Aesthetic Movies

[MacchyMacchy]

Name some films that you think are representative of a certain aesthetic or that invent one. Use this thread also to bring to attention little-known but visually particular titles. And of course, retro futuristic movies too.

I'll start with The 10th Victim (1965), a film that decades before The Hunger Games imagines a dystopian future in which, in order to contain the aggressiveness and violence of the population, a competition is established that gives its members the license to kill. All set in a futuristic version of 1960s Rome, which also anticipates, in a clumsy and bizarre way, the use of cell phones.

 

[sneaky dice]

The Crow (1994) to me is the perfect atmospheric gothic movie.

I'd be surprised if anyone hasn't seen it but in a nutshell it follows Eric Draven, brought back from the dead by the titular crow to avenge his death at the hands of thugs working for a crime boss.

 

[RisingThumb]

Barry Lyndon, that @LostintheCycle introduced me to

Some scenes are straight up majestic because they capture things in strange and different lighting that your bog standard camera couldn't do. The video above is an example of it with Candles. But then it's also the composition of some shots being like paintings. As a couple of examples...

It's astonishingly beautiful. I can understand why people dislike the film for its plot pacing and the relatively dislikeable character(relative to most characters on the big screen), but I think the aesthetic is beautiful and one thing even its haters will appreciate

 

[AnHero]

Altered States from 1980. Very Psychedelic movie. It's about a research scientist that locks himself in an isolation chamber and starts tripping on ancient tribal psychedelics. Somehow this causes him to undergo various supernatural changes as he reverts to increasingly primordial states of being. Publish or Perish is no joke.

 

[Neither or]

The Third Man premiered in 1949 directed by Carol Reed. Probably one of the most visually impressive films I've ever seen, i absolutely adore the use of the Italian town's architecture and shadows and angles. Certainly my favorite visual noir film, not entirely sure if it's that obscure though.

Film as i can recall, follows a cheap pulp fiction novelist who visits Italy to advertise his work while hopefully meeting up with his old friend, but it turns out his friend had died. However, things are not exactly as it seems and the pulp novelist begins to suspect there's been a cover up, and his friend might have been involved in something much more.

I'm not a complete film noir buff, not by a long shot, but I've seen a relatively decent amount, and no other noir has looked this good in such a unique way. They really utilized the towns angular historical buildings in a really genius creative fashion Would absolutely recommend, really would love another visually creative noir film like this.

Any recommendations?

 

[☉Kud]

The first thing that comes to mind when it comes to aesthetic movies is Midsommar, which juxtaposes vivid and pastel color palettes with the lingering horror that the cult in there hides.
Another would be Annihilation, whose grim surrealism gives beauty to the forbidden and incomprehensible dimension that is the Shimmer.

 

[Zaku]

The Conformist, an Italian movie about the mind of the mindless drifting into fascism for no good reason other than to be part of something for once. And once all is said and done, you subscribe to an ideology you don't believe in and have a wife you don't love.

Absolutely stellar directing all across the board. The estrangement of man from itself with these wide shots in the crushing architecture is something that, among many other things, stands out quite a bit.

 

[Cyb3rTr4sh]

ALIENS (1986)
Based my whole personality on this in high school

\

 

[Ross_Я]

