135 Movies Like Snowpiercer (2013) (Page 9)

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

Rating: Unrated

Boon Joon-Ho's 'Memories of murder', which was recently re-released is not too dissimilar from many of the crime-dramas that have come out of South Korea over the past two decades. Two very different detectives have to come together to solve what is turning out to be a series of murders that are all linked. The movie is based on the true story of South Korea's first ever recorded serial murderer, who raped and then killed  young girls in the late 80's. In the hands of probably the foremost South Korean director after Park Chan-Wook, this movie takes you through all ranges of emotions.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller

Actor: Baek Bong-ki, Byun Hee-bong, Byun Heebong, Choi Jong-ryul, Go Seo-hee, Hae-il Park, Hie-bong Byeon, Jae-ho Song, Jeon Mi-seon, Jo Deok-jae, Jo Moon-ee, Jong-ryol Choi, Jung In-sun, Kang-ho Song, Kim Joo-ryoung, Kim Joo-ryung, Kim Roe-ha, Kim Roi-ha, Kim Sang-kyung, Ko Seo-hie, Kwon Byung-gil, Kwon Hyeok-Pung, Lee Da-il, Lee Dong-yong, Lee Jae-eung, Lee Kang-san, No-shik Park, Oh Yong, Park Hae-il, Park Hyun-young, Park Jin-woo, Park No-shik, Park Tae-kyeong, Roe-ha Kim, Ryu Tae-ho, Sang-kyung Kim, Seo Young-hwa, Seo-hie Ko, Shim Sung-bo, Shin Hyeon-jong, Shin Hyun-jong, Shin Un-seop, Shin Woon-seob, Son Jin-ho, Son Jin-hwan, Son Kang-gook, Song Jae-ho, Song Kang-ho, Woo Go-na, Yeom Hye-ran, Yoo Seung-mok, Yoon Ga-hyun

Director: Bong Joon-ho, Joon-ho Bong

Rating: Not Rated

Last Days in Vietnam is a documentary that recounts the final weeks of the conflict in 1975, as North Vietnamese forces surged toward Saigon and U.S personnel anxiously awaited word of an evacuation plan. At the time, U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin was reluctant to accept defeat, and delayed a U.S. withdrawal in his (rapidly diminishing) hopes that a solution could be reached. Once the fall of Saigon became imminent, U.S. diplomatic, military and intelligence personnel were left piecing together a bare bones plan to escape via military helicopter support. The moral dilemma they soon faced was the harsh reality of leaving behind so many South Vietnamese citizens who had supported the American effort—many of whom faced likely imprisonment and/or death. Featuring remarkable footage and first-hand accounts from many involved, the film recounts those final days of chaos and confusion in stunningly dramatic fashion. Director Rory Kennedy has put together a gripping and emotionally compelling film that balances broad historical exposition with concise detail related to the evacuation complexities—all of it punctuated by remarkable examples of bravery and heroism.

Genre: Documentary, War

Actor: Henry Kissinger, Juan Valdez, Richard Nixon, Stuart Herrington

Director: Rory Kennedy

Rating: Not Rated

A cynical down-on-his-luck Seoul taxi driver is hired by a German journalist to go to another town called Gwangju. What seemed like an easy and overcompensated journey at first takes him into the heart of a city under siege by the military. This is in fact the student uprising that will be a very important event in South Korean history, known as 1980 Guangju Democratic Uprising. Both the journalist and the taxi driver confront life-threatening situations as they find themselves at the center of the movement. A true-story-based movie, it's a heartfelt and entertaining political drama about one of the bleakest chapters of modern Korean history. In 2018 it was the country's official submission to the Oscars.

Genre: Action, Drama, History

Actor: Cha Soon-bae, Choi Guy-hwa, Choi Gwi-hwa, Daniel Joey Albright, Hae-jin Yoo, Han Sa-myeong, Han Sa-myung, Han Yi-jin, Heo Jeong-do, Heo Jung-do, Jeon Hye-jin, Jeong Seok-yong, Jin-young Jung, Joey Albright, Jun-yeol Ryu, Jung Jin-young, Kang-ho Song, Ko Chang-seok, Kyul Hwi, Lee Bong-ryeon, Lee Ho-chul, Lee Jung-eun, Lee Sae-byeol, Lee Yong-i, Lee Yong-yi, Park Hyeok-kwon, Park Hyuk-kwon, Ryu Jun-yeol, Ryu Sung-hyun, Ryu Tae-ho, Seo Hyun-woo, Seok-yong Jeong, Song Kang-ho, Thomas Kretschmann, Uhm Tae-goo, Um Tae-goo, Yoo Hae-jin, Yoo Hai-jin, 许政度

