The Chaperone (2018)

IMDb plot summary: In the early 1920s, a Kansas woman finds her life forever changed when she accompanies a young dancer on her fame-seeking journey to New York City.

Directed by Michael Engler. Stars Elizabeth McGovern, Haley Lu Richardson, and Géza Röhrig.

The Chaperone tells the story of a conservative Kansas woman who agrees to accompany teenage Louise Brooks to New York City in the 1920s, just before Brooks becomes a silent film icon. It’s a great premise about an actress I don't know much about, and seeing the two women at the opposite ends of repression and rebellion should have been interesting, but it's more interesting in concept than in execution. Elizabeth McGovern plays the chaperone as oddly wooden and restrained, even for the character, and as a result never quite sells her emotional transformation. Haley Lu Richardson as Brooks, however, has a lively, magnetic presence which keeps the film interesting and does in fact make me want to go watch more films from the actual Louise Brooks. But overall, The Chaperone plays it too safe, muddling its story with awkward side plots and an arc for McGovern that just doesn't work. It tries to make statements about liberation but stays disappointingly restrained.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 The Chaperone (2019)

📊 Ranked #2969/4075 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 27

lost to Meet John Doe (#2034 → #2044)

beat Unbroken (#3052 → #3069)

lost to Onibaba (#2542 → #2560)

lost to The Good Dinosaur (#2796 → #2494)

lost to Splash (#2923 → #2707)

beat The Illusionist (#2986 → #2995)

beat Luther (#2954 → #3024)

lost to Doctor Zhivago (#2938 → #2854)

lost to Obvious Child (#2946 → #2942)

beat Nightmare Alley (#2950 → #2979)

beat The Double Life of Véronique (#2948 → #2963)

beat Solo: A Star Wars Story (#2947 → #2971)

Unpregnant (2020)

IMDb plot summary: A 17-year old Missouri teen named Veronica discovers she has gotten pregnant, a development that threatens to end her dreams of matriculating at an Ivy League college, and the career that will follow.

Directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg. Stars Haley Lu Richardson, Barbie Ferreira, and Giancarlo Esposito.

Unpregnant follows a teenager girl who discovers she’s pregnant and sets off on a road trip with her former best friend to get an abortion in another state, since she can’t legally do it at home. This is almost an identical plot to Plan B, a personal favorite released a year later. Unpregnant, though, is less funny and more earnest, and its heart is in the right place, even if I feel consciously when its humor doesn’t land. There’s one genuinely hilarious sequence involving a nightmare pro-life family who essentially kidnap the girls to stop them from reaching their destination, but the rest of the film leans heavily on sincerity, and the tonal shift of the wacky middle of the film is interesting but jarring. Our two female leads, Haley Lu Richardson and Barbie Ferreira, are charismatic, with Ferreira especially standing out. (After seeing her in this and Bob Trevino Likes It, she’s clearly someone to watch.) Beyond the strong leads, though, Unpregnant is pleasant but ultimately forgettable.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Unpregnant (2020)

📊 Ranked #1778/4074 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 56

beat The King and I (#2033 → #2057)

lost to Steamboy (#1015 → #1014)

lost to Muppet Treasure Island (held at #1522)

beat Another Earth (#1779 → #1792)

lost to Winnie the Pooh (#1650 → #1649)

beat Allegiance (#1713 → #1720)

beat Brick (#1681 → #1718)

beat Cropsey (#1665 → #2078)

beat Pulp Fiction (#1657 → #2340)

lost to Swing Shift (#1653 → #1604)

lost to Bedknobs and Broomsticks (#1655 → #1646)

lost to The Revenant (#1656 → #1655)

Bob Trevino Likes It (2024)

IMDb plot summary: When lonely 20-something Lily Trevino accidentally befriends a stranger online who shares the same name as her own self-centered father, encouragement and support from this new Bob Trevino could change her life.

Directed by Tracie Laymon. Stars Barbie Ferreira, John Leguizamo, and French Stewart.

