As hosts of FBi Radio’s Movies Movies Movies, our goal in life and love is to free cinema from pretty privilege. As film-makers-cum-critics we’ve spent years unlearning “industry standard” to find the essence of movies, and have accumulated an oeuvre proving time and time again that cinema is, actually, all around. So, in preparation for our upcoming film festival at the Sydney Opera House, we went Tomb Raider to mine the oceanic crust of our search history, which filled an orange hard drive, so we’ve focused on what worked for us in this particular moment of time.

Much like Tame Impala, most of these videos are secretly solo acts: usually Women on the Verge of a Mental Breakthrough using available equipment like an iPhone. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Ask two film-makers to write a listicle and you give them a job for life.

1. Puppycodes

Puppycodes is a largely dormant Instagram data bank but Alice Barker is, and was, the hottest hacker who defined an era. She scraped the internet using code for the most specific videos that bordered on dangerous but always felt cute. Like most of the funniest people she has also deeply beneficent; she started support.fm, a non-profit bail fund for trans and gender nonconforming people in jail and detention. Every video hits a very different sweet spot, they’re all worth the soft/deep schadenfreude, and she’s the slow cinema of the grid. Did this description convince you of the humour in her work? Like The Bear’s Emmy eligibility, Puppycodes is both a drama and a comedy.

2. Caitupdate: New lip palette!

Does MUA stand for makeup artist, or is it a kissing sound spelled out? Here, Macy Rodman imitates transgender activist Caitlyn Jenner trying a new lip palette. Caitupdate is just one of the many and varied ways Macy has a stranglehold on us. Her music is amazing, her podcast Nymphowars is the funniest thing to ever be released, she’s an incredible actor and no one is funnier than her live.

Macy generously gave us her music for our first feature film, Grape Steak, came to our low-key screening at Spectacle theatre, and I know this all sounds like a brag but while we have the Guardian platform we’d like to add that she also hosted us in Greenwich Village to watch the season two premiere of And Just Like That … and followed us around New York for a whole day trying to find us the Interview magazine with Lana on the cover. #MUA #IThoughThatWasAKissingSoundSpelledOutButIGuessItStandsForMakeupArtist

3. Lushious Massacr: The Herstory of the Piggy Dolls is Being Documented

Who said a makeup artist couldn’t make cinematic experiences honey!? Officer of the law AKA full-time dragvestigator Lushious Massacr addresses the camera while examining corners of near-dead malls and morals across America. Every Lushious video is a generous work of archiveology (frequently shot horizontally) blending humour, activism and sales advice with a hint of privacy invasion. She scouts the public sphere uncovering relatable ways of seeing. We’re being earnest because she’s a film-maker, when so many are just “a face” on screen. She’s worth falling into the pit honey, the pits of hell (your phone). Her sound design is second to none. “Don’t do it little girl” has become a mantra, “Brick” has become a warning, “Hiiiiiii!” should be the Pantone colour of the year™.

4. Gal Palz episode two: Another Simple Day With Zero Consequences

Gal Palz was an audaciously vasodilated cartoon, much like the Latvian drama Flow only without animals, budget, glory or Oscars. The Covid era was a renaissance for resourceful animation and Gal Palz was bravery incarnate at a time when the world was turning a blind eye to anything other than handheld neorealist sketch comics doing dramedy. This miniseries takes the Bechdel test backwards to an era when closeted gay boys dreamed of female friend groups plagued by inane problems. Underrated and overcooked, it had a short life but a treasured one.

5. Patti Harrison on Triple J: ‘I’m not telling you shit’

By this point our list has to apply for American citizenship. But comedy from the States still works overseas, as proven by Patti Harrison’s press tour in Australia. Here, she appears on Triple J to challenge censorship. We originally programmed Patti Harrison at one of our own film festivals: a short video where she falls out of a cupboard in a dress, on to the floor and gives awards to cars. It was called Congratulations. Everything Patti does feels cinematic, especially putting Australian comedians in their place. One day we hope luxury coffee table book publisher Taschen releases a Kurt Cobain-style book of Patti’s bedtime journals.

