Breaking Bad: "Rabid Dog" - The richest relationship articulated throughout Breaking Bad has been between its leads Walter White and his sometime partner in crime Jesse Pinkman. The series is about to make long time fans do emotional somersaults as it determines the fate of that relationship.
Broken Blossoms (1919) - D.W. Griffith's silent classic has aged about as well as can be expected of a heavy handed melodrama but there are still some surprisingly powerful moments in the film.
Broadcast News (1987) - Albert Brook's great script about the television news industry is brought to life by three great performances by Brooks, William Hurt, and, most notably, Holly Hunter. The film splits its time between satire of the industry and a love triangle, but what really shines is Hunter's fantastic performance as television producer Jane Craig, a wounded, neurotic workaholic who is constantly torn between her inner demons and her personal and professional troubles.
Pather Panchali (1955) - This powerful, humanistic drama of a rural Bengali family is masterpiece of poetic realism. Shot with naturalism and unfolding with a quiet, meandering observational style, the film becomes about what it means to live -- in all its good and bad; all its joy and pain.
Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) - Director Alain Resnais' influential New Wave film explores issues of memory and the past through a doomed, brief love affair between a French actress and a Japanese businessman.
The Wild Bunch (1969) - Director Sam Peckinpah's exceptionally, beautifully violent western about aging lawmen fleeing from and recovering their losses after a botched job drags in a few too many places for its own good. But when The Wild Bunch embraces its dogged, intense action, it creates some fantastic, deeply entertaining and, surprisingly, simultaneously thoughtful sequences.
White Heat (1949) - James Cagney's magnetic performance as gangster Cody Jarret turns White Heat into one of the most psychologically nuanced and entertaining classic gangster movies.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) - This silent expressionist masterpiece uses its set designs to create a strange and horrifying world unlike any other.
The World's End (2013) - I was gratefully given an opportunity to publish a review with my school's paper for this very funny and thoughtful sci fi homage about former high school pals re-attempting an old pub crawl.
M. Hulot's Holiday (1953) - Writer, director and performer Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot exists on another plane of existence right alongside silent film showmen Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, and Tati fills the film with slapstick feats of stunning timing and execution. Perhaps best of all though is the film's inimitable vibe; the film lives in a space of whimsical, day-dreamy pleasantness.
Away From Her (2006) - Sarah Polley's excellent directorial debut stares down Alzheimer's disease with understated sincerity and honesty. The film rarely falls into sentimentality but never lacks for a tenderness while looking at its subject matter or its characters, played with fantastic nuance by Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent.
Submarine (2011) - Richard Ayoade's confident directorial debut is a sharp, achingly real teen comedy about an adolescent's twin pursuits of sex and saving his parent's marriage and the selfish and insular laser focused drive to get both.
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