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The Best Essay Films, Ranked

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In literature, an essay is a composition dealing with its subject from a personal point of view. The pioneer of this genre, 16th-century French writer and philosopher Michel de Montaigne, used the French word "essai" to describe his "attempts" to put subjective thoughts into writing. Deriving its name from Montaigne’s magnum opus Essays and the literary genre in general, essay films are defined as a self-reflexive form of avant-garde, experimental, sort of documentary cinema that can be traced back to the dawn of filmmaking.

From early silent essay films, like D. W. Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat and Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera , to in-depth explorations from the second half of the 20th century, these are some of the best essay films ever made, ranked.

8 A Corner in Wheat

The 14-minute short A Corner in Wheat (1909) is considered by many to be the world's earliest essay film. Directed by filmmaking pioneer D. W. Griffith, this shot follows a ruthless tycoon who wants to control the wheat market. A powerful portrayal of capitalistic greed , A Corner in Wheat is a bold commentary on the contrast between the wealthy speculators and the agricultural poor. It is simply one of the best early short films.

7 Two or Three Things I Know About Her

Described by MUBI as "a landmark transition from the maestro’s jazzy genre deconstructions of the 60s to his gorgeous and inquisitive essay films of the future" (such as Histoire(s) du cinéma , Goodbye to Language , The Image Book ), 1967's Two or Three Things I Know About Her is Jean-Luc Godard’s collage of modern life.

Related: The Best Jean-Luc Godard Films, Ranked

The story of 24 hours in the life of housewife Juliette (Marina Vlady), who moonlights as a prostitute, is only a template for the filmmaker’s social observation of 1960s France, sprinkled with references to the nightmares of the Vietnam War. Whispering in our ears as narrator, Godard tells us much more than two or three things about "her," referring to Paris rather than Juliette.

6 F for Fake

Orson Welles’ 1973 essay film F for Fake focuses on three hoaxers, the notorious art forger Elmyr de Hory who had a talent for copying styles of noted painters; his biographer Clifford Irving whose fake "authorized biography" of Howard Hughes was one of the biggest literary scandals of the 20th century; and Welles himself with his famous War of the Worlds hoax. One of the best Orson Welles films , F for Fake investigates the tenuous lines between forgery and art, illusion and life.

5 News from Home

An unforgettable time capsule of New York in the 1970s, News from Home features Belgian film director Chantal Akerman reading melancholic, sometimes passive-aggressive letters from her mother over beautiful shots of New York, where Akerman relocated at the age of 21. Released in 1976, after the filmmaker’s breakthrough drama Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles , News from Home makes plain the disconnection in family, while New York and the young artist’s alienating come more and more to the front.

4 As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

Jonas Mekas, the godfather of American avant-garde cinema, made one of the most personal, but at the same time one of the most universal films ever. It is his 2000 experimental documentary As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty . Compiled from Mekas' home movies from 1970-1999, this nearly five-hour essay film shows the loveliness of everyday life. Footage of what Mekas calls "little fragments of paradise," the first steps of the filmmaker’s children, their happy life in New York, trips to Europe, and on and on, are complemented by Mekas’ commentary. It is a poetic diary about nothing but life.

3 Sans Soleil

Directed by Chris Marker, king of the essay film , 1983’s Sans Soleil ( Sunless ) follows an unseen cameraman named Sandor Krasna, Marker's alter ego, who journeys from Africa to Japan, "two extreme poles of survival." The 100-minute poetical collage of Marker’s original documentary footage, clips from films and television, sequences from other filmmakers, and stock videos comes complete with the voice of a nameless female narrator, who reads Krasna's letters that sum up his lifetime's travels.

Like Marker's French New Wave masterpiece La Jetee , Sans Soleil reflects on human experience, the nature of memory, understanding of time, and life on our planet. It is pure beauty.

Made when the filmmaker, Derek Jarman, was dying from AIDS-related complications that rendered him partially blind and capable only of experiencing shades of blue, the great experimental film Blue from 1993 is like no other. Jarman’s 79-minute final feature consists of a single shot of one color — International Klein Blue. Against a blank blue screen, the iconic director interweaves a medley of sounds, music, voices of four narrators (Jarman himself, the chameleonic Tilda Swinton , Nigel Terry, and John Quentin), the filmmaker’s daydreams, adventures of Blue, as a character and color, diary-like entries about Jarman’s life and current events, names of his lovers and friends who had died of AIDS, fragments of poetry, and much more.

Related: 8 Must-Watch Movies From LGBTQ+ Filmmakers

A deeply personal goodbye and a sort of self-portrait, this essay film is dedicated to Yves Klein , the artist who mixed this deep blue hue and said, "At first there is nothing, then there is a profound nothingness, after that a blue profundity".

1 Man with a Movie Camera

Dziga Vertov, one of cinema’s greatest innovators, believed that the "eye" of the camera captures life better than the subjective eye of a human. In the 1920s, he started looking for cinematic truth, showing life outside the field of human vision through a mix of rhythmic editing, multiple exposures, experimental camera angles, backward sequences, freeze frames, extreme close-ups, and other "cinema eye" techniques. This is how Vertov’s best-known film, 1929’s Man with a Movie Camera , was made. This narrative-free essay shows the kaleidoscopic life of Soviet cities. An avant-garde urban poem, Man with a Movie Camera makes clear what the beauty of cinema is.

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The Best Essay Films of All Time

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F for Fake https://www.flickchart.com/movie/C9F96645FE 1973 , 85 min.

Orson Welles   •    Starring: Joseph Cotten ,  Richard Wilson ,  Orson Welles

Avant-garde / Experimental    •    Biography    •    Con Artist / Hustler

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Night and Fog https://www.flickchart.com/movie/F9883B223E 1956 , 32 min.

Alain Resnais   •    Starring: Michel Bouquet ,  Reinhard Heydrich ,  Heinrich Himmler

Documentary    •    Essay Film    •    Foreign Language Film

Sans Soleil https://www.flickchart.com/movie/4CFB2B8A65 1983 , 100 min.

Chris Marker   •    Starring: Florence Delay ,  Arielle Dombasle ,  Riyoko Ikeda

Avant-garde / Experimental    •    Culture and Society    •    Documentary

Land Without Bread https://www.flickchart.com/movie/36788A855F 1933 , 30 min.

Luis Buñuel   •    Starring: Abel Jacquin ,  Alexandre O'Neill

Culture and Society    •    Documentary    •    Essay Film

À propos de Nice https://www.flickchart.com/movie/39C6949600 1930 , 25 min.

Los Angeles Plays Itself https://www.flickchart.com/movie/068F102908 2003 , 169 min.

Thom Andersen   •    Starring: Encke King

A Corner in Wheat https://www.flickchart.com/movie/A9B67F1718 1909 , 15 min.

D.W. Griffith   •    Starring: Frank Powell ,  James Kirkwood ,  Linda Arvidson

Drama    •    Essay Film    •    Melodrama

I, You, He, She https://www.flickchart.com/movie/44D5A7A90A 1974 , 90 min.

Chantal Akerman   •    Starring: Chantal Akerman ,  Niels Arestrup ,  Claire Wauthion

Drama    •    Essay Film    •    Female-Directed Film

Histoire(s) du cinéma https://www.flickchart.com/movie/F8FAABE472 1998 , 266 min.

Jean-Luc Godard   •    Starring: Jean-Luc Godard ,  Julie Delpy ,  Sabine Azéma

Chronicle of a Summer https://www.flickchart.com/movie/664F41852C 1961 , 85 min.

Edgar Morin, Jean Rouch

Regen https://www.flickchart.com/movie/CA4F3AB53B 1929 , 12 min.

Mannus Franken, Joris Ivens

Avant-garde / Experimental    •    City Symphony film    •    Documentary

Notre Musique https://www.flickchart.com/movie/92F24409D0 2004 , 80 min.

Jean-Luc Godard   •    Starring: Ferlyn Brass ,  Jean-Christophe Bouvet ,  Elma Dzanic

Avant-garde / Experimental    •    Essay Film    •    Foreign Language Film

Letter From Siberia https://www.flickchart.com/movie/F27ED5E587 1958 , 62 min.

Chris Marker   •    Starring: Georges Rouquier

The Hour of the Furnaces https://www.flickchart.com/movie/7659D295E6 1970 , 260 min.

Octavio Getino, Fernando E. Solanas   •    Starring: Maria de la Paz ,  Fernando E. Solanas ,  Edgardo Suarez

Too Early, Too Late https://www.flickchart.com/movie/43D5113CAC 1982 , 100 min.

Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub

Documentary    •    Essay Film    •    Female-Directed Film

Letter to Jane: An Investigation About a Still https://www.flickchart.com/movie/065EAC4070 1972 , 52 min.

Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin   •    Starring: Jean-Luc Godard ,  Jean-Pierre Gorin ,  Jane Fonda

Mondo Hollywood https://www.flickchart.com/movie/2479657B8B 1967 , 120 min.

Robert Carl Cohen   •    Starring: Margaretta Ramsey ,  Dale Davis ,  Jay Sebring

Magritte or the Object Lesson https://www.flickchart.com/movie/CE901D5F1E 1960 , 14 min.

Luc de Heusch   •    Starring: Serge Sauvion ,  René Magritte ,  Marcel Lecomte

Making of Dreams https://www.flickchart.com/movie/5F61CC9C29 1990 , 150 min.

Nobuhiko Ôbayashi   •    Starring: Akira Kurosawa ,  Nobuhiko Ôbayashi ,  Akira Terao

Avant-garde / Experimental    •    Documentary    •    Essay Film

Penthesilea: Queen of The Amazons https://www.flickchart.com/movie/255CD1AAB0 1974 , 99 min.

Laura Mulvey, Peter Wollen   •    Starring: Peter Wollen ,  Cathy Berberian ,  Grace McKeaney

Avant-garde / Experimental    •    Essay Film    •    Female-Directed Film

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The essay film

In recent years the essay film has attained widespread recognition as a particular category of film practice, with its own history and canonical figures and texts. In tandem with a major season throughout August at London’s BFI Southbank, Sight & Sound explores the characteristics that have come to define this most elastic of forms and looks in detail at a dozen influential milestone essay films.

Andrew Tracy , Katy McGahan , Olaf Möller , Sergio Wolf , Nina Power Updated: 7 May 2019

from our August 2013 issue

Le camera stylo? Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

I recently had a heated argument with a cinephile filmmaking friend about Chris Marker’s Sans soleil (1983). Having recently completed her first feature, and with such matters on her mind, my friend contended that the film’s power lay in its combinations of image and sound, irrespective of Marker’s inimitable voiceover narration. “Do you think that people who can’t understand English or French will get nothing out of the film?” she said; to which I – hot under the collar – replied that they might very well get something, but that something would not be the complete work.

The Sight & Sound Deep Focus season Thought in Action: The Art of the Essay Film runs at BFI Southbank 1-28 August 2013, with a keynote lecture by Kodwo Eshun on 1 August, a talk by writer and academic Laura Rascaroli on 27 August and a closing panel debate on 28 August.

To take this film-lovers’ tiff to a more elevated plane, what it suggests is that the essentialist conception of cinema is still present in cinephilic and critical culture, as are the difficulties of containing within it works that disrupt its very fabric. Ever since Vachel Lindsay published The Art of the Moving Picture in 1915 the quest to secure the autonomy of film as both medium and art – that ever-elusive ‘pure cinema’ – has been a preoccupation of film scholars, critics, cinephiles and filmmakers alike. My friend’s implicit derogation of the irreducible literary element of Sans soleil and her neo- Godard ian invocation of ‘image and sound’ touch on that strain of this phenomenon which finds, in the technical-functional combination of those two elements, an alchemical, if not transubstantiational, result.

Mechanically created, cinema defies mechanism: it is poetic, transportive and, if not irrational, then a-rational. This mystically-minded view has a long and illustrious tradition in film history, stretching from the sense-deranging surrealists – who famously found accidental poetry in the juxtapositions created by randomly walking into and out of films; to the surrealist-influenced, scientifically trained and ontologically minded André Bazin , whose realist veneration of the long take centred on the very preternaturalness of nature as revealed by the unblinking gaze of the camera; to the trash-bin idolatry of the American underground, weaving new cinematic mythologies from Hollywood detritus; and to auteurism itself, which (in its more simplistic iterations) sees the essence of the filmmaker inscribed even upon the most compromised of works.

It isn’t going too far to claim that this tradition has constituted the foundation of cinephilic culture and helped to shape the cinematic canon itself. If Marker has now been welcomed into that canon and – thanks to the far greater availability of his work – into the mainstream of (primarily DVD-educated) cinephilia, it is rarely acknowledged how much of that work cheerfully undercuts many of the long-held assumptions and pieties upon which it is built.

In his review of Letter from Siberia (1957), Bazin placed Marker at right angles to cinema proper, describing the film’s “primary material” as intelligence – specifically a “verbal intelligence” – rather than image. He dubbed Marker’s method a “horizontal” montage, “as opposed to traditional montage that plays with the sense of duration through the relationship of shot to shot”.

Here, claimed Bazin, “a given image doesn’t refer to the one that preceded it or the one that will follow, but rather it refers laterally, in some way, to what is said.” Thus the very thing which makes Letter “extraordinary”, in Bazin’s estimation, is also what makes it not-cinema. Looking for a term to describe it, Bazin hit upon a prophetic turn of phrase, writing that Marker’s film is, “to borrow Jean Vigo’s formulation of À propos de Nice (‘a documentary point of view’), an essay documented by film. The important word is ‘essay’, understood in the same sense that it has in literature – an essay at once historical and political, written by a poet as well.”

Marker’s canonisation has proceeded apace with that of the form of which he has become the exemplar. Whether used as critical/curatorial shorthand in reviews and programme notes, employed as a model by filmmakers or examined in theoretical depth in major retrospectives (this summer’s BFI Southbank programme, for instance, follows upon Andréa Picard’s two-part series ‘The Way of the Termite’ at TIFF Cinémathèque in 2009-2010, which drew inspiration from Jean-Pierre Gorin ’s groundbreaking programme of the same title at Vienna Filmmuseum in 2007), the ‘essay film’ has attained in recent years widespread recognition as a particular, if perennially porous, mode of film practice. An appealingly simple formulation, the term has proved both taxonomically useful and remarkably elastic, allowing one to define a field of previously unassimilable objects while ranging far and wide throughout film history to claim other previously identified objects for this invented tradition.

Las Hurdes (1933)

It is crucial to note that the ‘essay film’ is not only a post-facto appellation for a kind of film practice that had not bothered to mark itself with a moniker, but also an invention and an intervention. While it has acquired its own set of canonical ‘texts’ that include the collected works of Marker, much of Godard – from the missive (the 52-minute Letter to Jane , 1972) to the massive ( Histoire(s) de cinéma , 1988-98) – Welles’s F for Fake (1973) and Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003), it has also poached on the territory of other, ‘sovereign’ forms, expanding its purview in accordance with the whims of its missionaries.

From documentary especially, Vigo’s aforementioned À propos de Nice, Ivens’s Rain (1929), Buñuel’s sardonic Las Hurdes (1933), Resnais’s Night and Fog (1955), Rouch and Morin’s Chronicle of a Summer (1961); from the avant garde, Akerman’s Je, Tu, Il, Elle (1974), Straub/Huillet’s Trop tôt, trop tard (1982); from agitprop, Getino and Solanas’s The Hour of the Furnaces (1968), Portabella’s Informe general… (1976); and even from ‘pure’ fiction, for example Gorin’s provocative selection of Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909).

