Top ten films on Kanopy, January 2022
Kanopy has a refreshing – and free, if you have a library card – selection of world, classic and independent cinema, far superior to Amazon Prime or Netflix. The caveat is being able to watch only six films a month. It also has a good selection of documentaries, series, shorts and courses.
1. Araby (2017, Brazil)
I’d actually been looking everywhere (else) for this until I found it here by chance, a low key drama involving a teenager stumbling across an injured factory man’s diary, when the film shifts to the man’s jobs and travels over the course of ten years. It had me from the first shot (pictured above). Film of the (last) decade according to some.
2. Killer of Sheep (1978, USA)
The bfi say: “An undisputed masterpiece of African-American filmmaking and one of the most poetic, perceptive dramas ever made about family and community”. Everyday life in Watts, LA in the 1970s captured in black and white with a great blues soundtrack, focussing on Stan, a slaughterhouse worker.
3. The Wages of Fear (1953, France)
Classic suspense thriller with Yves Montand transporting nitroglycerin by truck from a wretched South American town through the jungle. Directed by the French master of suspense, Henri-Georges Cluzot.
4. Knife in the Water (1962, Poland)
Roman Polanski’s first feature is a taut and tense psychological thriller taking place mainly on a small yacht, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere.
5. Audition (1999, Japan)
Directed by the prolific Takashi Miike, still relatively unknown here (imagine if Quentin Tarentino had directed at least two films a year, and sometimes half a dozen, every year for the last thirty years), this goes from rom com to unbearable horror in a tale of fake film auditions.
6. Carnival of Souls (1962, USA)
Creepy low budget horror about a woman having strange visions after a car accident.
7. Ten (2002, Iran)
A prostitute and an elderly women going to prayer are two of the ten passengers being driven around Tehran by a female taxi driver in Abbas Kiarostami’s 2002 outing.
8. Night Tide (1961, USA)
Cult film with Dennis Hopper falling for a mermaid.
9. Suspiria (1977, Italy)
Dario Argento’s supernatural horror classic. Several more Argento films are also available, as well as other ‘giallo’ (Italian crime/horror films) offerings such as Lucio Fulchi’s The Psychic and What Have you Done to Solange, both pretty mediocre but recently repackaged as ‘Special Editions’ and released on Blu-Ray for £20 a pop.
10. The Falls (1980, UK)
Kanopy even have British films: This is Peter Greenaway’s first feature, a mock doc detailing the case histories of survivors of an VUE (Violent Unknown Event).
Previously on Barnflakes
Top ten recent black and white films
Alternative cinematic streams
Top 30 films on Amazon Prime right now