpieces of the Seventh Art.

It is not easy to write an article involving the infamous IMDB’s Top 250 list. First things first: how does that ranking work? Quite simply, a specific formula aggregates regular users’ scores for any given film that receives at least 25000 individual votes, and then frequently updates the list. What remains undisclosed is how a certain voter can be counted as one of the so-called “regular users”; this happens, of course, in order to maintain “the effectiveness of the Top 250 lists”.

The most common error one can do when talking about this very Top 250 ranking would be to just regard the whole thing as “bad” and/or “stupid”. It is quite the opposite, actually. The fact is, IMDB’s most famous list should not be seen as a perfectly organized and objective ranking of the best 250 movies ever made. Who could manage to write that kind of a list, anyway?

What the list actually does, is to render the general pulse of the contemporary taste of the mainstream viewers towards the art of filmmaking. This explains what happened back in 2008, when countless fans of “The Godfather” pretty much clashed against supporters of “The Dark Knight”, and they all began respectively voting incoherent and absurd ratings of 1 out of 10 their competitor only to take their favourite movie to the highest step of the virtual podium. The funny thing is, “The Dark Knight” was not even released yet.

What this other little list here will try to convey is exactly the same point, by numbering out ten great and important movies that happen to be low on IMDB’s Top 250 for many (probably) different reasons.

Does these ten movies’ low rankings diminish their artistic and historical value in any way? Of course not. But what these rankings might do is to diminish their possibilities to be watched and enjoyed, and maybe even loved, by many viewers that are less aware of the importance of films that are geographically or temporally too distant, or again belong to genres they’re not that used to.

Please note that these are not the only ten noteworthy films to have low positions on the list, and are here reported reflecting their current descending order on IMDB’s Top 250.

10. Chinatown (#130 on IMDb top 250)

Roman Polanski’s impressive neo-noir stars Jack Nicholson as J.J. Gittes, a private investigator hired by a mysterious woman by the name of Evelyn Mulwray in order to prove her husband Hollis’ unfaithfulness.

The detective follows the man, a chief engineer for the L.A. Department of Water and Power, only to discover that he is in fact seeing another woman. What Gittes also learns is that Mr. Mulwray is refusing to approve the creation of a new reservoir that he thinks will prove unsafe… When the news make the paper, the real Mrs. Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) shows up menacing Gittes with a lawsuit, leaving him to wonder what is happening and who decided to set him up.

One of the most amazing films to come out of the New Hollywood era of American cinema, “Chinatown” has both a great script and some brilliant performances. Polanski’s camera work is as always beyond perfect, and Jerry Goldsmith’s excellent soundtrack succeeds in being both fascinating and menacing at the same time… just like the whole movie.

9. The Elephant Man (#149 on IMDb top 250)

The most moving film on this list is based on the true story of Joseph Carey Merrick, also cruelly known as the titular “Elephant Man”. Born in Leicester in 1862, Merrick suffered from serious deformities and lost his mother at an early age. After being abandoned by his father, Joseph went on to live in a Victorian freak show until he met Dr. Frederick Treves, a London Hospital surgeon that was able to see and befriend Merrick in spite of his terrible disfigurements, saving him from a life of horror and violence.

Directed by David Lynch, with John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins playing the two lead roles, “The Elephant Man” was both a critical and commercial success and was nominated for eight Academy Awards in 1980, but ended up not winning any.

The film was decided to be elegantly shot in black and white by Freddie Francis in order to magnify the impact aimed for by Christopher Tucker’s make-up effects, which were so acclaimed that the letters of protest received by the Academy convinced the committee to introduce the “Academy Award for Best Makeup” category the year later (which was won by John Landis’ comedy-horror “An American Werewolf in London”).

8. The Thing (# 163 on IMDb top 250)

Antarctica, 1982: the crew of an American research station witnesses a seemingly unexplainable event when a Norwegian helicopter desperately pursuing an Alaskan Malamute through the ice ends up being erroneously blown up by a thermite charge.

