Mazes and Monsters (1982)

IMDb plot summary: When a group of friends decide to take their role-playing gaming to another level, one of their own's mental instability begins to take it too far for him.

Directed by Steven Hilliard Stern. Stars Tom Hanks, Wendy Crewson, and David Wysocki.

Mazes and Monsters is a TV movie featuring Tom Hanks in his first lead role. He plays a college student who has a mental break during a tabletop roleplaying game (modeled after Dungeons & Dragons) and begins to believe he is the actual character. This made the rounds on TikTok for his infamously cringey final scene and take on roleplaying, but it wasn't quite as bad as that scene made it look like out of context. It's definitely got cheesy TV movie dialogue, but it's not being dogmatic about the evils of Dungeons & Dragons, which would have made this a very different story. Hanks is pretty good in his first feature, really embodying this character's fragile psyche and making us feel a little worried for his well-being right from the beginning. The ending definitely does lean into earnestness in a way that is a little eye-rolly, but it's just silly, not irritating. 

🎥 Mazes and Monsters (1982)

📊 Ranked #2919/4272 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 36

lost to Hamlet (#2112 → #2113)

beat Captain January (#3214 → #3351)

lost to The TV Set (#2652 → #2649)

beat Born Reckless (#2939 → #2971)

beat Enemy of the State (held at #2800)

lost to Uptight (#2727 → #2652)

lost to Bill Cunningham New York (#2766 → #2717)

beat Mission: Impossible III (#2783 → #2749)

lost to Dr. Seuss on the Loose (#2774 → #2789)

beat Ace High (#2779 → #2790)

beat Adam (#2777 → #2884)

lost to UHF (#2776 → #2722)

Machete (2010)

IMDb plot summary: After being set-up and betrayed by the man who hired him to assassinate a Texas Senator, an ex-Federale launches a brutal rampage of revenge against his former boss.

Directed by Ethan Maniquis and Robert Rodriguez. Stars Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, and Robert De Niro.

Machete stars Danny Trejo as an assassin who is hunting down a corrupt politician, and it is a big and bloody adventure. This film was spun off of a fake trailer made by Robert Rodriguez as part of the promotion for Grindhouse, and it feels about as deep as the fake trailer. It's often even comedically ridiculous in its machisimo, between blood spurting everywhere and Machete just casually sleeping with literally every woman he runs across. There isn't any actual depth to this or anything I'm likely to remember, it's just a high-adrenaline ride through a bunch of madcap action sequences. A fun experience while I'm watching it, but it's not going to stick with me, although I'm sure it'd be a slightly different story if I loved this genre to begin with.

🎥 Machete (2010)

📊 Ranked #2583/4271 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 44

lost to Hamlet (#2114 → #2113)

beat Benedetta (#3215 → #3216)

beat Framed (#2652 → #2657)

beat An Innocent Man (#2395 → #2394)

lost to Spy Game (#2263 → #2123)

beat St. Vincent (#2330 → #2582)

beat Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (#2296 → #2478)

lost to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (#2279 → #2285)

lost to The Importance of Being Earnest (#2288 → #2268)

beat Flora & Ulysses (#2292 → #2476)

beat A Time to Kill (#2290 → #2297)

beat The Firm (#2289 → #2307)

Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)

IMDb plot summary: A series of vignettes that all have coffee and cigarettes in common.

Directed by Jim Jarmusch. Stars Bill Murray, Tom Waits, and Roberto Benigni.

Coffee and Cigarettes is an anthology film by Jim Jarmusch in which each short segment is centered around a character (or two or three) partaking in coffee and cigarettes under some circumstances. Many of these segments feature big-name actors and celebrities playing themselves. Like most anthology films, this one has good and bad segments, but overall this was an enjoyable and intriguing watch. Jarmusch's slow burn method of storytelling doesn't stretch for me over a full-length feature, but I enjoy this in small doses where I get a new setup every ten minutes or so. My personal favorite was the one starring Cate Blanchett as herself and her much less successful cousin, meeting for a brief catch-up during a press junket for Blanchett's newest film. It feels like a casual brainstorming exercise rather than a film, where every so often Jarmusch just said, "Hey, let's give some coffee and cigarettes to the actors I have in front of me and improvise something," and while it sometimes falls flat, it's an interesting creative experiment. It's a unique film that I'm glad I got to see.

🎥 Coffee and Cigarettes (2004)

📊 Ranked #1609/4269 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 63

beat The Master (#2116 → #2117)

lost to Fever Pitch (#1085 → #1083)

lost to The Long Day Closes (#1598 → #1602)

beat 3 Men and a Baby (#1855 → #1854)

lost to The Miracle Worker (#1729 → #1584)

beat Walk on the Wild Side (#1792 → #1795)

beat Man Hunt (#1761 → #1834)

lost to The Wolf Man (#1745 → #1616)

lost to The Gold Rush (#1753 → #1754)

beat Fearless (#1757 → #1758)

beat Backbeat (#1755 → #1756)

beat 12 Years a Slave (#1754 → #1803)

But I'm a Cheerleader (1999)

IMDb plot summary: A naïve teenager is sent to "sexual redirection" school when her straitlaced parents and friends suspect her of being gay.

Directed by Jamie Babbit. Stars Natasha Lyonne, Clea DuVall, and Melanie Lynskey.

But I'm a Cheerleader stars Natasha Lyonne as a cheerleader who is sent away to a camp for anti-gay conversion therapy -- she didn't even realize she was a lesbian until her family signed her up -- and we follow her journey as she figures out her newly discovered sexuality. This is a wonderful and frequently hilarious satire that also ultimately ends up being pretty sweet. Natasha Lyonne is delightful as this oblivious but well-intentioned character with no self-awareness. The comedy is extremely big and broad but the humanity at the heart of all of it is undeniable. I can easily see why critics didn't love it -- it takes BIG tonal swings that absolutely won't land with everyone -- but also why it became a cult classic. It's a fun ride and I'm glad I got to see it.

🎥 But I'm a Cheerleader (2000)

📊 Ranked #907/4268 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 78

beat Gypsy (#2115 → #2209)

beat Flee (held at #1084)

beat I've Loved You So Long (#561 → #606)

lost to Spirited (#255 → #250)

beat Submarine (#412 → #413)

lost to The Banshees of Inisherin (#330 → #333)

lost to Hundreds of Beavers (#373 → #378)

lost to The Bridge on the River Kwai (#393 → #258)

lost to Morgan (#403 → #396)

lost to Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical (#407 → #408)

beat The Boat That Rocked (#410 → #434)

lost to Enchanted April (#408 → #402)

Parenthood (1989)

IMDb plot summary: Four Buckman siblings attempt to raise their children - each in their own different style - and deal with the joys and sorrows that the process brings.

Directed by Ron Howard. Stars Steve Martin, Mary Steenburgen, and Dianne Wiest.

Parenthood is an ensemble comedy/drama film about, well, parenthood, starring, among others, Steve Martin, Mary Steenburgen, and Rick Moranis. We see how these people deal with the struggles of raising their children, as well as their current relationship with their own father and how that plays into it. There is a gentle warmth to this movie that really draws you into it. Everybody's performances manage to be comedic while also feeling fully genuine, and that's a pretty impressive feat. That being said, though, I have trouble remembering individual beats now that it's been a few days since I watched it, even while I was confident I enjoyed it. I wonder if this is one that I am going to be inclined to return to, knowing that it was a good watch but not holding any of the specifics in mind so they will surprise me again. A good film but not a great one.

