Anyone can tell you everything that's streaming on Netflix, take an inventory of a given month's new additions and subtractions, or cast the net of recommendations so wide that reeling in where to start is overwhelming. The whole goal of Netflix as a company is to give you as much content as possible, whether through streaming or good old-fashioned DVD mail-ins (remember those?).
Our goal in this space is to provide a different service: a list of the 100 best films currently streaming on Netflix, so you can find a satisfying movie without wasting time with endless scrolling.
Adventureland (2009)
A summer job can feel like an alternate universe, filled with people you know deeply, but barely tasks that make and break the business, but have no bearing on the future; moments that seem to change the very course of life, but were really just parties where you got too drunk. Adventureland captures the strangeness of flash-in-a-pan, interim work, following Jesse Eisenberg's James as floats through his job at a local amusement park while waiting for his life to start. Sweet, bleak, and nostalgic, it's a dramedy that should ring familiar even if you never ran a hoodwinking, carney game booth.
The African Queen (1951)
The legendary John Huston directs Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn in this shaggy adventure about British missionaries warding off German World War I gunboats in East Africa.
Amélie (2001)
Jean-Pierre Jeunet's quirky French flick can be easy to make fun of, perhaps because it's what everyone immediately thinks of when they hear the words "foreign film." But don't let haters dissuade you from this critically acclaimed rom-com, which was rightfully a major box-office success and awards contender. The story follows its titular heroine (Audrey Tautou) through Paris as she sheds her sense of isolation, opens herself up to others, and discovers love. (Also, yeah, garden gnome alert.)
Anna Karenina (2012)
Adapted by renowned playwright Tom Stoppard, this take on Leo Tolstoy's classic Russian novel is anything but stuffy, historical drama. Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander are all overflowing with passion and desire, heating up the chilly backdrop of St. Petersburg. But it's director Joe Wright's unique staging -- full of dance, lush costuming, fourth-wall-breaking antics, and other theatrical touches -- that reinvent the story for more daring audiences.
Armageddon (1998)
For those of us who weren't born early enough for the Space Race, there's Armageddon. While it might seem like an outlier in the Criterion Collection, Michael Bay's sci-fi spectacle is lean, expertly crafted, and rowdy, with scenes of meteoric destruction that channel Michelangelo. The final ludicrous mission to blow up the plummeting space rock is the closest we'll come to a Bay-directed opera. But it's the cast -- Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Owen Wilson, Steve Buscemi, and so many more -- that makes Armageddon a ride. Bay's drill-team heroes add red and white to their blue collars for a fist-pumping display of patriotism, no international enemy required.
The Assassin (2015)
Some action movies pummel you with motion and special effects. Others prefer a painterly, performative method. Director Hou Hsiao-hsien's wuxia (China's fantasy martial-arts genre) is at the extreme end of the artistic spectrum: lush, methodical, and limited on the story front. Like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Assassin relishes in sword battles. You may need a few cups of coffee before settling in for this one, but the reward is mesmerizing.
Atonement (2007)
This sweeping romantic epic, based on the Ian McEwan novel of the same name (which is worth a read, though you won't find the book on Netflix), sends Robbie (James McAvoy) off to fight in World War II, and he finds himself in the middle of Britain's retreat from the Germans on the shores of Dunkirk Beach. Director Joe Wright pulled off a tragically beautiful five-and-a-half-minute tracking shot of the whole ordeal that'll break your heart if Robbie's separation from his love Cecilia (Keira Knightley) didn't already.
The Babadook (2014)
It’s the ultimate parental nightmare: what if your child was a total dickbag? Australian filmmaker Jennifer Kent’s moody horror debut works as a jump-scare-filled frightfest, but it’s most effective in quiet, lingering moments that explore the paralyzing nature of motherhood. Thanks to an emotionally raw performance from Essie Davis, the film brings you into the psyche of a woman pushed to the edge by the very thing she thinks she’s supposed to love the most. In this brilliantly twisted story, the monster isn’t under the bed -- it’s tucked in it.
Bad Boys (1995)
Michael Bay jumped from music video and commercial directing to the big leagues with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence's buddy-cop movie. The vehicle restrained him, thank God. Through the disruptive Burnett and Lowrey, Bay's knack for extravagance, vulgarity, and fetishized masculine physicality could shine. When we think of badass, we think of Smith and Lawrence guns a'blazin', rolling through an explosion to escape a sunset shootout. There's heat, there's grime, there's Smith rattling off F-bombs like a swear-word Gatling gun. Bay's career is defined by excess, a bespoke look for Bad Boys.
Barry (2016)
In 1981, Barack Obama touched down in New York City to begin work at Columbia University. As Barry imagines, just days after settling into his civics class, a white classmate confronts the Barry with an argument one will find in the future president's Twitter @-mentions: "Why does everything always got to be about slavery?" Exaltation is cinematic danger, especially when bringing the life of a then-sitting president to screen. Barry avoids hagiography by staying in the moment, weighing race issues of a modern age and quieting down for the audience to draw its own conclusions. Devon Terrell is key, steadying his character as smooth-operating, socially active, contemplative fellow stuck in an interracial divide. Barry could be any half-black, half-white kid from the '80s. But in this case, he's haunted by past, present, and future.
Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)
Released into a media storm overly concerned with its lengthy, controversially filmed sex scene, Abdellatif Kechiche's three-hour opus drowns tabloid buzz with sensual and sensitive drama. Make time for the tender, inquisitive exploits of Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos), who falls hard for the cerulean lure of Emma (Spectre's Léa Seydoux). The runtime breathing room gives Kechiche the chance to explore every glance, every touch, every kiss, and every misstep in their relationship. It's a love epic, where minor notes play like power chords.
Boogie Nights (1997)
This ensemble drama about the porn business from director Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the most rewatchable movies ever made. Any stray moment can draw you in: Mark Wahlberg's Dirk Diggler picking his name in a hot tub, John C. Reilly singing that Transformers song, Julianne Moore snorting an afternoon away, Burt Reynolds framing up a shot, or Heather Graham strolling across the screen in nothing but her roller blades. Splitting the difference between the laid-back melancholia of Robert Altman and the coked-out frenzy of Martin Scorsese, Boogie Nights remains PTA's most purely pleasurable film, a loving tribute to an era of big stars, big egos, and big… well… you've seen the ending.
Boyhood (2014)
Richard Linklater spent a decade with the same actors to shoot bits and pieces of his coming-of-age story as an experiment in seamless onscreen aging. The result is a subtly funny, troubling, and true portrait of how special each person's "normal" life can be.