Bob Trevino Likes It is a heartfelt dramedy about a young woman (played by Barbie Ferreira) who ends up connecting on social media with a man who shares the same name as her neglectful father. This stranger, played by John Leguizamo, is warm and paternal and everything she wants from her own father, and the two develop an unconventional bond. This film was a wonderful, weird surprise. What could have been a quirky gimmick turns into something funny, tender, and deeply human. Ferreira was brand new to me as an actress, but she's fantastic here -- sharp, relatable, and vulnerable in all the right ways. The film isn’t afraid to linger in awkwardness, letting its characters stumble, say the wrong things, and still reach each other, but it never feels like it's reveling in the cringe. The ending will have to sit with me. It didn't go where I thought it would and my first thought is that it's a little unearned, but the strong acting performances might just make it work. Honestly, sometimes you just want to see people heal, and this film gives me that without leaning too hard into sentimentality. It's absolutely worth watching.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Bob Trevino Likes It (2025)

📊 Ranked #310/4073 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 93

beat Space Pirate Captain Harlock (#2039 → #2048)

beat Top Secret! (#1110 → #1111)

beat The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (held at #518)

lost to Frozen (#252 → #250)

beat Adaptation. (#379 → #387)

lost to 50/50 (#315 → #324)

beat Spirited Away (#348 → #341)

beat WarGames (#332 → #339)

lost to Eighth Grade (#324 → #319)

lost to Black Narcissus (#327 → #306)

lost to Requiem for a Dream (#330 → #309)

beat Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (#331 → #354)

Everything Is Illuminated (2005)

IMDb plot summary: A young Jewish American man, with the help of an eccentric local, endeavors to find the woman who saved his grandfather during World War II in a Ukrainian village that was ultimately razed by the Nazis.

Directed by Liev Schreiber. Stars Elijah Wood, Eugene Hutz, and Boris Lyoskin.

Everything Is Illuminated follows a young American, played by Elijah Wood, who travels to Ukraine in search of some of the characters he has heard about from his family history. He is guided along his journey by an ambitious but eccentric local and his even more eccentric grandfather. The film is exactly what it looks like it's going to be: quirky (maybe too quirky for its own good), and ultimately hopeful and warmhearted despite its frequently dark subject matter. Its stylized visuals, dry humor, and editing choices feel very much like a director emulating Wes Anderson, and it carries with it that same sense of whimsy. Anderson usually takes that whimsy right up to the point of being exhausting but stops, while this one definitely crosses the line a few times. Still, there are moments of genuine beauty and emotional resonance scattered throughout, especially when the film quiets down and lets its story breathe instead of just be weird. It's a sweet, strange little movie, and I think it would have been exactly my jam in my college years, but now it feels dated and uneven, with a few good moments scattered throughout.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Everything Is Illuminated (2005)

📊 Ranked #1973/4072 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 51

lost to Wonder Man (#2032 → #1283)

beat Stagecoach (#3050 → #3049)

beat Rich and Strange (#2540 → #2984)

beat Planet 51 (#2286 → #2535)

beat In Search of a Midnight Kiss (#2159 → #2172)

beat The Lion in Winter (#2096 → #2161)

beat Liberal Arts (#2063 → #2059)

beat The Suburbans (#2047 → #2046)

beat The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (#2039 → #2092)

lost to The King and I (#2035 → #1971)

beat Meet John Doe (#2037 → #2033)

beat America's Sweethearts (#2036 → #2031)

The Time of Your Life (1976)

IMDb plot summary: William Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize-winning play revolves around the denizens of a San Francisco bar in 1939.

Directed by Kirk Browning. Stars Benjamin Hendrickson, Richard Ooms, and Nicolas Surovy.

The Time of Your Life is a TV-filmed version of based on William Saroyan’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play, which unfolds entirely in a San Francisco bar, where a rotating cast of eccentric characters drift in and out, sharing jokes, heartbreaks, and philosophical musings. The script strings together dozens of little plot threads -- some touching, some strange, some funny. It's very episodic, more like an anthology of vaguely connected scenes than a complete story. It’s also unmistakably theatrical, for better or worse. The dialogue is witty and sharp as is familiar from cleverly crafted stage scripts, but the staging often feels static on screen. I find a lot of charm in the familiarity of the staginess, but there are times where I also feel the distance when that staginess is translated to film. It mostly makes me think how much more engaging this would be on a stage.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 The Time of Your Life (1976)