🎥 Parenthood (1989)

📊 Ranked #1038/4265 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 76

beat 21 (#2009 → #2055)

lost to Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead (#1076 → #1088)

beat National Treasure (#1633 → #1680)

beat Seven Chances (#1360 → #1355)

beat Nina Wu (#1233 → #1215)

beat Forgiving Dr. Mengele (#1132 → #1144)

beat Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (#1149 → #1132)

lost to Re-Animator (#1105 → #1104)

beat National Lampoon's Vacation (#1126 → #1125)

beat The Game (held at #1112)

lost to The Black Cat (#1130 → #1110)

lost to Sisters (#1148 → #923)

Krisha (2015)

IMDb plot summary: Krisha returns for Thanksgiving dinner after ten years away from her family, but past demons threaten to ruin the festivities.

Directed by Trey Edward Shults. Stars Krisha Fairchild, Alex Dobrenko, and Robyn Fairchild.

Krisha is a drama about a middle-aged woman coming back to spend Thanksgiving with close family and friends after years of being apart from them. We start seeing the relationships tense up as she tries to reconnect. This one is a slow burn, but the final third really cranks up the tension and had me glued to the screen. It's one of those films that allows its characters to sit and interact together slowly, unraveling the pieces of their personalities bit by bit, and that pays off. That works best if you can *trust* that the early quiet moments are building to something interesting, and that sometimes comes into question with occasionally awkward or overly expositional dialogue, but mostly it held my attention. And then, as I said, it comes together nicely in the end for an explosive, if very sad, conclusion. Worth a watch.

🎥 Krisha (2016)

📊 Ranked #1643/4266 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 62

beat Real Life (#2127 → #2128)

lost to Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (#1090 → #915)

lost to The Long Day Closes (#1603 → #1602)

beat Platoon (#1861 → #1862)

beat Hamlet (#1736 → #1738)

beat Swing Shift (#1665 → #1666)

lost to Glory (held at #1634)

lost to Killers of the Flower Moon (#1649 → #1651)

beat The Tragedy of Macbeth (#1657 → #1667)

lost to Kajaki (#1653 → #1647)

lost to VeggieTales: Where's God When I'm S-Scared? (held at #1655)

beat All That Jazz (#1656 → #1661)

Bring Her Back (2025)

IMDb plot summary: A brother and sister uncover a terrifying ritual at the secluded home of their new foster mother.

Directed by Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou. Stars Billy Barratt, Sally Hawkins, and Mischa Heywood.

Bring Her Back is a horror film where two orphaned siblings are placed with foster parent Sally Hawkins and her disturbed son, and things get darker from there. This one was an impressive surprise. Sally Hawkins grounds this with a perfect combination of reassuring and ominous vibes, and as we get to learn more about her story, she just becomes more interesting as a character. The film also has some of the most horrifying sequences that are going to stick in my head forever, which is either going to be a selling point or a "never ever watch this" point, depending on who you are. The creators of this film have gotten some major attention, between this and their previous film, and I am definitely going to have to seek them out in future. A worthwhile watch, if also frequently a difficult watch.

🎥 Bring Her Back (2025)

📊 Ranked #628/4270 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 85

beat The Master (held at #2123)

beat Sarah, Plain and Tall (#1093 → #1086)

lost to I ♥ Huckabees (#566 → #564)

lost to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead (#833 → #648)

beat Snowpiercer (held at #959)

beat Iron Man (#897 → #890)

lost to Turning Red (#863 → #854)

beat The Hunger Games (#879 → #886)

lost to Crazy, Stupid, Love. (#870 → #867)

beat Mad Max 2 (#873 → #902)

beat Nosferatu (#871 → #900)

lost to City Girl (#872 → #870)

James and the Giant Peach (1996)

IMDb plot summary: An orphan who lives with his two cruel aunts befriends anthropomorphic bugs who live inside a giant peach, and they embark on a journey to New York City.

Directed by Henry Selick. Stars Paul Terry, Joanna Lumley, and Pete Postlethwaite.

James and the Giant Peach is a partially animated adaptation of the Roald Dahl book of the same name. It tells the story of a young neglected boy named James who finds camaraderie with a group of bugs that live inside the mysteriously enormous peach that started growing in his yard. While I have occasionally enjoyed reading Roald Dahl, there is an ickiness to his stories that always comes out in the worst way in adaptations, and that ickiness is extremely present for me in this movie. The animation is truly so unsettling, and it's clearly a stylistic choice so I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying it makes *me* extremely not want to watch it. The script is also dumbed down enough for children that there isn't much depth here for me to latch onto in the story. I get why kids may have latched onto the quirky dark vibe, but it just feels gross to me. Not one I have any interest in rewatching at any point.

🎥 James and the Giant Peach (1996)

📊 Ranked #2993/4267 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 33

lost to The Adam Project (#2113 → #2010)

lost to Captain Marvel (#3214 → #3051)

beat Bohemian Rhapsody (#3766 → #3772)

lost to The Cocoanuts (#3485 → #3433)

beat Cinderella (#3624 → #3628)

lost to Get Smart (#3559 → #3496)

beat Hangman's Curse (#3592 → #3596)

beat A Most Wanted Man (#3576 → #3577)

lost to The Secret Agent (#3543 → #2992)

lost to Basic Instinct (#3571 → #3569)

beat A Decade Under the Influence (#3574 → #3590)

beat Arlington Road (#3573 → #3550)

The Testament of Ann Lee (2025)

IMDb plot summary: Ann Lee, the founding leader of the Shaker Movement, is proclaimed as the female Christ by her followers. This film depicts her establishment of a utopian society and the Shakers' worship through song and dance, based on real events.

Directed by Mona Fastvold. Stars Amanda Seyfried, Lewis Pullman, and Thomasin McKenzie.

The Testament of Ann Lee is a musical telling of the history of the Shakers in 1700s America, starring Amanda Seyfried as their leader, the titular Ann Lee. This is an interesting enough story on its own, but making it a musical adds this whole additional dimension to it that I found really compelling. I really enjoyed how well the repetitive nature of these folk songs and chants mirror sacred liturgy and rituals -- the two serve each other perfectly. The other thing that recommends the film is Seyfried's performance, which is excellent. Those things make it well worth watching, but the overall story doesn't hang together as well as I'd like and makes it fall a little flat in my memory by the very end. It's a very unique movie and I'd definitely recommend it, but I did want to connect with it more than I did ultimately.

🎥 The Testament of Ann Lee (2025)

📊 Ranked #1748/4264 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 60

beat Anna Christie (#2130 → #2298)

beat The Dictator (#1092 → #1089)

lost to Ordet (#565 → #630)

lost to The Player (#829 → #634)

beat Young Adult (#960 → #958)

lost to Companion (held at #894)

lost to Music and Lyrics (#927 → #928)

lost to Happy Death Day (#944 → #824)

beat Kwaidan (#952 → #951)

beat Daria in 'Is It College Yet?' (#948 → #947)

lost to The Substance (held at #946)

beat The Man from Earth (#947 → #1042)

Wonka (2023)

IMDb plot summary: With dreams of opening a shop in a city renowned for its chocolate, a young and poor Willy Wonka discovers that the industry is run by a cartel of greedy chocolatiers.

Directed by Paul King. Stars Timothée Chalamet, Gustave Die, and Murray McArthur.

