Movies Like Dune (1984)
Given a budget from Netflix to make a documentary on Korean film, some would have chosen instead to make one for big Korean filmmaking personalities like Academy Award winner Bong Joon-ho, who is featured here. However, director Lee Hyuk-rae instead creates Yellow Door, a love letter to the ‘90s film club that inspired a generation. […]
Partially based on the 860-page memoir, “A White House Diary”, and on the actual audio recordings Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson made during her time as first lady, The Lady Bird Diaries is an intimate reworking of a past we still know very little about. Told from the vantage point of First Lady Johnson candidly and […]
There’s a remarkable harshness to every moment of I Have Electric Dreams, even if it doesn’t seem like much is happening. Beautiful textures in its cinematography and the dreamlike movement of its editing can’t mask the pain that protagonist Eva feels, as she drifts through the ruin of her own family in search of any […]
Even with its haphazard construction and occasionally unnecessary and corny flourishes (what’s with all the mellowed-out covers of pop songs?), there’s a sense of intense, sincere pride and joy that shines through Every Body’s many testimonials. Intersex people are barely represented whether in media or in legislation, and countless people still have very little understanding […]
A first feature by stuntman-turned-director Andy Armstrong, Squealer is supposedly based on real events that shook Canada in the 1990s. Robert Pickton or the Pig Farmer Killer was perhaps the inspiration for the eponymous Squealer in the 2023 film; the physical resemblance is uncanny. Extraordinarily cruel serial killers make good gore material and we love […]
“They called me uppity. Uppity n*****. And I loved it”. That’s how this excellent documentary, about the first professional black racing driver Willy T. Ribbs, starts. It summarizes the strong personality of a champion who excelled in tracks that were filled with confederate flags. The documentary explains the details of the difficulties that Ribbs went […]
Sukhee depicts the struggles specific to adult women – the way women are encouraged to sacrifice their identity for the people that they love and to meet certain expectations that feel impossible or contradictory. This isn’t a common topic in film, but it has been portrayed before, with the likes of English Vinglish and Eat, […]
Even a straightforward documentary on the New York East Village visual artist David Wonjarowicz (pronounced VOY-nuh-ROH-vitch) would be thrilling, given the energy and the irreverence of his artworks especially during the AIDS epidemic from the 1980s to the 1990s. But director Chris McKim goes above and beyond, essentially imagining how Wojnarowicz would have directed his […]
Bull is a gritty and haunting drama featuring a phenomenal performance by Rob Morgan as a bullfighter. In a poor Houston suburb, he plays an aging and lonely black man doing everything he can to survive. He brushes off unrelenting racism, rides even when it’s life-threatening and raises chickens to sell them. His next-door neighbor […]
Even if it doesn’t provide the most comprehensive information about treatment and care for multiple sclerosis (MS)—especially for those who can’t afford a ridiculously expensive stem cell transplant—this isn’t really the point of Introducing, Selma Blair. This is still mostly a biographical documentary about a (self-confessed) “not-so-famous” celebrity, who gets to be incredibly honest about […]
The messy, non-linear process of grieving is always tough to capture meaningfully on screen—and there are definitely parts of Good Grief that trail off without much feeling or go on for too long without making new points. But the good still outweighs the bad in Dan Levy’s directorial debut, with the inherent impracticality of death […]
Built entirely around the star power of its lead performers, A Very Good Girl does, indeed, provide ample opportunities for both Kathryn Bernardo and Dolly de Leon to chew the scenery with wild abandon. But even their most campily delivered one-liners are only entertaining in the moment, as the film twists itself into increasingly complicated […]
x3A 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 […]
x4Not to be confused with James Cameron’s 1989 film, The Abyss isn’t the worst disaster film, but it could have been so much more. Inspired by the earthquake that actually happened in the real life town of Kiruna, there’s an important story here about worker safety, responsible mining, improving emergency protocols, and preserving the environment. […]
Jia Zhangke (who NPR critic John Powers once called “perhaps the most important filmmaker working in the world today”), directed this movie based on the story of a gangster he knew while growing up. And he is far from being the only noticeable talent here. Actress Tao Zhao shines as a character called Qiao, a […]
This uplifting Canadian sports drama is based on a true story set in the remote Nunavut town of Kugluktuk. The small community has the highest teen suicide rate in North America, as it suffers from intergenerational trauma, and the resulting alcohol and drug abuse. A new young history teacher who is sent by the government […]
Shot almost entirely in one take and on a tiny budget, and yet the central performance in this movie is still better than most big-budget dramas I’ve seen this year. Two indigenous women, one upper-class and the other impoverished, meet on the day that the rich one gets an IUD and the other one, pregnant, […]
Bittersweet like Belgian chocolate, this is a coming-home movie. It will leave you raw and empty as well as full of life, and it will most certainly have you appreciate the mournfulness of bluegrass music. Based on a play co-written by Johan Heldenbergh, who also stars as Didier, the male lead, this is intricately written, […]
