60 Best Movies on AMC+ Right Now

Following is the first movie Christopher Nolan ever directed, a mesmerizing low-budget effort that introduced the world to the genius who will later give us Memento, Inception, The Dark Knight, and many other classics. Shot in “extreme” conditions to quote Nolan himself, for just over £3000, it had to be filmed in the span of a year on Saturdays only and in friends’ houses. But almost none of that is visible in the sharp camera work, the magnificent acting (most of it was first or second takes), and the twisted script. It tells the story of an unsuccessful writer (The Young Man) who tries to find inspiration in following random people in the street, and doing it via strict rules. One day he follows a man in a suit (Cobb), who catches him and becomes intrigued by him. It turns out that Cobb has his own fascination with people’s intimate lives, of criminal nature, which he lets The Young Man into. Using the same non-linear plot technique as in Memento, this movie is halfway between a thriller and a film noir. The inspiration for it came when Nolan’s own apartment in London was robbed, and he was fascinated by the act of strangers going through his personal items. If you take into consideration the conditions of its making, this movie is a masterpiece.

In this raw, psychedelic drama, an American drug dealer living in Tokyo with his sister is killed at a night club. His spirit continues to float above the city and past, present, and future are woven together to complete the tale of his life. Taking a page from the Tibetan book of the dead, the film aims to explore one answer to life’s most epic question: What happens when we die? Definitely not for the faint of heart, there is drug use, gore, and challenging themes throughout the movie. Its unique cinematography also captures Tokyo quite well.

When Émilie finds a new roommate in Camille, she also gains a friend and a lover. Still, the parameters of their relationship are never quite sure, causing a complicated chasm that both divides and arouses them. Eventually, they meet Nora, who brings her own desires and insecurities into the mix. Experimentation ensues as the film follows the trio coming into their own as sexual and human beings.

Shot in rich black and white against the backdrop of Paris’ urban Les Olympiades neighborhood, Paris, 13th District is a finely balanced film that never overstays its welcome in the contrasting ideas it takes on. Classic love stories offset modern setups of romance, while fast-paced city life levels out the uncertainty of its inhabitants. Paris, 13th District is an engaging watch, not despite but because of its bold attempt to be many things at once.

College seems to be teeming with possibility, in a more substantial way than adulthood or high school feels, since for many people, it’s the only time where one lives alone and makes decisions for their lives selfishly. Shithouse captures that moment with a candid sentimentality, all marked by a shared late night that changes the way the whole college life feels. Cooper Raiff captures this time of a freshman uncertainty with actual palpable emotions, acting, writing, and directing with a freshness that filmmakers aspire to but never seem to get on screen, and it’s this mumblecore-inspired feature debut that made him a filmmaker to look out for. Shithouse is pure college nostalgia.

Music competitions aren’t really new, but usually, the goal is to find the best performers in exchange for a cash prize and a chance to make even more great music. The Saddest Music in the World is an eccentric choice to base a competition on, especially during the Great Depression and Prohibition era happening all at once, and it gets even weirder in as a film in the hands of writer-director Guy Maddin, as a beer baroness transforms it into a cultural Olympics hijacked by a strange family who should probably go to therapy for their dual love triangles. Fans of old black-and-white films would love the classic vignette and grain, but rather than wax nostalgically about the past, The Saddest Music in the World takes a more bizarre, ridiculous route on talking tapeworms and literal beer legs.

Producer/Director Beth Kargman has put together a wonderful documentary that follows six young ballet dancers to the Youth America Grand Prix, one of the most important of all ballet competitions worldwide. The prizes at the competition include awards of recognition, scholarships, and work with major dance companies. The dancers are in several age ranges and ethnicities. Michaela and her sister were adopted from Sierra Leone, where there was nothing but death and poverty waiting for them. Michaela has been told that blacks make unsuitable ballet dancers — bad feet, too muscular, wrong build, etc. Zamora lives in New York, far away from his family, but his father tells him there is nothing for him in Colombia and he has to go after his dream. Rebecca is a cheerleader and a ‘normal’ kid whose passion is dance, and Aaron doesn’t tell other kids he’s a dancer. All of them have great talents, obvious from their dance routines at the Grand Prix. First Position is a very inspiring documentary about youngsters from different backgrounds and social status with the dream of dancing professionally, and the sacrifices they have made to achieve their goal. The dancing is heavenly; I only wish there had been more of it.

Definitely a film you will either love or hate, Sightseers is an extremely dark comedy on the verge of being a horror movie. And it’s British, with many elements of deep British culture. A couple go on their dream road trip in the countryside to suddenly find themselves killing strangers. Sightseers will feel almost like a very British version of True Romance. Again, it’s a unique film, but don’t get me wrong that does not make it hard to like – it’s really about if you like it, you will find it absolutely hilarious.

This is right up your alley if you have a thing for gangster films. Actually, if you have a thing for stupendous acting and just Robert de Niro in general, then A Bronx Tale might do the job for you. The 1960’s was a tough time for Lorenzo (de Niro), father to conflicted Calogero (Lillo Brancato), who seems to have befriended Bronx’s big man, Sonny (Chazz Palminteri). Torn between his moral integrity and a few other factors in the mix, the young boy’s leap to the crazed world of mobsters doesn’t get any more real than this.
Tragedy and fascination take human form through the eyes of De Niro’s directorial debut and Palminteri’s work of art, leaving you with a gripping feeling long after the credits have stopped rolling.

The main subject that Hold Your Fire promises to be about—negotiation tactics first used in resolving a New York City standoff at a sporting goods store—is ultimately its most least interesting aspect. These supposed tactics aren’t too well, and they end up putting a damper on all the human drama that comes before it, which proves strikingly three-dimensional. As the film revisits the details of the hostage situation from the perspective of those who were actually there, it also complicates the situation by compelling us to think of it in a dense, sociopolitical sense rather than a reductive lens of crime and punishment. It’s this build-up to the actual negotiation that may actually hold more insight into these kinds of crises.

As a growing number of horror movies are, Influencer is inspired by the fact that we’re increasingly spending our lives in the digital, rather than physical, world. Kurtis David Harder’s film makes some effort to highlight the tension between those two realms: its plot hinges on the idea that vapidly sunny influencer-speak often masks gloomier realities, and suggests that, if your existence is mainly validated through a screen, would anyone really know if something truly dark happened to you?

It’s an interesting premise, to be sure, but Influencer’s critique settles there. Instead of striving for social thriller status by exploring the paradox of social media with any real rigor, the rather broad writing here means it lands as a run-of-the-mill scary movie, one that verges on being a forgettable experience once the credits have rolled. One element saves it from that fate, though: Cassandra Naud, who gives an unnerving performance that brings intriguing psychological depths to the role of CW, the film’s villain. She can only do so much to elevate a script that is shallowly interested in her character, though, meaning Influencer can’t quite transcend its status as a middling social media horror.