Items20The creator’s order
  1. 1The Ninth Configuration (1980)The Ninth Configuration (1980) 6.7/10 on IMDbReleased 29 Feb 1980William Peter Blatty places a military psychiatrist inside an asylum whose theatrical disorder gradually becomes a mystery about belief and identity. This cult film is less familiar than The Exorcist and far stranger than a routine case history. Choose it for the uneasy meeting of absurd comedy,…0
  2. 2A Soldier's Story (1984)A Soldier's Story (1984) 7.2/10 on IMDbReleased 14 Sept 1984A murder investigation within a segregated American army unit makes testimony inseparable from rank and racial power. Howard E. Rollins Jr gives Captain Davenport a controlled intelligence that sharpens every interview. The film earned major Oscar nominations; its discovery value lies in revisiting…0
  3. 3The Last Wave (1977)The Last Wave (1977) 6.9/10 on IMDbReleased 15 Dec 1977Peter Weir follows a Sydney lawyer whose apparently practical case unsettles the boundaries of what he can understand. Weather, dreams and David Gulpilil's presence make the investigation increasingly disorientating. This is a less familiar route into Weir's Australian work for viewers who welcome…0
  4. 4The Parallax View (1974)The Parallax View (1974) 7.1/10 on IMDbReleased 14 Jun 1974Alan J. Pakula gives a journalist's inquiry into an assassination a world of forbidding architecture and unreliable institutions. Warren Beatty's confidence offers little protection. It is an established seventies cult film, but a rewarding next step beyond the better-known Watergate-era thrillers…0
  5. 5The Late Show (1977)The Late Show (1977) 6.9/10 on IMDbReleased 10 Feb 1977Art Carney's ageing private eye and Lily Tomlin's unpredictable client give Robert Benton's Los Angeles mystery an unusual emotional rhythm. Their awkward partnership keeps the clue work funny and unexpectedly tender. Seek this smaller seventies neo-noir for the lives around the case as much as the…0
  6. 6Zero Effect (1998)Zero Effect (1998) 6.9/10 on IMDbReleased 30 Jan 1998Bill Pullman's Daryl Zero is brilliant at reading other people and hopeless at ordinary life. Jake Kasdan's debut makes the detective's peculiar distance both a comic resource and a practical weakness. This under-seen mystery is worth finding for the way an apparently eccentric gimmick becomes a…0
  7. 7The Spanish Prisoner (1997)The Spanish Prisoner (1997) 7.1/10 on IMDbReleased 3 Dec 1997David Mamet turns an inventor's valuable process into a reason to distrust every polished conversation around him. Campbell Scott's reserve suits a film in which courtesy can conceal a trap. This is a compact, less frequently discussed confidence-game mystery whose satisfaction comes from…0
  8. 8Lone Star (1996)Lone Star (1996) 7.4/10 on IMDbReleased 21 Jun 1996John Sayles uses the discovery of a skeleton to uncover competing histories in a Texas border town. Chris Cooper's sheriff must question both official memory and family loyalty. The film has strong critical standing; its wider discovery value is an unusually rich investigation in which a…0
  9. 9The Interview (1998)The Interview (1998) 7.0/10 on IMDbReleased 3 Mar 1998The 1998 Australian film confines Hugo Weaving and Tony Martin within an interrogation whose balance of power keeps changing. Craig Monahan makes tiny shifts of tone and procedure consequential. Choose this award-recognised local thriller for performance-led uncertainty, rather than the unrelated…0
  10. 10Tell Me Something (1999)Tell Me Something (1999) 6.4/10 on IMDbReleased 13 Nov 1999A Korean detective facing personal and professional pressure confronts a case whose physical evidence seems designed to resist a coherent story. Han Suk-kyu gives the investigation a frayed centre. This darker late-nineties discovery suits viewers exploring Korean crime cinema beyond its most…0