Happy Yorkshire Day!

Roundhay Garden Scene (Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, 1888)

Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge (Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, 1888)

July 2026

Best First Viewings:

Cinema of Unease: A Personal Journey by Sam Neill (Judy Rymer, Sam Neill, 1995) - R.I.P. Sam Neill (1947-2026)

Beggars of Life (William A. Wellman, 1928)

Mr. Sleeman Is Coming (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)

The Dance of the Damned Women (Ingmar Bergman, 1976)

A Feud in the Kentucky Hills (D.W. Griffith, 1912)

The Shepherd of the Hills (Henry Hathaway, 1941)

The Growler Story (John Ford, 1957)

The Fallen Idol (Carol Reed, 1948)

Seeing in the Rain (Chris Gallagher, 1982)

Stellar (Stan Brakhage, 1993)

Books Read:

Making Ryan's Daughter: The Myths, Madness and Mastery by Paul Benedict Rowan

Open Range - Negotiating a Traditional Western in the 21st Century by Johannes Steinl (Seminar paper, eBook edition)

A Practical Guide to Happiness in Adults on the Autism Spectrum: A Positive Psychology Approach by Victoria Honeybourne

John Ford, Revised and Enlarged Edition (Movie Paperbacks) by Peter Bogdanovich

Stagecoach (BFI Film Classics) by Edward Buscombe

The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend by Glenn Frankel

Obsession by Lionel White

The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others' Eyes by C.S. Lewis

Cat Chaser by Elmore Leonard

Bergman on Bergman: Interviews with Ingmar Bergman by Ingmar Bergman, Stig Björkman, Torsten Manns, Jonas Sima

June 2026

Best First Viewings:

To Save Her Soul (D.W. Griffith, 1909)

Two Friends (Jane Campion, 1986)

Paper Trail (Don Hertzfeldt, 2026)

EVANGELION 30th Anniversary Special Screening (Naoyuki Asano, 2026)

The Devil's Hand (Maurice Tourneur, 1943)

The Halliday Brand (Joseph H. Lewis, 1957)

Monte Walsh (Simon Wincer, 2003)

Mists of Time (Patrick Carey, 1968)

Pistol Duel (Gabriel Veyre, 1896)

Barbarella (Roger Vadim, 1968)

The Fall of the Roman Empire (Anthony Mann, 1964)

David Lean: A Self Portrait (Thomas Craven, 1971)

Books Read:

They Also Serve by Donald E. Westlake (short story/ebook)

The Risk Profession by Donald E. Westlake (short story/ebook)

Confessions by Saint Augustine

Hombre by Elmore Leonard

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (BFI Film Classics) by Lucy Fischer

A Very Easy Death by Simone de Beauvoir

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

May 2026

Best First Viewings:

The White Sister (Henry King, 1923)

La Croisée des Chemins (Jean-Claude Brisseau, 1976)

Peking Opera Blues (Tsui Hark, 1986)

Devil’s Doorway (Anthony Mann, 1950)

A Day in Barbagia (Vittorio De Seta, 1958)

The Big Combo (Joseph H. Lewis, 1955)

Aniki-Bóbó (Manoel de Oliveira, 1942)

'The Westerner' Episode 12: Hand on the Gun (Sam Peckinpah, 1960)

Books Read:

Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene

The Gardener's Son: A Screenplay by Cormac McCarthy

Horizons West: Directing the Western from John Ford to Clint Eastwood by Jim Kitses

Dandelions by Yasunari Kawabata

Autism in Adults by Luke Beardon

April 2026

Best First Viewings:

The Blessed Ones (Ingmar Bergman, 1986)

Slightly Scarlet (Allan Dwan, 1956)

Samson and Delilah (Cecil B. DeMille, 1949)

Stage Fright (Alfred Hitchcock, 1950)

Wolf Lowry (William S. Hart, 1917)

The Winning of Barbara Worth (Henry King, 1926)

Laugh, Clown, Laugh (Herbert Brenon, 1928)

Library (Nathaniel Dorsky, Jerome Hiler, 1970)

