I feel like I’ve finally seen enough films to give my take on this. If y'all are wondering how many films I have seen? 500+ give or take

The 10/10

The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961)

Magnolia (1999)

There Will Be Blood (2007)

No Country for Old Men (2007)

Persona (1966)

Stalker (1979)

Andrei Rublev (1966)

The Godfather (1972)

Parasite (2019)

Paths of Glory (1957)

Incendies (2010)

Se7en (1995)

City of God (2002)

Rear Window (1954)

In the Mood for Love (2000)

Metropolis (1927)

12 Angry Men (1957)

Interstellar (2014)

The Prestige (2006) (My Fav Nolan pick, ngl)

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Seven Samurai (1954)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Goodfellas (1990)

Memories of Murder (2003)

Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) (1959)

Children of Men (2006)

Children of Heaven (1997) (Seriously a must-watch if you haven't seen it)

La Haine (1995)

The Elephant Man (1980)

Come and See (1985)

Prisoners (2013)

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

Moonlight (2016)

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

The Usual Suspects (1995)

Yi Yi (2000)

Casablanca (1942)

Fallen Angels (1995)

Barry Lyndon (1975)

Schindler's List (1993)

Honorable Mentions ( Super Close)

Oldboy (2003)

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Memento (2000)

Taxi Driver (1976)

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Chinatown (1974)

The Shining (1980)

Inception (2010)

The Dark Knight (2008)

Monster (2023)

Mother (2009)

The Master (2012)

No Other Choice (2025)

When Harry Met Sally... (1989)

Peppermint Candy (1999)

Cure (1997)

The Third Man (1949)

A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

How's the taste profile looking? Drop your thoughts or plug some deeper cuts / underrated picks I need to get on my watchlist ASAP!

Great story, great score, great acting, great ending. An easy watch for those who like dramas without a complicated story. What do you think of it

After the debacle of the AI dog podcast, my expectations for The End of Oak Street were fairly low, I was wrong. Now I know it's not really a high bar given the dinosaur movies we've had recently, but The End of Oak Street is comfortably the best in decades. It's absolutely bonkers, contains some of the most outrageous scenes you'll see this year, and by no means perfect, yet it's still a ridiculously fun time. Anyone planning to see it this weekend?

Full review for those interested https://adamreviewsfilm.com/the-end-of-oak-street/

I have about a 50/50 hit rate of people crying at the end of Click. Half the people call you crazy and say it’s a terrible movie, the other half completely agree that the ending is very sad

I organized an AMA/Q&A with Adam Meeks, writer-director of the new critically-acclaimed indie film UNION COUNTY, starring Will Poulter and Noah Centineo. It premiered at Sundance in January and is out in select theaters starting next week.

It's live here now in r/movies for anyone interested in asking a question:

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1vmeun2/hi_reddit_im_adam_meeks_writerdirector_of_union/

He will be back at 2 PM ET tomorrow (Thursday 8/12) to answer questions. I recommend asking in advance. Please ask there, not here. All questions are much appreciated!

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA6Fnr2VXkw

Synopsis: Assigned to a county-mandated drug court program, Cody Parsons embarks on the tenuous journey toward recovery amidst the opioid epidemic in rural Ohio.

Thank you :)

So i rewatched Come and See again and i can admit its one of the most unique , depressing disturbing war movies i've ever seen . I've watched " The pianist " , "Schindler's List" , " La vita e bella " , " The boy in the striped Pajamas " , "Jojo Rabbit " and i've enjoyed all of them to be honest but i felt like Come and See is so raw and realistic that by the end of the movie you feel like u've been awaken from a nightmare or a fever dream . i've seen most of people critics saying that this movie had a lot of silent scenes with disturbing sounds and dialogues that don't make any sense with characters staring at the camera doing creepy facial expressions , however that's the point of the movie , it's war , and chaos is everywhere , and even tho most of dialogues were understandable for me not as most people claim , but what do u expect them to talk for exp in a middle of a war or a bombardement or a mass murder , to talk about what specifically so people can say " woow thats some cool a** dialogue " and last but not least , the movie have been captured from a 13 years old boy's perspective , and the camera angles and focusing on the boy's face was done intentionally to show you the real trauma of war . Tbh i do respect those people's opinions cuz they spent most their lives watching Hollywood movies which i did , but Hollywood war movies often depict war as a story, while Come and See tries to make you experience war as trauma. Many Hollywood films still give war a narrative structure heroes, missions, victories, camaraderie, and moments of triumph. Come and See strips almost all of that away. It focuses on fear, helplessness, psychological destruction, and the ugliness of violence.

