Genre: Drama, Thriller
Actor: Aaron Heffernan, Antonia Clarke, Asha Reid, George MacKay, John McCrea, Luis Torrecilla, Moe Bar-El, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Nima Taleghani, Peter McPherson
Director: Ng Choon Ping, Sam H. Freeman
Find the best movies rated NR, as per MPAA rating standards. These recommendations are at the same time acclaimed by critics and highly-rated by users.
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Actor: Aaron Heffernan, Antonia Clarke, Asha Reid, George MacKay, John McCrea, Luis Torrecilla, Moe Bar-El, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Nima Taleghani, Peter McPherson
Director: Ng Choon Ping, Sam H. Freeman
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Caleb Hearon, Dan Beirne, Dani Kind, Ennis Esmer, Hannah Spear, Jason Jones, Kathy Imrie, Matia Jackett, Miguel Rivas, Olga Petsa, Rachel Sennott, Sabrina Jalees
Director: Ally Pankiw
Like the action thriller Cellular (2004), Unseen plays with the idea of saving someone only through a phone. This time, however, Yoko Okumura’s directorial debut has video call instead of just audio, with video used to help nearly blind Emily run away from her kidnapper ex. Through split screen shots, occasional open hazy irises, and tiny phone screens, Unseen takes us on a desperate escape, an escape made possible by Emily’s connection with random stranger Sam. While some parts feel absolutely ridiculous, the thriller still feels like a wild ride, especially when focused on its two leads. It’s still enjoyable, if you can accept its silliness and the shallow way it approaches certain themes.
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Actor: Brett Baker, Jolene Purdy, Michael Patrick Lane, Midori Francis, Missi Pyle, Nicholas X. Parsons, Ren Hanami
Director: Yoko Okumura
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Actor: Ali Wills, Billy Magnussen, Callum Vinson, Faran Tahir, Fisher Stevens, John Posey, Julia Ford Collier, Kristine Nielsen, Peter Sarsgaard, Sarah Gadon, Skye P. Marshall
Director: Austin Stark, Joseph Schuman
As a story, Bruiser isn't the most tightly written thing in the world, with a somewhat long-winded first half and a conclusion that feels too easy given the complicated things we learn about each character. But at its core, it remains impressively perceptive about how men perform their masculinity as a game of aggression and dominance—even if they feel that they're simply trying to protect the children closest to them. Bruise takes on quite a bit of suspense for a drama, as tempers slowly boil over and everybody involved in this supposed battle over who claims authority over a teenage boy reveals themselves to be right and wrong in equal measure.
Genre: Drama
Actor: Frank Oakley III, Gavin Munn, Jalyn Hall, Jay Santiago, Jonah Bishop-Pirrone, Kiah Alexandria Clingman, Moses Jones, Sarah Bock, Shamier Anderson, Shinelle Azoroh, Trevante Rhodes
Director: Miles Warren
After 90 minutes of watching folkloric spring and a lone volunteer's descent into madness, it soon becomes clear to the audience that Enys Men sacrifices its narrative for visual and sonic feats. The soundscape of dripping water, whistling wind, and crunching footsteps layered upon a montage of old-grain textured visuals qualify this as a sensory piece of art. But merely showing how the repetitive and lonely life of the volunteer progresses into troubling hallucinations, body horror, and mysterious apparitions makes this arthouse film too vague to parse. There's no doubt that director Mark Jenkin can create an immersive and atmospheric film, but the ASMR of it all falls flat without a graspable story underneath.
Genre: Horror
Actor: Edward Rowe, Flo Crowe, Joe Gray, John Woodvine, Mary Woodvine
Director: Mark Jenkin
It’s easy to identify what Bone Cold is trying to be, which is a psychological thriller that explores the traumatized psyches of military personnel. And initially, the film achieves this goal. The inhuman creature that creeps from behind genuinely startles, and the movie is able to effectively connect the monster to lead sniper Jon Bryant’s (Jonathan Stoddard) decaying mental health. But the lack of a strong style, cohesive vision, and adequate budget betray the movie’s premise and turn it instead into a jumbled mess. The creature, upon closer inspection, is no more than a pixelated CGI creation, while Jon’s PTSD is diminished into melodrama fodder. Moreover, the two-hour runtime is bloated with awkward close-ups and overlong sequences that don’t add much to the central point the film is trying to make. If Bone Cold were ever to be the haunting, heavy movie it set out to be, then it might’ve been worth it for writer-director Billy Hanson to let the film incubate a bit more and invest in the fantasy, the world-building, the weirdness, and the details. These small things add up, and in this case, they fall short of what Bone Cold could’ve been.
Genre: Action, Horror, Thriller
Actor: Elise Berggreen, Jennifer Khoe, Jonathan Stoddard, Matt Munroe, Trinity Bliss
Director: Billy Hanson
Built entirely around the star power of its lead performers, A Very Good Girl does, indeed, provide ample opportunities for both Kathryn Bernardo and Dolly de Leon to chew the scenery with wild abandon. But even their most campily delivered one-liners are only entertaining in the moment, as the film twists itself into increasingly complicated (and still oddly sanitized) knots to keep its thrills going. It ends with an incredibly muddled view of the kinds of violence perpetrated by the wealthy and the less fortunate, as if the studio funding the movie prevented it from becoming the bolder, edgier story it seems to want to be.
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Thriller
Actor: Althea Ruedas, Ana Abad-Santos, Angel Aquino, Chie Filomeno, Dolly de Leon, Donna Cariaga, Gabby Padilla, Gillian Vicencio, Iwa Moto, Jake Ejercito, Joji Vitug, Kaori Oinuma, Kathryn Bernardo, Sherry Lara
Director: Petersen Vargas
Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller
Actor: Alon Pdut, Chelli Goldenberg, Huda Al Imam, Jameel Khoury, Khawlah Hag-Debsy, Loai Nofi, Maysa Daw, Michael Aloni, Moris Cohen, Nicholas Jacob, Shimon Mimran
Director: Michael Mayer
The idea of a true-crime documentary being narrated mostly by the very person who did it should be appealing to fans of the genre, especially those who would rather stay away from non-violent crimes. And Vjeran Tomic is a compelling thief, with his own perspective on the people he tends to steal from and the kind of life he thinks he's owed. But by fixating so intensely on the method to the crime, it eventually loses its appeal—eventually becoming clear that there are so many potentially interesting (and more emotional) perspectives to the story that are being left out. Tomic may be a somewhat morally ambiguous criminal, but his testimonials alone, which are accompanied by mostly corny reenactments, can't carry an entire movie that teases but never fully delves into shady dealings in the world of the fine arts.
Genre: Crime, Documentary
Actor: Vjeran Tomic
Director: Jamie Roberts