South Pacific (1958)

IMDb plot summary: On a South Pacific island during World War II, love blooms between a young nurse and a secretive Frenchman who's being courted for a dangerous military mission.

Directed by Joshua Logan. Stars Rossano Brazzi, Mitzi Gaynor, and John Kerr.

South Pacific is a musical by Rodgers & Hammerstein, set during World War II. It tells the story of group of soldiers and nurses stationed in the South Pacific, focusing in particular on a series of romances and the racial biases that they must confront along the way. Rodgers & Hammerstein have never been my favorite, and this one doesn't win me over either. It does have some lovely songs performed well by the film's cast, but I've never been really convinced by how these songs enhance the story or vice versa. I was also unenthused by the film's decision to place all musical numbers behind a gauzy haze. I imagine that it's trying to lean into the romanticization of it, as if they've left reality by singing, so we're also leaving reality in terms of visuals, but mostly it didn't work for me. This is one of Rodgers and Hammerstein's more boring works in my opinion, and this film version didn't convince me otherwise.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 South Pacific (1958)

📊 Ranked #2708/4235 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 41

lost to Frank (#2200 → #2202)

beat The White Ribbon (#3224 → #3234)

beat Uptight (#2704 → #2713)

beat Wrong Turn (#2449 → #2451)

lost to The Year of Living Dangerously (#2326 → #2238)

beat Lost in America (#2387 → #2415)

lost to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (#2356 → #2297)

lost to The Woman in Black (#2371 → #2407)

lost to Killing Season (#2379 → #2240)

beat Get Shorty (#2383 → #2384)

lost to Rosemary's Baby (#2381 → #2251)

beat North (#2382 → #2383)

Descendant (2022)

IMDb plot summary: Follows descendants of the survivors from the Clotilda, the last ship that carried enslaved Africans to the United States, as they reclaim their story.

Directed by Margaret Brown.

Descendant is a documentary about the last known slave ship to dock in the US, and the descendants' attempts to find it as part of discovering their own history. This film does a good job as a documentary of highlighting interesting facts about history, both personal and national history, and why it's still important for us to learn about it. It's also structured well in terms of jumping between the past and future to show their interconnectedness. It successfully shows the effects the ripple effects of that slave ship landing in how it still impacts people even today, down to who controls the land in this area. Like most documentaries, the narrative is kind of hampered by the fact that real life doesn't usually have a nice neatly wrapped up ending, but as a film that is drawing attention to something, I think it does a good job.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Descendant (2022)

📊 Ranked #2568/4234 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 45

lost to Malcolm X (#2199 → #2219)

lost to Goldfinger (#3223 → #3233)

beat The Lizzie McGuire Movie (#3736 → #3737)

beat Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (#3484 → #3462)

beat The Fortune Cookie (#3354 → #3365)

beat McCabe & Mrs. Miller (#3287 → #3294)

beat Gozu (#3254 → #3268)

beat Where Eagles Dare (#3238 → #3259)

beat Theorem (#3230 → #3214)

lost to Whisper of the Heart (#3226 → #3159)

beat 12 Days of Terror (#3228 → #3212)

beat We're No Angels (#3227 → #3244)

Dilwale (2015)

IMDb plot summary: The younger siblings of two estranged lovers fall for each other, unaware of the violent past that drove the elder ones apart.

Directed by Rohit Shetty. Stars Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol, and Varun Dhawan.

