Shine (1996)

IMDb plot summary: David Helfgott, a gifted pianist, struggles through childhood adolescence as his strict father abuses him and his siblings. Years later, he suffers a mental breakdown but manages to return as a legend.

Directed by Scott Hicks. Stars Geoffrey Rush, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Justin Braine.

Shine is an Australian biopic starring Geoffrey Rush as David Helfgott, a talented child prodigy at piano who suffered a mental breakdown and spent much of his adult life in an institution. We follow his short-lived success, his years dealing with his mental health, and his journey toward healing and building new relationships. I watched this film as part of my 1996 project, where I'm trying to reach 100 movies seen from this year. This one got several Oscar nominations, and I can't say most of them are deserved. Geoffrey Rush's performance is the main reason to watch this, as his performance feels emotionally connected enough to keep it from being caricature. but as a film, it works a little too hard to weave together this clear simple narrative of the overly demanding father driving him to the breakdown, and it just feels like a bit of a stretch. If you'd like to see a really good performance by Rush, this is the movie for you, but if you're looking for a great movie overall, this isn't my recommendation.

🎥 Shine (1996)

📊 Ranked #1879/4193 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 55

beat Happythankyoumoreplease (#2096 → #2097)

lost to The Other Boleyn Girl (held at #1037)

lost to Ping Pong Playa (held at #1562)

lost to Swiss Army Man (held at #1833)

beat Malcolm & Marie (#1964 → #1965)

beat My Date with Drew (#1898 → #1899)

lost to The Three Musketeers (held at #1866)

beat The Wedding Singer (#1882 → #1883)

lost to White Heat (held at #1874)

lost to You've Got Mail (held at #1878)

beat Bowling for Columbine (#1880 → #1881)

Snack Shack (2024)

IMDb plot summary: Nebraska City, 1991, two best friends get the chance to run the swimming pool snack shack, that later comes to be the perfect scenario for transgression, fun, personal discovery and romance.

Directed by Adam Rehmeier. Stars Conor Sherry, Gabriel LaBelle, and Mika Abdalla.

Snack Shack follows two eighth grade boys looking to make some money and have an adventure in their last summer before high school. They decide to bid to run the pool's snack shop over the summer, and as they turn it into a very successful venture, they also start running into some hiccups along the way that threaten to dismantle their friendship. There's a lot to like about this raunchy, goofy coming-of-age movie. These characters are frequently obnoxious, but there's something delightful about watching them jump headlong into any idea that takes their fancy. There is a gleeful zaniness to this whole film, and while sometimes that zany tone feels like a bit much, especially in comparison to the more somber third act, overall it’s a pretty fun ride and I had a good time with it.

🎥 Snack Shack (2024)

📊 Ranked #1262/4192 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 70

beat Happythankyoumoreplease (#2095 → #2096)

lost to Heathers: The Musical (held at #1036)

beat Ping Pong Playa (#1561 → #1562)

beat Army of Shadows (#1299 → #1300)

lost to A Chorus Line (held at #1166)

lost to Cheaper by the Dozen (held at #1230)

beat Who Framed Roger Rabbit (#1265 → #1266)

lost to Airheads (held at #1249)

lost to It (held at #1257)

lost to High Strung (held at #1261)

beat Cool Runnings (#1263 → #1264)

Secrets & Lies (1996)

IMDb plot summary: Following the death of her adoptive parents, a successful young black optometrist establishes contact with her biological mother -- a lonely white factory worker living in poverty in East London.

Directed by Mike Leigh. Stars Timothy Spall, Brenda Blethyn, and Phyllis Logan.

Secrets & Lies is a British film about a middle-aged woman whose biological daughter attempts to reestablish contact with her after being given up for adoption. The relationship throws the woman's life out of whack, and she and her whole family must figure out how to navigate it. Mike Leigh's work has been hit-or-miss for me at times, but this one is undeniably a hit. These characters are real and raw, and watching them figure out their lives together is captivating. I have to particularly call out Brenda Blethyn as the mother, whose performance is pitch perfect, both heartrending and endearing. The awkwardness of the family working so hard to keep up appearances despite not having a whole lot to brag about is palpable and makes for some great tense scenes where you are trying to figure out if one of them is going to explode any minute. While the story mostly focuses on the mom and her newly found daughter, there are also enough other subplots involving the rest of the family that it fully feels like a very fleshed out world. One of those rare films where I truly do feel like we're just getting a peek into somebody's life, and it's very naturally crafted.