Wonka is a Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory prequel, starring Timothee Chalamet as the famous chocolatier, who arrives in town ready to set up a shop with his inventive treats. He has to battle the established conglomerate of chocolatiers who already dominate the town, and they are determined to keep him from breaking through. This is a much better movie than frankly it has any right to be. Starting from the intro song, which is cheery and tells us all we need to know about our character and the world he's in, I knew I was in for a treat. I am going to go out on a limb here and say this is Timothee Chalamet's best performance -- he radiates charm here in a way I've literally never seen in any of his other performances. The big picture story is generic, but the dialogue and characterization is so charmingly written that it doesn't make much difference. This was a huge surprise to me, and I'm pleased I finally watched it.

🎥 Wonka (2023)

📊 Ranked #707/4262 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 83

beat Raising Arizona (#2150 → #2152)

beat Twister (#1099 → #1101)

lost to A Letter to Three Wives (held at #567)

beat The Butler (#835 → #836)

lost to Waking Ned (#703 → #704)

lost to Labyrinth (#771 → #773)

lost to Drunken Angel (#802 → #690)

beat Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead (#819 → #835)

lost to The Manchurian Candidate (#811 → #812)

beat Great Expectations (#815 → #817)

beat Cloud Atlas (#813 → #819)

beat New York, New York (#812 → #816)

Ghosts of Mississippi (1996)

IMDb plot summary: A Mississippi district attorney and the widow of Medgar Evers struggle to finally bring a white supremacist to justice for the 1963 murder of the civil rights leader.

Directed by Rob Reiner. Stars Alec Baldwin, James Woods, and Whoopi Goldberg.

Ghosts of Mississippi stars Alec Baldwin as a lawyer who is asked to take on a decades-old case of a Black man's murder, potentially locking up an established member of the community. This film was released the same year as A Time to Kill, and both tackle racial injustice in the legal system in the South, and I think I like them both exactly the same. They both do a medium-but-not-spectacular job of keeping the tension high and addressing some of the societal issues at play in the story. It does stay on a pretty mid-90s surface level of the issues, but it's still worth examining. It keeps the courtroom scenes compellingly taut as they should be. It's not an incredible movie, but it's not a bad watch either.

🎥 Ghosts of Mississippi (1997)

📊 Ranked #1753/4263 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 60

lost to Memphis Belle (#2136 → #2188)

beat Legendary Weapons of China (#3168 → #3172)

beat Phantom of the Paradise (#2700 → #2697)

beat The Family Stone (#2404 → #2409)

lost to Rebecca (#2283 → #2215)

beat Forever Young (#2324 → #2278)

beat Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (#2273 → #2446)

lost to The Three Faces of Eve (#2252 → #2227)

lost to Alice Adams (#2259 → #2035)

beat Hustle & Flow (#2358 → #2468)

beat Nacho Libre (#2341 → #2344)

beat Pat and Mike (#2261 → #2271)

St. Vincent (2014)

IMDb plot summary: A young boy whose parents have just divorced finds an unlikely friend and mentor in the misanthropic, bawdy, hedonistic war veteran who lives next door.

Directed by Theodore Melfi. Stars Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, and Naomi Watts.

St. Vincent stars Bill Murray as a crotchety hermit who finds himself a semi-unwilling babysitter for his new neighbor's young child. The two form a friendship and begin to learn new things about each other. "Cranky old man has life changed by child" is almost never going to be a subgenre that I'm drawn to, even when it's fairly competently made, as this one is. Bill Murray is a good choice for this main character, as he's especially good at capturing both likability and grumpiness. But even he can carry this concept only so far, and I'm not fully convinced by the character growth. I think I'd have to be more sold on the idea from the beginning for this to work, but as it is, it's just okay. Worth watching if the story or the actors hold immediate appeal for you.

🎥 St. Vincent (2014)

📊 Ranked #1973/4257 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 55

lost to I Love You, Man (#2148 → #2031)

beat Gigi (#3212 → #3213)

beat The Asphalt Jungle (#2671 → #2672)

beat In the Mood for Love (#2415 → #2416)

beat Deceiver (#2282 → #2283)

beat Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (#2219 → #2220)

beat Blackmail Is My Life (#2185 → #2186)

beat Mr. Nice Guy (#2164 → #2165)

lost to The Lost Skeleton Returns Again (#2156 → #2157)

beat The Matrix Reloaded (#2160 → #2161)

beat Lenny (#2158 → #2159)

lost to Laal Singh Chaddha (#2157 → #2158)

Pump Up the Volume (1990)

IMDb plot summary: Mark runs a pirate radio station and causes an uproar when he speaks his mind and enthralls fellow teens.

Directed by Allan Moyle. Stars Christian Slater, Samantha Mathis, and Anthony Luke Lucero.

Pump Up the Volume is a 1990s drama starring Christian Slater as an angry teenager who lets out his angst by running an extremely crass radio show under a pseudonym, but when his rants inspire a student at his school to take their own life, Slater has to figure out what he wants to do moving forward. I had never heard of this film before a friend recommended it to me, and it was a wonderful discovery. It's a great early look at the 90s grunge teen who was just angry at a system, and then at how that anger can have unintended consequences if processed appropriately. While I didn't necessarily *relate* to most of these characters, I sympathized deeply with all of them, and I was very engaged in seeing how things were going to play out. It doesn't necessarily go the expected coming-of-age drama route, and I appreciated that. This one was worth a watch for sure.

🎥 Pump Up the Volume (1990)

📊 Ranked #935/4259 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 78

beat The Wrestler (#2151 → #2154)

lost to The Moustache (#1098 → #1100)

beat The Front (#1617 → #1619)

lost to Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (#1362 → #1185)

beat 35 Up (#1491 → #1509)

beat Under the Skin (#1427 → #1425)

beat DragonHeart (#1393 → #1391)

lost to Summer Stock (#1377 → #1378)

beat Memories of Murder (#1385 → #1384)

beat Monsters vs Aliens (#1381 → #1428)

beat L'Atalante (held at #1379)

beat In Search of a Midnight Kiss (#1378 → #1483)

Along Came Polly (2004)

IMDb plot summary: A buttoned-up newlywed finds his strictly organized life descend into chaos when he falls in love with an old classmate.

Directed by John Hamburg. Stars Ben Stiller, Jennifer Aniston, and Debra Messing.

Along Came Polly is a romantic comedy starring Ben Stiller as a risk averse man getting over his wife's betrayal on their honeymoon and Jennifer Aniston as the commitment-phobic "girl that got away" from high school. I can see glimmers of enjoyment in here, but it's hidden under unpleasant raunch comedy and muddy character development. Our two leads have very little chemistry, and their on-and-off romance never seems believable. The film seems to *want* to be taken semi-seriously, given the way the final conflicts play out, but it just never takes its characters seriously enough for us to believe that. There's just not a lot enjoyable here. It's definitely one to skip.

🎥 Along Came Polly (2004)

📊 Ranked #3775/4258 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 14

lost to Bonnie and Clyde (#2150 → #2142)

lost to Snakes on a Plane (#3215 → #3206)

beat Running with Scissors (#3753 → #3732)

lost to Passion (#3483 → #3459)

lost to The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (#3618 → #3599)

beat Atomic Blonde (#3685 → #3668)

lost to Stardust Memories (#3651 → #3629)

beat 101 Dalmatians (#3668 → #3649)

lost to Mr. & Mrs. Smith (#3660 → #3644)

beat Instinct (#3664 → #3707)

beat Django, Prepare a Coffin (#3662 → #3726)

lost to Fedora (#3661 → #3641)

Eraser (1996)

IMDb plot summary: A Witness Protection specialist becomes suspicious of his co-workers when dealing with a case involving high-tech weapons.

