464 Movies Like Deadpool (2016) (Page 24)

Shot almost entirely in one take and on a tiny budget, and yet the central performance in this movie is still better than most big-budget dramas I’ve seen this year.

Two indigenous women, one upper-class and the other impoverished, meet on the day that the rich one gets an IUD and the other one, pregnant, finds herself kicked out of her home. They spend a few hours together: they talk, they take cabs, walk, etc; and you as a viewer, follow them throughout their intimate yet difficult moments.

If you like subtle movies that showcase how people live and interact with one another, beyond plot-obsessiveness, this is for you.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Aidan Dee, Anesha Bailey, Anthony Bolognese, Barbara Eve Harris, Charles Jarman, Charlie Hannah, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Elle-Maija Tailfeathers, James Angus Cowan, Jay Cardinal Villeneuve, Kathleen Hepburn, Lissa Neptuno, Paul Jarrett, Sonny Surowiec, Tony Massil, Violet Nelson

Director: Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Elle-Maija Tailfeathers, Kathleen Hepburn

Rating: TV-MA

Watch this if you like weird movies. And don't be fooled by the first half, which serves just to set Jesse Eisenberg's character and the monotone life he leads. It's the calm before the storm, during which that character is attacked by a violent gang and decides to take self-defense classes in an unusual club. This is a movie about modern manhood and how it can lead to some pretty strange situations. Great performance from Eisenberg as usual.

Genre: Action, Comedy, Drama, Thriller

Actor: Alessandro Nivola, Apollo Bacala, Caroline Amiguet, Dallas Edwards, Davey Johnson, David Zellner, Frederic Spitz, Hauke Bahr, Imogen Poots, Jason Burkey, Jesse Eisenberg, Josh Fadem, Katherine Smith-Rodden, Leland Orser, Lena Friedrich, Louis Robert Thompson, Mike Brooks, Phillip Andre Botello, Steve Terada

Director: Riley Stearns

Rating: R

This funny and charming movie is about a Palestinian slacker named Salam who works on a famous Israeli soap opera. Each day, he has to pass a tough Israeli checkpoint to get to work and in an attempt to make things easier for himself, he agrees to change the ending of the soap opera to please the officer in charge of the checkpoint. At the same time, a temperamental French actress and his Palestinian love interest wish for opposite endings to the show. Stuck between love and politics, Salam has to navigate a complex situation to please all sides. There are a lot of hummus jokes.

Genre: Comedy

Actor: Amer Hlehel, Ashraf Farah, Kais Nashif, Laëtitia Eïdo, Lobna Azabal, Lubna Azabal, Maisa Abd Elhadi, Nadim Sawalha, Qais Nashif, Salim Dau, Salim Daw, Ula Tabari, Yaniv Biton, Yousef Sweid

Director: Sameh Zoabi

The lives of a single mother forced into prostitution and another woman who needs an operation to restore her virginity clash with the structure of Iran’s traditionally patriarchal society in Tehran Taboo.  The result is a story that sheds light on the double standards women face, especially surrounding sex and sexuality, and overall what it is like to be female in a society practically founded on institutional misogyny. 

To make up for not being able to shoot in Tehran, director Ali Soozandeh chose to use the method of rotoscope animation: an unconventional style of animation that involves first shooting live actors in a studio and then inserting extra sounds and backgrounds in the editing process. Tehran Taboo is fearless in its exploration of the social and sexual restrictions imposed in modern Iran.

Genre: Animation, Drama

Actor: Adem Karaduman, Aida Loos, Alireza Bayram, Arash Marandi, Elmira Rafizadeh, Gernot Polak, Hasan Ali Mete, Klaus Ofczarek, Morteza Tavakoli, Şiir Eloğlu, Thomas Nash, Zahra Amir Ebrahimi, Zar Amir Ebrahimi

Director: Ali Soozandeh

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

After directing George Harrison: Living in the Material World and No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese brings to the fore yet another singular musician, this time New York Dolls frontman David Johansen (aka Buster Poindexter). More of a concert film than anything, this feature takes place during a live performance Johansen gives during his birthday; his raspy voice and poetic punk songs already tell a story in themselves, but Scorsese intercuts them with the occasional archival footage and interview, careful not to disrupt a glorious musical moment with cheesy throwback scenes. 