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Peak romantic comedy occurred 50 years ago with the rise and fall and rise again of lavish socialite Holly Golightly. Audrey Hepburn has never been better, navigating New York's glitziest avenues, visiting its darkest corners (one of her gigs involves visiting a mobster at Sing SIng prison), and falling for its handsomest men. Everything about Holly is model -- that cigarette holder! -- except her sense of what's best for her life, a flaw that leads to a wealth of revelations.
Bright Star (2009)
The Piano director Jane Campion gives the life of English poet John Keats, and his romantic relationship with Fanny Brawne that fueled his writing up until his untimely death at the age of 25, the pastoral treatment it deserves. Between the succulent photography, delicate score, and Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish's hushed poetry readings, Bright Star is a beautiful tragedy, and one of the most unsung dramas of the past decade. As Keats says in the film, "The point of diving into a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore but to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out, it is a experience beyond thought." Bright Star is a lake of a movie.
Bring It On (2000)
"This is not a democracy, it's a cheerocracy." Eighteen years later, this vicious comedy about competing, racially divided cheerleaders feels more relevant than ever. Back when they still made teen movies with spunk, Kirsten Dunst and Gabrielle Union gave two of the most sizzling performances of their career while parading around in pleated skirts. This one will surprise you.
Burn After Reading (2008)
The Coens followed up their No Country for Old Men Best Picture win at the Oscars by turning sharply back to comedy. Burn After Reading is absurd and acerbic, a political hoopla revolving around a prized MacGuffin -- a CD containing government secrets! -- that isn't a MacGuffin at all. A gaggle of "serious" actors, most notably Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich, and Coen stalwarts Frances McDormand and George Clooney, shoot for the stratosphere as they weave through the mad, mad, mad, mad world of Washington, DC. And because this is a Coen brothers movie, blood spills freely as everyone from personal trainers to CIA spies sink deeper and deeper into confusion. An ode to empowered idiocy, complete with a dildo chair.
Carol (2015)
Todd Haynes’ story about lesbian love in the 1950s is a gorgeous film from start to finish: from the direction (every frame is as lush as a painting) to the awards-worthy performances (Rooney Mara as the gawky, vulnerable Therese and Cate Blanchett as the alluring, perfectly coiffed Carol -- seriously, give this woman’s hair-swoop its own award). No matter which way you swing, Carol is one of the most tender cinematic depictions ever of what it feels like to be in love -- how the quality of light changes, how time slows, how every fleeting gesture takes on the deliberateness of sign language -- and why two people would be willing to go against everything society expects of them in order to hold on to it.
Cinema Paradiso (2000)
For some of us, the movie theater is a place of worship, and Cinema Paradiso is an ecclesiastical ode to the religion. The film tracks the life of Salvatore, a young dreamer who finds purpose in the projection room of his small Sicily village's local movie house. Time takes its toll on the Cinema, but Salvatore's love of film, and his friendship with the blind projectionist, Alfredo, keeps the spirit alive. Aggressively romantic and sentimental, this Italian classic (backed by Ennio Morricone's iconic score) will melt you.
City of God (2002)
This film about a Brazilian favela's descent into criminal rule leaves a haunting note echoing in the wake of the 2016 Rio Olympics. The harsh reality City of God portrays, one in which gang logic trumps all, will not make for an uplifting night in, but the movie is much more than a shoot-em-up thrill ride -- Brazil's natural beauty and the hope of youth always serve as heartbreaking counterbalances to violence.
Cloud Atlas (2012)
The Matrix directors Lily and Lana Wachowski were likely the only filmmakers with the ambition, and daredevil instincts to take on David Mitchell's pyramidal, generation-jumping novel. Tracking a set of familiar faces through the distant past, pulpy present, and hyper-future, Cloud Atlas is a as epic as they come, a movie about love, life, loss, and all the little moments in-between.
Clouds of Sils Maria (2016)
Set against the heavenly hills of Sils Maria, Switzerland, this chamber drama traps an aging actress (Juliette Binoche), her raw and responsive assistant (Kristen Stewart), and an ingenue gunning for fame (Chloë Grace Moretz), as they swirl through each other's lives like a mist. There's little plot to describe in Clouds of Sils Maria; you come to watch three premier actresses drill into psychology and they deliver in spades.
Creep (2014)
Patrick Brice's found-footage movie is a no-budget answer to a certain brand of horror, but saying more would give away its sinister turns. Just know that the man behind the camera answered a Craigslist ad to create a "day in the life" video diary for Josef (Mark Duplass), who really loves life. Creep proves that found footage, the indie world's no-budget genre solution, still has life, as long as you have a performer like Duplass willing to go all the way.
Cruel Intentions (1999)
In adapting the classic French novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses for the WB generation, writer-director Roger Kumble doesn't pull back on any of the book's nasty back-stabbing and emotional manipulation. Instead, the movie revels in the melodramatic tawdriness of it all and features truly inspired lead performances from Sarah Michelle Gellar (using all the tricks that made her so likable on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as conniving mean girl Kathryn Merteuil), Ryan Phillippe (as her charmingly vacant step-brother Sebastian Valmont), and Reese Witherspoon (as the virginal Annette Hargrove). Plus, you know "Bittersweet Symphony" has never sounded sweeter.
Dead Poets Society (1989)
Stand up on your couch, scream "carpe diem!" and finally watch this heartwarming drama about a group of boys studying to become cogs in the machine, and a teacher, played by Robin Williams, who taught them to be individuals. Williams gets most of the notoriety for his inspirational poetry readings, but it's a young Robert Sean-Leonard (House) who chews on the most complicated material.
The Departed (2006)
Don't let your annoying college roommate's affection for The Departed ruin the movie for you -- it's an enormously entertaining crime film. Leonardo DiCaprio's expert slow-boil performance as undercover cop Billy Costigan is a big reason for that and marked a major career step forward; he stood tall against the Martin Scorsese film's many big-name scenery chewers and kept his Boston accent under control. Just try to forgive the little rat at the end.
The Descent (2005)
Movies that tap into a "universal fear" scare the hardest. Neil Marshall, the director behind a few of your favorite Game of Thrones episodes, chose claustrophobia in his spelunking-gone-wrong horror movie, The Descent. If a suffocating location and dimly lit shooting style weren't creepy enough, the film boasts some supremely nasty monsters who live deep beneath the surface. When they discover a welcome new food source in a foolhardy group of women, hell breaks loose. Weirdly enough, the scariest scene doesn't even involve the creatures; just a very narrow squeeze between two caverns.