The only survivor of the explosion proceeds to shoot one of the team members in the leg while trying to kill the dog, and is finally shot dead by the U.S. station commander. When Dr. Copper and the helicopter pilot R.J. leave to investigate the Norwegian station, all they can find is a pile of dead bodies and a terrifying hominid with two faces melted into one. It is the beginning of a nightmare the U.S. Outpost #31 staff is not at all prepared to face.

John Carpenter’s remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic “The Thing from Another World” serves as what is probably one of the scariest and goriest movies ever made, thanks to a pervading, constant sense of paranoia and of course Rob Bottin’s incredible creature effects.

Ennio Morricone and Carpenter himself worked together on the soundtrack, composing tense and suspenseful themes to fit the movie’s tone. Unfortunately, critics initially saw “The Thing” as pure gore-fest and artless entertainment, while audiences preferred Spielberg’s tender view on alien forms in “E.T.”, which released that same year.

7. There Will Be Blood (#170 on IMDb top 250)

Widely regarded by critics to be one of the best 21st century movies so far, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood” would really deserve a higher ranking on IMDb top 250.

Daniel Day-Lewis plays Daniel Plainview, a ruthless silver miner that is able to found an oil mining company in 1902 Los Angeles, California, becoming a wealthy and respected businessman. He also adopts H. W., a worker’s orphaned boy that enables him to become a distinguished family man in the eyes of possible investors. As Daniel’s wealth and company grow larger, his half-brother Henry soon appears at his doorstep, while many different kinds of conflicts generate from within the business.

Truly a gem not to miss, “There Will Be Blood” is only one of many great films by Paul Thomas Anderson (the man behind “Boogie Nights”, “Magnolia”, “The Master” and “Inherent Vice”). Containing one of Daniel Day-Lewis’ most powerful and praised performances, the film is an example of brilliant scriptwriting and exceptional cinematography, giving it an instant cult status in contemporary American cinema. “The Phantom Tread” will be PTA’s next movie, hitting theatres this Christmas, and will probably feature the last ever acting role for Day-Lewis before his retirement.

6. Idi i Smotri (#172 on IMDb top 250)

There are many important films about war, and some of them are today widely regarded as masterpieces of the Seventh Art. One of the lesser known of these is “Idi i Smotri”, by Russian director Elem Klimov: this heartbreaking, visually stunning film revolves around Florya, a 14-years-old boy that finds an old rifle and dreams about joining the Byelorussian resistance to fight off the German Nazi invaders. Left behind at the partisan camp, Florya meets a girl named Glasha; soon the two will have to escape from German paratroopers attacking the camp, and face the unforgiving horrors of World War II.

“Idi i Smotri” is a wonderfully shot film, capable to depict both the childish innocence of the two main characters and the terrible events and repercussions of war on common people trying to lead their everyday life. At times hard to watch and almost unbearable, it really is a must see for every cinephile.

Mario Bava was, to put it simply, a genius. Not only did Bava direct the first ever Italian gothic horror movie, but he also contributed in the practice of founding the prolific subgenres of Italian Giallo films and slasher movies, becoming an inspiration for generations of filmmakers to come. Among these artists, Quentin Tarantino himself reprised many of Bava’s intuitions from Cani Arrabbiati (“Rabid Dogs”, 1974) for his debut film, “Reservoir Dogs”.

Son of the sculptor and special effects photographer Eugenio, Mario Bava started his career in the movie industry as a cinematographer, working under his father’s guidance. He went on to shoot and photograph two short movies by Roberto Rossellini, and soon found himself working for directors as famous and influential as Mario Monicelli and Luigi Comencini, capturing performances from the greatest Italian and international actors in the process.

It was only years later that he was finally able to put his directing skills to the test in his first low-budget short films; but what really changed Bava’s art and life were the amazing special effects that he designed for director Riccardo Freda’s works. “I Vampiri” (The Vampire, 1957), widely regarded as Italy’s first horror movie ever, featured the beautiful Gianna Maria Canale turning into an old terrifying woman without any cuts, an ingenious effect that Bava was able to pull off simply applying to the actress red grease pencil make-up, invisible when lit by red lights that could not be seen on black and white film stock, and just turning that light off to create the illusion of her suddenly aging.