Just as within itself the essay film presents, in the words of Gorin, “the meandering of an intelligence that tries to multiply the entries and the exits into the material it has elected (or by which it has been elected),” so, without, its scope expands exponentially through the industrious activity of its adherents, blithely cutting across definitional borders and – as per the Manny Farber ian concept which gave Gorin’s ‘Termite’ series its name –  creating meaning precisely by eating away at its own boundaries. In the scope of its application and its association more with an (amorphous) sensibility as opposed to fixed rules, the essay film bears similarities to the most famous of all fabricated genres: film noir, which has been located both in its natural habitat of the crime thriller as well as in such disparate climates as melodramas, westerns and science fiction.

The essay film, however, has proved even more peripatetic: where noir was formulated from the films of a determinate historical period (no matter that the temporal goalposts are continually shifted), the essay film is resolutely unfixed in time; it has its choice of forebears. And while noir, despite its occasional shadings over into semi-documentary during the 1940s, remains bound to fictional narratives, the essay film moves blithely between the realms of fiction and non-fiction, complicating the terms of both.

“Here is a form that seems to accommodate the two sides of that divide at the same time, that can navigate from documentary to fiction and back, creating other polarities in the process between which it can operate,” writes Gorin. When Orson Welles , in the closing moments of his masterful meditation on authenticity and illusion F for Fake, chortles, “I did promise that for one hour, I’d tell you only the truth. For the past 17 minutes, I’ve been lying my head off,” he is expressing both the conjuror’s pleasure in a trick well played and the artist’s delight in a self-defined mode that is cheerfully impure in both form and, perhaps, intention.

Nevertheless, as the essay film merrily traipses through celluloid history it intersects with ‘pure cinema’ at many turns and its form as such owes much to one particularly prominent variety thereof.

The montage tradition

If the mystical strain described above represents the Dionysian side of pure cinema, Soviet montage was its Apollonian opposite: randomness, revelation and sensuous response countered by construction, forceful argumentation and didactic instruction.

No less than the mystics, however, the montagists were after essences. Eisenstein , Dziga Vertov and Pudovkin , along with their transnational associates and acolytes, sought to crystallise abstract concepts in the direct and purposeful juxtaposition of forceful, hard-edged images – the general made powerfully, viscerally immediate in the particular. Here, says Eisenstein, in the umbrella-wielding harpies who set upon the revolutionaries in October (1928), is bourgeois Reaction made manifest; here, in the serried ranks of soldiers proceeding as one down the Odessa Steps in Battleship Potemkin (1925), is Oppression undisguised; here, in the condemned Potemkin sailor who wins over his imminent executioners with a cry of “Brothers!” – a moment powerfully invoked by Marker at the beginning of his magnum opus A Grin Without a Cat (1977) – is Solidarity emergent and, from it, the seeds of Revolution.

The relentlessly unidirectional focus of classical Soviet montage puts it methodologically and temperamentally at odds with the ruminative, digressive and playful qualities we associate with the essay film. So, too, the former’s fierce ideological certainty and cadre spirit contrast with that free play of the mind, the Montaigne -inspired meanderings of individual intelligence, that so characterise our image of the latter.

Beyond Marker’s personal interest in and inheritance from the Soviet masters, classical montage laid the foundations of the essay film most pertinently in its foregrounding of the presence, within the fabric of the film, of a directing intelligence. Conducting their experiments in film not through ‘pure’ abstraction but through narrative, the montagists made manifest at least two operative levels within the film: the narrative itself and the arrangement of that narrative by which the deeper structures that move it are made legible. Against the seamless, immersive illusionism of commercial cinema, montage was a key for decrypting those social forces, both overt and hidden, that govern human society.

And as such it was method rather than material that was the pathway to truth. Fidelity to the authentic – whether the accurate representation of historical events or the documentary flavouring of Eisensteinian typage – was important only insomuch as it provided the filmmaker with another tool to reach a considerably higher plane of reality.

Dziga Vertov’s Enthusiasm (1931)

Midway on their Marxian mission to change the world rather than interpret it, the montagists actively made the world even as they revealed it. In doing so they powerfully expressed the dialectic between control and chaos that would come to be not only one of the chief motors of the essay film but the crux of modernity itself.

Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929), now claimed as the most venerable and venerated ancestor of the essay film (and this despite its prototypically purist claim to realise a ‘universal’ cinematic language “based on its complete separation from the language of literature and the theatre”) is the archetypal model of this high-modernist agon. While it is the turning of the movie projector itself and the penetrating gaze of Vertov’s kino-eye that sets the whirling dynamo of the city into motion, the recorder creating that which it records, that motion is also outside its control.

At the dawn of the cinematic century, the American writer Henry Adams saw in the dynamo both the expression of human mastery over nature and a conduit to mysterious, elemental powers beyond our comprehension. So, too, the modernist ambition expressed in literature, painting, architecture and cinema to capture a subject from all angles – to exhaust its wealth of surfaces, meanings, implications, resonances – collides with awe (or fear) before a plenitude that can never be encompassed.

Remove the high-modernist sense of mission and we can see this same dynamic as animating the essay film – recall that last, parenthetical term in Gorin’s formulation of the essay film, “multiply[ing] the entries and the exits into the material it has elected (or by which it has been elected)”. The nimble movements and multi-angled perspectives of the essay film are founded on this negotiation between active choice and passive possession; on the recognition that even the keenest insight pales in the face of an ultimate unknowability.

The other key inheritance the essay film received from the classical montage tradition, perhaps inevitably, was a progressive spirit, however variously defined. While Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938) amply and chillingly demonstrated that montage, like any instrumental apparatus, has no inherent ideological nature, hers were more the exceptions that proved the rule. (Though why, apart from ideological repulsiveness, should Riefenstahl’s plentifully fabricated ‘documentaries’ not be considered as essay films in their own right?)

The overwhelming fact remains that the great majority of those who drew upon the Soviet montagists for explicitly ideological ends (as opposed to Hollywood’s opportunistic swipings) resided on the left of the spectrum – and, in the montagists’ most notable successor in the period immediately following, retained their alignment with and inextricability from the state.

Progressive vs radical

The Grierson ian documentary movement in Britain neutered the political and aesthetic radicalism of its more dynamic model in favour of paternalistic progressivism founded on conformity, class complacency and snobbery towards its own medium. But if it offered a far paler antecedent to the essay film than the Soviet montage tradition, it nevertheless represents an important stage in the evolution of the essay-film form, for reasons not unrelated to some of those rather staid qualities.

The Soviet montagists had created a vision of modernity racing into the future at pace with the social and spiritual liberation of its proletarian pilot-passenger, an aggressively public ideology of group solidarity. The Grierson school, by contrast, offered a domesticated image of an efficient, rational and productive modern industrial society based on interconnected but separate public and private spheres, as per the ideological values of middle-class liberal individualism.

The Soviet montagists had looked to forge a universal, ‘pure’ cinematic language, at least before the oppressive dictates of Stalinist socialist realism shackled them. The Grierson school, evincing a middle-class disdain for the popular and ‘low’ arts, sought instead to purify the sullied medium of cinema by importing extra-cinematic prestige: most notably Night Mail (1936), with its Auden -penned, Britten -scored ode to the magic of the mail, or Humphrey Jennings’s salute to wartime solidarity A Diary for Timothy (1945), with its mildly sententious E.M. Forster narration.

Night Mail (1936)

What this domesticated dynamism and retrograde pursuit of high-cultural bona fides achieved, however, was to mingle a newfound cinematic language (montage) with a traditionally literary one (narration); and, despite the salutes to state-oriented communality, to re-introduce the individual, idiosyncratic voice as the vehicle of meaning – as the mediating intelligence that connects the viewer to the images viewed.

In Night Mail especially there is, in the whimsy of the Auden text and the film’s synchronisation of private time and public history, an intimation of the essay film’s musing, reflective voice as the chugging rhythm of the narration timed to the speeding wheels of the train gives way to a nocturnal vision of solitary dreamers bedevilled by spectral monsters, awakening in expectation of the postman’s knock with a “quickening of the heart/for who can bear to be forgot?”

It’s a curiously disquieting conclusion: this unsettling, anxious vision of disappearance that takes on an even darker shade with the looming spectre of war – one that rhymes, five decades on, with the wistful search of Marker’s narrator in Sans soleil, seeking those fleeting images which “quicken the heart” in a world where wars both past and present have been forgotten, subsumed in a modern society built upon the systematic banishment of memory.

It is, of course, with the seminal post-war collaborations between Marker and Alain Resnais that the essay film proper emerges. In contrast to the striving culture-snobbery of the Griersonian documentary, the Resnais-Marker collaborations (and the Resnais solo documentary shorts that preceded them) inaugurate a blithe, seemingly effortless dialogue between cinema and the other arts in both their subjects (painting, sculpture) and their assorted creative personnel (writers Paul Éluard , Jean Cayrol , Raymond Queneau , composers Darius Milhaud and Hanns Eisler ). This also marks the point where the revolutionary line of the Soviets and the soft, statist liberalism of the British documentarians give way to a more free-floating but staunchly oppositional leftism, one derived as much from a spirit of humanistic inquiry as from ideological affiliation.

Related to this was the form’s problems with official patronage. Originally conceived as commissions by various French government or government-affiliated bodies, the Resnais-Marker films famously ran into trouble from French censors: Les statues meurent aussi (1953) for its condemnation of French colonialism, Night and Fog for its shots of Vichy policemen guarding deportation camps; the former film would have its second half lopped off before being cleared for screening, the latter its offending shots removed.

Night and Fog (1955)

Appropriately, it is at this moment that the emphasis of the essay film begins to shift away from tactile presence – the whirl of the city, the rhythm of the rain, the workings of industry – to felt absence. The montagists had marvelled at the workings of human creations which raced ahead irrespective of human efforts; here, the systems created by humanity to master the world write, in their very functioning, an epitaph for those things extinguished in the act of mastering them. The African masks preserved in the Musée de l’Homme in Les statues meurent aussi speak of a bloody legacy of vanquished and conquered civilisations; the labyrinthine archival complex of the Bibliothèque Nationale in the sardonically titled Toute la mémoire du monde (1956) sparks a disquisition on all that is forgotten in the act of cataloguing knowledge; the miracle of modern plastics saluted in the witty, industrially commissioned Le Chant du styrène (1958) regresses backwards to its homely beginnings; in Night and Fog an unprecedentedly enormous effort of human organisation marshals itself to actively produce a dreadful, previously unimaginable nullity.

To overstate the case, loss is the primary motor of the modern essay film: loss of belief in the image’s ability to faithfully reflect reality; loss of faith in the cinema’s ability to capture life as it is lived; loss of illusions about cinema’s ‘purity’, its autonomy from the other arts or, for that matter, the world.

“You never know what you may be filming,” notes one of Marker’s narrating surrogates in A Grin Without a Cat, as footage of the Chilean equestrian team at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics offers a glimpse of a future member of the Pinochet junta. The image and sound captured at the time of filming offer one facet of reality; it is only with this lateral move outside that reality that the future reality it conceals can speak.

What will distinguish the essay film, as Bazin noted, is not only its ability to make the image but also its ability to interrogate it, to dispel the illusion of its sovereignty and see it as part of a matrix of meaning that extends beyond the screen. No less than were the montagists, the film-essayists seek the motive forces of modern society not by crystallising eternal verities in powerful images but by investigating that ever-shifting, kaleidoscopic relationship between our regime of images and the realities it both reveals and occludes.

— Andrew Tracy

1.   À propos de Nice

Jean Vigo, 1930

Few documentaries have achieved the cult status of the 22-minute A propos de Nice, co-directed by Jean Vigo and cameraman Boris Kaufman at the beginning of their careers. The film retains a spontaneous, apparently haphazard, quality yet its careful montage combines a strong realist drive, lyrical dashes – helped by Marc Perrone’s accordion music – and a clear political agenda.

In today’s era, in which the Côte d’Azur has become a byword for hedonistic consumption, it’s refreshing to see a film that systematically undermines its glossy surface. Using images sometimes ‘stolen’ with hidden cameras, A propos de Nice moves between the city’s main sites of pleasure: the Casino, the Promenade des Anglais, the Hotel Negresco and the carnival. Occasionally the filmmakers remind us of the sea, the birds, the wind in the trees but mostly they contrast people: the rich play tennis, the poor boules; the rich have tea, the poor gamble in the (then) squalid streets of the Old Town.

As often, women bear the brunt of any critique of bourgeois consumption: a rich old woman’s head is compared to an ostrich, others grin as they gaze up at phallic factory chimneys; young women dance frenetically, their crotch to the camera. In the film’s most famous image, an elegant woman is ‘stripped’ by the camera to reveal her naked body – not quite matched by a man’s shoes vanishing to display his naked feet to the shoe-shine.

An essay film avant la lettre , A propos de Nice ends on Soviet-style workers’ faces and burning furnaces. The message is clear, even if it has not been heeded by history.

— Ginette Vincendeau

2. A Diary for Timothy

Humphrey Jennings, 1945

A Diary for Timothy takes the form of a journal addressed to the eponymous Timothy James Jenkins, born on 3 September 1944, exactly five years after Britain’s entry into World War II. The narrator, Michael Redgrave , a benevolent offscreen presence, informs young Timothy about the momentous events since his birth and later advises that, even when the war is over, there will be “everyday danger”.

The subjectivity and speculative approach maintained throughout are more akin to the essay tradition than traditional propaganda in their rejection of mere glib conveyance of information or thunderous hectoring. Instead Jennings invites us quietly to observe the nuances of everyday life as Britain enters the final chapter of the war. Against the momentous political backdrop, otherwise routine, everyday activities are ascribed new profundity as the Welsh miner Geronwy, Alan the farmer, Bill the railway engineer and Peter the convalescent fighter pilot go about their daily business.

Within the confines of the Ministry of Information’s remit – to lift the spirits of a battle-weary nation – and the loose narrative framework of Timothy’s first six months, Jennings finds ample expression for the kind of formal experiment that sets his work apart from that of other contemporary documentarians. He worked across film, painting, photography, theatrical design, journalism and poetry; in Diary his protean spirit finds expression in a manner that transgresses the conventional parameters of wartime propaganda, stretching into film poem, philosophical reflection, social document, surrealistic ethnographic observation and impressionistic symphony. Managing to keep to the right side of sentimentality, it still makes for potent viewing.

— Catherine McGahan

3. Toute la mémoire du monde

Alain Resnais, 1956

In the opening credits of Toute la mémoire du monde, alongside the director’s name and that of producer Pierre Braunberger , one reads the mysterious designation “Groupe des XXX”. This Group of Thirty was an assembly of filmmakers who mobilised in the early 1950s to defend the “style, quality and ambitious subject matter” of short films in post-war France; the signatories of its 1953 ‘Declaration’ included Resnais , Chris Marker and Agnès Varda. The success of the campaign contributed to a golden age of short filmmaking that would last a decade and form the crucible of the French essay film.

A 22-minute poetic documentary about the old French Bibliothèque Nationale, Toute la mémoire du monde is a key work in this strand of filmmaking and one which can also be seen as part of a loose ‘trilogy of memory’ in Resnais’s early documentaries. Les statues meurent aussi (co-directed with Chris Marker) explored cultural memory as embodied in African art and the depredations of colonialism; Night and Fog was a seminal reckoning with the historical memory of the Nazi death camps. While less politically controversial than these earlier works, Toute la mémoire du monde’s depiction of the Bibliothèque Nationale is still oddly suggestive of a prison, with its uniformed guards and endless corridors. In W.G. Sebald ’s 2001 novel Austerlitz, directly after a passage dedicated to Resnais’s film, the protagonist describes his uncertainty over whether, when using the library, he “was on the Islands of the Blest, or, on the contrary, in a penal colony”.

