25 Best Fall Films to Watch This Autumn

25 Best Fall Films to Watch This Autumn

November 19, 2024

Share:

twitter
facebook
reddit
pinterest
link

The leaves have been falling for quite a while now, but there’s still enough time before the season ends to get cozy, cuddle up, and slip under the blankets to watch these fall favorites. Of course, we already know you might already be aware of the classic autumn films like Dead Poets Society and Good Will Hunting, so we made sure to find other movies that fit the season based on the setting and overall vibe. For viewers looking for some fall suggestions, here’s our best picks to watch this autumn (and for all autumns ahead).

1. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

best

8.9

Country

China, United States of America

Director

Female director, Marielle Heller

Actors

Alex Pérez, Carmen Cusack, Chris Cooper, Christine Lahti

Moods

A-list actors, Character-driven, Emotional

Journalist LLoyd Vogel (Matthey Rhys) scoffs at the prospect of a profile commission, or a “puff piece”, as he calls it. His self-respect and professional ruthlessness has driven people away and this assignment may well be a test from his editor. But it is serendipity that brings Lloyd to American TV host Mister Roger (Tom Hanks) and his child-oriented show, at a time when he, a new father, is confronted with his own paternal trauma. No heavy psychological lifting here, but A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood might be one of the most profound films about father-son relationships ever made. Notably, the film is directed by a woman, Marielle Heller (The Diary of a Teenage Girl). In her film as in his show, Mister Roger doesn’t have to do much: he listens, he speaks, he suggests, and while his kindness may seem frustrating at times, it is truly radical. Additionally, Lloyd’s character is based loosely on writer Tom Junod, whose encounter with Rogers ended up a profile in Esquire magazine.

2. Our Little Sister (2016)

best

8.5

Country

France, Japan

Director

Hirokazu Kore-eda, Hirokazu Koreeda

Actors

Fukiko Hara, Haruka Ayase, Ichirō Ogura, Ikeda Takafumi

Moods

Slice-of-Life, Without plot

Hirokazu Koreeda can do no wrong. The director of Shoplifters and Still Walking is a master of dissecting complex family dynamics through a handful of events. In Our Little Sister, three close sisters who live at their grandmother’s house learn that their absent father has passed. They travel to the mountains to attend his funeral and meet their half-sister, Suzu, for the first time. Suzu is invited to live with the sisters and join their bond.

This movie is a true-to-the-form slice of life, it’s almost drama-free. This absence of plot is an absence of distractions: the sisters are all that matters to Koreeda. His only focus is on how this family becomes bigger, sees past grief, and how the group of close-knit sisters that grew up together can make room for a new addition.

3. What We Do in the Shadows (2014)

best

8.4

Country

New-Zealand, United States of America

Director

Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi

Actors

Ben Fransham, Chelsie Preston Crayford, Cohen Holloway, Cori Gonzalez-Macuer

Moods

Funny

Deadpan comedy styled as a mockumentary, following four flatmates who happen to be vampires. They range in ages from 183 to 8000, and spend their nights trying to adapt to modern day living, eating,   reminiscing about old times, and solving the problems that come with every shared flat. It is filmed in a fake documentary style similar to The Office, with one-on-one interviews interspersed into the film. From the creators of Flight Of The Conchords and Boy, it is a truly great, hilarious comedy that you will not want to miss!

4. Il Mare (2000)

best

8.3

Country

South Korea

Director

Hyun-seung Lee, Lee Hyeon-seung

Actors

Cho Seung-yeon, Choe Yun-yeong, Hong So-yeong, Ji-hyun Jun

Moods

Emotional, Original, Romantic

While more people are familiar with its US adaptation, Il Mare is far more striking and emotionally resonant. The Korean romance, separated by timelines, depicts two lonely people who lived in the same seaside residence. They form a bond through the titular house’s mailbox, by sharing letters, voice recorders, and suggestions to deal with loneliness. As they receive each other’s messages, the film slowly reveals the reason for their loneliness– that they’ve been left behind. Matched with shots of creeping urbanization, migration, and the Y2K scare, Il Mare understands modern isolation, but it also underscores how solitude helps us connect with other people.

5. If Beale Street Could Talk (2019)

best

8.1

Country

United States of America

Director

Barry Jenkins

Actors

Aunjanue Ellis, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Bobby Conte Thornton, Brian Tyree Henry

Moods

Slice-of-Life, Slow

Barry Jenkins’ follow up to his award-winning film Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk is a highly compelling tale that explores the extent of the emotional consequences of racial injustices through the lens of a young couple torn apart by the judicial system. Staying faithful to James Baldwin’s original novel while adopting Jenkins’ signature melancholic style, it fails to reach the brilliance of Moonlight, but still stands strong enough on its own and successfully tugs on your heartstrings.