🎥 Secrets & Lies (1996)

📊 Ranked #752/4191 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 82

beat Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl (#2095 → #2096)

beat The Other Boleyn Girl (#1036 → #1037)

lost to He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not (held at #517)

beat Evil (#776 → #777)

lost to 21 Jump Street (held at #647)

lost to Beautiful Boy (held at #711)

lost to The Red Violin (held at #743)

beat Nurse Betty (#759 → #760)

lost to Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (held at #751)

beat Casualties of War (#755 → #756)

beat Southside with You (#753 → #754)

One Battle After Another (2025)

IMDb plot summary: When their enemy resurfaces after 16 years, a group of ex-revolutionaries reunite to rescue the daughter of one of their own.

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Benicio Del Toro.

One Battle After Another is the newest Paul Thomas Anderson movie. The film begins with Leonardo DiCaprio and Teyana Taylor as anarchist rebels who are trying to start a revolution, but when Taylor ends up turning in her fellow anarchists, DiCaprio escapes with their daughter. Over a decade later, the father and his now-teenage daughter are found by people who wanted them dead, and DiCaprio has to try and keep his daughter safe. There is a lot going on in this movie, but I'm not convinced it's quite as impressive as the hyped made it sound. It's definitely got some fun, weird comedy/drama mixing. I was especially struck by the scene where DiCaprio first discovers his daughter is a target and is being transported to a safe house, but at the time he's heavily under the influence and is barely functional getting himself across town to find people who can help him. That scene could absolutely be right at home in an overt comedy (it's more than a little reminiscent of the same actor's Quaaludes scene in Wolf of Wall Street). But mostly I just feel like this is one of PTA's films that  misses me. It is a splashier, slightly more highbrow action movie. And while that aspect is certainly done well, it's not something that seems like the best movie of the year or anything like that. PTA often doesn't quite speak to me, so I guess it's not that surprising that this one didn't quite gel with me either.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 One Battle After Another (2025)

📊 Ranked #1626/4190 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 61

beat The Sparks Brothers (#2098 → #2099)

lost to Fever Pitch (held at #1038)

lost to Silent Hill (held at #1564)

beat Solaris (#1836 → #1837)

beat Fury (#1705 → #1706)

beat Elemental (#1629 → #1630)

lost to The Wolf of Wall Street (held at #1596)

lost to Stargate (held at #1612)

lost to Don't Look Up (held at #1621)

lost to Killers of the Flower Moon (held at #1625)

beat Dan in Real Life (#1627 → #1628)

beat The Tragedy of Macbeth (#1626 → #1627)

Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

IMDb plot summary: When her father decides to flee to England, young Sylvia Scarlett must become Sylvester Scarlett and protect her father every step of the way, with the questionable help of plenty others.

Directed by George Cukor. Stars Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Brian Aherne.

Sylvia Scarlett is a very, very early Katharine Hepburn film in which she is the daughter of a criminal who must go on the run, and so she disguises herself as a man to better serve him as his companion. Along the way, the two team up with Cary Grant, who plays another con man who agrees to help them. This was first brought to my attention on a TikTok about very early trans representation. While obviously this doesn't get too deep into that aspect of the story, given the time in which it was released, it does have some really fresh takes on gender, and coming from an actress like Hepburn, who was known for challenging stereotypical notions of gender, especially later in her career, it is a fascinating watch.  Aside from that though, the film isn't great. The romance is not likable or believable. The actors make very inconsistent choices as to what accents they're going to have at any point in the story. And the whole thing is all wrapped up very abruptly in a happy romance ending, tacked on to what was a fairly dark melodrama up until that point. So it's more valuable as a piece of interesting film history and early representation of non-typical gender performance than as an actual film in and of itself.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Sylvia Scarlett (1935)

