# Minimalist film

Minimalist cinema is related to the art and philosophy of minimalism.

## Background

In film, minimalism usually is associated with filmmakers such as Robert Bresson, Chantal Akerman, Carl Theodor Dreyer, and Yasujirō Ozu. Their films typically tell a simple story with straightforward camera usage and minimal use of score. Paul Schrader named their kind of cinema: "transcendental cinema".
Currently a commitment to minimalist filmmaking can be seen in film movements such as Dogme 95, mumblecore, and the Romanian New Wave. Abbas Kiarostami, Elia Suleiman, and Kelly Reichardt are also considered minimalist filmmakers.
The Minimalists – Joshua Fields Millburn, Ryan Nicodemus, and Matt D'Avella – directed and produced the film Minimalism: A Documentary, which showcased the idea of minimal living in the modern world.

## Notable filmmakers

This type of film includes the works of directors like:
* Michelangelo Antonioni
* James Benning
* Robert Bresson
* John Carpenter
* John Cassavetes
* Paul Driessen
* Morgan Fisher
* Hollis Frampton
* Ernie Gehr
* Larry Gottheim
* Don Hertzfeldt
* Walter Hill
* Jim Jarmusch
* Abbas Kiarostami
* Louis Malle
* Norman McLaren
* Yasujirō Ozu
* Jafar Panahi
* Kelly Reichardt
* Peter Roehr
* Gus van Sant
* Don Siegel
* Michael Snow
* Alexander Sokurov
* Tsai Ming-Liang
* Andy Warhol
* Chloé Zhao

## List of notable minimalist films
### 1920-1949

| Year | Film | Director |
| 1928 | The Passion of Joan of Arc | Carl Theodor Dreyer |
| 1940 | Dots | Norman McLaren |
| 1946 | Paisan | Roberto Rossellini |
| 1948 | Rope | Alfred Hitchcock |
| 1949 | I Shot Jesse James | Samuel Fuller |
| 1949 | Begone Dull Care | Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren |

### 1950-1959

| Year | Film | Director |
| 1951 | Gerald McBoing Boing | Robert Cannon |
| 1953 | Monsieur Hulot's Holiday | Jacques Tati |
| 1953 | The Tell Tale Heart | Ted Parmelee |
| 1953 | Tokyo Story | Yasujirō Ozu |
| 1954 | Billy Boy | Tex Avery |
| 1955 | The Big Combo | Joseph H. Lewis |
| 1955 | Ordet | Carl Theodore Dreyer |
| 1956 | A Man Escaped | Robert Bresson |
| 1956 | Invasion of the Body Snatchers | Don Siegel |
| 1956 | The Red Balloon | Albert Lamorisse |
| 1957 | 12 Angry Men | Sidney Lumet |
| 1958 | Elevator to the Gallows | Louis Malle |
| 1958 | Murder by Contract | Irving Lerner |
| 1959 | Plan 9 from Outer Space | Ed Wood |

### 1960-1969

| Year | Film | Director |
| 1961 | Surogat | Dušan Vukotić |
| 1962 | An Autumn Afternoon | Yasujirō Ozu |
| 1962 | Eegah | Arch Hall Sr. |
| 1963 | Winter Light | Ingmar Bergman |
| 1964 | Diamonds of the Night | Jan Němec |
| 1964 | Fail Safe | Sidney Lumet |
| 1964 | Red Desert | Michelangelo Antonioni |
| 1966 | Au hasard Balthazar | Robert Bresson |
| 1967 | Mouchette | Robert Bresson |
| 1967 | Playtime | Jacques Tati |
| 1967 | Wavelength | Michael Snow |
| 1968 | The Fly | Vladimir Jutrisa and Aleksandar Marks |
| 1968 | 2001: A Space Odyssey | Stanley Kubrick |
| 1968 | Surface Tension | Hollis Frampton |
| 1969 | Bambi Meets Godzilla | Marv Newland |
| 1969 | Lemon | Hollis Frampton |