Divines (2016)
Thrillers don't come much more propulsive or elegant than Houda Benyamina's Divines, a heartwarming French drama about female friendship that spirals into a pulse-pounding crime saga. Rambunctious teenager Dounia (Oulaya Amamra) and her best friend Maimouna (Déborah Lukumuena) begin the film as low-level shoplifters and thieves, but once they fall into the orbit of a slightly older, seasoned drug dealer named Rebecca (Jisca Kalvanda), they're on a Goodfellas-like trajectory. Benyamina offsets the violent, gritty genre elements with lyrical passages where Dounia watches her ballet-dancer crush rehearse his routines from afar, and kinetic scenes of the young girls goofing off on social media. It's a cautionary tale told with joy, empathy, and an eye for beauty.
Drinking Buddies (2013)
This understated romantic comedy from mumblecore master Joe Swanberg centers on the intimate relationship between hard-drinking brewery colleagues Jake Johnson and Olivia Wilde, who both also happen to be dating other people (Anna Kendrick and Ron Livingston, respectively). The two relationships get progressively entangled over the course of the film. Although Drinking Buddies starts out looking like a traditional rom-com, Swanberg quickly subverts viewer expectations, resulting in a film that is romantic but surprisingly devoid of sap, funny without falling back on cheap gags. This is a movie that moves along in small moments: a lingering glance, an awkward silence, a stolen kiss. A crisp, refreshing little film.
Europa Report (2013)
The key to funding space-travel expeditions? Reality television, probably. Europa Report imagines our first-manned mission to Jupiter's moon -- oft-speculated to contain frozen and liquid H₂O -- as a television event, with onboard shuttle cameras streaming the crew's activity like Big Brother in space. The inventive approach, which allows the movie to bounce from angular perspectives and simultaneous, four-quadrant action, is especially effective when all hell breaks loose. Because where there's water, there's life.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Cruise and then-wife Nicole Kidman teamed up one last time for what would turn out to be Stanley Kubrick’s final film. The erotic drama sees Cruise's upper-class doctor on a strange, sexual journey after his wife (Kidman) makes a startling confession to him. No matter how you may feel about this still-decisive movie, the gorgeous photography and dreamlike narrative should effectively mess (and ignite) your mind.
Face/Off (1997)
Capturing Nic Cage and John Travolta at the peak of their late-'90s absurdity, Face/Off has become a modern classic, holding steady over two decades of filmmaking and increasingly implausible Michael Bay explosions. John Woo's action-thriller takes a ridiculous concept -- what if two sworn enemies, a cop and a criminal, literally switched faces and tried to outgun/outsmart each other for 140 minutes -- to helicopter vs. plane vs. Humvee heights, complete with the requisite pigeon scenes. If you can't let yourself indulge in Cage and Travolta's joyously maniacal performances, in which they play themselves, and each other, in a twisted revenge game, then you need to reevaluate your capacity for pleasure
Frances Ha (2012)
Before winning hearts and Oscar nominations with her coming-of-age comedy Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig starred in the perfect companion film, about an aimless 27-year-old who hops from New York City to her hometown of Sacramento to Paris to Poughkeepsie and eventually back to New York in hopes of stumbling into the perfect job, the perfect relationship, and the perfect life. Directed by Noah Baumbach (The Meyerowitz Stories), and co-written by both, Frances Ha is a measured look at adult-ish life captured the kind of intoxicating black and white world we dream of living in.
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Stanley Kubrick's vicious critique of the American military and masculinity is almost two movies in one; the first part, about a group of ragtag marines trying to survive the relentless discipline of their sergeant, is best remembered for brutality and R. Lee Ermey's screaming. The second half, which follows Matthew Modine's "Joker" Davis into war, isn't as poignant, but in Kubrick's hands, is absolutely potent.
Gangs of New York (2002)
In his first collaboration with Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio shakes off his heartthrob Titanic reputation by getting down and dirty as goatee-sporting tough guy Amsterdam Vallon. But Leo has an iceberg-sized problem: Daniel Day-Lewis. As the violent, ill-tempered Bill the Butcher, the method actor extraordinaire is a terror in a top hat, stealing the whole movie with his wild-eyed magnetism. He slices, he dices, and he makes this 168 minute 19th-century period piece fly by.
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Gerald's Game (2017)
Like his previous low-budget Netflix-released horror release, Hush, a captivity thriller about a deaf woman fighting off a masked intruder, Mike Flanagan's Stephen King adaptation of Gerald's Game wrings big scares from a small location. Sticking close to the grisly plot details of King's seemingly "unfilmable" novel, the movie chronicles the painstaking struggles of Jessie Burlingame (Carla Gugino) after she finds herself handcuffed to a bed in an isolated vacation home when her husband, the titular Gerald, dies from a heart attack while enacting his kinky sexual fantasies. She's trapped -- and that's it. The premise is clearly challenging to sustain for a whole movie, but Flanagan and Gugino turn the potentially one-note set-up into a forceful, thoughtful meditation on trauma, memory, and resilience in the face of near-certain doom.
The Gift (2015)
In less daring hands, this psychological thriller may have telegraphed its legitimately disturbing ending and devolved into another direct-to-VOD movie you will never watch. But Australian writer-star-director Joel Edgerton goes all in with this tale about an alpha yuppie (Jason Bateman, exuding impish charm in a non-comedic role) struggling to deal with his forlorn wife (Rebecca Hall) and the relentless friendliness of a long-lost schoolmate (Edgerton).
Girlhood (2014)
Race, gender, and social status come under the microscope in this vibrant coming-of-age tale about a 16-year-old African-French teenager surviving in a rough Parisian suburb. Few movies capture the need for friendship -- even connections that lead one down morally questionable -- quite like Girlhood, which also has one of the greatest Rihanna cues in movie history.
The Godfather & The Godfather Part II (1972, 1974)
What's left to say about Francis Ford Coppola's organized crime odyssey? The original, revered as one of the greatest films of all time, and the sequel, right up there (and probably even better than the first, if we're being honest), adapt the murderous tenor of Mario Puzo's book with shadows, chilly grandiosity, and prosciutto dialogue that the cast can chew and chew and chew. And hey, if you want to watch Part III, it's on Netflix, too.