Dilwale is a Bollywood musical movie about a couple that falls in love, only to find out that their older siblings are an estranged couple themselves, who were torn apart by gang rivalries. This reunites Kajol & Shah Rukh Khan from Dilwale Dilwale La Jahuenge, which I just saw and adored, but this one is a little less exciting. The generational aspect of this story is often a perk of Bollywood films, but here it makes the film feel a little bloated. There are some good individual songs -- I was familiar with "Janam Janam" and it's absolutely stunning context, and it's worth watching for that alone. But of all the Bollywood movies that I have been watching as part of my recent movie viewing, this is one that definitely is going to fade from my memory because it just didn't stand out. Not bad, but it pales in comparison to a lot of its better options.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Dilwale (2015)

📊 Ranked #2289/4233 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 49

lost to Celeste & Jesse Forever (#2197 → #2114)

beat Häxan (#3222 → #3229)

beat Wedding Crashers (#2702 → #2792)

beat The Commuter (#2447 → #2277)

beat The Year of Living Dangerously (#2324 → #2336)

lost to The Blues Brothers (#2262 → #2266)

beat Road House (#2292 → #2465)

lost to Top Hat (#2277 → #2205)

beat The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (#2284 → #2298)

lost to Safety Not Guaranteed (#2280 → #2264)

lost to Sorry, Wrong Number (#2282 → #2232)

beat Mank (#2283 → #2294)

Highest 2 Lowest (2025)

IMDb plot summary: When a titan music mogul is targeted with a ransom plot, he is jammed up in a life-or-death moral dilemma.

Directed by Spike Lee. Stars Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, and Ilfenesh Hadera.

Highest 2 Lowest is a Spike Lee remake of an Akira Kurosawa film, about a wealthy man whose son is kidnapped and held for ransom. He and the people around him must figure out how to respond. This is more interesting in concept than it is in execution. It seems like it would be a natural transition into the modern era, but it ultimately ends up feeling clunky, with overly expository dialogue, even given Lee's expository style. The first half is more interesting conceptually than the second, where it just becomes a typical action flick. The acting is uneven as well. Jeffrey Wright does a great job (when does he ever not?) but Denzel Washington feels didactic and stagey in the worst way. Mostly this just made me want to go back and watch the original, because although this is a great concept for a story and Wright is worth watching, so much of it is just kind of disappointing.

🎥 Highest 2 Lowest (2025)

📊 Ranked #1810/4233 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 58

beat Camp Rock (#2199 → #2278)

lost to Speak No Evil (#1148 → #1166)

lost to The Meg (#1668 → #1568)

lost to Dressed to Kill (held at #1935)

beat Blow Dry (#2060 → #2062)

lost to Away We Go (#1998 → #1986)

beat For Pete's Sake (#2029 → #2093)

lost to A Song Is Born (#2012 → #2016)

lost to State and Main (#2021 → #1937)

beat One 2 Ka 4 (#2025 → #2089)

beat The Seventh Seal (#2023 → #2021)

lost to Shine (#2022 → #1936)

The Straight Story (1999)

IMDb plot summary: Alvin Straight, a 73-year-old, learns that his estranged brother, Lyle is critically ill. Unable to drive, Alvin embarks on a journey from Iowa to Mt. Zion by riding a lawn mower.

Directed by David Lynch. Stars Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, and Jane Galloway Heitz.

The Straight Story is a David Lynch drama about an elderly man who plans to travel the country to visit his estranged brother, who has had a stroke. Only problem is, he has no way to get there, until he decides to drive his riding mower. This is a huge departure from what Lynch is most known for -- this is a quiet, realism-centered, heartwarming story, rather than the bizarre fever dreams I associate with him. It's easier to follow for sure, but also just kind of sits there for me. It's so slow and so quiet, there's almost nothing happening. There's no denying it is a pleasant and warm film, but I did almost immediately forget it. I have no doubt this is going to be some people's favorite movie by Lynch, but it all fell a little flat for me.

🎥 The Straight Story (1999)

📊 Ranked #1812/4232 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 58

lost to The Fourth Kind (#2198 → #2193)

beat The Revengers' Comedies (held at #3222)

beat Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (#2702 → #2703)

beat King Richard (#2446 → #2516)

beat Mad Max (#2322 → #2319)

beat Hairspray (#2261 → #2398)

beat Vampyr (#2229 → #2299)

beat Tiny Furniture (#2213 → #2211)

beat Being the Ricardos (#2205 → #2203)

beat Exhuma (#2201 → #2215)

lost to Camp Rock (#2199 → #2198)

beat We Need to Talk About Kevin (#2200 → #2199)

It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947)

IMDb plot summary: Two homeless men move into a mansion while its owners are wintering in the South.

