By Bradley Lane
50/50 (2011): A comedy unafraid to tackle heavy themes, this comedy manages to be a feel-good movie with room for a lot of emotion. It also stars two great performances from Joseph Gordon Levitt and Seth Rogan. (Available on Hulu)
The Handmaiden (2016): South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s is perfect for the person in your life who loves movies with a twist. This period piece thriller changes expectations every scene and has the emotional connectivity to make it impactful. (Available on Amazon Prime)
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018): A tender and warm-hearted adaptation of a stage play of the same name, Barry Jenkins directs a glowing and tragic portrait of young love in If Beale Street Could Talk. (Available on Hulu)
The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019): A favorite indie film of mine from last year, San Fran native Joe Talbot is in total control of his craft in this idiosyncratic tale of friendship, displacement and empathy. (Available on Amazon Prime)
Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018): If all you want out of a film is spectacle and over-the-top action, look no further. This entry into the Mission Impossible series is pure popcorn chomping fun. Sometimes all a film needs to work are spies, a little bit of skydiving and of course, a team of heroes saving the world. (Available on Amazon Prime)
The Nightingale (2018): This film is dark, both metaphorically and literally. This is a straightforward revenge story set in colonial Australia that becomes an extended allegory for the evils of colonialism. I suggest vetting all media children consume but this one is especially graphic; it is intended only for mature audiences. (Available on Hulu)
Parasite (2019): The first foreign language feature to ever win Best Picture at the Academy Awards, critical darling, masterpiece; what hasn’t been said about Bong Joon-ho’s return to the Korean language? If you have somehow yet to check it out, I cannot recommend it enough. (Available on Hulu)
Samsara (2013): Documentary filmmaking like you have never seen before, this film has no real narrative, rather it observes people’s lives in unimaginably beautiful imagery. Exploring both the mundane and the spectacular, it ultimately serves as a testament to the universality of the human experience. (Available on Amazon Prime)
Taxi Driver (1976): I have never made my love for the films of Martin Scorsese hidden, and it was a loved sparked by my first viewing of Taxi Driver. The film is much more complex than its detractors might label it. Personally, I have always found Taxi Driver to be a disturbing, but ultimately worthwhile journey into the mind of a man going mad. (Available on Netflix)
There Will Be Blood (2007): A true modern classic, Paul Thomas Anderson based this film partially on the Upton Sinclair novel, Oil!. Daniel Day Lewis disappears into the cruel oil barren Daniel Plainview as the film wrestles with the themes of greed, family and most of all, religion. (Available on Netflix)
