Movies

With its non-linear narrative and groundbreaking cinematography, Citizen Kane was far ahead of its time. Orson Welles redefined how stories could be told on screen — structurally and visually — making this film a benchmark in cinematic innovation.

But beyond its technical mastery, the film delivers layered human insights. At its core, it’s about the complexity of the human character — how we are all multi-dimensional beings that cannot be captured in a single narrative. It shows how easy it is to reduce a person to a public persona, while missing the private storms, memories, and longings that define them.

The theme of lost innocence runs deep. No matter how powerful or successful a person becomes, there’s a child within — often unheard, sometimes silently screaming. That iconic whisper — “Rosebud” — is more than just a plot device; it’s a profound echo of forgotten longing.

Citizen Kane reminds us how flawed and incomplete our judgments of others can be. It’s a singular piece of cinema that questions not just the man, but the lens through which we choose to view him. No wonder it continues to be celebrated as one of the greatest films ever made.

Directed by Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a masterclass in dark satire. What makes the film timeless is how it uses absurdity and humor to expose one of humanity’s most terrifying realities — the threat of nuclear annihilation driven not by enemies, but by incompetence, paranoia, and protocol.

Beneath its humor lies a razor-sharp political commentary. The film dismantles the illusion of control we often associate with military power and government. The characters — from the cigar-chomping generals to the war room scientists — are exaggerated, but not far from the truth. In fact, their exaggerated flaws reveal the uncomfortable truth: sometimes the systems we trust the most are governed by fragile egos, blind nationalism, and unpredictable human errors.

Kubrick’s framing and use of stark black-and-white elevate the satire to near-tragic proportions. The War Room, the Doomsday Machine, and Peter Sellers’ triple-role performance — all contribute to a film that is funny, frightening, and thought-provoking in equal measure.

The ending song “We’ll Meet Again” by Vera Lynn cannot be more appropriate, and adds a chill to the spine as the world quietly ends — not with a scream, but with a haunting melody.

I love this film — and I’m not quite sure why. Perhaps that’s the brilliance of The Shining. It feels like it’s whispering something important, something cosmic… and yet, you can’t quite hear it clearly. You feel it more than you understand it — and that’s what makes it unforgettable.

Directed by Stanley Kubrick, The Shining is often labeled as a horror film, but reducing it to that genre feels unfair. It’s psychological, existential, conspiratorial — and visually hypnotic. Every frame is meticulously composed, every hallway drenched in foreboding silence, every slow zoom charged with tension.

And then there are the theories . Was Kubrick trying to embed a message about the moon landing? Was it all about genocide? Trauma? Madness? The truth may be buried under layers, just like the Overlook Hotel itself. And yes, even the name — “Overlook” — makes you wonder: what are we overlooking?

That final photograph is my second favorite ending in cinema — right after *2001: A Space Odyssey*. Is Jack a reincarnation? A trapped spirit? An eternal caretaker? The ambiguity is not a bug, it’s a feature — and it leaves you endlessly haunted.

The Shining isn’t meant to be solved. It’s meant to be felt — slowly, eerily, permanently. After all, you cannot solve all the puzzles around you .

Fight Club is not just a film — it’s a rebellion in celluloid. David Fincher crafts a raw, hypnotic narrative that punches through the polished layers of modern life and exposes the emptiness lurking underneath. It’s brutal, chaotic, and yet philosophically introspective in a way few films dare to be.

The movie dismantles the very idea of identity — of what defines a man in a consumer-driven society. The narrator’s existential crisis is hauntingly familiar to anyone who’s ever questioned their place in the modern machine. Tyler Durden isn’t just a character — he’s a concept, an alter ego born from suppressed rage, freedom, and the desire to destroy what society has told us we must become.

The film also explores toxic masculinity, the cult of chaos, and the search for meaning through destruction. It plays with duality — real vs. imagined, self vs. ego, and order vs. anarchy — in ways that make every rewatch more revealing than the last.

That final scene, with buildings collapsing to the tune of The Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?”, is a poetic mic drop.

Fight Club is not about fighting. It’s about the fight within — and once you’ve seen it, you can’t miss the cracks in the world it exposes.

The story follows Scottie, a man paralyzed by his own fear — a former detective whose acrophobia mirrors his emotional instability. He’s a passive observer in his own life, until Madeleine appears. She is ethereal, haunting, lost — and carefully crafted. Madeleine is not just a character. She is a construct. A performance. And Hitchcock makes us fall for her, just as Scottie does, before cruelly revealing the layers beneath her perfection.

Kim Novak’s performance as Madeleine (and Judy) is both vulnerable and unsettling. She’s a woman torn between playing the part she’s been asked to perform and becoming the fantasy she knows she represents. Her sadness is palpable — especially in the tree rings scene, the sense of past lives, time looping endlessly, as if she knows her existence is already ghostly.

Hitchcock directs with unnerving precision. The use of color — green for illusion and rebirth, red for trauma and reality — is deliberate and symbolic. The famous dolly zoom that simulates vertigo doesn’t just simulate a fear of heights; it captures the disorientation of a man losing his grip on reality.

The film’s ending doesn’t bring closure — it opens a void. Scottie finally “gets” Madeleine — but only after reconstructing her, piece by piece, into a memory. And in the end, he loses her again. Just like his control. Just like his sanity.

Vertigo is Hitchcock at his most vulnerable, his most philosophical. It’s a film about how we try to conquer time, death, and loss by recreating — and in doing so, destroy what was real to begin with.

The question it leaves us with is chilling: Was Scottie ever in love with Madeleine… or with the idea of her?