Speak No Evil (2024)

IMDb plot summary: A family is invited to spend a whole weekend in a lonely home in the countryside, but as the weekend progresses, they realize that a dark side lies within the family who invited them.

Directed by James Watkins. Stars James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, and Scoot McNairy.

Speak No Evil is about two families who befriend each other on vacation. One family takes the other up on their offer to visit their country home, however things start getting uncomfortable, and the couple begins to wonder if something sinister is going on. As far as horror thrillers go, this one is pretty good. It has a nice balance of genuine creepy moments and slightly exaggerated twists that keep it entertaining throughout. It also does a pretty good job of maintaining the characters' need to stay at the home, even as things come up that feel like they should push them away. It's seldom irritating when they return and more understandable given the circumstances. This isn't an incredible movie, but it is a fun and interesting watch and I'm glad I got to see it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Speak No Evil (2024)

📊 Ranked #1119/4178 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 73

beat Cypher (#2099 → #2100)

lost to Walk Don't Run (held at #1038)

beat Manchester by the Sea (#1562 → #1563)

beat A Grand Day Out (#1301 → #1302)

beat The Nanny Diaries (#1168 → #1169)

lost to Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (held at #1103)

beat Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (#1135 → #1136)

beat Crocodile Dundee (#1119 → #1120)

lost to Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken (held at #1111)

lost to Luca (held at #1115)

lost to Baby Driver (held at #1117)

lost to Match Point (held at #1118)

A Troll in Central Park (1994)

IMDb plot summary: An evil Queen banishes a flower loving troll named Stanley to New York City, where he befriends two young children.

Directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. Stars Dom DeLuise, Cloris Leachman, and Charles Nelson Reilly.

A Troll in Central Park is a Don Bluth film in which a young troll, played by Dom DeLuise, is more interested in growing flowers than wreaking havoc with his troll comrades, and as a result he is banished to Central Park. He ends up befriending of couple of New York children who then find themselves in danger from the trolls. It feels like summarizing the movie plot itself took longer than the movie itself. This movie goes by so fast and tries to cram so much in, and it mostly feels overwhelming. I've never been a huge Don Bluth fan, but when his movies work for me, they really work. This one, I think, really needed to be seen as a child for me to have any affection for it. As an adult, I just find it kind of awkward and messy without a lot of real stakes to ground it. Definitely not the best of Bluth's work.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 A Troll in Central Park (1994)

📊 Ranked #3123/4177 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 25

lost to Cypher (held at #2099)

beat A Prairie Home Companion (#3140 → #3141)

lost to Mystic River (held at #2624)

lost to 3, 2, 1... Frankie Go Boom (held at #2882)

lost to Jake's Women (held at #3011)

lost to Alice in Wonderland (held at #3075)

lost to People on Sunday (held at #3107)

beat Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (#3123 → #3124)

lost to The Milagro Beanfield War (held at #3115)

lost to A Man Called Peter (held at #3119)

lost to In the Year of the Pig (held at #3121)

lost to Everyone Says I Love You (held at #3122)

Fly Me to the Moon (2024)

IMDb plot summary: Marketing maven Kelly Jones wreaks havoc on NASA launch director Cole Davis's already difficult task. When the White House deems the mission too important to fail, the countdown truly begins.

Directed by Greg Berlanti. Stars Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, and Woody Harrelson.

Fly Me to the Moon is a historical romantic comedy/drama starring Channing Tatum as a NASA employee working on getting the first man on the moon, and Scarlett Johansson as the fast-talking marketing executive tasked with selling the journey to the public. Her disregard for the truth and his rigid moral code don't always work well, but they learn to work together. This is a fun concept for a romance but doesn't ultimately do that much with it. Scarlett Johansson feels weirdly out of place here. She's a good actress in general but this always feels very consciously like a performance. Even more surprisingly, Channing Tatum is weirdly charisma-less. The side characters and cast are perpetually more engaging all the way along, and that's not a good sign for a romance movie. I don't know what went wrong here exactly but it does all kind of fall apart and ends up being pretty blah.

🎥 Fly Me to the Moon (2024)

📊 Ranked #2859/4173 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 32

lost to The Sparks Brothers (held at #2089)

beat Le Cercle Rouge (#3131 → #3132)

lost to The Inspector General (held at #2612)

beat The Whole Nine Yards (#2871 → #2872)

lost to Popcorn (held at #2741)

lost to Kicking and Screaming (held at #2806)

lost to The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (held at #2838)

lost to Four Weddings and a Funeral (held at #2854)

beat Sullivan's Travels (#2862 → #2863)

lost to Come to the Stable (held at #2858)

beat Adventures in Babysitting (#2860 → #2861)

beat Bully (#2859 → #2860)

A Nice Indian Boy (2025)

IMDb plot summary: When Naveen brings his fiancé Jay home to meet his traditional Indian family, they must contend with accepting his white-orphan-artist boyfriend and helping them plan the Indian wedding of their dreams.

Directed by Roshan Sethi. Stars Karan Soni, Jonathan Groff, and Sunita Mani.