A Dolls or punk fan will be moved by the resulting film, a fittingly jagged but meaningful oeuvre of a tenacious artist. But if you're coming to this documentary without much prior knowledge about Johansen, his band, and the era from which he came, you might find it somewhat niche, but overall impressive, informative, and musically thrilling.

Genre: Documentary, Music

Actor: David Johansen, Debbie Harry, Hal Willner, Morrissey, Sylvain Sylvain

Director: David Tedeschi, Martin Scorsese

This documentary is about the life of New York rapper Nas around the time of the release of his first album, Illmatic.

It spans a quick and summarized 74 minutes and, while embellished by the direction of street artist One9, it remains a great snippet of recent American history. Nas’s album was a reflection of many realities that characterized his upbringing, while the movie serves to further explore those very realities.

Genre: Documentary, Music

Actor: Alicia Keys, Busta Rhymes, Cornel West, DJ Premier, Fab 5 Freddy, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., M.C. Serch, Marley Marl, Mrs. Braconi, Nas, Pete Rock, Pharrell Williams, Q-Tip, Skip Gates, Jr., Swizz Beatz

Director: One9

Rating: TV-14

In Tina Mabry’s first full length feature film Mississippi Damned she tells the story of three poor, Black adolescents as they advance into adulthood. The story is mostly centered on Kari Peterson, portrayed by Tessa Thompson, who has fallen witness and victim to violence/abuse since her childhood. As she navigates her trauma while facing poverty and familial issues, we begin to understand the inner machinations of Kari and those who have harmed her.

While Mississippi Damned isn’t particularly easy to digest, I consider it essential. As unflinchingly brutal as this film is, it taught me a lot about trauma and how to navigate my own. With performances as powerful as these, it’s impossible to forget this film.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Adam Clark, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, D.B. Woodside, Malcolm David Kelley, Malcolm Goodwin, Michael Hyatt, Simbi Khali, Tessa Thompson

Director: Tina Mabry

Rating: TV-MA

With his dad in jail and mom lost to a drug overdose, Michael lives a lonely life with his grandpa in Dublin.

A minor drug bust sends him to jail for three months and implicates his grand-father with a gang.

Michael Inside uses this brief period of incarceration to offer commentary on the Irish underclass, both inside prisons and out. It's a tough watch that aims for realism and doesn't miss.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Ally Ni Chiarain, Dafhyd Flynn, Elaine Kennedy, Frank Berry, Hazel Doupe, John Burke, John Quinn, Lalor Roddy, Moe Dunford, Robbie Walsh, Shane Gately, Steve Blount, Steven Blount, Tony Doyle

Director: Frank Berry

Rating: N/A

It’s very interesting, if not startling, to see an earnest movie made about the white upper class these days. Metropolitan is one such film, and even though it was released in the ’90s, it still stands the test of time precisely because it neither judges nor defends the group of WASPs it follows. It simply shows them in all their elegance and sophistication, as well as their insulation and irony. 

Metropolitan takes place in the upper crust of New York debutante society, during Christmas vacation, where soirees are rampant and afterparties even more so. The young-adult leads who navigate the scene in their expensive clothes and self-important aura recall a Scott Fitzgerald novel, or if you like, Gossip Girl episode. But instead of falling into tragedies, these characters just end up in silly but relatable mishaps and misunderstandings: they’re just kids after all. And as high and mighty as they may seem, whiling away in tall Park Avenue apartments, they’re still prone to the universal pains that haunt and shape teenagers. Expect to see heartbreak, jealousy, and longing even among the brightest and wealthiest of New York. 

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Actor: Alice Connorton, Bryan Leder, Carolyn Farina, Chris Eigeman, Donal Lardner Ward, Edward Clements, Francis Creighton, Isabel Gillies, Taylor Nichols, Thomas R. Voth, Will Kempe

Director: Whit Stillman

Rating: PG-13