The Japanese master’s greatest achievement, this is an anime of endless imagination and hypnotic power, winning the coveted Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
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Spirited Away (2001)
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Author / Eternality Tan
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Eddington (2025)
This confirms Aster as one of America’s most provocative auteurs, as he uses a fictional town on the brink of the coronavirus to capture the post-2020 zeitgeist of rage-baiting politics, the toxicity of social media and post-truth nihilism, backed by a sensational turn by Joaquin Phoenix.
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King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)
The US version features clunky news segments that spell out the spectacle, but when the two kaijus are pitted like pro-wrestlers with comical moves, the movie somewhat works on a childlike level with its reliance on rear projection and miniature toys.
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Day After, The (2017)
Shot in solemn black-and-white, Hong’s elegiac, non-linear reflection on infidelity, regret and emotional burden sees a condemned man trying to move on from his extramarital affair.
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Pulse (2001)
Friends commit suicide or disappear in this eerie, prophetic J-Horror essential as Kurosawa shows how the web would exacerbate collective angst and loneliness as ghosts are stuck in liminal spaces between the afterlife and reality, mediated by the digital screen.
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Woman on the Beach (2006)
A contemplative exploration of neediness and the transient nature of human connection, Hong’s drama about creative paralysis sees a film director having a fling with his friend’s girlfriend, sparking psychological clarity.
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Beasts, The (2022)
A French organic farming couple doesn’t want to sell their land to a wind turbine eco-company, incurring the wrath of the Spanish locals, as Sorogoyen’s slow-burning thriller reveals the psychological pressures of intimidation and violence.
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Walker (1987)
Cox’s astonishing genre-bending masterpiece satirically and anachronistically lays bare the dark shadow of American imperialism across time, shot in Nicaragua during the Contra War, and featuring Ed Harris as 19th-century mercenary leader William Walker.
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Afternoons of Solitude (2024)
Serra’s unflinching, observational documentary plants its camera with sniper-like focus on the bloody ritual of bullfighting, as static long takes and dynamic close-ups capture a lonely matador risking his life, afternoon after afternoon, to end another.
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Musings #10: Merci, The Projector (2014-2025)
19 Aug 2025 was a very, very dark day for cinephiles, filmmakers, artists, cultural changemakers, and so many more communities living in Singapore.
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