The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever features experts and enthusiasts and, well, their favorite films of every year ever. Host Tristan Ettleman sits down with a new guest every week to dive into the history and beauty of some of the best movies to ever come out of the cinematic medium.
Daisuke Miyao, Professor and the Hajime Mori Chair in Japanese Language and Literature at the University of California, San Diego, is the author of Sessue Hayakawa: Silent Cinema and Transnational Stardom (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EHNYPRK?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback). His ultimate selection factors greatly into that book, but also picks an international array of differing genres and forms.
Daisuke is also the author of Ozu and the Ethics of Indeterminacy (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1478033320?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback), Le Samouraï: BFI Film Classics (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1839029633?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback), Japonisme and the Birth of Cinema (https://www.amazon.com/dp/147800942X?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback), Cinema Is a Cat: A Cat Lover’s Introduction to Film Studies (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0824879708?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback), and The Aesthetics of Shadow: Lighting and Japanese Cinema (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0822354225?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback). He is also the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Cinema (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199731667?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback) and the co-editor of The World of Benshi (https://yanai-initiative.ucla.edu/publication/the-world-of-the-benshi) with Michael Emerich and Transnational Cinematography Studies (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1498524273?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback) with Lindsay Coleman and Roberto Schaefer.
Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list (https://www.the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list) to submit your own top five for 1915!
Mentioned media:
The Cheat (1915) - Cecil B. DeMille (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0EOECT5oSY)
The Tramp (1915) - Charlie Chaplin (https://youtu.be/rU0RQrqcrmo?si=vt9xU777DPh1FzaU)
Les Vampires (1915) - Louis Feuillade (https://youtu.be/IgB4m3arSAw?si=1XSICpTiEYnyzUqF)
The Golem (1915) - Paul Wegener and Henrik Galeen (https://youtu.be/NQFykVql0o8?si=hw-X-Oe5VI811HmN)
Assunta Spina (1915) - Gustavo Serena (https://youtu.be/d0rc09oN2Ug?si=5pdh6Kkmlvaa678p)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) - David Lean (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77XD13ct0tE)
The Birth of a Nation (1915) - D.W. Griffith (https://youtu.be/ebtiJH3EOHo?si=-7Fi-cTkUOauUcvf)
Carmen (1915) - Cecil B. DeMille (https://youtu.be/C1erzDybfoM?si=AaKOginh3nBIhI9g)
Cabiria (1914) - Giovanni Pastrone (https://youtu.be/gOWicOwtHa8?si=6DJfB90q7Tu-uJHG)
The Last Diva (1982) - Gianfranco Mingozzi (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084235/)
The Last Days of Pompeii (1913) - Eleuterio...
30 Sept 2026
1915 E3 - Jeremy Mathews
Filmmaker, musician, and writer Jeremy Mathews takes a couple tacks in his selections for 1915. In addition to a couple National Film Registry entries and another widely praised American drama, he selects an offbeat short comedy and a surreal, macabre, and underseen Russian horror, of a kind.
Jeremy’s film criticism has appeared in Eye for Film in the UK and Paste Magazine in the US. He fronts the indie band NSPS (https://nsps.bandcamp.com/) as singer, songwriter and guitarist, with upcoming projects including the new NSPS album, No Truth Left to Tell, and a short film called Seize the Initiative, which he directed and edited.
Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list (https://www.the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list) to submit your own top five for 1915!
