You had me at

Is there a name (actor, director, scriptwriter, composer, original author, character, etc) or even a plot keyword (microfilm ! submarine ! spaaaace !) that suffices, on its own, to make you instantly line up for a movie no questions asked ?

Bit of a trick question.

Themes:
All things ponerological: evil/villains/man’s impulse to hurt man, etc
Mysticism
Cults
WWII/Nazism
Incest, added after mark f
Investment banking/stock market, while we’re at it
A particular “soft” sci-fi take on time travel, as with Moorhead & Benson, and also hyper-nerdy low-key sci-fi, like Primer

Names:
Much harder.

Anthony Hopkins
Joaquín Phoenix
Tim Roth
Michael Smiley, weirdly enough
Eva Green… ish, not so much now.
Christian Bale… ish.
Jake Gyllenhaal… ish.
Paul Thomas Anderson
David Lynch (none of that recently)

Something like that, off the top of my head.

The Cannon logo, 1980-1989, Ennio Morricone, Richard Donner, Submarine, Space, Time travel, Brando, Kurt Russel, Spielberg, QT, Hitchcock.

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Incest

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Submarine? Hell no

Incomprehensible. Unwatchable. Worthless.

Basically any movie that dares me to waste my life watching it.

Nicolas Cage. Even if it's bad, it's likely to be interesting and so bad, it's good.

Over the years the films that Harrison Ford has starred in were bankable to me. With very few exceptions his pictures have been very high quality and interesting. I hope that's not blown with the new "Indy" picture.

The Coen Brothers always attracted me to any of their movies, at least until their dreadful The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Since then I'll have to do a little investigation before lining up for one of their pictures.

Anything Anthony Hopkins is in is an automatic watch for me.

Joaquin Phoenix, obviously.

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Gloria Grahame & Susan Hayward of course. I've seen all of their movies say for a couple of hard to find ones. Now I'm working on watching all of John Wayne films after that who knows.

Just changed a few words...

I don't think there's anyone that's "no questions asked" for me, but there are some people whose movies I'm more likely to see just because their name is attached to it.

Alfred Hitchcock
Steven Spielberg
Billy Wilder

Cary Grant
Gene Kelly
James Stewart
Edward Everett Horton
Rex Harrison
Jack Lemmon
Harrison Ford
Richard Dreyfuss
Hugh Jackman
Kevin Kline
Kevin Spacey

Doris Day
Debbie Reynolds
Audrey Hepburn
Sandra Bullock
Meg Ryan

Any movie based on a Nicholas Sparks book.

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