6. The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

best

8.0

Country

China, United States of America

Director

Female director, Kelly Fremon Craig

Actors

Alexander Calvert, Ava Grace Cooper, Blake Jenner, Chris Shields

Moods

Feel-Good, Funny, Lovely

A wonderful, witty teen comedy—possibly the best the genre has known in a long time! In a powerhouse performance, Hailee Steinfeld plays Nadine, a high school junior at peak angst and awkwardness. Her roller coaster journey through family, friends, lovers, or lack thereof, gives her that all-too-common impression for people her age that life is unbearable. Things get more complicated when Nadine’s dad passes and her only friend hooks up with an unexpected person. Her temperament and humor will help her see past her demons to understand what’s important in life, putting you in privileged spectator mode to this highly smart and exciting coming-of-age story.

7. The Straight Story (1999)

best

8.0

Moods

Character-driven, Emotional, Slow

A family-friendly, Disney-backed movie is not something you’d expect from cinema’s surrealist master, but The Straight Story marks a surprisingly winning stylistic departure for David Lynch. It tells the true story of Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth), an ailing 73-year-old who, upon hearing that his estranged brother has suffered a stroke 240 miles away, decides it’s time to patch things up. Unable to drive due to poor eyesight, Alvin modifies a ride-on lawn mower and sets off on the six-week-long journey it will take to reach his brother while traveling just five miles an hour.

Lynch’s film is set at a similarly patient pace: contemplative shots of Mid-Western America’s cornfields fade in and out as Alvin chugs along and experiences profound, fleeting connections with the strangers crossing his path. Alvin refuses to accept any offers of a ride: he wants to finish this pilgrimage on his own terms. Angelo Badalamenti’s elegiac score emphasizes just how much this journey means to Alvin — who, in his last chapter of life, uses it both to reflect on all that’s come before and treasure every experience, big or small, that the present offers. The sense of this being a swan song for Alvin is always palpable, making The Straight Story deeply moving down to its bones.

8. The Gleaners and I (2000)

7.9

Country

France

Director

Agnès Varda, Agnès Varda

Actors

Agnès Varda, Agnès Varda, Bodan Litnanski, François Wertheimer

Moods

Lighthearted, Lovely, Original

Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse (The Gleaners and I) is one of the late Agnès Varda’s great documentaries. The film follows “gleaners”—scavengers and collectors of discarded garbage or abandoned items—from the French countryside into the city. The first of Varda’s subjects recalls, “Gleaning, that’s the old way,” marking a clear distinction: old versus new, rural versus urban, wasted versus repurposed.

Fans of Varda will recognize the signature tenderness with which she approaches both her subjects and their objects. Those new to her work will be sure to find something familiar in this documentary: a film largely about loss, but which approaches its ideas of modernization and time with humor and lightness. Among the rubble, there is joy yet to be found—and in this documentary, there is a great comfort, too, to be gleaned.

9. Rushmore (1998)

7.9

Country

United States of America

Director

Wes Anderson

Actors

Alexis Bledel, Andrew Wilson, Antoni Scarano, Bill Murray

Moods

Easy, Feel-Good, Funny

If it weren’t for his knack for writing, Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) would never have gotten into a prep school like Rushmore. But his art secures him a scholarship, and what he lacks in smarts and money, he makes up for in school pride. As he flunks more and more of his academics, however, he is eventually kicked out, and it’s outside the halls of his beloved Rushmore, stripped of all titles and insignia, where he learns to be his true self.

As the film’s comedic and emotional core, Schwartzman is a revelation as the ambitious and sharp-tongued Max. Equally captivating is Bill Murray’s deadpan but lovable turn as Max’s millionaire friend, Herman Blume. It’s a role so fitting, in fact, that the poor-rich-man character will follow Murray well into his career, long after the curtains close on Mr. Blume. Meanwhile, Wes Anderson will go on to do more colorful and stylized pictures than Rushmore, but thanks to its unbeatable wit and down-to-earth charm, the film remains to be one of the auteur’s most delightful and hilarious works to date.

10. Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)

7.8

Country

China, Taiwan, United States of America

Director

Ang Lee

Actors

Chen Chao-jung, Chen Yu, Chi-Der Hong, Chin-Cheng Lu

Moods

Easy, Heart-warming, Lovely

Eat Drink Man Woman takes place in Taipei, Taiwan in the mid-1990s. It tells the story of an aging father and his three daughters, all of whom are navigating different phases of adulthood while embracing new relationships. The family uses cooking and eating together as a way to communicate their love.

Food as a love language wasn’t a new concept in 1994, when the film was released, however it is impeccably explored in Eat Drink Man Woman.

Comments

Add a comment

Curated by humans, not algorithms.

agmtw

© 2024 A Good Movie to Watch. Altona Studio, LLC, all rights reserved.