A Nice Indian Boy follows a young Indian American doctor as he falls in love with a white man raised by Indian parents. Together, the two navigate the doctor's familial expectations around sexual orientation, race, and culture. This movie is, above all, very sweet. The central couple has believable, easy chemistry, and I found myself genuinely rooting for them and wanting the best possible outcome. I like how the movie makes family just as important a theme as romance, giving both arcs space, which rounds out the story and gives it depth. There are no big tearjerker moments and no laugh-out-loud jokes, at least for me, but it's consistently warm and everything lands solidly, even if quietly. It's the kind of movie you put on when you just want to watch something pleasant.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 A Nice Indian Boy (2025)

📊 Ranked #1064/4182 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 75

beat Cypher (#2100 → #2101)

lost to The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall (held at #1038)

beat Single White Female (#1563 → #1564)

beat New York Stories (#1301 → #1302)

beat Center Stage (#1168 → #1169)

beat It's Such a Beautiful Day (#1103 → #1104)

beat Kuroneko (#1070 → #1071)

lost to Shin Godzilla (held at #1054)

lost to Elf (held at #1062)

beat The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (#1066 → #1067)

beat Point Break (#1064 → #1065)

lost to Key Largo (held at #1063)

Last Night (1998)

IMDb plot summary: A group of very different individuals with different ideas of how to face the end come together as the world is expected to end in six hours at the turn of the century.

Directed by Don McKellar. Stars Don McKellar, Sandra Oh, and Roberta Maxwell.

Last Night follows a varied group of people in Toronto in the final hours before the world ends. We see each of them dealing with their impending doom and taking charge of the things they CAN do in the meantime. This movie absolutely blew me away. It's astonishing and devastating. Every individual's thread is compelling on its own, but it's even better as they begin to intersect and affect each other. It's a bleak story on its surface, yet ultimately deeply life-affirming, examining the purpose of humanity through the lens of the end. The fact that the film is so quiet makes it hit harder than a lot of apocalypse stories. Clearly I need to seek out more of Don McKellar's work, and honestly, the rest of the films that were part of this same "stories about the millennium" series sound fascinating too. This is a movie that I think is going to stay with me for a long time.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Last Night (1998)

📊 Ranked #118/4157 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 97

beat Frances Ha (#2077 → #2078)

beat Guilty as Sin (#1038 → #1039)

beat The Mummy (#519 → #520)

beat That Thing You Do! (#259 → #260)

beat The Ring (#129 → #130)

lost to Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (held at #64)

lost to My Neighbor Totoro (held at #96)

lost to Little Shop of Horrors (held at #112)

beat Up (#120 → #121)

lost to The History Boys (held at #116)

beat Cloverfield (#118 → #119)

lost to Doubt (held at #117)

The Thursday Murder Club (2025)

IMDb plot summary: Four irrepressible retirees spend their time solving cold case murders for fun, but their casual sleuthing takes a thrilling turn when they find themselves with a real whodunit on their hands.

Directed by Chris Columbus. Stars Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, and Ben Kingsley.

The Thursday Murder Club follows a group of retirees who spend their spare time solving cold cases, until a real murder lands right in their laps. I watched this because my husband is a fan of the books and this adaptation, and it made me want to read the novels too. The characters are a bit broadly drawn, but they’re undeniably charming and well acted (with a powerhouse cast -- Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren, Celia Imrie, and Pierce Brosnan), and that goes a long way. I actually guessed the solution toward the end, not because the clues were airtight, but because it felt like the most interesting narrative choice, and it was satisfying when that was in fact the direction the story went. It didn't blow my mind, but it's gentle, cozy, and pleasant. The kind of sweet, low-stakes watch that makes for a very pleasant evening.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 The Thursday Murder Club (2025)

📊 Ranked #1170/4181 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 72

beat Blackadder: Back & Forth (#2097 → #2098)

lost to The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall (held at #1038)

beat Single White Female (#1562 → #1563)

beat A Grand Day Out (#1299 → #1300)

lost to Center Stage (held at #1168)

beat The Cable Guy (#1233 → #1234)

beat The Secret Garden (#1200 → #1201)

beat Call Me Madam (#1184 → #1185)

beat The Ten Commandments (#1176 → #1177)

beat The River (#1172 → #1173)

beat The Hill (#1170 → #1171)

lost to Dicks: The Musical (held at #1169)

The Addams Family Values (1993)

IMDb plot summary: The Addams Family try to rescue their beloved Uncle Fester from his gold-digging new love, a black widow named Debbie.

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. Stars Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, and Christopher Lloyd.

Addams Family Values follows, well, the macabre Addams as they welcome a new baby and a murderous nanny into their home. I'm usually not into sequels, but maybe the key is not to see the original, because I had a great time with this movie. There's a really fun vibe throughout, balancing gothic spookiness with just the right amount of absurdity. Without that silliness, the whole thing wouldn't work nearly as well. I was genuinely surprised by how often I laughed out loud. Joan Cusack, in particular, is delightful. I never get to see her play villains OR seductresses, and she excels at both here. Do I feel compelled to go back and watch the first one? Absolutely not. One Addams movie is enough for me, but I'm glad this was the one I saw.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Addams Family Values (1993)

📊 Ranked #1040/4180 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 75

beat Blackmail Is My Life (#2097 → #2098)

lost to The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall (held at #1038)

beat Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (#1562 → #1563)

beat New York Stories (#1299 → #1300)

beat Dicks: The Musical (#1168 → #1169)

beat Look Out, Officer! (#1103 → #1104)

beat Woman in the Dunes (#1070 → #1071)

beat Fresh (#1054 → #1055)

beat Kiss Me, Stupid (#1046 → #1047)

beat Guilty as Sin (#1042 → #1043)

beat The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (#1040 → #1041)

lost to Robin Hood (held at #1039)

Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993)

IMDb plot summary: Showgirl Deloris Van Cartier returns as Sister Mary Clarence to teach music to a group of Catholic students whose run-down school is slated for closure.

