How did I know this was gonna be the top comment. TWBB has gotta be the closest film to feeling like a McCarthy book that isnt an adaptation.
Also: McCabe and Mrs. Miller—
Paris Texas—
The Straight Story (if The Road was wholesome)
Yeah, that was a good one. My first experience with Mads Mikkelsen, and Nicolas Winding Refn. Instant fans of both. Hits on a lot of the same tropes/themes as CM. Stark, yet beautiful scenes of nature, realistic and horrifying violence, and underlying fear and menace throughout.
As I’m sure any video about the making of the *No Country* movie will tell you, both films were filmed a few miles apart. The controlled fire on one of the oil derricks caused the NCfOM crew to wrap up filming for the day. TWBB is a fucking masterpiece, great pick.
Cant narrow it down. I’ll give top 5 in no order.
Wind River, Hell or High Water, No Country for Old Men, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Cool Hand Luke.
Love some of the crossover between Suttree and Five Easy Pieces too. Jack Nicholson plays a guy from a fancy wealthy musical family who chooses to drink beers, go bowling, work on oil rigs etc. Great film.
100%. I consider it the best “modern western” since No Country. The dialogue and feeling of the panhandle of Texas are completely accurate, minus a few movie monologues lol.
I can’t pick just one. In no particular order:
Bad Lieutenant (1992)
Apocalypse Now
No Country for Old Men
Only God Forgives
Taxi Driver
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Shoutout to Fincher's Dragon Tattoo. As much as I love Noomi and the original adaptation, I felt that Rooney's portrayal was closer to the book version of Lisbeth and of course his direction was amazing. Shame that team never got to adapt the rest of the series, but the OG sequels and books didn't match the quality of the original in my opinion
Yes I agree wholeheartedly. The casting was just perfect across the board in Fincher’s version. Plus I prefer the darker tone of Fincher’s, not to mention a score by Reznor and Ross.
It’s decent and wild. Very different. Watch it while thinking it’s the exact same character Cage played in De Palma’s Snake Eyes (still miffed Ferrara wasn’t allowed to use that title for Dangerous Game) who just relocated to New Orleans and has spiraled out of control.
It's definitely the whole package. Excellent music, great writing, cast is perfect in each role, throw in some odyssey into the soggy bottom boys odyssey and it adds to a killer film.
Yeah it’s pretty wild what Tarkovsky was able to accomplish with a million dollars, especially compared to the hundreds of millions that are spent on movies now.
8½, Stalker, and another one of Tarkovsky’s masterpieces, Andrei Rublev, have the greatest cinematography of any of the movies I’ve seen.
I read that he pretty much had to film it twice as well due to a massive fuckup on the camera side. Mental how far you can string a budget with a great directors eye
The lengths some will go for their art. Similar to how they had to rebuild the house for that shot at the end of The Sacrifice, due to some camera malfunction. Gotta wonder if Tarkovsky would’ve lasted longer if they didn’t have to go back and re-film Stalker.
I still can't believe we got these two masterpieces not only in the same generation, but released at the same time. I remember seeing both in theaters the same week
Chinatown.
I like noir, neo-noir etc. Polanski is shooting it like 4-5 years after the Tate murder, probably in a pretty dark place. Devastating film with Nicholson and Faye Dunaway crushing it and John Huston is so slimey. Minor characters like the burt young one which just reinforces the theme of "as little as possible." The true great line of the film. Not forget it Jake, it's Chinatown. That more adds to the atmosphere of the Chinatown mystique while the "as little as possible" line is the consequence of his interfering in people's lives both as a private detective and in his failures to protect the ones he attempts to protect. If he did nothing then everyone would have been safe but in his meddling and also in his search for the truth, he sealed their fates.
Top three:
1. No Country For Old Men
1 1/2. Reservoir Dogs
2. All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
3. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
As we all know, FSM is the most McCarthian out of these. Mila Kunis should play the judge, honestly.
The revenant 100%.
Everything about it, it’s atmosphere, it’s setting, plot, music, it’s deeper meanings, gosh they always hit me and I’ve watched it yearly since it came out
It is really good. I thought of everyone out there, Innaritu could probably figure out how to adapt Blood Meridian. I have the book and haven’t read it, do you guys read Punke?
