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Francis Ford Coppola reveals a list of 20 movies that he highly recommends you watch and show "appreciation to the pictures that inspired" him. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Coppola has directed movies such as The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now. Over a decade after his last film, the 85-year-old director's latest movie is Megalopolis, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and is already fiercely divisive ahead of its theatrical release on September 27.

Ahead of Megalopolis' theatrical release, Francis Ford Coppola joined Letterboxd and created a list of 20 movies that he highly recommends. While not complete by any means, the list is simply 20 movies that he enjoys, have inspired him, and would recommend to any fan of cinema or aspiring filmmaker. Check out his list below:

French Cancan (1955) The Bad Sleep Well (1960) The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933) Shanghai Express...

Megalopolis director Francis Ford Coppola has joined Letterboxd, the social cataloguing service where members can rate and review films and keep track of what they’ve watched. I’m a little addicted. Coppola has shared a list of twenty films that he would recommend to any cinephile or aspiring filmmaker, which you can check out below.

French Cancan (Jean Renoir) The Bad Sleep Well (Akira Kurosawa) The Bitter Tea of General Yen (Frank Capra) Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg) The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey) The Ladies Man (Jerry Lewis) The Burmese Harp (Kon Ichikawa) Tokyo Story (Yasujirō Ozu) The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau) The Blue Angel (Josef von Sternberg) Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan) Punch Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson) Empire of the Sun (Steven Spielberg) Sunrise (F.W. Murnau) Joyless Street (G.W. Pabst) A Place in the Sun (George Stevens) The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese) After...

A major silent film find: recently rediscovered and restored, this much-sought Austrian satire offers historical insight on antisemitism in 1920s Europe, and by extension today’s anti-immigrant politics. A fictitious city decides that the solution to its ills is to expel its Jewish population. That exact premise would in just a few years become political reality in the hands of fascist murderers.

The City Without Jews

Blu-ray + DVD

Flicker Alley

1924 / B&w / 1:33 Silent Ap. / 91 min. / Die Stadt ohne Juden / Street Date August 25, 2020 / 39.95

Starring: Eugen Neufeld, Hans Moser, Anny Milety, Johannes Riemann, Ferdinand Mayerhofer, Mizi Griebl, Karl Tema, Hans Effenberger, Gisela Werbisek, and Armin Berg.

Camera: Hugo Eywo, Eduard von Borsody

Sets: Julius von Borsody

Original Music scores: Donald Sosin and Alicia Svigals / Olga Neuwirth

Written by Ida Jenbach, Hans Karl Breslauer from the novel by Hugo Bettauer

Directed by Hans Karl Breslauer

Just off the 10 Freeway on the West side of Los Angeles,...

When I first saw this artwork for Fritz Lang’s Metropolis used on the Masters of Cinema 2010 Blu-ray packaging, I was convinced that it was contemporary artwork commissioned especially for that release. As familiar as I was with Heinz Schulz-Neudamm’s famous poster for the film (aka the most sought after and most expensive movie poster of all time), for some reason I had not seen this before. But when I discovered that this poster was not only an original 1927 French release poster but also that it is a four-sheet poster that stands 94 inches tall and 126 inches wide, my mind was blown. (Click on the image to see it in all its glory). Apparently an original exists in the Art Library of the Berlin State Museum (the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) but I would assume no copy has ever come up for auction. As far as I’m concerned this...

By modern standards, Quentin Tarantino would be considered an auteur; a director whose films reflect that his personal creative vision. But what exactly is that vision, and how is it reflected in his work? One major observation that one can make about Tarantino’s films is that he often incorporates a number of references, many of which refer to cinema, specific films, or pop culture. His films are laced with this intertextuality were the relationship between texts (or films) is constantly being redefined. This method of pastiche is one way that he draws attention to the fact that his film is a constructed piece of fiction, or a “simulation.”

His rational behind this is heavily influenced by French theorist Jean Baudrillard’s notion of “hyperreality.” Hyperreality in this case refers to the inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, as the two become blurred into one. Baudrillard argues that...