Good current movies? I’ve not posted my freeper movie list of good recent movies in a while, so here it is. Try some of these:
The Way Back (2010); The Death of Stalin (2017); Arrival (2016); Brooklyn (2015); Mr. Jones (2019); Chernobyl (the miniseries, 2019); Leave No Trace (2018); Columbus (2017); Downfall (2004); Balloon (2018); The Professor and the Madman (2019); Lost in Translation (2003); Paterson (2016); Ashes in the Snow (2018); Dear Comrades! (2020); Within the Whirlwind (2009); The Dig (2021); Lore (2012); Conspiracy (2001); CODA (2021); On the Rocks (2020); Old Henry (2021); The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis (2021); Montana Story (2021); Drive My Car (2021); I’m Your Man (2021); After Yang (2021); Free Guy (2021); The Lost City (2022); Montana Story (2021); Petite Maman (2021); Another Round (2020); Compartment No., 6 (2021); Jockey (2021); Belfast (2021); See How They Run (2022); The Banshees of Inisherin (2022); Living (2022); TAR (2022); To Leslie (2022); Never Let Me Go (2010); Mr. Turner (2014); Nefarious (2023); Eternal Winter (2018); Sound of Freedom (2023); Oppenheimer (2023); The Florida Project (2017); Love at First Sight (2023); American Fiction (2023); Coherence (2013); Ladyballers (2013); The Holdovers (2023); Past Lives (2023); Primer (2004); Godzilla Minus One (2023); The Zone of Interest (2023); The Promised Land (2023)
Yes, Hollywood has problems. That’s nothing new, but the dominance of the streamers has created a new situation. It has led to unprecedented concentration as the streamers have bought up most of the legacy studios in order to get control of their film catalogues, and that has had several very destructive effects on the kinds of movies that are being produced. I won’t repeat that argument here.
An occasional good movie does get through the corporate maze of the big studios, but increasingly the good films are coming from the remaining small independent producers and from abroad. Even these will usually end up being picked up by one of the streamers for distribution, but at least they were independent at the front end. Since they are not the big franchise tentpoles, they usually don’t get much promotion.
In addition, the streaming system silos the audience so that something on Apple+ , Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc. will be unavailable to a majority of the potential home viewing audience, at least initially. Some films remain siloed indefinitely but most get leased, travel the circuit, and will eventually work their way around to your platform of choice. But that will usually happen long after the moment they were getting some buzz, so it’s like finding a random book in the back stacks of a library. Ultimately most of them will be an inexpensive rental on multiple platforms, but unless you already know they’re there, you won’t find them. I’m willing to wager that most freepers have never heard of a majority of these films, and since they are intelligent, reasonably conservative films, that’s too bad.
So yes, good movies are still being made, but our target acquisition systems are broken. Until just a few years ago, I was in the nuke Hollywood from orbit camp. Then I had my Road to Damascus moment, tripped over a very good film that took me completely by surprise, and realized that I had a huge blindspot. Newly retired and with time on my hands, I became an active viewer and decided to go hunting for tolerably good “conservative” films, broadly defined. And since we all like assorted golden oldies and have our personal GOAT lists, I decided to focus on relatively recent films.
My list morphs each time I post it. My viewing tastes have changed as I’ve aged; I’m now more interested in great acting and serious character dramas, and I don’t give a fig about flying spandex or CGI heavy spectacles. YMMV. You won’t like all of these, but I don’t think you will be insulted or outraged by any of them. There are a couple of wildcards on the list, some of them suggestions from other freepers that I would not have found otherwise, given my own viewing habits. The oldest is Conspiracy (2001); most are within the last decade.
For those who take pride in not having seen any new movies since the last ice age, allow me to note that I’ve thrown these out for discussion on multiple movie threads in the past couple of years, and a fair number of freepers have mentioned some of them as well. Some freeper favorites that you should definitely check out before you say that no good movies are made today: The Death of Stalin (2017); Arrival (2016); Chernobyl (the 2019 miniseries); Conspiracy (2001); Old Henry (2021); Another Round (2020); and The Sound of Freedom (2023). There are a dozen others with smaller freeper viewership, but those of us who have seen them like them.
Coherence and Primer are outliers, but they caught my interest for another reason. Woke Hollywood — Disney being the worst of all — is blowing through hundreds of millions of dollars to produce flopbusters. I got interested in low cost indie films at the other end of the spectrum; it’s hard for the DEI commissars to complain about a writer-director team of one, and an indie film whose makers had to check under the couch cushions to find enough money to make it is too small for the grifters to target. At this end of the spectrum, the creatives are still in control of the project, not the corporate bureaucrats and the activist shakedown artists.
Anyhow, here’s my current freeper-friendly list. I will argue all day that these movies are, in most cases, “conservative” (broadly defined), or at least apolitical.
How many have you seen? Our viewing preferences differ so you won’t like them all, but which did you like? Other recommendations?
I mentioned that Coherence and Primer are outliers that caught my interest because of their low budget status. Both are science fiction flicks. Both rely on concept and script. Go into them cold; then consult Professor Wikipedia or read some reviews to figure out what you have just watched.
Great films, no. But Coherence was made for $30,000. Primer was made for $7,000, most of which was spent on film. One guy had an idea that he turned into a screenplay, and he rounded up his immediate family and a handful of friends to shoot it.
Creativity isn’t dead. You just won’t find it much at Disney, Apple, Amazon or the myriad legacy studios that they now own, because the corporate bureaucracies, the woke mafia, and the lowest common denominator logic of streaming have taken over.
bkmk - great post!
I have no recommendations. I saw Death of Stalin and Downfall. I think I saw Arrival. I wanted to watch Chernobyl but it wasn’t available to me at the time.