4 Best Movies to Watch by Rosario Dawson

1. A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, 2006

Not only is this multi-award-winning drama seriously star-studded, Robert Downey Jr., Rosario Dawson, Channing Tatum, and Shia LaBeouf also deliver superb performances. With two Sundance Awards and many other nominations in its pocket, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is based on the eponymous memoir by author, director, and musician, Dito Montiel, who recalls his violent childhood on the mean streets of Queens in the 1980s (LaBeouf plays the young Dito), as he visits his ailing father after 15 years away in Los Angeles (Downey Jr. plays present-day Dito). It is also real-life Dito's directorial debut, recalling the loose, improvisational style of 70s cinema a'la Scorcese. The powerful plot is told through flashbacks and fourth-wall bending monologues, while the eccentric directing style makes for a raw and immediate experience. The energy of this coming-of-age drama is off the charts!

2. Dopesick, 2021

This miniseries is about the drug Oxycotin and how corporate greed and corruption kickstarted a harrowing epidemic in the United States. Oxycotin was falsely advertised as non-addictive, which led to many people taking it for small or moderate injuries and becoming drug addicts.

It’s a collection of stories of hard-working middle-class families and how they were ravaged by the drug, all set against the obscene wealth of the family-owned pharma company that sells it. At the same time, it follows lawyers and federal agents who tried to stop the drug early on and the obstacles they faced.

Michael Keaton plays a small-town doctor, Rosario Dawson plays a DEA agent who was one of the first to look into the company, and Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart) plays a teenager who gets prescribed the drug for a back injury.

3. Sorry to Bother You, 2018

In the year of the Netflix TV Show Maniac, another absurdist title stole critics’ hearts. Sorry to Bother You is a movie set in an alternate reality, where capitalism and greed are accentuated. Lakeith Stanfield (Atlanta) is a guy called Cassius who struggles to pay his bills. However, when at a tele-marketing job an old-timer tells him to use a “white voice”, he starts moving up the ranks of his bizarre society. A really smart movie that will be mostly enjoyed by those who watch it for its entertaining value, and not so much for its commentary. It is like a Black Mirror episode stretched into a movie.

4. Shattered Glass, 2003

Shattered Glass tells the unbelievably true story of Stephen Glass, a popular and promising young journalist at The New Republic. Stephen's storytelling skills are sought out not just by his admiring colleagues but by other publications as well, so when a rival journalist from Forbes finds holes in one of Stephen's stories, no one takes the accusation seriously at first—except perhaps for Charles Lane, Stephen's editor. Immune to Stephen's charms, Charles digs for the truth and tries, despite an alarming lack of support, to pursue what's right.

Set in the '90s, Shattered Glass may be a throwback to old-school journalism, but its ideas about the integrity of facts still hold water, especially in an age fraught with rampant disinformation.