This is always the movie I recommend because so few people I know have seen it. Steven Soderbergh is a hugely successful director but he was pretty much adrift during the nineties. He made a huge splash with Sex, Lies, and Videotape (see that one too if you haven’t), which is arguably the quintessential Sundance movie. Then he kind of faded until coming back in a huge way with Erin Brockovich and Traffic, both in 2000. George Clooney – still basically just the dude from E.R. – and Jennifer Lopez were both transitioning to huge movie careers. One of them sustained it, the other not so much. It’s an Elmore Leonard adaptation, which, along with Jackie Brown and Get Shorty, was pretty fashionable at the time. It’s a pretty simple cops and criminals caper but it’s stylish and cool and holds up twenty-eight years later. See it.

Given all the of the Paul Thomas Anderson fanboys that are out there – I swear the amount of middle aged men dressed like Leo from One Battle After Another this Halloween was both astounding and perfectly expected – I’m surprised more people haven’t seen his first movie. It’s a gritty Vegas crime drama about a flawed man played by Philip Baker Hall (Detective Bookman) looking for redemption. I still marvel at how a twenty-five-year-old, pre-Boogie Nights Paul Thomas Anderson got the cast that he did: Gwyneth Paltrow, John C. Reilly, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Samuel L. Jackson. Watching this movie is like listening to your favorite band’s first album before they signed to a major label. It’s the same sound but rawer. This movie is well shot and well acted and worth your time.

Hal Ashby was on a tear in the 70’s. He churned out classic movie after classic movie for a decade. A few years after winning the Oscar for editing In the Heat of the Night he made The Landlord, Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, Bound for Glory, Coming Home, and Being There. Each of these is a classic, the subject matter is varied, and they are packed with Hollywood legends like Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda, Bruce Dern, and Jack Nicholson. (Yeah, I left out Jon Voight because fuck that guy. Also, don’t bother with Ashby’s movies from the eighties: stay away from drugs, kids.) But let’s talk about The Last Detail. Two Navy lifers are tasked with taking a young Naval officer to prison. It’s a road trip movie, a buddy movie, and a time capsule of the seventies. I have to be honest, I never really got Jack Nicholson until I started watching his movies from the seventies. Between this and Five Easy Pieces, I swear I’d watch a seven-hour movie of Nicholson tying his shoes. This movie also features a young, sane Randy Quaid in an Oscar nominated performance.

Since I just mentioned it, you should also watch The Landlord. You thought Brooklyn gentrification was bad in recent decades? Well, this Beau Bridges starring movie proves it’s been around for a long ass time. For you Park Slope residents, you know that second floor yoga studio on 6th Ave and St. Mark’s that kind of looks like a fishbowl? It’s in a montage in this movie, only it’s a hair salon, which, now that I think about it, is a pretty poignant metaphor for the neighborhood. The final scene takes place in Brooklyn Heights outside an apartment building right down the street from the Moonstruck house and the apartment exterior for Three Days of the Condor. This one is a bit harder to find but go for it. (Also, I have no idea why the poster design is like that, I promise you this is not a soft core porn movie.)

Tom McCarthy was a brother-in-law in Meet the Parents. He was also the unscrupulous reporter in the last – and worst – season of The Wire. I’m pretty sure he did improv with Amy Poehler at Boston College. He’s also a bonkers good director. The Station Agent stars Peter Dinklage, in his first major starring role, Patricia Clarkson, and Bobby Cannavale (and a small role for Joe Lo Truglio for The State obsessives). It’s got the best of all indie movies: quirky characters, unlikely friendships, and healing from trauma.

Tom McCarthy also directed Win-Win. Paul Giamatti stars as a lawyer who makes a desperate, unethical decision that results in him fostering a teenage boy who happens to be a gifted wrestler. I’ve never cared for wresting, be it WWE or otherwise, but Kyle (played by Alex Shaffer, a real-life New Jersey state champion wrestler) brings so much skill to the screen, it’s mesmerizing. Kyle is also just such a damn good kid that you can’t help but root for him off the mat. And if you don’t fall in love with Amy Ryan in this movie, there is something wrong with you.

