10 Best Movies on Film Movement Plus Right Now

Poland’s nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2020 Academy Awards may have lost to Parasite, but director Jan Komasa’s film is still utterly compelling. The crazy sounding premise is inspired by true events: after having had a transformative experience in jail, an ex-convict, played by the wiry, blue-eyed Bartosz Bielenia, decides he wants to become a priest. When he is told that his criminal history prohibits it, he goes down the path that got him into trouble in the first place and just pretends he is. Apparently, he does so quite convincingly—and serves the community well, which is collectively grieving for the victims of a tragic accident. For all his charisma, there’s no way not to root for the crooked clergyman conning his way to the top. The complex character at the heart of Corpus Christi is refreshing and three-dimensional, and the smart writing of the film excels at exploring they grey areas of truth and religion. The ending, too, circumvents the soppy and the melodramatic. Thought-provoking European drama.

In Playground, we follow seven-year-old Nora as she navigates friends and school. Through her eyes (and often on her eye level), we witness her and her brother trying and often failing to fit in.

The film is an unfiltered account of their formative years, and possibly a reflection of our own. Commercials and kid-friendly media would have us believe that childhood is simple and pure, but the truth is it isn’t exempt from the major pitfalls of humanity. Children will mimic whatever they see, reasonable or otherwise, and the resulting order won’t always be ideal. Case in point: in the schoolyard, free of adult supervision, Nora and her peers push and tease and harass one another. 

It’s painful but relatable, a microcosm of our own complicated world, and though the film doesn’t shy away from the cruelties of bullying, it’s also filled with moments of empathy and warmth.

A razor-sharp script and beautiful scenery make this one of the best road movies in recent memory.

When their cynical best friend dies, Seph and Alex embark on a journey to scatter his ashes over four spots he wants to go back to. Tupperware of ashes in the glove-box, they start their big adventure.

Burn Burn Burn, an expression their friend quotes from Kerouac, is a chance for the two friends to escape their hectic city life and to discover themselves. It’s a beautiful movie.

Mayor follows Musa Hadid, the mayor of the de-facto capital of Palestine, Ramallah, over two years as he tries to make his constituents’ lives better under occupation. With shootings, sieges, and a wide array of life-threatening situations taking place, his focus remains on cheesy Christmas decorations and funny city-branding attempts.

The director follows the mayor everywhere, including in his home and with his family, examining the toll of the unique job. Ramallah is portrayed like it were any other capital—except for the daily reminders that it’s very far from that.

Many people would rather see happy, positive depictions of people like them, but sometimes, it’s important to see the sides that we don’t really like to see, but should have some awareness of, in order to address them. It’s because of this director Lee Tamahori initially thought that adapting the Maori novel Once Were Warriors would end up as a flop– the novel depicts the worst sides of modern Maori people, as disenfranchisement pushed many to poverty, alcoholism, and abuse. However, Tamahori ended up crafting a fierce, intense debut by focusing on Beth Heke and her children– granting more screentime to their healing rather than their suffering. Once Were Warriors isn’t an easy watch. Tamahori makes the alienation, the rage, and the hardship feel palpable. But he mostly reminds people to return to their roots, returning to one’s culture to truly heal as a society, and this is why Once Were Warriors proved to be one of the best films ever made from New Zealand.

Human Capital is a rich and absorbing tale of two families tied together by love, money and a hit-and-run accident. One family is wealthy, the other struggling to get by in the days after the 2008 economic meltdown. Human Capital dexterously contrasts the social calculations the characters make about who can afford to step outside the lines of law and morality. The story is told from different perspectives, a device that serves to give the tale and the characters greater depth. In Italian with English subtitles.

A man is struggling to mourn his passing wife in this slow-burning Icelandic drama. The story starts with him converting an abandoned electricity station into a house, in an effort to find peace. Soon, however, questions about a possible extramarital affair that his wife disturb this peace and make it seem unattainable. 

The way A White, White Day’s brilliant story unfolds might catch you off-guard a couple of times. Still, it’s slow and requires a little bit of patience. Make sure you’re in the mood for that to be rewarded with unmatched insight on how differently people process grief.

At the height of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, a small Singaporean family scrambles to keep their middle-class status afloat. The parents shave their expenses and work extra-long hours, but their busyness causes them to neglect their misbehaved son. When his misdemeanors prove to be too much, the mother is forced to hire a stay-at-home nanny, and her presence (along with other external pressures) brings about a change in the house. Suddenly, everyone becomes a bit more aware of their limitations and potential, and from this, a shared empathy grows. In other hands, this story might come off as bare and forgettable, but under first-time-feature director Anthony Chen’s helm, Ilo Ilo comes to life in rich detail, thoughtful shots, and captivatingly natural performances. Despite its many heartbreaking scenes, the film rarely dwells in sentiment, and it’s this restraint that makes Ilo Ilo all the more gripping to watch. 

The Earth Is Blue as an Orange chronicles the lives of a single mother and her four children as they live in the war-torn Donbas region of Ukraine. Despite the constant threat of violence, the family finds solace in the arts (more specifically in filmmaking). While striving for normalcy in these tumultuous times, they channel their efforts into creating a film about the effect of war on their family. Even as they try to lead individual lives, nurturing this collective project, bombs, debris, and their reality is unavoidable. 

This film is a moving testament to the power of art, creativity, and hope in the darkest times. 

Theeb is set in the Hejaz (now part of Saudi Arabia) on the eve of the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire in 1916 — but you don’t need to be clued up on its historical backdrop, because its protagonist isn’t. Jacir Eid plays the titular adolescent (the name meaning “wolf”), the youngest son of a now-dead Bedouin leader. When his older brother Hussein (Hussein Al-Sweilhiyeen) is called upon to help guide a suspiciously tense British soldier (Jack Fox) to a well, Theeb disobeys an order to stay put and follows them into the unforgiving desert. Then, tragedy strikes in the middle of nowhere, throwing him into an uneasy alliance with an enemy, without whom he won’t survive the treacherous journey home.

Era-ending political machinations are unfolding all around him, but Theeb lends the film his childlike perspective so that it plays out more like the coming-of-age story of a young cub than a Lawrence of Arabia-style epic. Even as it boldly subverts that classic, though, Theeb’s cinematography mirrors the haunting, hostile beauty of David Lean’s film — making the desert feel as much a character as the boy. Deftly balancing a sense of earth-shattering personal stakes with one of looming historical portent, Theeb earned a well-deserved nomination at the 2016 Oscars.