Resnais explores the workings of the library through the effective device of following a book from arrival and cataloguing to its delivery to a reader (the book itself being something of an in-joke: a mocked-up travel guide to Mars in the Petite Planète series Marker was then editing for Editions du Seuil). With Resnais’s probing, mobile camerawork and a commentary by French writer Remo Forlani, Toute la mémoire du monde transforms the library into a mysterious labyrinth, something between an edifice and an organism: part brain and part tomb.

— Chris Darke

4. The House is Black

(Khaneh siah ast) Forough Farrokhzad, 1963

Before the House of Makhmalbaf there was The House is Black. Called “the greatest of all Iranian films” by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, who helped translate the subtitles from Farsi into English, this 20-minute black-and-white essay film by feminist poet Farrokhzad was shot in a leper colony near Tabriz in northern Iran and has been heralded as the touchstone of the Iranian New Wave.

The buildings of the Baba Baghi colony are brick and peeling whitewash but a student asked to write a sentence using the word ‘house’ offers Khaneh siah ast : the house is black. His hand, seen in close-up, is one of many in the film; rather than objects of medical curiosity, these hands – some fingerless, many distorted by the disease – are agents, always in movement, doing, making, exercising, praying. In putting white words on the blackboard, the student makes part of the film; in the next shots, the film’s credits appear, similarly handwritten on the same blackboard.

As they negotiate the camera’s gaze and provide the soundtrack by singing, stamping and wheeling a barrow, the lepers are co-authors of the film. Farrokhzad echoes their prayers, heard and seen on screen, with her voiceover, which collages religious texts, beginning with the passage from Psalm 55 famously set to music by Mendelssohn (“O for the wings of a dove”).

In the conjunctions between Farrokhzad’s poetic narration and diegetic sound, including tanbur-playing, an intense assonance arises. Its beat is provided by uniquely lyrical associative editing that would influence Abbas Kiarostami , who quotes Farrokhzad’s poem ‘The Wind Will Carry Us’ in his eponymous film . Repeated shots of familiar bodily movement, made musical, move the film insistently into the viewer’s body: it is infectious. Posing a question of aesthetics, The House Is Black uses the contagious gaze of cinema to dissolve the screen between Us and Them.

— Sophie Mayer

5. Letter to Jane: An Investigation About a Still

Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1972

With its invocation of Brecht (“Uncle Bertolt”), rejection of visual pleasure (for 52 minutes we’re mostly looking at a single black-and-white still) and discussion of the role of intellectuals in “the revolution”, Letter to Jane is so much of its time as to appear untranslatable to the present except as a curio from a distant era of radical cinema. Between 1969 and 1971, Godard and Gorin made films collectively as part of the Dziga Vertov Group before they returned, in 1972, to the mainstream with Tout va bien , a big-budget film about the aftermath of May 1968 featuring leftist stars Yves Montand and  Jane Fonda . It was to the latter that Godard and Gorin directed their Letter after seeing a news photograph of her on a solidarity visit to North Vietnam in August 1972.

Intended to accompany the US release of Tout va bien, Letter to Jane is ‘a letter’ only in as much as it is fairly conversational in tone, with Godard and Gorin delivering their voiceovers in English. It’s stylistically more akin to the ‘blackboard films’ of the time, with their combination of pedagogical instruction and stern auto-critique.

It’s also an inspired semiological reading of a media image and a reckoning with the contradictions of celebrity activism. Godard and Gorin examine the image’s framing and camera angle and ask why Fonda is the ‘star’ of the photograph while the Vietnamese themselves remain faceless or out of focus? And what of her expression of compassionate concern? This “expression of an expression” they trace back, via an elaboration of the Kuleshov effect , through other famous faces – Henry Fonda , John Wayne , Lillian Gish and Falconetti – concluding that it allows for “no reverse shot” and serves only to bolster Western “good conscience”.

Letter to Jane is ultimately concerned with the same question that troubled philosophers such as Levinas and Derrida : what’s at stake ethically when one claims to speak “in place of the other”? Any contemporary critique of celebrity activism – from Bono and Geldof to Angelina Jolie – should start here, with a pair of gauchiste trolls muttering darkly beneath a press shot of ‘Hanoi Jane’.

6. F for Fake

Orson Welles, 1973

Those who insist it was all downhill for Orson Welles after Citizen Kane would do well to take a close look at this film made more than three decades later, in its own idiosyncratic way a masterpiece just as innovative as his better-known feature debut.

Perhaps the film’s comparative and undeserved critical neglect is due to its predominantly playful tone, or perhaps it’s because it is a low-budget, hard-to-categorise, deeply personal work that mixes original material with plenty of footage filmed by others – most extensively taken from a documentary by François Reichenbach about Clifford Irving and his bogus biography of his friend Elmyr de Hory , an art forger who claimed to have painted pictures attributed to famous names and hung in the world’s most prestigious galleries.

If the film had simply offered an account of the hoaxes perpetrated by that disreputable duo, it would have been entertaining enough but, by means of some extremely inventive, innovative and inspired editing, Welles broadens his study of fakery to take in his own history as a ‘charlatan’ – not merely his lifelong penchant for magician’s tricks but also the 1938 radio broadcast of his news-report adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds – as well as observations on Howard Hughes , Pablo Picasso and the anonymous builders of Chartres cathedral. So it is that Welles contrives to conjure up, behind a colourful cloak of consistently entertaining mischief, a rueful meditation on truth and falsehood, art and authorship – a subject presumably dear to his heart following Pauline Kael ’s then recent attempts to persuade the world that Herman J. Mankiewicz had been the real creative force behind Kane.

As a riposte to that thesis (albeit never framed as such), F for Fake is subtle, robust, supremely erudite and never once bitter; the darkest moment – as Welles contemplates the serene magnificence of Chartres – is at once an uncharacteristic but touchingly heartfelt display of humility and a poignant memento mori. And it is in this delicate balancing of the autobiographical with the universal, as well as in the dazzling deployment of cinematic form to illustrate and mirror content, that the film works its once unique, now highly influential magic.

— Geoff Andrew

7. How to Live in the German Federal Republic

(Leben – BRD) Harun Farocki, 1990

Harun Farocki ’s portrait of West Germany in 32 simulations from training sessions has no commentary, just the actions themselves in all their surreal beauty, one after the other. The Bundesrepublik Deutschland is shown as a nation of people who can deal with everything because they have been prepared – taught how to react properly in every possible situation.

We know how birth works; how to behave in kindergarten; how to chat up girls, boys or whatever we fancy (for we’re liberal-minded, if only in principle); how to look for a job and maybe live without finding one; how to wiggle our arses in the hottest way possible when we pole-dance, or manage a hostage crisis without things getting (too) bloody. Whatever job we do, we know it by heart; we also know how to manage whatever kind of psychological breakdown we experience; and we are also prepared for the end, and even have an idea about how our burial will go. This is the nation: one of fearful people in dire need of control over their one chance of getting it right.

Viewed from the present, How to Live in the German Federal Republic is revealed as the archetype of many a Farocki film in the decades to follow, for example Die Umschulung (1994), Der Auftritt (1996) or Nicht ohne Risiko (2004), all of which document as dispassionately as possible different – not necessarily simulated – scenarios of social interactions related to labour and capital. For all their enlightening beauty, none of these ever came close to How to Live in the German Federal Republic which, depending on one’s mood, can play like an absurd comedy or the most gut-wrenching drama. Yet one disquieting thing is certain: How to Live in the German Federal Republic didn’t age – our lives still look the same.

— Olaf Möller

8. One Man’s War

(La Guerre d’un seul homme) Edgardo Cozarinsky , 1982

One Man’s War proves that an auteur film can be made without writing a line, recording a sound or shooting a single frame. It’s easy to point to the ‘extraordinary’ character of the film, given its combination of materials that were not made to cohabit; there couldn’t be a less plausible dialogue than the one Cozarinsky establishes between the newsreels shot during the Nazi occupation of Paris and the Parisian diaries of novelist and Nazi officer Ernst Jünger . There’s some truth to Pascal Bonitzer’s assertion in Cahiers du cinéma in 1982 that the principle of the documentary was inverted here, since it is the images that provide a commentary for the voice.

But that observation still doesn’t pin down the uniqueness of a work that forces history through a series of registers, styles and dimensions, wiping out the distance between reality and subjectivity, propaganda and literature, cinema and journalism, daily life and dream, and establishing the idea not so much of communicating vessels as of contaminating vessels.

To enquire about the essayistic dimension of One Man’s War is to submit it to a test of purity against which the film itself is rebelling. This is no ars combinatoria but systems of collision and harmony; organic in their temporal development and experimental in their procedural eagerness. It’s like a machine created to die instantly; neither Cozarinsky nor anyone else could repeat the trick, as is the case with all great avant-garde works.

By blurring the genre of his literary essays, his fictional films, his archival documentaries, his literary fictions, Cozarinsky showed he knew how to reinvent the erasure of borders. One Man’s War is not a film about the Occupation but a meditation on the different forms in which that Occupation can be represented.

—Sergio Wolf. Translated by Mar Diestro-Dópido

9. Sans soleil

Chris Marker, 1982

There are many moments to quicken the heart in Sans soleil but one in particular demonstrates the method at work in Marker’s peerless film. An unseen female narrator reads from letters sent to her by a globetrotting cameraman named Sandor Krasna (Marker’s nom de voyage), one of which muses on the 11th-century Japanese writer  Sei Shōnagon .

As we hear of Shōnagon’s “list of elegant things, distressing things, even of things not worth doing”, we watch images of a missile being launched and a hovering bomber. What’s the connection? There is none. Nothing here fixes word and image in illustrative lockstep; it’s in the space between them that Sans soleil makes room for the spectator to drift, dream and think – to inimitable effect.

Sans soleil was Marker’s return to a personal mode of filmmaking after more than a decade in militant cinema. His reprise of the epistolary form looks back to earlier films such as  Letter from Siberia  (1958) but the ‘voice’ here is both intimate and removed. The narrator’s reading of Krasna’s letters flips the first person to the third, using ‘he’ instead of ‘I’. Distance and proximity in the words mirror, multiply and magnify both the distances travelled and the time spanned in the images, especially those of the 1960s and its lost dreams of revolutionary social change.

While it’s handy to define Sans soleil as an ‘essay film’, there’s something about the dry term that doesn’t do justice to the experience of watching it. After Marker’s death last year, when writing programme notes on the film, I came up with a line that captures something of what it’s like to watch Sans soleil: “a mesmerising, lucid and lovely river of film, which, like the river of the ancients, is never the same when one steps into it a second time”.

10. Handsworth Songs

Black Audio Film Collective, 1986

Made at the time of civil unrest in Birmingham, this key example of the essay film at its most complex remains relevant both formally and thematically. Handsworth Songs is no straightforward attempt to provide answers as to why the riots happened; instead, using archive film spliced with made and found footage of the events and the media and popular reaction to them, it creates a poetic sense of context.

The film is an example of counter-media in that it slows down the demand for either immediate explanation or blanket condemnation. Its stillness allows the history of immigration and the subsequent hostility of the media and the police to the black and Asian population to be told in careful detail.

One repeated scene shows a young black man running through a group of white policemen who surround him on all sides. He manages to break free several times before being wrestled to the ground; if only for one brief, utopian moment, an entirely different history of race in the UK is opened up.

The waves of post-war immigration are charted in the stories told both by a dominant (and frequently repressive) televisual narrative and, importantly, by migrants themselves. Interviews mingle with voiceover, music accompanies the machines that the Windrush generation work at. But there are no definitive answers here, only, as the Black Audio Film Collective memorably suggests, “the ghosts of songs”.

— Nina Power

11.   Los Angeles Plays Itself

Thom Andersen, 2003

One of the attractions that drew early film pioneers out west, besides the sunlight and the industrial freedom, was the versatility of the southern Californian landscape: with sea, snowy mountains, desert, fruit groves, Spanish missions, an urban downtown and suburban boulevards all within a 100-mile radius, the Los Angeles basin quickly and famously became a kind of giant open-air film studio, available and pliant.

Of course, some people actually live there too. “Sometimes I think that gives me the right to criticise,” growls native Angeleno Andersen in his forensic three-hour prosecution of moving images of the movie city, whose mounting litany of complaints – couched in Encke King’s gravelly, near-parodically irritated voiceover, and sometimes organised, as Stuart Klawans wrote in The Nation, “in the manner of a saloon orator” – belies a sly humour leavening a radically serious intent.

Inspired in part by Mark Rappaport’s factual essay appropriations of screen fictions (Rock Hudson’s Home Movies, 1993; From the Journals of Jean Seberg , 1995), as well as Godard’s Histoire(s) de cinéma, this “city symphony in reverse” asserts public rights to our screen discourse through its magpie method as well as its argument. (Today you could rebrand it ‘Occupy Hollywood’.) Tinseltown malfeasance is evidenced across some 200 different film clips, from offences against geography and slurs against architecture to the overt historical mythologies of Chinatown (1974), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and L.A. Confidential (1997), in which the city’s class and cultural fault-lines are repainted “in crocodile tears” as doleful tragedies of conspiracy, promoting hopelessness in the face of injustice.

Andersen’s film by contrast spurs us to independent activism, starting with the reclamation of our gaze: “What if we watch with our voluntary attention, instead of letting the movies direct us?” he asks, peering beyond the foregrounding of character and story. And what if more movies were better and more useful, helping us see our world for what it is? Los Angeles Plays Itself grows most moving – and useful – extolling the Los Angeles neorealism Andersen has in mind: stories of “so many men unneeded, unwanted”, as he says over a scene from Billy Woodberry’s Bless Their Little Hearts (1983), “in a world in which there is so much to be done”.

— Nick Bradshaw

12.   La Morte Rouge

Víctor Erice, 2006

The famously unprolific Spanish director Víctor Erice may remain best known for his full-length fiction feature The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), but his other films are no less rewarding. Having made a brilliant foray into the fertile territory located somewhere between ‘documentary’ and ‘fiction’ with The Quince Tree Sun (1992), in this half-hour film made for the ‘Correspondences’ exhibition exploring resemblances in the oeuvres of Erice and Kiarostami , the relationship between reality and artifice becomes his very subject.

A ‘small’ work, it comprises stills, archive footage, clips from an old Sherlock Holmes movie, a few brief new scenes – mostly without actors – and music by Mompou and (for once, superbly used) Arvo Pärt . If its tone – it’s introduced as a “soliloquy” – and scale are modest, its thematic range and philosophical sophistication are considerable.

The title is the name of the Québécois village that is the setting for The Scarlet Claw (1944), a wartime Holmes mystery starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce which was the first movie Erice ever saw, taken by his sister to the Kursaal cinema in San Sebastian.

For the five-year-old, the experience was a revelation: unable to distinguish the ‘reality’ of the newsreel from that of the nightmare world of Roy William Neill’s film, he not only learned that death and murder existed but noted that the adults in the audience, presumably privy to some secret knowledge denied him, were unaffected by the corpses on screen. Had this something to do with war? Why was La Morte Rouge not on any map? And what did it signify that postman Potts was not, in fact, Potts but the killer – and an actor (whatever that was) to boot?