Director and star Vincent Gallo is weird as hell but I genuinely love this movie. It’s like a French new wave movie set in Buffalo. Billy Brown has recently been freed from prison for taking the fall for a crime in order to pay back a debt over a big game, not-so-loosely inspired by the Buffalo Bills Super Bowl XXV loss. In order to get a car, he abducts angelic Christina Ricci to pay a visit to his parents and settle an old score. Starring Ben Gazzara, Anjelica Huston, Kevin Corrigan, pre-The Wrestler “wait, is that Mickey Rourke?!” Mickey Rourke, Rosanna Arquette, it’s weird, it’s sad, and it’s intentionally and unintentionally (though, that was probably the intention) funny. The sequence at the end in Scott Wood’s strip club set to a Yes song that isn’t “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” is worth the whole damn movie.

I saw this in the theater when it came out. I may have been the only one. This movie is hilarious and it is prime Bill Murray. We’re talking the original maverick comedic wiseass Bill Muarry, not reinvented, tragicomic, Sofia Coppola Wes Anderson Bill Murray. Quick Change came out between Scrooged and Groundhog Day. Yeah, THAT fucking Bill Murray. But I bet you’ve never seen it. A paean to the highs and lows of living in New York City disguised as a comedic heist movie. The trio of Grimm, his girlfriend Phyllis (Geena Davis) and their accomplice Loomis (a surprisingly still sane Randy Quaid) need to get to the airport to abscond with their money. It doesn’t go well. Starring Jason Robards (Jason fucking Robards, for Christ’s sake), Tony Shaloub, a young Stanley Tucci, Philip Boscoe (you might not recognize the name but you know him), Phil Hartman, and Kurtwood Smith this film still holds up. And this isn’t exactly a spoiler but a bit of a clue: I think Inside Man stole its bank robbery technique from this film but maybe that’s just me.

Shane Black wrote Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout. They’re not exactly cinematic masterpieces but they’re great flicks. Black knows he’s genre. Since the late eighties and early nineties, he’s clearly been at work honing his buddy cop (neither of the protagonist duos in these films feature an actual police officer but that’s not the point) storytelling skills and created two entertaining movies. The Nice Guys is the Russell Crow/Ryan Gosling one. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is the Robert Downey Jr./Val Kilmer one. No need for plot descriptions, just go in blind. They won’t blow your mind. They won’t stay with you for weeks after watching them. They’re just fun. Friday night watching at its finest.

Confess, Fletch is from the canon of Gregory McDonald’s novels, unlike Fletch Lives, which as a sequel made for Chevy Chase. Greg Mottola is another director from the Apatow universe (he directed episodes of excellent, little-seen Undeclared, as well as the McLovin biopic Superbad). The first Fletch movie was a great vehicle for Chevy Chase but the book is much darker (for example, while undercover on the beach, Fletch shacks up with a fifteen year old heroin addict). Confess, Fletch stays truer to the books. It contains fewer sketch comedy influenced impressions and far less slapstick while maintaining Irwin Fletcher’s charm, which makes John Hamm a perfect choice for the lead. It’s a great comedy in that it’s a mystery that is more witty than laugh-out-loud funny. John Slattery makes an appearance and Roy Wood Jr.’s subdued performance as Inspector Monroe is delightful.

Speaking of Motolla, I consider his masterpiece to be Adventureland. It’s a stylish period piece (released in 2009, it takes please at least 20 years prior) with a soundtrack by Yo La Tengo featuring songs from The Replacements and Lou Reed. It’s not too far off the mark to call this an American Pie for grownups because, while it might not center around the loss of virginity, it’s a summer comedy coming-of-age movie about young love. Jesse Eisenberg keeps his neuroses in check for an hour and a half and Kristen Stewart successfully pulls of the role of indie dream girl (a far cry from the manic pixie dream girl in that she’s not quirky, just too cool for me). For fans of Freaks and Geeks (and Silicon Valley if that’s your bag) Martin Starr is always a welcome sight. Ryan Reynolds, who at the time was in a bit of a career free fall, plays a memorable supporting role.