Directed by Chuck Russell. Stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vanessa Williams, and James Caan.

Eraser is an Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick in which he works in witness protection. He discovers there's a mole in the system who is taking out critical witnesses, and he has to go outside the system to protect one particular witness. This is a decent ride, as far as big dramatic 90s thrillers go. Arnold is his regular capable-but-not-particularly-exciting self as an action hero, and the journey of trying to keep Vanessa Williams safe is an exciting one. It's fun to see these two fighting against a giant corporation and have an average woman be able to take them down. I don't necessarily remember any of the actions set pieces or scenes, which means that they were not much of a standout, but the overall vibe is decent. A lot of similar films from this time period I just find boring. This one was definitely not that, so kudos.

🎥 Eraser (1996)

📊 Ranked #1966/4256 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 55

beat Anonymous (#2148 → #2145)

lost to The Great Gatsby (#1097 → #918)

lost to Joker (#1615 → #1581)

lost to Dakota Skye (#1880 → #1853)

beat Deceiver (#2014 → #2282)

lost to Deconstructing Harry (#1948 → #1867)

lost to Battle of the Sexes (#1979 → #1968)

lost to Oddity (#1998 → #1857)

beat The Firm (#2006 → #2131)

lost to Total Recall (#2002 → #2034)

beat Malcolm & Marie (#2004 → #2012)

lost to The Chaperone (#2003 → #1927)

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (2025)

IMDb plot summary: When their plan to book a show at the Rivoli goes horribly wrong, Matt and Jay accidentally travel back to the year 2008.

Directed by Matt Johnson. Stars Matt Johnson, Jay McCarrol, and Ben Petrie.

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is based on Nirvanna the Band the Show, a Canadian comedy show about Nirvanna the Band, a two-person musical act that is desperate to find fame at any cost. I've never seen the show, but it was pretty easy to hop into this and feel like I was already familiar with the characters and storyline. I don't know if this is common in the original show, but I really enjoyed the surprise left turn into a more fantastical line of story. There's a comfort to these characters that bleeds through even to someone unfamiliar with them, and that makes their interactions more compelling than I expected. The creative Back to the Future-style shenanigans in the final third especially are a ton of fun. It's not a world-changing movie by any means, but I had a good time with it.

🎥 Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (2026)

📊 Ranked #1174/4260 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 73

beat Cat's Eye (held at #2152)

beat Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (#1099 → #1100)

lost to A Letter to Three Wives (#566 → #567)

lost to The Scarlet Pimpernel (#834 → #710)

beat Raya and the Last Dragon (#965 → #969)

lost to Music and Lyrics (#900 → #901)

lost to Heavenly Creatures (#933 → #931)

beat Mixed Nuts (#949 → #1008)

lost to The Great Silence (#941 → #936)

beat Will & Harper (#945 → #1007)

beat Feet First (#943 → #941)

beat Children of Men (#942 → #1015)

The Ritual (2017)

IMDb plot summary: A group of old college friends reunite for a hiking trip in a remote area of Sweden. A wrong turn leads them into a forest of Norse legend where ancient evil exists.

Directed by David Bruckner. Stars Rafe Spall, Arsher Ali, and Robert James-Collier.

The Ritual follows a group of friends who go on a hiking trip in commemoration of their friend's death, only for things to start getting dark as something seems to be stalking them. About halfway through, I said to myself, "This is just... The Descent, but men, and aboveground," and I stand by that, which means it takes away most of what made The Descent interesting to begin with. There aren't a lot of scares here that really land, at least for me. The moments that work best are not the horror moments, but the subplot in which one of the friends is blaming himself (and being blamed by others in the group) for the death of their comrade. Those moments are far more interesting than any of the weird nightmares or creepy branch placements. If you're looking for an engaging horror movie, this one's pretty lackluster. Just watch The Descent or Blair Witch instead.

🎥 The Ritual (2017)

📊 Ranked #2724/4261 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 40

lost to The Dawn Patrol (#2149 → #2145)

lost to Goldfinger (#3214 → #3221)

beat Gomorrah (#3755 → #3756)

beat Silver Streak (#3486 → #3606)

beat American Sniper (#3351 → #3352)

beat The House on Carroll Street (#3279 → #3288)

lost to Independence Day (#3245 → #3174)

lost to Snakes on a Plane (#3261 → #3235)

lost to Victor/Victoria (#3271 → #3272)

beat Cassandra's Dream (#3275 → #3395)

lost to Where Eagles Dare (held at #3273)

lost to Monsters University (#3274 → #3218)

The Secret Agent (2025)

IMDb plot summary: Amid the political turmoil of 1977 Brazil, a technology expert is forced into hiding and seeks help from the underground resistance as he tries to flee the country with his young son.

Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho. Stars Robson Andrade, Wagner Moura, and Rubens Santos.

The Secret Agent is a foreign film set in Brazil during the 1970s and follows a man who is living as a refugee in the city, trying to avoid being arrested for his past. There is a lot of plot and political intrigue in this movie that sometimes obscures the humanity of the story. Based on the reviews I've seen and the response to this film at the Oscars, I'm clearly in the minority thinking that, but aside from the woman who runs the house for refugees, I find myself very disconnected emotionally from most of these characters. I like the added framing of the story being told through recorded audio files being researched by people decades later, that helps to put some of the story in perspective, and it does land a little bit better at the end, but overall this one left me a little cold, especially in comparison to something like I'm Still Here, another recent film set in the same setting.

🎥 The Secret Agent (2025)

📊 Ranked #3061/4255 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 32

lost to The Master (#2148 → #2099)

beat Sweet and Lowdown (#3211 → #3214)

beat Kung Fury (#2674 → #2681)

beat The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (#2414 → #2416)

lost to Hopscotch (#2285 → #2300)

beat Avanti! (#2351 → #2355)

beat My Family (#2318 → #2341)

beat Camp (#2301 → #2388)

lost to Corpse Bride (#2292 → #2301)

beat It Had to Be You (#2296 → #2268)

beat Beaches (#2294 → #2287)

beat The Sasquatch Gang (#2293 → #2314)

Cube (1997)

IMDb plot summary: A group of strangers awaken to find themselves placed in a giant cube. Each one of them is gifted with a special skill and they must work together to escape an endless maze of deadly traps.

Directed by Vincenzo Natali. Stars Nicole de Boer, Maurice Dean Wint, and David Hewlett.

Cube is a psychological horror thriller in which a group of strangers wake up to discover that they have all been kidnapped and placed inside a maze of giant cubes full of deadly traps. The group bands together to solve the puzzle of their prison and escape. I really enjoy single concept horror films set in small enclosed spaces, but what really makes that work is if the characterization, dialogue, and acting all hold up to the challenge. It reminds me of a black box theater play in the amount of precise intelligent writing it requires to make that work. And this doesn't have that. The dialogue makes me roll my eyes, and when most of the movie is dialogue with an occasional gory death in there, I really need it to keep me connected to the characters. There are some very cool images, particularly as they reached the outer edges of the cube, and some inventively gross deaths, but neither of those quite make up for the bizarre writing.