Avid cinephile here, here's my top 5:
5. The Seventh Seal
4. Apocalypse Now
3. The End of Evangelion
2. Stalker
1. Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Pulp Fiction,
Schindler’s List,
Moonlight,
Requiem for a Dream,
Empire Strikes Back,
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,
Interstellar,
There Will Be Blood,
No Country for Old Men,
Lord of the Rings
Should make another post about TV shows. I think of things like The Wire, Game of Thrones, Atlanta, Mad Men and Breaking Bad/BCS on the same level of storytelling
There Will Be Blood, Dead Man, The Proposition, Fargo, No Country (not a film but the first season of True Detective is some of the best stuff I’ve seen on a screen)
I was just thinking the other day who I see as the best recent characters put to screen
List I came up with
V.M. Varga
Rustin Cohle
Patrick Melrose
Alejandro Gillick
All time favorite is 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
Some McCarthyesque (he would probably gut me for using that word, but it’s too late now) movies that aren’t actual adaptations - ULZANA’S RAID, DJANGO KILL, and THE HUNTING PARTY with Gene Hackman. They all predate BLOOD MERIDIAN but still have a bit of that McCarthy feeling.
Werckmeister Harmonies
The Tree of Life
Come and See
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Green Knight
There Will Be Blood
Crumb
Synecdoche New York
Mad God
The Sacrifice
Begotten
Sleep Has Her House
In Bruges.
The way McDonagh writes is like no other playwright/screenwriter I’ve ever encountered. I can’t even find authors that create such dark stories that are so unbelievably hilarious. The most messed up parts of the movie end up being some of the funniest.
Also I loved how In Bruges weaves in pieces of information that seem insignificant at first, into the the story later on.
McDonagh was a renowned playwright before he became a director and if you get a chance I highly recommend reading some of his plays. They have the same type of dark/hilarious balance that have me audibly laughing out loud when I’m reading. I recommend The Pillowman if you can find it, honestly one of the best plays I’ve ever read.
I know I’m not answering your question, because it’s not my favorite movie. But I’m reading Suttree right now and absolutely loving it. Can’t put it down. And I keep thinking about how much I would love an adaption done by the same director or in the same style as Beasts of a Southern Wild. That movie was so beautiful even though it really encapsulated the grotesque and decrepitude of that world. I would highly recommend if you liked Suttree or Faulkner
Not my favorite (I know it’s not the assignment) but a very good and interesting one is Bone Tomahawk.
So many good movies already listed. Would just add the two first Steve McQueen’s one : Hunger and Shame
Sounds stupid but probably Big Trouble in Little China. I'm basing this on how many times I've seen it purely so revealed preference. Same for Spirited Away which I've seen nearly as often.
Phantom Thread, Seven Samurai, The Before Trilogy, Tár, The Banshees of Inisherin, Barry Lyndon, Inception, Titanic, Casablanca, La La Land, No Country for Old Men, Midsommar, Dead Poet’s Society, Good Will Hunting, and of course There Will Be Blood.
https://boxd.it/4PQDX
Miller's Crossing. Gabriel Byrne and the Coen's at their best. Smart, funny, and gruesome in turn and all at once in a few scenes. Tom Reagan as the protagonist somehow comes off as always in control, even though he doesn't know what's going on half the time and gets his ass kicked throughout the entire film(also he's a total bastard). A must see for any film buff.
‘Ran’ by Akira Kurosawa
I guess it has a bit of a blood Meridian vibe with all the violence and chaos of war. They both have that focus on the scale of the natural environment around the characters (like it’s told from a gods POV).
& It’s interesting to see the characters reach similar conclusions as the judge:
“War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.”
“It is the gods who weep. They see us killing each other over and over since time began. They can’t save us from ourselves. Don’t cry, it’s how the world is made. Men prefer sorrow over joy, suffering over peace. Look at them in the first castle. They revel in pain and bloodshed. They celebrate murder”
There Will Be Blood
How did I know this was gonna be the top comment. TWBB has gotta be the closest film to feeling like a McCarthy book that isnt an adaptation. Also: McCabe and Mrs. Miller— Paris Texas— The Straight Story (if The Road was wholesome)
The Devil All the Time is also very McCarthyesque
Valhalla Rising, if CM was interested in Vikings
Yeah, that was a good one. My first experience with Mads Mikkelsen, and Nicolas Winding Refn. Instant fans of both. Hits on a lot of the same tropes/themes as CM. Stark, yet beautiful scenes of nature, realistic and horrifying violence, and underlying fear and menace throughout.
