10 Essential Movies by Director Philip Kaufman

Kaufman takes a full three hours to show how America took its first steps into space, from daredevil Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier to the media frenzy surrounding the 'Mercury Seven.' What's impressive is that the film never drags; it's a perfect blend of boy's-adventure spirit, dry humor, and genuine admiration for pilots who climbed into glorified tin cans.

Adapting Milan Kundera's philosophical masterpiece seemed impossible, but Kaufman pulled it off. The result is a film simmering with sensuality and intelligence. Daniel Day-Lewis is at his most charming as the womanizing surgeon Tomas, who during the Prague Spring must choose between light, noncommittal love and heavy, meaningful commitment. It's a slow, beautiful film you really need to let sink in.

Remakes are rarely better than the original, but this version comes remarkably close. Kaufman relocated the story to San Francisco and turned it into a terrifying thriller about the loss of identity. No cheap jump scares, just constant, creeping paranoia: which of your friends is still themselves, and who's been replaced by an emotionless copy? And that ending... you'll never forget it.

Often overshadowed by that other gang film from the same year (The Warriors), but The Wanderers is actually the better film if you love character development. It's set in the Bronx of 1963, right before the innocence of the 1950s disappears for good. The soundtrack is pure gold, and the atmosphere is a unique blend of violent, funny, and melancholic.

Geoffrey Rush delivers the performance of his career as the infamous Marquis de Sade, smuggling his provocative writings out of the asylum. It's a film that raises questions about censorship and art: can you write anything, however shocking? Kaufman doesn't turn it into a stiff period drama, but an energetic, sometimes pitch-black comedy that flies by wonderfully.

This film is mostly famous (or infamous) for causing America to introduce the NC-17 rating; it was too explicit for an R, but too artistic to be porn. The story dives into the love triangle between writers Henry Miller, his wife June, and Anais Nin in 1930s Paris. Visually, it's a feast: warm, smoky, and dreamlike.

An ambitious HBO film starring Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen as the war-journalism power couple. What makes this film unique is how Kaufman digitally composited the actors into real historical footage. Sometimes it works brilliantly, sometimes it's a bit uncanny, but it gives a unique 'you are there' feeling to the Spanish Civil War and other conflicts.

Forget romantic westerns where the heroes always hit their mark. This is Kaufman turning the genre inside out. Jesse James and Cole Younger aren't portrayed as mythical figures here, but as struggling outlaws in a muddy, rain-soaked landscape. A raw, realistic film that shows the Wild West was mostly just hard work.

A hidden gem in his filmography. Three whalers get stranded in the Arctic and are rescued by Inuit. What begins as a story of survival and friendship slowly turns as Western greed and culture start to poison local traditions. The setting feels so authentic it almost plays like a documentary.

Let's be honest: this isn't his most prestigious work, but it's an incredibly entertaining thriller. Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes must solve a murder within a Japanese business empire in LA. The film breathes the atmosphere of the early 1990s, when America feared being economically outpaced by Japan. Maybe a bit dated, but as a guilty pleasure it still holds up just fine.