Graduation (2017)
This Romanian morality tale brims with such tension that the constant vibrations of a troubled man's cell phone provide the kind of jump scares you'd find in The Conjuring. A few days before her final exams -- which could earn her a scholarship in London -- a man sexually assaults 18-year-old Eliza (Dragus). The encounter shakes her and her father, Romeo, who winds up pulling strings to ensure his daughter aces the test. The well-intentioned crime consumes Romeo's life like a plague, and Mungiu barely lifts a finger as it unfolds. Like Euro-flavored Coen-brothers drama, Graduation is rich with character, culture, and corruption.
The Hateful Eight (2015)
Quentin Tarantino has something to say about race, violence, and American life, and it's going to ruffle feathers. Like Django Unchained, the writer-director reflects modern times on the Old West, but with more scalpel-sliced dialogue, profane poetry, and gore. Stewed from bits of Agatha Christie, David Mamet, and Sam Peckinpah, The Hateful Eight traps a cast of blowhards (including Samuel L. Jackson as a Civil War veteran, Kurt Russell as a bounty hunter known as "The Hangman," and Jennifer Jason Leigh as a psychopathic gang member) in a blizzard-enveloped supply station. Tarantino ups the tension by shooting his suffocating space in "glorious 70mm." Treachery and moral compromise never looked so good.
Heat (1995)
Michael Mann's three-hour action-thriller is about the personal and professional lives of cops and criminals, but it's really about putting two powerhouses, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, in the same room and seeing what happens. In the beginning of the end, Pacino's Lt. Vincent Hanna and De Niro's Neil McCauley confront at one of Los Angeles' most famous restaurants, Kate Mantilini, creating a nucleus in which an epic showdown can form around. The duality of human instincts is on full display as the two outrun one another -- literally, in the film's final footchase shootout. Heat is not good. It is Biblically Awesome.
Heathers (1988)
Like Mean Girls but with murder, this dark '80s cult classic features Winona Ryder and Christian Slater at their peak cool as two young lovers who start bumping off the popular kids in their high school (including a group of pre-Plastics mean girls all named Heather). While the film flopped at the time, the movie seemed pre-destined to be a cult classic, packed as it was with iconic images and lines: Veronica's monocle, the red power scrunchie, the croquet-playing, "What's your damage, Heather!?," and of course, "Fuck me gently with a chainsaw." Years ahead of its time, Heathers was a sharp satire of sickly sweet '80s teen movies, a lethal dose of cinematic Drano that we still can't believe ever got green-lit (and that certainly wouldn't pass muster in today's post-Columbine world).
Heaven Knows What (2014)
Before turning Robert Pattinson into a maniac burglar in 2017's Good Time, indie darlings Ben and Joshua Safdie helmed this brutal docudrama homeless 20-somethings losing their lives to heroin on the streets of New York. Starring and based on the life of Arielle Holmes, a former addict discovered by the directors during the shooting of another movie, Heaven Knows What wades through an overdosed existence without worry of whether it's teaching you a lesson. It's not "entertaining," but you won't be able to look away until the very end.
Hot Fuzz (2007)
Shaun of the Dead spoofers Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg set their sights on bumbling police officers trying to solve a murder in a small English town. The duo watched countless buddy-cop flicks to fully satirize the genre, and it paid off, with laughably bad chase sequences and uproarious slapstick gags. They prove how much fun action movies can be when they lighten up a little (OK, a lot). Remember: it's not murder, it's ketchup.
I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017)
In this maniacal mystery, Ruth (Melanie Lynskey), a nurse, and her rattail-sporting, weapon-obsessed neighbor Tony (Elijah Wood) hunt down a local burglar. Part Cormac McCarthy thriller, part wacky, Will Ferrell-esque comedy, I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore is a cathartic neo-noir about everyday troubles. Director Macon Blair's not the first person to find existential enlightenment at the end of an amateur detective tale, but he might be the first to piece one together from cussing octogenarians, ninja stars, Google montages, gallons of Big Red soda, upper-deckers, friendly raccoons, exploding body parts, and the idiocy of humanity.
Inside Man (2006)
Denzel Washington is at his wily, sharp, and sharply dressed best as he teams up once again with Spike Lee for this wildly entertaining heist thriller. He's an NYPD hostage negotiator who discovers a whole bunch of drama when a crew of robbers (led by Clive Owen's dashing ass) takes a bank hostage during a 24-hour period. A no-nonsense Jodie Foster is also around doing some mysterious stuff.
The Iron Giant (1999)
Brad Bird's jump from The Simpsons to feature filmmaking bombed at the box office. Apparently Americans hate tender boy-and-his-robot stories set during the Cold War and styled like 1950s pulp sci-fi. Geez, Americans -- get with it! With gorgeous animation and a hilarious script by Bird -- more beatnik culture jokes, please -- The Iron Giant would be a top-three Pixar... if Pixar had made it. Bring tissues. Tears will be shed.
The Invitation (2015)
This slow-burn horror-thriller preys on your social anxiety. The film's first half-hour, which finds Quarry's Logan Marshall-Green arriving at his ex-wife's house to meet her new husband, plays like a Sundance dramedy about 30-something yuppies and their relationship woes. As the minutes go by, director Karyn Kusama (Jennifer's Body) burrows deeper into the awkward dinner party, finding tension in unwelcome glances, miscommunication, and the possibility that Marshall-Green's character might be misreading a bizarre situation as a dangerous one. We won't spoil what happens, but let's just say this is a party you'll be telling your friends about.
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Ip Man (2008)
There aren't many biopics that also pass for decent action movies. Somehow, Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen and director Wilson Yip made Ip Man (and three sequels!) based on the life of Chinese martial arts master Yip Kai-man, who famously trained Bruce Lee. What's their trick to keeping this series fresh? Play fast and loose with the facts, up the melodrama with each film, and, when in doubt, cast Mike Tyson as an evil property developer. The fights are incredible, and Yen's portrayal of the aging master still has the power to draw a few tears from even the most grizzled tough guy.
It Follows (2015)
The villain of this retro-thriller doesn't need to creep. "It" -- a demon? An embodiment of fear? A walking STD? -- can come from any direction at any time and can't be stopped. All its target can do is run, or damn someone new by transmitting the possession through intercourse. A relentless chase set against a picturesque suburban dreamworld, It Follows builds scares from pure suspense, a welcome alternative to the screeching, skittish horror movies that frequent theaters.
