Based on the bestseller by Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho tells the dark tale of sociopath Wall Street trader, Patrick Batemen’s (Bale) slide into insanity and an insatiable need to slaughter.

Christian Bale provides a virtuoso performance that launched him as an adult leading man. From one moment to the next, he is distant and unreadable and on a dime, becomes manic and frenzied. He is both frightening and funny, which is always a great combination in an anti-hero.

The character of Patrick Batemen could easily be interpreted as a metaphor for American society in the 1980s. In his greedy self-importance with little concept of morality, Batemen mirrors the cutthroat capitalistic attitude that defined that decade.

If Albert Camus had made a film noir, it would have been very much like Allen Baron’s little-seen 1961 feature Blast of Silence. This low-budget jewel, which enjoyed a critical renaissance after a 1990 screening at the Munich Film Festival, is less a thriller than it is an existential exploration. In many ways, it anticipated Martin Scorsese’s equally dark New York drama Taxi Driver by a decade.

Writer-director Baron had originally cast Peter Falk as hit man Frankie Bono, but wound up playing the part himself after Falk took his career-making role in Murder Inc. Resembling a less feral George C. Scott, Baron is extremely effective as the solitary, dead-eyed assassin, who arrives in New York City at Christmastime to eliminate a troublesome small-time mobster. After a chance meeting, the lonely, embittered killer is drawn to a girl from his past (Molly McCarthy). But he still has a contract to fulfill, and his world begins to unravel as he stalks his prey.

Though Francis Ford Coppola is best known as director of bona fide American classics such as the Godfather and Apocalypse Now, The Conversation may be his purest offering of artistic expression. And though not autobiographical, the film is certainly personal and undeniably haunting.

Gene Hackman stars as Harry Caul, a lonely surveillance expert hired by a mysterious agency to record a seemingly benign conversation between a young couple. Though Caul is meant to remain unattached and unconcerned with the contents of the conversation, he soon finds himself becoming personally involved, fearing for the safety of the couple and the possibility that he may unwittingly play a role in their demise.

As writer-director of The Conversation, Coppola was one of the first filmmakers to successfully adopt and Americanize the French Auteur style of cinematic creation. However, his main source of inspiration here is the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock. Specifically, there are definite similarities between this film and Hitchcock’s Vertigo, both of which share unsettling themes of obsession, paranoia, as well as a San Francisco setting. However, where Hitchcock portrays San Francisco as a seductive, albeit dangerous city of intrigue and mystique, this film highlights a seedier city by the bay; a town of anonymous warehouses, solidarity and loneliness.

Zodiac is a smart, taut, and engrossing film about the titular, self-named serial killer who terrorized Northern California in the late ‘60s. The murderer, who was never caught, remains a phantom in David Fincher’s drama; the director of Se7en instead focuses his versatile camera on the men whose pursuit of the elusive, taunting psychopath evolves into obsession over the course of years.

After a bang-up opening – Zodiac’s second attack – the film enters the newsroom of the San Francisco Chronicle, where crime-beat reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey, Jr.) and editorial cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) learn of the killer’s bravado letter to the paper. Soon, a murder in San Francisco pulls lead investigator Dave Tosci (Mark Ruffalo) into the vortex. The action follows the three men as they become increasingly consumed while leads dry up, a key suspect appears, and Zodiac mocks the police and the press as the case drags on.

I have this wacky theory that all Coen Brother movies are comedies. Even the ones that aren't comedies (this theory was proven wrong with No Country for Old Men). But even one of their bleakest films, Blood Simple, in all its revenge fueled violence and mayhem, still plays out like a Ealing Studios comedy. To fully defend my stupid (and most likely wrong) theory I'd have to give away too much of the plot, but basically every character in the movie thinks they know exactly what is going on despite the fact that they are, in reality, completely clueless to what is really happening. This all comes to a head in a final scene that if it wasn't so edge-of-your-seat, nail-bitingly tense, you'd laugh out loud. Or maybe not, what do I know?

Regardless of my pretentious genre-swapping, jibba-jabba Blood Simple is a great film. A well paced, methodically told story that seems ridiculously confident for a debut film. All of the Coen Brother aesthetics we've grown to love are there (clearly they have not progressed):  wonderful dialog, inventive camera work, and a love for southern folk. M. Emmet Walsh gives a particularly creepy performance as a hit man who will do anything if it pays right and is legal ... well, if it pays right. It also features cinemas greatest "Howdy" exchange between two passing cars.