327 Movies Like Pulp Fiction (1994) (Page 21)

Hotel Salvation is a touching movie about a father asking his son for a last wish : let him die in the Holy city of Varanasi. This Indian drama will let you discover a modern Hindu philosophy, the power of the scenic Varanasi and the bonds of family. It faces the question of death in the light, gentle and humorous way that perfectly illustrates the contradiction in question: celebrating life while surrounded by death.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Adil Hussain, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Lalit Behl, Navnindra Behl, Palomi Ghosh

Director: Shubhashish Bhutiani

Rating: Not Rated

Producer/Director Beth Kargman has put together a wonderful documentary that follows six young ballet dancers to the Youth America Grand Prix, one of the most important of all ballet competitions worldwide. The prizes at the competition include awards of recognition, scholarships, and work with major dance companies. The dancers are in several age ranges and ethnicities. Michaela and her sister were adopted from Sierra Leone, where there was nothing but death and poverty waiting for them. Michaela has been told that blacks make unsuitable ballet dancers -- bad feet, too muscular, wrong build, etc. Zamora lives in New York, far away from his family, but his father tells him there is nothing for him in Colombia and he has to go after his dream. Rebecca is a cheerleader and a 'normal' kid whose passion is dance, and Aaron doesn't tell other kids he's a dancer. All of them have great talents, obvious from their dance routines at the Grand Prix. First Position is a very inspiring documentary about youngsters from different backgrounds and social status with the dream of dancing professionally, and the sacrifices they have made to achieve their goal. The dancing is heavenly; I only wish there had been more of it.

Genre: Comedy, Documentary, Drama

Actor: Aran Bell, Gaya Bommer Yemini, Joan Sebastian Zamora, Jules Jarvis Fogarty, Michaela Deprince, Miko Fogarty, Rebecca Houseknecht

Director: Bess Kargman

Rating: Not Rated

Finding Forrester is the rainy afternoon type, or a summer night film -- it's a traditional American movie so to speak, with all the components to make your traditional need for a traditional movie more than satisfied. It tells the story of two writers, a young black kid living in a ghetto and struggling to admit his passion for writing over his passion for Basketball (played by Rob Brown), and a Pulitzer Prize winning writer who has renounced his success for unknown reasons (played by Sean Connery). The plot is predictable, and in that traditional sense, very enjoyable. Directed by Gus Van Sant, it will feel almost as a sequel to Good Will Hunting but trust me, this ends up being a great thing too.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Alex Trebek, Alison Folland, Anna Paquin, April Grace, Busta Rhymes, F. Murray Abraham, Fly Williams III, Gerry Rosenthal, Glenn Fitzgerald, Gus Van Sant, Jim Titus, Lil' Zane, Matt Damon, Matt Malloy, Michael Nouri, Michael Pitt, Richard Easton, Rob Brown, Sean Connery, Stephanie Berry, Vince Giordano

Director: Gus Van Sant

Rating: PG-13

What happens to genius and complex filmmakers once they reach old age? Agnès Varda at 89 is one example. She maintains an interest in the same deep questions but portrays them in a casual way - basically tries to have a little more fun with things. She finds a friend in JR, a young artist with a truck that prints large portraits. Together they go around French villages (the French title is “Visages Villages”), connecting with locals and printing their photos on murals. Their interactions are researched, but not worked. In fact, they are deeply improvised. Because of this and because the movie is structured in an episode format, it will completely disarm you. And when you least expect it you will be met with long-lasting takes on mortality, loss, but also gender, the environment and the evasiveness of life and art.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Agnès Varda, Amaury Bossy, Jean-Paul Beaujon, Jeannine Carpentier, JR, Yves Boulen

Director: Agnès Varda, JR

Rating: PG

City Island is a lighthearted comedy/drama about the Rizzo family, residents of the titular fishing community in The Bronx, New York. Andy Garcia plays the patriarch of the family who works as a corrections officer, and who decides one day to bring home a young ex-con named Tony under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Tony soon becomes entwined in the dysfunctional household as he develops varying relationships with each family member, even as each of them lives their own secret life apart from the rest. This secrecy drives much of the plot, as their personal mysteries play out in an unexpected and often amusing ways. It’s a lively slice-of-life full of boisterous characters, comedic misunderstandings and ultimately a warm embrace of family unity.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Alan Arkin, Andy Garcia, Bettina Bresnan, Carrie Baker Reynolds, Chad Hessler, Chazz Menendez, Curtiss Cook, Damian Achilles, Daniel Maldonado, Dominik Garcia, Dominik Garcia-Lorido, Emily Mortimer, Ezra Miller, Hallie Cooper-Novack, Hope Glendon-Ross, Ivy Jones, Jee Young Han, Julianna Margulies, Louis Mustillo, Louise Stratten, Lynn Collins, Marianne Ebert, Marshall Efron, Matthew Arkin, Mike Burke, Paul Diomede, Paul Marini, Paul Romero, Rick Aiello, Sarah Saltzberg, Sharon Angela, Steven Strait, Vernon Campbell, Yevgeniy Dekhtyar