Directed by Roy Del Ruth. Stars Don DeFore, Ann Harding, and Charles Ruggles.

It Happened on Fifth Avenue tells the story of a group of down-on-their-luck people who squat in a rich man's mansion for the winter while he's in his summer home. When the daughter of the rich man joins them -- although the others have no idea who she is -- she starts hatching a plan to help them get back on their feet. This is a warm movie with lots of Christmas spirit that I can definitely see growing on me and becoming part of my yearly rotation. I kind of hoped for a more staunchly anti-hoarding message, more than "rich people just need to learn to be generally kind," but this is a nice contrast to the more materialistic stories. It's fun to watch the large cast of characters grow and interact with each other in various ways. There aren't a lot of laugh out loud moments, but it's very cozy, and I plan to return to it and see if it grows on me further.

🎥 It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947)

📊 Ranked #980/4229 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 77

beat Eddington (#2131 → #2132)

beat Blink Twice (#1110 → #1111)

lost to The Big Sick (held at #595)

lost to Bodies Bodies Bodies (held at #853)

lost to Anna Karenina (held at #978)

beat Wag the Dog (#1044 → #1045)

beat The Man in the Iron Mask (#1013 → #1014)

beat Boy A (#993 → #994)

beat Little Women (#985 → #986)

beat Mirage (#981 → #982)

lost to Twins (held at #979)

La Moustache (2005)

IMDb plot summary: Mark is a middle-aged man who has spent most of his life with a mustache on his face. He suddenly decides to shave it.

Directed by Emmanuel Carrère. Stars Vincent Lindon, Emmanuelle Devos, and Mathieu Amalric.

La Moustache is a French film about a man who, on a whim, shaves his moustache. Then things start getting weird: his wife insists he never had a moustache, and other things about his life seem to be breaking with his known reality. I was kind of dreading this one, given my not-great relationship with both semi-surreal films and French film, but it won me over much more than I expected. The score, by Philip Glass, does a lot of the heavy lifting in connecting me with the film emotionally, particularly during one long mostly-wordless section where our main character basically tries to run away from the whole situation. While it could have been irritating that we never get an explanation as to what's actually happening to this character, it mostly worked and hit the emotional beats as we just see him figure out how to cope with it. Our main character's behavior is believable even when his circumstances are bonkers, so it's easy to follow along with him on that journey. It's an interesting and strange little film that captured me.

🎥 The Moustache (2005)

📊 Ranked #1075/4228 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 75

beat Eddington (#2130 → #2131)

beat Barbie (#1110 → #1111)

lost to The Big Sick (held at #595)

lost to Bodies Bodies Bodies (held at #853)

lost to Anna Karenina (held at #978)

lost to Wag the Dog (held at #1044)

beat Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (#1075 → #1076)

lost to Cannibal! The Musical (held at #1059)

lost to The Pirates of Penzance (held at #1067)

lost to Hot Millions (held at #1071)

lost to Shin Godzilla (held at #1073)

Obex (2025)

IMDb plot summary: Conor Marsh's secluded life is disrupted when he plays the OBEX game. His dog Sandy disappears, blurring reality and game. Conor enters the OBEX world to rescue Sandy, navigating its strange realms.

Directed by Albert Birney. Stars Albert Birney, Callie Hernandez, and Frank Mosley.

