The Movies canon

Sourced and screened.

Every film chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 731 films or filter by genre, director, place, and year.
9 films
SortEditorial Year Title
Place·China✕clear
War · Coming of age

Empire of the Sun

Directed by Steven Spielberg
1987

Christian Bale was thirteen and carries the entire film: Spielberg follows an English boy separated from his parents in occupied Shanghai, and never lets the war become an adventure.

★ 5.4
Drama · Action

Ip Man

Directed by Wilson Yip
2008

Donnie Yen plays Bruce Lee's future teacher and does his own fighting throughout: Wing Chun filmed at full speed with long takes, in a Foshan under Japanese occupation.

★ 5.4
Action thriller · Action

A Better Tomorrow

Directed by John Woo
1986 · Hong Kong

It made Chow Yun-fat a superstar and started an entire Hong Kong genre: two brothers on opposite sides of the law, and a gunman in a trenchcoat lighting a cigarette with money.

★ 5.7
Crime · Thriller

Infernal Affairs

Directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak
2002 · Hong Kong

Scorsese's The Departed is a remake of this, and the Hong Kong original is fifty minutes tighter: two moles assigned to find each other, and a plot that never stops to explain itself.

★ 6.5
Martial arts · Action

Hero

Directed by Zhang Yimou
2002 · China

Zhang Yimou shot each retelling of one assassination attempt in a different color: Christopher Doyle's photography is so beautiful that the film's politics start an argument every single time.

★ 6.7
Action thriller · Crime

The Killer

Directed by John Woo
1989 · Hong Kong

Woo shoots gunfights the way other directors shoot musical numbers: two pistols, slow motion, doves, and underneath it a straight-faced story about honor between a hitman and the cop hunting him.

★ 6.8