25 Cult Movies You Must See Before You Die

Rian Johnson is about to become a properly famous director thanks to working on the latter two of the upcoming new Star Wars trilogy, and his early promise is easy to see. His feature debut Brick is an ingenious update of hardboiled detective fiction, complete with the slang-heavy dialogue, only transposed to the setting of an American high school.

Joseph Gordon Levitt, not quite in the second act of his career but after his break-out roles in Third Rock From The Sun and 10 Things I Hate About You, stars as the teenaged PI who investigates the sudden, mysterious death of his junkie ex-girlfriend. All the usual tropes appear – femme fatales, double-crosses, mob bosses – but, well, in high school.

Levitt is great as the lead, simultaneously convincing as gumshoe and teen. Johnson's the real draw, though, conducting action scenes inspired by the dynamism of Japanese anime, roping his brother in for an atmospheric score and making a regular high school look like the sort of place that shadowy noir stories can take place in.