Obex is a strange little film about a very introverted man in the late 80s who is very into new tech. He gets the chance to try a new computer game called Obex, but it starts blurring the line between reality and fiction, and eventually captures his dog from the real world into the game world, and he has to go rescue him. The vibe of this is very much that one man and maybe his two buddies made a movie in their apartment and with a green screen, but it's definitely also part of the aesthetic, especially as we're also focusing on the late-80s tech and the pixelated computer screens. I appreciate I never knew where this movie was going. It managed to keep surprising me, but even more so as it got to the ending, which was an unexpectedly pleasant landing place. I left with very warm feelings toward it, which were not what I anticipated given the pretty terrifying moments of tension throughout so much of the film. A fascinating little movie that I'm very glad I got to see.

🎥 OBEX (2026)

📊 Ranked #1213/4227 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 71

beat Raising Arizona (#2130 → #2131)

lost to Barbie (held at #1110)

beat Backbeat (#1620 → #1621)

beat Corrina, Corrina (#1364 → #1365)

beat The Awful Truth (#1236 → #1237)

lost to Brazil (held at #1172)

lost to Come and See (held at #1205)

beat Auntie Mame (#1220 → #1221)

lost to The Last Seduction (held at #1212)

beat Hoodwinked! (#1216 → #1217)

beat Gone Girl (#1214 → #1215)

The Rock (1996)

IMDb plot summary: An FBI chemical weapons expert, and a former SAS soldier turned political prisoner, must break into Alcatraz prison when a rogue military group, led by a renegade general, take it over and threaten a nerve gas attack on San Francisco.

Directed by Michael Bay. Stars Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, and Ed Harris.

The Rock is a Michael Bay film in which a U.S. military leader takes over Alcatraz with a threat to launch devastating bombs at the city if his demands are not met. An explosives expert, played by Nicolas Cage, and a convict who escaped from Alcatraz years ago, played by Sean Connery, must break back in and disarm the bombs before they're launched. The only Michael Bay movie I think I can say I actually enjoyed is Ambulance, and this movie adds another to the "meh" list for me. It's a good concept, and I love the motivation of the lead villain -- that's ripe for cinematic exploration -- but they get super lazy and just drop it when it gets inconvenient. Nicolas Cage is hamming it up, but very inconsistently, and Sean Connery is playing the whole thing pretty straight, and the combo is awkward. Overall pretty disappointing as an action film, although admittedly this is not a genre tailor-made for me to begin with

Had some difficulties saving my Flickchart full ranking, but it landed at 55% on my chart.

Bruno (2009)

IMDb plot summary: Flamboyant, gay Austrian Brüno looks for new fame in America.

Directed by Larry Charles. Stars Sacha Baron Cohen, Gustaf Hammarsten, and Clifford Bañagale.

Bruno is a film by Sacha Baron Cohen where, much like he did with Borat, he plays an outlandish character interacting with real people in the real world. Here, Bruno is a gay Austrian model determined to become famous, but his vapidness and aggressive sexual drive is at odds with most of the people he encounters. I enjoyed Borat and pieces of Sacha Baron Cohen's TV show that launched these characters, but this one just REALLY didn't work for me. While Borat was about discovering people's lines and boundaries around racism and misogyny, and exposing what they thought they'd do when it was a safe space, Bruno focuses far, far too often on the title character basically sexually harrassing or assaulting people around him, and that never makes me laugh, even if it's happening to quote-unquote "bad people." There are one or two good moments -- one series of interviews with actors parents that is equal parts hilarious and horrifying, and one interview with a conversion therapy pastor where his attempts to explain the concept to someone as unintelligent as Bruno forces him to say some of the quiet parts out loud. But much more of the movie just seeing how explicit Bruno can get with someone before they get angry, and in a #MeToo world that absolutely includes gay men as victims, the attempt at satire disappears. Definitely one of the weaker efforts from this creator.