Jackass: Number Two (2006)
What Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Chris Pontius, Steve-O, the rest of the Jackass gang do to their bodies is art, dammit. Number Two cemented that fact. From riding a giant rocket to drinking horse semen to a "human bungee" experiment to attaching a bloodsucking leech to a bare eyeball, the crew, under the guidance of director Jeff Tremaine, exhibit the raw idiocy required to answer man's greatest questions.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Maybe you saw this Oscar-winning movie in school. Maybe you saw the opportunity for a nap. Time to give it a real chance. Adapted from Harper Lee's 1960 novel, this rousing drama stars Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, an Alabama lawyer appointed to defend a black man accused of raping a white girl. The assignment exposes racism and class struggles in his town, and the fallout clashes with a white-picket-fence ideal imagined by his kids. The movie's more relevant than ever.
L.A. Confidential (1997)
A lurid tale of cynicism and optimism crashing into one another in the swingin’ '50s of Hollywood, director Curtis Hanson’s adaptation of writer James Ellroy's crime novel attacked the town’s corrupt underbelly with gusto. Introducing us to Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe, who play cops tasked with walking a tricky ethical line, the movie has a leisurely pace, which allows the viewer to dig into the damaged psyches of the characters. The byzantine plotting might be tough to follow -- or fully understand as the credits roll -- but the people linger.
Lethal Weapon (1987)
You are never too old for this shit. Notwithstanding Mel Gibson's despicable behavior, the crown jewel of buddy cop comedies holds up, fueled by the mischievous misbehavior of screenwriter Shane Black (Iron Man III) and astute direction of Richard Donner (Superman). This is a detective story with every gun-toting sleuth at the top of his game, staged at a time when bad boy antiheroes didn't feel totally overdone.
Lincoln (2012)
Without the nostalgic glow, Steven Spielberg's rowdy, rousing act of political theater stands out as a treasure waiting to be appreciated. Daniel Day-Lewis won an Oscar for portraying our thunderous 16th president, who pulled every string necessary to end the Civil War and abolish slavery in one fell swoop. Spielberg finds comedy and tragedy in the saga, which resonates with a particularly damning pitch in our current stagnant moment. With gorgeous period accoutrements and the sharpest casting of the decade, Lincoln captures the past, speaks to the present, and hopefully inspires the future.
Lion (2016)
In 1986, 5-year-old Saroo Brierley becomes an accidental stowaway aboard a train headed to Calcutta -- 930 miles away from his home. Twenty-five years later, grown under the care of an Australian couple, the expatriate sets out to locate the mother he barely knew. His tool of choice: Google Earth. Brierley's life story is the setup for a feel-good drama, and Lion lands the life affirmations without schmaltzing up the hardships. Davis splits the movie in two, first capturing the metropolitan chaos from a pint-sized POV, then wrestling with an identity crisis in the present. Patel picks at a raw nerve as the present-day Brierley, displaced but driven towards discovery, while Kidman delivers a heartbreaking performance as his adoptive mother. Thank God for the meditative soundtrack.
The Look of Silence (2014)
The stronger one of Joshua Oppenheimer's films confronting the mid-1960s genocide in Indonesia (the other is The Act of Killing) follows an optometrist as he meets and interviews the individuals responsible for the death of his brother, none of whom have been held accountable before. It sounds so simplistic, and at first it plays so serenely, then gradually, it builds into a powerful record of the candid confessions of men still considered heroes in their country. This documentary focuses on the legacy of events that will soon only be in the hands and minds of a generation detached from and mistaken about the events of 50 years ago.
Love Actually (2003)
Richard Curtis’ overlapping-stories rom-com has become a polarizing flick in recent years, many arguing that the film is too sickly sweet for its own good. But if you’re the type who tends to get sentimental at the airport arrivals gate, watching this group of high-wattage, British thespians, including Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman (RIP), Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Bill Nighy, and The Walking Dead's Andrew Lincoln, navigate love under the mistletoe, the movie is a perfect seasonal reminder that love actually is all around.
Man on Wire (2008)
James Marsh is the master of the well-planned documentary, and his greatest film is about the master of well-planned high-wire stunts. An impeccably polished portrait of Philippe Petit that chronicles his 1974 tightrope walk between the Twin Towers, it's also a thrilling tribute to those since-fallen structures and an era lost to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. With all its pre-production work, heavily directed interviews, dramatized reenactments, and surplus of illustrative archival footage, this is a documentary as far from the observational style as can be, yet it's one of the most marvelous examples of experiential nonfiction there is.
Magic Mike (2012)
Just in time for the live Las Vegas show it inspired, Steven Soderbergh's story of a Tampa exotic dancer with a heart of gold (Channing Tatum) has body-rolled its way to Netflix. Sexy dance routines aside, Mike's story is just gritty enough to be subversive. Did we mention Matthew McConaughey shows up in a pair of assless chaps?
Marie Antoinette (2006)
Shot on location at the Palace of Versailles, and tricked out with a post-punk soundtrack, Sofia Coppola's biopic of France's rebel princess is glamorous confection. The Lost in Translation writer-director chooses effervescent drama over deconstructive info-dumping, going all in on the irresistible glow of her Virgin Suicides starlet Kirsten Dunst. She runs mad around the palace, spends oodles of money on cakes and dresses, and occasionally bares it all, leaving her eyes to do the talking. Marie learns lessons, but those of us watching are just there for an 18th-century hipster ride.
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)
When Danny (Adam Sandler), Matthew (Ben Stiller) and Jean (Elizabeth Marvel), three half-siblings from three different mothers, gather at their family brownstone in New York to tend to their ailing father (Dustin Hoffman), a lifetime of familial politics explode out of every minute of conversation. Their narcissistic sculptor dad didn't have time for Danny. Matthew was the golden child. Jean was weird… or maybe disturbed by memories no one ever knew. Expertly sketched by writer-director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale) this memoir-like portrait of lives half-lived is the kind of bittersweet, dimensional character comedy we're now used to seeing told in three seasons of prestige television. Baumbach gives us the whole package in two hours.
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Michael Clayton (2007)
George Clooney made a career out of playing gray knights and his work as the title character in this icy New York thriller might be the pinnacle of his work. Clayton is a super-cynical, debt-ravaged "fixer," stuck doing damage control amid a massive class-action lawsuit. (Think Olivia Pope from Scandal, but somehow more intense.) He also plays poker, drives cars that explode, and does his best impression of Shiva, god of death. Tony Gilroy's Oscar-winning legal drama is addictive fun in that way complex conspiracy yarns can be, and it has a handful of memorable exchanges to boot -- wait till you see the final confrontation with Tilda Swinton.