Mentioned media:
The Italian (1915) - Reginald Barker (https://youtu.be/wQgIY43c5ww?si=hC4F_rzvccm5VI2K)
After Death (1915) - Yevgeni Bauer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTCimATOJKQ)
Hypocrites (1915) - Lois Weber (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-KHc63KaF4)
Regeneration (1915) - Raoul Walsh (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhbzFUWivuc)
Fox Trot Finesse (1915) - Sidney Drew (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIUQywesgEQ)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) - F.W. Murnau (https://youtu.be/1CVLz1_MrCk?si=_qYEzroHYMK5oA4V)
The Birth of a Nation (1915) - D.W. Griffith (https://youtu.be/ebtiJH3EOHo?si=-7Fi-cTkUOauUcvf)
The Cheat (1915) - Cecil B. DeMille (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIRJt15WgTY)
Carmen (1915) - Cecil B. DeMille (https://youtu.be/C1erzDybfoM?si=AaKOginh3nBIhI9g)
Burlesque on Carmen (1915) - Charlie Chaplin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQByz5p0rcM)
Suspense (1913) - Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley (https://youtu.be/J-ZDESCVt9I?si=RCec0jGWV_YfjT9R)
The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) - D.W. Griffith (https://youtu.be/G8Y7nRq_JnY?si=kEMIIpu-hKc4hapQ)
Beauty and the Beast (1991) - Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0VnGIjAtZo)
Pulp Fiction (1994) - Quentin Tarantino (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqXLx_QOgzY)
House of Gucci (2021) - Ridley Scott (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n5AaxymXn4)
Metropolis (1927) - Fritz Lang (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gCeu3BRvuk)
Rosemary’s Baby (1968) - Roman Polanski (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8hN_ewEYLk)
The Last Laugh (1924) - F.W. Murnau (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djqmwlj3ZqQ)
Vampyr (1932) - Carl Theodor Dreyer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3lofI_zQf4)
The Crowd (1928) - King Vidor (https://youtu.be/u6jnix2Bcz4?si=x8Mh1ixUzUX3pvRa)
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khWDxx2Pk6c"...
23 Sept 2026
1915 E2 - Anthony Slide
Anthony Slide, prolific film historian, author, and archivist, personally knew a few people who acted in his selections of 1915. This secondhand view of their production is combined with his wide historical knowledge of their significance to bring valuable insight to the year and period.
Anthony is the author of numerous books since 1970 and has served as archivist at the American Film Historian and resident film historian for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Perhaps his most relevant book to this conversation is American Racist: The Life and Films of Thomas Dixon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0813123283?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback) and his works can be found at his site (https://www.anthonyslide.com/).
Visit the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list (https://www.the5bestfilmsofeveryyearever.com/list) to submit your own top five for 1915!
Mentioned media:
The Battle Cry of Peace (1915) - Wilfrid North and J. Stuart Blackton (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_Cry_of_Peace)
The Warrens of Virginia (1915) - Cecil B. DeMille (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Warrens_of_Virginia_(1915_film))
Hypocrites (1915) - Lois Weber (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-KHc63KaF4)
The Vampire (1915) - Alice Guy-Blache (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vampire_(1915_film))
The Birth of a Nation (1915) - D.W. Griffith (https://youtu.be/ebtiJH3EOHo?si=-7Fi-cTkUOauUcvf)
Intolerance (1916) - D.W. Griffith (https://youtu.be/rxh9tajcEvE?si=al7ZuHzC95G4HbbR)
A Fool There Was (1915) - Frank Powell (https://youtu.be/12DQGK6e9tw?si=lPViXq8PrdLZV-3J)
Dracula (1931) - Tod Browning (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUd4XvbLJRY)
Nosferatu (1922) - F.W. Murnau (https://youtu.be/3OZ5Wam2_Uc?si=ohI88Z76ymMOSovk)
The Struggle (1931) - D.W. Griffith (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg6Ysx5k7d8)
Where Are My Children? (1916) - Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV3p6Wo8850)
The Squaw Man (1914) - Cecil B. DeMille (https://youtu.be/pJ7UMKDjN7A?si=lU-ZQbizp_PB8mxJ)
The Cheat (1915) - Cecil B. DeMille (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIRJt15WgTY)
The Cheat (1931) - George Abbott (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB5yv0no-7s)
Anna Christie (1923) - John Griffith Wray (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmRpT4HnDnc)
The Painted Lady (1912) - D.W. Griffith (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS17phKpAJo)
Gone with the Wind (1939) - Victor Fleming (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyPd0pI_-2A)
The Little American (1917) - Cecil B. DeMille and Joseph Levering (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtrSmNV9hgo)
Hearts of...
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