📊 Ranked #1310/4071 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 70

beat Wristcutters: A Love Story (#2032 → #2034)

lost to My Name is Joe (#1014 → #1013)

beat The Green Knight (#1521 → #1546)

lost to Passing (#1267 → #1257)

beat The Black Phone (#1394 → #1523)

lost to Inland Empire (#1330 → #1326)

lost to Decision to Leave (#1362 → #1361)

lost to Aliens (#1378 → #1375)

beat Bridge of Spies (#1386 → #1620)

lost to I, Tonya (#1382 → #1362)

lost to The Great Mouse Detective (#1384 → #1382)

lost to Pain and Glory (#1385 → #1305)

The Kid Detective (2020)

IMDb plot summary: A once-celebrated kid detective, now 32, continues to solve the same trivial mysteries between hangovers and bouts of self-pity; until a naive client brings him his first 'adult' case to find out who brutally murdered her boyfriend.

Directed by Evan Morgan. Stars Kaitlyn Chalmers-Rizzato, Adam Brody, and Kaleb Horn.

The Kid Detective is a hypothetical gritty, grown-up sequel to Encyclopedia Brown: what if the boy genius detective grows up, finds the one case he can't solve, and life falls apart. It's a concept that could have been painfully gimmicky, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that they pretty much nail the execution. Adam Brody is perfectly cast as the main character, playing just the right mix of weary depression and lingering boyish idealism to make the tone work. The tone is key here, by the way, and it walks a tricky line between dark comedy and genuine tragedy, shifting from absurd humor to moments of real emotional weight without losing its way. By the time the final mystery is wrapped up, was both funnier and sadder than I thought it might be. The Kid Detective turns what could have been a one-joke premise into something both enjoyable and oddly touching. What an interesting surprise.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 The Kid Detective (2020)

📊 Ranked #820/4070 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 81

beat Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (#2032 → #2033)

beat Pig (#1015 → #1022)

lost to Her (#508 → #521)

beat Winter Light (#761 → #1104)

lost to School of Rock (#634 → #635)

lost to Autumn Sonata (#697 → #703)

lost to The Talented Mr. Ripley (#729 → #698)

beat Super (#745 → #753)

lost to Cats (#737 → #740)

beat Spotlight (#741 → #732)

beat Coherence (#739 → #738)

lost to Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (#738 → #760)

Juror #2 (2024)

IMDb plot summary: While serving as a juror in a high-profile murder trial, a family man finds himself struggling with a serious moral dilemma, one he could use to sway the jury verdict and potentially convict or free the wrong killer.

Directed by Clint Eastwood. Stars Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, and J.K. Simmons.

Juror #2 has a great premise: A juror (played by Nicholas Hoult) realizes partway through a criminal trial that he himself might be the person responsible. The film leans heavily on talky dialogue scenes, a la 12 Angry Men, which often don't work, and Hoult's tightly wound performance, which always does. He grounds the story, which is needed more often than I'd like -- the script can’t resist waxing a little too poetic about the nobility of the American legal system. It's a topic well worth exploring, but it doesn't explore so much as just seem like vague patriotic propaganda. Still, despite a few eye-rolling dialogue scenes, there are moments of brilliance throughout, and the moral questions it raises are undeniably gripping. Without giving anything away, the ending lands just right for me, leaving me with a final taste of the film as an uneven but intriguing courtroom drama that I'd recommend but wouldn't necessarily rewatch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Juror #2 (2024)

📊 Ranked #1158/4069 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 74

lost to Clueless (#2031 → #1751)

beat Late Night with the Devil (#3048 → #3047)

beat Under the Roofs of Paris (held at #2539)

beat The Worst Person in the World (#2285 → #2341)

beat The Keep (#2158 → #2159)

beat A Night to Remember (#2095 → #2092)

beat X (#2062 → #2134)

beat Brothers (#2046 → #2105)

beat The Suburbans (held at #2038)

lost to Moonrise Kingdom (#2034 → #913)

beat America's Sweethearts (#2036 → #2035)

beat Wind River (#2035 → #2396)