François Couperin: Music for a Dying King (Tony Scull, 1992)

City Hall (Frederick Wiseman, 2020)

Ingmar Bergman: On Life and Work (Jörn Donner, 1998)

What’s Wrong With The World (Jean-Luc Godard, 1996)

Books Read:

True Grit by Charles Portis

The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis

The Seventh Seal (BFI Film Classics) by Melvyn Bragg

Ingmar Bergman: The Life and Films of the Last Great European Director by Geoffrey MacNab

Mystery and Manners by Flannery O'Connor

The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form by Cormac McCarthy

Pick-Up by Charles Willeford

March 2026

Best First Viewings:

Night at the Crossroads (Jean Renoir, 1932)

La Chienne (Jean Renoir, 1931)

Kobayashi Issa (Fumio Kamei, 1941)

Easter in Sicily (Vittorio De Seta, 1955)

Blood on Wolf Mountain (Fei Mu, 1936)

Hélas Pour Moi (Jean-Luc Godard, 1993)

Lonesome Dove (Simon Wincer, 1989)

Barabbas (Richard Fleischer, 1961)

The Necklace (Claude Chabrol, 2007)

Charade (Stanley Donen, 1963)

Louis Lumière (Éric Rohmer, 1968)

Day of the Badman (Harry Keller, 1958)

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (Bertrand Blier, 1978)

They Would Elope (D.W. Griffith, 1909)

Mr. Humphreys and His Inheritance (Tony Scull, 1976)

The Birth, The Life and the Death of Christ (Alice Guy-Blaché, 1906)

Solomon and Sheba (King Vidor, 1959)

Books Read:

Pietr the Latvian by Georges Simenon

Of Mutability by Jo Shapcott

The Sea and Poison by Shūsaku Endō

Letters of James Agee to Father Flye by James Agee, James Harold Flye

The Golem by Gustav Meyrink

Roman Polanski: A Life in Exile by Julia Ain-Krupa

World Book Day: 5th March

World Poetry Day: 21st March

February 2026

Best First Viewings:

The Time to Live and the Time to Die (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1985)

Washerwomen on the River (Auguste Lumière, Louis Lumière, 1897)

The Sleeping Beauty (Catherine Breillat, 2010)

Nymphlight (Joseph Cornell, 1957)

Sea Countrymen (Vittorio De Seta, 1955)

Message of Greetings: Prix suisse / My Thanks / Dead or Alive / Message de salutations: Prix suisse / remerciements / mort ou vif (Jean-Luc Godard, 2015)

Sentimental Romance (Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Aleksandrov, 1930)

Vibration of Granada/Vibración de Granada  (José Val del Omar, 1935)

Books Read:

John Wayne's America: The Politics of Celebrity by Garry Wills

Wraiths of the Broken Land by S. Craig Zahler

Conversations with Vladimir Nabokov by Robert Golla (Editor), Vladimir Nabokov

The Quiet American by Graham Greene

January 2026

Best First Viewings:

Congregation Leaving St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Dublin (1901)

David and Bathsheba (Henry King, 1951)

I Desire Mercy, Not Sacrifice (Gabriel Lizama (AKA Liz Taylor), 2026)

Joe Dakota (Richard Bartlett, 1957)

Kill Me Again (John Dahl, 1989)

Midwinter Sacrifice/Midvinterblot (Gösta Werner, 1946)

The Music of Nilsson (1971)

Over Silent Paths (D.W. Griffith, 1910)

The Shrouds (David Cronenberg, 2024)

Where to Land (Hal Hartley, 2025)

Books Read:

Bank Shot by Donald E. Westlake

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

The Magic Hours: The Films and Hidden Life of Terrence Malick by John Bleasdale

Detour (BFI Film Classics) by Noah Isenberg

Blues of a Lifetime: The Autobiography of Cornell Woolrich by Cornell Woolrich/Mark T. Bassett (editor)

Bradbury Speaks: Too Soon from the Cave, Too Far from the Stars by Ray Bradbury

Untypical: How the World Isn’t Built for Autistic People and What We Should All Do About it by Pete Wharmby