🎥 Brüno (2009)

📊 Ranked #3507/4225 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 17

lost to The Internship (held at #2156)

lost to Dear Evan Hansen (held at #3205)

beat Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (#3716 → #3717)

lost to Magic in the Moonlight (held at #3461)

beat Atomic Blonde (#3589 → #3590)

beat Arlington Road (#3526 → #3527)

lost to Highlander (held at #3494)

beat The Words (#3510 → #3511)

lost to The Peanut Butter Falcon (held at #3502)

lost to Talk to Her (held at #3506)

beat The Color of Pomegranates (#3508 → #3509)

Sicario (2015)

IMDb plot summary: An FBI agent joins a covert DoD task force targeting a Mexican cartel. Operating outside legal boundaries with a CIA handler and a mysterious fixer, she discovers the mission's true purpose goes far beyond what she was told.

Directed by Denis Villeneuve. Stars Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, and Benicio Del Toro.

Sicario is a Denis Villeneuve film starring Emily Blunt as an FBI agent who gets pulled into a mysterious operation involving Mexican drug cartels. She begins to suspect it's not quite on the up-and-up but wants to get to the bottom of it and continues getting in deeper. Sometimes Villeneuve works perfectly for me, but a lot of his more crime-centric ones fall a little flat, and that is definitely the case here. Maybe I'm too cynical these days to get out of these movies what I'm supposed to, but it seemed pretty obvious to me early on how shady everything was, and so Emily Blunt's character's disillusionment never quite landed for me. It doesn't help that Blunt feels particularly bland to me in action films, while she's very good in others -- here, she just seems to blend into the background, so the story of her realization doesn't land. This one is pretty well acclaimed, so there must be something about it that sets it apart from other similar crime films, but it wasn't evident to me.

🎥 Sicario (2015)

📊 Ranked #2188/4224 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 48

lost to Cropsey (held at #2155)

beat Dear Evan Hansen (#3204 → #3205)

beat Mystic River (#2673 → #2674)

beat Cambio de ruta (#2416 → #2417)

beat Cowboys & Aliens (#2284 → #2285)

beat Country Strong (#2219 → #2220)

lost to Bottle Shock (held at #2187)

beat The Wailing (#2203 → #2204)

beat The Worst Person in the World (#2195 → #2196)

beat The Good Dinosaur (#2191 → #2192)

beat Splash (#2189 → #2190)

Drunken Angel (1948)

IMDb plot summary: A drunken doctor with a hot temper and a violence-prone gangster with tuberculosis form a quicksilver bond.

Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Stars Takashi Shimura, Toshirō Mifune, and Reizaburō Yamamoto.

Drunken Angel is an early Akira Kurosawa film starring Takashi Shimura as an alcoholic doctor and Toshiro Mifune as the young reckless yakuza diagnosed with tuberculosis. The two form a begrudging bond as their self-destructive tendencies threaten to end them both. This definitely has a lot of Kurosawa hallmarks, including of course two of his favorite actors, and although it feels a little raw in its execution, overall it works very well. Our two leads are, unsurprisingly, extremely charismatic, and it's worth it just to watch the two of them go back and forth with their disparate worldviews. It definitely leans into an older style of acting, the kind I expect to see in a lot of older films, and one that is refreshingly absent in Kurosawa's later, more realism-based work. There are a few moments that are a little slower or more didactic than Kurosawa's later works, but it's still well worth a watch, especially if you're a fan of his to begin with.

🎥 Drunken Angel (1948)

📊 Ranked #579/4223 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 86

beat The Internship (#2155 → #2156)

beat Whip It (#1123 → #1124)

beat The Reader (#603 → #604)

lost to Deathtrap (held at #299)

lost to Rurouni Kenshin Part I: Origins (held at #463)

lost to The White Tiger (held at #536)

lost to Life After Beth (held at #570)

beat Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (#586 → #587)

lost to Being John Malkovich (held at #578)

beat The Kid Detective (#582 → #583)

beat Spotlight (#580 → #581)

Fyre (2019)

IMDb plot summary: An exclusive behind the scenes look at the infamous unraveling of the Fyre music festival.

Directed by Chris Smith.

