Ben Roberts

Comments

E.T. The Extra-terrestrial

Pure emotional drama about family, loneliness and belonging. I find it deeply profound and have done since I was 7.

Pink Flamingos

Radical do-as-you-please auteurism. More shocking than Un Chien Andalou.

Psycho

A Hollywood movie that breaks rules from

the first scene but exists entirely to entertain. Give the audience what they don’t know they want.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

I’m not being contrary - I think this is a stupendous and terrifying piece of cinema. The linchpin of a complete masterwork that is otherwise formally and deliberately television.

The Long Day Closes

A beautiful film that celebrates cinema as a space for solace, solitude, escape and discovery.

Pather Panchali

Completely stunning as a debut. Such an amazing use of the cinema - camera, editing, sound, acting. Mesmerising and gripping.

Moonlight

The film of the last decade that has left a mark. Intimate but epic. Emotionally breathtaking and unconsciously radical.

The Blair Witch Project

Effective horror (like comedy) requires great skill and rarely reinvents itself. This was a pioneer. None of its many imitators have matched it for authenticity. A completely disturbing film.

Beau travail

Erotic, tragic, breathtaking - it’s overwhelming. Did not have the same power on a recent rewatch at home - but maybe that’s ok, it’s cinema after all.

Alien

Including this for the filmmakers’ prowess and discipline, but also the lasting influence and legacy of the film’s concept, casting, design and marketing.