12 Best Movies To Watch After Don't Look Up (2021)
Ghostlight
Watch afterA Quiet Place (2018), Avatar (2009),
Barbie (2023) Don't Look Up (2021), Dune (2021), Dune: Part Two (2024), Fight Club (1999), Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014), Joker (2019),
Oppenheimer (2023) Parasite (2019), Poor Things (2023), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), The Menu (2022), Top Gun: Maverick (2022), Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021),
“I don’t know what normal is,” Dan Muller (Keith Kupferer) says toward the end of Ghostlight. His family might be dramatic, but to him, “they don’t get it from me.” And maybe he’s right. He’s a Chicagoland construction worker whose marriage to Sharon (Tara Mallen) isn’t particularly strong. When they receive a call from their daughter’s (Katherine Mallen Kupferer) school, they learn she’s been expelled for allegedly shoving a teacher. Perhaps it’d be “normal” for 16-year-old Daisy to go through a turbulent phase, but as the movie slowly reveals, the three are reeling from a tragedy.
The movie approaches what happened with a euphemistic ambiguity for almost an hour, even if it’s rather obvious early on. And the stress is accumulating. While preparing for a deposition, Dan berates a pedestrian on the job, resulting in a temporary leave. As chance would have it, though, a stranger named Rita (Dolly De Leon, Triangle of Sadness) witnesses the altercation. And guess what? She’s in a local theater troupe putting on Romeo and Juliet. So, what does this blue-collar, midwestern dad do? Despite not knowing the story, he joins in, which mirrors some stuff he’s still grappling with. It’s funny how that always happens.
It's a contrived bit of plot in the face of character progression, and not the only time Ghostlight forces itself forward despite trying to feel seamless. How on-the-nose the concept is is another issue. And yet it mostly works, thanks in part to the movie’s tonal and technical normalcy. Kelly O’Sullivan & Alex Thompson’s direction may not leave the starkest impression, but they know how long to hold on a scene. The result welcomes the viewer to see their characters past the occasional issues with O’Sullivan’s script. Continue Reading →
Irena's Vow
SimilarAlmost Famous (2000), Anna and the King (1999), Antonia's Line (1995), Apollo 13 (1995), Awakenings (1990), Born on the Fourth of July (1989),
Boys Don't Cry (1999) Brubaker (1980), Chariots of Fire (1981), Chopper (2000), Closely Watched Trains (1966), Donnie Brasco (1997), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Enemy at the Gates (2001), Erin Brockovich (2000), Freedom Writers (2007), Gandhi (1982), GoodFellas (1990), Gridiron Gang (2006), Life Is Beautiful (1997), Lords of Dogtown (2005), Lorenzo's Oil (1992),
Manhattan (1979) Mississippi Burning (1988) Monster (2003), No Good Deed (2002), Random Harvest (1942), Schindler's List (1993), Something the Lord Made (2004), The Cider House Rules (1999), The Elephant Man (1980), The Godfather (1972), The Killing Fields (1984), The Last Emperor (1987), The Patriot (2000), The Pianist (2002), The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), The Straight Story (1999), The Tin Drum (1979), Titanic (1997),
Watch afterAvatar: The Way of Water (2022) Don't Look Up (2021), Dune (2021), Elemental (2023), Fight Club (1999), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023),
Oppenheimer (2023) Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), The Batman (2022),
This year's TIFF featured three tales of lost souls forging their own paths -- some of them bloodier than others.
Tales of transformation are the order of the day at this year's TIFF, signposted by a trio of European films acutely concerned with the struggles women and AFAB people undertake to thrive -- or, in many cases, just survive. Take Héléna Klotz's spellbinding second feature, Spirit of Ecstasy, an icy but enthralling coming-of-age story centered around Jeanne Francoeur (Claire Pommet, best known under her French pop star alias Pomme) a non-binary child of a French gendarme who struggles to break through the glass ceiling of the French wealth management firm they work at as a quantitative analyst.