Fyre is one of the two Fyre Festival documentaries released at the same time. This one was the one released on Netflix. I couldn't tell you anything about the other one or if this one is better than it. I do know the story it's telling is absolutely insane: a group of people who attempt to put on a giant music festival with zero preparation and no effort put into things as simple as ensuring that there were enough beds, or that people could get water. It's wild. Watching it made me extremely claustrophobic and frightened for the times that i have had to do administrative paperwork -- I'm pretty sure this is how this is going to go every time, because i don't trust myself with that, so I felt this anxiety watching it, thinking, "Oh no, what if I too was in charge of a music festival?" (Of course, the nice thing is that I don't ever have to be in charge of a music festival. The organizers should also have made that choice.) The actual festival itself is gone through very quickly and then almost blown past. We almost don't get an ending piece to it. We jump from first night, where people arrive and are getting angry, to suddenly everybody's home. The stories that are most compelling are those of the people who knew this was going to be a disaster and were trying to stop it, saying, "Hey, we've got to tell people the truth about this." It's an interesting story, and this film does a pretty good job telling it. I wish I knew a little bit more about the aftermath -- that gets overlooked a little bit in this story -- but still definitely an interesting film to watch, especially if you were there for the memes and always wondered how did this happen in the first place.

🎥 Fyre (2019)

📊 Ranked #2062/4222 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 51

beat VeggieTales: Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler (#2152 → #2153)

lost to Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (held at #1122)

lost to Kajaki (held at #1635)

lost to I Lost My Body (held at #1898)

lost to The Bishop's Wife (held at #2024)

beat Bonnie and Clyde (#2088 → #2089)

lost to The Last Castle (held at #2056)

beat America's Sweethearts (#2072 → #2073)

beat Disturbia (#2064 → #2065)

lost to EDtv (held at #2060)

beat Spy Game (#2062 → #2063)

When We Were Kings (1996)

IMDb plot summary: Boxing documentary on the 1974 world heavyweight championship bout between defending champion, George Foreman, and the underdog challenger, Muhammad Ali.

Directed by Leon Gast.

When We Were Kings is a 1996 documentary about Muhammad Ali and his fight with George Foreman. I did watch this at an unfortunate time in my viewing when I was watching two documentaries at the same time and couldn't ever quite get myself in the right headspace for either of them, so I admit that there is something about this that i couldn't quite get into. That could easily be my fault as much as it is the movie's. I liked its portrayal of Ali. I felt like I knew him a little bit better by the end, which was nice because i really didn't have any sense of who he was as a persona. They do a really good job of pointing out what made him unique as a public figure, in his wit and his cocky boldness, which came across as charming and young rather than rather than just macho posturing. I did not particularly care to follow along with the politics of where and when to have this fight. That was much less interesting to me than just watching Ali as a human. I'm sure some of this is just a missed era of pop culture for me, where it's just not something that I know a lot about, so I don't have any stakes in it. There's some really nice music in this as well. The score really helped to bring home the whole vibe of Ali as a figurehead representing his community, for better or for worse. Probably more interesting if you had a connection to the story, but I did feel like I learned something.

🎥 When We Were Kings (1996)

📊 Ranked #2517/4221 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 40

lost to Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan (held at #2151)

beat 12 Days of Terror (#3203 → #3204)

beat The Man Who Knew Too Much (#2667 → #2668)

lost to Neighbors (held at #2411)

beat Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (#2539 → #2540)

lost to Safety Not Guaranteed (held at #2476)

lost to Meet Me in St. Louis (held at #2507)

beat National Theatre Live: The Habit of Art (#2523 → #2524)

lost to Free Guy (held at #2515)

beat Anna (#2519 → #2520)

beat Raffles (#2517 → #2518)

A Man Called Ove (2015)

IMDb plot summary: Ove, an ill-tempered, isolated retiree who spends his days enforcing block association rules and visiting his wife's grave, has finally given up on life just as an unlikely friendship develops with his boisterous new neighbors.

Directed by Hannes Holm. Stars Rolf Lassgård, Bahar Pars, and Filip Berg.