6. Belinda Furniture

Catherine Cohen’s character Belinda Furniture goes sex warfare in No More Blowjobs. It’s her call to arms and abstinence. Belinda teaches us the power to withhold is deeper than any religious fasting. Cat is more than just a gay best friend: she’s also the best friend a gay guy can have. We’ve been co-therapising through her medical podcast Seek Treatment for years, and witnessed a mosh-scream at her cameo in Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value when it played the State Theatre during the Sydney film festival this year. As experimental film-makers we’re obsessed with alternative streaming platforms, so we also recommend Catherine’s special Come For Me on Veeps, which is, in fact, available in Australia. To quote Denise Richards in Scary Movie 3: “No sex!”

7. Goodbye, Brooklyn

Our manager advised us to “mention someone on your Opera House lineup”, so without fail we chose Goodbye, Brooklyn. Don’t switch off: it’s a comedy short film set in New York. While the world plays catch-up to Girls in its six-season entirety, save yourself the time and condense apartment anomie into this gorgeous film that answers the question: how do we move? Witness neighbourhood gaslighting, delusional self-tapes, sociological precision and the most visually hypnotic prop to appear in film: a commercial laundry conveyor. It’s Failure to Launch but backwards. It’s something from your bookmarks to put on during gay guy music video hour that’s more cared for than a meme but less commitment than an episode. Say it with us: “I am! Who I wanna be … when I wanna be it!”

8. Candis Cayne as God Warrior at TEAze Me Sundays!

For some reason Jen thinks we need to give context to this performance of the most famous monologue in the history of Bride Swap. But does this really need an intro? In an age where everyone is going into spiritual warfare this video is a catharsis. Candis, who you might know from the Caitlyn Jenner reality series I Am Cait, hits on every level. It’s a ritual, it’s a celebration: it’s a beautifully layered performance and it’s dangerous (see: running on the street!). This kind of raw documentation is addictive to watch because it captures a moment in time – in the club.

This video is one of the reasons we spent so much time recording performances around Sydney’s queer clubs. We have hard drives full of Wednesday nights at the Bearded Tit (vale) and weekends at the Red Rattler (get your sound proofing honey!) or even a Celebrity Big Brother re-enactment at the Ace hotel. One day the National Film and Sound Archive will contact our manager.

9. Banned Calvin Klein sexy jeans commercials with Max Jenkins

This video is hard to watch, but alienating curation is part of our curatorial practice, especially if it was shot on DV with a spotlight. “Banned Calvin Klein sexy jeans commercials” captures the energy of being a cinephile in Sydney during fashion week. The world turns upside down and even though you feel on most days like you’re a centred, gorgeous and stylish angel, you’re reminded that oversharing gives most people the ick, and everyone is excited to be featured in GQ. That’s perfect, that’s modelling. Sydney is a concept, not a geography.

10. ‘Cook My Meat!’ Lisa from Temecula on Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live is like Triple J: you can age out but it always stays the same. To honour Ego Nwodim’s elegant departure from the cast we revisit Cook My Meat. There’s actually too many sketches to choose from that she has performed in, but it has to be this one. People are incredibly proud to denounce things: like seeing a movie and saying “the cinematography was beautiful” or “I don’t get comedy”. People love to drag up that one receipt of a friend of a friend making a faux pas 10 years ago as a fact, or agree objectively using sentences they read online as a conversation starter.

Thankfully, we don’t suffer from this and, week in, week out, during a season of Saturday Night Live we will watch all of the sketches (except Weekend Update) and find something funny. When Jen first moved to Sydney there was a group of people who would congregate in Camperdown Park, stand in a circle and laugh hysterically for an hour. It was disturbing to stumble through on the way to an early shift after a late night. There are so many reasons not to laugh but it’s still important to clear the way for one to happen, because without laughter there’s no tears.

• Tickets are on sale for Garden Reflexxx Presents: Music at the Sydney Opera House on 29 October featuring Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s debut film, new work by Ryan Trecartin and the Sydney premiere of Bhenji Ra’s latest. Buy our upcoming book, Eyes Wide Open, later this year, published by No More Poetry, and stay tuned for our observational, intergenerational road movie documentary Mosquitoes, coming soon.