Moon (2009)
The attention-getting debut from Warcraft director Duncan Jones is basically a one-man show for star Sam Rockwell, who plays the lone operator of a moon-based mining outpost. Nearing the end of his three-year shift, the guy starts to have problems. Not just the loneliness and stunning boredom you'd expect from solo life on the moon; more like big fractures in his life, which reveal far more troubling facts about his existence. The brilliant Rockwell is aided by the voice of Kevin Spacey as the outpost's AI helper, and by a minimal but effective score from Clint Mansell. Facing death alone on a cold rock in space shouldn't be this appealing.
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
This living storybook reworks Wes Anderson’s subdued sense of humor for a YA crowd. When two teenagers go on the lam during a record-setting hurricane, the capricious adults spin in circles while romance blossoms. Anderson enhances this cheeky love story with his visual stamp, ensuring that even book covers and music cues inspire laughter.
Mountains May Depart (2016)
Underneath every trend, every money-making operation, every geopolitical shift, there are people. Mountains May Depart follows a few -- a happy-go-lucky Chinese woman, her working-class suitor, a millionaire who woos her into marriage, and their son, who wonders how he wound up in Australia without a word of Mandarin in his vocabulary -- as they drift from 1999 to 2014 to 2025. Jia Zhangke packs his epic with laughter, sadness, explosions, and dance sequences. Each pivotal moment thrills and thrills again, reflected a second time through the movie's rearview mirror. The drama's all compounded by Zhao Tao, whose gentle smile has the oomph to crush cars. Wherever you hail from, Mountains May Depart will speak to your world, your time, your life -- that's a promise.
Mudbound (2017)
The South's post-slavery existence is, for Hollywood, mostly uncharted territory. Rees rectifies the overlooked stretch of history with this novelistic drama about two Mississippi families working a rain-drenched farm in 1941. The white McAllans settle on a muddy patch of land to realize their dreams. The Jacksons, a family of black sharecroppers working the land, have their own hopes, which their neighbors manage to nurture and curtail. To capture a multitude of perspectives, Mudbound weaves together specific scenes of daily life, vivid and memory-like, with family member reflections, recorded in whispered voice-over. The epic patchwork stretches from the Jackson family dinner table, where the youngest daughter dreams of becoming a stenographer, to the vistas of Mississippi, where incoming storms threaten an essential batch of crops, to the battlefields of World War II Germany, a harrowing scene that will affect both families. Confronting race, class, war, and the possibility of unity, Mudbound spellbinding drama reckons with the past to understand the present.
My Happy Family (2017)
At 52, Manana (Ia Shughliashvili) packs a bag and walks out on her husband, son, daughter, daughter's live-in boyfriend, and elderly mother and father, all of whom live together in a single apartment. The family is cantankerous and blustery, asking everything of Manana, who spends her days teaching better-behaved teenagers about literature. But as Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Groß's striking character study unfolds, the motivation behind Manana's departure is a deeper strain of frustration, despite what her brother, aunts, uncles, and anyone else who can cram themselves into the situation would like us to think. Anchored by Ia Shughliashvili's stunningly internal performance, and punctured by a dark sense of humor akin to Darren Aronofsky's mother! (which would have been the perfect alternate title), My Happy Family is both delicate and brutal in its portrayal of independence, and should get under the skin of anyone with their own family drama.
Nymphomaniac
Provocateur Lars von Trier (Antichrist, Melancholia) made headlines for filling his orgastic opus with unsimulated sex. While the four-hour-long journey (and both volumes should be seen as one film) is filled with explicit scenes -- everything from train-car blow jobs to threesomes to fetish whipping where a riding crop takes care of the stimulation -- von Trier has more on his mind than pornographic subversion. His sardonic Nymphomaniac questions sexuality, the roles of men and women in one another's lives, and storytelling on a macro level. The movie's a triumph -- and not just for those who dreamed of seeing Shia LaBeouf thrust on camera.
Okja (2017)
This wild ride, part action heist, part Miyazaki-like travelogue, and part scathing satire, is fueled by fairy tale whimsy -- but the Grimm kind, where there are smiles and spilled blood. Ahn Seo-hyun plays Mija, the young keeper of a "super-pig," bred by a food manufacturer to be the next step in human-consumption evolution. When the corporate overlords come for her roly-poly pal, Mija hightails it from the farm to the big city to break him out, crossing environmental terrorists, a zany Steve Irwin-type (Gyllenhaal), and the icy psychos at the top of the food chain (including Swinton's childlike CEO) along the way. Okja won't pluck your heartstrings like E.T., but there's grandeur in its frenzy, and the film's cross-species friendship will strike up every other emotion with its empathetic, eco-friendly, and eccentric observations.
On Body and Soul (2017)
This Hungarian film earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film, and it's easy to see why. The sparse love story begins when two slaughterhouse employees discover they have the same dream at night, in which they're both deer searching the winter forest for food. Endre, a longtime executive at the slaughterhouse, has a physically damaged arm, whereas Maria is a temporary replacement who seems to be on the autism spectrum. If the setup sounds a bit on-the-nose, the moving performances and the unflinching direction save On Body and Soul from turning into a Thomas Aquinas 101 class, resulting in the kind of bleak beauty you can find in a dead winter forest.
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985)
Before his Netflix original movie, before his hit kid TV show, before his minor scandal, there was Pee-Wee's sublime road movie, directed by former animator Tim Burton. The premise is simple: Pee-Wee needs to find his bicycle. The path getting there is like a present day Alice in Wonderland. From run-ins with the bug-eyed Large Marge to the "Tequila Dance," every moment of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure is worthy of your reverse-10-seconds button -- a movie to watch and rewatch.
Pete's Dragon (2016)
Reverence for the 1977 original (or a clue that an original exists) is not required to fall hard for this adventure movie. Like King Kong, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and E.T., Lowery imagines a human-animal connection as a monstrous manhunt punctured by friendship. When we meet the 10-year-old main character, he's feral and afraid. So are those wandering the "sophisticated" world, as we learn when outsiders get a look at Pete's dragon, Elliott. Channeling Steven Spielberg's down-to-earth intrepidity, then soaring even higher, Pete's Dragon is the type of movie we're nostalgic for that doesn't indulge our nostalgia for a single second.
Quiz Show (1994)
Back in the 1990s, every true story became a classically tailored, character-actor-filled Oscar prospect. Quiz Show, directed by Robert Redford, is one of the best of the bunch, a story of the American dream filtered through the Hollywood machine. Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes) became rich and famous playing the game show Twenty One. In 1959, he testified before Congress that producers fed him the answers. He never lived down his scandal. Quiz Show show wrestles with why.
