Clerks
A classic piece of independent cinema, Clerks has Kevin Smith’s rambling monologues and hilarious diatribes at its heart, instead of a cohesive plot. Set in a convenience store, the film explores one day in the empty lives of Dante and Randal, two clerks. Nothing much happens, but that’s the beauty of it. – Alex Caesari
Person to Person
Person To Person depicts a day in the life of New York through various characters. From an eccentric vinyl collector hunting an elusive record to a teen struggling with her sexuality, a collection of interweaving scenarios dance around each other without ever forming a cohesive story. They represent human relationships in a far more accurate way than a narrative film could. – Tom Bedford
Napoleon Dynamite
When teen films were portraying high-school as rife with outlandish sex-driven exploits, bodily fluids, and booze, Napoleon Dynamite chose to be different. Focusing on a few poverty-stricken Idaho high-schoolers as they bumble about their distinctly unremarkable lives, it’s the endearing characters – not the situations – that make the film so watchable. – Ed Brown
The Florida Project
This is weeks of watching the kids of the poorest women in society run around living what they perceive to be their best life. But its Florida and the viewer is reminded of the surrounding contrasting wealth more and more whilst the darker side bleeds into the kids ‘perfect’ life. – Evlyn Forsyth-Muris
Mad Max: Fury Road
Mad Max: Fury Road is the most mainstream pick of this countdown, but it’s a film that relies on its striking visual effects and larger-than-life characters as opposed to its narrative. Other than its opening and a short, epiphanic scene in the middle, the film is one, big non-stop car chase! – Oscar Huckle
Man With A Movie Camera
You may be forgiven for thinking this is a 21st century film – 90 years on from its creation, Man With A Movie Camera continues to dazzle. It’s a documentary-cum-travelogue that slices, cuts, rewinds and slo-mos various images of a Soviet society, forming a glorious and gloriously baffling depiction of life in motion, and the camera behind it all. – Gus Edgar
Inherent Vice
Perhaps this is cheating: it’s not that Inherent Vice doesn’t have a plot, it’s just that it has too much of one. We (try to) follow Joaquin Phoenix’s Doc Sportello as he navigates the turn of the 70s’ hazy capitalist underbelly, three cases coalescing into a single hazy, weed-ridden thrillride. Don’t focus on the plot, focus on the atmosphere. – Gus Edgar
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Floating between dreams and memories, Eternal Sunshine takes us on a psychedelic journey into its characters’ minds, who endlessly fight against forgetting their past. Entirely made up of flashbacks and forwards, the film confuses us until not even its characters know the plot of their own lives. – Mireia Molina Costa
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