A Man Called Ove is a Swedish film about an elderly man whose wife has recently passed, and he has decided to end his life. However, he keeps getting interrupted by his new neighbors, an immigrant family who frequently need his help. I had seen the American remake of this starring Tom Hanks and thought it was just okay, but oh my gosh, I love this one so much. There are two things that make this one stand out in comparison. One is that it allows itself to have much more humor. The scenes where he is interrupted are genuinely very funny, many of the scenes where he is so upset are genuinely very funny, and the American version doesn't seem to allow itself that kind of darkness in the comedy. The other thing that I think makes a huge difference is that Hanks plays the character as a normal grumpy man who is fed up with life and is mad at everybody, but in the original, Ove is absolutely 100% neurodivergent, probably an autistic man. His rigid adherence to rules is not him being a tool, his difficulty relating to other people and his frustration that they don't follow his rules are not him being obnoxious and controlling. It's him trying to find a way to cope and relate to others. So when these characters manage to find a way into his heart, it's not because the magic of children has suddenly opened up a cranky man's heart who hates everyone. It's that he doesn't have to play the social games anymore, because the mom and her children scoot past them, and they actually relate to him and accept his weirdness. Through that lens, it's an entirely different story. I don't have to be convinced that this family has changed his heart. In this case, they just made a comfortable space for him, and the kindness that was always a part of him that he reserved gets released. It's both darker and more life-affirming than the American remake. I often like the non-subtlety of a lot of American remakes -- I gravitate toward the theatricality -- but if you get a chance to watch this one, it's such a gem and I will definitely watch it again.

🎥 A Man Called Ove (2015)

📊 Ranked #408/4220 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 90

beat The Shining (#2157 → #2158)

beat Miss Saigon: 25th Anniversary Performance (#1130 → #1131)

beat The Way Way Back (#611 → #612)

lost to Annihilation (held at #306)

beat Boyz n the Hood (#472 → #473)

lost to Fail Safe (held at #386)

beat High School Musical 2 (#424 → #425)

lost to Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (held at #403)

beat Before Sunset (#412 → #413)

lost to Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (held at #407)

beat Adaptation. (#409 → #410)

Babylon (2022)

IMDb plot summary: A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, it traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood.

Directed by Damien Chazelle. Stars Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, and Jean Smart.

Babylon is Damien Chazelle's movie from 2022, a giant sprawling three-hour epic about early Hollywood, specifically the transition from silence into talkies. We follow a few different key figures: a young Mexican security guard who finds himself rising through the ranks, and two stars who do not adjust particularly well in the transition from silence to talkies. Notably the first 25 minutes is an enormous decadent orgy party at a producer's home, and it continues on this big decadent road. A lot of this works, although both this and La La Land show me that Chazelle is not my ideal crafter of movies about movies. I like the ensemble casting here, but I can't tell if I love or hate the strange absurdist tone in the latter half of the film. There's a scene toward the end where one of the characters watches Singin' in the Rain in the 50s, where the characters are very much reminiscent of these two actors who were not able to make the transition smoothly, and it makes the comedic scenes hit in a different way. I both loved and hated that. It did have the emotional punch needed, but I also felt very aware that the entire movie had been written for that scene, and it was hard to hold that awareness without at least a little eye rolling. The three-hour runtime is also a LOT. You could tell this story just as effectively in two. There are a lot of great individual scenes in this (I particularly enjoyed a confrontation between Brad Pitt and Jean Smart), but it's so long, and the ending does hit you over the head in a way doesn't feel like our long journey had been fully justified.

🎥 Babylon (2022)

📊 Ranked #1406/4219 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 67

beat Dunkirk (#2157 → #2158)

lost to Miss Saigon: 25th Anniversary Performance (held at #1130)

beat Sin Takes a Holiday (#1642 → #1643)

lost to Shadow of the Vampire (held at #1386)

beat Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (#1515 → #1516)

beat How to Train Your Dragon (#1450 → #1451)

beat Duck Soup (#1418 → #1419)

lost to Death by Hanging (held at #1402)

beat Under the Skin (#1410 → #1411)

beat Child's Play (#1406 → #1407)

lost to Summer Stock (held at #1404)

Day Zero (2007)

IMDb plot summary: The military draft is back, and three best friends are drafted and given 30 days to report for duty. In that time, they're forced to confront everything they believe about courage, duty, love, friendship, and honor.