Directed by Bill Duke. Stars Whoopi Goldberg, Kathy Najimy, and Maggie Smith.

Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit is a sequel to the Whoopi Goldberg vehicle where she poses as a nun to escape a murderous ex. Here, she's asked to pose as a nun again to... teach music at a private high school? This is the prime example of a sequel that isn't bad in and of itself, but... why is it here? It's just the first movie without a main character arc. Like the original, the two main musical performances are a lot of fun, but most of it is full of generic "music changes lives" statements and inspirational speeches that don't land. It also feels way too hard like it's trying to connect to "the youths" -- I'm sorry, I can't imagine a situation in which a performance of rapping nuns would convince a group of high schoolers that choir is cool. Add to all that that the justification for getting Whoopi Goldberg back in is truly ludicrous, and it's just kind of a disappointment... and maybe actually makes me like the original a little less too. This is why I don't watch sequels, folks! This is not the one to change my mind.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993)

📊 Ranked #2359/4169 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 43

lost to Frances Ha (held at #2082)

beat Sliding Doors (#3123 → #3124)

beat Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (#2603 → #2604)

lost to Following (held at #2343)

beat New Faces (#2473 → #2474)

beat Something the Lord Made (#2408 → #2409)

beat Fun with Dick and Jane (#2375 → #2376)

beat The Last Dragon (#2359 → #2360)

lost to The Blues Brothers (held at #2351)

lost to Sherlock Holmes (held at #2355)

lost to Charulata (held at #2357)

lost to Bad Education (held at #2358)

Mystery Men (1999)

IMDb plot summary: A group of inept amateur superheroes must try to save the day when a supervillain threatens to destroy a major superhero and the city.

Directed by Kinka Usher. Stars Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, and William H. Macy.

Mystery Men is about a group of less-than-stellar superheroes, led by Ben Stiller, who attempt to create a super team that can take their place in the superhero hall of fame. This movie is extremely of its time, which means I totally get why people love it even if it doesn't quite click for me. The most fun part is the stacked cast, packed with talented performers and enjoyable cameos in even smaller roles. It didn't make me laugh all that much, but it's interesting to see a superhero parody movie from before the genre became completely oversaturated. It feels slightly ahead of the curve in that way. Overall, it's fine. Not bad, just doesn't hit the way I hoped it would.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Mystery Men (1999)

📊 Ranked #2397/4179 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 43

lost to Blackmail Is My Life (held at #2097)

beat Monsters University (#3138 → #3139)

beat Mystic River (#2620 → #2621)

lost to Kin-dza-dza! (held at #2358)

beat King Richard (#2487 → #2488)

beat Q & A (#2422 → #2423)

lost to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (held at #2390)

beat Ron's Gone Wrong (#2406 → #2407)

beat Lost in America (#2398 → #2399)

lost to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (held at #2394)

lost to The Woman in Black (held at #2396)

beat Fantastic Voyage (#2397 → #2398)

Sentimental Value (2025)

IMDb plot summary: An intimate exploration of family, memories, and the reconciliatory power of art.

Directed by Joachim Trier. Stars Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas.

Sentimental Value is a quiet, absorbing family drama about a filmmaker and his two adult daughters, one of whom is an actress and somewhat estranged from him. He asks her to play the lead in a film he wrote for her, and she refuses, so he casts someone else, and we see how the making of this film affects their relationships. I found it a more interesting watch than The Worst Person in the World, my last Joachim Trier film, largely because of how patiently it unravels its characters. Each of these three feels deep and layered, even the sister we don't get to see as much, and the character development feels like a mystery being solved. The film offers a thoughtful look at how art does -- and maybe shouldn't -- overlap with real life, and where the boundaries between the two can blur. The ending left me wanting more, but not in a frustrating way so much as in a way that just acknowledges life doesn't wrap up neatly. It’s an interesting, reflective film, and one I definitely want to revisit.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Sentimental Value (2025)

📊 Ranked #1285/4178 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 69

beat Raising Arizona (#2092 → #2093)

lost to Robin Hood (held at #1039)

beat Single White Female (#1560 → #1561)

beat New York Stories (#1298 → #1299)

lost to Dicks: The Musical (held at #1168)

lost to Dangerous Liaisons (held at #1233)

lost to Freaky Friday (held at #1265)

lost to Last Year at Marienbad (held at #1281)

beat Army of Shadows (#1289 → #1290)

beat Finder's Fee (#1285 → #1286)

lost to Fanny and Alexander (held at #1283)

lost to 28 Up (held at #1284)

Frozen (2010)

IMDb plot summary: Three skiers stranded on a chairlift are forced to make life-or-death choices, which prove more perilous than staying put and freezing to death.

Directed by Adam Green. Stars Shawn Ashmore, Emma Bell, and Kevin Zegers.

Frozen -- the very much *not* Disney one -- follows three friends stranded on a ski lift after a resort closes for the weekend, leaving them to face the cold, hunger, and worse. Watching this right after Extreme Days was a funny contrast, since both involve kind of douche-y guys and a lone woman on a ski trip, but I liked this one a lot more. I was surprised by how gross and dismal it gets, though in hindsight I probably shouldn’t have been. It’s a tense, tightly contained survival horror that really commits to its premise. If I ever needed a reason not to go skiing, this is it. Dark, bleak, and not exactly a fun watch, but a solid film that does what it sets out to do.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Frozen (2010)

📊 Ranked #1588/4177 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 62

beat Eddington (#2092 → #2093)

lost to Robin Hood (held at #1039)

lost to Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (held at #1561)

beat Knight and Day (#1828 → #1829)

beat Marnie (#1698 → #1699)

beat Begin Again (#1626 → #1627)

beat The Pianist (#1593 → #1594)

lost to Cats Don't Dance (held at #1577)

lost to Hell's Angels (held at #1585)

beat Hamlet (#1589 → #1590)

lost to The Wolf of Wall Street (held at #1587)

beat Backbeat (#1588 → #1589)

Extreme Days (2001)

IMDb plot summary: During a lifelong expedition planned by four lifelong friends - Will, Brian, Matt, and Corey - Corey's beloved grandfather suddenly passed away.