### 1970-1979

| Year | Film | Director |
| 1970 | Serene Velocity | Ernie Gehr |
| 1971 | Duel | Steven Spielberg |
| 1971 | Two-Lane Blacktop | Monte Hellman |
| 1972 | Silent Running | Douglas Trumbull |
| 1973 | Fantastic Planet | Rene Laloux |
| 1974 | Dark Star | John Carpenter |
| 1974 | Sisyphus | Marcell Jankovics |
| 1975 | Grey Gardens | Albert and David Maysles |
| 1975 | Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles | Chantal Akerman |
| 1976 | Assault on Precinct 13 | John Carpenter |
| 1976 | Taxi Driver | Martin Scorsese |
| 1977 | David | Paul Driessen |
| 1977 | Suspiria | Dario Argento |
| 1978 | Days of Heaven | Terrence Malick |
| 1978 | The Driver | Walter Hill |
| 1978 | Halloween | John Carpenter |
| 1979 | Mad Max | George Miller |

### 1980-1989

| Year | Film | Director |
| 1981 | My Dinner with Andre | Louis Malle |
| 1982 | Liquid Sky | Slava Tsukerman |
| 1983 | Koyaanisqatsi | Godfrey Reggio |
| 1984 | Charade | Jon Minnis |
| 1984 | Secret Honor | Robert Altman |
| 1984 | Stop Making Sense | Jonathan Demme |
| 1984 | Stranger Than Paradise | Jim Jarmusch |
| 1986 | Down by Law | Jim Jarmusch |
| 1986 | Luxo Jr. | John Lasseter |
| 1987 | Full Metal Jacket | Stanley Kubrick |
| 1987 | Swimming to Cambodia | Jonathan Demme |
| 1988 | Alice | Jan Svankmajer |
| 1988 | It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books | Richard Linklater |
| 1989 | Leningrad Cowboys Go America | Aki Kaurismaki |
| 1989 | The Seventh Continent | Michael Haneke |

### 1990-1999

| Year | Film | Director |
| 1990 | The Match Factory Girl | Aki Kaurismäki |
| 1990 | Metropolitan | Whit Stillman |
| 1993 | Blue | Derek Jarman |
| 1994 | Chungking Express | Wong Kar-wai |
| 1994 | Clerks | Kevin Smith |
| 1995 | Before Sunrise | Richard Linklater |
| 1995 | Safe | Todd Haynes |
| 1997 | Gattaca | Andrew Niccol |
| 1997 | Little Dieter Needs to Fly | Werner Herzog |
| 1997 | A Taste of Cherry | Abbas Kiarostami |
| 1998 | Festen | Thomas Vinterberg |
| 1999 | American Beauty | Sam Mendes |
| 1999 | The Blair Witch Project | Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez |
| 1999 | The Wind Will Carry Us | Abbas Kiarostami |

### 2000-2009

| Year | Film | Director |
| 2000 | Cast Away | Robert Zemeckis |
| 2000 | In the Mood for Love | Wong Kar-wai |
| 2000 | Unbreakable | M. Night Shyamalan |
| 2001 | Y tu mamá también | Alfonso Cuarón |
| 2001 | Tape | Richard Linklater |
| 2002 | Gerry | Gus van Sant |
| 2002 | Ten | Abbas Kiarostami |
| 2003 | Dogville | Lars von Trier |
| 2003 | Open Water | Chris Kentis |
| 2003 | The Triplets of Belleville | Sylvain Chomet |
| 2004 | Before Sunset | Richard Linklater |
| 2004 | Napoleon Dynamite | Jared Hess |
| 2005 | Brick | Rian Johnson |
| 2005 | The Death of Mr. Lazarescu | Cristi Puiu |
| 2005 | Hard Candy | David Slade |
| 2006 | Old Joy | Kelly Reichardt |
| 2007 | I'm Not There | Todd Haynes |
| 2007 | Once | John Carney |
| 2007 | There Will Be Blood | Paul Thomas Anderson |
| 2008 | Baghead | Jay and Mark Duplass |
| 2008 | WALL-E | Andrew Stanton |
| 2008 | Wendy and Lucy | Kelly Reichardt |
| 2009 | 500 Days of Summer | Marc Webb |
| 2009 | Moon | Duncan Jones |

