Chasing the feel of watching Dirty Dancing ? Here are the movies we recommend you watch right after.
Genre: Drama, Music
Actor: Anthony Smee, Bill Paterson, Carla Mendonça, Celia Imrie, Charles Dance, David Morrissey, David Shimwell, Delia Lindsay, Emily Watson, Grace Chatto, James Frain, Jon Rumney, Keylee Jade Flanders, Kika Mirylees, Linda Spurrier, Maggie McCarthy, Nick Haverson, Nyree Dawn Porter, Rachel Griffiths, Robert Rietti, Rupert Penry-Jones, Vernon Dobtcheff
Director: Anand Tucker
With the powerful duo of queer aesthetics and rock n roll, Hedwig and the Angry Inch questions the duality between genders, lovers, and everything in between. Like the 1998 stage musical, the film follows the titular Hedwig and her band as they navigate the music scene for fame and love. The adaptation gives justice to their performances, giving the vibe of 70s glam rock music videos. The film is not without its flaws. Hedwig’s relationship with the younger Tommy Gnosis remains controversial. However, while Hedwig may not be a perfect representation of the trans experience– after all, she only chooses gender reassignment purely to leave East Germany– this cult film still remains a landmark for queer representation.
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
Actor: Alan Mandell, Alberta Watson, Andrea Martin, Ben Mayer-Goodman, Ermes Blarasin, Gene Pyrz, John Cameron Mitchell, Karen Hines, Maggie Moore, Mary Krohnert, Maurice Dean Wint, Michael Aronov, Michael Pitt, Michael Stevens, Miriam Shor, Rob Campbell, Rosie O'Donnell, Sook-Yin Lee, Stephen Trask, Taylor Abrahamse, Thérèse DePrez
Director: John Cameron Mitchell
Genre: Drama, Family
Actor: Guan Xiaotong, Jiang Hongbo, Jiang Shan, Li Haibin, Wang Zhengjia, Yu Xia, Zhongyang Qi
Director: Jiang Xiao
In this French movie based on a true story, a med-school graduate from Congo is offered a job as the doctor to the president of Zaire. He refuses and chooses instead to move to a small town in France in hopes of getting French citizenship and securing a better future for his children.
The story, which starts in 1975, is set in a village where people had never seen a Black person. To that, Seyolo, the doctor, says: “so what? Now they will.”
The culture clash is both villagers-to-new-arrivals and the other way. Seyolo tells his family that he was hired in a village “north of Paris”, but all they hear is “Paris”, only to be shocked by the state of the rainy and muddy countryside village.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Aissa Maiga, Bayron Lebli, Bernard Eylenbosch, Bwanga Pilipili, Christophe Lambert, Diogène Ntarindwa, Édith Le Merdy, Emilie Rouhart, Frédérick Bukolé, Ingrid Heiderscheidt, Jean Bediebe, Jean-Benoît Ugeux, Jean-Marie Barbier, Jean-Michel Balthazar, Jonathan Lambert, Jovial Mbenga, Julien Rambaldi, Kamini Zantoko, Laurent Caron, Marc Zinga, Marie-Philomène Nga, Marius Yelolo, Mata Gabin, Medina Diarra, Michel Schillaci, Micheline Dieye, Narcisse Mame, Riton Liebman, Rodolphe Jonathan Lambert, Rufus, Stéphane Bissot, Stéphane Brodzki, Stéphanie Crayencour, Sylvestre Amoussou, Tatiana Rojo, Thomas Vandenberghe, Thomas VDB, Vincent Lecuyer, Vincent Martin
Director: Julien Rambaldi
By all outward appearances, The Villages—a massive and manicured retirement community in Florida—looks like it does offer paradise to its aging residents, as promised. The list of activities is endless, the seniors are all partnered up. “It’s like going back to college,” as one of them puts it, where people from all over the country come together to create a new life with each other.
But of course, nothing comes that easy, not even death. Some Kind of Heaven follows certain residents (and one committed trespasser) as they grapple with the slipperiness of fulfillment in their later years. It gets very eerie when the film's bleak messages are contrasted with the home's vibrant Floridian colors and the residents' plastered smiles. But the eeriness adds to the overall intrigue and pull of the documentary. Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) co-produces this fascinating film.
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Director: Lance Oppenheim
Genre: Drama, Romance
Actor: Belinda Davey, Cliff Ellen, Daniel Pollock, Frank Gallacher, Frankie J. Holden, Geneviève Picot, Heather Mitchell, Hugo Weaving, Jeffrey Walker, Russell Crowe, Saskia Post
Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse
An essential documentary for sports fans but one that may be too specialized for casual viewers, The League continues director Sam Pollard's project of tracing Black history and civil rights through various vantage points. This time he trains his eyes on baseball, and though the film gets bogged down in information that threatens to come off as mere namechecking, Pollard still manages to steer the discussion towards the forgotten (and often actively concealed) struggles of pioneering Black players shut out by their own industry. The documentary is at its best when it debunks preconceived notions we have about baseball, such as its popular styles of play and the extent to which a superstar like Jackie Robinson actually became a beacon for other Black players (hint: representation alone isn't change). Though it may take some digging to get to these revelations, Pollard's diligence is admirable all the same.
