2025 film discoveries

older films I saw for the first time and rated with five stars

Einstein on the Beach

Philip Glass’s deconstructed postmodernist opera barreled into my world in January, 2025, immediately taking the top spot on my list of Top 200 Films—for the first time ever! After a decades-long reign, Fargo was replaced as my favorite film by this proshot four-and-a-half-hour opera with lyrics written by an autistic teen and ballet sequences that taught me more about physics than anything before. It’s certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, but it hits all the right spots for me!

Joseph Kilian

In this 38-minute Czech film, a man rents a cat, which he carries in his valise all day, but can’t return it on time because the Cat Store has disappeared. A Kafkaesque surrealist romp (the title character—who never appears—is “Josef K”, after all) is simultaneously adorable, cutting, funny, and frightening. I highly recommend it!

That Touch of Mink

This Doris Day-Rock Hudson romcom makes one small change from the formula: Cary Grant steps in for Hudson. Day is a working woman who gossips with her friend through the doors of the automat. Grant is a rich bachelor who expects benefits for his attentions. A delight from start to finish, this movie asks what a woman will do “just for that touch of mink.”

The 21

Only 13 minutes long, this film squeezes in all the pain of the world and the glory of an unseen God by telling the tale of 21 Coptic martyrs killed in Libya by ISIS in 2015. The ravishing visuals are animation that draws from both icons and stained glass. The person narrating the tale is the only weak link, but the power of the story and its portrayal more than makes up for that. A must-watch you can see HERE.

What a Way To Go!

Meta Hollywood at its best, this story of a woman who can’t stop inheriting fortunes she doesn’t want pulls out all the romcom tropes and even sprinkles in vignettes in the styles of various film genres. A never-ending cast of A-listers (Shirley MacLaine, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Gene Kelly, and Dick Van Dyke) mock themselves with relish…but the real draw is Edith Head’s clever and humorous costumes.

Barbra Streisand…and Other Musical Instruments

At the height of her fame, Streisand made this television special that incorporates pretty much every type of world music, from sitars to guzhengs to saws to toasters! Barbra throws herself into some of her greatest live performances here, with “I Never Has Seen Snow” and “The Sweetest Sounds”. And her long set with Ray Charles is not too shabby, either.

A Canterbury Tale

Impossible to explain (don’t even try) and featuring a bizarre but inconsequential crime spree, this wartime film about pilgrimage can break your heart in many beautiful ways. A feel-good film in every way, its course is impossible to predict. At its base, however, it is about human interactions, both with each other and with the divine. I can’t wait to watch it again with friends!

Lemonade Joe, or The Horse Opera

God bless the Czech and Slovak New Wave! That brief movement’s signature surrealism is turned toward the American Western here, and it is hilarious and strange. Filtered through an ever-changing array of color filters, Karel Fiala nails the wholesome cowboy persona, and all the other stock characters file in behind, with names like Doug Badman, Hogofogo, The Poncho Kid, and Tornado Lou, the Arizona Warbler. The only thing that stops you from thinking this is a Mel Brooks joint is that everyone is speaking (and singing) in Czech.

The Consequences of Love

I love (most of) Paolo Sorrentino’s films for their style over substance technique and ultra-cool vibe. The Consequences of Love works like something of a mystery, as we piece together the story of Toni Sorvillo’s character and watch his unrequited love for a hotel waitress save and damn him. Just as in Il Divo, Sorrentino’s use of music in this movie elevates the entire thing to transcendent heights, and the last scene is unforgettable.

Cape Fear (1962)

Just as terrifying as The Shining, but without any supernatural element, Cape Fear strains suspense to a dangerous pitch as Robert Mitchum stalks Gregory Peck’s wife and daughter after serving the prison sentence for rape that Peck’s testimony sealed. Leaving behind any semblance of humanity, Mitchum is like the evil twin of his character in Night of the Hunter. He is a beast, and he is implacable. And how can a man as principled as Gregory Peck take him down without becoming an animal himself? Killer cinema in every respect!

The Teahouse of the August Moon

Yep, that’s Marlon Brando as a Japanese peasant…and he nails the part! Well ahead of its time in terms of social concerns and foreign policy, Teahouse is a chaotic fish out of water comedy that boils into a sentimental weepie. Sometimes bold swings work, and this is one of the boldest.

You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet

Reality is plastic in Alain Resnais’s masterpiece about art and time and relationships and how they all change. A room full of actors watching a rehearsal tape of a new version of a play they all acted in slip in and out of the play—and their memories—as Resnais shows the power of theatre to change people, the power of people to change people, and half a dozen other subtle and ineffible topics. Aching with beauty and exploding with great performances (from actors having the time of their lives), this film may have a deceptively trite title, but it runs deep and true.