Directed by Bryan Gunnar Cole. Stars Elijah Wood, Chris Klein, and Jon Bernthal.

Day Zero is set in a mid-2000s version of America where average citizens are drafted into military service to go fight in the Middle East. We follow three men, played by Elijah Wood, Chris Klein and Jon Bernthal, who are all good friends who get drafted at the same time. We join the countdown in their lives down to that day, watching them process it and figure out all the things that they are worried about, whether they're going to try to get out of it, whether it's something they're proud of. This film got absolutely eviscerated by critics, but I didn't think it was that bad. It's a little edgelord-y at times, but the core concept of it isn't terrible, and some of the acting choices are interesting. The characters are written in good balance with each other, where each one of them is saying something unique and different about their place in the world, even as they all share the experience of being semi-privileged young white men who suddenly find themselves in a position of having to give up those privileges, and how they respond to that when their country is letting them down that way. It doesn't pull off the ending, and it doesn't manage to say as much as it thinks it's saying by the time the credits roll, but I stayed engaged on the ride. It's a 12% on Rotten Tomatoes, which feels absolutely incorrect, when this is clearly around a 50: adequate but not exciting.

🎥 Day Zero (2007)

📊 Ranked #2261/4218 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 46

lost to The Shining (held at #2156)

beat City Slickers (#3204 → #3205)

beat The Muppets Take Manhattan (#2670 → #2671)

beat 42 (#2415 → #2416)

beat Superman Returns (#2284 → #2285)

lost to It's Kind of a Funny Story (held at #2219)

lost to Kiki's Delivery Service (held at #2250)

beat The Green Goddess (#2268 → #2269)

lost to All Quiet on the Western Front (held at #2260)

beat To Kill a King (#2264 → #2265)

beat The Unsinkable Molly Brown (#2262 → #2263)

In This Corner of the World (2016)

IMDb plot summary: A spirited 18-year-old woman is married off to a man she barely knows as she combats the daily struggles of living in Hiroshima during World War II.

Directed by Sunao Katabuchi. Stars Non, Megumi Han, and Yoshimasa Hosoya.

In This Corner of the World is an animated movie about a young woman from Hiroshima in the 1940s who enters into an arranged marriage. We follow her from her childhood all the way through the aftermath of World War II, seeing the effects of the war on her and the life that she's trying to build with her new family. This one took a little while to grow on me, but ultimately it really landed. I became very connected emotionally to this character who is an average girl trying to be a good and kind person. I love the relationship that builds between her and her husband, where they really don't know each other well at first, but then then they slowly start to grow together, especially in the portion of the film where a past love comes back and tries to steal her away. The relationship that she builds with her niece who lives with them for awhile is also beautifully done. This was a very dark time in history, and while there is hope and positivity in this, it does have some heart-wrenching moments as it gets to the the end of their story. The obvious comparison here is Grave of the Fireflies, but here there's a more obvious throughline of hope and finding meaning even in dark difficult times. Beautifully put together and worth watching.

🎥 In This Corner of the World (2016)

📊 Ranked #600/4217 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 86

beat Wimbledon (#2159 → #2160)

beat Fresh (#1133 → #1134)

beat Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (#616 → #617)

lost to Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (held at #311)

lost to The Parent Trap (held at #479)

lost to Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (held at #551)

lost to Portrait of a Lady on Fire (held at #582)

lost to Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (held at #599)

beat Animal Crackers (#607 → #608)

beat The Courtship of Eddie's Father (#603 → #604)

beat The Reader (#601 → #602)