Movies &c.

“It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.” — Roger Ebert

I love watching movies, both in theaters (marked by 🎥 below), as well as at home — on Netflix, Prime Video, or on DVD. Yes, I still use DVDs. No, I will not be taking questions at this time.

Below is a lovingly curated list of movies I’ve watched so far this year—films I’d recommend to friends, strangers, time travelers, and probably even sworn enemies. If it’s listed here, it’s worth your time. If it’s marked with a 👍, it’s a full-throated endorsement—like, stop-what-you’re-doing-and-watch-it levels of enthusiasm. You’re welcome in advance. Stay tuned for more!

• Charlie Chaplin
  City Lights (1931 d. Charlie Chaplin)
  Modern Times (1936 d. Charlie Chaplin)
  The Great Dictator (1940 d. Charlie Chaplin) 👍
• Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974 d. Martin Scorsese)
• Top Gun (1986 d. Tony Scott)
• Good Will Hunting (1997 d. Gus Van Sant) 👍
• A Beautiful Mind (2001 d. Ron Howard)
• Juno (2007 d. Jason Reitman)
• Easy A (2010 d. Will Gluck)
• Zero Dark Thirty (2012 d. Kathryn Bigelow)
• The Imitation Game (2014 d. Morten Tyldum) 👍
• Love, Simon (2018 d. Greg Berlanti)
• Coda (2021 d. Sian Heder) 👍
• F1 (2025 d. Joseph Kosinski) 🎥 👍
• Animation
  Kung Fu Panda (2008 d. John Stevenson and Mark Osborne)
  Hundreds of Beavers (2022 d. Mike Cheslik) 👍
  Robot Dreams (2024 d. Pablo Berger) 👍
  Memoir of a Snail (2024 d. Adam Elliot)
  Flow (2024 d. Gints Zilbalodis) 🎥
• Wes Anderson
  Rushmore (1998 d. Wes Anderson)
  Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009 d. Wes Anderson)
  Moonrise Kingdom (2012 d. Wes Anderson)
  The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023 d. Wes Anderson)
  
• Wallace & Gromit
  A Grand Day Out With Wallace and Gromit (1989 d. Nick Park)
  The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005 d. Nick Park, Steve Box)
  Vengeance Most Fowl (2024 d. Nick Park, Merlin Crossingham)
• George Paul Csicsery
  Hard Problems: The Road to the World’s Toughest Math Contest (2008)
  Secrets of the Surface: The Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani (2020)
• The Hunger Games
  The Hunger Games (2012 d. Gary Ross)
  The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013 d. Francis Lawrence)
  The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014 d. Francis Lawrence)
  The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (2015 d. Francis Lawrence)
• Music documentaries
  Miss Americana (2020 d. Lana Wilson)
  Becoming Led Zeppelin (2025 d. Bernard MacMahon)
  Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII (2025 d. Adrian Maben) 🎥
  We Want The Funk! (2025 d. Stanley Nelson and Nicole London) 👍
  PBS Independent Lens documentary