Awesome Film Essays

Editor Jacob T. Swinney dug through the best films of the last 100 years to create this reel of the most memorable and iconic shots from each year. Some of our favorites didn’t make the cut, but when you’re limited to one film per year, it was bound to happen.

(PG-13) Film essayist Kaptain Kristian turns his attention to television with this awesome retrospective of Cartoon Network’s late night block that reinvigorated the animation medium for grown-ups, and had a profound influence on popular culture.

“In movies, you don’t photograph the reality. You try and photograph the photograph of the reality.” Channel Criswell breaks down Stanley Kubrick’s brand of fillmmaking: expressing dark and high concepts by creating a surreal world where everything is a symbol.

We all love a well executed long take. It gives you a lot to look at, and it’s a surefire way to be immersed in the movie’s world. But Now You See It reminds us that scenes with cuts can be powerful too, and that one is not strictly better than the other.

John Kricfalusi’s 1990s cartoon The Ren & Stimpy Show is a true animation classic, combining artistic detail, gross-out gags, and weirdness a plenty. The Nerdwriter explores the show’s defiance of norms which made it stand out from the crowd.

Her explores the evolution of love. But Channel Criswell has a convincing and moving theory about the movie’s underlying concept: that what we want isn’t always what we need, and our well-being may depend on whether or not we become aware of this disparity.

Every Frame a Painting explores how conversations are filmed using a basic shot/reverse shot, and how Joel and Ethan Coen use the technique so effectively in their movies. Their use of wide lenses, close shots, and impeccable rhythm brings it all together.

Nerdwriter1 wonderfully breaks down Howard Shore’s The Fellowship theme from the first The Lord of the Rings movie, showing how Shore varies the track to accentuate, foreshadow and familiarize the audience with the characters.

(Gore) Frame By Frame summarizes one of the old criticisms against Quentin Tarantino: that he stole the story of Reservoir Dogs from Ringo Lam’s 1987 classic City on Fire. Then they argue that Tarantino did the same thing with The Hateful Eight.

Editor Semih Okmn gathered together some classic movie moments in which the bad guys celebrate their insanity with a smile. Barry Manilow’s Can’t Smile without You makes for the perfect backing track to the madness. After all these years, Norman Bates still freaks us out.

CineFix follows up its top 10 opening shots with its picks for the best movie endings, whether because they’re open to interpretation (or undeniably definitive), creative or just plain beautiful.

CineFix’s first episode for 2016 aptly lists its picks for the best movie opening scenes, including the mirrored shot of The Searchers, the slow-motion destruction in Apocalypse Now and the restrained long take of Flowers of Shanghai.

(NSFW Language) People swear like truck drivers in today’s R-rated flicks. But there was a time when swearing in movies was considered so heinous that filmmakers could be slapped with huge fines. Movie Munchies walks us through the way we got from there to here.

Film essayist Now You See It examines some great moments of on-screen improvisation, techniques for film improv, as well as the reasons that directors allow for it – from capturing raw and real emotion, to the silliness that often comes from true spontaneity.

“These creatures require our absence to survive, not our help.” Digging Deeper argues that the Jurassic Park sequels The Lost World and Jurassic World are self-aware commentaries on blockbuster films. The Lost World‘s clues are quite telling. Jurassic World just plain sucks.

What do The Big Lebowski, The Muppets, There Will Be Blood and Star Trek: Into Darkness have in common? They all shot scenes in the same exact mansion. Screen Rant highlights some films that headed back to locations and sets that previously appeared in other flicks.

(Gore) Filmscalpel takes a look at Martin Scorsese’s masterful use of shades of red in many of his films, which functions as both a technical nod to early color-toned films, and a punctuation on scenes of violence, anger, terror, and occasionally awe.

We’re not sure what prompted Rishi Kaneria to be defensive of movie props – they’re often commercialized, how could they be ignored? – but we are grateful of what came out of his sentiments. His video gives various examples of props used effectively.

(SPOILERS) Birdman‘s seemingly seamless single shot perspective is one of its most appealing aspects. The Film Theorists point out how Alejandro G. Iñárritu and his crew achieved the illusion using classic filmmaking techniques and VFX. Regardless, it’s still awesome.

Editor Jorge Luengo Ruiz of One Perfect Shot cut together scenes from Breaking Bad and put them side by side with scenes from Pulp Fiction, to show just how much influence Tarantino has had on Vince Gilligan’s filmmaking.

Channel Criswell does a marvelous job of breaking down Hayao Miyazaki’s approach to filmmaking, from characterization through movement to the acknowledgment that people and life in general are not purely good or evil.

Disney’s animated movies can be grim and twisted, but Screen Rant reminds us that many Disney films are already toned-down versions of horrific original stories. Which makes you wonder if they were really written for children in the first place. Coming in 3015: Disney’s Saw.

(NSFW) Editor Jacob T. Swinney follows up on his side-by-side comparison of the first and last thing we see on screen in another 70 films. There are some real classics in here from visual masters like David Fincher, Alejandro Inarritu, Quentin Tarantino, and Stanley Kubrick.