From such personal reminiscences – evoked with wondrous intimacy in the immaculate Castillian of the writer-director’s own wry narration – Erice fashions a lyrical meditation on themes that have underpinned his work from Beehive to Broken Windows (2012): time and change, memory and identity, innocence and experience, war and death. And because he understands, intellectually and emotionally, that the time-based medium he himself works in can reveal unforgettably vivid realities that belong wholly to the realm of the imaginary, La Morte Rouge is a great film not only about the power of cinema but about life itself.

Sight & Sound: the August 2013 issue

In this issue: Frances Ha’s Greta Gerwig – the most exciting actress in America? Plus Ryan Gosling in Only God Forgives, Wadjda, The Wall,...

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DVDs and Blu Ray

Buy The Complete Humphrey Jennings Collection Volume Three: A Diary for Timothy on DVD and Blu Ray

Humphrey Jennings’s transition from wartime to peacetime filmmaking.

Buy Chronicle of a Summer on DVD and Blu Ray

Jean Rouch’s hugely influential and ground-breaking documentary.

Further reading

Video essay: The essay film – some thoughts of discontent

Kevin B. Lee

The land still lies: Handsworth Songs and the English riots

The world at sea: The Forgotten Space

What I owe to Chris Marker

Patricio Guzmán

His and her ghosts: reworking La Jetée

Melissa Bradshaw

At home (and away) with Agnès Varda

Daniel Trilling

Pere Portabella looks back

John Akomfrah’s Hauntologies

Laura Allsop

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The secret history of the essay film

Charting the resurgence of ‘sort of documentaries’ to celebrate chris marker, king of the essay film.

“Essay films are arguably the most innovative and popular form of filmmaking since the 1990s,” wrote Timothy Corrigan in his notable 2011 book,  The Essay Film . True, perhaps, but mention of the genre to your average joe won’t spark the instant recognition of today’s romcoms, sci-fis and period dramas. The thing is, essay films have been around since the dawn of cinema: they emerged not long after the  Lumière brothers  recorded the first ever motion pictures of Lyonnaise factory workers in 1894, yet their definition is still ambiguous.

They are similar to documentary and non-fiction film in that they are often based in reality, using words, images and sounds to convey a message. But according to Chris Darke – co-curator of the Whitechapel Gallery’s current retrospective  of the great essay filmmaker Chris Marker – it is “the personal aspect and style of address” that makes the essay film distinct. It is this flexibility that has appealed to contemporary filmmakers, permitting a fresh, nuanced viewing experience.

Geoff Andrew, a senior programmer at the BFI who helped curate last year’s landmark essay film season, explained, “they are sort of documentaries, sort of non-fiction films.” The issue is that some filmmakers try to provide an objective point of view when it is just not possible. “There’s always somebody manipulating footage and manipulating reality to present some sort of message.” Andrew continued, “So, in a way, all documentaries are essay films.”

But the essay film is particularly resurgent these days, with filmmakers like Michael Moore , Werner Herzog , and Nick Broomfield  molding the genre in their own ways. Their popularity isn’t just due to incendiary topics like men getting eaten by bears as in Herzog’s Grizzly Man  and high school massacres as in Moore’s Bowling for Columbine ; essay films are capable of compelling beauty. Now, with the Whitechapel Gallery ’s retrospective of the late Frenchman, Chris Marker , arguably the greatest essay filmmaker there’s ever been, we take a look at the essay film’s secret history.

1909  -  D. W. Griffith ’s   A Corner in Wheat

Considered by some to be the first essay film ever, A Corner in Wheat  is a little subversive thorn in the side of the man. Lasting only 14 minutes, it tells the tale of a ruthless crop gambler who amasses riches by monopolising the wheat market, exploits the agricultural poor, and is promptly killed under a pile of his own grain. Think twice, greedy capitalists.

1929  -   Dziga  Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera

“The film drama is the opium of the people,” proclaimed Soviet film pioneer  Dziga Vertov , “down with Bourgeois fairy-tale scenarios.” He was the most radical of his fellow Soviet filmmaker compatriots, and Man with a Movie Camera  was his masterpiece. In it, he tried to create an “international language of cinema” through a beguiling mix of jump cuts, split screens and superimpositions. Vertov’s idea was to uncover the artifice of filmmaking, with one scene of the film depicting a cameraman inside a giant beer.

1940  -  Hans Richter’s The Film Essay

The term “essay film” was originally coined by German artist Hans Richter, who wrote in his 1940 paper, The Film Essay : “The film essay enables the filmmaker to make the ‘invisible’ world of thoughts and ideas visible on the screen... The essay film produces complex thought – reflections that are not necessarily bound to reality, but can also be contradictory, irrational, and fantastic.” So while World War II was blazing away, a new cinema was born.

1982  - Chris  Marker’s Sans Soleil

You know that this brilliant, freewheeling travelogue is something special when it suggests that Pac-Man is “a perfect graphic metaphor for the human condition.” It takes in anti-colonial struggles, sumo wrestling, a volcanic eruption in Iceland, the antiquities of the Vatican, Marker’s love of cats and more. An unnamed female narrates a circuitous journey from Africa to Japan, in an engaging style never seen before. Some might say he laid down a marker.

1993  -  Derek Jarman’s Blue

Diagnosed with HIV and beginning to lose his eyesight, Jarman  decided to turn his illness into his art. Although the premise of nothing but a dim, blue background accompanied by voiceovers for 79 minutes might not seem enthralling, it really is. Jarman recalls memories of his past lovers, and his current life of endless pill-popping, with a poignant score by Brian Eno  and Simon Fisher Turner .

1998 - Jean -Luc  Godard’s Histoire(s) du cinema

Comprised of hundreds of clips of films, music and poetry, this eight part series – that took over a decade to make – remained a secret seen only at a precious few film festivals thanks to the gargantuan amount of rights needed to be cleared. Histoire(s) du cinema is an epic of free association whose central theme is voyeurism, since Godard believes that cinema consists of a man looking at a woman. Harriet Andersson , topless and alluring on a beach in Ingmar Bergman ’s Monika , is one of many examples.

2004  -  Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11

The most successful documentary at the US box office ever, Fahrenheit 9/11  is a prime example of the essay film’s wild popularisation (it also won the Palme d’Or  at Cannes). Michael Moore ’s swipe at the Republican jugular was a classic example of the essay filmmaker’s prominence, outrightly mocking President George W. Bush and questioning the fairness of his election. Disney refused to distribute the film, and the rest is history.

2010  -  Errol Morris’ Tabloid

Tabloid is the outrageous story of a former Miss Wyoming, Joyce McKinney, who was alleged to have kidnapped an American mormon missionary living in England, handcuffed him to a bed in a Devonshire cottage and made him a sex slave. The woman claimed she was saving the man from a cult, but then fleed to Canada wearing a red wig, where she posed as part of a mime troupe. As ever, Errol Morris  deftly offers alternate explanations, which led to McKinney suing him after the release of the film.

2014  -  Hito Steyerl’s How Not To Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educationa l

After touring galleries of the world and a recent stint at the ICA, Hito Steyerl ’s How Not To Be Seen made waves as “an art for our times”. It is a disembowelling satire that mocks the idea that it we can become invisible and have genuine privacy, in this digital age. If we want to disappear, it suggests, we should become poor, or hide in plain sight, or get “disappeared” by the authorities.

Chris Marker: A Grin Without a Cat is on until 22 June at  Whitechapel Gallery

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Essay Films

By Paul Arthur in the January-February 2003 Issue

Galvanized by the intersection of personal, subjective rumination, and social history, the essay has emerged as the leading nonfiction form for both intellectual and artistic innovation. In contrast to competing genres (the PBS historical epic, the updated vérité portrait, the tabloid spectacle), the essay offers a range of politically charged visions uniquely able to blend abstract ideas with concrete realities, the general case with specific notations of human experience. The filmmaker’s onscreen presence-like similar gestures by New Wave directors, an acknowledgment that what goes on in front of the camera bears the imprint of a distinct sensibility behind it—is not in itself an infallible guide for tagging this notoriously tricky form, but it reminds us that a quality shared by all film essays is the inscription of a blatant, self-searching authorial presence. Admittedly, some prominent essayists—Harun Farocki, Harmut Bitomsky, Patrick Keillor—are far from household names. Nonetheless, it’s helpful to remember that the essay has been around for 50 years—Jean Rouch’s Les Maîtres fous (55), Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog (55), and Chris Marker’s Letter from Siberia (58) are crucial milestones—and has been an occasional source of inspiration for the likes of Welles, Godard, Ruiz, and Herzog.

You can read the complete version of this article in the January/February print edition of Film Comment .

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research: Essay Films

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6. Statues also Die

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12. Film socialisme

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15. Handsworth Songs

16. Images of the World and the Inscription of War

17. Histoire(s) du cinéma

Fatale beauté.

18. Close-Up

19. This Is Not a Film

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Essay Film

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Essay Film by Yelizaveta Moss LAST REVIEWED: 24 March 2021 LAST MODIFIED: 24 March 2021 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0216

The term “essay film” has become increasingly used in film criticism to describe a self-reflective and self-referential documentary cinema that blurs the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Scholars unanimously agree that the first published use of the term was by Richter in 1940. Also uncontested is that Andre Bazin, in 1958, was the first to analyze a film, which was Marker’s Letter from Siberia (1958), according to the essay form. The French New Wave created a popularization of short essay films, and German New Cinema saw a resurgence in essay films due to a broad interest in examining German history. But beyond these origins of the term, scholars deviate on what exactly constitutes an essay film and how to categorize essay films. Generally, scholars fall into two camps: those who find a literary genealogy to the essay film and those who find a documentary genealogy to the essay film. The most commonly cited essay filmmakers are French and German: Marker, Resnais, Godard, and Farocki. These filmmakers are singled out for their breadth of essay film projects, as opposed to filmmakers who have made an essay film but who specialize in other genres. Though essay films have been and are being produced outside of the West, scholarship specifically addressing essay films focuses largely on France and Germany, although Solanas and Getino’s theory of “Third Cinema” and approval of certain French essay films has produced some essay film scholarship on Latin America. But the gap in scholarship on global essay film remains, with hope of being bridged by some forthcoming work. Since the term “essay film” is used so sparingly for specific films and filmmakers, the scholarship on essay film tends to take the form of single articles or chapters in either film theory or documentary anthologies and journals. Some recent scholarship has pointed out the evolutionary quality of essay films, emphasizing their ability to change form and style as a response to conventional filmmaking practices. The most recent scholarship and conference papers on essay film have shifted from an emphasis on literary essay to an emphasis on technology, arguing that essay film has the potential in the 21st century to present technology as self-conscious and self-reflexive of its role in art.

Both anthologies dedicated entirely to essay film have been published in order to fill gaps in essay film scholarship. Biemann 2003 brings the discussion of essay film into the digital age by explicitly resisting traditional German and French film and literary theory. Papazian and Eades 2016 also resists European theory by explicitly showcasing work on postcolonial and transnational essay film.

Biemann, Ursula, ed. Stuff It: The Video Essay in the Digital Age . New York: Springer, 2003.

This anthology positions Marker’s Sans Soleil (1983) as the originator of the post-structuralist essay film. In opposition to German and French film and literary theory, Biemann discusses video essays with respect to non-linear and non-logical movement of thought and a range of new media in Internet, digital imaging, and art installation. In its resistance to the French/German theory influence on essay film, this anthology makes a concerted effort to include other theoretical influences, such as transnationalism, postcolonialism, and globalization.

Papazian, Elizabeth, and Caroline Eades, eds. The Essay Film: Dialogue, Politics, Utopia . London: Wallflower, 2016.

This forthcoming anthology bridges several gaps in 21st-century essay film scholarship: non-Western cinemas, popular cinema, and digital media.

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Essays on the Essay Film

About the author.

In addition to his long career in film archiving and curating, Jan-Christopher Horak has taught at universities around the world. His recent book, Saul Bass: Anatomy of Film Design (2014) was published by University Press of Kentucky.

"Archival Spaces" Blog - Ithaca College

Sans soleil   (1983)

For decades, I’ve been interested in the essay film, ever since I fell in love with Jean-Luc Godard’s work from the 1960s, like Pierrot le fou (1965), Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967), but especially since the 1990s, when I wrote about Godard’s colleague Chris Marker, whose Sans soleil (1983) is a masterpiece of the genre.  Recently, I discussed Saul Bass’ Why Man Creates (1968) as an essay film.  But is it a genre?  Straddling documentary and fiction, the subjectivity of the author and the objectivity of the filmed image, vacillating between image and sound, visuality and the word, essay films in many ways defy definition.  Jean-Pierre Gorin, himself a film essayist, writes in Essays on the Essay Film (ed. Nora M. Alter and Timothy Corrigan, Columbia University Press, 2017): “They come in all sizes, shapes, and hues – and they will continue to do so... How can one even attempt to draw its floor plan, sketch its history and catalog the idiosyncratic products that appear in its inventory?” (p. 270).

Such semantic nebulousness already held true for the literary essay, as this anthology documents.  Max Bense notes that essays always imply a level of experimentation, because they are exploring various forms of subjectivity.  Similarly, the essays in this volume experiment with possible definitions of film essays.  Essays on the Essay Film is accordingly divided into four sections:  1. Theoretical essays on the essay as a literary form by Georg Lukács, Robert Musil, Max Bense, Theodor W. Adorno and Aldous Huxley.  2. Previously published essays on the essay film by Hans Richter, Alexandre Astruc and André Bazin.  3. Analytical essays by Phillip Lopate, Paul Arthur, Michael Renov, Timothy Corrigan and Raymond Bellour.  4. Essays by filmmakers of the form, including Gorin, Hito Steyerl, Ross McElwee, Laura Mulvey and Isaac Julien.

Pierrot le fou (1965)

The editors make a wise decision to include writings on the literary essay, since many of its characteristics can be applied to essay films.  Georg Lukács, for example, supposes that the essay is not an act of creating the new, but rather only of reconfiguring previously known information.  Max Bense defines essays as a form of experimental writing that eschews absolute statements in the interest of exploring parameters and possibilities.  Theodor Adorno takes Bense a step further by connecting the essay to anti-Platonic values, such as the ephemeral, the transitory, and the fragmentary.  Given the ambiguity of the image, the push and pull between the filmmaker’s subjectivity and the objectivity of the image, are not such values integral to the cinema experience?

The earliest theoretical statements about the essay film come from experimental filmmaker and artist Hans Richter, who in his 1939 tract, Struggle for the Film: Towards a Socially Responsible Cinema , foresees a new form of documentary that has the ability to visualize thought.  Alexander Astruc, an early member of the French New Wave , theorized the future of cinema in neither documentary nor fiction films, but rather in filmmakers who use the camera as a pen— le camera au stylo— for the expression of authorial subjectivity.  Phillip Lopate, on the other hand, defines five characteristics for the essay film:  1. It has to communicate through language, whether spoken or written.  2. It must be the work of a single author.  3. It must set itself the task of solving a specific problem or problems.  4. It must be a wholly personal point of view.  5. It must be eloquent and interesting.  Like Lopate, the late film critic and essayist Paul Arthur focuses on the film auteur, insisting that the essay film must give evidence a critical, self-reflexive author who is able to communicate through word and image.