### 2010-2019

| Year | Film | Director |
| 2010 | 127 Hours | Danny Boyle |
| 2010 | Beyond the Black Rainbow | Panos Cosmatos |
| 2010 | Winter's Bone | Debra Granik |
| 2011 | Hanna | Joe Wright |
| 2011 | Once Upon a Time in Anatolia | Nuri Bilge Ceylan |
| 2011 | The Turin Horse | Ágnes Hranitzky and Bela Tarr |
| 2012 | It's Such a Beautiful Day | Don Hertzfeldt |
| 2012 | The Master | Paul Thomas Anderson |
| 2012 | Moonrise Kingdom | Wes Anderson |
| 2013 | All Is Lost | J.C. Chandor |
| 2013 | Gravity | Alfonso Cuarón |
| 2013 | Before Midnight | Richard Linklater |
| 2013 | Her | Spike Jonze |
| 2013 | Locke | Steven Knight |
| 2013 | Only Lovers Left Alive | Jim Jarmusch |
| 2013 | Under the Skin | Jonathan Glazer |
| 2013 | Visitors | Godfrey Reggio |
| 2014 | Ex Machina | Alex Garland |
| 2014 | It Follows | David Robert Mitchell |
| 2015 | The Killing of a Sacred Deer | Yorgos Lanthimos |
| 2015 | The Revenant | Alejandro González Iñárritu |
| 2015 | Room | Lenny Abrahamson |
| 2016 | Certain Women | Kelly Reichardt |
| 2016 | My Life as a Zucchini | Claude Barras |
| 2016 | Piper | Alan Barillaro |
| 2016 | The Red Turtle | Michael Dudok de Wit |
| 2016 | 10 Cloverfield Lane | Dan Trachtenberg |
| 2017 | Lady Bird | Greta Gerwig |
| 2017 | The Rider | Chloé Zhao |
| 2018 | A Quiet Place | John Krasinski |
| 2018 | Roma | Alfonso Cuarón |
| 2019 | Away | Gints Zilbalodis |
| 2019 | First Cow | Kelly Reichardt |
| 2019 | Sound of Metal | Darius Marder |

### 2020 onwards

| Year | Film | Director |
| 2020 | Friend of the World | Brian Patrick Butler |
| 2020 | If Anything Happens I Love You | Will McCormack and Michael Govier |
| 2020 | Minari | Lee Isaac Chung |
| 2020 | Nomadland | Chloé Zhao |
| 2020 | Wolfwalkers | Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart |
| 2020 | The Woman Who Ran | Hong Sang-soo |
| 2021 | Belfast | Kenneth Branagh |
| 2021 | Drive My Car | Ryusuke Hamaguchi |
| 2021 | The Tragedy of Macbeth | Joel Coen |
| 2021 | Pig | Michael Sarnoski |
| 2022 | Marcel the Shell with Shoes On | Dean Fleischer Camp |
| 2022 | My Year of Dicks | Sara Gunnarsdóttir |
| 2022 | Saint Omer | Alice Diop |
| 2022 | Tár | Todd Field |
| 2022 | Women Talking | Sarah Polley |
| 2023 | Fallen Leaves | Aki Kaurismäki |
| 2023 | Past Lives | Celine Song |
| 2023 | Perfect Days | Wim Wenders |
| 2023 | Robot Dreams | Pablo Berger |
| 2023 | Showing Up | Kelly Reichardt |
| 2024 | All We Imagine as Light | Payal Kapadia |
| 2024 | Flow | Gints Zilbalodis |
| 2024 | In the Shadow of the Cypress | Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani |