The Second Mother (2015)

IMDb plot summary: When the estranged daughter of a hard-working live-in housekeeper suddenly appears, the unspoken class barriers that exist within the home are thrown into disarray.

Directed by Anna Muylaert. Stars Regina Casé, Helena Albergaria, and Michel Joelsas.

The Second Mother is a Brazilian film about a woman who moved to another city to work as a live-in maid and housekeeper, leaving her young daughter behind to be raised by her father. Years later, her daughter is ready to go to college in the big city, and she visits her mother and gets to see what her life has looked like for the last decade. The drama in this film is largely due to the young woman being unable to process the subservient role her mother is happy to live in to provide for her, and the mother's frustration that her daughter isn't willing to play the same role as needed while staying with her. I enjoyed the fact that the film was clearly exploring an uncomfortable class divide but still keeping the dramatic tension very small and personal. The acting is understated but extremely watchable and draws you in. That being said, it was one that didn't emotionally stay with me once the credits rolled. I thought to myself, "That was good," and then almost immediately forgot about it. I could see myself returning to it, as I think it was well-done, but I wish more of it stuck with me.

🎥 The Second Mother (2015)

📊 Ranked #1924/4314 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 56

beat Deceiver (#2196 → #2195)

lost to The Band Wagon (#1088 → #1087)

lost to Strictly Ballroom (#1649 → #1648)

lost to Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles (#1925 → #1923)

beat Holiday Inn (#2059 → #2060)

beat Divergent (#1992 → #1999)

beat The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu (#1958 → #2239)

beat Isle of Dogs (held at #1941)

beat Backbeat (#1933 → #1930)

beat Connie and Carla (#1929 → #1932)

beat Peeping Tom (#1927 → #1931)

lost to Rabbit Hole (#1926 → #1900)

Memories (1995)

 

IMDb plot summary: A freighter crew responds to a distress call from a station run by an AI opera diva. The AI manipulates life support, VR and nanosystems, posing dangers the crew must overcome to survive.

Directed by Kōji Morimoto, Tensai Okamura, and Katsuhiro Ōtomo. Stars Tsutomu Isobe, Shozo Iizuka, and Koichi Yamadera.

Memories is a Japanese anthology film with three short films, all based on manga stories by Katsuhiro Otomo. As with most anthology films, some of these are more interesting than others. The three stories are very, very different in terms of style as well. The first is sort of romantic drama, the second one -- my personal favorite -- is sci-fi horror comedy, and the third one is dark and a bit more unusual in form, as it tells a mostly-silent story of a world that is perpetually at war. That one was the hardest for me to latch on to because of the lack of dialogue, but overall these all felt like they were worth the watch. I got around to liking all of them in the end and I really liked the variety of the different films. This is one that I knew very, very little about, but I really enjoyed it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Memories (1995)

📊 Ranked #1109/4313 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 74

beat Zelig (#2196 → #2197)

lost to Shakespeare in Love (#1087 → #657)

beat Quartet (held at #1648)

beat Koyaanisqatsi (#1367 → #1404)

beat Henry V (#1227 → #1225)

beat Fanny and Alexander (#1156 → #1193)

beat Minority Report (#1121 → #1120)

lost to Session 9 (#1104 → #1102)

beat Match Point (#1113 → #1111)

lost to Single White Female (#1109 → #1108)

beat Dangerous Liaisons (#1111 → #1148)

beat The Last Metro (#1110 → #1155)

Sound of Falling (2025)

IMDb plot summary: A remote German farm harbors generations of secrets. Four women, separated by decades but united by trauma, uncover the truth behind its weathered walls.

Directed by Mascha Schilinski. Stars Hanna Heckt, Lena Urzendowsky, and Susanne Wuest.

Sound of Falling is a German film following four generations of women all living in the same house from the 1800s all up to modern day. The film cuts non-linearly between the four of them, hopping from story to story and timeline to timeline. I found it a little jarring until I finally settled into it. As a result, I liked the film more in concept than an execution. Many of these scenes were so slice-of-life and so slow that it was difficult to really connect to the characters or to the conflict of the moment, although there were definitely a few that stood out. I think I may need to re-watch it again now that I have a stronger understanding of the film's concept, as well as hopefully having an easier time identifying the different characters the second time around. Even though the stories were set several decades apart, I still found it difficult to tell when I was in which timeline. However, it is a really creative film, and I totally understand why people are loving it, even if its structure kept it from totally landing for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Sound of Falling (2025)

📊 Ranked #2186/4312 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 51

lost to The Girl on a Motorcycle (#2196 → #2184)

beat Bright Lights (#3266 → #3488)

beat Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (#2730 → #2731)

beat Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (#2462 → #2463)

beat The Accidental Tourist (#2328 → #2329)

beat The Seventh Seal (#2261 → #2262)

beat Ender's Game (#2228 → #2229)

beat The Dawn Patrol (#2212 → #2213)

beat Serpico (#2204 → #2205)

beat The Lair of the White Worm (#2200 → #2202)

beat Away We Go (#2198 → #2199)

beat The Score (#2197 → #2198)

Hello Again (1987)

IMDb plot summary: A suburban housewife chokes to death and is brought back to life by a spell cast by her wacky sister.

Directed by Frank Perry. Stars Shelley Long, Judith Ivey, and Gabriel Byrne.

