2 Best Movies to Watch by Sarah Jones

What if the 1960s space race never ended? For All Mankind imagines such a world; here, Russia's cosmonauts arrive on the moon first, the galaxy holds resources beyond belief, and global wars have expanded in stakes and scale. More than just the final frontier, outer space is now the focal point of warring nations hungry to capitalize and claim new assets. 

For All Mankind's out-of-this-world premise alone make it a thrilling watch, but you'll be glad to know that the show also feels intimate and affecting thanks to its fully fleshed-out characters. If you're looking for an epic but grounded story to lose yourself in, this is it. 

Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Science Fiction, War & Politics

Actor: Casey Johnson, Casey W. Johnson, Coral Peña, Cynthy Wu, Edi Gathegi, Jodi Balfour, Joel Kinnaman, Krys Marshall, Michael Dorman, Sarah Jones, Shantel VanSanten, Sonya Walger, Wrenn Schmidt

Rating: TV-MA

On paper, A Man in Full looks like it could be the next Succession or, at the very least, Yellowstone. It gives us a look into Atlanta’s ultra-wealthy, primarily through the eyes of the tycoon Charlie Croker (Jeff Daniels). The show is headlined by stars like Diane Lane and Lucy Liu, helmed by acclaimed director Regina King (One Night in Miami), and based on a novel by bestselling author Tom Wolfe. So, by all accounts, A Man in Full should work. But it doesn’t. The show is hard to watch, not because it forces us to confront relevant truths, but simply because it’s badly made. Apart from the mentioned actors, everyone else is weirdly stiff and wooden, as if cast in a network show they know is doomed to fail. The writing is heavy-handed and lacks the humor and intelligence to match the show’s ambitious story. And the editing doesn’t do the show any favors—in a vital scene involving snakes and sex, the two separate shots were so clumsily intercut that instead of feeling thrilled, you just end up laughing at what just happened. Perhaps it gets better by the end, but you’ll need a lot of patience to get past just the first episode.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Aml Ameen, Chanté Adams, Diane Lane, Jeff Daniels, Jon Michael Hill, Lucy Liu, Sarah Jones, Tom Pelphrey, William Jackson Harper