Jeanne cuts a mysterious figure, with their black bob, turquoise suit that acts like armor ("the new proletarian uniform"), the bindings that cut into their skin and make them bleed. At all times, Klotz paints Jeanne as a figure constantly struggling to break free of their environment, whose abusive upbringing in the French gendarmerie barracks pushes them inexorably towards a cutthroat, ambitious business environment ready to chew them up and spit them out at a moment's notice. Continue Reading →
The Lost Daughter
Watch afterDon't Look Up (2021), The Power of the Dog (2021), tick tick... BOOM! (2021), West Side Story (2021),
StarringDagmara Domińczyk,
StudioEndeavor Content,
Much to the Republican Party’s dismay, the birth rate in the United States has been gradually on the decline, hitting an all-time low in 2020. Couples are not only waiting longer to have children, they’re having less of them, with an average of 1.6 per family. While climate change and cost of living expenses are the primary factors in the decision to have fewer children (or none at all), a small part of it can also be attributed to more people accepting a difficult truth: that raising children can be an incredibly hard and thankless task. Maggie Gyllenhaal makes an assured debut as a writer and director in her adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s The Lost Daughter, a complicated and strangely moving psychological drama/thriller about two women who bond over this truth. Continue Reading →
The Matrix Resurrections
SimilarFree Willy (1993), Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004),
Watch afterDon't Look Up (2021), Eternals (2021), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021),
It's hard to overstate just how seismic The Matrix was when it was first released in 1999. Looking back on it now, in an age of focus-tested corporate franchises, extended universes, and an even more top-heavy IP landscape than we had back then, it feels positively revolutionary. Even in its imperfect but-radically-reappraised 2003 sequels, Reloaded and Revolutions, filmmakers Lana and Lilly Wachowski manage to build a world that's at once evocative of so many of its influences (cyberpunk, bullet opera, kung fu film, Star Wars) but feels highly original. And what's more, is unafraid to tackle challenging, often heady psychological questions while still revolutionizing the way action movies were made. Continue Reading →
The Power of the Dog
Contains spoilers about The Power of the Dog (read our spoiler-free review here) Continue Reading →
The Unforgivable
SimilarScrooge (1951), The Shawshank Redemption (1994),
Watch afterDon't Look Up (2021), The Power of the Dog (2021),
Far more frustrating than a disastrous mess is a film annoyingly close to being good or vastly more interesting. That's The Unforgivable, a sloppy retelling of the Sally Wainwright's (Gentleman Jack, Happy Valley) 2009 BBC miniseries. Continue Reading →
House of Gucci
SimilarApt Pupil (1998), Fallen (1998),
Watch afterDon't Look Up (2021), Nightmare Alley (2021), The Power of the Dog (2021), West Side Story (2021),
StudioBron Studios, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
There’s a word that exists in the Italian language that doesn’t quite have a counterpart in any other language: sprezzatura. What it essentially boils down to is the art of looking like you don’t care – a style of perfectly-studied imperfection. This idea goes back at least to the Renaissance, a time when the Gucci family earned its reputation as skilled saddlemakers to the rich and aristocratic. Or at least that’s how Aldo Gucci, the powerful and powerfully at-ease paterfamilias played by Al Pacino, relates the family history in Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci. It is against this backdrop – of wealth, power, history, and above all, style – that Scott and screenwriters Roberto Bentivegna and Becky Johnston weave their story, an uneven yet compelling story about the only person who became a Gucci through their own making rather than by an accident of birth, and yet was forever an outsider. Continue Reading →
tick, tick... BOOM!
SimilarDriving Miss Daisy (1989), Erin Brockovich (2000), Maria Full of Grace (2004), Pi (1998), Romeo + Juliet (1996), Stranger Than Paradise (1984), The Straight Story (1999),
Watch afterDon't Look Up (2021), The Power of the Dog (2021), West Side Story (2021),
StarringRenée Elise Goldsberry,
New York City. January 29th, 1990. Composer and playwright Jonathan Larson (Andrew Garfield) turns 30 at the end of the week. SUPERBIA, the dystopian science fiction musical he's spent most of a decade writing, is about to have its first-ever full workshop. It's a critical moment for Jon, one that could well make his career (or break it irreparably). If SUPERBIA bombs, Jon will be washed up before he ever set out to sea. To crank up the pressure, the show is missing a critical song, a tune that the whole affair will turn on. Continue Reading →
Encanto
Watch afterDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Don't Look Up (2021), Eternals (2021), Raya and the Last Dragon (2021), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021),
StudioWalt Disney Pictures,
What if you were the only one in your entire family without magic? Disney's Encanto sets out to answer that question with music and charm as its fanciful powers. Continue Reading →
Dune
SimilarResident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Stalker (1979),
Watch afterDon't Look Up (2021), Eternals (2021), Free Guy (2021), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), The Batman (2022), Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021),
StarringBabs Olusanmokun, Stellan Skarsgård,
When I first heard the announcement of a new adaptation of Frank Herbert’s magnum opus Dune, I think I might have groaned and said, “God, not again.” Even with the cult followings that Lynch’s now-disowned 1984 version and SyFy’s plodding 2000 miniseries have amassed, there has yet to be a version that had the kind of mass appeal that gets butts in seats. Continue Reading →
The Many Saints of Newark
SimilarA Bronx Tale (1993), A History of Violence (2005), Brubaker (1980), The Departed (2006), Walk the Line (2005),
Watch afterDon't Look Up (2021), Free Guy (2021),
StudioNew Line Cinema,
When Anthony “Tony” Soprano first appears in Alan Taylor’s The Many Saints of Newark, he’s just a kid, hanging on the shoulder of his Uncle Richard “Dickie” Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola). Much like the show it precedes, Taylor’s crime drama focuses on family, a group of related and unrelated men and women influencing and subsequently controlling various parts of New Jersey. Billed as a Tony Soprano origin story, a prequel that wasn’t needed but wanted, the film never feels inherently necessary or emotional. It coasts upon characters it has already set up, actors with pedigree playing said characters, and the understanding that this David Chase-created world is still connected and worth our time. Continue Reading →