333 Best Quirky Movies to Watch (Page 5)

Fresh and fast-paced, Searching for Soul Food is a love letter to the titular cuisine. Known as one of America’s cuisines, soul food has been brought and developed around the world as a means for their own survival and the preservation of their cultures. Chef Alisa Reynolds enthusiastically introduces the viewers to the cuisine, digging deep (sometimes literally) into its roots and the resulting dishes. While the show sometimes gives speedy infodumps about the food, Reynolds infuses some sense of warmth and liveliness that makes the facts highly engaging. It’s clear that Reynolds and the team serve each episode with sincere love and respect for the cultures presented here.

Genre: Documentary, Reality

Director: Rodney Lucas

Rating: TV-14

The scene: 1717, the Golden Age of Piracy; the people: brute criminals living on nothing but loot. Seems typical enough for a pirate story, but more than just an action-packed swashbuckling treat, Our Flag Means Death is also a raging ensemble comedy that is both modern and subversive as it dares to recast masculinity in a whole new light. 

The show follows Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby), a flamboyant aristocrat who leaves his pampered life and turns to the sea in search of deeper meaning and purpose. Specifically, he’s out to figure out, once and for all, what it means to be a man. Does it entail remorseless murder and a stoic acceptance of one’s responsibility, as he’s been taught and taunted to do for so long, or is there more to it than that? The wannabe pirate gets closer to answering these questions when he meets and eventually falls for the legendary Blackbeard, played warmly and hilariously by Taika Waititi.

Genre: Action, Action & Adventure, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, History

Actor: Con O'Neill, David Fane, Ewen Bremner, Guz Khan, Joel Fry, Kristian Nairn, Matthew Maher, Nathan Foad, Rhys Darby, Rory Kinnear, Samson Kayo, Taika Waititi, Vico Ortiz

Rating: 18+

Boots Riley established himself as a wildly creative voice with 2018’s zany anti-capitalist satire Sorry To Bother You, and with his second project, he digs his heels even deeper into that singular approach. I’m A Virgo’s world feels deeply uncanny yet intimately familiar, what with its absurdly militarised authority figures, dog-whistling media, and greed-driven economy. It’s set in Oakland, where 13-foot Black teenager Cootie (Jharrel Jerome) lives in secrecy with his normal-sized family. Frustrated, Cootie decides to venture into the outside world, but he’s soon exploited, projected onto, and demonized. However, it’s also not long before he makes his first friends, falls in love, and unlearns everything he thought he knew about the world.

The biggest revelation is that Cootie’s favorite superhero, an Iron Man-esque billionaire called The Hero (Walton Goggins), isn’t actually doing good by enforcing the law to the letter. Though it takes many weird and wonderful detours, it’s this aspect of Cootie’s consciousness-widening that is the show’s ultimate destination. These radical politics give it a sharp overarching focus, meaning its mind-bending eccentricity never feels too indulgent. It all makes for a refreshingly original, gloriously weird watch that you’re guaranteed not to have seen the likes of elsewhere.

Genre: Action & Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Actor: Allius Barnes, Brett Gray, Carmen Ejogo, Jharrel Jerome, Kara Young, Mike Epps, Olivia Washington, Walton Goggins

Despite their rising popularity, K-dramas have sustained a reputation for being, at times, too sentimental for their own good. Extraordinary Attorney Woo is not exempt from that tendency, but when it does shoot for schmaltz, it makes sure to aim right at your heart. Thanks to clever twists and moving performances across the board, Extraordinary Attorney Woo is an excellently emotional series. Every romantic encounter will make you swoon, every courtroom scene will have you cheer, and every ending will leave you in tears. 

Moreover, it’s not a show that simply happens to be about lawyers. It is a law procedural that deals with each new case with the utmost care. It’s smart and educational, with the proceedings and resolutions blending seamlessly into the characters’ own arcs. 

