6. River’s Edge (1986)
Linklater has minced no words when it comes to articulating his well-documented disdain for 1980s cinema, a transformative era for the movie industry marked by the sharp decline of auteur and character-driven films and the rise of multi-billion franchises and four-quadrant blockbusters: “It was an apocalyptic time, the studios were running scared and starting to be run by corporations and things got formulaic very fast. It’s a miracle anything good was made afterwards.” One exception to the rule is this early Keanu Reeves vehicle about a group of high-school buddies dealing with trauma, guilt, and conflicted loyalties after one of them kills another.
“What a revelation “River’s Edge” was when it came out. I don’t know what the pitch to get this film made is. It’s just amazing that a studio greenlit in the first place, nobody’s making something like this today,” stated Linklater during a presentation of the film in the Austin Film Society back in 2015. “It’s a bummer subject with a very dark, grim setting, but there’s a lot of comedy in there too and the entire cast is wonderful and carries it. Many think Crispin Glover’s performance is too big and ruins the film, but I will always think he’s great — perfect for the role and the lightning rod of the movie.”
7. A Colt is My Passport (1967)
Do you like black-and-white film noir? How about spaghetti Westerns? Do French New Wave films tickle your fancy? If you said yes to any or all above, you should keep tabs on “A Colt is My Passport” — a shoo-in candidate for the coolest movie title of all time crown and a film that stakes a legitimate claim to being one of the most stylish Japanese movies ever.
Ambiguity is the name of the game in this sumptuously shot, melancholy crime thriller oozing with atmosphere, badass characters, and gloriously over-the-top showdowns that zeroes in on a lone wolf contract killer earning a dime carrying out hit jobs for rival Yakuza gangs who must deal with the bloody aftermath of his last contract after being double-crossed and left out to dry by his duplicitous employer.
While rarely mentioned in the same breath as perennial Criterion Channel cult favorites like “Tokyo Drifter” and “Branded to Kill”, this Joe Shishido-led hard-boiled crime saga thoroughly deserves a place alongside the genre’s cream of the crop and has experienced renewed interest lately after being briefly featured in the montage of hit men films in Richard Linklater’s smash hit.
8. White Dog (1982)
Much like Linklater, director Sam Fuller managed to move across different genres and thrive both within and outside Hollywood’s rigid studio system while somehow always marching to the beat of his own drum. A former NYC journalist and war veteran turned self-taught auteur, Fuller was hailed by Linklater as a “god to all filmmakers” during a conversation following a 2014 screening at the Marchesa Hall & Theatre of this 1982 gnarly thriller, an uncompromising portrait of systemic racism in America through the lens of a black trainer trying to decondition a vicious dog that’s been raised to attack and kill black people.
During the chat, Linklater noted how the idea that a 70-year-old Fuller was mounting a big career comeback in his twilight years was incredibly exciting. However, due to its controversial subject matter, you couldn’t actually find this rabble-rouser anywhere for the better part of the 1980s as it was buried by the studio and unceremoniously pulled from theaters after it came under heat by the NAAP. Paramount would continue to deny its existence for almost 25 years until the film ultimately enjoyed a second life after receiving its first ever home release.
“It’s a weird movie for sure — a sort of odd leftover from the 1970s that really stays with you. Fuller is the ultimate maverick, a total outsider”.
9. Landscape Suicide (1986)
In 2021, Linklater had a chance to sit down with the famed boutique Blu-Ray label Criterion to pick out some personal favorite movie titles that shaped his taste and critical voice in “Adventures in Moviegoing”. In addition to brand-name screen titans like Paul Schrader (“Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters”), Eric Rohmer (“The Green Ray”), and Mike Leigh (“High Hopes”), the lesser-known arthouse director James Benning also earned glowing praise from Linklater, who championed him as “one of our country’s great visual artists” while likening his “innovative” approach to film to one of a painter.
Linklater conceded to have embellished a stranger-than-life truth 2001 article about a professor who moonlighted as a hit man for law enforcement for his latest Netflix rom-com. In turn, “Landscape Suicide” spares no gruesome detail in charting through the chilling stories behind two of America’s most notorious serial killers: Ed Gein and Bernadette Protti. “It’s a blurred line between facts and fiction, the performances are sort of detached, but you believe them so thoroughly,” Linklater told Peter Becker, “I just love the fascinating mental and visual trip James takes you on.”
Benning was actually one of the first out-of-town invitees to visit Linklater’s Austin Film Society in the 1980s, and the two have remained close ever since. Check out the 2013 doc “Double Play” if you’d like to know more about their long-standing friendship.
10. In Bruges (2008)
In the film that turned director Martin McDonagh into a global household name, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson chew up the scenery and perfectly play off each other as an unlikely pair of Irish hit men nervously waiting for their next mission while hiding out in Bruges, Belgium following a botched job. It’s a sharply funny and wildly enjoyable film that presents itself as a deceptively broad, irreverent buddy comedy of sorts before revealing its true colors as a profound and surprisingly mature meditation on friendship, guilt and finding one’s true purpose.
One of the many hitman movies featured by Richard Linklater around the 18-minute mark of his buzzy Netflix smash hit, “In Bruges” continues to be guidepost today in how to thread the needle between gnarly bursts of violence and laugh-out-loud moments of levity and doubles down as a perfect palette cleanser to decompress after watching “Hit Man”. We suggest you add McDonagh’s 2022s “The Banshees of Inisherin” to your streaming queue if you’re looking for another full serving of Farrell-Gleeson shenanigans.