Everyone knows what the first thing on anyone’s mind when they read a title like this. Ah, another list with the same usual suspects. Even that term—usual suspects—has had its time under the sun. But back to lists—there’s definitely something about them and everyone loves making one. One, they feel definitive. Two, you need to know if your favourite was on it. Three, they’re plain fun and easier on the eye and on the brains. So, when we got down to writing this one, we decided to put a wee spin on it. What if you were stranded inside a lighthouse on a windswept island, in the throes of a consumptive fever, with a walk-in Criterion closet adjacent? I don’t know about your genre, but you don’t have a lot of time, so here you go—one movie to watch from every genre… before you die.
Action: Kill Bill: Vol 1 and 2
In this Tarantino classic, a betrayed assassin (Uma Thurman) wakes from a coma and slices her way through a vengeance list. Wacky, weird and what a ride.
Comedy: Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Directed by Terry Gilliam, this mock satire that's part of the rollicking Monty Python trilogy follows King Arthur and his band of bumbling knights search for the Holy Grail in the silliest medieval quest ever.
Horror: Rosemary's Baby
Disgraced director Roman Polanski's 1968 classic beat The Shining, The VVitch and Don't Look Now to the spot in this list. A young pregnant woman begins to suspect her overly friendly neighbours are part of a satanic cult. Paranoia has never looked this petrifying.
Epic: Barry Lyndon
We had to drop Stanley Kubrick's The Killing in the crime category, but there was no way this perverse and sardonic tale of an Irish rogue in the 18th century was missing out. Ryan O'Neal plays the titular rogue, scheming and stumbling his way into aristocracy in 18th-century Europe.
Satire: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
While we're on the subject of Kubrick, never has Dr Strangelove seemed more relevant, with the threat of nuclear war and catastrophe hanging in the air everywhere you tread. In this brilliant 1964 classic, a rogue US general triggers nuclear war while politicians and mad scientists bicker in a war room.
Noir: Chinatown
Spoiler alert: A private eye investigating a simple case gets dragged into a conspiracy involving water power and incest. Chinatown is the film I would keep if I was asked to watch just one for the rest of my life—and yes, I am guilty of having two Polanski films on the list.
Apocalyptic: Children of Men
In a bleak future where humans can no longer reproduce, a disillusioned man must protect a miraculously pregnant refugee. Clive Owen and Julianne Moore star in the Alfonso Cuarón film.
Sci-Fi
A linguist tries to communicate with visiting aliens before human fear turns into war.
Heist
A team of dream thieves is tasked with planting an idea deep within a man's subconscious.
Romance
A comic book clerk falls for a call girl and accidentally starts a bloody showdown with gangsters.
Romantic Comedy
A lonely office worker lets his bosses use his apartment for affairs but falls for one of the mistresses.
Love Triangle
A tennis prodigy-turned-coach orchestrates a high-stakes match between her husband and ex-lover. Luca Guadagnino, Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist team up to deliver a sexed up cocktail of sex and thrill. Don't miss Nine Inch Nails duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' superb score.
Sports Drama: The Iron Claw
The tragic true story of the Von Erich brothers who wrestled fame and family demons in the ring. Directed by Sean Durkin, it stars Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, Lily James, Holt McCallany and Zach Efron in a career-defining performance, it will leave you a sobbing mess by the end.
Gangster Drama: Gangs of Wasseypur
Multi-generational blood feuds erupt in the coal mafia underworld of Dhanbad, Jharkand in India. Anurag Kashyap's two-part saga of death, revenge and politics, powered by brilliant music from Sneha Khanwalkar and Amit Trivedi, is one of the best gangster dramas ever made.
War Drama: Apocalypse Now
A soldier (Martin Sheen) journeys upriver during the Vietnam War to terminate a rogue colonel (Marlon Brando) who has purportedly lost his sanity and started a cult of his own. Based on Joseph Conrad's moody, dark and revelatory Modernist novel Heart of Darkness, this Francis Ford Coppola special hands down the best war film ever made. Don't miss the carpet-bombing sequence with Ride of the Valkyries playing the background and, of course, The End by The Doors.
Erotic: 2046
You will watch many other films exploring desire and sex and then you will watch 2046, Wong Kar-wai's criminally underrated fever dream. A writer (Tony Leung) drifts through women and memories while obsessing over a sci-fi story that might be about his past.
Thriller: The Talented Mr. Ripley
In this Anthony Minghella classic based on the Patricia Highsmith novel, a poor young man sent to retrieve a rich heir becomes dangerously enamoured with his life. It's a testimony to the brilliance of the story that this film has been made a number of times, including as René Clément's Purple Noon (1960), starring Alain Delon, and most recently as the show Ripley, starring Andrew Scott.
Mystery: Vertigo
It's hard to pick any film over Bong Joon Ho's brilliant Memories of Murder. But not if you're Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. A detective (James Stewart) with a fear of heights is drawn into a bizarre case involving a beautiful woman (Kim Novak) and a staged death. It will traumatise you but by the time you're done solving the mystery, it'll be alright.
Coming-Of-Age: Y Tu Mama Tambien
In this Alfonso Cuarón film that counts as an essential adolescent experience, two teenage boys and an older woman go on a road trip through Mexico that alters all three forever. Starring Maribel Verdú, Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna.
Crime: Uncut Gems
If you still aren't into the Safdie Brothers, we suggest you correct your course. A New York jeweller bets everything on a rare opal and spirals into a self-made disaster. A thrill-a-minute ride with a depravedly effervescent Adam Sandler.
Animated: Porco Rosso
A charming bounty hunter who strangely looks like a pig (watch to find out why) soars across the Adriatic in this post-WWI fantasy. A Studio Ghibli masterpiece that doesn't get the credit it deserves.
Musical
Two young lovers are separated by war and time in this all-sung tale of pastel sorrow. The Jacques Demy directorial, decked out with melodies by Michel Legrand, stars a cherubic Catherine Deneuve. And it trumps The Sound of Music, West Side Story and La La Land on the all-time list.
Western: Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia
Sergio Leone fan here, but if you have just one Western to watch, it's better to corrupt your mind with Sam Peckinpah. In this wickedly brutal neo-Western, a down-and-out American (Warren Oates) in Mexico takes a job to literally bring back a wanted man’s severed head.
Espionage: Skyfall
On any other list, films based on John le Carré's books or even The Conversation would take top honours in the category. In the Sam Mendes-directed Bond 23, when MI6 is attacked from within, Agent 007 (Daniel Craig) must confront ghosts of his past to protect what remains. Oh, and who can forget Adele crooning the title track? Chills.