The Best Feel-Good Movies to Watch on Youtube

You don’t have to be a theater kid to enjoy this feel-good mockumentary set in a summer camp for junior thespians. While there are plenty of in-jokes here for those who might have spent a summer or two somewhere like AdirondACTS, Theater Camp also good-naturedly lampoons every instantly recognizable stereotype of theater kids and the […]

Babes tells the story of Eden (Ilana Glazer) and Dawn (Michelle Buteau), codependent best friends who are forced to reevaluate their relationship when Eden finally joins Dawn in becoming a mother. While Eden learns how to be more mature and independent, Dawn struggles to feel like herself again after two exhausting pregnancies. Burdened by these […]

Jules’ wacky premise — an extra-terrestrial crash-lands in eccentric widower Milton’s (Ben Kingsley) flowerbeds — is a bit of a misdirection. While the movie is technically a sci-fi (featuring, as it does, some very out-there alien engineering), it’s really a charming, mostly-human drama about the isolation and surreality of aging.  Though the mute presence of […]

You’d need to have a lot of trust in people and in movies to like this one. Ordinary Angels is the true story of how a community came together to help a five-year-old in need of a liver at a time when her father was barely making ends meet, having just recently lost his wife […]

True to its name, Joy Ride is a raucous delight that has everything you want out of a road trip comedy and more. There’s love, sex, adventure, and even music, but most of all there’s friendship, the interesting complexities of which are explored against the backdrop of race. There’s something meaningful keeping everything together at […]

Bank of Dave is a simple but well-told film that feels utterly satisfying from start to end. Dave is the little guy who only wants to give back to his community, but stopping him from achieving his noble goals are the big guys in suits with vested interests and too narrow a focus to appreciate […]

There’s a certain magic in childhood that makes you see the world with bright eyes– every small task is an exciting quest, not weighed down by budgeting, lack of control, and worry. Riddle of Fire captures that magic on 16 mm film, transforming buying a blueberry pie into a whimsical, chaotic adventure involving covens, witches, […]

Sophia Castuera’s first feature after two indie shorts seems like a low-key affair, but it fits neatly into a canon of post-mumblecore, or a Gen Z mumblecore. It features a fumbling protagonist named Cal and played by Ali Edwards (who also wrote the script), a wanna-be actress fresh out of college who finds herself stuck […]

Nowadays, more people might know the cartoon character Yogi Bear or the saying “It ain’t over ‘till its over,” more than they know Yogi Berra, the larger-than-life baseball player who originated the character and the phrase. But in his prime, Berra was one of the most recognizable faces of major league baseball. He was so […]

While the market for animation is mostly dominated by American 3D and Japanese anime, once in a while, a film outside the two industries comes up with an entirely new style of its own, with the design inspired by their respective countries. European animation has garnered some interest with Loving Vincent, but Chicken with Linda! […]

Do you keep re-watching Superbad when you’re hungover? Next time you are, try the film that has been praised as ‘the female Superbad”: the amazing Booksmart. Yes, it’s coming-of-age comedy, but, like Superbad, it tried something a little different. Like its two main characters, one could say it’s a bit smarter than Greg Mottola’s seminal […]

It’s difficult to portray Cinderella stories nowadays without making them feel cliche and irrelevant, but Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris seems to have achieved the impossible: it tells a well-worn tale without losing any of its charms, and Lesley Manville is the person to thank for this surprising triumph. As the titular Mrs. Harris, Manville […]