4 Movies Like A Little Something Extra (2024)

Staff & contributors
Written, directed, and scored by Viggo Mortensen, The Dead Don’t Hurt is a visually stunning, emotionally potent, but still impressively restrained period drama that flips the script on typical Westerns. On the surface, it looks like it could be one—there’s even a bad guy clad in black who slings guns outside a saloon—but the film decidedly focuses on Vivienne and her everyday life. Viewers might think nothing is happening, but in fact, everything is happening, such is Mortensen’s framing of the value of these overlooked aspects of life. Immigrants, too, who are usually just extras in Westerns populate this movie and make it their own—as they should. They’re the backbone of America after all, and yet they’re usually relegated to the background in period dramas. The icing on the cake is that the film is breathtakingly beautiful, each frame a transportive picture of 19th-century America.

Genre: Drama, Western

Actor: Alex Breaux, Colin Morgan, Danny Huston, Garret Dillahunt, John Getz, Michael Weaver, Nadia Litz, Ray McKinnon, Shane Graham, Solly McLeod, Vicky Krieps, Viggo Mortensen, W. Earl Brown

Director: Viggo Mortensen

Rating: R

Given the country’s divisive politics, a second civil war seems plausible, inevitable even. But even though Civil War, the film, takes place in this kind of world, its main focus is on the four journalists who race through the country to get the scoop on a fascist president who’s bound to be ousted anytime soon. We only get hints at the specific causes and developments of the war, but what we do get is an unsettlingly close look at the human toll of it, as well as the realities of reportage—crushing PTSD, ethical responsibilities, and all. It’s a brilliant movie if you set your expectations right.

Genre: Action, Drama, War

Actor: Alexa Mansour, Brian Philpot, Cailee Spaeny, Dean Grimes, Edmund Donovan, Evan Holtzman, Evan Lai, Greg Hill, James Yaegashi, Jared Shaw, Jeff Bosley, Jefferson White, Jesse Plemons, Jin Ha, John Newberg, Jojo T. Gibbs, Juani Feliz, Justin Garza, Justin James Boykin, Karl Glusman, Kirsten Dunst, Martha B. Knighton, Melissa Saint-Amand, Nelson Lee, Nick Offerman, Robert Perry Bierman, Robert Tinsley, Simeon Freeman, Sonoya Mizuno, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Tim James, Vince Pisani, Vinnie Varon, Wagner Moura

Director: Alex Garland

Rating: R

In this sweet-natured British comedy filmed mostly in black and white, Marek is a Polish boy who lives with his alcoholic father in London. He meets Tomo, a kid from the British Midlands who escaped his family and came to London alone.

They form a friendship that this movie follows for a few days. With nowhere to stay, Tomo moves in with Marek without Marek’s father noticing. The two end-up plotting a scheme that turns things around both for them and for the styling of the movie.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Elisa Lasowski, Huggy Leaver, Ireneusz Czop, Kate Dickie, Mark Monero, Perry Benson, Piotr Jagiello, Steven Hillman, Thomas Turgoose, Trevor Cooper

Director: Shane Meadows

Rating: Not Rated

So much of Puppy Love is adorable. The title alone promises that, and to be fair, it actually delivers. The movie is filled with romance, pooches, and hijinks that circle back to those two core aspects. I couldn’t be giddier watching this, as a dog lover and romantic comedy aficionado myself, but it’s frustrating how the movie doesn’t go above and beyond its basic premise, even if it easily could’ve done so. It has strong leads in Hale and Gustin, whose chemistry may be lacking but who individually perform well. It has a decent script, “reasonably funny” as it calls itself in the film, delivering amusing and touching lines in equal measure. It even manages to flesh out Nicole and Max with backstories; Max, in particular, gets an interesting characterization as an anxious germaphobe who refuses to go to the office for work. But for whatever reason, every exciting thorn in this premise gets smoothed out by the end. The tension is never realized and loose ends are tied up neatly in a conclusion that feels too simplified for its own good. 

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Actor: Al Miro, Christine Lee, Corey Woods, Grant Gustin, Jane Seymour, Lucy Hale, Michael Hitchcock, Nore Davis, Rachel Risen, Sarah Almonte Peguero

Director: Nicholas Fabiano, Richard Alan Reid