Chasing the feel of watching Green Book ? Here are the movies we recommend you watch right after.
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Actor: Ah-in Yoo, Ban Hye-ra, Cha Mi-Kyung, ChoI Seung-ho, Jang Won-hyung, Jeon Jong-seo, Jeon Seok-chan, Jeong Da-yi, Jong-seo Jun, Jun Jong-seo, Kim Shin-rock, Kim Shin-rok, Kim Sin-rock, Kim Soo-kyung, Lee Bong-ryeon, Lee Joong-ok, Lee Soo-jeong, Min Bok-gi, Moon Sung-keun, Ok Ja-yeon, Song Duk-ho, Soo-Kyung Kim, Steven Yeun, Yoo Ah-in
Director: Chang-dong Lee, Lee Chang-dong
A young lawyer has to defend a murderer after passing the bar only three months prior in this satisfying German drama. To make matters worse, the victim happens to be his mentor, a wealthy and seemingly kind-hearted business man. As for the perpetrator, he refuses to say a single word. Caspar, the lawyer, is from a German-Turkish background, which is a hint to where the complexity of this legal drama lies: in Germany's history and racial legacy. The Collini Case is satisfying to a fault, but if you’re looking for substance-filled entertainment, this is some of the best you’ll get.
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Actor: Alexandra Maria Lara, Anne Haug, Axel Moustache, Bettina Lohmeyer, Catrin Striebeck, Elyas M'Barek, Esther Maria Pietsch, Falk Rockstroh, Felix Everding, Franco Nero, Frederik Götz, Hannes Wegener, Heiner Lauterbach, Ilknur Boyraz, Jannis Niewöhner, Levi Kirchhoff, Ludwig Simon, Lutz Blochberger, Manfred Zapatka, Margarethe Tiesel, Max Wagner, Omid Memar, Peter Prager, Pia Stutzenstein, Rainer Bock, Sabine Timoteo, Sandro Di Stefano, Sina Reiß, Stefano Cassetti, Stephan Schad, Tara Fischer, Thomas Limpinsel, Thomas Stecher, Tom Jahn
Director: Marco Kreuzpaintner
A man returns to a town chasing the memory of a woman he loved years ago.
Poet turned filmmaker Bi Gan coats his idiosyncratic filmmaking with a thick layer of neo-noir in this sumptuous follow up to his remarkable debut Kaili Blues. This time around, Kaili City is a neon-drenched dreamscape dripping in style and calling to mind the work of Tarkovsky and Wong Kar-wai.
He may wear his influences on his sleeve, but Bi Gan keeps his trademark moves like the bravado long takes and a poetic disregard for past and present, reality and dreams. This leads to an explosive and unforgettable sequence in the second half that while originally intended for 3D loses little of its mind-bending power when watched at home.
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Actor: Bi Gan, Bi Yanmin, Chen Yongzhong, Chloe Maayan, Duan Chun-hao, Feiyang Luo, Hong-Chi Lee, Huang Jue, Jue Huang, Lee Hong-chi, Ming Dao, Qi Xi, Sylvia Chang, Tang Wei, Tuan Chun-hao, Zeng Meihuizi, 张艾嘉
Director: Bi Gan
Girl won four awards at the Cannes Film Festival last year and was nominated to 9 Magritte Awards. It was also Belgium’s entry to the Oscar for best foreign-language film. When a dance school accepts her, Lara has the opportunity to realize her dream and become a professional ballerina. The dancing takes a toll on her body, but her biggest obstacle is that she was born into the body of a boy. Girl illustrates the trans teenage experience with sensitivity, slowly and humanly making Lara’s anguish become the viewer’s. Based on a true story.
Genre: Drama
Actor: Alexia Depicker, Alice de Broqueville, Angelo Tijssens, Arieh Worthalter, Chris Thys, Daniel Nicodème, Els Olaerts, Hélène Theunissen, Ingrid Heiderscheidt, Katelijne Damen, Lukas Dhont, Magali Elali, Naomi Velissariou, Nele Hardiman, Oliver Bodart, Pieter Piron, Rilke Eyckermans, Steve Driesen, Tijmen Govaerts, Valentijn Dhaenens, Victor Polster
Director: Chad Faust, Lukas Dhont
This drama is about two friends attempting to rave in 1994 Scotland, after a recent Thatcher-era law banned the act and all music “characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats”.
Johnno and Spanner, one living in fear of his older brother and the other of his stepfather, want to turn things around by joining their first and probably last rave. They’re introduced to the world of illegal parties, a movement as influential as punk, that in the 1990s was born in reaction to the U.K.’s oppressive policies.