🎥 Cube (1998)

📊 Ranked #3075/4251 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 31

lost to Raising Arizona (held at #2153)

beat Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (held at #3211)

lost to Avengers: Age of Ultron (#2678 → #2680)

lost to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (#2947 → #2890)

beat Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (#3078 → #3086)

lost to FernGully: The Last Rainforest (#3013 → #2909)

lost to The Fighter (#3045 → #3037)

beat Analyze This (#3062 → #3061)

beat A Soldier's Sweetheart (#3053 → #3067)

lost to The Fifth Element (#3049 → #3043)

lost to Hiroshima Mon Amour (#3051 → #3039)

lost to Whisper of the Heart (held at #3052)

Maniac (2012)

IMDb plot summary: As he helps a young artist with her upcoming exhibition, the owner of a mannequin shop's deadly, suppressed desires come to the surface.

Directed by Franck Khalfoun. Stars Elijah Wood, Nora Arnezeder, and America Olivo.

Maniac is a horror movie in which, and I don't think this is a spoiler because it's clear very early on, Elijah Wood plays a psychopathic killer of young women. This is one of the lower points in my trek through watching all of Elijah Wood's movies. It's so cheesily written, and the armchair psychology of this psychopathic character is the kind of thing that we were super into as a culture in 2000s and 2010s, and it just seems awkward now. There is a little enjoyment to be gotten out of the first-person filming gimmick, where so often we see things from Wood's point of view. Every so often it is done effectively, but most of the time it feels just like a gimmick. With so many great slasher horror movies out there, this one is definitely one to skip.

🎥 Maniac (2013)

📊 Ranked #4230/4254 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 1

lost to Bonnie and Clyde (held at #2139)

lost to Did You Hear About the Morgans? (held at #3205)

beat African Kung-Fu Nazis (#3744 → #3745)

lost to Silver Streak (#3477 → #3478)

lost to The Monkey King (held at #3609)

lost to Wild Strawberries (#3676 → #3675)

beat How the Grinch Stole Christmas (held at #3712)

lost to The Killing of Sister George (#3696 → #3697)

lost to Dutch (#3697 → #3698)

lost to Antz (#3710 → #3709)

beat King of the Zombies (held at #3711)

lost to Stage Door Canteen (held at #3719)

Jennifer's Body (2009)

IMDb plot summary: A newly-possessed high-school cheerleader turns into a succubus who specializes in killing her male classmates. Can her best friend put an end to the horror?

Directed by Karyn Kusama. Stars Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, and Adam Brody.

Jennifer's Body is a Horror film starring Amanda Seyfried and Megan Fox as two mismatched best friends whose friendship starts going through some difficulties when one of them suddenly has some dramatic behavior changes after a traumatic experience. I didn't know much more about the actual plot than that going in, so I'm not going to give you any more just in case, because watching it unfold without knowing the destination was a ton of fun. I did not realize until the end that it was written by Diablo Cody, but that seems obvious in hindsight. The dialogue is absolutely Cody's blend of sincerity and cringe and wit that is a very unique voice, and I think it's exactly the right tone for this movie and its dance around the edge of campy horror. Both Fox and Seyfried are excellent in this and give the right kind of over the top portrayals of their stereotyped characters. This movie is definitely not going to be for everyone, but I fully understand why this has become a cult classic. It takes big artistic choices and big swings and that may not pay off for everybody, but they made it a great watch for me.

🎥 Jennifer's Body (2009)

📊 Ranked #814/4252 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 81

beat Cat's Eye (#2146 → #2147)

beat Twister (#1100 → #1104)

lost to I ♥ Huckabees (#568 → #569)

lost to The Babysitter (#834 → #639)

beat Bandits (#966 → #1017)

beat The Departed (#888 → #896)

lost to City Girl (#869 → #871)

lost to Taxi Driver (#884 → #886)

lost to Sansho the Bailiff (#892 → #890)

lost to Music and Lyrics (#898 → #900)

beat Ghost Town (#899 → #904)

lost to Hidden Figures (#900 → #901)

Jay Kelly (2025)

IMDb plot summary: Famous movie actor Jay Kelly embarks on a journey of self-discovery, confronting his past and present with his devoted manager Ron. Poignant and humor-filled, pitched at the intersection of regrets and glories.

Directed by Noah Baumbach. Stars George Clooney, Adam Sandler, and Stanley Townsend.

Jay Kelly is a Noah Baumbach movie starring George Clooney as an action star having a midlife crisis and trying to figure out what the purpose of his life has been. Baumbach can be hit or miss for me, and this one is enjoyable throughout but not necessarily memorable. Adam Sandler is a standout here as Clooney's manager, perfectly portraying the exhaustion of someone who has given far too much of his life to helping someone else succeed and now has very little to show for it. The movie is a mix of comedy and drama in a way that feels very rooted and grounded in reality and the absurdities of life and fame without ever feeling forced or stilted. A pretty good movie and well-crafted, even if it didn't hit me as powerfully as I hoped it would.

🎥 Jay Kelly (2025)

📊 Ranked #1287/4250 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 70

beat The Call (#2153 → #2196)

lost to Chronicle (#1101 → #1082)

lost to Ghostbusters (#1619 → #1623)

beat Natural Born Killers (#1887 → #1968)

beat The Parent Trap (#1755 → #1759)

lost to Sling Blade (#1685 → #1518)

lost to The Miracle Worker (#1722 → #1564)

beat Phone Booth (#1739 → #1738)

beat Lady Bird (#1731 → #1578)

beat Flora and Son (#1726 → #1575)

beat The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (#1724 → #1729)

beat The Big Chill (#1723 → #1746)

The Shadow in My Eye (2021)

IMDb plot summary: The fates of several Copenhagen residents collide when a WWII bombing mission accidentally targets a school full of children.

Directed by Ole Bornedal. Stars Bertram Bisgaard, Ester Birch, and Ella Josephine Lund Nilsson.

The Shadow in My Eye is a Danish movie telling the story of a fuel bombardment that happened in German-occupied Denmark during World War 2. In an attempt to bomb a Gestapo headquarters, the fighters unintentionally bomb a school and cause a ton of collateral damage. We follow a handful of children and their parents as they deal with the aftermath of this. This is a pretty good movie, and a lot of that rests in the little moments that it highlights. I'm particularly struck by the story of one boy who is selectively mute as a result of trauma from having witnessed a car bombing, and watching him try to heal and then having to go through a similar trauma again is very compelling as a story and you really want him to be OK. I was a little surprised coming back to write this review after a week or two at how little I remembered of the movie. I had almost forgotten I'd seen it. When I sit and think about it, of course I remember all the pieces that stood out to me very good, but I do have to put in the actual effort to think about it, because it doesn't rise to the top automatically. I would still recommend it because I think it's a well done movie, but for whatever reason it didn't land in the top echelon for me.

🎥 The Shadow in My Eye (2022)

📊 Ranked #2283/4249 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 49

lost to George of the Jungle (#2143 → #2114)

beat SpaceCamp (#3202 → #3204)

beat Peter Pan Live! (#2672 → #2833)

beat Splash (#2409 → #2411)

beat David Copperfield (#2281 → #2280)

lost to Hellboy (#2214 → #2212)

beat Avengers: Infinity War (#2248 → #2226)

beat Safety Not Guaranteed (#2231 → #2463)

lost to Vanya on 42nd Street (held at #2222)

lost to A Cure for Wellness (#2226 → #2221)

lost to Malcolm X (#2229 → #2213)

beat Forever Young (#2230 → #2302)

Pennies From Heaven (1981)

IMDb plot summary: During the Great Depression, a sheet-music salesman seeks to escape his dreary life through popular music and a love affair with an innocent schoolteacher.