📊 Ranked #3209/4189 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 23

lost to Fahrenheit 451 (held at #2096)

lost to The Preacher's Wife (held at #3143)

beat Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (#3669 → #3670)

beat Pinocchio (#3405 → #3406)

beat The Other Sister (#3273 → #3274)

lost to A Mighty Wind (held at #3208)

beat Gangs of New York (#3240 → #3241)

beat Baby Boom (#3224 → #3225)

beat Victor/Victoria (#3216 → #3217)

beat Our Paradise (#3212 → #3213)

beat Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (#3210 → #3211)

beat Inherent Vice (#3209 → #3210)

The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025)

IMDb plot summary: An eccentric lottery winner who lives alone on a remote island tries to make his fantasies come true by getting his favorite musicians to perform at his home.

Directed by James Griffiths. Stars Tom Basden, Tim Key, and Sian Clifford.

The Ballad of Wallis Island is set on a remote island where a folk musician is invited to perform a concert. The concert turns out to the brainchild of one man who has spent all of his lottery winnings on bringing this folk musician to the island, with the intention of reuniting him with his former musical partner, whom he parted with on bad terms. The two ultimately decide to try to work together and put on their one-person performance, and the three people, two musicians and their host, form some semblance of relationship. This is a really charming film that is really anchored by Tim Key playing their island host. He is charming but irritating and over-eager to please and ends up consistently rubbing people the wrong way. He's the one whose character arc is most compelling. The musician character arc is fine, but Key's performance is really the one that thematically and emotionally anchors the entire movie. It's a sweet movie in the best way. These characters are enjoyable to be around. We get some fun musical sequences and some small romances, while also not downplaying actual human need and sorrow. This one didn't get as much attention as I feel like it should have gotten, so if you haven't had a chance to check it out, you should. It's really delightful.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025)

📊 Ranked #585/4188 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 86

beat Fahrenheit 451 (#2095 → #2096)

beat The Other Boleyn Girl (#1035 → #1036)

lost to That Night's Wife (held at #516)

beat Evil (#775 → #776)

beat 21 Jump Street (#646 → #647)

lost to The Mitchells vs. the Machines (held at #580)

beat Carrie (#612 → #613)

beat The Courtship of Eddie's Father (#596 → #597)

beat The Big Sick (#588 → #589)

lost to Marty (held at #584)

beat Stardust (#586 → #587)

beat It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown (#585 → #586)

Exhuma (2024)

IMDb plot summary: The process of excavating an ominous grave unleashes dreadful consequences buried underneath.

Directed by Jang Jae-hyun. Stars Choi Min-sik, Kim Go-eun, and Yoo Hae-jin.

Exhuma is a South Korean horror film about a group of shamans who are investigating one particular family and their sketchy burial practices, which have now apparently come back to literally haunt them. This is a fun concept, and there are a few cool, spooky possession scenes that I do remember that stand out from the film, but a lot of it is just slow. The filmic choices showing the possessions are easily the most interesting part of the film, which felt overall very long at two hours and 14 minutes. The rest of the plot doesn't match the energy and the vibrance of those possession scenes, and so I found myself kind of tuning out whenever there wasn't something big and dramatic happening. I do wonder if there were some cultural differences that made this harder for me to process, which is obviously not the fault of the film. Overall, this one didn't quite do it for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Exhuma (2024)

📊 Ranked #2055/4187 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 51

beat The Sasquatch Gang (#2099 → #2100)

lost to Fever Pitch (held at #1037)

lost to Quartet (held at #1562)

lost to Solaris (held at #1835)

lost to Aladdin (held at #1968)

lost to John Wick (held at #2033)

beat Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (#2065 → #2066)

lost to Gold Diggers of 1933 (held at #2049)

beat The Firm (#2057 → #2058)

lost to Hail, Caesar! (held at #2053)

beat The Velvet Underground (#2055 → #2056)

lost to Deceiver (held at #2054)