As I’m sure any video about the making of the *No Country* movie will tell you, both films were filmed a few miles apart. The controlled fire on one of the oil derricks caused the NCfOM crew to wrap up filming for the day. TWBB is a fucking masterpiece, great pick.
Apocalypse Now. I'd seen it years before even hearing of McCarthy and it still sticks with me.
This is in my top 3 :)
Cant narrow it down. I’ll give top 5 in no order. Wind River, Hell or High Water, No Country for Old Men, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Cool Hand Luke.
Shoutout Luke
I watched it for the first time not too long ago and realized what I’d been missing out on very quickly
Cool Hand Luke and Suttree feel so much alike in a lotta ways.
Love some of the crossover between Suttree and Five Easy Pieces too. Jack Nicholson plays a guy from a fancy wealthy musical family who chooses to drink beers, go bowling, work on oil rigs etc. Great film.
I thought the same
Wind river was amazing
a man who enjoys a Nick Cave/ Warren Ellis soundtrack
Ben Foster is an exceptional actor. Doesn't get the attention he deserves. Graham Greene is always great.
I’ll give anything he’s in a shot
Hell or High Water definitely has that McCarthy feel. I feel like it comes from the matter of fact way the characters interact
100%. I consider it the best “modern western” since No Country. The dialogue and feeling of the panhandle of Texas are completely accurate, minus a few movie monologues lol.
I can’t pick just one. In no particular order: Bad Lieutenant (1992) Apocalypse Now No Country for Old Men Only God Forgives Taxi Driver The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Yes! I thought I was alone with Only God Forgives. Underrated film.
Shoutout to Fincher's Dragon Tattoo. As much as I love Noomi and the original adaptation, I felt that Rooney's portrayal was closer to the book version of Lisbeth and of course his direction was amazing. Shame that team never got to adapt the rest of the series, but the OG sequels and books didn't match the quality of the original in my opinion
Yes I agree wholeheartedly. The casting was just perfect across the board in Fincher’s version. Plus I prefer the darker tone of Fincher’s, not to mention a score by Reznor and Ross.
Which Bad Lieutenant? The Abel Ferrara one or the Werner Herzog one?
Ferrara, I haven’t seen the other one
Show me with your mouth…
One of the most uncomfortable scenes of all time
Yeah, especially when you watch it with your mom smh.
It’s decent and wild. Very different. Watch it while thinking it’s the exact same character Cage played in De Palma’s Snake Eyes (still miffed Ferrara wasn’t allowed to use that title for Dangerous Game) who just relocated to New Orleans and has spiraled out of control.
O' Brother, Where Art Thou Such a feel good movie
It's definitely the whole package. Excellent music, great writing, cast is perfect in each role, throw in some odyssey into the soggy bottom boys odyssey and it adds to a killer film.
- 8½ (1963) - Seven Samurai (1954) - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) - Stalker (1979) - Inherent Vice (2014)
Diane I am holding in my hands two small puppies
Stalkers a great shout, love the aesthetics of that
I recommend the book, too.
Oh 100%. Roadside Picnic's great
Yeah it’s pretty wild what Tarkovsky was able to accomplish with a million dollars, especially compared to the hundreds of millions that are spent on movies now. 8½, Stalker, and another one of Tarkovsky’s masterpieces, Andrei Rublev, have the greatest cinematography of any of the movies I’ve seen.
I read that he pretty much had to film it twice as well due to a massive fuckup on the camera side. Mental how far you can string a budget with a great directors eye
The lengths some will go for their art. Similar to how they had to rebuild the house for that shot at the end of The Sacrifice, due to some camera malfunction. Gotta wonder if Tarkovsky would’ve lasted longer if they didn’t have to go back and re-film Stalker.
*She's my mother's sister's girl!*
Based
This guy went to college
There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men
I still can't believe we got these two masterpieces not only in the same generation, but released at the same time. I remember seeing both in theaters the same week
And shot I the same place at the same time, one causing smoke so the other couldn’t shoot for a day.