Directed by Eric Hannah. Stars Dante Basco, Ryan Browning, and A.J. Buckley.

Extreme Days follows some recent high school graduates as they go on a road trip across the country, making some new friends and learning some lessons along the way. This might be the most bro-y youth group movie ever made, which means I am spectacularly not the target audience. It reminds me a bit of the jukebox musical A Week Away, in that it tries to be a faith-adjacent film without actually invoking God, presumably to broaden its appeal, but that just makes everything feel muddy and unfocused (what ARE these characters learning?). The male characters are exhausting to spend time with, and the endless snowboarding sequences wear out their welcome fast. Honestly, the most enjoyable part was recognizing random CCM songs... even if some of them were wildly out of context ("Good Life" by Audio Adrenaline used as a "whoo, my life is awesome" song is kind of hilarious). I got very little out of this, and I doubt I would have even as a Christian teen.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Extreme Days (2001)

📊 Ranked #3190/4176 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 24

lost to Raising Arizona (held at #2091)

lost to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (held at #3133)

beat Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (#3654 → #3655)

beat Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (#3394 → #3395)

beat Beauty and the Bestie (#3264 → #3265)

beat When Strangers Click: Five Stories from the Internet (#3197 → #3198)

lost to Tiramisu (held at #3165)

lost to The Return of the Pink Panther (held at #3181)

lost to We're No Angels (held at #3189)

beat Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (#3193 → #3194)

beat A Mighty Wind (#3191 → #3192)

beat The Iceman (#3190 → #3191)

Inside Out 2 (2024)

IMDb plot summary: A sequel that features Riley entering puberty and experiencing brand new, more complex emotions as a result. As Riley tries to adapt to her teenage years, her old emotions try to adapt to the possibility of being replaced.

Directed by Kelsey Mann. Stars Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, and Kensington Tallman.

Inside Out 2 is a sequel to Pixar's 2015 film Inside Out, about the emotions that live inside the human mind and help guide us. At this point in the story, human protagonist Riley is reaching puberty, and her mind gets overtaken with new emotions that unsettle Riley's life and sense of self. I've needed to watch this forever because one of the voice actors is actually a former student of mine and I'm so proud of her and her work.... but sequels are so not my thing, and unfortunately that mostly holds up here. This movie isn't bad, but it just doesn't hold the resonance for me of the original one. It feels like enjoyable fan fiction that just plays around inside the world, but it's hard for me to mentally connect the two stories in a meaningful way. With the original being possibly my favorite Pixar of all time, this one delivers a decent story, but it pales in comparison to its source material.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Inside Out 2 (2024)

📊 Ranked #1528/4170 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 63

beat Raising Arizona (#2088 → #2089)

lost to Robin Hood (held at #1039)

beat Mrs. Miniver (#1561 → #1562)

lost to The Judge (held at #1298)

lost to The Birds (held at #1428)

lost to Mean Girls (held at #1495)

beat Oh Darling! Yeh Hai India! (#1528 → #1529)

lost to Fury (held at #1511)

lost to The Piano (held at #1519)

lost to Interiors (held at #1524)

lost to To Kill a Mockingbird (held at #1526)

lost to TÁR (held at #1527)

Dangerous Animals (2025)

IMDb plot summary: When Zephyr, a savvy and free-spirited surfer, is abducted by a shark-obsessed serial killer and held captive on his boat, she must figure out how to escape before he carries out a ritualistic feeding to the sharks below.

Directed by Sean Byrne. Stars Hassie Harrison, Jai Courtney, and Josh Heuston.

Dangerous Animals follows a female surfer who is kidnapped while surfing alone in Australia, and held in the kidnapper's boat until he is ready to use her for his nefarious purposes. I'm avoiding revealing those purposes exactly, because the film keeps it under wraps until almost halfway through. This movie is built on a wildly silly, over-the-top premise, but I can't deny that it delivers real tension. The final girl is refreshingly competent, making smart choices and coming SO close to escape again and again, which keeps things exciting. I was less invested in the thin character arc about learning to settle down, but it mostly reads as flavor and therefore easily ignored when it doesn't work. The movie probably won't stick with me long beyond the gimmick, but it's a decent, quick, fun watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Dangerous Animals (2025)

📊 Ranked #2109/4151 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 49

lost to Hamlet (held at #2074)

beat The Preacher's Wife (#3112 → #3113)

beat Heartbeat (#2593 → #2594)

beat Following (#2334 → #2335)

beat Kiki's Delivery Service (#2203 → #2204)

beat Bottle Shock (#2138 → #2139)

lost to Cropsey (held at #2106)

beat Argylle (#2122 → #2123)

beat The Benson Murder Case (#2114 → #2115)

beat Johnny Tremain (#2110 → #2111)

lost to What Women Want (held at #2108)

beat The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu (#2109 → #2110)

No One Will Save You (2023)

IMDb plot summary: An exiled anxiety-ridden homebody must battle an alien who's found its way into her home.

Directed by Brian Duffield. Stars Kaitlyn Dever, Elizabeth Kaluev, and Zack Duhame.

No One Will Save You stars Kaitlyn Dever as a young woman who is a social pariah because of something she did when she was a child. She lives alone on the outskirts of her town, and one night, she finds she needs to fight off alien invaders, with no help. The most notable thing about this film is about how there's almost no dialogue in it, but it's still a fully coherent story. The lack of dialogue doesn't even feel like a gimmick, so much as a fully natural consequence of the story being told, and that's a nice touch. The alien design is genuinely creepy, and the film does a great job of building the tension Without giving anything away, I am going to have to sit with the ending for awhile... it's either the most depressing or the most surprisingly positive finale to a story, and I can't figure out which one. Definitely worth a watch as a more unique entry in this genre.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 No One Will Save You (2023)

📊 Ranked #1044/4172 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 75

beat Raising Arizona (#2089 → #2090)

lost to Robin Hood (held at #1039)

beat The Brood (#1561 → #1562)

beat The Judge (#1298 → #1299)

beat Billy Liar (#1168 → #1169)

beat Robot & Frank (#1103 → #1104)

beat Jack Goes Boating (#1071 → #1072)

beat The Quick and the Dead (#1055 → #1056)

beat Fruitvale Station (#1047 → #1048)

lost to Thelma (held at #1043)

beat Kiss Me, Stupid (#1045 → #1046)

beat What Maisie Knew (#1044 → #1045)

Pavements (2025)

IMDb plot summary: Documentary about the American indie band Pavement, which combines scripts with documentary images of the band and a musical mise-en-scene composed of songs from their discography.

Directed by Alex Ross Perry.

Pavements is a pseudo-documentary about the 90s rock band Pavement, composed of interviews and footage of the band alongside the filming of a spoof biopic, a jukebox musical of the band's work, and a museum exhibition. Even after reading through the Wikipedia I'm still not entirely confident I could tell you how much of this was real and how much is not. I knew nothing at all about this band, and this was definitely a unique way of learning more about them... if not a particularly helpful one. As I said, so much of this is apparently not true that I kind of lost interest in tracking it. The made-up movie is presented as too realistic, to the point where it doesn't have the plot or throughline I'd expect for something made up. It's not informative enough as a doc nor entertaining enough as fiction, and so it kind of sits in between for me. The most enjoyable parts were the ones that WERE in fact accurate, or commentary on what made Pavement special to people. It was the only piece where I felt like I actually got to know something about the band. The vibe I get is that that deliberate distance and (something of an) "F you" to the audience is very much a part of the band's branding, in which case, well, they nailed it, but it wasn't appealing to me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Pavements (2025)

📊 Ranked #2889/4175 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 31

lost to The Sparks Brothers (held at #2090)

beat Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (#3132 → #3133)

lost to The Inspector General (held at #2613)

lost to Mr. Right (held at #2872)

beat Braveheart (#3002 → #3003)

beat Another Thin Man (#2937 → #2938)

beat Double Jeopardy (#2904 → #2905)

lost to Run Lola Run (held at #2888)

beat Marry Me (#2896 → #2897)

beat Captain Fantastic (#2892 → #2893)

beat Red Notice (#2890 → #2891)

beat Hal King (#2889 → #2890)

Dicks: The Musical (2023)

IMDb plot summary: A pair of business rivals discover that they're identical twins and decide to swap places in an attempt to trick their divorced parents to get back together.

Directed by Larry Charles. Stars Josh Sharp, Aaron Jackson, and Nathan Lane.

Dicks: The Musical is basically an ultra-ridiculous, ultra-raunchy adaptation of The Parent Trap: two adult businessmen find out they are twins separated at birth and decide to try and reunite their parents. I had the most mixed reaction to this one -- the first 3/4 are the funniest thing I've ever seen, and then it takes a steep left turn. The humor throughout comes so out of left field that it kept catching me off guard and getting genuine belly laughs from me, and that's pretty rare in a film. I thought for the first hour and 15 minutes that this might be in my top 5 of the year. But the final portion takes one single joke that isn't super funny to begin with and then goes for it over... and over... and over... in a way that feels very stale for a film that was finding new and creative ways to do things every 10 seconds up until that point. It was SUCH a deep disappointment after how much I loved most of it, and I don't quite know how to process the whiplash of that. I will probably rewatch that first section and just turn it off after what feels like the obvious conclusion to the story, before it goes off the rails.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Dicks: The Musical (2023)

📊 Ranked #1168/4174 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 72

beat Raising Arizona (#2090 → #2091)

lost to The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall (held at #1038)

beat Single White Female (#1559 → #1560)

beat New York Stories (#1297 → #1298)

lost to Center Stage (held at #1167)

beat Dangerous Liaisons (#1232 → #1233)

beat Cats (#1199 → #1200)

beat Song of the Sea (#1183 → #1184)

beat The Color Purple (#1175 → #1176)

beat Wonder Boys (#1171 → #1172)

beat Billy Liar (#1169 → #1170)

beat The Hill (#1168 → #1169)

Green Street Hooligans (2005)

IMDb plot summary: A wrongfully expelled Harvard undergrad moves to London, where he is introduced to the violent underworld of football hooliganism.

Directed by Lexi Alexander. Stars Elijah Wood, Charlie Hunnam, and Claire Forlani.

Green Street Hooligans stars Elijah Wood as a college dropout who visits his sister in England to try to get back on his feet. While there, he befriends her tough brother-in-law and his gang of soccer-obsessed friends. This is sort of a strange little bro-y movie that finds the joy and friendship in... group violence, I guess. There are some fun moments in here but it's neither as heartwarming nor as hard-hitting as it alternately tries to be. The whiplash between those two vibes is hard to navigate, and overall they sort of even each other out so there's just nothing notable about the film at all. Not worth checking out.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Green Street Hooligans (2005)

📊 Ranked #2187/4171 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 48

lost to The Sparks Brothers (held at #2088)

beat Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (#3127 → #3128)

beat Tab Hunter Confidential (#2608 → #2609)

beat Captain Phillips (#2348 → #2349)

beat Sarah and Son (#2217 → #2218)

lost to The Good Dinosaur (held at #2152)

lost to Miracle on 34th Street (held at #2184)

beat Captain America: The Winter Soldier (#2200 → #2201)

beat A Time to Kill (#2192 → #2193)

beat North (#2188 → #2189)

lost to Harry and the Hendersons (held at #2186)

beat Mad Max (#2187 → #2188)

Weapons (2025)

IMDb plot summary: When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.

Directed by Zach Cregger. Stars Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, and Alden Ehrenreich.

Weapons is a horror film set in a small town shortly after all but one students in an elementary school class ran out of their homes in the middle of the night and haven't come back. We follow the various people who may be involved, including the father of one of the students, the teacher of the missing class, and the only child who didn't go. I was only mid on Barbarian, so I went into this uncertain that it would work, but it turned out to be a great ride, with each section of the story engaging so thoroughly with its character that I never felt like I wanted to say goodbye to them to follow someone else. It's a weird, twisty blend of mystery and horror that balances both modes beautifully. The ending is unexpectedly comedic in a way that’s totally unhinged, a wild tonal shift that lands even though it REALLY shouldn't. Easily better than Barbarian, in my opinion, in both story and horror aspects. Now I'm officially interested in what Zach Cregger does next.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Weapons (2025)

📊 Ranked #823/4168 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 80

beat Hamlet (#2081 → #2082)

beat 20th Century Women (#1040 → #1041)

lost to Crimes and Misdemeanors (held at #520)

lost to Colossal (held at #780)

beat Hidden Figures (#910 → #911)

beat Society of the Snow (#845 → #846)

lost to A Midsummer Night's Dream (held at #812)

beat The Cutting Edge (#828 → #829)

lost to Rise of the Guardians (held at #820)

beat Picnic at Hanging Rock (#824 → #825)

lost to The Holdovers (held at #822)

beat Them! (#823 → #824)

Joyeux Noel (2005)

IMDb plot summary: In December 1914, an unofficial Christmas truce on the Western Front allows soldiers from opposing sides of the First World War to gain insight into each other's way of life.

Directed by Christian Carion. Stars Diane Kruger, Benno Fürmann, and Guillaume Canet.

Joyeux Noel dramatizes the true story of the Christmas truce between French, Scottish, and German soldiers in the trenches during World War I. A friend really loved this and recommended it, which reminded me I've been meaning to watch it for forever. I'm glad I finally did.  It's a very meaningful story of humanity in the midst of chaos, told simply. I was especially struck by the latter third of the film, where it dealt with how these men were viewed as traitors for daring to see the enemy as human. It's maybe a little slow to put on as a regular holiday film, but I'm very glad I saw it, and I may revisit it next year when I need some additional optimism about humanity.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Joyeux Noel (2005)

📊 Ranked #1078/4166 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 74

beat Fahrenheit 451 (#2080 → #2081)

lost to 20th Century Women (held at #1039)

beat The Virtuous Sin (#1559 → #1560)

beat Kind Hearts and Coronets (#1299 → #1300)

beat Shakespeare Behind Bars (#1169 → #1170)

beat Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken (#1104 → #1105)

lost to Chronicle (held at #1071)

beat The Nice Guys (#1087 → #1088)

beat H.M.S. Defiant (#1079 → #1080)

lost to The Menu (held at #1075)

lost to Tremors (held at #1077)

beat Pariah (#1078 → #1079)

The Surfer (2025)

IMDb plot summary: A man returns to the idyllic beach of his childhood to surf with his son. When he is humiliated by a group of locals, the man is drawn into a conflict that keeps rising and pushes him to his breaking point.

Directed by Lorcan Finnegan. Stars Nicolas Cage, Finn Little, and Rahel Romahn.

The Surfer stars Nicolas Cage as a divorced man who has his heart set on buying his Australian childhood beach home, only to run up against multiple problems, primarily a territorial beach gang. What a weird strange movie this is. I truly never knew where it was going. The film it reminded me most of was The Swimmer, another surreal water-based story of someone just trying to get home, and this similarly starts taking on a larger-than-life almost Greek tragedy-style horror -- all in a very enjoyable way. I truly never knew where this was ever going to go. Like many Cage movies, I can't quite tell if this is a *good* movie or not. But it's definitely an interesting one.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 The Surfer (2025)

📊 Ranked #1086/4165 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 74

beat Phantom Thread (#2080 → #2081)

lost to 20th Century Women (held at #1039)

beat Laurence Anyways (#1559 → #1560)

beat Guys and Dolls (#1299 → #1300)

beat The Color Purple (#1169 → #1170)

beat Brave (#1104 → #1105)

lost to Chronicle (held at #1071)

beat The Palm Beach Story (#1087 → #1088)

lost to H.M.S. Defiant (held at #1079)

lost to Barbie (held at #1083)

lost to Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead (held at #1085)

beat The Nice Guys (#1086 → #1087)

Look Back (2024)

IMDb plot summary: The overly confident Fujino and the shut-in Kyomoto couldn't be more different, but a love of drawing manga brings these two small-town girls together.

