502 Movies Like Joker (2019) (Page 17)

Demian Bichir was nominated for an Oscar for his role in this movie where he plays an illegal immigrant and father. You might be wondering "who is that?", but trust me you won't after watching this movie. The kindness, complexity, and authenticity he brings to this story are unparalleled.

A Better Life is about the illegal immigrant experience, about the line between the fear of being caught and the aspiration for a better future. It's an excellent and important movie. 

Genre: Drama

Actor: Abraham Belaga, Bobby Soto, Brigitte Sy, Carlos Linares, Chelsea Rendon, Demián Bichir, Dolores Heredia, Eddie 'Piolin' Sotelo, Eddie 'Piolin' Sotelo, Fayçal Safi, Francois Favrat, Gabriel Chavarria, Guillaume Canet, Isabella Rae Thomas, Joaquín Cosío, José Julián, Leila Bekhti, Nancy Lenehan, Nicolas Abraham, Slimane Khettabi, Tim Griffin

Director: Cedric Kahn, Chris Weitz

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Action, Crime

Actor: Ben Yuen Foo-Wah, Chen Yi-wen, Cherry Hsieh, Ethan Juan, Gingle Wang, Huang Di Yang, Lee-zen Lee, Ming Che Lee, Nelson Shen, Peggy Tseng, Troy Liu, Yi-Jung Wu, Yu An-Shun

Director: Wong Ching-Po

Set between the years 1977 and 2005, this Polish drama goes through various stages in the life of the controversial surrealist-expressionist painter Zdzisław Beksiński. The extensive video archive left behind by the artist was used to craft an intimate portrait of three interdependent people: Beksiński himself, his suicidal and neurotic son, and his wife.

Beksiński is superbly played by veteran actor Andrzej Seweryn, known for his appearance in numerous Andrzej Wajda films. Even though the film focuses less on Zdzisław's painting career and more on his relationship with his family, it will definitely inspire you to dig deeper into both his tragic life and impressively dark body of work. 

Genre: Drama

Actor: Agnieszka Michalska, Aleksandra Konieczna, Alicja Karluk, Andrzej Chyra, Andrzej Seweryn, Danuta Nagorna, Dawid Ogrodnik, Jakub Wróblewski, Magdalena Boczarska, Zofia Perczynska

Director: Jan P. Matuszynski

Rating: N/A

Partially based on the 860-page memoir, "A White House Diary", and on the actual audio recordings Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson made during her time as first lady, The Lady Bird Diaries is an intimate reworking of a past we still know very little about. Told from the vantage point of First Lady Johnson candidly and in detail, the audio track shapes the whole film. All the archival footage is nicely complemented by hand-drawn animations to fit the missing images, but all the visuals are always in service of the narration. In this way, the documentary becomes a piece of history and an archive in itself, its illustrative functions – a crucial storytelling tool for posteriority.

Genre: Documentary

Director: Dawn Porter

Genre: Documentary, Drama, History

Actor: Carl Reiner, Colin Powell, Elliott Gould, Howard Schultz, Mel Brooks, Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Director: Lisa Hurwitz

Rating: TV-PG

At two hours and nearly 30 minutes, Stonewalling is quite long. The third film from spouses Ryuji Otsuka and Huang Ji takes place in slow, slice-of-life moments, centered around a female lead that mostly doesn’t actively make choices for her own life, so it can feel frustrating to watch. But as the film unfolds, Lynn’s passivity turns out to be the tragically familiar surrender of today’s working class. Lynn tries to make choices to pay out her mother’s debt, to ensure that she’s not indebted herself, through jobs that commodify her youth, her beauty, and even her body, but each move consequently limits her next options. She tries to bargain for other solutions, but it turns out these solutions were never there in the first place. All she can do is quietly adapt, with each failed promise culminating into a baby’s cry.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Cui Chu, Huang Xiaoxiong, Liu Long, Xiao Zilong, Yao Honggui

Director: Huang Ji, Ryuji Otsuka

Silver Dollar Road isn’t a new story– it’s one of many that comes as a consequence of systematic Black land loss that continues to happen to this day. Director Raoul Peck tells it in a new way, completely focusing on the Reels family and hearing their story entirely, from the initial confusion to two of the homeowners’ incarceration, and remembering the good old days when they used to enjoy the land. The land dispute has escalated to years of harassment, imprisonment, and being taken advantage of from opportunistic legal counsel. While it could have benefitted from from detailed legal proceedings, Silver Dollar Road still powerfully depicts an intimate family story that outlines the systemic racism enabling Black land loss today.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Kim Renee Duhon, Mamie Reels Ellison

Director: Raoul Peck

Rating: PG

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Gustave Kervern, Isabelle Huppert, Jules Benchetrit, Larouci Didi, Michael Pitt, Tassadit Mandi, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Valeria Bruni‑Tedeschi

Director: Samuel Benchetrit

Rating: Not Rated

A young Steve Buscemi leads this wry farce about a calamitous film set where nothing goes right. The sardonic script skewers the ins and outs of low budget film production and the various personalities on set from belligerent directors, pretentious cinematographers, and egotistic actors. 

A playful three-act structure and trips into dream sequences keep things light, while a strong supporting cast, including a cheeky appearance by Peter Dinklage and the fantastic Catherine Keener, gives the film the backbone it needs. 

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Catherine Keener, Danielle von Zerneck, Dermot Mulroney, Hilary Gilford, James Le Gros, Kevin Corrigan, Lori Tan Chinn, Matthew Grace, Norman Fields, Peter Dinklage, Rica Martens, Robert Wightman, Steve Buscemi, Tom Jarmusch

Director: Tom DiCillo

Rating: R

We’re familiar with dick jokes from stand-up comedians, especially male stand-up, but Jacqueline Novak’s 90-minute show about the blow job feels completely new. Get on Your Knees feels like casual storytelling from someone experienced yet distant enough to be a cool authority on it (say, your best friend’s older sister’s best friend), but funnier. It’s like a gossip session about a first experience, except the breathless, dizzying stream of thought is peppered with philosophical thought and points out the absurdity around the language and common attitudes about sex. And as she does so, and as she talks about self-conscious fumbling and unanswered questions, she strides back and forth, in an easy, self-assured way, the way we’d like to feel going into the act.

Genre: Comedy

Actor: Jacqueline Novak

Director: Natasha Lyonne

Rating: R