Essential

3 Women (1977, dir. Robert Altman, stars Shelley Duvall)

Caché (2005, dir. Michael Haneke, stars Daniel Auteuil)

Come and See (1985, dir. Elem Klimov, stars Aleksei Kravchenko)

Downfall (2004, dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel, stars Bruno Ganz)

Four Lions (2010, dir. Chris Morris, stars Riz Ahmed)

Half Nelson (2006, dir. Ryan Fleck, stars Ryan Gosling)

Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997, dir. Werner Herzog)

Nashville (1975, dir. Robert Altman, stars Keith Carradine & others)

Ran (1985, dir. Akira Kurosawa, stars Tatsuya Nakadai)

Spellbound (2002, dir. Jeff Blitz)

Highly Recommended

The Beat My Heart Skipped (2005, dir. Jacques Audiard, stars Romain Duris)

Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005, dir. George Clooney, stars David Strathairn)

In My Father’s Den (2004, dir. Brad McGann, stars Matthew Macfadyen)

Smash Palace (1981, dir. Roger Donaldson, stars Bruno Lawrence)

Somewhere (2010, dir. Sofia Coppola, stars Stephen Dorff)

Waves (2006, dir. Li Tao)

Recommended

Being There (1979, dir. Hal Ashby, stars Peter Sellers)

Borat (2006, dir. Larry Charles, stars Sacha Baron Cohen)

Brokeback Mountain (2005, dir. Ang Lee, stars Heath Ledger)

Charade (1963, dir. Stanley Donen, stars Cary Grant)

Children of Men (2005, dir. Alfonso Cuaron, stars Clive Owen)

The Constant Gardener (2005, dir. Fernando Meirelles, stars Ralph Fiennes)

Dawn of the Dead (2004, dir. Zack Snyder, stars Sarah Polley)

L’Enfant (2005, dir. Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, stars Jeremie Renier)

Farewell My Concubine (1993, dir. Kaige Chen, stars Gong Li)

Hi, Mom! (1969, dir. Brian De Palma, stars Robert de Niro)

King Kong (2005, dir. Peter Jackson, stars Naomi Watts)

Manhattan (1979, dir. Woody Allen, stars Woody Allen)

Munich (2005, dir. Steven Spielberg, stars Eric Bana)

Out of the Blue (2006, dir. Robert Sarkies, stars Karl Urban)

Worth a Look

Capote (2005, dir. Bennett Miller, stars Philip Seymour Hoffman)

Coffee and Cigarettes (2002, dir. Jim Jarmusch, stars Cate Blanchett)

Little Miss Sunshine (2005, dir. Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris, stars Steve Carell)

Mission: Impossible III (2005, dir. JJ Abrams, stars Tom Cruise)

Notes on a Scandal (2006, dir. Richard Eyre, stars Judi Dench)

Sunshine (2007, dir. Danny Boyle, stars Cillian Murphy)

(be) Careful

25th Hour (2002, dir. Spike Lee, stars Edward Norton)

Babel (2006, dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu, stars Brad Pitt)

The Graduate (1967, dir. Mike Nichols, stars Dustin Hoffman)

Quick Change (1990, dir. Howard Franklin & Bill Murray, stars Bill Murray)

Look Both Ways (2005, dir. Sarah Watt, stars William McInnes)

Walk the Line (2005, dir. James Mangold, stars Joaquin Phoenix)

Fail!

Doom (2005, dir. Andrzej Bartkowiak, stars Karl Urban)

A History of Violence (2005, dir. David Cronenberg, stars Viggo Mortensen)

Next (2007, dir. Lee Tamahori, stars Nicolas Cage)