Raw (2017)
In Julia Ducournau's debut, carnal desires turn carnivorous. A coming-of-age story that'll have the queasy retreating from age, Raw finds sheltered vegetarian Justine (Marillier) embarking on her first year of French veterinarian school. Between graphic dissections, nightly raves, and hazing that makes American fraternity life look like a day at the massage parlor, the student struggles to fit in. Justine's frosh year takes a morbid turn when her upperclassman sister forces her to consume meat for the first time, unleashing an insatiable hunger. The metaphors are obvious, but Ducournau's clinical eye for horror tableaux -- the "gross" parts range from skin peeling to gnawing on human fingers to dredging dung from a cow's anus (for science!) -- keep Raw perpetually and satisfyingly unnerving.
Revolutionary Road (2008)
Sometimes, you just want to watch a great actor explode. With Mad Men soaring, maybe we didn't need Sam Mendes' adaptation of the acclaimed Richard Yates novel, but the descent into suburban malaise offered Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet the reunion of a lifetime. Their bitter feuds lay waste to ceramic kitchenware. Their looks, bubbling in living portrait after living portrait, scorch harder. Revolutionary Road is stage acting worthy of Broadway. On screen, it's a salvo of in-your-face confrontations, DiCaprio and Winslet pushing themselves to extremes.
The Ritual (2018)
The Ritual, a horror film where a group of middle-aged men embark on a hiking trip in honor of a dead friend, understands the tension between natural beauty of the outdoors and the unsettling panic of the unknown. The group's de facto leader Luke (an understated Rafe Spall) attempts to keep the adventure from spiralling out of control, but the forest has other plans. (Maybe brush up on your Scandinavian mythology before viewing.) Like a backpacking variation on Neil Marshall's 2005 cave spelunking classic The Descent, The Ritual deftly explores inter-personal dynamics while delivering jolts of other-worldly terror. It'll have you rethinking that weekend getaway on your calendar.
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Schindler's List (1993)
A passion project for Steven Spielberg, who shot it back-to-back with another masterpiece, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who reportedly saved over 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust. Frank, honest, and stark in its depiction of Nazi violence, the three-hour historical drama is a haunting reminder of the world's past, every frame a relic, every lost voice channeled through Itzhak Perlman's mourning violin.
Se7en (1995)
Director David Fincher has a thing for serial killers. The man who helmed Zodiac and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and who's executive producing Netflix's Mindhunter, got his first taste with Se7en, about two detectives (Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman) on the hunt for a murderer obsessed with punishing those he perceives to embody the seven deadly sins. The famous final murder scene ("What's in the box?!") grabs all the attention, but it's a payoff that's earned by the dark, brooding character studies that Fincher builds over the course of the film, a style that would become a hallmark of his later work.
She's Gotta Have It (1986)
Before Spike Lee resurrects this charged dramedy as a Netflix original series, catch up with where it all began. Nola (Tracy Camilla Johns) juggles three men during her sexual pinnacle, and it's all working out until they discover one another. She's Gotta Have It takes some dark turns, but each revelation speaks volumes about what real romantic independence is all about.
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Twist: M. Night Shyamalan's paranormal drama is just as scary after 18 years of meme-ification. Haley Joel Osment is just 11 years old in this star-making turn, as a young boy who can see dead people. Bruce Willis' mouth-agape reactions still chill with each surreal discovery.
Sliding Doors (1998)
You may know Sliding Doors more as a term for life-changing decisions than a romantic drama starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Now, thanks to Netflix, you can finally understand why late-'90s audiences were hung up about the parallel lives they could be living. You can think about Sliding Doors in terms of Paltrow's other '90s romantic hit, Shakespeare in Love: In another universe, the movie lost the Best Picture Oscar to Saving Private Ryan.
Spotlight (2015)
The best episode of The Wire that wasn't actually an episode of The Wire, Tom McCarthy stretches the drama taut as he renders Boston Globe's 2000 Catholic Church sex scandal investigation into a Hollywood vehicle. McCarthy's notable cast members crank like gears as they uncover evidence and reflect on a horrifying discovery of which they shoulder partial blame. Spotlight was the cardigan of 2015's Oscar nominees, but even cardigans look sharp when Mark Ruffalo is involved.
Tallulah (2016)
From Orange Is the New Black writer Sian Heder, Tallulah follows the title character (played by Ellen Page) after she inadvertently "kidnaps" a toddler from an alcoholic rich woman and passes the child off as her own to appeal to her run-out boyfriend's mother (Allison Janney). A messy knot of familial woes and wayward instincts, Heder's directorial debut achieves the same kind of balancing act as her hit Netflix series -- frank social drama with just the right amount of humorous hijinks. As Tallulah grows into a mother figure, her on-the-lam parenting course only makes her more and more of a criminal in the eyes of... just about everyone. You want to root for her, but that would be too easy.
Tangerine (2015)
Sean Baker shot this award-winning dramedy entirely on an iPhone 5s. Sound like a gimmick? Crazed camerawork proves your do-it-all phone is also the greatest conduit for electric, kaleidoscopic adventure. Set on the streets Los Angeles, the movie follows trans sex worker Sin-Dee Rella, fresh from a 28-day prison stint, as she hunts down her cheating boyfriend. While urgent and modern, Tangerine is still a throwback to road movies and old-school farce. It's wild from surface to core.
The Thin Blue Line (1988)
Errol Morris’ true-crime tale combines reenactment and voice-over to unravel the story of Randall Dale Adams, a man convicted, and sentenced to life in prison, for a of a murder he did not commit. The Thin Blue Line is the gold standard that successors like Making a Murderer, Serial, and The Jinx could only hope to match. Morris’ interviews, arid and frank, and the noir-tailored visuals, make the film more than a document of events. Thin Blue Line is engrossing drama that transcends its revelations with story.
