Here’s a quick list of the movies I watched this month. I’ve rated them all on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being near perfection. You’ll also find links to the IMDB pages of the top ten movies. Several of these movies are ones I’ve watched before; those have been marked with an asterisk.
Notably, my least favorite movies were written by a team of writers, and the result was sloppy and disjointed. The top three movies had only a single writer (in one case, the brilliant writer-director Claire Denis). Two of the four-and-a-half star movies were made by writer-directors.
One director, Spike Lee, appears in both the four-star category and the three-star category. In the past, I’ve ranked some of his other films as five stars.
Five-star movies
Beau Travail (1999) Dir. Claire Denis, Written by Claire Denis and Jean-Pol Fargeau, inspired by the short story Billy Budd by Herman Melville
*Rocky (1976) Dir. John G Alvidsen, Written by Sylvester Stallone)
*The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) Dir. Ben Stiller, Screenplay by Steve Conrad, based on the short story by James Thurber)
Four-and-a-half star movies
Mauvais Sang (1986) - Written and directed by Leos Carax
The Daytrippers (1996) - Written and directed by Greg Mottola
Grease (1978) - Director: Randal Kleiser - Writer: Bronte Woodard
Adaptation (2002) - Director: Spike Jonze - Writer: Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman
Deliverance (1972) - Director: John Boorman - Writer: James Dickey
Four-star movies
Le Samourai (1967) - Written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Summer of Sam (1999) - Director: Spike Lee - Writers: Spike Lee, Michael Imperioli, and Victor Colicchio
Three-and-a-half-star movies
The Aviator (2004) - Director: Martin Scorsese - Writer: John Logan
Breathless (1960) - Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Frances Ha (2012) - Written and directed by Noah Baumbach
Three-star movies
Along Came Polly (2004) - Written and directed by John Hamburg
Clockers (1995) - Director: Spike Lee - Writer: Richard Price
Two-star movies
The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker (2023) - documentary, Written and directed by Colette Camden)
Grown Ups (2010) - Director: Dennis Dugan - Writers: Adam Sandler, Fred Wolf, and Tim Herlihy
One-star movies
Hall Pass (2011) - Director: Bobby and Peter Farrelly - Writers: Pete Jones, Kevin Barnett, Pete Farrelly, and Bobby Farrelly