Bob Fosse surprised everyone in '74, showing there was more to his dark vision than nimble dance steps. He riffs permissively on Lenny Bruce's stand-up routines (which were never routine), and Dustin Hoffman's rarely been bolder. Somehow nominated for loads of Oscars while railing against the establishment's buffoonery.
The definitive example of High Godard (that brief period after his spectacular debut, À Bout De Souffle, and before the left-wing quasi-revolutionary abstractions of British Sounds and Passion), Bande À Part is a veritable checklist of stylish and insouciant Nouvelle Vague chic. There's the casually one-dimensional protagonists, in this case pseudo-gangsters Franz (Sami Frey) and Arthur (Claude Brasseur) and their new playmate Odile (Anna Karina).
Dennis Hopper-directed noir-by-numbers from 1990. Don Johnson's ambiguous stranger drifts into a sultry small town to run a con, and gets caught between lust for married Virginia Madsen and troubled teen Jennifer Connelly. Routine; but cherish this movie for the once-in-a-lifetime soundtrack Hopper persuaded Miles Davis, John Lee Hooker and Taj Mahal to jam.