Timothy Corrigan contributes a historical analysis of the essay film, from Dziga Vertov to Agnès Varda, agreeing with Lukács’ thesis that the essay film indeed creates no new forms, but remixes and recontextualizes ideas that are already in circulation.  The final part of his essay focuses on a close reading of Varda’s The Gleaners and I (2000).

Again and again the authors of the volume emphasize the essay film’s openness of form and always-tentative contours that defy any absolute definitions.  Thus, the authors of Essays , as well as the even more subjective contributions of the filmmakers, discuss definitions and characteristics of a genre that isn’t one, unable or unwilling to draw definite conclusions.  They are consciously circling around an indefinable object.  The pleasure here is not to be found in the end goal, but rather in the intellectual journey.  Nevertheless, it would have been nice if there had at least been agreement about when the essay film first appeared in film history, whether with Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929), Georges Franju’s Le sang des bêtes (1949) or Chris Marker’s Lettre de Sibérie (1958).  A filmography of the essay film would have helped readers visualize the parameters of what films are considered essay films, a common ground for further discussion.  Personally, I would have also liked to have read more about the aesthetics of the essay film, its visual and emotional appeal, not just intellectual pull.  In retrospect, I remember the tactile sensuality of images in many of the films discussed, scenes that evoke emotion.  I also question whether the essay or essay film is mainly a remix, and not in some way an independent creation of aesthetic value.  Despite these slight reservations, this volume is eminently readable and a contribution to understanding a form of cinema that continues to morph and grow.

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Defining the Cinematic Essay: The Essay Film by Elizabeth A. Papazian & Caroline Eades, and Essays on the Essay Film by Nora M. Alter & Timothy Corrigan

When it came time for the students to create their own documentaries, one of my policies was for them to “throw objectivity out the window”. To quote John Grierson, documentaries are the “creative treatment of actuality.” Capturing the truth, whatever it may be, is quite nearly impossible if not utterly futile. Often, filmmakers deliberately manipulate their footage in order to achieve educational, informative and persuasive objectives. To illustrate, I screened Robert Flaherty’s 1922 film Nanook of the North and always marveled at the students’ reactions when, after the screening, I informed them that the film’s depiction of traditional Inuit life was entirely a reenactment. While many students were shocked and disappointed when they learned this, others accepted Flaherty’s defence of the film as true to the spirit, if not the letter, of the Inuit’s vanishing way of life. Another example that I screened was a clip from controversial filmmaker Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine (2002) which demonstrated how Moore shrewdly used editing to villainise then-NRA president Charlton Heston. Though a majority of the class agreed with Moore’s anti-gun violence agenda, many were infuriated about being “lied to” and “misled” by the editing tactics. Naturally these examples also raise questions about the role of ethics in documentary filmmaking, but even films that are not deliberately manipulative are still “the product of individuals, [and] will always display bias and be in some manner didactic.” (Alter/Corrigan, p. 193.)

To further my point on the elusive nature of objectivity, I screened Alain Resnais’s Nuit et brouillard ( Night and Fog , 1956), Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil (1983) and Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir (2008.) Yet at this point I began to wonder if I was still teaching documentary or if I had ventured into some other territory. I was aware that Koyaanisqatsi had also been classified as an experimental film by notable scholars such as David Bordwell. On the other hand, Nuit et brouillard is labeled a documentary film but poses more questions than answers, since it is “unable to adequately document the reality it seeks.” (Alter/Corrigan p. 210.) Resnais’s short film interweaves black and white archival footage with colour film of Auschwitz and other camps. The colour sequences were shot in 1955, when the camps had already been deserted for ten years.   Nuit et brouillard scrutinises the brutality of the Holocaust while contemplating the social, political and ethical responsibilities of the Nazis. Yet it also questions the more abstract role of knowledge and memory, both individual and communal, within the context of such horrific circumstances. The students did not challenge Night and Fog’s classification as a documentary, but they wondered if Waltz with Bashir and especially Sans Soleil had entirely different objectives since they seemed to do more than present factual information. The students also noted that these films seemed to merge with other genres, and wondered if there was a different classification for them aside from poetic, observational, participatory, et al.  Although it is animated, Waltz with Bashir is classified as a documentary since it is based on Folman’s own experiences during the 1982 Lebanon War. Also, as Roger Ebert notes, animation is “the best way to reconstruct memories, fantasies, hallucinations, possibilities, past and present.” 2 However, it is not solely a document of Folman’s experiences or of the war itself. It is also a subjective meditation on the nature of human perception. As Folman attempts to reconstruct past events through the memories of his fellow soldiers, Waltz with Bashir investigates the very nature of truth itself. These films definitely challenged the idea of documentary as a strict genre, but the students noticed that they each had interesting similarities. Aside from educating, informing and persuading, they also used non-fiction sounds and images to visualise abstract concepts and ideas.

Sans Soleil (Marker, 1983)

Sans Soleil has been described as “a meditation on place […] where spatial availability confuses the sense of time and memory.” (Alter/Corrigan, p. 117.) Some of my students felt that Marker’s film, which is composed of images from Japan and elsewhere, was more like a “filmed travelogue”. Others described it as a “film journal” since Marker used images and narration to describe certain experiences, thoughts and memories. Yet my students’ understanding of Sans Soleil was problematised when they discovered that the narration was delivered by “a fictional, nameless woman […] reading aloud from, or else paraphrasing, letters sent to her by a fictional, globe-trotting cameraman.” 3 Upon learning this, several students wondered if Sans Soleil was actually a narrative and not a documentary at all. I briefly explained that, since it was also an attempt to visualise abstract concepts, Sans Soleil was known as an essay film. Yet this only complicated things further!  The students wondered if other films we saw in the class were essayistic as well. Was Koyaanisqatsi an essay on humanity’s impact on the world? Was Jesus Camp (Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, 2006) an essay on the place of religion in society and politics?  Where was the line between documentary and the essay film? Between essay and narrative? Or was the essay just another type of documentary?  Rather than immerse myself in the difficulties of describing the essay film, I quickly changed the topic to the students’ own projects, and encouraged them to shape their documentaries through related processes of investigation and exploration.

If I had been able to read “Essays on the Essay Film” by Nora M. Alter & Timothy Corrigan and “The Essay Film: Dialogue, Politics, Utopia” by Elizabeth A. Papazian & Caroline Eades before teaching this class, I still may not have been able to provide definitive answers to my students’ questions. But this is not to say that either of these books are vague and inconclusive! Each one is an insightful collection of articles that explores the complexities of the essay film. In her essay “The Essay Film: Problems, Definitions, Textual Commitments” featured in Alter and Corrigan’s “Essays on the Essay Film” Laura Rascaroli wisely notes that “we must resist the temptation to overtheorise the form or, even worse, to crystallise it into a genre…” since the essay film is a “matrix of all generic possibilities.” (Alter/Corrigan, p. 190) Fabienne Costa goes so far as saying that “The ‘cinematographic essay’ is neither a category of films nor a genre. It is more a type of image, which achieves essay quality.” (Alter/Corrigan, p. 190) It is true that filmmakers, critics, and scholars (myself included) have attempted to understand the essay film better by grouping it with genres that bear many similarities, such as documentary and experimental cinema. Yet despite these similarities, the authors suggest that the essay film needs to be differentiated from both documentary and avant-garde practices of filmmaking. Both “Essays on the Essay Film” and “The Essay Film: Dialogue, Politics, Utopia” illustrate that this mutable form should not be understood as a specific genre, but rather recognised for its profoundly reflective and reflexive capabilities. The essay film can even defy established formulas. As stated by filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin in his essay “Proposal for a Tussle” the essay film “can navigate from documentary to fiction and back, creating other polarities in the process between which it can operate.” (Alter/Corrigan, p. 270.)

Nora M. Alter and Timothy Corrigan’s “Essays on the Essay Film” consists of writings by distinguished scholars such as Andre Bazin, Theodore Adorno, Hans Richter and Laura Mulvey, but also includes more recent work by Thomas Elsaesser, Laura Rascaroli and others. Although each carefully selected text spans different time periods and cultural backgrounds, Alter and Corrigan weave together a comprehensive, yet pliable description of the cinematic essay.

“Essays on the Essay Film” begins by including articles that investigate the form and function of the written essay. This first chapter, appropriately titled “Foundations” provides a solid groundwork for many of the concepts discussed in the following chapters. Although the written essay is obviously different from the work created by filmmakers such as Chris Marker and Trinh T. Minh-ha, Alter and Corrigan note that these texts “have been influential to both critics and practitioners of the contemporary film essay.” (p. 7) The articles in this chapter range from Georg Lukacs’s 1910 “On the Nature and Form of the Essay” to “Preface to the Collected Essays of Aldous Huxley” which was published in 1960. Over a span of fifty years, the authors illustrate how the very concept of the essay was affected by changing practices of art, history, philosophy, culture, economics, politics, as well as through modernist and postmodernist lenses. However, these articles are still surprisingly relevant for contemporary scholars and practitioners. For example, in an excerpt from The Man Without Qualities , Robert Musil writes that, “A man who wants the truth becomes a scholar; a man who wants to give free play to his subjectivity may become a writer; but what should a man do who wants something in between?” (p. 45.) Naturally, this reminded me of my class’s discussion on Sans Soleil and Waltz with Bashir. It concisely encapsulates the difficulties that arise when the essay film crosses boundaries of fiction and non-fiction. However, in his 1948 essay “On the Essay and its Prose”, Max Bense believes that the essay lies within the realm of experimentation, since “there is a strange border area that develops between poetry and prose, between the aesthetic stage of creation and the ethical stage of persuasion.”  (p. 52.)  Bense also notes that the word “essay” itself means “to attempt” or to “experiment” and believes that the essay firmly belongs in the realm of experimental and avant-garde. This is appropriate enough, given that writers, and more recently filmmakers and video artists have pushed the boundaries of their mediums in order to explore their deepest thoughts and emotions.

Alter and Corrigan follow this chapter with “The Essay Film Through History” which details the evolution of the essay film. Writing in 1940, Hans Richter considers the essay film a new type of documentary and praises its abilities to break beyond the purportedly objective goals of documentaries in an attempt to “visualize thoughts on screen.” (p. 91) Eighteen years later, Andre Bazin celebrates Chris Marker’s thought-provoking voice-over narration as well as his method of “not restricting himself to using documentary images filmed on the spot, but [using] any and all filmic material that might help his case.” (p. 104) Bazin even compares Marker’s style to the work of animator Norman McLaren, supporting the idea of the essay film’s use of unfettered creativity. By the time the reader gets to the third chapter, “Contemporary Positions”, he or she is well aware of the capricious and malleable nature of the essay film. As Corrigan remarks:

As it develops in and out of those documentary and avant-garde traditions, the history of the essay film underlines a central critical point: that the essayistic should not necessarily be seen simply as an alternative to either of these practices (or to narrative cinema); rather it rhymes with and retimes them as counterpoints within and to them. Situated between the categories of realism and formal experimentation and geared to the possibilities of “public expression,” the essay film suggests an appropriation of certain avant-garde and documentary practices in a way different from the early historical practices of both, just as it tends to invert and restructure the relations between the essayistic and narrative to subsume narrative within that public expression. The essayistic play between fact and fiction, between the documentary and the experimental, or between non-narrative and narrative becomes a place where the essay film inhabits other forms and practices. (p. 198)

Alter and Corrigan’s volume implies that the essay can inhabit many forms, styles or genres. More importantly is the idea that it should be recognised for its intentions and capabilities. Whatever form it takes, the essay is an attempt to seek, explore, understand, visualise and question, without necessarily providing clearly defined answers. The essay film also places considerable value on the intellect and opinion of the viewer, since it is an invitation to reflect on the thoughts, experiences, emotions and perceptions that are being conveyed. “Essays on the Essay Film” sensibly concludes with the chapter entitled “Filmmakers on the Essayistic”. Notable filmmakers, such as Lynn Sachs and Ross McElwee provide valuable insight into their own practices. The featured filmmakers, documentarians and video artists in this chapter do not focus specifically on what form their work takes, but what they are trying to achieve. For instance, in her article “On Writing the Film Essay,” Lynn Sachs proclaims that “My job is not to educate but rather to spark a curiosity in my viewer that moves from the inside out.” (p. 287.) Admittedly, Sachs’s statement contradicts the idea that documentary films seek to educate, inform and persuade, which I taught in my own classes. Yet Sachs’s insights, as well as those of the many other filmmakers in “Essays on the Essay Film” demonstrate how the camera is as versatile as the pen when communicating thoughts, emotions and ideas.

Tree of Life (Malick, 2011)

Elizabeth A. Papazian and Caroline Eades have also compiled several surprising, challenging and thoroughly captivating articles that exemplify the many forms that the essay film can take. The Essay Film: Dialogue, Politics, Utopia includes articles by several prominent scholars that explore the essay film’s place throughout history as well as within various cultural settings. Like Alter and Corrigan, they also present a convincing argument that the essay film is distinct from both documentary, avant-garde and narrative filmmaking, since it is “characterized by a loose, fragmentary, playful, even ironic approach […] and raises new questions about the construction of the subject, the relationship of the subject to the world and the aesthetic possibilities of cinema.” (Papazian/Eades, p. 1) Papazian and Eades explore how essayistic tendencies can manifest in narrative, documentary, avant-garde, and even video art through careful analyses of specific films and videos. The book opens with Timothy Corrigan’s “Essayism and Contemporary Film Narrative” which explores how the essayistic can inhabit narrative film, specifically through Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life and Lech Majewski’s The Mill and the Cross , both released in 2011. Corrigan observes that The Tree of Life “continually seems to resist its own narrative logic” (p. 18) by presenting a highly fragmented and non-linear plot.  Instead of placing it into the hybrid realm of experimental-narrative, however, Corrigan argues that:

Rather than locate a linear connection between past, present and future, the narrative flashbacks in The Tree of Life become a search for genesis – or more accurately many geneses – which might be better described as disruptive recollections that never adequately collect and circulate, as fractured and drifting images and moments producing not evolutionary lines, but the spreading reflective branches of essayism. (p. 19-20.)

The Essay Film: Dialogue, Politics, Utopia continues with essays by other acclaimed, yet indefinable filmmakers such as Jean Luc-Godard and Claire Denis. Essays by Rick Warner and Martine Beugnet explore how these filmmakers defy closure and continuity, even while appearing to work within established forms and genres. Ann Eaken Moss explores the essayistic approach that Chantal Akerman imbues within her experimental “home movies.”   News from Home (1977) is a meditation on Akerman’s own sense of dislocation from her home in Belgium while she adapts to life in New York City. In “Inside/Outside: Nicolasito Guillen Landrian’s Subversive Strategy in Coffea Arabiga” Ernesto Livon-Grosman investigates Landrian’s means of furtively including his own political agenda within a government-sanctioned documentary. What was meant to be a propagandistic documentary about the benefits of Cuban coffee plantations becomes an essayistic critique on the power structure of Fidel Castro’s government. (Livon-Grosman.) Papazian and Eades conclude their volume with an afterward by Laura Rascaroli, affirming that “it is with the potentiality of all essay films to question and challenge their own form”. (p. 300) The essay film may be distinct from narrative, documentary and the avant-garde, but it itself has no discernable style or formula. The Essay Film: Dialogue, Politics, Utopia clearly illustrates how the essay film, although bordering on established genres “must create the conditions of its own form.” (pp. 301-302.) Every filmmaker’s unique thoughts, experiences, meditations, questions and perceptions cannot neatly fit into a strict set of generic guidelines. However, this does not make the essay film more difficult to understand, but further implies that it is a unique practice rather than a specific form.

