Phrasemaker

Top 10 Movies Now Showing on MUBI Australia – Must-Watch Films

Branden Zavaleta

Take A Trip Through the Cinema World’s Greatest

Without the Criterion Channel in Australia, cineastes must look elsewhere for their art film fix. Mubi does a good job of filling that space, curating rich and rare films from around the globe and providing you a place to watch them (at an affordable rate too). But because these films are so rich and rare, it can be hard to know what you’re getting into, or where to start. So I’ve created a tasting platter for you to peruse. 

And by tasting platter, I mean there’s a real variety here. The oldest film on this list is eighty, the youngest is two. They are all art films, so you’re not going to find many gutbusters, but they do cross from sweet, to strange, to heartbreaking. 

And for a free month of MUBI, sign up with my referral link.

Contents:

Short Film Mention: A Short Story (Directed by Bi Gan, China, 2022)

Unlike almost any other streaming service, Mubi also curates short films. And short films– like short stories– are an underappreciated art form with so many wonders to show you. And what I find especially nice about having them on Mubi is that you don’t have to commit to two hours of art film, you can just dip in for a fifteen minute short while you’re eating lunch. 

My very favourite short film on Mubi– and maybe of all time– is just called A Short Story. It’s got some of the most beautiful dreamlike cinematography and it’s completely mesmerising. The story is light, like a poem, and tells of a strange black cat exploring his memories and his search for “the most beautiful thing”. What he sees are things we’ve never even imagined, and of course, the most beautiful thing is this journey he takes us on.

If you love this, watch: The Cowboy and the Frenchman, (David Lynch, 1988), Asparagus, (Susan Pitt, 1979).

The Piano Teacher (Directed by Michael Haneke, Austria, 2001)

Haneke is a provocateur. He’s not only made a movie directly mocking its audience for delighting in seeing violence on screen, but he remade it just so that an english-speaking audience could see it and be mocked too (Funny Games). 

But though The Piano Teacher is a provocative movie, it’s only because we sympathise so deeply with its protagonist– a strict, repressed and lonely Isabelle Huppert. She’s a woman who lives with her domineering mother, has never dated, and has developed habits to deal with it. But when a handsome student of hers takes an interest in her, she’s thrown into a twisting romance unlike any other (and for it, it won 2001’s Cannes Grand Prix!).

If you love this, watch: La Cérémonie (Claude Chabrol, 1995), Merci Pour Le Chocolat (Claude Chabrol, 2000).

La Haine (Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, France, 1995)

For each generation, there is a piece of art that rouses its disaffected youth, that inspires change and passion with poignance and style. For America’s Gen X it was Fight Club, and for France it was La Haine.

In it, three young men spend a Sunday in their poor Paris neighbourhood, recounting the events of last night’s riot and getting into trouble. So despite its political message– a cry out against the wealth divide– it’s very much a hangout movie. Vinz, Hubert, and Saïd become your restless compatriots, trying to find some entertainment on a quiet afternoon. And it’s shot with such energy that even mundane moments such as chatting with a kid at the playground is elevated to a moment of wisdom. 

If you love this, watch: A Day In A Life (Larry Clark, 2020), Crystal Fairy & The Magical Cactus (Sebastian Silva, 2013).

Tokyo Sonata (Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan, 2008)

Kiyoshi Kurosawa is best known for his unnerving horrors (Cure, Pulse)– which often rank on horror nerd movie lists among the most chilling– but like the angel/devil dynamic found in Scorcese’s filmography, Kurosawa also makes touching dramas.

In a modern homage to Tokyo Story, Tokyo Sonata masterfully weaves together family dynamics, societal expectations, and personal identity. And it does so with such elegance and emotional economy– The film’s first short is of rain and wind blowing lightly through a quiet house. It’s exceptionally lonely, and when the wife closes the open door and mops up the rain, we reflexively recognise the repression of Japanese society, and when she opens the door one more time to feel the rain on her skin, we rejoice.

If you love this, watch: Journey To The Shore (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2015), Shoplifters (Kore-eda, 2018).

Laurence Anyways (Directed by Xavier Dolan, Canada, 2012)

Xavier Dolan is a stylist, one that will one day be as recognizable as Wes Anderson, or Quentin Tarantino. Each shot is carefully composed with colour and light in mind and the results are a sort of faux-80s hyper reality.

Laurence Anyways is his love letter to style, and to ‘maximising pleasure’. Never content to let a shot just be a shot, Dolan composes everything for style; Blowing out birthday candles is refracted through a wine glass; Its opening is a delicious music video, and the film delivers on the desire of all music video lovers– for them to become something more, to be a movie.

If you love this, watch: Matthias & Maxime (Xavier Dolan, 2019), Tom at the Farm (Xavier Dolan, 2013).