Director: Raymond De Felitta

Rating: PG-13

Incredible footage combined with a great soundtrack will keep you frozen in your seat until global warming melts you off (so to speak). Chasing Ice is about a National Geographic photographer who tries to capture a complete overview of what climate change is doing to our planet. Consequently this movie took years to make and countless technical issues had to be dealt with in order to record the time-lapse videos. The result is mesmerizing, and captures something that has never been caught on camera before. This movie is evidence of what our planet is going through that everyone can relate to. Be prepared to be charmed and saddened at the same time.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Adam LeWinter, Dennis Dimick, James Balog, Jeff Orlowski, Kitty Boone, Louie Psihoyos, Svavar Jónatansson, Sylvia Earle, Tad Pfeffer

Director: Jeff Orlowski

Rating: PG-13

With an ensemble cast featuring a young Natalie Portman and a less murderous Uma Thurman, Ted Demme's "Beautiful Girls" recreates the worries and woes that thrive in the minds of a tight knit group of working class friends stuck in their own small town Massachusetts world. Warm, quirky and filled with champagne diamonds, both metaphorical and tangible, for anybody who's ever walked the thirty something walk, it's a film that'll make you want to remember all the friends you wish you still had and actually still do.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Actor: Adam LeFevre, Annabeth Gish, Anne Bobby, David Arquette, Frank Anello, John Carroll Lynch, John Scurti, Lauren Holly, Martha Plimpton, Matt Dillon, Max Perlich, Michael Rapaport, Mira Sorvino, Natalie Portman, Noah Emmerich, Oliver Osterberg, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Rachel Oliva, Richard Bright, Rosie O'Donnell, Sam Robards, Timothy Hutton, Tom Gibis, Tomas Settell, Uma Thurman

Director: Ted Demme

Rating: R

The atmosphere communicated within the title Hurricane Season comes off incredibly clearly on screen: this is a film that just feels humid and full of foreboding for a coming storm, with people feeling all manner of guilt while secluded in their own homes. Cinematographer María Secco's gorgeous colors and brown tones fill the 4:3 aspect ratio nicely, and director Elisa Miller lets events unfold with the stately pace of a long novel. There's something fascinating here about how each new "chapter" or perspective doesn't really lead to more answers, but simply to more anguish closing in from all sides.

So it would be understandable if some may be put off by how unrelentingly dark Hurricane Season is, especially as the trans woman whose death becomes the central event never enjoys the kind of characterization everybody around her gets. Apart from how the film illustrates that discrimination against women, against repressed "taboo" sexuality, and against access to proper reproductive health only threatens to grow under poverty, it can be difficult to grasp what point the movie is trying to make. Social realism certainly has its place in cinema, but the different perspective in this particular film still don't add up to more than the sum of its parts.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller

Actor: Andrés Cordaz, Edgar Treviño, Flor Eduarda Gurrola, Guss Morales, Kat Rigoni, Mónica Martínez​, Norma Reyna, Paloma Alvamar, Rodrigo Corea, Said Sandoval

Director: Elisa Miller

Rating: R

The level of access that A Thousand Cuts gets to both the side of the press and of the administration is ultimately what makes it valuable. By being on the ground with journalists doing honest-to-goodness hard work, the film reframes Duterte's war on drugs (really a campaign to terrorize the poor into submission) as an information war between news outlets and government propaganda. Unfortunately, in the process, the film also winds up excluding the voices of working class people and how they both engage and are engaged by all this information. There should be a way to honor the work of these journalists without accidentally positioning them above the public they serve.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Amal Clooney, George Clooney, Leni Robredo, Maria Ressa, Patricia Evangalista, Pia Ranada

Director: Ramona S. Diaz

Hipgnosis’s body of work is so rich, brilliant, and recognizable, that it’s hard not to at least sit in awe as they flash by you in this documentary. The accompanying stories behind their creation, sometimes told by Thorgerson and Powell, other times by their musician clients like Jimmy Page and Paul McCartney, are also pleasant and informative enough to paint, in whole, an interesting picture. But apart from the covers themselves, Squaring the Circle doesn’t have much else going for it. The co-founders’ history is too brief and plain to render drama, and their upbringing too upper-class and male to be relatable. A more broad, ambitious goal would’ve been to parallel the history of these artworks with the history of rock music itself, but this niche documentary seems uninterested in explaining itself to outsiders and newcomers. That said, it still serves as a precious account for those familiar with Hipgnosis’ pieces. 

Genre: Documentary, Music

Actor: David Gilmour, Glen Matlock, Graham Gouldman, Jimmy Page, Nick Mason, Noel Gallagher, Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, Peter Saville, Robert Plant, Roger Waters

Director: Anton Corbijn