Directed by Kiyotaka Oshiyama. Stars Yumi Kawai, Mizuki Yoshida, and Yôichirô Saitô.

Look Back is a Japanese animated film about a young girl who loves drawing manga and ends up befriending another painfully shy girl who shares the same interest. We follow their friendship through their school years. This is a gorgeous movie. These characters are so relatable, and I feel like we rarely get stories about middle school-aged girls. It also manages to work through what feels like a very long arc in a very short amount of time and still make it land. It ends on such a wonderful narrative note, despite the darkness of the story in the latter half. I'm very glad I found this one. I knew nothing about it but it was well worth the watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Look Back (2024)

📊 Ranked #533/4164 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 87

beat Phantom Thread (#2079 → #2080)

beat Guilty as Sin (#1039 → #1040)

lost to Crimes and Misdemeanors (held at #519)

beat Stowaway (#779 → #780)

beat Mad Max: Fury Road (#649 → #650)

beat American Splendor (#584 → #585)

beat Argo (#551 → #552)

beat Short Term 12 (#535 → #536)

lost to Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (held at #527)

lost to Cam (held at #531)

beat Network (#533 → #534)

lost to The People Under the Stairs (held at #532)

Wake Up Dead Man (2025)

IMDb plot summary: Detective Benoit Blanc teams up with an earnest young priest to investigate a perfectly impossible crime at a small-town church with a dark history.

Directed by Rian Johnson. Stars Daniel Craig, Josh O'Connor, and Glenn Close.

Wake Up Dead Man is the third in Rian Johnson's Benoit Blanc mystery series, and this time it centers on a priest played by Josh O'Connor who is assigned to a new church where he has serious concerns about the way things are going. And then, of course, there's a murder.

another really incredible entry into the Benoit Blanc mysteries... turns out Rian Johnson is really great at this. This one in particular hits home for me as a Christian myself, as this is asking some great questions about faith and justice and community, and I think it handles them really beautifully. It was also the first of the Blanc films where I was truly lured in by the mystery itself. My husband and I could NOT figure out how it happened, and the journey of figuring out the answer was wonderful. I wish Andrew Scott had had a bit more to do -- he's too talented an actor to be pushed into the background the way he was here. But overall, this is an excellent film. The series continues to be a treasure trove of "let's show good people getting good things in the face of evil" and I'm here for it forever.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)

📊 Ranked #305/4167 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 93

beat Fahrenheit 451 (#2081 → #2082)

beat Guilty as Sin (#1040 → #1041)

beat The Mummy (#520 → #521)

lost to That Thing You Do! (held at #260)

beat Hero (#390 → #391)

beat August Rush (#325 → #326)

lost to Two Lovers and a Bear (held at #292)

beat Leap of Faith (#308 → #309)

lost to Parasite (held at #300)

lost to Mass (held at #304)

beat Sabrina (#306 → #307)

beat Beginners (#305 → #306)

Zardoz (1974)

IMDb plot summary: In the late 23rd century, a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements.

Directed by John Boorman. Stars Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, and Sara Kestelman.

Zardoz is set in a far future when mankind is split into two groups: one lives in a utopia of immortality, the other fending for themselves in brutal wilderness tribes worshiping a god named Zardoz. Sean Connery begins in the second group and finds himself transported to living among the first. What a strange, enormously ambitious weirdo mess of a movie this is. It clearly has a vision, and I'd much rather watch a film with a vision than one without, but it sure is a messy confusing vision! There are a lot of vague points being made about evolving "past" feelings and desire, and how those things are ultimately what make life worth living, or something like that, but mostly we're just watching people in futuristic robes order around scantily-clad Sean Connery, and...well, that's definitely more sleazy fetish territory than deep sociological point. Ambitious, and I would be mildly interested in a coherent version of this concept, but this isn't it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Zardoz (1974)

📊 Ranked #3581/4150 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 14

lost to Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl (held at #2073)

lost to Two for the Money (held at #3111)

beat Courage Under Fire (#3629 → #3630)

lost to The Secret of My Success (held at #3370)

lost to All Dogs Go to Heaven (held at #3499)

lost to Marathon Man (held at #3564)

beat Maid in Manhattan (#3596 → #3597)

lost to Stardust Memories (held at #3580)

beat Mystic Pizza (#3588 → #3589)

beat S1m0ne (#3584 → #3585)

beat Pretty Poison (#3582 → #3583)

beat White Comanche (#3581 → #3582)

Uncle Buck (1989)

IMDb plot summary: Laid back commitment-phobe Buck babysits his brother's rebellious teenage daughter and her cute younger brother and sister.

Directed by John Hughes. Stars John Candy, Macaulay Culkin, and Jean Louisa Kelly.

