Genre: Drama, Romance
Actor: Helen Celia Castro-Wood, Juan Barberini, Mariano López Seoane, Mía Maestro, Ramón Pujol
Director: Lucio Castro
Chasing the feel of watching Three Thousand Years of Longing ? Here are the movies we recommend you watch right after.
Genre: Drama, Romance
Actor: Helen Celia Castro-Wood, Juan Barberini, Mariano López Seoane, Mía Maestro, Ramón Pujol
Director: Lucio Castro
A road trip movie with an unknown destination, Hit the Road plays with our expectations by avoiding any obvious questions we might have, and making us focus on the real important things. Informed by the censorship and persecution faced by critics of Iran's government—including director Panah Panahi's own filmmaker father, Jafar—the film places more focus on the very act of escape and what that can take from a family. And most importantly, through Panahi's skillful direction of rural Iran's varied, beautiful landscapes, he creates a conflicted relationship between character and setting, with entire emotional crescendos playing out just through a single shot of the environment. It's one of the most underappreciated movies of the year.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Amin Simiar, Hasan Ma'juni, Pantea Panahiha, Rayan Sarlak
Director: Panah Panahi
Forget everything you know about the music biopic. One-on-one interviews, chronological storytelling, silent moments with the subjects—Moonage Daydream isn’t that kind of movie. Just as David Bowie isn’t your typical pop star, this documentary about him, directed by Brett Morgen, forgoes the usual beats for something extraordinary and fun.
Moonage Daydream is a concert, a light show, and a masterclass in collage editing. It's a feast for the senses, a fantastic neon fever dream that paints a picture of Bowie in his own words, drawn from archival footage, interviews, and concerts past.
Genre: Documentary, Drama, Music
Actor: Bing Crosby, Brian Eno, Catherine Deneuve, Charlie Chaplin, David Bowie, Dick Cavett, Elizabeth Taylor, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Iman, Jeff Beck, Keanu Reeves, Lou Reed, Maria Falconetti, Max Schreck, Max von Sydow, Mick Ronson, Mick Woodmansey, Mike Garson, Russell Harty, Tina Turner, Trevor Bolder
Director: Brett Morgen
Genre: Drama
Actor: Ayben Erman, Ayla Arslancan, Füsun Demirel, Güzin Özipek, Güzin Özyağcılar, Hale Akınlı, Meral Çetinkaya, Nur Sürer, Nurettin Şen, Ozan Bilen, Özlem Savaş, Rozet Hubeş, Sabriye Kara, Selma Tarcan, Sevim Çalışgir, Tanju Tuncel, Yasemin Alkaya
Director: Tunç Başaran
There’s a lot of good to be found in the charming, poignant, and endlessly quotable Marcel the Shell With Shoes On. It follows a documentarian named Dean, who has as his subject the one-inch talking shell that is Marcel. Marcel looks after an empty house along with his grandma Connie, and together they run a delightfully intricate system subsisting on electric mixers, tennis balls, and the occasional human hair.
Despite his small size, Marcel unwittingly makes big observations about life and the world around him, often moving Dean (and this writer) close to tears. It’s a simple film with a grand message, with lots to say about the importance of participating in life as opposed to merely observing it. But ultimately this is a movie with a precocious talking shell at the heart of it all, so really, what’s not to like?
Genre: Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Kids
Actor: Andy Richter, Avan Jogia, Blake Hottle, Brian Williams, Conan O'Brien, Dean Fleischer-Camp, Isabella Rossellini, Jamie Leonhart, Jenny Slate, Jeremy Evans, Jessi Klein, Joe Gabler, Lesley Stahl, Nathan Fielder, Peter Bonerz, Rosa Salazar, Samuel Painter, Sarah Thyre, Scott Osterman, Shari Finkelstein, Thomas Mann, Victoria Justice
Director: Dean Fleischer-Camp
Genre: Documentary, Drama, Music
Actor: Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Chuck D, Gay Byrne, George H. W. Bush, Joe Pesci, John F. Kennedy, John Maybury, Kathleen Hanna, Kurt Cobain, Michael Hutchence, Peaches, Pope John Paul II, Sinéad O'Connor, Skin, Tim Robbins
Director: Kathryn Ferguson
It's inspiring to see that, even after Jordan Peele made the jump to blockbuster budgets, he hasn't lost the ability to evoke the sheer visceral panic of seeing something that isn't supposed to be there. Nope is that increasingly uncommon kind of film whose dense air of mystery isn't frustrating—and in fact uses to great effect the very human instinct to understand the unknowable, even if we know it'll hurt us. Its characters might not be the most three-dimensional and the development of its themes seems to depend on a lot of extrapolation and educated guessing, but the way Nope transforms from alien invasion, to monster movie, to western adventure, to cosmic horror still makes the film much greater than the sum of its parts.