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Music
Actor: Amy Manson, Anthony Anderson, Ashley Jackson, Brian Ferguson, Chris Robinson, Christian Ortega, Dave East, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Gemma McElhinney, Kevin Mains, Khalil Everage, Laura Fraser, Lorn Macdonald, Martin Donaghy, Megan Sousa, Neil Leiper, Paul Walter Hauser, Rachel Jackson, Ryan Fletcher, Seandrea Sledge, Stephen McCole, Uzo Aduba
Director: Brian Welsh, Chris Robinson
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Alexis Lefebvre, Anne-Renee Duhaime, Catherine St-Laurent, Claude Despins, Fanny Mallette, Francis La Haye, Godefroy Reding, Julianne Côté, Luc Senay, Marc-André Grondin, Pierre-Luc Lafontaine, Simon Larouche
Director: Stéphane Lafleur
Don't let the title and poster fool you—Riders of Justice isn't the testosterone-filled action flick you'd expect going in (though it does get ridiculous at some points). It centers on deployed military man Markus, played by the appropriately masculine Mads Mikkelsen, who has to return home to his teenage daughter Mathilde after his wife dies in an accident. Instead of coping normally and sticking with his daughter to get through the tragedy, he goes down a rabbit hole discovering how the accident that killed his wife is more than just bad luck and may have been collateral damage from a gang orchestrating an assassination.
Surprisingly, director Anders Thomas Jensen injects this violent film with a lot of gentle moments about trauma and togetherness. Mikkelsen and the rest of the cast play off of each other very well, using dark humor to bring together a bunch of characters who are, in oversimplified terms, "fucked up but trying their best."
It may seem like the guns, blood, and badass moments are a front for this film that, at its core, shows men who badly need therapy banding together to cope with the harshness of life. Extremely funny and deeply moving, it qualifies as a heartwarming Christmas movie, believe it or not.
Genre: Action, Comedy, Drama, Thriller
Actor: Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt, Alice E. Bier Zandén, Anders Nyborg, Andrea Heick Gadeberg, Anne Birgitte Lind, Anne Fletting, Christina Ibsen Meyer, Gustav Dyekjær Giese, Gustav Lindh, Henrik Noël Olesen, Jacob Ulrik Lohmann, Jesper Groth, Jesper Ole Feit Andersen, Johanne Dal-Lewkovitch, Kaspar Velberg, Klaus Hjuler, Lars Brygmann, Mads Mikkelsen, Morten Suurballe, Natasja Crone, Nicolas Bro, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Omar Shargawi, Peder Holm Johansen, Raivo Trass, Rigmor Ranthe, Rikke Louise Andersson, Roland Moller
Director: Anders Thomas Jensen
This moving biopic is about Maud Lewis, the legendary Canadian painter who suffered from arthritis. In the film, Maud gets away from her controlling family by finding a job as a live-in housekeeper for a local fish peddler. It is there where she begins to paint, before marrying the fish peddler in spite of their different personalities. Sally Hawkins, who plays Lewis, brings undeniable spark and soul to the role, for which she had to undergo an astonishing physical transformation.
Maudie is a beautiful and uncomplicated film that challenges the conventions of marriage and relationship roles, while at the same time celebrating Maud Lewis’ paintings and life’s simple pleasures.
Genre: Drama, Romance
Actor: Billy MacLellan, Brian Marler, David Feehan, Ethan Hawke, Gabrielle Rose, Greg Malone, Kari Matchett, Kate Ross, Lawrence Barry, Marthe Bernard, Nik Sexton, Sally Hawkins, Zachary Bennett
Director: Aisling Walsh
When people think of football, they think of teams, and if not teams, they think of individual goalscorers. Higuita: the Way of the Scorpion focuses instead on a single goalkeeper from Latin America. To be fair, this goalkeeper is René Higuita – even just checking his Wikipedia is bound to pull some curiosity. But the documentary does a great job in introducing the man and his life story, starting with his fantastic scorpion kick before delving into the more personal and sensitive aspects of his life. With the wild gameplays and crazy controversies linked to the man, it’s actually unbelievable how a documentary like this hasn’t been made yet.
Genre: Documentary
Actor: René Higuita
Director: Luis Ara
Set in 1970s Italian countryside, this is a quirky movie that’s full of plot twists.
Lazzaro is a dedicated worker at a tobacco estate. His village has been indebted to a marquise and like everyone else, he works without a wage and in arduous conditions.
Lazzaro strikes a friendship with the son of the marquise, who, in an act of rebellion against his mother, decides to fake his own kidnapping. The two form an unlikely friendship in a story that mixes magical realism with social commentary.
Genre: Drama, Fantasy
Actor: Adriano Tardiolo, Agnese Graziani, Alba Rohrwacher, Alessandro Genovesi, Alice Rohrwacher, Antonio Salines, Carlo Massimino, Carlo Tarmati, Daria Deflorian, Daria Pascal Attolini, David Bennent, Elisabetta Rocchetti, Gala Othero Winter, Leonardo Nigro, Luca Chikovani, Natalino Balasso, Nicoletta Braschi, Pasqualina Scuncia, Sergi Lopez, Tommaso Ragno
Director: Alice Rohrwacher
In a small Italian town, a dog cleaner’s wholesome days dealing with elderly owners and eager children are balanced with a series of messy nights. The small and frail man finds himself targetted by the town’s black-sheep, a strong and fearless ex-convict. Dogman is about the line between being bullied and wanting to be part of something, it’s a beautiful and often thrilling character study from Italian genius filmmaker Matte Garone. Won the Best Actor award at Cannes.