News from Home (Akerman, 1977)

Even with the insight provided by these two volumes, I do not regret introducing the essay film to my documentary students, despite their questions and confusion. As illustrated throughout Essays on the Essay Film and The Essay Film: Dialogue, Politics, Utopia it has typically been an esoteric and transgressive form, and perhaps including it with better known genres such as documentary and experimental films could be an effective way of introducing it to beginning filmmakers and scholars. Then again, perhaps it should be taught as a form separate from documentary, narrative and the avant-garde. I do wish that I was able to speak more about it at length during that particular instance, since the essay film deserves a considerable amount of thought and attention. Whether or not there is a correct pedagogical approach to teaching the essay film, both of these volumes are tremendously illuminating, but also open the door to further discussion about this compelling form of cinema.

• Bill Nichols, Introduction to Documentary , 2nd ed. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010). ↩
• Roger Ebert, “Waltz with Bashir”, rogerebert.com , January 21, 2009, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/waltz-with-bashir-2009 ↩
• Jonathan Rosenbaum, “Personal Effects: The Guarded Intimacy of Sans Soleil”, The Criterion Collection , June 25, 2017, https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/484-personal-effects-the-guarded-intimacy-of-sans-soleil ↩

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Essays on the essay film.

Edited by Nora M. Alter and Timothy Corrigan

Columbia University Press

Pub Date: March 2017

ISBN: 9780231172677

Format: Paperback

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Creatively and capaciously, this rich volume gets at the essay film not only by including key critics and practitioners of the form but, importantly, by going beyond the genre itself to broader contributions to essay theorization from philosophy and belles lettres. An exciting, inventive volume with great delights at every turn. Dana Polan, New York University

Alter and Corrigan's masterful new volume on the essay film is rigorous, comprehensive, and refreshingly surprising. Their invaluable collection probes theoretical reflections on the essay as a mode of expression and a way of thinking in light of the creative and political investments of filmmakers around the globe; it also chronicles the essay film's changing countenances, from its prehistory and early signs of life to novel permutations in the present. Featuring a very distinguished cast of players, this collection is a production of the highest order. Eric Rentschler, Harvard University

Nora Alter and Tim Corrigan bring their seasoned literary experience to herd but never tame the unruly essay film. Its prestige soaring, this mode is tethered to a long history of experimental writing that will keep it from disappearing into the bog of blogs and YouTube mashups whose best examples it is already inspiring. The proof is in the Table of Contents: a brilliant litany of sensitive, reliable writers, who dare to take on the most daring forms of image-thought the cinema has produced. Dudley Andrew, Yale University

Recent years have witnessed a rapid growth in interest in the history, concept and diverse manifestations of the essay film. In this essential collection, Nora Alter and Timothy Corrigan have brought together a superb selection of foundational texts with a range of key recent writings by leading scholars and essay filmmakers. The result is an enormously rich resource for anyone interested in the past, present, and future of this most vital of audiovisual forms. Michael Witt, University of Roehampton

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World Cinema and the Essay Film

Transnational perspectives on a global practice.

• Brenda Hollweg and Igor Krstić
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• Language: English
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Copyright year: 2019
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• Published: March 24, 2022
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Essays About Movies: 7 Examples and 5 Writing Prompts

Check out our guide with essays about movies for budding videographers and artistic students. Learn from our helpful list of examples and prompts.

Watching movies is a part of almost everyone’s life. They entertain us, teach us lessons, and even help us socialize by giving us topics to talk about with others. As long as movies have been produced, everyone has patronized them.  Essays about movies  are a great way to learn all about the meaning behind the picture.

Cinema is an art form in itself. The lighting, camera work, and acting in the most widely acclaimed movies are worthy of praise. Furthermore, a movie can be used to send a message, often discussing issues in contemporary society. Movies are entertaining, but more importantly, they are works of art. If you’re interested in this topic, check out our round-up of screenwriters on Instagram .

5 Helpful Essay Examples 

1. the positive effects of movies on human behaviour by ajay rathod, 2. horror movies by emanuel briggs, 3. casablanca – the greatest hollywood movie ever (author unknown).

• 4.  Dune Review: An Old Story Reshaped For The New 2021 Audience by Oren Cohen

5. Blockbuster movies create booms for tourism — and headaches for locals by Shubhangi Goel

• 6. Moonage Daydream: “Who Is He? What Is He?” by Jonathan Romney
• 7. La Bamba: American Dreaming, Chicano Style by Yolanda Machado

1. My Favorite Movie

2. movies genres, 3. special effects in movies, 4. what do you look for in a movie, 5. the evolution of movies.

“​​Films encourage us to take action. Our favourite characters, superheroes, teach us life lessons. They give us ideas and inspiration to do everything for the better instead of just sitting around, waiting for things to go their way. Films about famous personalities are the perfect way to affect social behaviour positively. Films are a source of knowledge. They can help learn what’s in the trend, find out more about ancient times, or fill out some knowledge gaps.”

In this movie essay, Rathod gives readers three ways watching movies can positively affect us. Movie writers, producers, and directors use their platform to teach viewers life skills, the importance of education, and the contrast between good and evil. Watching movies can also help us improve critical thinking, according to Briggs. Not only do movies entertain us, but they also have many educational benefits. You might also be interested in these  essays about consumerism .

“Many people involving children and adults can effect with their sleeping disturbance and anxiety. Myths, non-realistic, fairy tales could respond differently with being in the real world. Horror movies bring a lot of excitement and entertainment among you and your family. Horror movies can cause physical behavior changes in a person by watching the films. The results of watching horror movies shows that is has really effect people whether you’re an adult, teens, and most likely happens during your childhood.”

In his essay, Briggs acknowledges why people enjoy horror movies so much but warns of their adverse effects on viewers. Most commonly, they cause viewers nightmares, which may cause anxiety and sleep disorders. He focuses on the films’ effects on children, whose more sensitive, less developed brains may respond with worse symptoms, including major trauma. The films can affect all people negatively, but children are the most affected.

“This was the message of Casablanca in late 1942. It was the ideal opportunity for America to utilize its muscles and enter the battle. America was to end up the hesitant gatekeeper of the entire world. The characters of Casablanca, similar to the youthful Americans of the 1960s who stick headed the challenge development, are ‘genuine Americans’ lost in a hostile region, battling to open up another reality.”

In this essay, the author discusses the 1942 film  Casablanca , which is said to be the greatest movie ever made, and explains why it has gotten this reputation. To an extent, the film’s storyline, acting, and even relatability (it was set during World War II) allowed it to shine from its release until the present. It invokes feelings of bravery, passion, and nostalgia, which is why many love the movie. You can also check out these  books about adaption . 

4.   Dune Review: An Old Story Reshaped For The New 2021 Audience by Oren Cohen

“Lady Jessica is a powerful woman in the original book, yet her interactions with Paul diminish her as he thinks of her as slow of thought. Something we don’t like to see in 2021 — and for a good reason. Every book is a product of its time, and every great storyteller knows how to adapt an old story to a new audience. I believe Villeneuve received a lot of hate from diehard Dune fans for making these changes, but I fully support him.”

Like the previous essay, Cohen reviews a film, in this case, Denis Villeneuve’s  Dune , released in 2021. He praises the film, writing about its accurate portrayal of the epic’s vast, dramatic scale, music, and, interestingly, its ability to portray the characters in a way more palatable to contemporary audiences while staying somewhat faithful to the author’s original vision. Cohen enjoyed the movie thoroughly, saying that the movie did the book justice. 

“Those travelers added around 630 million New Zealand dollars ($437 million) to the country’s economy in 2019 alone, the tourism authority told CNBC. A survey by the tourism board, however, showed that almost one in five Kiwis are worried that the country attracts too many tourists. Overcrowding at tourist spots, lack of infrastructure, road congestion and environmental damage are creating tension between locals and visitors, according to a 2019 report by Tourism New Zealand.”

The locations where successful movies are filmed often become tourist destinations for fans of those movies. Goel writes about how “film tourism” affects the residents of popular filming locations. The environment is sometimes damaged, and the locals are caught off guard. Though this is not always the case, film tourism is detrimental to the residents and ecosystem of these locations. You can also check out these  essays about The Great Gatsby .

6. Moonage Daydream:  “Who Is He? What Is He?” by Jonathan Romney

“Right from the start, Brett Morgen’s  Moonage Daydream  (2022) catches us off guard. It begins with an epigraph musing on Friedrich Nietzsche’s proclamation that “God is dead,” then takes us into deep space and onto the surface of the moon. It then unleashes an image storm of rockets, robots, and star-gazers, and rapid-fire fragments of early silent cinema, 1920s science fiction, fifties cartoons, and sixties and seventies newsreel footage, before lingering on a close-up of glittery varnish on fingernails.” 

Moonage Daydream  is a feature film containing never-before-seen footage of David Bowie. In this essay, Romney delves into the process behind creating the movie and how the footage was captured. It also looks at the director’s approach to creating a structured and cohesive film, which took over two years to plan. This essay looks at how Bowie’s essence was captured and preserved in this movie while displaying the intricacies of his mind.

7. La Bamba:  American Dreaming, Chicano Style by Yolanda Machado

“A traumatic memory, awash in hazy neutral tones, arising as a nightmare. Santo & Johnny’s mournful “Sleep Walk” playing. A sudden death, foreshadowing the passing of a star far too young. The opening sequence of Luis Valdez’s  La Bamba  (1987) feels like it could be from another film—what follows is largely a celebration of life and music.”

La Bamba  is a well-known movie about a teenage Mexican migrant who became a rock ‘n’ roll star. His rise to fame is filled with difficult social dynamics, and the star tragically dies in a plane crash at a young age. In this essay, Machado looks at how the tragic death of the star is presented to the viewer, foreshadowing the passing of the young star before flashing back to the beginning of the star’s career. Machado analyses the storyline and directing style, commenting on the detailed depiction of the young star’s life. It’s an in-depth essay that covers everything from plot to writing style to direction.

5 Prompts for Essays About Movies

Simple and straightforward, write about your favorite movie. Explain its premise, characters, and plot, and elaborate on some of the driving messages and themes behind the film. You should also explain why you enjoy the movie so much: what impact does it have on you? Finally, answer this question in your own words for an engaging piece of writing.

From horror to romance, movies can fall into many categories. Choose one of the main genres in cinema and discuss the characteristics of movies under that category. Explain prevalent themes, symbols, and motifs, and give examples of movies belonging to your chosen genre. For example, horror movies often have underlying themes such as mental health issues, trauma, and relationships falling apart. 

Without a doubt, special effects in movies have improved drastically. Both practical and computer-generated effects produce outstanding, detailed effects to depict situations most would consider unfathomable, such as the vast space battles of the  Star Wars  movies. Write about the development of special effects over the years, citing evidence to support your writing. Be sure to detail key highlights in the history of special effects. 

Movies are always made to be appreciated by viewers, but whether or not they enjoy them varies, depending on their preferences. In your essay, write about what you look for in a “good” movie in terms of plot, characters, dialogue, or anything else. You need not go too in-depth but explain your answers adequately. In your opinion, you can use your favorite movie as an example by writing about the key characteristics that make it a great movie.

From the silent black-and-white movies of the early 1900s to the vivid, high-definition movies of today, times have changed concerning movies. Write about how the film industry has improved over time. If this topic seems too broad, feel free to focus on one aspect, such as cinematography, themes, or acting.

For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the  best essay checkers .

If you’re looking for more ideas, check out our  essays about music topic guide !

best essay films

17 essential movies for an introduction to essay films.

Put most concisely by Timothy Corrigan in his book on the film: ‘from its literary origins to its cinematic revisions, the istic describes the many-layered activities of a personal point of view as a public experience’. Perhaps a close cousin to documentary, the film is at its core a personal mode of filmmaking. Structured in […]

Step By Step Guide to Writing an Essay on Film

By Film Threat Staff | December 29, 2021

Writing an essay about a film sounds like a fun assignment to do. As part of the assignment, you get to watch the movie and write an analytical essay about your impressions. However, you will soon find that you’re staring at an empty sheet of paper or computer screen with no idea what to write, how to start writing your essay, or the essential points that need to be covered and analyzed. As an  essay writing service proves, watching the movie countless times isn’t all there is to write a film analysis essay. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you with an essay service :

1. Watch the Movie

This is the obvious starting point, but surprisingly many students skip this step. It doesn’t matter if you’ve watched the movie twice before. If you’re asked to write an essay about it, you need to watch it again. Watching the film again allows you to pay more attention to specific elements to help you write an in-depth analysis about it.  

Watching the movie is crucial because it helps you not specific parts of the movie that can be used as illustrations and examples in your essay. You’re also going to explore and analyze the movie theme within your structured plan. Some of the critical elements that you have to look out for while watching the movie that may be crucial for your essay are:

• Key plot moments
• Editing style
• Stylistic elements
• Scenario execution
• Musical elements

2. Introduction

Your introduction will contain essential information about the film, such as the title, release date, director’s name, etc. This familiarizes the reader with the movie’s primary background information. In addition, researching the filmmaker may be crucial for your essay because it may help you discover valuable insights for your film analysis.

The introduction should also mention the movie’s central theme and explain why you think it was made that way.

Do not forget to include your thesis statement, which explains your focus on the movie.

3. Write a Summary

According to an  essay writing service  providing students   help with essays , a movie summary comes after the introduction. It includes the film’s basic premise, but it doesn’t have to reveal too many details about the film. It’s a summary, after all. Write the summary like your readers have not heard about the movie before, so you can mention the most basic plots but assume you have minimal time so you won’t be going into great details.

4. Write Your Analysis

This is the central part of the essay in which you analyze the movie critically and state your impressions about the film. Ensure to support your claims with relevant materials from the movie.

There are also several creative elements in a movie that are connected to make the film a whole. You must pay attention to these elements while watching the movie and analyze them in this part of the essay.

In this, you are looking out for the dialogs, character development, completion of scenes, and logical event sequences in the film to analyze.

Ensure you try to understand the logic behind events in the film and the actor’s motives to explain the scenario better.

The responsibility of different parts of the movie, such as plan selection and scenario execution, falls on the director. So, your analysis here focuses on how the director realized the script compared to his other movies. Understanding the director’s style of directing may be crucial to coming up with a conclusion relevant to your analysis and thesis.

The casting of a film is a significant element to consider in your essay. Without a great actor, the scriptwriter and director can’t bring their ideas to life. So, watch the actor’s acting and determine if they portrayed the character effectively and if their acting aligns with the film’s main idea.

• Musical element

A movie’s musical element enhances some of the sceneries or actions in the film and sets the mood. It has a massive impact on the movie, so it’s an essential element to analyze in your essay.

• Visual elements

This includes special effects, make-up, costumes, etc., which significantly impact the film. These elements must reflect the film’s atmosphere. It is even more crucial for historical movies since it has to be specific about an era.

Ensure to analyze elements relevant to your thesis statement, so you don’t drift from your main point.

5. Conclusion

In concluding your essay, you have to summarize the primary concepts more convincingly to support your analysis. Finally, you may include a CTA for readers to watch or avoid the movie.

These are the crucial steps to take when writing an essay about a film . Knowing this beforehand prevents you from struggling to start writing after watching the movie.

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It’s really amazing instructions! I have got the great knowledge.