Director: Hun Jang, Jang Hoon, Jang Hun

Rating: Not Rated

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

Yu Katayama lives in a remote village with a garbage disposal business that's slowly turning into a landfill. When his childhood friend Misaki Nakai returns to the village, she encourages Yu to make a better life for himself despite his mother's gambling and the village ostracizing him. The Village is a slow-burning film interested in Yu's struggles as an outcast and in discussing the takeover of small villages for capitalistic industrial motives. The film is shot beautifully with dark, brooding visuals and lingering shots of Yu's quiet intensity throughout the film. Unfortunately, secondary characters are not fully developed outside of their interactions with Yu, causing the film to feel flat outside of pivotal moments. An evocative idea with parts more memorable than the whole.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Arata Furuta, Daiken Okudaira, Hana Kino, Haru Kuroki, Naomi Nishida, Ryusei Yokohama, Sakuma Ryuto, Shidô Nakamura, Tetta Sugimoto, Wataru Ichinose

Director: Michihito Fujii

Rating: R, TV-MA

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

Lovers share moments and memories intertwined with music, to the point that when the relationship ends, listening to an old track brings back the past. For Harriet in The Greatest Hits, this is literal, to the point that random music playing outside prolongs her grief. The story is familiar– it’s sort of similar to 2022’s Press Play– and frankly, the cinematography relies a bit too much on lens flares, but the cast makes the best of it, with Lucy Boynton having compelling chemistry with both Justin H. Min and David Corenswet. That being said, the film has a dated feel, with most of the tracks coming from the previous decade, and the conclusion it makes would feel totally insulting if they wrote Harriet’s relationship with Max in depth. But it’s still a fairly decent launching point for the cast and maybe a decent ad for silent disco spots and Spotify.

Genre: Drama, Music, Romance

Actor: Andie Ju, Austin Crute, David Corenswet, Evan Shafran, Jackson Kelly, Jenne Kang, Justin H. Min, Lucy Boynton, Mary Eileen O'Donnell, Retta, Rory Keane, Thomas Ochoa, Tom Yi

Director: Ned Benson

Rating: PG-13

As a sluggishly paced, three-hour spiritual drama with little dialogue and even less plot, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell certainly won't convert anybody who isn't already interested in slow cinema. Even those who don't mind these types of films in which "nothing happens" might feel that it doesn't weave its themes of faith and suffering tightly enough. But there's more than enough beauty to contemplate here, courtesy of Dinh Duy Hung's stunning cinematography, which invites us to simply inhabit the world and to stop looking for answers. This may sound like a copout, but it's quite the experience to have a film force you to rethink how you're viewing it, as you're viewing it.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Le Phong Vu, Nguyen Thi Truc Quynh, Nguyen Thinh, Vu Ngoc Manh

Director: Pham Thien An

It’s surreal to watch Congrats My Ex, because the Thai production feels inspired by Indian romance films, with its musical numbers, elaborate dance sequences, and maximalist sets and costumes. With both India and Thailand culturally linked for centuries, it’s interesting to see how this film celebrates their commonalities. That being said, this film isn’t too focused on this, on the difficulties of having an intercultural, long distance relationship– it knows that it wants to be an over-the-top wedding rom com. It does overly rely on the standard rom-com tropes, with a dash of slapstick shenanigans, over-the-top wedding dramatics, and one too many reckless driving accidents. It’s still a fun watch for fans of Bella and Bright though, but it’s nothing new.

Genre: Comedy, Romance

Actor: Anahita Bhooshan, Anjana Ghogar, Darina Boonchu, Mahir Pandhi, Passakorn Ponlaboon, Ranee Campen, Thongchai Thongkanthom, Vachirawit Chivaaree

Director: Prueksa Amaruji

With a premise that just seems inherently emotionally manipulative, it should take an especially sensitive touch to make a story like this work on screen. Unfortunately, See Hear Love—itself based on a South Korean webcomic—is both overdramatic and not nearly stylized enough in any meaningful way to help its subject matter evolve beyond melodrama. It remains a well-shot and decently acted film that, at the very least, treats its characters as adults and not as caricatures with disabilities. But the movie makes little effort to place these characters in believable situations that should shed a light on what it's like to live with blindness or as a Deaf person. See Hear Love takes the easiest (and slowest) way out, bringing its two lovers together under somewhat creepy circumstances, and having them endure cartoonishly exploitative "antagonists"—all for the sake of portraying the romance as grand and artificially tragic.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Actor: Dai Watanabe, Daikichi Sugawara, Mahiro Takasugi, Maika Yamamoto, Mari Natsuki, Masaya Kato, Motoki Fukami, Sayaka Yamaguchi, Tomohisa Yamashita, Tomoki Kimura, Yuko Araki

Director: John H. Lee

Better known as a podcast host, Stavros Halkias proves that he does have the writing ability and (the lack of shame and/or pride) to come up with effective jokes from his own perspective. But his momentum just doesn't hold throughout this hour-long special; he starts strong and keeps a coherent train of thought throughout the whole routine, but the latter sections begin to rely on gross-out comedy and potshots at the audience more than anything. Halkias knows who his audience is and he's very fortunate to be able to perform in front of people who seem to be very familiar with his style. But for a wider range of people watching through streaming, his more relaxed style of storytelling may come off as him simply droning on without particularly great timing.

Genre: Comedy

Actor: Stavros Halkias

Director: Ben O'Brien