370 Movies Like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Page 7)

After the only war the Americans have lost, American post-Vietnam war portrayals tend to lean as patriotic revenge fantasies or romanticized disillusionment, but rarely do they portray the people caught in between. HBO’s The Sympathizer is an adaptation of the Pulitzer winning novel of the same name, and while it’s mainly an American production, Park Chan-wook and Robert Downey Jr.’s collaboration sticks to the Captain’s perspective, as the unnamed mole protagonist writes his confession years after from a jail in Vietnam. Chan-wook excellently mirrors his approach to Viet Thanh Nguyen’s agile storytelling, shifting time periods and languages the same way the Captain shifts perspectives, though Nguyen’s dry humor sometimes wavers when translated to the screen. Still, it’s certainly a well-crafted, ambitious depiction coming from a unique perspective.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Alan Trong, Duy Nguyen, Fred Nguyen Khan, Hoa Xuande, Kiều Chinh, Nguyễn Cao Kỳ Duyên, Phan Gia Nhật Linh, Robert Downey Jr., Sandra Oh, Toan Le, Vy Le

Rating: TV-MA

Intricately constructed and unbearably suspenseful from beginning to end, the first season of The Promised Neverland is a masterclass in using the episodic structure of TV to maximize the effect of a mystery-driven thriller. By placing us firmly within the perspective of its child protagonists (who are, to be fair, incredibly smart and determined), every step towards freedom still feels like a shot in the dark, and every setback becomes increasingly more devastating. Even as the season hurtles towards its conclusion, it never becomes clear how much its characters will succeed, if at all. Intelligent editing and animation that goes from ominous to fully grotesque ensures that something always feels off or too good to be true, no matter what.

And it says a lot about the sheer quality of the first season that it's still worth recommending despite a truly awful, rushed second season, which ignores its own themes and resorts to lazy animation just to get through the story faster. Viewed as a two-season series, The Promised Neverland can't help but look disappointing, squandering an exhilarating first half with developments that lead nowhere. But even on its own, season one stands tall as a stunning achievement in anime—a self-contained story of selflessness and hope in the face of dehumanization and despair.

Genre: Action & Adventure, Animation, Crime, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thriller

Actor: Ai Kayano, Ari Ozawa, Erisa Kuon, Hiyori Kono, Lynn, Maaya Uchida, Mari Hino, Mariya Ise, Nami Fujita, Nao Fujita, Shinei Ueki, Shizuka Ishigami, Sumire Morohoshi, Yoshino Aoyama, Yuhko Kaida, Yuko Mori

Rating: TV-14, TV-MA

Anyone tired of the same old cliches found in true crime shows (and there are a lot of them) will feel reinvigorated watching The Jinx. Director Andrew Jarecki goes one step further from the usual fare by interrogating the subject, himself an unnerving character, and unearthing evidence that changes the trajectory of his story. The Jinx is a great true crime documentary in that it’s gripping and well-researched, but it’s also great television, point blank. It’s thought-provoking, unsettling, and strives to always keep the viewer at the edge of their seat.

Genre: Crime, Documentary

Actor: Andrew Jarecki, Robert Durst

Rating: TV-MA

With years of films depicting Italian crime syndicates, most focus on their leaders – the Dons, the Capos, and the Consiglieres. Most of them focus on the mafia’s men. However, in this series, it’s the women who are the stars of the show. Based on the novel of the same name, The Good Mothers is a compelling crime drama, focused on the women, not the men, of the 'Ndrangheta clan. It’s from their perspective we see the mafia. The masterful way the series unfolds makes it clear that their lives are constrained, that this dated way of life still prioritizes the family over their individual women. It makes it all the more satisfying when they’re given the opportunity to retaliate, and when they choose to take that opportunity. And it’s so much better knowing that this was real.

Genre: Crime, Drama

Actor: Barbara Chichiarelli, Francesco Colella, Gaia Girace, Marco Zingaro, Micaela Ramazzotti, Simona Distefano, Valentina Bellè

Director: Elisa Amoruso, Julian Jarrold

Rating: TV-MA

Mind-bending, intense, and mysterious, it's hard to put Tengoku Daimakyo into words. The anime might be a post-apocalyptic adventure series where two teenagers fight against man-eating monsters, but it also happens to be a sci-fi-based contemplation of genetic experimentation, AI, and interventionism. The structure of the series is strange too, with its two seemingly unconnected parallel storylines. At the start, it's unclear why the show alternates between a futuristic utopian boarding school and the monster-filled ruins of Japan. However, there's something very compelling about the way this show unveils itself. When a question about the premise is answered, even more questions pop up. When the kids' wishes and predictions get fulfilled, it's never in the way they expect it would be. When the show drops an unexpected revelation, sometimes a rewatch of previous episodes is required to understand the weight of that scene. But once things click, the brilliance of the show is undeniable. Tengoku Daimakyo is strange but downright fascinating.

Genre: Action & Adventure, Animation, Mystery, Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Actor: Atsumi Tanezaki, Gen Sato, Hibiku Yamamura, Kazuya Nakai, Misato Fukuen, Misato Matsuoka, Sayaka Senbongi, Shunsuke Takeuchi, Tomoyo Kurosawa, Toshiyuki Toyonaga, Yuuki Shin

Rating: TV-MA

This documentary series has a gritty, Western vibe stemming from the marriage between old school rasslin’ footage and the accompanying hypnotic soundtrack. Legends gather around and take turns reliving the glory days, treating every fan-driven near-death experience as a badge of honor, showing how crazy everyone was on both sides of the fence. Between the rustic location they film in and the insanely casual delivery of terrifying stories, it’s easy to be transported to another time period and find it rather relaxing (much more so than sister series Dark Side of the Ring), an era that you almost wish would return, if there was a safer way to have it.

Genre: Documentary

Set in the Monsterverse—the same shared universe that King Kong, Godzilla, and their respective films inhabit—Skull Island follows a group of shipwrecked travelers who find themselves stranded on the mysterious titular island, which they soon find out is home to a variety of prehistoric creatures, including the mighty Kong.

Skull Island, the series, delivers wholesome relationships and touching character growth in the face of imminent danger, while also offering exciting action scenes, eye-popping visuals, and amusing jokes that are well-served by voice acting. It's an easy, fun watch that is sure to appeal to fans of the Monsterverse, as well as fans of animated adventure series. 

Genre: Action & Adventure, Animation, Family, Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Actor: Benjamin Bratt, Betty Gilpin, Darren Barnet, Mae Whitman, Nicolas Cantu

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

Search Party starts off with a simple mystery: whatever happened to Chantal, that girl Dory (Alia Shawkat) barely knew in college? She's been pronounced dead by authorities but Dory is sure she's seen her alive just recently. With nothing else going on in her life, a life she imagined would be filled with big feats and adventures by now, Dory enlists the help of her fellow 20-something friends and decides to get to the bottom of the case.

What ensues is a terrific mystery—perfectly paced and twisted—elevated by Dory and company's comic self-absorption, which buoys the story with great wit and humor. It's both a self-contained mystery and a satire, and none overwhelms the other. 

As the series progresses, Search Party gets even deeper down the loony hole. The crimes get darker, the stakes get higher, and their sanities barely withstand the new cracks they get. But it also gets even more complex and interesting, with many things to say about our so-called lost generation, the millennial generation, who would rather solve mysteries and find simple cure-alls than look at ourselves in plain light.

Genre: Comedy

Actor: Alia Shawkat, John Early, John Reynolds, Meredith Hagner

Rating: TV-MA

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+