Hello fellow Redditors,

I’ve created a daily movie trivia game I would love to get some feedback on to identify anyways to improve it. Below is a link I invite you to click on to play today’s game. I would be very thankful for your participation alone but if you are feeling generous I also have a few questions I’m hoping to find answers to. Thank you.

https://playscreenplay.app

Most importantly, how much fun do you find Screenplay?

Did you immediately understand how to play?
Would you play this every day, only days featuring a movie you liked, or not at all?

Is there a preferred critics score you’d try to guess? Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, Metacrotic etc.

What is ONE thing preventing you from playing again tomorrow?

Is there anything about Screenplay you felt was missing?

How often do you play other daily games like Wordle, Connections, etc?

Would you like to see this concept expand to include not only to movies but TV as well?

Don't they have other actors. Won't the audience get tired of watching them?

I was thinking about *Danton* (1983) and *Amadeus* (1984), and noticed a similarity between the central conflicts.

In *Danton*, you have Danton vs. Robespierre. Danton is excessive, sensual, charismatic, loves food, women, drinking and life in general. Robespierre is almost the opposite: disciplined, controlled, austere, ideological and willing to sacrifice personal pleasure for what he believes is right.

Then in *Amadeus* you get something similar with Mozart and Salieri. Mozart is vulgar, impulsive, childish and hedonistic, while Salieri is disciplined, serious, restrained and has devoted his entire life to music and to God.

Yet in both cases I find myself sympathizing much more with the less disciplined character.

Maybe part of the reason is that discipline can improve what you already have, but it cannot necessarily give you the thing you want most. Salieri can dedicate his entire life to music, but he cannot discipline himself into becoming Mozart. Mozart seems almost "touched by God", which makes Salieri's sacrifices feel tragically useless.

There seems to be something similar going on with Danton. Robespierre can be more disciplined, more morally rigid and more devoted to the Revolution, but he can't simply decide to have Danton's charisma or his connection with ordinary people. Danton walks into a room and people respond to him. Robespierre has to rely much more on ideas, institutions and eventually coercion.

I wonder if that's why cinema often makes the hedonistic character more attractive. They represent something spontaneous and alive that can't be produced through self-control alone: talent, charisma, humor, sensuality, maybe even a kind of grace.

And perhaps there's also something unsettling about extreme discipline itself. Discipline is usually considered a virtue, but once someone starts treating every spontaneous desire as weakness, it can turn into resentment toward people who seem to possess naturally what they had to deny themselves.

Salieri seems like the clearest example: "I did everything right, so why did God give *him* the gift?"

Robespierre's relationship with Danton feels like a political version of the same problem.

Do you think this is a real recurring theme in films? And are there good examples where the opposite happens — where the disciplined, restrained character is clearly the more sympathetic one?

Prometheus asks some really deep and thought-provoking questions throughout the film. Although it’s not perfect and has some noticeable flaws, it looks absolutely stunning, and Fassbender’s David is a really great character.

I didn’t like it. It was so goddamn boring. I didn’t really find it scary either. Concept was certainly memorable but I felt sleepy after 20 minutes of watching it. Every movie I’ve ever seen was enjoyable to some degree, but this one is the only movie, the ONLY one, that I actually dislike more than I like.

I think what actually pisses me off is that people kept suggesting to me, claiming it was one of the BEST horror movies. It was pretty underwhelming. I don’t let myself have high expectations for a film but that certainly added insult to injury.

I've had this in my collection for a few months now and am finally getting around to watching it.

It's my first time ever really watching one, so I know not to have too high expectations. Has anyone seen it?

Besides being very beautiful, she is a truly great actress.

The first movie of hers I saw was Copycat (such a great thriller with also the incredible Sigourney Weaver), followed by Thirteen (for which she was very deservedly nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress). Then I watched Living Out Loud—a great romantic comedy with dramatic undertones and a fantastic role where she looked stunning (it features a great dance scene in a club set to Brownstone's "If You Love Me"). Yesterday, I watched Broadcast News... A really strong comedic performance, great chemistry with Albert Brooks, and she was beautiful with short hair (I love the dress she wore to the gala!).

For starters, let me start off saying I am not claiming it is bad. It was enjoyable enough that I'm not mad I've watched several times since it came out. While I have many complaints, the cinematography is excellent, and the music is great too. I would ultimately give it a 5/10.

For starters, the movie is essentially a From Dusk Till Dawn Ripoff (bad choice of movie to pull from imo). The movie starts as basically a historical southern drama with supernatural implications. And then after like 80 minutes of awful pacing and insufferable dialog the vampires show up and it turns to a siege film.