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
The Thor series, with its occasionally leaden mix of earnest mythology, frantic action, and hokey jokes, was the Marvel property most in need of an upgrade. Ragnarok doesn't abandon the core elements of Thor -- Chris Hemsworth still stars as the hunk-ish, Hammer-throwing God -- but director Taika Waititi, fresh off the success of his wiseass adventure film Hunt for the Wilderpeople, optimizes the comedic potential of the character, turning the third chapter into an absurd, Technicolor zing-fest. New characters like Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie, Jeff Goldblum's Grandmaster, and Korg, a friendly rock monster voiced by Waititi himself, make this a wacky sci-fi universe you actually want to hang out in.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
If a season of 24 took place in the smoky, well-tailored underground of British intelligence crica 1973, it might look a little like this precision-made John le Carré adaptation from Let the Right One In director Tomas Alfredson. Even if you can't follow terse and tightly-woven mystery, the search for Soviet mole led by retired operative George Smiley (Gary Oldman), the ice-cold frames and stellar cast will suck you into the intrigue. It's very possible Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, and Benedict Cumberbatch are reading pages of the British phone book, but egad, it's absorbing. A movie that rewards your full concentration.
Trading Places (1983)
Is this secretly Eddie Murphy's funniest movie? Prepare to question everything after you watch Murphy team up with Dan Aykroyd in this comedy about Wall Street's most conniving one-percenters, Philadelphia's economic culture clash, and getting even with insider trading. It sounds heady, but the duo's physical comedy prowess can't be matched.
Tramps (2017)
There are heists pulled off by slick gentlemen in suits, then there are heists pulled off by two wayward 20-somethings rambling along on a steamy, summer day in New York City. This dog-day crime-romance stages the latter, pairing a lanky Russian kid (Callum Tanner) who ditches his fast-food register job for a one-off thieving gig, with his driver, an aloof strip club waitress (Grace Van Patten) looking for the cash to restart her life. When a briefcase handoff goes awry, the pair head upstate to track down the missing package, where train rides and curbside walks force them to open up. With a laid-back, '70s soul, Tramps is the rare doe-eyed relationship movie where playing third-wheel is a joy.
The Truman Show (1998)
Ignore the fact that iPhone cameras and social media has basically turned all of our lives into mini-Truman Shows and revel in the picturesque, suburban fabrications of this science-fiction classic. Jim Carrey stars as Truman, born into a reality TV show and driven to existential crisis. When he discovers what exactly is going on, his coastal town starts collapsing like the rickety flats of an aging sitcom set. The metaphors are endless, and the drama runs high until the final note.
The Wailing (2016)
Hollywood horror movies rarely shoot for "epic," content with scaring up a storm with micro-budgets and single locations. South Korean director Na Hong-jin does not suffer from the same apprehension. The Wailing is a masterpiece of mood, 156 minutes of every horror trope imaginable, drenched in mythology we foreigners may not entirely understand. That's fine: the movie's plot, a streak of murders that may or may not have been perpetrated by demons, tows the viewer through the foggiest moments with one visceral pleasure after another.
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)
Oscar-baiting, musician biopics became so cookie-cutter by the mid-'00s that it was easy for John C. Reilly, Judd Apatow, and writer-director Jake Kasdan (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) to knot them all together for the ultimate spoof. Dewey Cox is part Johnny Cash, part Bob Dylan, part Ray Charles, part John Lennon, part anyone-you-can-think-of, rising with hit singles, rubbing shoulders with greats of many eras, stumbling with eight-too-many drug addictions, then rising once again. When it comes to relentless wisecracking, Walk Hard is like a Greatest Hits compilation -- every second is gold.
Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
With Netflix reviving The State's first foray into moviedom with First Day of Camp and 10 Years Later, it's easy to forget that Wet Hot American Summer wasn't always a beloved comedy classic. The movie initially flopped, making less than $1 million in theaters, and earned some brutally dismissive reviews. You know who saved this movie? Stoned nerds, mostly. How else can you explain the iconic status of a movie that features a scene where the dude from Law & Order: SVU talks to a can of vegetables voiced by H. Jon Benjamin? There's no other explanation.
Welcome to Me (2015)
This offbeat indie stars Kristen Wiig as Alice Klieg, a veterinary nurse with a personality disorder and Oprah obsession who launches her own morning talk show after winning $86 million in the California lottery. The result is a delightfully bizarre plunge into the nooks and crannies of Alice's unhinged mind. Alice rides on a swan boat, re-enacts her childhood feuds. and even castrates dogs in front of a live studio audience. As the show snowballs, her bizarre experiment is elevated to the status of outsider art, causing a cult following to spring up around her. Simultaneously a snort-out-loud funny comedy and poignant dissection of mental illness, Welcome to Me is the perfect vehicle for Wiig’s unique brand of pathos-inflected humor.
Y Tu Mamá También (2001)
Before taking us to space with Gravity, director Alfonso Cuarón steamed up screens with this provocative, comedic drama about two teenage boys (Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal) road-trippin' it with an older woman. Like a sunbaked Jules and Jim, the movie makes nimble use of its central love triangle, setting up conflicts between the characters as they move through the complicated political and social realities of Mexican life. It's a confident, relaxed film that's got an equal amount of brains and sex appeal. Watch this one with a friend -- or two.
13th (2016)
Selma director Ava DuVernay snuck away from the Hollywood spotlight to direct this sweeping documentary on the state of race in America. DuVernay's focus is the country's growing incarceration rates and an imbalance in the way black men and women are sentenced based on their crimes. Throughout the exploration, 13th dives into post-Emancipation migration, systemic racism that built in the early 20th century, and moments of modern political history that continue to spin a broken gear in our well-oiled national machine. You'll be blown away by what DuVernay uncovers in her interview-heavy research.
The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005)
Not every part of Judd Apatow's debut feature has aged well, but the central performance from Steve Carell, who also co-wrote the script with Apatow, remains one of the funniest star-making turns of all time. As Andy Stitzer, a action-figure collecting employee at an electronics store who has never had sex, he exudes befuddlement, awkwardness, and kindness in every interaction. Between all the gross-out gags, it's the film's startling sweetness that makes it a classic.
45 Years (2015)
Andrew Haigh followed his acclaimed romance Weekend with HBO’s queer drama Looking, then returned to the film world with this relationship-driven twofer. It’s a delicate doozy. Stretched across the final week before an anniversary party, 45 Years observes the ripple effect an old flame has on an aging, committed couple. The ex only surfaces in the form of a letter, but that’s enough for Kate (Charlotte Rampling) to reframe the life she made with her husband Geoff (Tom Courtenay). Haigh treats his camera like a microscope, honing in on Rampling’s subtle, complex reactions to the past, a world she can only discover in crinkled photos and her hazy memories, and the present, where her husband wallows in indifference. This is not a movie of meltdowns and monologues -- 45 Years will whisk you away and snap you in half without saying much at all. Rampling’s work is, quite easily, the performance of the decade.
Want even more movies? It's a new year, so check out our new list of the Best Movies of 2018.
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