[…] now and then. Unfortunately, not all of us can afford to get cinema tickets to do so.  Some…Writing an essay about a film sounds like a fun assignment to do. As part of the assignment, you get…Since a few decades the film and entertainment sector have undergone some drastic transformation. […]

I can’t list the number of essays that don’t follow this format in the least. But then I find most reviews of movies terrible and most people who purport themselves to be writers as people who need to spend more time drafting and editing before publishing.

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30 great movie plot twists you won’t see coming.

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American actress Vera Miles in "Psycho," directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

The best plot twists make the viewer reconsider everything. Plot twists long predate the medium of film and have been a staple of literature for hundreds of years. However, they have become a staple of cinema. Plot twists are fixtures of the mystery, action , suspense and horror genres, but many great dramas , romances, and even comedies have plot twists. Many of the greatest directors and even actors have become synonymous with this type of twisty-turny movies.

Since this is a list of the best plot twists in movies, this article comes with a big SPOILER WARNING ahead. For some viewers, even knowing a twist is coming is a spoiler, and this article is not for them. However, if you are craving a good twist film, the spoiler warnings are in bold, and the spoilers are separated for those hoping to experience the twists for themselves.

Top Movies With A Plot Twist

From anagnorisis to reverse chronology, great twist walks the line between feeling deserved and believable in the narrative while still shocking and surprising the viewer. It should be hinted at — but never too heavily so as to diminish its shock. While many plot twists don’t really make sense if you pull them apart logically, some of the best hold together well.

The films on this list are ranked by the twist instead of the quality of the overall film. However, all films on this list are good or even great films that are well worth watching, aside from their twist. Unfortunately, this excludes films like Now You See Me, Identity and Last Christmas . While they have fun twists, the films themselves don’t really hold up.

30. Saltburn (2023)

Saltburn is a divisive movie that some viewers will not like. However, it is a fun and bombastic film that captures the excess of the early 2000s. The film follows the mild-mannered Oliver Quick, who is invited to spend the summer at the mansion of his wealthy classmate, Felix Catton, so that Oliver doesn’t have to return to a difficult home situation.

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TWIST SPOILER: When Felix tries to mend Oliver’s relationship with “Oliver’s alcoholic and poor” mother, Felix finds that Oliver has been lying about his family situation and is actually from a perfectly nice upper-middle-class home. Oliver has been lying and manipulating everyone the entire time. Once his secret is discovered, he kills Felix and sets himself up to inherit the Catton family estate one day. While this twist isn’t the newest (fans of films like The Talented Mr. Rippley or Teorema will likely see it coming), it is depraved fun until the end and is best viewed as kind of “vampire film.”

The film was directed by Emerald Fennell, who delivered another great twist in her previous movie, Promising Young Woman . Saltburn ’s more shocking scenes became notorious, especially amongst Gen-Z TikTok users; however, the film's real strength lies in its comedy. It is a surprisingly funny film for not really being considered a comedy. Saltburn is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime .

29. Coco (2017)

Poster of Disney-Pixar's film "Coco."

While adult audiences will probably see the twist in Coco coming, having a twist in an animated children's movie is pretty fun. While Coco wasn’t the first kids' film with a twist, it is arguably the best. The film follows a young boy, Miguel, who is trapped in the land of the dead during Dia de los Muertos and learns he must find his great-great-grandfather, Ernesto de la Cruz, and get his blessing if he hopes to return home and play music.

TWIST SPOILER: Miguel finds Ernesto with the help of a down-on-his-luck skeleton, Héctor. However, Ernesto isn’t actually family. Ernesto murdered Miguel’s great-great-grandfather and stole his songbook. Furthermore, Héctor is Miguel's ancestor, and Miguel must preserve his memory, or Héctor will cease to exist.

Coco was the first Pixar movie to feature an all-Latino principal cast, including Anthony Gonzalez, Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt and Edward James Olmos. Many of the actors also returned for the Spanish-language dub . The film won two Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song. Coco is currently streaming on Disney+ .

28. Scream (1996)

An actor dressed as Ghostface

Is the plot twist what makes Scream great? Not really. Honestly, Scream is more of a great movie with a plot twist than a “great plot twist movie.” Directed by Wes Craven, Scream is both a love letter and a gentle spoof of slasher movies while being a great slasher movie. The film follows a group of teens as Ghostface, a ruthless killer in a Halloween mask, terrorizes them. In the climactic scene Sidney and her boyfriend, Billy come face to face with the killer.

TWIST SPOILER: Ghostface stabs Billy. However, he doesn’t die. Instead, he reveals that he and his friend, Stu, are the killer. The two then give a famous monologue (well… dialogue?) detailing their crimes because “It's all a movie. It's all one great big movie. Only you can't pick your genre.”

The film stars David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan, Skeet Ulrich and Drew Barrymore. It was generally well-reviewed and surprisingly financially successful upon its release, but it has only become more beloved by horror fans and has taken on a legendary status in the genre. It is currently streaming on Max.

27. Predestination (2014)

While the name of this movie gives a little away, this Australian sci-fi time has one of the better approaches to time travel. Not everything in Predestination works, but it is undoubtedly unique. Written and directed by The Spierig Brothers, the film follows a recently deformed time-traveling agent in pursuit of a criminal called the “fizzle bomber” when he meets with a young man who tells him his life story.

TWIST SPOILER: The man is intersex and was raised as a woman until she had a baby and her uterus was removed surgically. Doctors pushed her to live as a man, and the baby was stolen. However, through time travel, not only was the man her own lover and herself, but also the baby, the agent and the bomber are all versions of the same person at different points of time. While it feels like a shocking twist, many will see it coming as it is heavily hinted at throughout the movie with dialogue and even music cues.

The film stars Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook. Predestination was based on Robert A. Heinlein’s 1959 short story —All You Zombies— . It is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

26. The Village (2004)

Many people do not like The Village ; however, it has become a bit of a cult classic and has been called an “ underrated masterpiece. ” Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, the film follows a young blind woman who lives in a 19th-century isolated Pennsylvania village. When she is sent to get medicine, she is plagued by monsters who live in the surrounding woods.

TWIST SPOILER: After outsmarting a monster, she leaves the woods only to find a present-day paved road and Wildlife Reserve park rangers. The viewer finds out that the village isn’t in the 1800s at all and is a refuge for several families hoping to escape the modern violence of the real world. The monsters were costumes all along. However, the woman returns with the supplies, never seeing the contemporary world.

The Village stars Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver and Brendan Gleeson. The film is a truly “love it or hate it” kind of movie and divided critics. In 2004, it made both the Cahiers du cinéma annual top films list and Roger Ebert’s “Most Hated” list. It is currently available to rent on Amazon Prime , YouTube , Google Play and Apple TV.

25. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

Netflix's "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" U.S. premiere.

Strangely, mystery films are sometimes left off of “Best Twist” lists. Possibly because the genre of mystery calls for twists and usually solvable turns. However, the line between “mystery” and “thriller” is razor-thin, and many mysteries have phenomenal twists. Glass Onion is the second Benoit Blanc-led Knives Out film. It plays with the genre of mystery itself. The film follows Benoit as he is called to the billionaire Miles Bron’s island for a lavish murder mystery party. However, Benoit quickly learns everyone at the party has a reason to want Miles dead, especially his former business partner, Cassandra "Andi" Brand.

TWIST SPOILER: Around two-thirds of the way through the film, the audience finds out Andi has been dead the entire time. Her twin sister, Helen, has been pretending to be her to gather clues about who killed Andi with the help of Benoit. While Andi’s death is a twist, minutes before it is revealed, Benoit calls “Andi” by her real name, “Helen.” Most viewers won’t notice it, but it is foreshadowing about the nature of “come out of nowhere twists” and the mystery genre, because, in the end, there is no twist about who actually killed Andi; it was Miles, the person most likely to do it, which functions as a twist in its own right. As Benoit says, “It’s so dumb.”

Glass Onion starred Daniel Craig, Edward Norton and Janelle Monáe and was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards. Many wondered if the film’s Miles Bron was inspired by real-life billionaire Elon Musk. However, director Rian Johnson has refuted this. It is currently streaming on Netflix.

24. The Third Man (1949)

Orson Welles in a scene from "The Third Man."

You will probably guess the twist from The Third Man , but that doesn’t mean this noir masterpiece isn’t well worth a watch. The film is gorgeously shot and perfectly acted. It follows Holly Martins, an American pulp writer who travels to early Cold War Vienna to see a friend of his, Harry Lime. However, when Holly goes to his house, he learns that Harry has died the day before under mysterious circumstances, prompting Holly to investigate the death.

TWIST SPOILER: Holly realizes that the accounts of Harry’s death don’t line up. Mainly because Harry isn’t actually dead and has been using the sewer system to traverse the locked-down city in the shadows. He faked his own death after selling faulty medicine to a children's hospital, which causes Holly to turn on his friend. Holly helps the police find Harry and ends up shooting him before the police can take him.

Directed by Carol Reed, the film stars Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles and Trevor Howard. The Third Man was nominated for three Oscars, winning Best Cinematography – Black and White. The film's score is also iconic and performed on a zither by Anton Karas. It is currently streaming on Tubi for free or Amazon Prime with subscription.

23. The Usual Suspects (1995)

Kevin Pollak, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio Del Toro, Gabriel Byrne and Kevin Spacey in a scene from the ... [+] film "The Usual Suspects."

If, by some miracle, the twist in The Usual Suspects hasn’t been ruined for you in the last nearly 30 years, the less you know, the better. The film follows the police investigation of a massacre and a con artist who tells them about its perpetrator, a ruthless drug lord named Keyser Söze.

TWIST SPOILER: The cops believe they have the identity of Söze and let the con artist leave the station. However, as he exists, the Customs agent who has been interviewing him realizes that the facts don’t quite align. Moments later, a fax comes through with a photo of Söze; unfortunately, it is the same man he just had in custody.

The film was directed by Brian Singer and stars Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Giancarlo Esposito and Kevin Spacey. The Usual Suspects has always been divisive and not for everyone. In his review, Roger Ebert quipped, "To the degree that I do understand, I don't care." While the film received mixed reviews, it won two Academy Awards and has since become a cult classic . It is streaming for free on Tubi , Pluto TV and The Roku Channel.

22. Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)

While romcoms don’t usually feature twist endings, Crazy, Stupid, Love proves it can work in the genre. The film was directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa and stars Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Marisa Tomei and Kevin Bacon. It follows a man going through a divorce, Cal, and a slick-talking lady's man, Jacob, who helps him get back into playing the field. At the same time, Jacob loses his womanizing ways as he falls for a girl.

TWIST SPOILER: The girl Jacob is dating turns out to be Cal’s eldest daughter. Cal disapproves of her dating a womanizer and tries to fight him, leading him to have to make even more apologies if he hopes to win his family back.

Besides one slightly uncomfortable plot involving a babysitter, everything wraps up nicely, as you hope a romcom does. However, Crazy, Stupid, Love doesn’t feel too formulaic, and the twist really helps sell the otherwise routine narrative. It also features wonderful comedic performances, especially by Carrel and Gosling. It is currently available to rent on YouTube , Google Play , Apple TV and Amazon Prime.

21. Citizen Kane (1941)

Orson Welles in a scene from "Citizen Kane."

Most contemporary viewers won’t even consider Citizen Kane ’s ending to be a “twist ending.” It has permeated pop culture so deeply in the last 80 years that even those who haven’t seen the film probably know how it ends. However, that’s mainly because of the iconic twist. The film tells the story of the rise to power of Charles Foster Kane. On Kane’s deathbed, he calls for just one thing, “Rosebud,” leading a reporter to wonder what it means.

TWIST SPOILER: Kane dies, and the reporter never finds the identity of “Rosebud.” However, as the staff of Kane’s mansion sort his worldly possessions, they throw a sled on a fire. The audience sees the name of Kane’s childhood sled was named “Rosebud.”

The film was Orson Welles’ first feature film and he both directed and starred in it. While it was nominated for nine Oscars, it was controversial upon release. The plot was loosely based on the life of William Randolph Hearst , who was a powerful enemy to make in the 1940s. Many theaters refused to show the film, and MGM's Louis B. Mayer even offered to pay RKO $842,000 in cash if the studio destroyed the negative and all prints of Citizen Kane . The film is a masterpiece and is also notable for its technical advances, especially the extended use of deep focus, a technique where the fore, mid and background are all in sharp focus. It is currently available to rent on YouTube , Google Play, Apple TV and Amazon Prime.

20. Friday the 13th (1980)

The original Friday the 13th is a horror/slasher classic. The film follows a group of teenage camp counselors who hope to reopen an abandoned summer camp.

TWIST SPOILER: The mysterious Mrs. Voorhees is revealed to be the killer (yes, in the original Friday the 13th, Jason Voorhees is not actually the killer). She is taking revenge on behalf of her son, who drowned at the camp. While a final girl, Alice, kills Mrs. Voorhees, Alice is attacked by Jason’s decomposing corpse. Police check the lake but find no boy, so Alice says, “Then he's still there."

The film stars Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Mark Nelson, Jeannine Taylor, Robbi Morgan and Kevin Bacon. While it was an independent film with no big-name actors, its popularity led it to be released internationally and the film was a box office success. Friday the 13th helped define the slasher genre and led to 11 sequels and spin-offs (of varying quality; let’s not talk about Jason X, where he goes to space.) It is currently streaming on Max .

19. Side Effects (2013)

Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Side Effects is an underrated gem when it comes to movies with great plot twists. It follows a socialite, Emily, who struggles with suicidality her husband completes a prison term for insider trading. When her new psychiatrist prescribes her an experimental antidepressant, she starts sleepwalking and, in a daze, attacks her husband.

TWIST SPOILER: While Emily is found not guilty due to an insanity defense, her original psychiatrist starts to question if the drug's side effects really caused the murder. He threatens Emily with electroshock treatment, and she admits that she killed her husband on purpose and worked with her new psychiatrist to blame the drug and then collect on its lowered stock price. While the new psychologist is caught, Emily is saved by double jeopardy. However, her original psychiatrist uses his position as her doctor and takes justice into his own hands by forcibly prescribing her a meds cocktail with some intense side effects.

The film stars Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Channing Tatum. Side Effects has an almost Hitchcockian feel that is is both familiar and exciting for fans of thrillers. It is currently streaming for free on Tubi .

18. Psycho (1960)

Janet Leigh screams in terror in "Psycho."

Psycho is another film that has seeped far enough into the social consciousness that its twist barely registers as a twist. The film follows an embezzler on the run who is killed at a run-down motel operated by the shy Norman Bates. However, when her lover and sister look into her disappearance they learn the truth about the hotel’s owner.

TWIST SPOILER: While the investigation leads to Norman’s mother, Mrs. Bates, being the murderer, she was actually killed years before. She is now an alternate personality of Norman, and he has been dressing up as her to perform the murders. The film has been critiqued by the trans community and by mental illness advocates . However, it is still a favorite of horror and classic film fans.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the film was nominated for four Oscars. It stars Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam and Janet Leigh. The film is hugely influential, especially on the horror genre. From the shower scene to lines like “We all go a little mad sometimes,” the film is start-to-end memorable. It is currently streaming on YouTube TV .

17. Les Diaboliques (1955)

Vera Clousot as Christina Delasalle in the 1955 film "Les Diaboliques."

