Brazil is a 9. It has always been a 9. Terry Gilliam got it exactly right and the studio tried to ruin it and failed. Quick Change is also a 9 — Bill Murray at his most underrated, robbing a bank dressed as a clown and then failing to escape New York City. These two films have nothing in common except I think about them when people ask me what I like.
Fallout (the TV series) is also a 9. That surprised me. It trusts the audience in a way video game adaptations rarely do.
Fitzcarraldo hit me at 8. Werner Herzog making a film about a man who won’t accept physical reality as a constraint — it figures. I went looking for more Herzog after that. Grizzly Man is on my list.
Saturday Night — the SNL origin story — was an 8. Biographical, chaotic, exactly the kind of behind-the-scenes story I can’t stop watching. Same category as Hidden Figures, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Imitation Game. I rate these high almost automatically because I find actual people more interesting than invented ones.
Das Boot remains one of the best films ever made. Eight out of ten because I’m saving the top slots for something I can’t predict yet.
I don’t give 10s. I’m not sure what would earn one.
Wes Anderson gets consistent 6–8s from me depending on the film. David Lynch similar. I watch everything they make and never fully decide how I feel.
Lower end: formulaic comedies, anything that coasts. Tag got a 4. That’s the movie earning a 4, not the people who made it. Probably.