Directed by Herbert Ross. Stars Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, and Jessica Harper.

Pennies From Heaven stars Steve Martin as a mostly unsuccessful sheet music salesman in the early 1900s, Jessica Harper as his frigid wife, and Bernadette Peters as the naive school teacher he takes up an affair with. The film is also a musical, with characters doing lip synced song and dance numbers to recordings of classic songs from the era. I went through the whole gamut of emotions watching this movie. In the first third or so I loved it and thought it was one of the best movies I'd seen in awhile. I loved the creativity of the musical numbers and how it fit into the world. But as the story went on, I became less and less invested in the narrative, even though many of the musical numbers were still entertaining. This film definitely feels like it's trying to say something, but the tone is so muddled it's hard to take much out of it. The darkness of the story takes you by surprise in a way that I wonder if it would sit differently on a rewatch, knowing where the story is headed. I still say it's worth a watch because it is a creative way of making a musical and the musical numbers themselves are often really enjoyable, but it doesn't come together the way that I hoped it would when I first started watching it.

🎥 Pennies from Heaven (1981)

📊 Ranked #2168/4247 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 51

beat Corpse Bride (#2163 → #2307)

lost to Oliver Twist (held at #1116)

beat Ghostbusters (#1635 → #1660)

lost to Shadow of the Vampire (#1385 → #1386)

lost to The Sound of Music (held at #1510)

lost to The Ref (#1572 → #1573)

lost to Mrs Brown (#1603 → #1604)

beat The Front (#1618 → #1625)

lost to Die Hard (#1610 → #1612)

beat mother! (#1614 → #1615)

lost to The Meg (#1612 → #1588)

lost to Interiors (#1613 → #1587)

Send Help (2026)

IMDb plot summary: An overworked analyst and her arrogant nepo-baby boss survive a plane crash near Thailand and must cooperate to survive on a remote jungle island while their workplace power dynamic collapses around them.

Directed by Sam Raimi. Stars Rachel McAdams, Dylan O'Brien, and Edyll Ismail.

Send Help stars Rachel McAdam as a dowdy office worker who is consistently made fun of by her cryptobro misogynist coworkers, but when she and her boss are the sole survivors of a plane crash on a deserted island, her love for the TV show Survivor is what keeps them alive. I had a ton of fun with this one. It's directed by Sam Raimi and it really in many ways feels like a callback to his work with the Evil Dead trilogy, where there are so many scenes where I am both deeply grossed out and laughing hysterically at how ridiculous the whole thing is. McAdam is tremendous in this, balancing the nice and not-so-nice aspects of her personality perfectly so that she continuously surprises you. This is a fun big film and I had a great time watching it.

🎥 Send Help (2026)

📊 Ranked #595/4246 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 86

beat The Call (#2166 → #2168)

beat Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (#1119 → #1150)

lost to West Side Story (#595 → #596)

lost to Four Lions (#861 → #855)

beat It Happened on Fifth Avenue (#988 → #992)

beat The Pursuit of Happyness (#925 → #930)

beat Nurse Betty (#892 → #891)

beat Nosferatu (#877 → #903)

beat Smiles of a Summer Night (#868 → #898)

lost to Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (held at #864)

lost to Companion (#866 → #867)

beat A Haunting in Venice (#867 → #870)

Is This Thing On? (2025)

IMDb plot summary: As their marriage unravels, Alex faces middle age and divorce, seeking new purpose in the New York comedy scene. Meanwhile, his wife Tess confronts sacrifices made for their family, forcing them to navigate co-parenting and identities.

Directed by Bradley Cooper. Stars Will Arnett, Laura Dern, and Andra Day.

Is This Thing On? is a romantic drama/comedy starring Will Arnett as a man who discovers he really loves stand-up comedy after the unexpected dissolution of his marriage. At least that's how the film sells it to you for the first half, and then we get a slightly different turn of events in the second half, which is really where the film snapped into focus for me. The film ends on an unexpectedly heartwarming note that I didn't anticipate going into it, and I'm hesitant to even say much about it here because having no concept of it was really what made it special for me. It also manages to avoid that problem that so many films about art have where showing the art itself is a let down, but in this case the film is populated with so many actual real life stand-up comedians that it truly brings an authenticity to the world, and even when Arnett's jokes don't land, it's easy to believe that other people are enjoying them and it doesn't detract from the story. I was iffy on A Star Was Born and haven't seen Maestro, but this made me want to see more of Bradley Cooper's directorial work in future because there is a gentleness and a warmth to this that I appreciate.

🎥 Is This Thing On? (2025)

📊 Ranked #477/4245 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 88

beat Space Pirate Captain Harlock (#2169 → #2171)

beat The Body Snatcher (#1126 → #1129)

lost to The Edge of Seventeen (#603 → #439)

lost to Turning Red (#867 → #868)

lost to The Substance (#994 → #995)

beat An American Werewolf in London (#1060 → #1062)

beat 20th Century Women (#1027 → #1042)

lost to Steven Universe: The Movie (held at #1010)

beat Mr. Brooks (#1019 → #1022)

beat Wag the Dog (#1014 → #1018)

beat Hannah and Her Sisters (#1012 → #1013)

beat Anomalisa (held at #1011)

Get Low (2009)

IMDb plot summary: A movie spun out of equal parts folk tale, fable and real-life legend about the mysterious, 1930s Tennessee hermit who famously threw his own rollicking funeral party... while he was still alive.

Directed by Aaron Schneider. Stars Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, and Sissy Spacek.

Get Low stars Robert Duvall as a cranky old hermit who decides to hold a funeral for himself while he's still alive and invite everyone he knows to tell the stories they've heard about him. I see where this one is trying to go, but it doesn't always work. The pacing of his history feels awkward at times, and because of that, the ending climactic moment of the funeral itself is a little bit of a disappointment. Duvall plays this kind of character well, but it's hard to tell whether he's doing anything unique here or just playing exactly to the expectations of the kind of character he's he is. Not a stellar watch but it's OK.

🎥 Get Low (2010)

📊 Ranked #2742/4253 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 40

lost to Cat's Eye (#2147 → #2152)

beat Did You Hear About the Morgans? (held at #3210)

beat Bye Bye Birdie (#2673 → #2680)

beat Splash (#2413 → #2416)

lost to The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe (#2284 → #2295)

beat Monsters and Men (#2349 → #2350)

beat My Family (#2317 → #2339)

lost to Good Night, and Good Luck. (#2300 → #2253)

lost to Laal Singh Chaddha (#2308 → #2174)

beat The Secret Life of Pets (#2312 → #2329)

beat Space Pirate Captain Harlock (#2310 → #2319)

beat Day Zero (#2309 → #2496)

Us and Them (2018)

IMDb plot summary: Ten years ago, on a train home, fate brings Xiaoxiao and Jianqing together. Like many young couples, they meet, fall in love, and strive to make it work, but eventually, the harsh realities of life make them drift apart.

Directed by Rene Liu. Stars Boran Jing, Dongyu Zhou, and Zhuangzhuang Tian.

Us and Them is a Chinese romantic drama following a couple's tumultuous young romance, and then picking up several years later when they happened to run into each other again in much more stable personal circumstances. I kept wanting to really like this movie but it never worked for me. Every time there would be a moment that drew my attention because it seemed fresh and new -- for example, the ongoing saga of the video game he was trying to make that capture a romantic loss -- then it would be surrounded by so many moments that were long and slow and dull. It made it really hard for me to care about the outcome of these characters in the long run. I feel like if I remember anything about this movie and take anything away from it, it's going to be a series of unconnected thoughts and scenes that I'll have to work hard to remember were from this movie. A disappointing watch.