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Science Fiction
Actor: Alex Hyde-White, Andrew Patrick Ralston, Barbie Ferreira, Brandon Perea, Daniel Kaluuya, Devon Graye, Donna Mills, Eddie Jemison, Evan Shafran, Hetty Chang, Jacob Kim, Jennifer Lafleur, Keith David, Keke Palmer, Lincoln Lambert, Liza Treyger, Malcolm Jae O'Shea, Mark Casimir Dyniewicz Jr., Michael Wincott, Osgood Perkins, Oz Perkins, Pierce Kang, Roman Gross, Ryan W. Garcia, Sophia Coto, Steven Yeun, Terry Notary, Wrenn Schmidt
Director: Jordan Peele
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Actor: Alexis Zegerman, Andrea Riseborough, Caroline Martin, Eddie Marsan, Elliot Cowan, Joseph Kloska, Karina Fernandez, Kate OFlynn, Nonso Anozie, Oliver Maltman, Philip Arditti, Rebekah Staton, Sally Hawkins, Samuel Roukin, Sarah Niles, Sinéad Matthews, Stanley Townsend, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Trevor Cooper, Viss Elliot Safavi
Director: Mike Leigh
Witty, unexpected, and thrilling, The Innocent pulls off an excellent European heist film with modern sensibilities and its stylistic mix of genres. All at once, the film is a crime film, as well as a family farce, but also a screwball romantic comedy. The genres line up with the premise perfectly, but there’s something intriguing about the way director Louis Garrel uses each genre’s tropes. Abel’s clumsy spying over his mom’s ex-convict husband and drama pupil Michel is framed through noir techniques, while his friend Clémence gleefully interrupts his efforts with witty repartee. Abel’s suspicion of Michel’s schemes ironically leads to one of his own. And when his mom’s expressive acting techniques are used in that scheme, Abel expects fake emotions, only to reveal his true feelings. With each new twist, The Innocent plays with genre expectations for unexpected but delightful results.
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Romance
Actor: Anouk Grinberg, Jean-Claude Bolle-Reddat, Laëtitia Clément, Louis Garrel, Manda Touré, Noémie Merlant, Roschdy Zem, Thomas Rortais
Director: Louis Garrel
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Aleksandra Peševska, Alina Serban, Anamaria Marinca, Bislim Muçaj, Blagoj Veselinov, Irena Ristić, Mia Mustafa, Rozafa Celaj, Samson Selim, Sara Klimoska, Strezo Stamatovski, Vladimir Tintor
Director: Goran Stolevski
Focusing on the personal over the global, 76 Days serves as a valuable reminder for generations to come, of the catastrophic human cost of a pandemic. The film's directors (including one or more filmmakers who have had to keep themselves anonymous) take an entirely boots-on-the-ground approach in Wuhan, China. Together they find both humanity and the loss of humanity in these individual cases of COVID that are stalled by small inconveniences or a general lack of understanding of the disease. And all of this confusion is punctuated by the humbling fact that we never see the nurses' faces. It's a harrowing watch, but it tells us everything we need to know about how much assistance our health workers need and the kind of superhuman things they're tasked with doing every single day.
Genre: Documentary
Director: Hao Wu, Weixi Chen
It's difficult to portray Cinderella stories nowadays without making them feel cliche and irrelevant, but Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris seems to have achieved the impossible: it tells a well-worn tale without losing any of its charms, and Lesley Manville is the person to thank for this surprising triumph. As the titular Mrs. Harris, Manville is so sweet and likable —thoroughly convincing in her rags-to-riches journey—that it's impossible to watch her without grinning from ear to ear. Sure, the beats are predictable, polished to a fault even, but Manville makes every scene worth it. This is a feel-good movie if ever there was one, made even more enjoyable for fans of earnest performances, beautiful dresses, and clean, straightforward storytelling.
Genre: Comedy, Drama, History
Actor: Alba Baptista, Anna Chancellor, Barnabás Réti, Ben Addis, Bertrand Poncet, Christian McKay, Csémy Balázs, Declan Hannigan, Delroy Atkinson, Ellen Thomas, Freddie Fox, Guilaine Londez, Harry Szovik, Igor Szász, Isabelle Huppert, Jade Lopez, Jason Isaacs, Jeremy Wheeler, Lambert Wilson, Lesley Manville, Lucas Bravo, Panka Murányi, Philippe Bertin, Rose Williams, Roxane Duran, Saruul Delgerbayar, Vincent Martin, Wayne Brett, Zsolt Páll
Director: Anthony Fabian
Genre: Drama, Fantasy
Actor: Denis Lavant, Digbeu Jean Cyrille, Issaka Sawadogo, Koné Bakary, Rasmané Ouédraogo, Simon Rieber, Steve Tientcheu
Director: Philippe Lacôte
Anyone who’s seen Pietro Marcello’s Martin Eden will likely recognize the director’s fingerprints all over Scarlet. There’s the same haunting collage of colorized archival documentary footage and fictional scenes here, the same fascination with physical labor and historical moments of transition, the same loose approach to literary adaptation. Scarlet’s story is drawn from a 1923 Russian adventure novel but the action is transposed to post-WW1 rural France, where soldier Raphaël (Raphaël Thiéry) returns from the war to discover his wife has died and left him with a daughter, Juliette (Juliette Jouan). The local townsfolk reject the duo, but they manage to keep their head above water thanks to a kindly landlady with a storybook belief in magic and Raphael’s Geppetto-like skills at whittling beautiful toys from blank blocks of wood.
The fairy tale touches don’t stop there: the color grading and bucolic setting give the movie the look and texture of a fable, while Juliette is enraptured by a prophecy — given to her by a witchy forest woman — that tells her she’ll one day be swept away by scarlet sails in the sky. It’s a charming, if airy, yarn, but the craftsmanship in front of and behind the camera makes Scarlet a gorgeous escape.
Genre: Drama, History, Romance
Actor: Anne-Lise Heimburger, Annette Trumel, Antonin Stahly-Vishwanadan, Arthur Orcier, Bernard Blancan, Boris Gillot, Ernst Umhauer, François Négret, Iliana Zabeth, Juliette Jouan, Karim Rouabah, Lolita Chammah, Louis Garrel, Natascha Wiese, Noémie Lvovsky, Pierre Nisse, Raphaël Thiéry, Rémy Roubakha, Vincent Pietton, Yolande Moreau
Director: Pietro Marcello
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