There’s something for everyone in this series, and it’s sure to be an easy favorite for one reason or another.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Baek Ji-won, Ha Yoon-kyung, Im Sung-jae, Jeon Bae-soo, Jin Kyung, Joo Hyun-young, Joo Jong-hyuk, Kang Ki-young, Kang Tae-oh, Park Eun-bin

Director: Yoo In-sik

Rating: TV-14

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend starts with a very familiar setup. A girl leaves town to follow a boy she loves, and along the way, she picks up a best friend who blindly supports her, a rival who gets in romance’s way, and a second guy who, little does she know, loves her for who she is. That girl, Rebecca Bunch (played by writer-creator Rachel Bloom), is our romcom hero, and she knows it. She views life as one big musical movie where she’s supposed to get the guy and live happily ever after. 

Except, in real life, things are never as simple—and people never as one-dimensional—as that. This confuses Rebecca, who then goes out of her way to craft the perfect happy ending, even if it means hurting people (including herself) along the way. 

In a series of wackily addictive songs, playfully subversive twists, and heart-aching breakthroughs, we join Rebecca as she learns to overcome her demons and live in the real world. Her journey to self-awareness and self-love can get frustratingly slow and surprisingly bleak, but it’s also deeply comforting and reassuring. 

Watch this if you’re interested in subversive takes on love, affecting female friendships, genuinely catchy tunes, proper mental health representation, and seeing reductive stereotypes, the “crazy ex-girlfriend” just being one of many, fleshed out and reclaimed with great aplomb.

Genre: Comedy, Music

Actor: Donna Lynne Champlin, Rachel Bloom, Scott Michael Foster, Vella Lovell

This new six-part comedy series is as razor-sharp as a vampire’s fangs, skewering everything from the horror genre’s historically iffy treatment of people of color, lazy media stereotypes of Muslims, and real-life fixtures of Islamic communities. It never feels bogged down by the weight of the issues behind it, though, always staying true to the lightness of its silly — but ingenious — concept.

The show follows the goofy Abdulla (Arian Nik), a British-Pakistani trainee doctor and horror nerd who has enough on his plate — what with an unavailable crush and the social pressures of being a not-so-perfect Muslim — without also having to contend with being turned by vampire-dominatrix Kathy (played with gusto by Jaime Winstone). Writer Kaamil Shah manages to pack an impressive amount of cutting humor into each 20-ish-minute episode, whether through Kathy railing against the appropriation of vampire culture during Halloween (presented less as an anti-woke joke and more as a wry analogy to media misrepresentation of real minorities) or a wink to Muslims about the epidemic of hypocritical haram police in our communities. This balance between universal humor and inside jokes that speak directly to — rather than over the heads of — British Muslims makes Count Abdulla a very welcome addition to TV comedy in general, as well as a refreshing widening of the horror genre.

Genre: Comedy, Horror

Actor: Jonny Green, Manpreet Bambra, Mariska Ariya, Sia Alipour

Director: Asim Abbasi

This bittersweet comedy centers on Sam Fox (Pamela Adlon), a single mother and working actress doing her best to get by in LA. In between juggling the pressures of both parenthood and Hollywood, Sam lets loose in brave and funny ways. Things often get the better of her and her three young daughters, but her bold, funny, and always loving approach to life is what makes Sam—and indeed the show—a true knockout.

Better Things is a semi-autobiographical story, with Adlon also having daughters of her own, so it's no surprise that many things ring true in this big-hearted show about single motherhood.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Family

Actor: Celia Imrie, Hannah Alligood, Hannah Riley, Kevin Pollak, Mikey Madison, Olivia Edward, Pamela Adlon

Rating: TV-MA

The Outlaws is an enjoyable BBC miniseries that centers on the lives and misadventures of seven lawbreakers sentenced to 120 hours of community service. The felons can’t be more different from each other, but as they gather every day to serve, they slowly bond in the process. It’s a bit like The Breakfast Club and The Good Place in that sense, although subplots of crime and heist make it a dash more thrilling.

The characters may appear as caricatures at first ("Everyone's a type," as one of them puts it), but don't be fooled: they're all nicely fleshed out with every episode, and each back story adds a new depth to the series. Stephen Merchant (co-creator of The Office UK) stars in, writes, and directs the series.

Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama

Actor: Charles Babalola, Christopher Walken, Clare Perkins, Darren Boyd, Eleanor Tomlinson, Gamba Cole, Jessica Gunning, Rhianne Barreto, Stephen Merchant

Rating: TV-MA