Movies worth watching for the way they look

Films where the framing, the color and the light carry as much of the story as the script does.

These are the films people rewatch with the sound low. Every shot is a decision, and once you start noticing the decisions you cannot go back to not noticing them.

Lights Down calls this The Auteur

You watch how it was made.

So you need the right night for it. A shot held longer than it needs to be, a color that keeps coming back, a cut that lands early, those register with you the way plot does for everyone else. A film can lose the story and still keep you, as long as somebody was clearly paying attention behind the camera.

Films that sit at the center of it

• In the Mood for Love
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Portrait of a Lady on Fire
• Blade Runner 2049
• 2001: A Space Odyssey

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Close to this

movies with a twist you don't see coming, and older movies that still hold up.