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Directed by Jacques Demy, France, 1964)

Demy is another stylist that must be seen, and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is his masterpiece. Not content to simply give his movies a whimsical style accompanied by flawless beauties (as in Donkey Skin), Cherbourg takes Demy’s love for 1940s Disney animations to its ultimate conclusion. The entire city– every Parisian milliner, lane, and gas station– is painted in pastels, and its people all sing. It’s a film like no other, and once the spell takes hold you’ll be hypnotised by the Shakespearean romance that it holds.

If you love this, watch: The Young Girls of Rochefort (Jacques Demy, 1967), Le Bonheur (Agnès Varda, 1965).

Le Havre (Directed by Aki Kaurismäki, Finland, 2011)

Le Havre: a happy ending but too sad to bear | That's How The Light Gets In

Easily the sweetest film on this list, the laconic and dour Kaurismäki has made a film full of kindness, warm colours, and friendly faces. In a Hollywood movie, a rugged mug like André Wilms’ would have him cast as a villain, but in Le Havre, he’s our stoic hero with a heart of gold. 

He’s a lowly shoeshiner, one with an ailing wife, and little work. And yet he’s never pathetic, it’s not that kind of movie. He has lunch by the docks and finds an illegal immigrant boy hiding in the shallows. After misdirecting a searching policeman he shares his lunch with the boy and a friendship forms. He searches for the boy’s family, solves a couple’s quarrel, and puts on a benefit concert. Truly it’s a film like no other. 

If you love this, watch: Tavern Man (Aki Kaurismäki, 2012), The Foundry (Aki Kaurismäki, 2007).

Ash Is Purest White (Directed by Jia Zhangke, China, 2018)

Zhangke is China’s premiere art director, he captures the country’s lesser-seen cities and dusty landscapes with a softness of touch that adds a romance even to desolation. But most of his films are “slow cinema”, and will strain the attention of most casual viewers, so for your introduction to him and his cohort, try Ash Is Purest White. It’s a romantic drama about a woman and her ex-con lover, and has all the tension and longing of a Wong Kar Wai film like Chungking Express.

If you love this, watch: Suzhou River (Lou Ye, 2000), Mountains May Depart (Jia Zhangke, 2015).

Taste of Cherry (Directed by Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1997)

In Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle’s dark night of the soul includes blood and carnage, but Taste of Cherry tackles the subjects very differently. A man drives around the outskirts of Tehran, looking for someone who will help him with his crisis. He picks up passengers, talks to them about his problem and asks for their help, but each person has their own philosophy, and so he spends the day out on the dusty road. But despite the simplicity of the story, it has just the same depth, and even more tenderness than Taxi Driver.

If you love this, watch: The Wind Will Carry Us (Abbas Kiarostami, 1999), Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984).

Chocolat (Directed by Claire Denis, French Cameroon, 1988)

Claire Denis grew up in french africa, and her duvet feature is about just that. And though it’s a film filled with warmth and tender emotion, it’s not one that looks fondly on the place’s racial segregation and discrimination. 

The centre of the film is Protee, a stoic young man and the head “boy” for the house (played by an exquisite Isaac De Bankole). He is the perfect manservant– attentive, unflagging, handsome, and competent– and he’s the closest friend of the ‘massa’s’ young daughter. But for all his wonderful traits he’s a black servant in a white-controlled Africa. Denis carefully weaves between the beauty of her childhood, of her friendship with Protee, and the ugliness of the French’s colonialism– and the ending is stunning.

If you love this, watch: Two Lines, (Selim Evci, 2008), Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010).

The 400 Blows (Directed by François Truffaut, France, 1959)

My least favourite film on this exquisite list, and yet the most revered is French New Wave legend François Truffaut’s magnum opus. In it, a young boy turns to delinquency after a handful of trials and tribulations in post-world war II France. It’s a pivotal piece of cinema history, and a moving story of how the treatment of children can change their life– and one of Wes Anderson’s favourite movies too.

If you love this, watch: Jules and Jim (François Truffaut, 1962), Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, 1959).

Honourable Mentions

This easily could have been a list like IMDb’s top 250 movies or a history of cinema list– add in Citizen Kane, or A Trip to the Moon. And even what it is now is quite like one of Mubi’s Film Festival Favourites lists, but watching these movies, you can quickly see the breadth of Mubi’s selection. Even so, there are a couple other styles that deserve a mention.

  • 36th Chamber of Shaolin – Mubi is not so infatuated with the festival circuit that it doesn’t recognise genre classics like the Shaw Brothers’ martial arts films and horror classics (like There’s Nothing Out There, and my beloved Battle Royale).
  • This Much I Know To Be True (2022) – Australia’s Andrew Dominik documents cult icons Nick Cave and Warren Ellis as they develop their latest studio albums (it’s a Mubi original too).
  • The Plains (David Easteal, 2022) – Australia’s contribution to film tends to be underappreciated, so it’s nice to see that recent film fest favourites make it to Mubi (though it seems to be the only Australian movie on the channel at the moment).

And for a free month of MUBI, sign up with my referral link.

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