Hello Again is a 1987 comedy about a woman who unexpectedly dies, and then a year later her witch sister manages to find the spell that will raise her from the dead. She then has to figure out whether she wants to return to her original life or start something new, now that everybody has kind of moved on. Shelley Long absolutely carries this whole movie. She is clumsy and awkward, but refreshingly real in her portrayal, rather than being that movie version of it that nobody who is actually clumsy and awkward ever relates to. I totally connected with this woman and her discomfort and her sense of eternal shame in not being able to be the smooth one at the parties her husband brings her to. As a result, watching her try to redo her life is really engaging. The ending is pretty cheesy, but it's still an enjoyable ride for most of the way, largely because she's such a fun person to observe on screen.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Hello Again (1987)

📊 Ranked #1339/4326 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 69

beat The Forbidden Kingdom (#2200 → #2201)

lost to The Fugitive Kind (#1091 → #703)

beat Space Sweepers (#1650 → #1702)

beat City of God (#1370 → #1535)

lost to A Bug's Life (#1231 → #1232)

lost to His Girl Friday (#1301 → #1298)

lost to Sling Blade (#1335 → #1334)

beat A Serious Man (#1352 → #1400)

beat Unbreakable (#1343 → #1342)

lost to Serial Mom (#1339 → #1335)

beat Wonder Boys (#1341 → #1340)

beat The Post (#1340 → #1371)

Terminal (2018)

IMDb plot summary: A film noir taking place in a train terminal at night. Add two male assassins, a female assassin, a waitress, a teacher, a janitor, and a crime boss. Add revenge. Who says mystery is a lost art?

Directed by Vaughn Stein. Stars Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg, and Dexter Fletcher.

Terminal is sort of a two-pronged story. One piece featuring Margot Robbie as an assassin, where we watch her going around and accomplishing her work and one featuring Simon Pegg as a man who is dying of terminal cancer and runs into Robbie's character in a diner. The film juxaposes these talky scenes about death with a lot of more intense action sequences. There are fun moments to this, but overall it falls flat for me. It definitely feels like two different movies and when the first half ends, the second half doesn't feel connected to it. So it all feels a little disjointed. I didn't mind either half individually, but together they don't help each other out very much. Kind of a disappointing watch, even with a talented cast.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Terminal (2018)

📊 Ranked #2907/4325 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 37

lost to Rififi (#2201 → #1964)

beat The Witches of Eastwick (held at #3280)

lost to Internal Affairs (#2741 → #2613)

beat Firecreek (#3015 → #3017)

lost to The Subject Was Roses (#2885 → #2614)

beat Chinatown (#2950 → #3264)

beat Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (#2917 → #2934)

lost to Liz & Dick (#2901 → #2887)

beat Soylent Green (#2909 → #3239)

beat Mad Dog and Glory (#2905 → #2909)

beat Street of Chance (#2903 → #2908)

beat The Hollars (#2902 → #2912)

Buddies (1985)

IMDb plot summary: The film follows a New York City gay man, in a monogamous relationship, becoming a "buddy" or volunteer bedside companion to another gay man dying of AIDS, and the friendship that develops. Restored in 2020.

Directed by Arthur J. Bressan Jr. Stars Geoff Edholm, David Schachter, and Billy Lux.

Buddies is a film from 1985, known as the first feature film to be about AIDS. Our story follows a young man hospitalized with the disease and a much more sheltered gay man who volunteers as a “buddy” to keep him company during his hospital stay. This is absolutely a low-budget, simply made film, and at times that feels wonky, but overall I found it incredibly moving. It is significant that this is such an early film to deal with the AIDS epidemic and how devastating that was. While the acting is all just a little tiny bit wooden and obvious, the characters do still somehow feel like real people. They have different reactions to both the disease and the public response, and even while everything feels very scripted out, the reality of the story rings true, which is an impressive take for something that is, could have been just like unbearably corny and cheesy. It does end up being a little stilted, but I found myself really drawn to the story regardless. Worth a watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Buddies (1985)

📊 Ranked #793/4310 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 81

beat Hellboy (#2169 → #2404)

beat The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (#1086 → #1085)

lost to Dope (#549 → #556)

beat Spotlight (#821 → #819)

lost to Won't You Be My Neighbor? (#688 → #411)

lost to Running on Empty (#754 → #714)

lost to Philadelphia (#787 → #518)

beat The Wild Robot (#803 → #870)

beat The Shape of Water (#795 → #900)

lost to The Manchurian Candidate (held at #791)

lost to Megamind (held at #793)

lost to The Stepford Wives (held at #794)

Time of the Wolf (2003)

IMDb plot summary: When Anna and her family arrive at their holiday home, they find it occupied by strangers. This confrontation is just the beginning of a painful learning process.

Directed by Michael Haneke. Stars Isabelle Huppert, Anaïs Demoustier, and Béatrice Dalle.

Time of the Wolf is a Michael Haneke film set in a vaguely apocalyptic setting where food is scarce and people are fending for themselves. We follow a widow and her two children as they make their way and ultimately end up joining in with a large group of other wanderers hoping to make their way somewhere better. I really go back and forth on Michael Haneke. Some of his, like Amour or The Seventh Continent absolutely break me in the best way, and I love them. And then others, like The White Ribbon or this, just kind of leave me cold. On the surface, I should love the apocalyptic nature of this story, but it moves so glacially that I can't stay interested. That pace does lend itself to a sense of doom -- that the world is broken and can never be put back together -- but not in a way that I find particularly compelling. Overall, a good concept that ended up being pretty disappointing for me personally.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Time of the Wolf (2003)

📊 Ranked #2816/4307 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 39

lost to Lenny (#2168 → #2100)

beat The Forger (#3255 → #3287)

lost to The Asphalt Jungle (#2704 → #2623)

beat Anything Else (#2983 → #2998)

beat Flightplan (#2845 → #2833)

lost to Superman (#2779 → #2782)

lost to Green Street Hooligans (#2812 → #2791)

beat Mad Dog and Glory (#2828 → #2836)

beat ¡Three Amigos! (#2820 → #2828)

lost to The Love Witch (#2816 → #2757)

lost to Laura (#2818 → #2696)

beat Unsung Hero (#2819 → #2817)