Karen Aoki

thematically connected

The Road

McCarthy's Pulitzer novel strips survival to its most elemental — love between father and son

thematically connected

All Quiet on the Western Front

The anti-war novel — inside the trenches of WWI with no glory, only mud

thematically connected

No Longer Human

Dazai's autobiographical novel about alienation remains the darkest mirror of the culture

thematically connected

The Last of Us

The defining post-apocalyptic story in games

thematically connected

Spec Ops: The Line

A third-person shooter that becomes an indictment of the genre and its players

thematically connected

Whiplash

A film about the cruelty and transcendence of jazz mastery

thematically connected

Apocalypse Now

Coppola's hallucinatory vision of Vietnam as a journey into the heart of darkness

thematically connected

Princess Mononoke

Studio Ghibli at its most epic — nature, industry, and the cost of progress

thematically connected

Station Eleven

What survives of us is art — a hopeful post-pandemic fable