Present-day Mexico City—Ariela comes from a Jewish family that insists on getting married only to people of the same religion. This rule is complicated when Ariela falls in love with the non-Jewish Iván. She is then faced with the dilemma of choosing herself or her family, who for all their severity, she still loves deeply. […]
While billed as a “ramen western”, Tampopo satirizes plenty of other American genres, including, but not limited to: 1) the inspirational sports film, with Tampopo’s diligent training, 2) the erotic, arthouse drama through its egg yolk kiss, 3) the witty, social comedy pointing out the absurd in dinnertime tables, and 4) the melodramatic mafia romance […]
David Lynch’s star-studded provocation Blue Velvet was both revered and criticised upon its release because of how heavily it leans on sexuality and violence to advance its plot, but today the film’s hailed as a contemporary masterpiece. Still, scenes with that kind of content are quite hard to stomach in combination with Isabella Rossellini’s depiction […]
With his dad in jail and mom lost to a drug overdose, Michael lives a lonely life with his grandpa in Dublin. A minor drug bust sends him to jail for three months and implicates his grand-father with a gang. Michael Inside uses this brief period of incarceration to offer commentary on the Irish underclass, […]
A woman yearns to find her biological mother, another woman struggles with infertility, a third wants to connect with her rebellious daughter. Director Mike Leigh has the prowess to seamlessly weave these stories together, and part of the joy is knowing, that like clockwork, these narratives are set on a spectacular collision course. As melancholy […]
IRA terrorists kidnap a British soldier to negotiate an exchange for one of their own imprisoned members. Among them is Fergus (Stephen Rea), whose ambivalence is amplified by his interactions with the hostage soldier Jody (Forest Whitaker) while guarding him. After the terrorists’ plan goes awry, Fergus tracks down a woman Jody spoke of during […]
You might expect a movie about the Irish struggle for independence from the British Empire during the 1920s to be a sweeping historical epic a la Braveheart, but The Wind That Shakes The Barley is instead a heartbreaking miniature portrait of the human impact that the brutal occupation has on the residents of a small […]
Everything about This Is Not a Film revolves around state censorship. Documentarian Mojtaba Mirtahmasb records Iranian cinema giant Jafar Panahi’s life under house arrest, maneuvering through the legal loopholes on Panahi’s 20-year ban on filmmaking and screenwriting. Here Panahi describes one of his unmade films that was rejected by the Iranian ministry, creating makeshift sets […]
Vivid, seductive, and highly romantic, Rouge starts as an enchanting tale of a ghost courtesan that haunts a modern-day couple to look for her lost lover. It’s easy to be swayed by the ghostly lovers – the courtesan Fleur (Anita Mui) and wealthy pharmacy chain heir Chan Chen-Pang (Leslie Cheung) start off the film courting […]
Part documentary yet part surreal daydream, director Derek Jarman’s final film is one last rallying cry into a blue void. Against an unchanging screen of International Klein Blue, most of the film is Jarman’s voice, drifting through various subjects, from day-to-day complications of AIDS to contemplations about the color blue. Some of his frequent collaborators […]
“It is better to live miserable than to die happy,” or so says one of the characters in Jia Zhangke’s anthology film A Touch of Sin. On its surface, the “sin” referenced in the title might pertain to the acts of murder that the four protagonists commit, but in the context of China’s rapidly changing […]
Widely regarded as one of the finest concert movies of all time, Stop Making Sense depicts musical innovators The Talking Heads at the height of their game. Directed by Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia), and starring the eccentric and energetic David Byrne, the show is a marvel of perfectly executed choreography and […]
Joy Division, formerly known as Warsaw, was a brilliant rock group that served its time and something that has lived through decades with the help of their songs, love for fans, and legendary performances – unfortunately for his band-mates and singer Ian Curtis, this picture-perfect scenery was cut short. Control is an exploration of his […]
Directed by Tsai Ming-liang, this unconventional story follows the lives of two neighbors who share a crumbling apartment in the midst of a strange, inexplicable epidemic. Blending a quiet drama with exciting musical numbers, the characters’ lives intertwine in unexpected ways, blurring the line between reality and fantasy. With its masterful use of long takes […]
The shiver-inducing talents of Stephen King, David Cronenberg, and Christopher Walken meld to produce this supremely chilly supernatural thriller adaptation. Schoolteacher Johnny’s (Walken) perfect life is overturned when a horrific car accident puts him in a coma that robs him of five years of his life — and with them, his job and girlfriend Sarah […]
It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that the mix of ideas and aesthetics that gave us Her has roots in Japan. Borrowing from the country’s poeticism, attention to detail and just appreciation for beauty; Tony Takitani is Her’s quiet and delicate elder brother-film, and one of the best this genre has to give. After […]
Written and directed by the film’s star, Albert Brooks, Defending Your Life imagines an afterlife in which purgatory is a courtroom, and whether you’ll be saved or damned is judged based on the life you led on Earth. Did you live courageously, or did you live fearfully? Were you ashamed, meek, afraid of being vulnerable? […]
Spike Lee’s adaptation of Richard Price’s novel might appear lesser next to his best work, but it still a gorgeous showcase for all of his talents as a director. Its case is further bolstered by a stacked cast including Delroy Lindo, Harvey Keitel, Mekhi Pfifer, Isaiah Washington, and John Turturro. Clockers is set in the […]