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Actor: Adamo Dionisi, Alida Baldari Calabria, Aniello Arena, Edoardo Pesce, Francesco Acquaroli, Giancarlo Porcacchia, Gianluca Gobbi, Laura Pizzirani, Marcello Fonte, Mirko Frezza, Nunzia Schiano
Director: Matteo Garrone
Ashkal takes an audaciously hybrid approach to genre: it’s part-noir, part-supernatural thriller, and full political allegory. The investigation at the center of this slow-burn Tunisian police procedural is a gripping one, as burnt naked bodies keep turning up in abandoned construction sites in Tunis with no trace of a struggle or even a combustible on them. In post-revolution Tunisia, the deaths are an uncomfortable reminder of recent history: it was a young Tunisian man’s self-immolation that sparked the Arab Spring, after all.
The revolution’s complicated legacy looms over the film, as we watch the country’s Truth and Dignity Commission begin its work of uncovering the former government’s corruption and abuses. Ashkal’s two protagonists — the young Fatma (Fatma Oussaifi) and her more seasoned police partner Batal (Mohamed Grayaa) — find themselves on opposite sides of that political divide, he having been implicated in the abuses of power that are now being investigated by Fatma’s father. There are fascinating elements at play here, and the results of Ashkal’s ambitious genre experiment are mostly inspired. Much of the film’s energies are spent on building a paranoid atmosphere — efforts that can, at times, frustratingly slacken the tension — but its fantastical touches tauten things up enough to make it a haunting political commentary in the end.
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Director: Youssef Chebbi
That this film, an adaptation of a beloved classic and girlhood staple for 50 years and counting, is able to retain the same power, charm, and wisdom as the source material by Judy Blume is impressive in and of itself.
Director Kelly Fremon Craig (Edge of Seventeen) turns the must-read novel into a must-see film, as urgent and relevant as ever in its frank portrayal of feminine woes and joys. Buying your first bra, getting your first period, losing a friend, doubting your faith, seeing—really seeing—your family for the first time, and knowing in your heart what you stand for...these are some of the thorny requisites of womanhood, and Craig navigates them with a bittersweet ease that never feels pandering nor patronizing. Like the book, the film honors this young person's big feelings by centering them in a sprawling story that involves other characters, who are just as fleshed-out as the lead. Rachel McAdams deserves special mention for turning in a sweetly nuanced performance as Margaret's mother Barbara, an artist attempting to balance her domestic role with her career goals.
The film may be 50 years in the making, but it tells a timeless tale that will continue to hold the hands of teenage girls for generations to come.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Abby Ryder Fortson, Aidan Wojtak-Hissong, Benny Safdie, Echo Kellum, Eden Lee, Elle Graham, Ethan McDowell, Gary Houston, George Cooper, Holli Saperstein, JeCobi Swain, Jim France, Johnny Land, Judy Blume, Kate MacCluggage, Kathy Bates, Mia Dillon, Rachel McAdams, Sloane Warren, Wilbur Fitzgerald
Director: Kelly Fremon Craig
There are far too many things that are worse in life than being on a journey with Danish super talent Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal, The Hunt).
And that is what this 98-minute movie is: an almost one-actor movie set in the arctic. Mikkelsen plays a man trying to survive a plane crash, which at some point becomes about deciding whether to embark on a dangerous journey or stay in the plane rubble and risk a slow death.
It’s an extremely well-acted movie with nail-biting suspense. Bonus fact: it received a 10-minute standing ovation when it premiered at the Cannes film festival this year.
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Actor: Joe Penna, Mads Mikkelsen, Maria Thelma Smáradóttir, Maria Thelma Smáradóttir, Tintrinai Thikhasuk
Director: Joe Penna
Sophie Compton and Reubyn Hamlyn's British-American documentary about the harm of deepfakes won the SXSW Special Jury Award for its innovative storytelling and deservingly so. The two filmmakers use a clever and considerate way to let a young woman fictitiously named Taylor share her story of how she found deepfake pornography of herself online. With testaments, desktop form reconstructions, and lots of deepfakes, Compton and Hamlyn alert the audience to how terrifyingly widespread this kind of abuse is, and even more: how unregulated it is. Across the globe and 48 US states deepfake pornography is legal to make and spread, while victims remain helpless and unprotected. More than 90% of them are women. These chilling statistics are only part of the reason this documentary takes an activist stance and wants to raise awareness against the uncontrolled spread of face-swapping algorhythms amidst heated discussions around AI and ethics.
Genre: Documentary
Director: Reuben Hamlyn, Sophie Compton