Finally, in 1960, these strokes of genius (and the constant help Bava brought to the industry finishing off many films whenever and for whatever reason a change of director needed to happen) convinced producer Massimo De Rita to finance Mario’s first film, “La Maschera del Demonio” (“Black Sunday”). And so that year, one of the greatest and most interesting personalities in the history of the Seventh Art started his journey as a film director.

Here is a ranking of all his films, from worst to best. Enjoy!

24. La Casa dell’Esorcismo (The House of Exorcism, 1975)

The first entry in this list is a movie with a very particular history. First things first: this film was not directed by Mario Bava. Or at least, not in its entirety. The story of this weird mess of a movie starts in 1972, when “Lisa e il Diavolo” (“Lisa and the Devil”, number 11 on this list), one of many Bava’s great films, was released and failed to draw any interest from critics and audiences alike, leading producer Alfredo Leone to believe that an international release would have been a financial disaster.

It was only three years later that Leone had the “brilliant” idea to severely cut and edit the original version of the film, throwing into the mix new scenes he himself went on to shoot in order to turn “Lisa e il Diavolo” into an awful possession horror movie, sacrificing the original atmospheres and plot in the process. These new scenes range from terrible to unintentionally funny softcore porn, and merely serve as an unimaginative way to capitalize on the enormous success of Friedkin’s “The Exorcist”.

What made this situation even worse for Bava was the fact that getting a copy of the original version was not easy at all, leading many to think this disaster was all of his fault. Talk about real life nightmares…

23. La Strada per Fort Alamo (The Road To Fort Alamo, 1964)

The story revolves around Bud Massedy (Ken Clark), who finds a dying soldier in the desert and steals from his corpse a paper which authorizes a big payment to the U.S. Army from a near bank. Disguised as a cavalryman, Bud and his improvised gang are able to get their hands on the money, but the act ends in a shoot-out which kills a woman and forces the bandits to separate ways. While on the run, Bud crosses his path with some real soldiers and has to act as one of them, while also fighting off violent attacks from the indian tribe of the Osage.

Mario Bava’s first and only attempt to direct a conventional spaghetti western, “La Strada per Fort Alamo” comes off as a dull and generic adventure film, lacking a decent plot and any likeable character.

With a run time of only 75 minutes, the whole film still feels dragged and is never able to convey any surprising twist or just any degree of any given emotion, all leading up to a predictable and moralistic finale that remains to this day one of the most incoherent in the genre. Still, the cinematography is not at all bad and some of the camera work is interesting, allowing this film to be just slightly better than many other countless disappointing movies in the Italian western genre.

22. Le Meraviglie di Aladino (The Wonders of Aladdin, 1961)

A project started by director Henry Levin for MGM, the movie was co-directed by Mario Bava, who also crafted the movie’s special effects. It is a whimsical and goofy retelling of Aladdin’s classic tale, with an over-the-top Donald O’Connor in the lead role. It interestingly features the unusual castings of Aldo Fabrizi and Vittorio De Sica respectively as the sultan and the Genie of the Lamp, who both do an enjoyable work but of course nowhere near their best performances.

It is overall a watchable film, but it ends up as a pure divertissement far from Bava’s stylistic standards, and is generally acknowledged to his estimateurs just for some imaginative visual effects, which thanks to Mario Bava’s ideas costed absolutely nothing and still manage to keep this adventure comedy funny to this day, even if most of them look terribly dated.

One scene in particular (the one in which Aladdin is turned into a giant thanks to one of his three wishes) is said to have been the inspiration for an infamous scene from the Italian television series based on Homer’s “Odissey”, whose Polyphemus was designed and animated by Bava himself, delivering almost every Italian child of that era nightmare fuel for many, many nights to come.

21. Quante Volte… Quella Notte (Four Times That Night, 1972)

Tina (Daniela Giordano) meets John (Brett Halsey) in a park at night. Shortly after, she runs back home to her mother Sofia (Valeria Sabel) to tell her about the sexual assault she has just suffered. The same events are retold by other different perspectives (John’s, Tina’s doorman’s, a random psychologist’s), challenging the viewers in an attempt to find out where the truth lies.