The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari is rightfully well-known as a prime example of german expressionism.
1958 czechoslovak movie Invention For Destruction is something of its own when it comes to aesthetics, really. I've never seen anything like that before and never seen anything like that ever since I watched it.
Tron is another example of something of its own, but much more well known.
Mad Max 2 without a doubt started a whole pleiades of cheap B-movies who tried to imitate the same style. Bronx Warriors, 2019 - After The Fall Of New York, Wheels Of Fire, et cetera. All were equally cheap, shot in the 80's and tried to be Mad Max. I mean, it kind of works, if all you want is more desert and cars to kill your evening with.
There were few movies in the mid-2000s that were shot entirely or almost entirely on a so-called digital backlot - on a stage with greenscreen. For whatever reason, those first greenscreen movies tried to be creative as hell, unlike modern stuff which just tries to replace real life with CGI (and fails miserably time and time again). Anyway, I bet everyone knows Sin City, but some other movies deserve a mention too. If I were to select one, I'd say Immortal: Ad Vitam is a very interesting example.
Some directors are, like, aesthetics themselves. Like, Wes Anderson, anyone? Everything he shoots is just... Wes Anderson. His stuff is his stuff.
Tim Burton goes for that too, but he definitely falls out of himself for whatever reason every now and then. But if you saw 1989 Batman - well, you know you can frown upon many things from that movie, but the way the Gotham is shown is quite interesting. I bet you can find stuff like "Burton understood Gotham like no one else" up to this day.
I kind of want to add Richard Linklater to the list as well... albeit I gotta admit his aesthetics - if he even has those - are much more subtle. It's more about the... atmosphere his movies have. There's something special in them, I'm telling you. Aesthetics-wise though, definitely no one tried to repeat Linklater's... rotoscopic approach from A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life.

That would be it from the top of my head. Sorry, no screenshots, because I do not quite have the time to go through all the movies mentioned capturing screens, plus, bleh, image is just a... clickbait or something. Just read it and if you haven't seen it - watch the darn movie and be done with it.

 

[Waninem]

I'm surprised nobody's gone and mentioned Blade Runner yet, since it's run-down-yet-futuristic atmosphere inspired cyberpunk films for decades to come. It was also one of (if not the last) analog sci-fi films, meaning it used no CGI whatsoever. (It also features a lot of companies that have since gone bust or diminished greatly BUT STILL-)

So deliciously oppressive. Having Vangelis compose the soundtrack sure didn't hurt either. Its sequel also has an aesthetic of its own, but I can't say it's as unique as the original's.

And while we're talking about sequels, what about TRON: Legacy?

Goodness, what a difference 30 years can make! Say what you will about this film's plot or characters, but it's definitely eye candy. Ear candy as well, thanks to the glorious score composed by Daft Punk.

I could also nominate other films like Evil Dead III and the Star Wars prequels, funnily enough. Evil Dead III had a unique mix between gothic aesthetics and 80s technology going on, and Episodes 1-3 had a feel unlike their predecessors due to being almost entirely filmed on greenscreen, for better or worse. The Hammer Horror Dracula films, or at least Horror of Dracula, definitely deserve a mention as well, because they have a nice old-fashioned, brooding feel. But that's about it for me; if I tried making a comprehensive list of films with aesthetics I liked, we'd be here all day.

 

[Ross_Я]

Episodes 1-3 had a feel unlike their predecessors due to being almost entirely filmed on greenscreen

Can I interfere? Just to clarify, really, because I wrote about movies that were shot almost entirely on greenscreen in a post just above.
While Episodes used a lot of CGI, they were really more like 50-50. I mean, here, just for example:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhpFsO8wUoI
Episodes were all over. Tons of decorations, filming all over the world (America, China, Italy, Spain, et cetera), not even counting miniatures and stuff. While Sin City only had three practical sets. And Immortal had none at all, as far as I know.
If anything, James Cameron's Avatar, which I severely dislike (but which, probably, fits the thread), used only two practical sets and is definitely way closer to "almost entirely on greenscreen" than Episodes.
So, uh... What I mean is, while a lot of sets had greenscreen backgrounds in the Episodes, the Episodes still had way, way more practical sets than the movies I wanted to refer to.

 

[Waninem]

Can I interfere? Just to clarify, really, because I wrote about movies that were shot almost entirely on greenscreen in a post just above.

Why are you asking me? You don't need my permission! X3

But anyway... huh. I guess it's an aesthetic in itself, but... definitely the opposite of most other films that utilize CGI. Instead of trying to make the effects look like real life, George Lucas somehow made real miniatures and sets seem like they were entirely artificial! How the heck do you do that?

 

[Ross_Я]

Instead of trying to make the effects look like real life, George Lucas somehow made real miniatures and sets seem like they were entirely artificial! How the heck do you do that?