🎥 Us and Them (2018)

📊 Ranked #3259/4248 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 26

lost to Eyes Wide Shut (#2140 → #2139)

lost to The Phantom of the Opera (#3199 → #3156)

beat Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (#3742 → #3699)

beat The Card Counter (#3473 → #3577)

beat The Giver (#3331 → #3328)

beat Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (#3264 → #3265)

beat 12 Days of Terror (#3230 → #3233)

beat Darkness (#3214 → #3219)

lost to The Robe (#3206 → #3160)

beat Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (#3210 → #3211)

lost to Soylent Green (#3208 → #3163)

beat Despicable Me (#3209 → #3207)

Nouvelle Vague (2025)

IMDb plot summary: The behind the scenes of the filming of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960), a landmark of the French New Wave film movement.

Directed by Richard Linklater. Stars Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch, and Aubry Dullin.

Richard Linklater made two movies this year about real-life people who were masters of their craft. One was Blue Moon and one was this, about Jean-Luc Godard making his film Breathless. One thing to note as going into this is that I absolutely hate Godard as a filmmaker. I've seen maybe four of his films and find his work extremely irritating and pretentious, and this film certainly did nothing to convince me of anything otherwise. It was also extremely unhelpful to watch this back-to-back with Day or Night because I could not keep the two of them straight most of the time. The character interactions are engaging because Linklater is excellent at working with character dialogue, but I just couldn't care about the story being told. Blue Moon was incredible, this one kept left me a little cold.

🎥 Nouvelle Vague (2025)

📊 Ranked #2443/4244 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 47

beat Show Girl in Hollywood (#2170 → #2163)

lost to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (#1126 → #987)

lost to Manhunter (#1644 → #1630)

lost to 12 Angry Men (#1909 → #2428)

beat John and Mary (#2039 → #2165)

lost to VeggieTales: God Wants Me to Forgive Them!?! (#1974 → #1904)

beat Pat and Mike (#2007 → #2109)

lost to The Forest (#1990 → #1992)

lost to The Last Castle (#1998 → #1997)

beat The Light in Her Eyes (#2002 → #2000)

beat Malcolm & Marie (#2000 → #2010)

lost to Dot the I (#1999 → #1836)

Day for Night (1973)

IMDb plot summary: A committed film director struggles to complete his movie while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew.

Directed by François Truffaut. Stars Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Léaud, and François Truffaut.

Day for Night is a Francois Truffaut film from the 1970s about a director making a film and the many dramas, small and large, that come along with it. One has to assume this is at least partly autobiographical, considering Truffaut also plays the director character in the film, and the plotlines and characters certainly have a ring of authenticity to them. I haven't seen a lot of Truffaut's work, but I have often not meshed with French new wave in general, so I was a little hesitant about this one. The individual moments in it were engaging enough, and I kind of found myself invested in whether this movie was going to come together. But ultimately it ended up being more a matter of the sum of its parts not adding up to more.

🎥 Day for Night (1973)

📊 Ranked #2953/4243 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 34

lost to Cast Away (#2176 → #2071)

beat Labor Day (#3213 → #3215)

beat Casino (#2689 → #2692)

beat Following (#2431 → #2432)

beat David Copperfield (#2305 → #2324)

lost to One 2 Ka 4 (#2243 → #2161)

beat The Dinner Guest (#2273 → #2281)

lost to To Be or Not to Be (#2258 → #2246)

lost to Miracle on 34th Street (#2265 → #2259)

beat Fly Me to the Moon (held at #2269)

lost to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (#2267 → #2176)

lost to A Time to Kill (#2268 → #2262)

The Long Walk (2025)

IMDb plot summary: A group of teenage boys compete in an annual contest known as "The Long Walk," in which they must maintain a certain walking speed or get shot.

Directed by Francis Lawrence. Stars Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, and Garrett Wareing.

The Long Walk is a movie based on a Stephen King story, about a post-apocalyptic world where every year a group of young people are chosen to walk until they die. The last one standing gets a wish granted. I am definitely a sucker for stories about dystopias with weirdly specific rules trying to give people a chance to escape -- think this and Hunger Games -- and this does a good job making this compelling. The variety of characters we encounter on the road is enjoyable and you can pretty quickly begin rooting for your favorites. It's also paced very well, ramping up the horror slowly enough that you get teasers of it early on, but then really feel the exhaustion as the story continues. This is definitely something that will appeal to other folks like me who enjoy the genre.

🎥 The Long Walk (2025)

📊 Ranked #1003/4242 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 77

beat Cast Away (held at #2176)

lost to The Favourite (#1123 → #1122)

beat The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness (#1642 → #1662)

beat Orgazmo (#1392 → #1433)

beat High Strung (#1262 → #1270)

lost to Song of the Sea (#1195 → #1181)

beat Gone Baby Gone (#1225 → #1231)

lost to Airheads (#1210 → #1207)

lost to Frankenweenie (#1217 → #1208)

beat The Magnificent Seven (#1221 → #1256)

beat OBEX (#1219 → #1222)

beat The Secret of Roan Inish (#1218 → #1239)

I'm No Longer Here (2019)

IMDb plot summary: In Monterrey, Mexico, a young street gang spends their days dancing to slowed-down cumbia and attending parties. After a mix-up with a local cartel, their leader is forced to migrate to the U.S. but quickly longs to return home.

Directed by Fernando Frias. Stars Kevin Ryan, Juan Daniel García Treviño, and Xueming Angelina Chen.

I'm No Longer Here tells the nonlinear story of a young man who was involved with a dance crew in Colombia and then has to leave town and emigrate to America after his crew becomes entangled in gang violence. I actually found the nonlinear aspect surprisingly difficult to follow. It took me 2/3 of the way through the movie to realize that it was out of order. While usually I'd blame that on myself, I do feel like I was paying pretty close attention, so something got lost there. It hits a lot of familiar beats here, both in stories about gang violence and stories about refugees, but it does bring an interesting new angle with the aspect of dance being the grounding point for this character. That doesn't get explored very often in film. That being said, though, overall it was not a film that really stood out to me, and I'm pretty sure the only thing I'm going to remember about it a month out is the dancing.

🎥 I'm No Longer Here (2019)

📊 Ranked #2632/4241 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 42

lost to Dunkirk (#2171 → #2169)

beat Captain January (#3213 → #3295)

lost to The 39 Steps (held at #2685)

beat The Ice Storm (#2949 → #2943)

lost to Flypaper (#2820 → #2907)

lost to An Ideal Husband (held at #2883)

beat Choke (#2916 → #2913)

beat The Rocky Horror Picture Show (#2899 → #2896)

beat No Country for Old Men (#2891 → #2889)

beat Streets of Fire (#2886 → #2884)

lost to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (#2884 → #2780)

beat Little Big League (#2885 → #2968)

Bugonia (2025)

IMDb plot summary: Two conspiracy-obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Stars Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, and Aidan Delbis.