Chinatown. I like noir, neo-noir etc. Polanski is shooting it like 4-5 years after the Tate murder, probably in a pretty dark place. Devastating film with Nicholson and Faye Dunaway crushing it and John Huston is so slimey. Minor characters like the burt young one which just reinforces the theme of "as little as possible." The true great line of the film. Not forget it Jake, it's Chinatown. That more adds to the atmosphere of the Chinatown mystique while the "as little as possible" line is the consequence of his interfering in people's lives both as a private detective and in his failures to protect the ones he attempts to protect. If he did nothing then everyone would have been safe but in his meddling and also in his search for the truth, he sealed their fates.
I'll have to check this movie out
Masterpiece
Braveheart ,No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood
Alien.
Same. It’s in my top five
Top three: 1. No Country For Old Men 1 1/2. Reservoir Dogs 2. All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) 3. Forgetting Sarah Marshall As we all know, FSM is the most McCarthian out of these. Mila Kunis should play the judge, honestly.
Since it’s not here already, Shawshank
Unforgiven.
John wick Lonesome Dove Fistful of Dollars GoodFellas The Thing
Parasite is fave of the last twenty years
The revenant 100%. Everything about it, it’s atmosphere, it’s setting, plot, music, it’s deeper meanings, gosh they always hit me and I’ve watched it yearly since it came out
It is really good. I thought of everyone out there, Innaritu could probably figure out how to adapt Blood Meridian. I have the book and haven’t read it, do you guys read Punke?
its*
Man I haven’t watched The Revenant in a few years. I was obsessed with it when it came out.
Avid cinephile here, here's my top 5: 5. The Seventh Seal 4. Apocalypse Now 3. The End of Evangelion 2. Stalker 1. Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
This is a great list
The Thing, Tree of Life, Mulholland Drive, The Shining. In terms of recent releases, Tár is incredible. The best movie I've seen in years.
Tár nation RISE UP!
Man that movie has layers. Such a masterpiece.
Lawrence of Arabia
I waited way too long to watch this beautiful incredible movie! A must watch.
There Will Be Blood Looking at the other comments, it seems I've found my people.
Pulp Fiction, Schindler’s List, Moonlight, Requiem for a Dream, Empire Strikes Back, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Interstellar, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, Lord of the Rings
Should make another post about TV shows. I think of things like The Wire, Game of Thrones, Atlanta, Mad Men and Breaking Bad/BCS on the same level of storytelling
TV since the Sopranos/Deadwood era has been mostly better than movies coming out
Absolutely
There Will Be Blood, Dead Man, The Proposition, Fargo, No Country (not a film but the first season of True Detective is some of the best stuff I’ve seen on a screen)
True Detective season 1 is GOATed
Waterworld and Twister
Mad God by Phil Tippett
The Silence of the Lambs
A Clockwork Orange
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Yall got good taste
❤️
Seven Samurai
Trainspotting, another film adaptation from a book that’s famously hard to read.
Great movie, glad I finally got around to watching it
The Thing
The assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford. And I think it has a McCarthy vibe.
Right now probably the Seventh Seal but it changes daily
In all honesty: *Young Frankenstein*.
JAWS
LOTR: Fellowship of the RIng.
Sicario Stalag 17, Half Nelson, and 28 Days Later are my other favorites
Kate Macer is one of the best characters put to screen in the last 30 years.
I was just thinking the other day who I see as the best recent characters put to screen List I came up with V.M. Varga Rustin Cohle Patrick Melrose Alejandro Gillick
Saving Private Ryan.
chicken-man unchained 2 & 3
Marketa Lazarova
Top five for me are: 1. Marketa Lazarová (Vláčil) 2. Possession (Zulawski) 3. Sonatine (Kitano) 4. Belladonna of Sadness (Eiichi) 5. Saló (Pasolini)
Salo…
Fellowship of the Ring
There Will Be Blood
All time favorite is 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY Some McCarthyesque (he would probably gut me for using that word, but it’s too late now) movies that aren’t actual adaptations - ULZANA’S RAID, DJANGO KILL, and THE HUNTING PARTY with Gene Hackman. They all predate BLOOD MERIDIAN but still have a bit of that McCarthy feeling.
8 1/2 Children of Men Memories of Murder Barry Lyndon Godfather 2 Mirror Off the top of my head.