Mario Bava’s take on Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece “Rashomon” is an embarrassing erotic comedy with very little to offer (sex and nudity included), starting from the terrible performances from the whole cast involved to one of the world’s worst endings, in which the psychologist sums up the three versions we have just seen and offers an explanation so dumb and nonsensical that is in its own right a reason strong enough to stay the hell away from this film.

In addition, most of the subtext to the screenplay can easily be read as homophobic, and while this was not at all Bava’s intention, he admitted he had basically no artistic freedom on any aspect of the project. A movie so dull it’s almost impossible to laugh at it, it definitely ranks as one of Bava’s lowest career points.

20. Roy Colt e Winchester Jack (Roy Colt and Winchester Jack, 1970)

The second and last contribution to the western genre in Bava’s filmography, “Roy Colt e Winchester Jack” is a better film than “La Strada per Fort Alamo”, probably because of its constant refusal to maintain a serious approach to its derivative plot.

The movie takes just a few minutes to develop the two main characters and then becomes a proper comedy and satire of spaghetti western films (with some direct quotations to Sergio Leone’s “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”), with plenty of slapstick gags, frequent punch lines and the hilarious Reverend played by Teodora Corrà stealing the scene from both of the main characters as the villain. Unfortunately, the action scenes are not that well executed…

19. Le Spie Vengono dal Semifreddo (Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs, 1966)

The comedy duo composed of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia were the absolute stars of the Italian comic cinema of the 60s and 70s. They starred in every kind of comedy and parody films, and often adapted to their flair untouchable cult movies like Fellini’s “Satyricon” or Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove”.

In 1966 Bava finally had his chance to work with this dynamic duo, but the result is not one of the best out of any of the involved parts’ filmographies. The film tells the ridiculous story of two incompetent spies that are accidentally involved in the MI6 investigation regarding the infamous criminal mastermind Dr. Goldfoot. A flawless Vincent Price, curiously at ease in a role reprised from the previous year’s american film “Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine”, said about the on set experience: “the most dreadful movie I’ve ever been in. Just about everything that could go wrong, did”.

While the film is at times painfully unfunny and not at all well-written, it still has its moments, like the hilarious robot dance scenes. Nonetheless, most critics used to describe this movie as the absolute worst that ever came from Mario Bava.

18. Gli Orrori del Castello di Norimberga (Baron Blood, 1972)

In this horror film Bava tells the story of Peter von Kleist, a young Austrian university student that during his investigations on his family’s mysterious past accidentally brings back to life his legendary ancestor Otto, that very same Baron that gives this enjoyable flick its international title. Of course, murder and horror soon unleash over the ancient castle, and Peter must do everything he can to stop the curse before it kills everyone he cares about…

With a simple and uncomplicated screenplay to work on, the Italian director still manages to build a fresh modern take on those Gothic films that he himself had started as a trend in the genre twelve years before, mixing creepiness with an unusual twisted sense of humour, shaping most of the homicides as little ironic experiments in tone and style, while also renouncing to overly sophisticated camera movements in order to simply tell a straightforward story.

17. I Coltelli del Vendicatore (Knives of the Avenger, 1966)

It is the end of the year 1964 when director Leopoldo Savona abandons the production of the viking epic “I Coltelli del Vendicatore”, and Mario Bava is called to finally bring the project to a conclusion. Having seen Savona’s footage, Bava decides not to use anything from it and manages to rewrite the whole script and shoot the entire film in just six days.

The movie marks his third collaboration with actor Cameron Mitchell, who plays an enigmatic anti-hero which could be easily described as Shakespearean. After saving a widowed viking queen and her son from an aggression by the hand of the cruel ruler Hagen, the main character sets up to get his bloody private revenge while simultaneously trying to redeem the brutality of his own past actions, leading to some brilliant plot twists and a fair amount of good action scenes.

The movie in itself is definitely not a masterpiece, but just the facts behind its production alone are more than enough reason to give this minimalist adventure film a chance.