Begonia is a Yorgos Lanthimos film starring Jesse Plemons as a doomsday prepper type character who kidnaps successful businesswoman Emma Stone because he is convinced that she is an alien come to invade his planet, and he has to get her to agree to take him to her ship and bargain to get them to leave Earth alone. Lanthimos is becoming one of my favorite modern directors. He always gets phenomenal performances out of his actors, but it doesn't hurt that he's choosing actors like Stone and Plemons who are gems in anything they do. I did have portions of this story spoiled for me before watching it, and I was curious if that was going to make me less interested, but the way it played out was compelling enough to watch in the moment that I didn't mind. The back and forth between Stone's and Plemons' characters is electric. And while I won't be the one to spoil the story for everybody else the way it was for me, I found the final few minutes absolutely astonishing. I'm going to be thinking about that ending for ages. I loved it, totally get why other people wouldn't... as is the case with most Lanthimos films.

🎥 Bugonia (2025)

📊 Ranked #572/4240 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 86

beat Revolutionary Road (#2177 → #2236)

beat Pretty Woman (#1123 → #1141)

lost to Dogville (#601 → #598)

lost to Companion (#865 → #863)

beat Contact (#992 → #993)

beat Madam Satan (#929 → #953)

beat Southside with You (#896 → #891)

beat The Hunger Games (#881 → #886)

beat The Graduate (#872 → #899)

beat Last Night in Soho (#868 → #869)

beat The Grand Budapest Hotel (#866 → #897)

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024)

IMDb plot summary: A man, driven by his desire for a multi-million dollar inheritance, begins to care for his terminally ill grandmother. However, winning her favor will not be an easy task and he is not the only one with an eye on the money.

Directed by Pat Boonnitipat. Stars Putthipong Assaratanakul, Usha Seamkhum, and Sanya Kunakorn.

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is a Thai film about a young unemployed man who decides to befriend his grandmother in the hopes that she'll leave everything to him when she dies. This one took a little bit of time but in the end it really won me over. Our main character starts off being a pretty terrible person, and while the film does hint that he's going to go through a character growth journey, watching it play out is very satisfying. The movie manages to avoid ever being too sappy or sentimental about the topic at hand, but I had to trust it to get there, because the beginning makes it feel like it WILL go that route. But the film makes it work, and tells the story in a way that really brings the audience along for the ride. A good one to check out.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024)

📊 Ranked #1120/4239 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 74

beat Mr. Nice Guy (#2195 → #2194)

lost to Kneecap (#1125 → #1130)

beat Sweet Smell of Success (held at #1605)

beat Hocus Pocus (#1394 → #1441)

beat Scrooge (#1260 → #1286)

lost to Top Secret! (#1197 → #1225)

beat Kursk (#1361 → #1371)

lost to Safe (#1211 → #1075)

lost to Chronicle (#1220 → #1085)

lost to What the Deaf Man Heard (#1223 → #1217)

beat The Dark Knight (#1124 → #1186)

beat Studio 666 (#1221 → #1271)

Arco (2025)

IMDb plot summary: In 2075, a girl witnesses a mysterious boy in a rainbow suit fall from the sky. He comes from an idyllic far future where time travel is possible. She shelters him and will do whatever it takes to help him return to his time.

Directed by Ugo Bienvenu. Stars Margot Ringard Oldra, Oscar Tresanini, and Nathanaël Perrot.

Arco is an animated sci-fi story about a time traveling boy who gets lost in time and must be helped home by a girl from the near Earth future. The number one word that I would use to describe this movie is sweet. There are some creative world building moments -- for example, I like the way the robot nanny was integrated into the rest of the story, and it was kind of cool to see a future story where both people were from the future, while neither was from the world that we live in right at this moment. That was a unique take. The rest of the story hits mostly expected beats along the way, and the characters are likeable but not super compelling. I could definitely see showing this to kids and having them really enjoy it, but as an adult it just was OK for me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Arco (2025)

📊 Ranked #880/4238 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 79

beat Frances Ha (#2194 → #2195)

lost to Father of the Bride (held at #1137)

beat Sling Blade (#1664 → #1666)

beat The Descent (#1413 → #1417)

lost to Heaven Knows What (held at #1281)

beat Maine Pyar Kiya (#1349 → #1355)

lost to The Woodsman (#1313 → #1153)

beat Unbreakable (#1329 → #1327)

beat After Yang (#1321 → #1325)

lost to Father Goose (held at #1316)

beat The Color Purple (#1318 → #1356)

lost to Time Bandits (#1317 → #1318)

American Factory (2019)

IMDb plot summary: In post-industrial Ohio, a Chinese billionaire opens a factory in an abandoned General Motors plant, hiring two thousand Americans. Early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America.

Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert.

American Factory is a documentary about a Chinese company's attempt to open a manufacturing plant in America. This is a depressing watch. I find it fascinating as a documentary how much of the back behind the scenes footage they were able to get an error that really show how fundamentally our system makes it impossible for labor workers to succeed in this country, and how the work ethic of another country overlaps and highlights these problems in both areas. It doesn't necessarily bring to light anything that I wasn't somewhat aware of, but it does a good job of highlighting in one particular instance the kinds of personal impact that can happen when we treat people as drones rather than human beings and push toward productivity above all else. I can't imagine wanting to rewatch it at any point, it's too upsetting to realize how then this is in our country, but I think it was overall pretty well done.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 American Factory (2019)

📊 Ranked #2714/4237 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 41

lost to Frances Ha (held at #2194)

beat The Forger (#3221 → #3222)

beat Certified Copy (held at #2700)

lost to Star Trek: Nemesis (held at #2444)

lost to Son of Rambow (held at #2568)

beat Heartbeat (held at #2634)

lost to Woman in Gold (held at #2601)

beat The Interpreter (held at #2618)

lost to Legally Blonde (held at #2609)

lost to A Star Is Born (held at #2614)

beat Thoughtcrimes (held at #2616)

beat The Vagabond King (held at #2615)

Sorry, Baby (2025)

IMDb plot summary: After a tragic event, a woman finds herself alone while everyone else continues with their lives as if nothing had happened.

Directed by Eva Victor. Stars Eva Victor, Naomi Ackie, and Louis Cancelmi.

Sorry, Baby follows a young woman throughout two chapters in her life: one in which she is groomed by one of her college professors, and the second in which she comes to terms with that and how it has affected her in ways she didn't necessarily recognize at first. This is the directorial debut of Eva Victor, and it's an astoundingly good one. It's one of those films that really lets its characters live in the world, and even as there is obviously drama and plot and action happening around them, the overall feeling is one of sitting with the characters in the quiet spaces in their heads. Besides directing, Victor also plays our lead, and she is incredible here. She conveys subtly but believably all the conflicting emotions going on with this character throughout the story. I found the ending very moving. It doesn't have a big dramatic happy resolution, but it does conclude the emotional journey that we've been on in a way that I appreciated. I also really loved how they portrayed the female friendships in this movie, both the positive ones and the ones that are less healthy. Overall an incredibly strong debut and I cannot wait to see more of what this director puts out.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Sorry, Baby (2025)

📊 Ranked #515/4236 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 87

beat 2046 (#2200 → #2201)

beat I Want You Back (#1149 → #1154)

beat Regarding Henry (#616 → #623)

beat Akeelah and the Bee (#292 → #305)

lost to Up (#126 → #127)

lost to Speed (#200 → #209)

lost to Dawn of the Dead (#238 → #247)

beat Ball of Fire (#269 → #292)

lost to Sabrina (#258 → #269)

lost to The Fly (#264 → #171)

lost to Jean de Florette (#267 → #166)

lost to Weapons (#268 → #264)