I've been watching a lot of old, classic movies over the last few years, largely through collecting laserdiscs, and I've found it really rewarding. So like with the 1940s and 1950s, I'm going to give my top 10 film recommendations for this decade. My knowledge of this decade's films is far from exhaustive, and I don't have any kind of film studies background or anything, but hopefully I can convince you that at least 1 or 2 of these films is worth watching.

A romantic drama film that uses pool as a metaphor for finding oneself. Iconic performances, a solid script, and a 40 hour session of pool against a guy named Minnesota Fats. What more could you want?

Anthony Perkins plays an office worker who finds himself "under arrest" one morning for a crime that no one will explain to him. What follows is a dream logic plot about bureaucracy, corruption, and legal malpractice with an explosive ending. This was the first time Orson Welles had full control of a production in a long time, and he gives us some of the best visuals he ever put on screen. There was a time when I was baffled that Welles was approached to direct Altered States, but after seeing this, I can see why they thought he'd be perfect for something that trippy.

A mysterious stranger comes to a town run by two groups of evil doers and decides to make it his business to stop them. If that sounds like a Western, there's two reasons for that:

1. Akira Kurosawa was a big fan of John Ford and liked Westerns. He used techniques from them plenty of times, but this film feels the most like a Western overall to me.

2. I'm not the only person who saw that, as Sergio Leone turned it into the Clint Eastwood breakout film A Fistful of Dollars, a surprisingly good remake that only narrowly avoided being on this list.

I love Toshiro Mifune in this film, particularly when he just looks so delighted to be fucking with these assholes. If you ever wondered why he's so iconic, this is a good place to start. One of best samurai films ever made.