771 Best Thought-provoking Movies to Watch (Page 33)

While zombies weren’t new in film, it wasn’t until writer-director George A. Romero’s Living Dead saga that the zombie as we know it today was created. Day of the Dead is the third in the franchise, and like Night and Dawn, Romero was more interested in the way humans were the threat, more so than the flesh-eating monsters, this time between scientific innovation and military force, both that are pushed to the extremes without any ethical restraint, and both being the very same concerns that America held at the time of release. And with Tom Savini and team’s groundbreaking special effects, it’s no wonder that Day of the Dead became a horror classic.

Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery

Actor: Anthony Dileo Jr., Barbara Russell, Bruce Kirkpatrick, David Kindlon, Debra Gordon, Don Brockett, Gary Klar, Geoff Burkman, George A. Romero, Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger, Jarlath Conroy, John Amplas, Joseph Pilato, Lori Cardille, Mark Tierno, Michael Deak, Sherman Howard, Taso N. Stavrakis, Terry Alexander, Tom Savini

Director: George A. Romero

Rating: NR

Any time someone does something, in public, one mostly thinks about how it affects them personally. We only have one life, after all, working from one timeline, one narrative, and one perspective that naturally forms when we go through it. Code Unknown plays with this idea. It’s as if writer-director Michael Haneke wanted to recreate sonder into film form, as a single littering incident instigates a series of vignettes, each shot in real time, that cuts only when shifting between the strangers who witnessed the incident. Each cut feels intentional, with the way certain scenes linger, while some are cut short before fully concluding, and contrast between the scenes that are shown, and therefore, the treatment given after the incident, is pointedly different, with some finding it inconsequential to their day, and others becoming burdened with subsequent harassment and mistreatment that could have been avoided. Haneke, of course, remains as cryptic in the way he’s best known for, but Code Unknown, nonetheless, reveals just how much empathy is needed and is lacking in real life.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Aissa Maiga, Alexandre Hamidi, Andrée Tainsy, Arsinée Khanjian, Bruno Todeschini, Carlo Brandt, Costel Cașcaval, Didier Flamand, Féodor Atkine, Florence Loiret Caille, Ion Haiduc, Josef Bierbichler, Juliette Binoche, Maimouna Hélène Diarra, Malick Bowens, Marc Duret, Maurice Bénichou, Nathalie Richard, Sandu Mihai Gruia, Thierry Neuvic, Tsuyu Shimizu, Walid Afkir

Director: Michael Haneke

Incorporating traditional animation, Surrealist art style, and scenes from Luis Buñuel’s own films, Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles is a portrait of a brilliant yet eccentric artist who is stubborn in his ideals. The film is a series of dreams—visions from a life often disrupted by war and ideology—but is more structured and coherent than its inspirations, and striking in the commentary it makes on art. Within the film's story, Buñuel's character initially takes on a documentary project through a more dramatic and staged approach that separates him from his crew and his producer Acín. However, his nightmares stemming from childhood trauma eventually lead him to focus on the people he’s filming and advocating for. Historical yet surreal, highly political yet personal, this film is an apt celebration of a divisive artist.

Genre: Animation, Drama, History

Actor: Fermín Núñez, Fernando Ramos, Gabriel Latorre, Javier Balas, Jorge Usón, Pepa Gracia, Rachel Lascar, Salvador Simó

Director: Salvador Simó

Rating: PG-13

Though it doesn't proceed like most animal/nature-centered documentaries that you've seen, the Oscar-nominated All That Breathes is instantly memorable in the way it de-centers the human perspective from its all-encompassing study of New Delhi, India. The wildlife rescue team that features prominently in this film still only becomes a vessel through which director Shaunak Sen explores the environmental and political hazards being faced by the nation today. It's a movie that definitely challenges you to think for yourself, as any talking heads or on-screen explanations are traded for truly stunning shots of New Delhi as a biome teeming with life among the dirt. For those who want their documentaries unconventional, this is excellent stuff.

Genre: Documentary, Drama

Director: Shaunak Sen

If you’re familiar with the upscale Chinese restaurant chain owner, or that Chinese boy in old 60s British films, or with his paintings, Aka Mr. Chow might surprise you because they’re one and the same. Born with two names, Zhou Yinghua and Michael Chow, Mr. Chow is just so cool that telling his life story is already interesting. From the tough immigrant experience, living alone as a boy, to his current worldwide success in film, food, and painting, it’s interesting to know that it’s possible. But the documentary dives into it, using the film medium to mirror his own creative style and artistic sensibilities. The film is able to link each of his opinions, not just with his life, but also with the historic changes in his home country. It’s an intriguing approach, if a bit superficial in certain areas, but it’s very entertaining.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Brian Grazer, Cecilia Zhou, China Chow, Ed Ruscha, Fran Lebowitz, Julian Schnabel, Maximillian Chow, Peter Blake

Director: Nick Hooker

Given the controversial subject matter, there’s something remarkably placid about the way About Dry Grasses proceeds. Amidst the snowy white steppes of Eastern Anatolia, writer-director Nuri Bilge Ceylan slowly lets the plot unfold through multiple conversations, where an accusation of inappropriate contact leads to a he-said, she-said investigation, all centered around a misanthropic protagonist Samet. By focusing the entire film on Samet, Ceylan takes the time to understand this difficult, exhausting character in a detached manner, with the camera oftentimes taking in the whole lived-in, rundown places where Samet lives and works in. It’s an interesting perspective, depicting the ways everyone’s fumbling around, trying to create boxes to understand one’s place in the world, but it’s not an easy one to explore. About Dry Grasses dares to do so, anyway.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Cengiz Bozkurt, Deniz Celiloğlu, Ece Bağcı, Elit Andaç Çam, Erdem Şenocak, Eylem Canpolat, Merve Dizdar, Münir Can Cindoruk, Musab Ekici, Nalan Kuruçim, S. Emrah Özdemir, Yıldırım Gücük, Yüksel Aksu

Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Leave it to a master filmmaker like Krzysztof Kieślowski—known for the Three Colours Trilogy, The Double Life of Veronique, and the miniseries Dekalog (whose sixth episode was expanded into this film)—to take a premise as banal as that of a peeping tom and to turn it into something mysterious and poignant. There are definitely still parts to this story that may not hold up to scrutiny, like its belief in a romantic/spiritual connection that rewards the immature man for barging into a woman's life. In different hands, this subject matter would just be creepy. In Kieślowski's, the loneliness of these characters takes full shape.

As young postal clerk Tomek (Olaf Lubaszenko) quickly admits his spying to the older and more jaded Magda (Grażyna Szapołowska), the two are drawn to each other with a combination of fear, pity, and lust. And what Kieślowski does—with the help of cinematographer Witold Adamek's stunning, intimate frames; and his cast's subdued sorrow—is move the film away from concerns about consent and control, and to tell a story about what it means to truly be seen and acknowledged by another person. In an existence made up of meaningless routine and temporary relationships, seeing someone else at their most vulnerable feels like lightning.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Actor: Artur Barciś, Grażyna Szapołowska, Olaf Lubaszenko, Piotr Machalica, Stanisław Gawlik, Stefania Iwińska

Director: Krzysztof Kieślowski