Well, the goal is to make CGI and practical look like one, so the viewer wouldn't know where CGI starts and where real stuff ends.
While the normal approach is to try and make CGI as real as possible, Lucas probably went the other way and tried - either from the very start or in post production - make real stuff as CGI as possible.
It could also be tied somehow to the fact that Episodes were really, really early into massive CGI game. I mean, Episode 1 was released in ninety-fucking-nine - it's not even 2000. It was clearly the pioneer, and a lot of things were still quite impossible in terms of graphics. So it is quite possible that Lucas looked at the results and said: well, we gotta make the real stuff a bit more unreal, or it just won't fit.
Frankly, he possibly should've just waited several more years before going for it.

what about TRON: Legacy?

Ah, well, while I am here... When I wrote about Tron, I meant both the original and the Legacy. I guess, it is not that obvious, since I highlighted Mad Max to be specifically part 2, while said nothing about the Tron. My fault, I suppose.
But yeah, Legacy continues the style of the original quite nicely. As a matter of fact, I actually liked Legacy more than the original movie. Yeah, that comes from me, the guy who likes the old stuff. I know, I myself was surprised that none other than Disney managed to release a movie that I liked that much, but I really liked Legacy.

 

[Waninem]

Ah, I see. I thought you were talking about just the first one. Which, to its credit, is also an exceptionally aesthetic film. Honestly, comparing it and its sequel really provides a window into just how much more capable computers have become as tools for filming. If I remember correctly the glowing lines on the suits in TRON were hand-painted into the film, giving it the look it had, so it was a unique fusion of then-cutting edge CGI and analog techniques. Fast forward to TRON: Legacy and the 2010s, and you have entirely computer-generated characters (mostly) convincingly interacting with real ones, with the virtual world seeming just as real as the real world. I have doubts any sequel Disney could make would ever compare to these two; they just masterfully mixed the real and the virtual using what tech they had at the time.

 

[ZTheNetrunner]

Grand Budapest Hotel is an incredibly nostalgic film for me despite it being somewhat recent. The colors, the cinematography, it reminds me of my grandparents house when I was a kid. I guess it's nostalgic in that "Thomas the tank emgine" or " I spy" book kind of way.

 

[LostintheCycle]

Barry Lyndon, that @LostintheCycle introduced me to

I love this film dearly above all others. My main profile photo used to be a screenshot of the movie.
The only way I could really sum up Barry Lyndon, is it encapsulates life in a movie. At least, the life of an Irish boy in the 18th century from his adolescence to middle age. But it is so grand. It is still my favorite film, so much so, I can't say I truly enjoy any other film the way I enjoy Barry Lyndon. There is something very special about it.

 

[asderfly]

Flatliners (1990). It had this really unique feeling to it that I can't quite describe, I think it was mainly because of the lighting but it could be something else.

 

[UmbralFKR]

Liquid Sky (1982) - I describe this to people as a new-wave/new-romantic art film about aliens, sex and heroine. Always catches people's curiosity with that description.

I love the general aesthetic and usage of light and picture frames. So creative for something of this nature and as far as thread topic its like king for something of the new-romantic era.
I'll also add that the lead actress Anne Carlisle plays two of the characters in this film.

Easy to watch for free online if you look, would recommend strongly!

 

[UmbralFKR]

Fallen Angels (1995) - A Noir-Drama from director Wong Kar-wai based from Hong Kong.

This film really stands out to me on the clever use of camera lenses/angels with perfect use of color and lights for the film. Almost every frame of the movie makes an art soaked still in my opinion.
The movie almost plays out like a fever dream with everything conveyed through the visual vibe rather than a more traditional structure to follow the story of some characters you kinda peak in on.
Really interesting for something to come out from 1990's China...

This film too is easy to find online and I would highly recommend to watch or at the very least have on in the background for the visually pleasing effects.

 

[Sideria777]

Le Samourai (1967) - I think Alain Delon in this movie is the prototype of the "he's literally me" / Drive character. The movie builds his character almost exclusively through his actions, and Delon has very few lines in the movie despite being the protagonist. Basically, if you're the kind of guy who thought the Driver in Drive (2011) was literally you, then you're in for a treat with this one.