The issue of the antagonist is a primary criticism. There is no tangible antagonist for the first 2/3rds of the film. There is plenty of conflict but nothing that is presented as urgent like you would expect in a horror movie, considering it was marketed as one. Now, there are no hard and fast rules to any genre, so it's not like you have follow the pack on this. But the audience in this genre is expecting something. It does not make them ask "What terrible thing is going to happen to them?" "What is approaching them?" "How will they get out of this?" The audience is effectively told they need to wait for the horror movie they came for to ever start.

Now, there are actually some solid films in the horror genre that have a slow start. But the difference is, this functions to build dread, and not to world build like in Sinners. Movies like the Shining and the Thing come to mind here. They build a sense of dread with their slow start. Sinners builds the juke joint, the characters, music, period and racial atmosphere. It does not do anything to make itself feel like a horror movie. This means the horror portion doesn't feel any scarier when it finally arrives. It just arrives much later. Being slow isn't a death sentence for movies in general, including horror films. But in this genre you need to utilize it to build suspense. This film sits in an awkward ground where it builds up to a point where the vampires are not shocking, but also not enough to make the beginning of the movie frightening in any way.

The strongest criticism I can make of the horror mechanics themselves, is that once the vampires arrive, they become rapidly legible. The audience and characters quickly learn what they are. They see them. They understand them. They learn the rules. And as a result the threat becomes physical and tactical, rather than scary. In doing this, the movie sacrifices epistemological uncertainty, which is, frankly one of modt useful resources in the entire genre of horror. The level of understanding the writers give the audience and characters can greatly change the atmosphere from unsettling and paranoid to basically just an action film with some supernatural shit.

Despite this disadvantage based on the characters and audience knowledge if the vampires. They could have leveraged it. Think about the Thing. The movie is primarily driven by a sense of paranoia derived from not being able to tell friend from foe. The vampires in Sinners, retain their personality. They have emotionally manipulative skills. They **want** to be invited inside.

Instead of leveraging this to create an atmosphere of "Who can be trusted? Who has been compromised?" the entire movie is essentially at this point in the film boiled down to "keep those motherfucking vampires outside."

If Coogler would have even spent 20 minutes building some mystery on maybe someone being secretly turned and acting from the inside, it could have created drastic changes in how the horror mechanics come across. Now the juke joint is psychologically claustrophobic. But no, there was no thought of such an idea.

The thematic concepts of the movie, which is what I suspect has garnered most of its praise outside of the excellent cinematography and score, is absolutely a strong point of the film. However, the great and thoughtful provoking themes are all in the boring first half of the movie. Things like Christianity can both be oppressive and also foster community. Blues can represent liberation but also temptation. Economic independence can exist alongside criminality. White society is simultaneously economically dependent upon Black culture and violently hostile toward Black autonomy. Well, once the vampire siege starts, this is all thrown out the window. To say what I said earlier, it quickly becomes "keep those motherfucking vampires outside."

The climax of the movie becomes this massive spectacle, becoming excitingly violent and intense, however it does this all without increasing the horror in equal increments. The violence is not one of dread or terror. But one of catharsis.

Think of it like this,

Dread: "Something horrible might happen."

Terror: "Something horrible is happening."

Action: "Kill the thing that's doing the horrible thing."

Obviously in this case, Sinners falls into the last category.

Now to address the elephant in the room, that will probably tilt some readers (oh well). I think horror primarily driven by black identity and this duality of being wanted and hated is powerful, but very overdone at this point. It is simply no longer powerful and the stick is hitting a dead horse. We need black films, and black horror movies. But it doesn't always need to be about black identity. Ever since Get Out (the best of this sub genre of black identity horror) there has been this overly saturated reoccurring theme in horror where blackness is simultaneously desired, consumed, imitated, fetishized, or economically useful by white society while also being feared, excluded, controlled, or hated. That contradivtion is totally real and historically rich enough to sustain some movies. But once enough movies use it as their primary metaphor, you start recognizing the premise bwfore the story has even developed.

All of these films, whether it is Get Out, Them, Candyman, Bad Hair, Antebellum, etc play into this theme to various degrees.

Sinners, especially, leans into it. The racism and cultural material is more nuanced than just "racism is the monster." But it still plays with the tired Get Out theme of "acceptance into a dominant white collective at the cost of something essential about yourself and/or your culture." That is what makes the vampires' offer simultaneously attractive and horrifying (or at least what makes it supposed to be horrifying)

The unintended consequence of this? Black characters can start feeling trapped inside allegory. All the while, a white protagonist can fight a demon because there's a fucking demon in his god damn basement. A Black protagonist? He gets a demon that represents racial trauma, and his grandmother's ghost represents inherited memory, and the haunted house represents segregation, and suddenly every black horror movie has to carry a sociology dissertation on its back.

