27 Best Movies & Shows Released in The 2020s On Hoopla (Page 2)

Sophie Compton and Reubyn Hamlyn's British-American documentary about the harm of deepfakes won the SXSW Special Jury Award for its innovative storytelling and deservingly so. The two filmmakers use a clever and considerate way to let a young woman fictitiously named Taylor share her story of how she found deepfake pornography of herself online. With testaments, desktop form reconstructions, and lots of deepfakes, Compton and Hamlyn alert the audience to how terrifyingly widespread this kind of abuse is, and even more: how unregulated it is. Across the globe and 48 US states deepfake pornography is legal to make and spread, while victims remain helpless and unprotected. More than 90% of them are women. These chilling statistics are only part of the reason this documentary takes an activist stance and wants to raise awareness against the uncontrolled spread of face-swapping algorhythms amidst heated discussions around AI and ethics.

Genre: Documentary

Director: Reuben Hamlyn, Sophie Compton

Rating: NR

Amongst the google searches for this one you'll find "Is Slotherhouse a real film?" and that says a lot. When the first poster and trailer dropped, I suspected it the work of AI, but now that the film is out on streaming, we should be glad it exists. A ludicrous horror-comedy that hits all the right notes in gore, cringe, and puns, Slotherhouse is quintessential fun cinema. It may be set in a college where internalized misogyny is completely off the charts as young women bruise and batter each other's egos in service of the queen bee Brianna (Sydney Craven) and may attempt just a tiny bit of character development to keep the ball rolling, but honestly, who cares? It's a film that completely leans into the absurd, the over the top, the ridiculous, and it does it surprisingly well.

Genre: Comedy, Horror, Thriller

Actor: Andrew Horton, Annamaria Serda, Bianca Beckles-Rose, Bradley Fowler, Cady Lanigan, Grace Patterson, Jelena Rakočević, Juliana Sada, Kelly Lynn Reiter, Lisa Ambalavanar, Milica Vrzić, Olivia Rouyre, Stefan Kapičić, Sydney Craven, Tiana Upcheva, Tiff Stevenson

Director: Matthew Goodhue

Rating: PG-13

Bank of Dave is a simple but well-told film that feels utterly satisfying from start to end. Dave is the little guy who only wants to give back to his community, but stopping him from achieving his noble goals are the big guys in suits with vested interests and too narrow a focus to appreciate the good that Dave is after. The film is David versus Goliath, countryside versus cityside, socialist versus capitalist (or, if you like, ethical capitalism versus unethical capitalism). You know who will triumph in the end, but that doesn’t detract from the film’s overall enjoyability. The dialogue is smart and stirring, and you can’t help but root for the film’s small heroes to win big. 

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Adrian Lukis, Angus Wright, Cathy Tyson, Drew Cain, Florence Hall, Freddie Bolt, Harry Michell, Hopi Grace, Hugh Bonneville, Jo Hartley, Joe Elliott, Joel Fry, Naomi Battrick, Paul Kaye, Phil Collen, Philip Gascoyne, Phoebe Dynevor, Rick Allen, Rick Savage, Roger Morlidge, Rory Kinnear, Steve Edge, Vivian Campbell

Director: Chris Foggin

Rating: PG-13

By all outward appearances, The Villages—a massive and manicured retirement community in Florida—looks like it does offer paradise to its aging residents, as promised. The list of activities is endless, the seniors are all partnered up. “It’s like going back to college,” as one of them puts it, where people from all over the country come together to create a new life with each other. 

But of course, nothing comes that easy, not even death. Some Kind of Heaven follows certain residents (and one committed trespasser) as they grapple with the slipperiness of fulfillment in their later years. It gets very eerie when the film's bleak messages are contrasted with the home's vibrant Floridian colors and the residents' plastered smiles. But the eeriness adds to the overall intrigue and pull of the documentary. Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) co-produces this fascinating film.

Genre: Documentary, Drama

Director: Lance Oppenheim

Romantically pairing up AI with humans is hardly new, and I'm Your Man is aware of that. Instead of spending way too much time explaining the advanced tech that makes the perfect mate possible, the movie zeroes in on its charismatic leads Tom the robot (Dan Stevens) and Alma the indifferent academic (Maren Eggert). Tom is the curious, humanoid automaton who is designed to worship Alma, and Alma is the disillusioned human who is conflicted with the authenticity of her growing feelings for Tom. I'm Your Man is smart and empathetic enough to stay afloat amidst its swirling genres and ethical dilemmas, but it is mostly the chemistry between Tom and Alma that anchors it to the love story that it actually is. 

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Science Fiction

Actor: Annika Meier, Christoph Glaubacker, Dan Stevens, Falilou Seck, Hans Löw, Henriette Richter-Röhl, Inga Busch, Jürgen Tarrach, Karolin Oesterling, Maren Eggert, Mignon Remé, Monika Oschek, Sandra Hüller, Sebastian Schwarz, Victor Pape-Thies, Wolfgang Hübsch

Director: Maria Schrader

Rating: R

Loss can be straightforwardly heartwrenching, but it could also be bewildering, cryptic, and too sudden to even process. New Religion depicts a grieving mother, whose loss of her daughter, and her meet up with an eccentric photographer, causes her to behave strangely. The film goes through the events in a surreal, existential haze, with a skin-crawling scene that reveals the photographer’s nefarious reasons, but the sequences remain inscrutable and the themes and certain characters don’t mesh as well as they could have. New Religion might befuddle viewers just looking for a casual watch, but it’s definitely a thought provoking and promising debut from Keishi Kondo.

Genre: Drama, Horror

Actor: Daiki Nunami, Kaho Seto, Ryuseigun Saionji, Satoshi Oka

Director: Keishi Kondo

Fairytale parodies reimagine these classic tales to reexamine or question its related themes. Once Upon a Crime attempts to do this by imagining Little Red Riding Hood as a detective investigating the murder of a hairdresser in Cinderella’s ball. The campy glamor of the costumes and sets, as well as the incongruence of Little Red’s detective mindset, makes the film watchable. However, the film takes strange twists that stray too far from the original stories. And while the cut locks make an intriguing metaphor, the resulting ending betrays any sense of justice for the characters, most especially the abused Cinderella.

Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Crime, Fantasy

Actor: Atsuhiro Inukai, Jiro Sato, Kanna Hashimoto, Masaki Kaji, Midoriko Kimura, Miki Maya, Mirei Kiritani, Mizuki Yamamoto, Natsuna Watanabe, Takanori Iwata, Tomoharu Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi Muro, Yuko Araki, Yumi Wakatsuki, 室毅

Director: Yuichi Fukuda

Rating: PG

Girl in the Closet is a low-budget TV movie that gives us a peek into the lives of trafficked children, but nothing more beyond that. There is no compelling story or drama; no suspense as to how the children might possibly escape, or rousing speeches about how the system failed these kids. Instead of a real plot, the movie strings together one shocking abuse after the other and constantly jumps forward in time (one year later, five years later, nine months after) in an attempt to rush towards its predictable ending. It would’ve been thoroughly unwatchable if it weren’t for some dedicated performances, namely by Peters and Roman, who give much more than what the flimsy script and loose editing deserve. 

Genre: Drama, TV Movie

Actor: Daijah Peters, Danielle LaRoach, Remy Ma, Stevie Baggs Jr., Tami Roman, Teisha Speight

Director: Jaira Thomas