Arguably, this spot should be taken by 1960’s Psycho . However, Pyscho was heavily influenced by the French film Les Diaboliques. Even the novelist who wrote the book Psycho is based off, Robert Bloch, said that Les Diaboliques was his favorite horror movie. If you haven’t seen Psycho , watch it; if you have, watch Les Diaboliques . Les Diaboliques follows a wife and mistress who team up to kill their shared lover, Michel, who works at his wife’s boarding school. However, his wife is haunted by his ghost.

TWIST SPOILER: Michel isn’t dead. He was working with his mistress and in on the murder the entire time. He scares his wife to death, knowing about her heart condition, in a ploy to keep his mistress and the school.

Written and directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, the film was based on the 1952 novel She Who Was No More by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. In a 1995 review, Roger Ebert wrote of the film, “The famous plot of the movie usually deceives first-time viewers, at least up to a point. The final revelations are somewhat disappointing, but Clouzot doesn't linger over them. The most disturbing elements of the movie are implied, not seen." It is streaming for free on the Roku Channel and with a subscription to Max .

16. Parasite (2019)

"Parasite" producer Kwak Sin-ae, alongside cast and crew accept the award for Best Picture for ... [+] "Parasite" during the 92nd Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California on February 9, 2020.

Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a dark comedy/thriller starring Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam and Jang Hye-jin. Parasite keeps the viewer guessing until the very end, and it is a masterclass in suspense. The film follows a poor family, the Kims, who con their way into jobs for the wealthy Park family. In the process, they convince the Parks to fire their long-time housekeeper.

TWIST SPOILER: The housekeeper’s husband has been living in the Park’s basement. When she comes back for him, she learns the truth about the Kims and threatens to expose them. After a deadly brawl, the father of the Kim family finds himself living in the basement just as the man before him did.

Joon-ho was inspired by another iconic Korean film 1960’s The Housemaid. Parasite premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, becoming the first Korean film to win the Palme d’Or. It went on to win three Oscars. It is currently streaming on Max .

15. Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

Actor Albert Finney in "Murder on the Orient Express" in 1974.

Films based on Agatha Christie's books are often left off “Best Twist” lists, which is odd. As the “Queen of Crime,” her plot twists have helped define the mystery genre. 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express, based on the Christie novel of the same name, follows the detective Hercule Poirot as he tries to solve the murder of a gangster, Lanfranco Cassetti, on a stuck train from Istanbul to London.

TWIST SPOILER: Hercule is inundated with clues and comes up with two solutions. While the simpler of the two is that Cassetti was killed by the mafia, the other implicates all the passengers as co-conspirators. While he details how all of them could have done it, he decides to tell the authorities the simpler version.

While more recent Christie-inspired films such as See How They Run and A Haunting in Venice are surprisingly good, it's hard to beat the original Murder on the Orient Express . Directed by Sidney Lumet, the film stars Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, Vanessa Redgrave, Michael York, Jacqueline Bisset and Anthony Perkins. It was nominated for six Oscars and was also a commercial success. The film is currently streaming on FuboTV .

14. Atonement (2007)

Atonement is one of three period pieces from director Joe Wright starring Keira Knightley. The two had already collaborated on 2005’s Pride and Prejudice. Atonement is a rare period romance with a true twist ending. It follows a young girl, Briony, who misinterprets a situation and accuses her older sister’s lover of sexual assault. The film follows the lie over several decades and through war-torn Europe.

TWIST SPOILER: While the viewer has seen a version of events where the two lovers live a life together, even though the lie has broken the family apart, they learn that Briony is an unreliable narrator. Later in life, she became a successful novelist, and the scenes are from her book and not real life. In real life, both her sister and her sister’s lover died in the war and were never reunited.

Atonement stars James McAvoy, Knightley, Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai, and Vanessa Redgrave. It opened the Venice International Film Festival, making Wright the youngest director (then 35) to do so. The film is a slow burn, but the ending and twist make it a heartbreaking must-watch. Atonement is currently streaming on YouTube TV .

13. Game Night (2018)

Actress Natasha Hall arrives for the World Premiere of Warner Brothers', "Game Night," on February ... [+] 21, 2018, in Hollywood.

Directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, Game Night is a rare comedy with a great twist. The film has several twists and follows a hyper-competitive couple and their friends who host a weekly game night. However, when a successful brother, Brooks, re-enters their life, he plans a murder mystery game that is interrupted by a kidnapping. While the players initially think that the kidnapping is part of the game, they quickly learn they are in real danger.

TWIST SPOILER: The kidnapping is revealed to have been part of an elaborate ruse perpetrated by a creepy neighbor, hoping that saving them from a fake kidnapping will allow him to be invited to future game nights. However, it was interrupted by a real extortion plan since Brooks made his money as a black marketeer. The film keeps viewers guessing until the end, and even the final shot makes viewers question if they have the whole story.

Game Night features an ensemble cast that includes Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, Jesse Plemons, Michael C. Hall and Kyle Chandler. It is available to rent on YouTube, Google Play and Apple TV.

12. Planet of the Apes (1968)

Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes."

There are a couple of classic twists from classic sci-fi films ( Soylent Green and Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back also come to mind); however, Planet of the Apes probably has the most shocking. The film follows the human crew of a spaceship after they crash land on a planet ruled by humanoid apes.

TWIST SPOILER: In the film's final minutes, the protagonists find the remains of the Statue of Liberty on a beach. The planet wasn’t alien, but rather the crew’s home Earth after nuclear war.

Planet of the Apes has now become a franchise, and with prequels and an extended universe, the original twist may not hit as hard. It has also been parodied widely, allowing for even first-time viewers to see it coming. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, the film stars Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, James Whitmore, James Daly and Linda Harrison. It is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+ .

11. Gone Girl (2014)

Gone Girl was written by Gillian Flynn, based on her novel of the same name and directed by David Fincher. The film follows the murder of Amy Dunne and her husband, Nick, who becomes the prime suspect.

TWIST SPOILER: Gone Girl has several twists, but the major one comes surprisingly at the film's midpoint and not the ending. The audience finds out Amy isn’t dead at all and faked her own disappearance. However, as she watches the news coverage of her murder, she decides that maybe killing herself to frame her husband isn’t how her story needs to end.

The film stars Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry and Carrie Coon. The “Cool Girl” monologue from the film has become iconic and even inspired the song “Cool Girl” by Tove Lo. The film explores the themes of gender, marriage and America’s obsession with true crime. Gone Girl is available to rent on YouTube , Google Play , Apple TV and Amazon Prime .

10. Audition (1999)

Directed by Takashi Miike, this film is not for those with a weak stomach. Based on the 1997 Ryu Murakami novel of the same name, Audition follows a widower who sets up fake film auditions to try to help him find a new wife. Through the auditions, he meets the beautiful yet quiet Asami.

TWIST SPOILER: While the film starts as almost a romantic dramedy, a shift happens, and the film becomes one of the more distributing torture flicks of the horror genre. The film influenced the so-called “torture porn” genre. However, unlike later films in the genre, like Saw or Hostel (which features a cameo from Miike), Audition is more restrained. While it is famous for its final torture sequence, the film is more profound than it sometimes gets credit for and is master class in tension.

The film has both been considered feminist and misogynistic. Love it or hate it, it is a staple of Japan’s J-Horror genre. It is currently streaming for free on Tubi .

9. Fight Club (1999)

Another David Fincher film, Fight Club , is based on the Chuck Palahniuk novel of the same name. The film follows an unnamed man as an unlikely friendship with a soap maker named Tyler Durden plunges him into the world of an illegal fight club and an anarchist group that develops from it.

TWIST SPOILER: The unnamed man realizes that he has imagined Tyler the whole time and he himself has actually been running the club and anarchist group right before the group carries out a bombing.

The film stars Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter. Fight Club has become notorious for being a bit of a “bro” movie due to its graphic violence, sexual content and popularity with young men and specifically the incel movement . However, Fight Club has a lot to say about the nature of masculinity and, while it is more evident in the novel, homoerotic themes. Fight Club is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+ .

8. The Others (2001)

The Others is a gothic horror film written and directed by Alejandro Amenábar. The film follows a woman, Grace, and her two photosensitive children who live in a large manor in 1940s Jersey as they start to be haunted by ghosts.

TWIST SPOILER: As the haunting gets worse, Grace is made to realize that she killed herself and her kids years ago. She is one of the ghosts haunting the mansion, and what she thought were ghosts were actually the new living inhabitants of the manor.

The film stars Nicole Kidman, Fionnula Flanagan and Christopher Eccleston. The film won multiple awards internationally and was nominated for fifteen Goya Awards in Spain and won eight, becoming the first English-language film, without a single word of Spanish dialogue, to win a Goya for Best Film. It is available to stream on Amazon Prime , YouTube , Google Play and Apple TV .

7. Malignant (2021)

While the twist in 2004’s Saw is probably the more famous twist from director James Wan, Malignant arguably packs a bigger punch. The film follows a woman, Madison, who starts to have visions of people being murdered, only to realize that the murders are taking place in real life.

TWIST SPOILER: Madison discovers that the killer is named Gabriel, her childhood imaginary friend. However, Gabriel is more than that; he is a parasitic brother living as a half-formed face on the back of her head. While the twist is good, what sets it apart is how the entire film shifts in tone and subgenre. The film's first half feels like a serious, slow-burn horror, and after the twist, it turns into a campy-creature horror. While other horror films have also changed genres with a twist ( Cabin in the Woods and Audition come to mind,) Malignant feels notably fresh.

The film stars Annabelle Wallis, Maddie Hasson, George Young and Michole Briana White. Andrew Barker wrote of the film for Variety, “It's hard to say whether a film this bonkers 'works' or not, but it's impossible not to admire both the craft and the extravagant bad taste behind its go-for-broke energy." It is currently available to stream on Max .

6. The Prestige (2006)

There are two 2006 films with a twist ending about the turn of the century magicians. While The Illusionist has a fun twist and is a good movie, The Prestige is better made. Directed by Christopher Nolan , The Prestige is based on the Christopher Priest novel of the same name. The film follows two magicians, Angier and Borden, who constantly try to outdo and screw over each other after Borden accidentally kills Angier’s wife in a trick gone bad. Borden becomes famous for a trick called "The Transported Man,” and Angier debuts "The Real Transported Man,” leading Borden to investigate how Angier did it.

TWIST SPOILER: Borden finds out that Angier is using a cloning machine built by Nikola Tesla to clone himself every time he does the trick. However, Angier disappears, leaving a dead clone and Borden as the prime suspect for murder. Borden is hung for his crimes, while Angier takes Borden’s daughter as his own. However, Borden does "The Transported Man” by being a set of twins who share one life, and the surviving twin kills Angier to take back his daughter.

The film stars Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, Andy Serkis and David Bowie. Most of the critiques of the film came from the explanation for Angier’s trick and how it changes the genre of the film. However, looking back, part of the fun of the film is that it makes no promises about what it is “really about.” It is currently available to rent on Amazon Prime , Google Play , and Apple TV .

5. Knives Out (2019)

Both Knives Out and its sequel, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery , play with the nature of twists in mystery movies. Knives Out was written and directed by Rian Johnson. The film follows the suicide of an acclaimed mystery novelist, Harlan Thrombey, his family and his nurse, who is supposedly the last person to see him alive. However, when a famous detective, Beniot Blanc, joins the investigation, he believes that there is more afoot than a suicide.

TWIST SPOILER: While early on, viewers are led to believe that Harlan’s nurse, Marta, mistakenly gave him the wrong medication, prompting Harlan to take his own life and leave his estate to her, his grandson Ransom actually swapped the medication in hopes of implicating Marta. The film is full of mini-twists and turns, which will keep the watcher reassessing their feelings about the characters and who is in control of the narrative.

Knives Out stars Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, LaKeith Stanfield and Christopher Plummer. It was nominated for the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and spawned two sequels: Glass Onion and the upcoming Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery . Knives Out is available to rent on YouTube, Google Play , Apple TV and Amazon Prime .

4. Oldboy (2003)

Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy is an action/revenge classic. It is hard to explain the twist in O ldboy because so much happens in this movie. The film follows a man, Dae-su, who has been kidnapped and kept in a hotel room-like cell for 15 years. Dae-su is given an ultimatum: if he can find out why he was imprisoned in five days, his kidnapper will kill himself.

TWIST SPOILER: Dae-su’s imprisoner is named Woo-jin and the two went to school together. Dae-su outed an incestuous relationship between Woo-jin and Woo-jin’s sister, causing Woo-jin to seek revenge. Furthermore, Dae-su finds out that the girl he has fallen for is actually his own daughter, completing Woo-jin’s revenge.

Oldboy is disturbing for many reasons, including its intense violence. While it might be most famous for its hammer-hallway fight scene, Oldboy is surprisingly emotionally rich. The film is often regarded as one of the best foreign language , Korean and 21st-century films . It stars Choi Min-sik, Yoo Ji-tae and Kang Hye-jung. It is currently streaming on Netflix .

3. Get Out (2017)

Jordan Peele’s directorial debut, Get Out, proved that Peele was one to watch in the horror/thriller genre. While his subsequent two films ( Us and Nope ) also feature good twists, Get Out ’s is still arguably the best. The film follows a young black man, Chris, who goes to his white girlfriend’s parents' house for the first time.

TWIST SPOILER: Chris discovered that the family runs a sinister business that surgically implants aging wealthy White people’s brains into strong young Black bodies. Furthermore, his girlfriend has been in on it all along in a soul-crushing scene involving his car keys. While the twist is well set-up, viewers usually don’t see it coming unless they have seen the horror film The Skeleton Key, which has a similar, but less poignant, twist.

Get Out is not only a great thriller but also a critique of White America and so-called Neoliberal politics. The film stars Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Lil Rel Howery, LaKeith Stanfield, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Stephen Root, Catherine Keener and Betty Gabriel. It was both a critical and commercial success. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning for Best Original Screenplay. It is currently streaming on Hulu and Peacock.

2. Memento (2000)

Christopher Nolan’s Memento is less about one singular twist. The film constantly leaves the viewer searching for meaning through its non-linear narrative. It follows a man, Leonard, with anterograde amnesia and memory loss, who leaves himself notes to help solve the mystery of who killed his wife.

TWIST SPOILER: Memento features two intertwined timelines: a series of black-and-white scenes in chronological order and a series of color scenes shown in reverse order. As the narrative unfolds, the viewer learns that nothing is as it seems, and Leonard is not only responsible for his wife’s death but is also being used by the people around him due to his condition to target their rivals.

The film is sometimes considered a cult film even though it was a box office success and was nominated for two Oscars, including Best Original Screenplay. In 2017, it was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” It is currently streaming for free on Tubi and The Roku Channel and with a subscription on Peacock and Amazon Prime .

1. The Sixth Sense (1999)

Haley Joel Osment And Bruce Willis Star In "The Sixth Sense."

The Sixth Sense is one of those movies with a famous twist that you probably know, even if you have never seen the movie. The Sixth Sense put director M. Night Shyamalan on the map and helped popularize “the Shyamalan twist.” Starring Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment, the film follows a child psychologist and a boy who claims to see dead people.

TWIST SPOILER: In the film's final minutes, viewers and the psychologist realize that he has been dead the whole time and is one of the ghosts visible only to the young boy, giving a new meaning to “I see dead people.”

The Sixth Sense was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture, and was also a huge box office success. The film is iconic, primarily due to its twist, and has been referenced in everything from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure to Doctor Who to Supernatural. It is currently streaming on Max .

Bottom Line

The best plot twists leave the viewer questioning everything and often inspire a rewatch to catch all the little hints along the way. From classic films to new entries, spoiler warning: these films films are all must watches.

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