Uncle Buck is a John Hughes movie about a carefree, well-intentioned but frequently chaotic man who is tasked with watching his brother's kids while their parents are dealing with family emergencies in another state. Buck's methods are unorthodox, but he does his best to keep things going smoothly while parents are gone. This is a sweet, well intentioned movie. The more I see John Candy in films, the more I like him. There's more gentle chuckling than full-on laughs here, which is very on brand for Hughes, and that sense of gentle fondness helps smooth over the parts that don't fully work. Not one of Hughes' best films, but I get why people like it.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Uncle Buck (1989)

📊 Ranked #1852/4163 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 56

beat Connie and Carla (#2080 → #2081)

lost to 20th Century Women (held at #1038)

lost to The Virtuous Sin (held at #1557)

lost to The Exorcist (held at #1817)

beat Bridge of Spies (#1949 → #1950)

beat Union Pacific (#1882 → #1883)

lost to White Heat (held at #1849)

beat Secret in Their Eyes (#1865 → #1866)

beat Bowling for Columbine (#1857 → #1858)

beat A Warm Corner (#1853 → #1854)

lost to Trading Places (held at #1851)

beat The Love Parade (#1852 → #1853)

Eddington (2025)

IMDb plot summary: In May of 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff and mayor sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.

Directed by Ari Aster. Stars Joaquin Phoenix, Deirdre O'Connell, and Emma Stone.

Eddington is Ari Aster’s newest film starring Joaquin Phoenix as a small-town sheriff who finds himself at odds with the mayor and the restrictions being placed on him during COVID, so he decides to run for mayor himself. What a strange movie this is. It starts off feeling very dreadcore but then that peters out, and it feels likes a more straightforward Coen Brothers crime film. Joaquin Phoenix absolutely nails the unsettling vibes of someone who has been pushed to their limit and is now terrifyingly unpredictable. Overall though, the film doesn't manage to stick the landing. It somehow becomes less and less upsetting the more it goes on and lands in more bland territory. It's lower on my Ari Aster list for sure, but we don't get a lot of films deliberately portraying this time in recent history, and that alone makes it an interesting watch.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Eddington (2025)

📊 Ranked #2085/4162 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 50

lost to Phantom Thread (held at #2078)

beat The Big House (#3118 → #3119)

beat Raging Bull (#2598 → #2599)

beat Selma (#2338 → #2339)

beat Napoleon (#2207 → #2208)

beat Splash (#2142 → #2143)

beat What Women Want (#2110 → #2111)

beat Pride and Prejudice (#2094 → #2095)

beat Cypher (#2086 → #2087)

lost to Raising Arizona (held at #2082)

lost to Blackadder: Back & Forth (held at #2084)

beat Blackmail Is My Life (#2085 → #2086)

Merrily We Roll Along (2025)

IMDb plot summary: Spanning three decades, the turbulent relationship between a composer and his two lifelong friends, a writer and a lyricist and playwright.

Directed by Maria Friedman. Stars Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, and Lindsay Mendez.

Merrily We Roll Along is a pro shot of the 2025 Stephen Sondheim musical following a group of artist friends who hit fame and begin to drift apart as a result. The gimmick here is that it is told in reverse chronological order, with the first scene showing that the friends have already fully severed ties and the final scene showing the night they first meet. I have only recently fallen in love with the show's cast album, and this clinches the deal, Merrily is SO GOOD. All three primary actors in this are incredible (easily my favorite thing Jonathan Groff's ever done). The decision to do multiple extremely close-up shots is very unusual for theatrical proshot, but it works great for small numbers. It feels out of place on the ensemble numbers, but Merrily is mostly an intimate show so it works more than it doesn't. I watched this at a time in my year when I was mourning a friend break-up, and looking at someone else's failing friendship in reverse order was surprisingly cathartic for me. It felt like I was being guided backward through my own friendship and learning how to let go of it while still remembering the good parts. This has become one of my favorite Sondheim scores, and I'm very glad that this particular cast has been captured on film, as I think they knock it out of the park.

How this entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Merrily We Roll Along (2025)

📊 Ranked #60/4161 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 99

beat Frances Ha (#2078 → #2079)

beat What Maisie Knew (#1039 → #1040)

beat The Mummy (#519 → #520)

beat That Thing You Do! (#259 → #260)

beat The Ring (#129 → #130)

beat Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (#64 → #65)

lost to WALL·E (held at #32)

lost to Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (held at #48)

lost to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (held at #56)

beat Before Sunrise (#60 → #61)

lost to The Prince of Egypt (held at #58)

lost to The Cabin in the Woods (held at #59)

Last Breath (2025)

IMDb plot summary: A true story that follows seasoned deep-sea divers as they battle the raging elements to rescue their crew mate trapped hundreds of feet below the ocean's surface.

Directed by Alex Parkinson. Stars Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, and Finn Cole.

Last Breath follows a team of mechanic divers who work on ocean bottom pipes. One day on the job, something goes horribly wrong and one of the mechanics gets stuck below, while his coworkers try to retrieve him. This is a pretty solid little thriller. I like the small ways in which it breaks from genre tropes -- for example, there's nobody here seriously arguing that it's too expensive to save the man's life. They just don't know how to bring him back. It also does a good job of bringing out the terrifying enormousness of the ocean. It's the exact right length for this kind of single-purpose single-location horror film, it keeps the tension going without wearing thin. Overall, not the best in its genre but fully watchable.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Last Breath (2025)

📊 Ranked #1238/4160 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 70

beat Frances Ha (#2077 → #2078)

lost to Guilty as Sin (held at #1038)

beat Loose Ankles (#1557 → #1558)

beat Sophie's Choice (#1297 → #1298)

lost to The Color Purple (held at #1167)

lost to Airheads (held at #1232)

beat The Post (#1264 → #1265)

beat The Hunt for Red October (#1248 → #1249)

beat Crimson Tide (#1240 → #1241)

lost to Logan's Run (held at #1236)

beat Bride & Prejudice (#1238 → #1239)

lost to Studio 666 (held at #1237)