Can you name a film that you’ve watched by Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, or Martin Scorsese? Now how about one by Lino Brocka, Ishmael Bernal, or Mike de Leon? If that resounding silence is getting awkward, our must-watch list of local cinema should help you some.

1. Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (You Were Judged and Found Wanting) by Lino Brocka, 1974

Gist: Poor little rich boy befriends Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Dory from Finding Nemo.

Why you should watch it: It’s essentially a modern version of Noli Me Tangere. We all had to read that.

2. Scorpio Nights by Peque Gallaga, 1985

Gist: A classic tale of peeping tom gets the girl.

Why you should watch it:
Even the Koreans know it’s good. Aside from its follow-up Scorpio Nights 2 in 1999, a Korean film called Summertime was made in 2001 based on this movie.

3. Manila By Night (alternative title: City After Dark) by Ishmael Bernal, 1980

Gist: Society’s underbelly show you how they party.

Why you should watch it: Lorna Tolentino, Alma Moreno, Gina Alajar, Rio Locsin, Cherie Gil, Mitch Valdez, and Charito Solis when they were young. Need we say more?

4. Kisapmata (Blink of an Eye) by Mike De Leon, 1982

Gist: Incest, murder, parricide, and suicide. 

Why you should watch it: It makes for great bonding time with your father. What better way to make dads feel good than by watching the worst movie father of all time? After you’ve made it through this movie, you’ll never love your father more.

5. Himala by Ishmael Bernal, 1982

Gist: A young woman discovers that the best and fastest way to make it big in the world is to start your own religion…or not.

Why you should watch it: Saying “Walang himala!” is shorter and creepier than “You're nothing but a second-rate, trying hard copycat!”

6. Insiang by Lino Brocka, 1976

Gist: Naïve princess of the slums learns that it’s more fun to be the evil Queen rather than Snow White.

Why you should watch it: Well, it shows you how (as the Rolling Stones put it), you can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you might find, you’ll get what you need—if it’s revenge, that is. Oh yeah, and it was the first Filipino film to be shown at Cannes Film Festival in 1978 thus catapulting Lino Brocka and Hilda Koronel (the film’s star) to international acclaim.

7. Bayaning Third World (Third World Hero) by Mike de Leon, 2000

ist: A mockumentary about Jose Rizal - the man, the myth, the legend   

Why you should watch it: Have you ever pined for the school heartthrob? This thought-provoking film will help you decipher whether that pedestal you’ve put them on exists or not. Actually it won’t, but it will make you question all the things you’ve blindly accepted as fact.

8. Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros) by Auraeus Solito, 2005

Gist: Maximo Oliveros is a 12-year-old boy. He’s in love with a clean-cut policeman and he’s from a family of petty thieves.  Do we have a pair of star-crossed lovers?

Why you should watch it: This film manages the rare feat of being not only commercially successful but critically acclaimed in the Philippines. Why? The film steers clear of easy stereotypes and yet manages to be a heartwarming experience. Maximo Oliveros is gay, but that’s almost beside the point of the movie. It’s a film about his unique way of dealing with the perils of growing up, told as sincerely, honestly, and as refreshingly as few films are able to do.

9. Init sa Magdamag (Midnight Passion) by Laurice Guillen, 1983

Gist: Lorna Tolentino plays a woman who changes her persona to suit the man she's with. Ultimately, the game catches up with her, when she is faced with a choice between two masks: one to keep the husband she loves and another to get the man she sexually yearns for.

Why you should watch it: Erotica without nudity. An achievement in itself.

10. Batang West Side (West Side Avenue) by Lav Diaz, 2001

Gist: Batang West Side is about a lot of things. It's about Fil-Ams, the American dream, family, infidelity, secrets, Martial Law, drugs, reflection, decisions, friendship, identity, patriotism, responsibility, and the collective murdering of the Filipino soul. It's about questions more than it is about answers, and about giving our noggins some much-needed exercise.

Why you should watch it:

We can find no better words to define this movie than those of the late Alexis Tioseco (1981-2009), whose love for this film helped him realize his calling as a film critic and tireless advocate of Philippine cinema:

Batang West Side is the antithesis of a present-day Filipino film, not only challenging our natural sensibilities on what the length of a film should be, but, even more so, challenging our sensibilities about how a (Filipino) film should be made. There is violence, but it is brief and subtle. There is a young couple, but there are no hot love scenes. There are parent-child arguments, but there is no melodrama. There are serious questions, but no half-assed answers.
What director Lav Diaz has done with Batang West Side is craft a film so thorough in its dissection of its subject, and so engaging in its handling, that to watch it, in its entirety, is nothing short of a cathartic experience. It may just as well be us in the place of Joel Torre in the film's last few frames, he alone in the middle of the cold New Jersey night, us alone with our thoughts in the middle of a cold movie theater, exhaling our repressed burdens and inhaling peace of mind.
  – An excerpt from the first film review of Alexis Tioseco, written on April 23, 2003.