Please help me expand this list:
Tarkovsky:
Stalker
Solaris
Sacrifice
Nostalghia
Parajanov:
Sayat Nova
Tati:
Play Time
Mon Oncle
Tarr:
Satantango
Karhozat
Kwaidan
Aguirre:Wrath of God
2001 Space Oddysey
Much appreciated!!
I can never be unmoved by the visuals in The Thin Red Line.
shareMoon is another beautiful film no one has mentioned. It's one of my favorite scifi movies, and my favorite film of the decade.
shareMichael Cimino's Heaven's Gate is without doubt one of the most visually stunning American films of the last 30/40 years. Many have criticised the film (mostly unfairly) for various reasons including it's lack of budgetary control, but the money is all there up on the screen to be marvelled at ultimately.
shareBlue Velvet, Wild At Heart and Mulholland Dr. by David Lynch.
Someone else mentioned Wong Kar-Wai, I've only seen In the Mood for Love, and it is beautiful.
I reckon there's loads of obvious choices missing from this list:
Dances With Wolves
Apocalypse Now (the cleanup job on the recent Collector's Edition lets the colours just ping off the screen)
Amadeus
Any of Zhang Yimou's martial arts films - but particularly House of Flying Daggers & Curse of the Golden Flower)
Koyaanisqatsi
Edward Scissorhands
Some of these of course a lot of the credit should go to the set & costume designers, but they still look sumptuous onscreen.
Walkabout (amazing shots of Australian outback)
Last Year At Marienbad (aka L'Année Dernière à Marienbad - beauty in nearly every shot)
In Bruges (Belgian architecture)
The Belly of an Architecht (Italian architecture)
The Milky Way (beautiful locations and great looking sets throughout)
The Naked Prey (the wilds of Africa)
Black Night (aka Nuit Noire - lots of cool insect close-ups)
The House of Sand and Fog (Pacifica, CA, beautiful transition shots between scenes)
Breaking the Waves (gorgeous lingering shots between chapters)
Fata Morgana (1st half in particular has great African desert shots)
Lessons of Darkness (desert, oil, and oil fires, beautiful disaster)
Encounters at the End of the World (Antarctica, above and below the ice)
The White Diamond (Amazon forest canopy, a huge waterfall, and tons of amazing birds)
The Banishment (fairly new Tarkovsky-influenced film that looks great)
Damnation (there's something about the coal-moving cable car system)
Spirit of the Beehive (the ironic beauty of crude buildings and the barren plain)
Tarsem Singh's "The Fall".
"Ah,sweet storyteller. What will it take to slay the dragon..."-Steven James
Yeah Tarsem Singh does make some visually arresting films. The Cell was a bit misguided but it was definitely a pretty film.
I'd like to add Paul Thomas Anderson to the list of filmmakers. I love the way the camera moves in boogie nights and magnolia. The way he treats the camera reminds me a lot of scenes from Solaris and Stalker. I didn't care much for Mirror but love the long take where the barn is on fire: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBZsj8FPSbo
Speaking of long takes, Children of Men is another really beautiful movie that should be mentioned. The sheer amount of detail on screen in some scenes is staggering and the two famous long takes, with all of that action and camera movement are insane.
If you are open minded enough about a film's content I would recommend Cemetery Man. It is a very beautiful, dreamy film.
I thought Gattaca was very pretty and seems to be taking its deserved place among the great sci-fi movies. The end scene where Jerome and Anton are racing in the ocean is one of my favorites.
Amelie - You can check out pretty much all of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's movies.
Memories of Murder is quite pretty to look at. The Host also has its moments, though less so than Memories.
Ang Lee has his moments for sure. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is really breathtaking as is Brokeback Mountain.
I know Lawrence of Arabia has been mentioned but I just want to add if you ever get a chance to see it in 70mm DO IT.
I love the digital grittiness of 28 Days Later. The scene where they are driving on the road with the windmills in the background is one of my absolute favorite scenes committed to film. Sunshine is also another beautiful movie from Danny Boyle.
Dark City
La Jetee is like watching a poem. It is all still images except for one shot of a woman blinking but the combination of images and words is wonderful. It is only 28 minutes long and on youtube and netflix instant well worth anyone's time.
Miyazaki makes some beautiful films. I'm particularly fond of Howl's Moving Castle in terms of visuals but Spirited Away is most definitely the better and more beautiful film.
There are so many more, I could probably be here all day trying to think of them. No one is better than Tarkovsky though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0tbEVDhZnk
Many of the films by Ang Lee, David Lean and Werner Herzog. Also:
Snow Falling on Cedars
Silk
Dersu Uzala
Avatar
The Phantom Menace
Excalibur
Travelling North
Under the Lighthouse Dancing
Kabloonak
300
Kundun
Seven Years in Tibet
Himalaya
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
The Last of the Mohicans
I'm sure there are many others bust these titles spring immediately to mind.
Been checking out these lists. Good thread.
Im the Alpha and the Omoxus. The Omoxus and the Omega
Begotten
A Clockwork Orange
Dead Man
Eraserhead
Jacob's Ladder
Tetro
Following
Begotten (I put it twice to pervay its importance)
Born on the Fourth of July
The Assassination of Jesse James Told by the Coward Robert Ford
The Seventh Seal
8 1/2
Persona
The Road
Wavelength
Experiments In Terror
Hour of the Wolf
Directors:
Lynch
Felini
Bergman
Kubrick
Buscemi
Lynch (again, repeating)
Nolan
Snow
The list remains endless
Here's two that I've just seen for the first time:
Carl Theodor Dreyer's
The Passion of Joan of Arc
and
Vampyr
EDIT: and I don't think I've seen this mentioned yet - Blade Runner! It's a pretty obvious choice for visually stunning and it's also sci-fi. Heck, I'd also include Alien, it's grotesque...but also beautiful. Ridley Scott in general has some pretty good films visually.
I'd also like to second anyone who said Malick. I've just watched all his films, and WOW that guy's good. My favorite has got to be The New World.
We plow deep while others sleep
Darren Aronofsky's work is usually very visually stunning. I recommend The Fountain for a great example. Also, anything by the Powell/Pressburger team, particularly Black Narcissus or The Red Shoes. Fellini's La Strada is beautiful as well.
"Why do you find it so hard to believe?"
"Why do you find it so easy?"
"It's never BEEN easy!"
+1.
The Fountain is probably one of the most visually beautiful films in my opinion.
Others include:
-Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring (great location and scenery)
-2001: A Space Odyssey (for reasons already mentioned previously)
-Children of Men (not so much beautiful, but very bleak and desolate)
-Melancholia (the lighting is stunning)
Interesting choices (I haven't seen all of them)... but I didn't think much of the Children of Men. Too much pc point scoring about asylum seekers.
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It's not "sci-fi", it's SF!
I also didn't really enjoy the plot in Children of Men either, but I think it falls into the category if being 'visually beautiful'.
shareYeah, the whole "illegal immigrant" subplot felt preachy and unnecessary. But the visuals/camera work were absolutely spectacular.
share