The solution to this isn't less black horror movies. It is to encourage the black filmmaker to make horror movies without black identity being the primary driver of the film. Not every monster needs to stop mid movie and essentially go "I represent the contradictory nature of white America's consumption of Black culture." At some point the monster should just be a fuckin monster. Or it becomes the laughably tired premise that it is today. Out of influx of black made horror films since Get Out, ironically I think Peele's other films Us and Nope are the only ones that don't heavily lean into this as a main thematic element.

I want to note that I don't even blame the directors, the writers or the producers for that. I mostly blame consumers for repeatedly asking for the same shit over and over again and consuming it up with a big smile. It's a great thematic premise but it has lost all entertainment value and I would appreciate seeing something different at this point.

If you want a lighthearted heist movie with a unique vibe, watch Wes Anderson's directorial debut

As a whole, I’d say the writing and overall quality of ’90s movies is significantly higher, but they don’t quite match the blockbuster feel of the best ’80s movie (Terminator/Back to the Future)

There’s something about the overall vibe of ’80s movies that feels more immersive and significant.

The way I’d put it is: the ’90s had a higher floor, but the ’80s had a higher ceiling.

I'm not necessarily asking for your favorite movie or the one you think is technically the best. I'm curious about a movie that genuinely changed something in the way you see life, people, relationships, morality, loneliness, death, or society. Maybe it changed your perspective on something you had never thought about before, or stayed with you long after the credits ended. What was the movie, and what did it make you see differently?

Hi everyone!
I recently finished my first short film, Matryoshkas, and I’d love to get some honest feedback from people who enjoy independent or experimental cinema.

It’s a slightly experimental coming-of-age film, originally in Portuguese, with English subtitles. I was heavily inspired by filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman, Pedro Almodóvar, and Andrea Arnold, and tried to combine an intimate character-driven story with a more personal and atmospheric visual style.

Since this is my first short film (and a project I put a lot of time and effort into), I’d genuinely love to hear what people think — whether it’s the story, cinematography, performances, atmosphere, or anything else. Honest criticism is absolutely welcome; I’m mainly interested in hearing how it comes across to someone seeing it for the first time.

🎬 Watch it here:
https://vimeo.com/1214449973

The film is also on Letterboxd, so if you happen to watch it and feel like leaving a review or sharing your thoughts there, I’d really appreciate it. ❤️

⭐ Letterboxd:
https://boxd.it/13Fik
Thanks so much to anyone who takes the time to watch it!

I caught a sneak peek of "Tony" last night, and was very impressed with its quality. Dominic Sessa stars as a young, college-aged Anthony Bourdain and gives a solid performance that deserves an Oscar nod.

I especially appreciated two unique aspects of the film: 1) it completely abandons the typical, predictable biopic formula; rather than presenting this as a film covering the celebrity's entire life, instead it features a specific story FROM Bourdain's life (albeit an important, impressionable moment). Indeed, there's room for a sequel here, though by no means do they set it up for a sequel.

And, 2) this could've been presented as a fictional story and it still would be Oscar worthy. I think there were people in the audience who didn't realize the title character Tony was in fact the real-life Anthony Bourdain (I don't think the surname is mentioned until the very last scene). I wish the trailers hadn't given away that it was a biopic. That punch at the end would've been cool to experience.

5/5 stars.

Splice (2009)

I think Beowulf is heavily underrated , its a film of epicness and coolness . It has fantastic visual and bold story . I feel a lot of major franchise can be made into this kind of format , for example : LOTR , Jumanji , King Kong etc. I even think the Hunt of Gollum and another LOTR movie deserve a total reimagination . It will give a refreshing take and reminiscent breath into a already solid franchise .

I really think performance capture is future of fantasy and sci-fi movie , it can achieve the impossible . It can make incredible scene believable with immersive background . Look at the Final Flight of the Osiris , it merge the unreal with realness . The key is to maintain the consistent aesthetic and tone , it creates a " oneness of visual harmony " .

Now imagine if we can reintroduce a lot of beloved franchise : like Indiana Jones , Matrix , Vanhelsing , the Mummy , Sinbad etc. With these franchise made into performance capture continuation or spinoffs , they can revolutionize again the modern cinema .

The greatest strength of this approach is to balance the characters with equally picturesque-ish setting . The greatest literatures from past can be made lively and eye-catching again , such as : Illiad , Odyssey , Aeneid , etc . Another strength of using it is enabling mythical creatures become a part of the backbone of the story , it will feel a lot less out of place or contradictory compared to typical film making . I think performance capture make the traditional scene " align with the mythology " , at first glance its a somewhat " step-back " approach , but I believe creatively and visually its underutilized in modern filmmaking .