Genre: Documentary
Director: Sam Pollard
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Family, Mystery
Actor: Adam Davidson, Amy Stiller, Anne Meara, Campbell Scott, Carol Locatell, Douglas McGrath, Hope Davis, Liev Schreiber, Marc Grapey, Marcia Gay Harden, Marcia Haufrecht, Parker Posey, Pat McNamara, Paul Herman, Peter Askin, Stanley Tucci, Stephanie Venditto
Director: Greg Mottola
Genre: Adventure
Actor: Helgi Skúlason, Ingvald Guttorm, John Sigurd Kristensen, Knut Walle, Mikkel Gaup, Nils Utsi, Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, Svein Scharffenberg, Sverre Porsanger
Director: Nils Gaup
Set in the 1930's English Countryside, the story of the eccentric Mortmain family is told from the daughter Cassandra's point of view. Her father, a once acclaimed and famous writer has written nothing in years, leading the family into bankruptcy. Themes such as first love and financial troubles are explored from Cassandra's comic and intelligent point of view. A classic and a must-see.
Genre: Drama, Romance
Actor: Alice Marie Crowe, Anna Paquin, Bijou Phillips, Bill Nighy, Billy Crudup, Christopher Ettridge, David Bamber, Dolly Wells, Eion Bailey, Eric Stonestreet, Fairuza Balk, Frances McDormand, Helena Little, Henry Cavill, Henry Thomas, James Faulkner, James Warrior, Jason Lee, Jay Baruchel, Jean Warren, Jimmy Fallon, Joe Sowerbutts, John Patrick Amedori, Kate Hudson, Kevin Sussman, Marc Blucas, Marc Maron, Michael Angarano, Noah Taylor, Patrick Fugit, Pauley Perrette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rainn Wilson, Ray Porter, Romola Garai, Rose Byrne, Sarah Woodward, Sinead Cusack, Sophie Stuckey, Tara Fitzgerald, Terry Chen, Zack Ward, Zooey Deschanel
Director: Cameron Crowe, Tim Fywell
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Actor: Jay Reinke, Keegan Edwards
Director: Jesse Moss
This documentary is about a unique program in Chicago called CeaseFire whose sole aim is to stop violent deaths in poor urban areas. CeaseFire is staffed by ex-gang members and ex-convicts who try to intervene in conflicts in their community, particularly those that may escalate into extreme violence or death. In these neighborhoods though, violent conflict can result from something as minor as someone making a funky comment about someone else’s shoes. This makes total success for a project like CeaseFire nearly impossible. It is not a totally depressing film though as the program and its practitioners are all pretty amazing, and director Steve James (who made Hoop Dreams) has unparalleled access to these struggling communities.
Genre: Documentary
Actor: Amanda Palmer, Ameena Matthews, Peter Ho-Sun Chan, Steve James, Tio Hardiman
Director: Steve James
Genre: Documentary
Director: Anne Bogart, Holly Morris
Last Stop Larrimah is the rare true-crime doc in which not a single tear is shed throughout its substantial two-hour runtime. That’s because the assumed-dead 70-year-old around whom it's centered had a lot of enemies: nearly all of his neighbors in the titular tiny Outback outpost he lived in, in fact. As the doc reveals, Larrimah — population: 10 (11 before Paddy Moriarty disappeared in 2017) — was a pressure cooker of big personalities roiling with animosity.
Given the town’s tiny population, the film has the uncommon privilege of being able to explore the potential motives of every possible suspect — and it does, diving into vicious feuds over meat pies, hungry pet crocodiles, and the million grievances Paddy’s neighbors apparently harbored. But, though it presents all motives as equally plausible, it turns out one explanation is much more likely than the rest. That’s the problem here: like so many other true-crime docs, by the end, you can’t help but feel that the journey this takes is ultimately exploitative. Though it’s an entertaining portrait of eccentric Aussie characters, the film is much too devoted to doing just that — entertaining — at the expense of all its participants (including the unremarkable local police, for some reason), and so its late pivot into emotional profundity feels markedly insincere.
Genre: Documentary
Director: Thomas Tancred
Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime
Actor: Alfred Molina, André De Shields, Billy Smith, Casey Affleck, David Gborie, Don DiPetta, Hong Chau, Jack Harlow, Jason Furlani, Matt Damon, Michael Rodrick, Michael Stuhlbarg, Mike Bash, Natalie Carter, Paul Walter Hauser, Richie Moriarty, Rob Gronkowski, Robert Harvey, Ron Perlman, Shawn Fitzgibbon, Slate Holmgren, Toby Jones, Toby Onwumere, Tom Mariano, Tommy Nohilly, Ving Rhames
Director: Doug Liman