By Jon Favreau, 2010.

The cast in this is just ridiculous. Also, the Iron Man movies are the definition of good comic book movies. (Chris Nolan’s Batman movies are the definition of good comic book films.) (The Spider Man series sucked.)

By Kevin Smith, 2006.

This was surprising. I mean if you dislike Clerks, there’s no reason you’d like this. But for those of us who loved the Jersey trilogy, the prospect of a sequel to Clerks in a post-Jersey Girl world of Kevin Smith was kind of terrifying. But this was pretty much a perfect sequel.

Also the entire theme of “live your own life, not the one they expect of you” is particularly resonant for me right now.

By Peter Weir, 1998.

This is such a biting commentary on celebrity idealism as well as a terrifying glimpse into what would become a reality television obsessed America. In retrospect this movie is even better than it was when it first came out. Jim Carrey certainly was robbed of an Oscar for Best Actor, and Ed Harris was phenomenal as usual.

By Greg Mottola, 2009.

This is probably my favorite movie of the past decade. This is the single best John Hughes movie that John Hughes never made. I would imagine this only grows in cult status, and in 20 years it’s next to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in the annals of absolutely perfect coming of age tales (but for post-college instead of post-high school). I’d start quoting lines, but I’d never stop. Best movie, best movie.

By Sofia Coppola, 2003.

I swear to god if I had $5,000 I would take a leave of absence from work and go back to Japan tomorrow. Holy fuck I love this country. Also this movie feels like someone is filling up your heart with concrete right before throwing you off a pier into the Bay.

A tidbit of awesome, (The New York Times via You Might Find Yourself):

Bob, who is in town to make a whiskey commercial, doesn’t speak Japanese. His director (Yutaka Tadokoro), a histrionic Japanese hipster, doesn’t speak English. In one scene, Bob goes on the set and tries to understand the director through a demure interpreter (Akiko Takeshita), who is either unable or (more likely) unwilling to translate everything the director is rattling on about.

Needless to say, Bob is lost. And without subtitles, so is the audience. Here, translated into English, is what the fulmination is really about.

DIRECTOR (in Japanese to the interpreter): The translation is very important, O.K.? The translation.

INTERPRETER: Yes, of course. I understand.

DIRECTOR: Mr. Bob-san. You are sitting quietly in your study. And then there is a bottle of Suntory whiskey on top of the table. You understand, right? With wholehearted feeling, slowly, look at the camera, tenderly, and as if you are meeting old friends, say the words. As if you are Bogie in “Casablanca,” saying, “Cheers to you guys,” Suntory time!

INTERPRETER: He wants you to turn, look in camera. O.K.?

BOB: That’s all he said?

INTERPRETER: Yes, turn to camera.

BOB: Does he want me to, to turn from the right or turn from the left?

INTERPRETER (in very formal Japanese to the director): He has prepared and is ready. And he wants to know, when the camera rolls, would you prefer that he turn to the left, or would you prefer that he turn to the right? And that is the kind of thing he would like to know, if you don’t mind.

DIRECTOR (very brusquely, and in much more colloquial Japanese): Either way is fine. That kind of thing doesn’t matter. We don’t have time, Bob-san, O.K.? You need to hurry. Raise the tension. Look at the camera. Slowly, with passion. It’s passion that we want. Do you understand?

INTERPRETER (In English, to Bob): Right side. And, uh, with intensity.

BOB: Is that everything? It seemed like he said quite a bit more than that.

DIRECTOR: What you are talking about is not just whiskey, you know. Do you understand? It’s like you are meeting old friends. Softly, tenderly. Gently. Let your feelings boil up. Tension is important! Don’t forget.

INTERPRETER (in English, to Bob): Like an old friend, and into the camera.

BOB: O.K.

DIRECTOR: You understand? You love whiskey. It’s Suntory time! O.K.?

BOB: O.K.

DIRECTOR: O.K.? O.K., let’s roll. Start.

BOB: For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.

DIRECTOR: Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut! (Then in a very male form of Japanese, like a father speaking to a wayward child) Don’t try to fool me. Don’t pretend you don’t understand. Do you even understand what we are trying to do? Suntory is very exclusive. The sound of the words is important. It’s an expensive drink. This is No. 1. Now do it again, and you have to feel that this is exclusive. O.K.? This is not an everyday whiskey you know.

INTERPRETER: Could you do it slower and ——

DIRECTOR: With more ecstatic emotion.

INTERPRETER: More intensity.

DIRECTOR (in English): Suntory time! Roll.

BOB: For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.

DIRECTOR: Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut! God, I’m begging you.

In an interview, Ms. Coppola said she wrote the dialogue for the scene in English, and then it was translated into Japanese for Mr. Tadokoro. The scene, she said, came out of her own experience promoting her first feature film, “The Virgin Suicides,” in Japan. Whenever she would say something, she said, the interpreter would seemingly speak for much longer. “I would think that she was adding to what I was saying and getting carried away, so I wanted to have that in the scene.”

In the scene, Ms. Coppola said, Mr. Murray never did learn what the director was saying. “I like the fact that the American actors don’t really know what’s going on, just like the characters,” she said.

By Mike Nichols, 2004. Probably one of my favorite movies ever.

There are sad movies and there are movies that make you re-evaluate what the word ‘sad’ can mean. This is the latter. I don’t even remember the first time I saw it, I just remember the empty shell that I felt like afterward.

Seldom can something be so piercing and brutal but vulnerable and human. As a general rule I care little about things or people or interactions or anything really if it’s not honest. At a core level, I want the things and people and ideas and art I surround myself with to be honest, and this movie has such a heartbreaking theme of what is versus what isn’t honest and when truth is worse than lying it’s just kind of like getting kicked in the heart. Brilliant.

By Mike Figgis, 1995.

By David O. Russell, 2004.

With Naomi Watts. Yes.

(Also Jonah Hill is in this? And the dad from Six Feet Under?)

By Duncan Jones (aka David Bowie’s son), 2009.

Also this soundtrack fucking rules, Clint Mansell for President.

(Although Mansell and Mogwai’s soundtrack to The Fountain is probably better, this song is one of my favorite piano songs ever:)

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By Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig (!), 2008.

Do you ever wonder how like, what story you’re going to be in somebody else’s life? Do you ever think about that, like, what’s going to be your soundbite for the next person?

Josh apparently thought that what I needed was a good soul crushing type movie. He texted me a few minutes after I started it and said it’d probably give me a panic attack. With friends like these.

Netflix Instant is sort of the best and worst thing ever sometimes.