Malcolm X IMO might be the best paced film ever. It just moves at such a confident rhythm that I’m shocked to find out it’s 3 and a half hours long. The structure of the film certainly helps and you’re always there for Malcolm’s continuing intellectual development.

Barry Lyndon’s another one, which I finally saw in a theatre in Toronto last year. The luxurious first half allows for the viewer to take into account every gorgeous visual but the movie also understands dry and subtle humour. The second half is much more fast paced and is the ideal pacing after the intermission.

I put off Andrei Rublev for years due to the intimidating length but I caught it at a theatre last year and was blown away. The episodic structure really aids and it’s meant to be seen in a cinema. As strange as it sounds, it might actually be Tarkovsky’s most accessible film.

A Brighter Summer Day is the quintessential novelistic film and I actually find it to feel shorter than Yi Yi.…