40 Best Movies On Mubi Right Now

Given the original real-life story behind it, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that The Girl with the Needle was so bleak. Serial killing, after all, is bad. But rather than focus on the historical killer, writer-director Magnus von Horn hones the camera to focus on one such mother that would have sought for help from Dagmar Overbye, on the circumstances that would have pushed them there, and the terror that they felt once they realized the truth. With gothic black-and-white shots, impeccable framing, and an excellent performance from Vic Carmen Sonne, The Girl with the Needle is harrowing and heartbreaking, especially with how it still remains relevant to our time.

Frances (Greta Gerwig) lives in New York – but not the glamorous NYC of Woody Allen movies. Taking place primarily in the gritty and rapidly gentrifying North Brooklyn, the black and white film paints a picture of an extended adolescence. Focusing on the goofy and carefree Frances, who loses her boyfriend, her best friend and her dream of being a dancer. She moves in with two guys, both of whom are more successful than her, and becomes even more determined to fulfil her goals, impractical as they may be. Fans of HBO’s Girls and other odes to not being a “real person” yet will love this film.

This movie originally caught my eye for all the attention it got at the Cannes festival, but I assure you, all of the hype is more than warranted. Two Days, One Night takes you on an emotional journey with Sandra, recovering from depression and ready to get back to work, when she discovers that her co-workers, having to choose between receiving a bonus and Sandra keeping her job, hold her fate in their hands. And thus, barely convinced herself and with her husband as her only support, she sets out on an unlikely mission to convince the people to vote against the bonus so that she still has a salary.

This movie will strike a chord for anyone who has encountered depression or even simply tried to understand the abstract concept that it is. Marion Cotillard flawlessly portrays through Sandra the desperate struggle of having to put up a fight despite the utter hopelessness that she finds herself drowning in. At strife with herself, watching her try even though every cell in her body has given up, is gut-wrenching and awe-inspiring at the same time. Before long Sandra’s fight on the lay-off and on her own hopelessness seem to blur together. Whether she wins, is what keeps you hooked to the very end.

The film for which Kristen Stewart became the first American actress to win the César Award. The Twilight star turned indie prodigy plays next to another award favorite, Juliette Binoche, as her assistant. When rehearsing for the play that launched her career many years earlier, Binoche’s character, Maria, blurs the line between fiction and reality, her old age and her assistant’s young demeanor, and the romance story portrayed in the play and her own life. The movie itself is stylized as a play, adding another interesting layer of artistic creativity to the complex plot line. A film for film lovers.

Vague statement alert: Burning is not a movie that you “get”; it’s a movie you experience.

Based on a short story by Murakami, it’s dark and bleak in a way that comes out more in the atmosphere of the movie rather than what happens in the story.

Working in the capital Seoul, a young guy from a poor town near the North Korean border runs into a girl from his village. As he starts falling for her, she makes an unlikely acquaintance with one of Seoul’s wealthy youth (played by Korean-American actor Steven Yeun, pictured above.)

This new character is mysterious in a way that’s all-too-common in South Korea: young people who have access to money no one knows where it came from, and who are difficult to predict or go against.

Two worlds clash, poor and rich, in a movie that’s really three movies combined into one – a character-study, a romance, and a revenge thriller.

Given that hookups are inherently quick and casual and impersonal, they are rarely portrayed in a romantic light. But Weekend flips the script on one-night stands by giving its two lovers enough time and space to explore how far their feelings can take them. While both Russell (Tom Cullen) and Glenn (Chris New) are gay, they have more differences than similarities with each other. Russell is reserved, awkward, and not entirely open, while Glenn is the exact opposite.

This makes for intriguing conversations, which then makes for a smart, thought-proving watch. It’s talky but meaningful, and slow but assured. But most of all it’s romantic, and it’s sure to pull at your heartstrings the whole time.

While named as a “how-to”, How to Have Sex is less of an instruction manual, and more of a collection of summer break moments presented as is. At the start, when Tara, Em, and Skye run to the freezing ocean water, the film seemed like it would have all the nostalgic coming-of-age moments that they would remember forever. But as the film progresses, and the girls meet other teenagers at the resort, there’s an eerie, foreboding feel that starts to build up, with every beer bottle, with every whisper, and with every insinuation Tara receives. And rather than preach about consent, writer-director Molly Manning Walker makes them fumble around without the concept of it, the same way teens tend to do, making it much more potent than a cautionary tale.

For better or worse, death strikes us all, fast and unexpectedly. It’s tough enough if the death is caused by ill health or accidents, but when premeditated by another person– it can be easy to lose faith in a higher power. Secret Sunshine depicts a grieving mother trying to start a new life in the countryside, though certain events make it tough to fit in. There’s a well-meaning, long-term bachelor who’s interested in her, though she’s not ready to reciprocate, and there’s townsfolk that would like to invite her to their church, though she’s reluctant to join. There’s curious, gossipy neighbors ready to comment on her every action. Secret Sunshine reveals a darker layer to the countryside towns we retreat to to cope, but it also examines the ways we grieve, cope, and deal with forgiveness, in a community that would prioritize itself at the expense of what’s morally right.

Something about falling in love in an exotic place makes it feel much more romantic, leading to plenty of classic black and white films centered on the idea, with a visual language and a set of aesthetics meticulously enacted in 2012’s Tabu. These classic films, however, rarely contemplate the actual reality behind these films– the reason that made these romantic trips possible in the first place. Tabu subtly critiques this indulgent imagination, with the silent memory melodramatically portrayed and narrated by the white lovers, but with the African natives and their homes and landscapes depicted naturally. Writer-director Miguel Gomes remixes classic cinema techniques to paint and reframe the lovers’ myopic memory, in such a striking fashion.

Admittedly, The Man from Nowhere can feel a bit derivative. A quiet and mysterious stranger befriending a child, and ending up enacting his revenge when the child gets kidnapped… It feels like writer-director Lee Jeong-beom took two certain film plots and stitched it together into one. But where the film lacks in original story, The Man from Nowhere makes up for it with style, with high-contrast, rainy, moody scenes that linger into the mystery to make the few brutal, excellently choreographed action sequences pop. It has familiar tropes, and the backstory becomes a bit predictable because of it, but The Man from Nowhere keeps a steady pulse on the beating heart of the film– the friendship that makes these familiar tropes hold heavier emotional weight.