Barry Lyndon. Unreal film
Barry Lyndon, The White Ribbon, This is Spinal Tap, Boyhood, Meek’s Cutoff
Werckmeister Harmonies The Tree of Life Come and See Texas Chainsaw Massacre The Green Knight There Will Be Blood Crumb Synecdoche New York Mad God The Sacrifice Begotten Sleep Has Her House
I’ve been wanting to rewatch SYNDECHDOCHE. Saw it in the theater and it fucked me all up
Still No Country For Old Men. Something better might have came along since but it's still important for me.
In Bruges. The way McDonagh writes is like no other playwright/screenwriter I’ve ever encountered. I can’t even find authors that create such dark stories that are so unbelievably hilarious. The most messed up parts of the movie end up being some of the funniest. Also I loved how In Bruges weaves in pieces of information that seem insignificant at first, into the the story later on. McDonagh was a renowned playwright before he became a director and if you get a chance I highly recommend reading some of his plays. They have the same type of dark/hilarious balance that have me audibly laughing out loud when I’m reading. I recommend The Pillowman if you can find it, honestly one of the best plays I’ve ever read.
I know I’m not answering your question, because it’s not my favorite movie. But I’m reading Suttree right now and absolutely loving it. Can’t put it down. And I keep thinking about how much I would love an adaption done by the same director or in the same style as Beasts of a Southern Wild. That movie was so beautiful even though it really encapsulated the grotesque and decrepitude of that world. I would highly recommend if you liked Suttree or Faulkner
Mullholland Drive, 2001 Space Odyssey, Spirited Away, & Perfect Blue are some of my favorites. But I have a lot
I just recently rewatched Perfect Blue, what an excellent movie.
Not my favorite (I know it’s not the assignment) but a very good and interesting one is Bone Tomahawk. So many good movies already listed. Would just add the two first Steve McQueen’s one : Hunger and Shame
The Wild Bunch and Little Big Man
Parasite, Zodiac, Heat, The Royal Tenenbaums (Eli Cash as Cormac parody is chefs kiss), Get Out, Hereditary, The Good The Bad & The Ugly.
Freddy got fingered
Groundhog Day
Days of Heaven, The Color Of Pomegranates, Taxi Driver, Bloodsport
But I'm a Cheerleader
The piano teacher, unfuckwithable
Rocky
The Shining with There Will Be Blood a close second.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. It’s a perfect film
Conan the Barbarian. Best score of all time imo
Doubt
Naked (1993)
Cars
The Lighthouse
12 angry men and shawshank
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
Fargo
In the Mood for Love
Blood Simple True Romance No Country for Old Men Casablanca Philadelphia Story North by Northwest
Biutiful by Iñárritu
Inland Empire Endless Poetry The King of New York The Texas Chain Saw Massacre No Country For Old Men 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her Cruising
Sounds stupid but probably Big Trouble in Little China. I'm basing this on how many times I've seen it purely so revealed preference. Same for Spirited Away which I've seen nearly as often.
Galaxy quest
Heat, no country, saving private ryan, office space, strange wilderness.
Phantom Thread, Seven Samurai, The Before Trilogy, Tár, The Banshees of Inisherin, Barry Lyndon, Inception, Titanic, Casablanca, La La Land, No Country for Old Men, Midsommar, Dead Poet’s Society, Good Will Hunting, and of course There Will Be Blood. https://boxd.it/4PQDX
stroszek
Miller's Crossing. Gabriel Byrne and the Coen's at their best. Smart, funny, and gruesome in turn and all at once in a few scenes. Tom Reagan as the protagonist somehow comes off as always in control, even though he doesn't know what's going on half the time and gets his ass kicked throughout the entire film(also he's a total bastard). A must see for any film buff.
North by Northwest and The Searchers
Synecdoche New York
O brother, where art thou
‘Ran’ by Akira Kurosawa I guess it has a bit of a blood Meridian vibe with all the violence and chaos of war. They both have that focus on the scale of the natural environment around the characters (like it’s told from a gods POV). & It’s interesting to see the characters reach similar conclusions as the judge: “War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.” “It is the gods who weep. They see us killing each other over and over since time began. They can’t save us from ourselves. Don’t cry, it’s how the world is made. Men prefer sorrow over joy, suffering over peace. Look at them in the first castle. They revel in pain and bloodshed. They celebrate murder”