Sam’s 25th Birthday: 25 Movies You Haven’t Seen But Need To
Listen I thought about this post like 100 times. I wanted to write something smart, cool, or new for my 25th birthday (which was yesterday). I was hoping I could somehow emulate the best of Movies with Mikey and Sean Fennessey. But considering their years of experience in reviewing and writing about movies and that I’ve only been trying to do this for a year, I don’t think that will be possible. But pivoting is something I am quite good at. So I have decided to go with a very clickbait-y topic and an even more clickbait-y title. But I want that sweet, sweet internet traffic. So I gotta do what Buzzfeed does and just get the viewers. Without further ado, Sam’s 25 movies you haven’t seen but need to:
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CODA: Definitely, my most recent viewing on this list. CODA captures the beauty of a family learning what it means to become independent of each other. The greatness here lies in the subtly of the performances.
Fear Street Pt. 1-3: Netflix stepped into the summertime horror slot and filled it again. This movie follows in the footsteps of recent hits like Stranger Things but builds over three movies instead of multiple episodes. The large cast of various actors put together a great community that lets this story really breathe.
The Sound of Metal: A movie about a rock star going deaf! It’s such a great idea; how had no one thought of this before? Go Riz Ahmed!!!
First Cow: This is just a story about two best friends in the colonial American days who steal milk from a cow to make biscuits. There’s some more subtly in there somewhere that I don’t have time to describe right now, but it’s a beautiful friendship.
Queen & Slim: Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith in Bonnie and Clyde but if Bonnie and Clyde were innocent and a lot more subtly about the inherent racism in America. Plus some excellent cinematography gets thrown in there, we’ve got a great movie.
Doctor Sleep: A sequel to The Shining is a bad idea. It is the greatest horror movie of the 1970s (maybe of all time) and one of Steven King’s best works, and someone thought they should make the sequel. The elevator pitch for this movie could not have gone well, but the movie actually builds off the original in a respectful and intelligent way.
The Art of Self Defense: Masculinity is a confusing and difficult thing to talk about sometimes. Preying on someone’s lack of understanding of it is a wickedly evil thing to do. And that is what this movie goes for. Plus Jesse Eisenburg does a great performance and helps us forget for a second he was the worst Lex Luthor ever.
Bad Times at the El Royale: Pulp Fiction meets Forrest Gump. A stacked cast of eccentric characters makes for a wild mystery world that I would love to unravel with a sequel. I cannot even begin to actually describe the plot of this because I don’t want to spoil it at all.
To All the Boys I Loved Before: Teenage romance is a complicated and scary thing to deal with, and making a movie about it can be very difficult as well. But the writers here make this Netflix original feel light and easily digestible while not letting the stakes suffer. Plus Lana Condor and Noah Centineo are terrific.
Blindspotting: Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal tell a story of prejudice, friendship, and fear. The dynamic between these two best friends who have been planning to use this movie for a while works extraordinarily well.
Leave No Trace: This is Thomasin McKenzie’s breakout party. The minimalistic and nature-based story makes for some great set pieces and cinematography. The theme of growing up while your parents remain stagnant is a hard one to swallow.
Thoroughbreds: Remember Anya Taylor-Joy from Queen’s Gambit and the crappy x-men movie New Mutants. Well, now she’s in a thriller about a teenager who needs to kill her step-dad and her friend who helps her do it. Not my most straightforward recommendation, but stylistically it’s excellent
Den of Thieves: Garbage crime movie at its finest. This is like Heat but without the Corleone family as the leading men. Still tense and high-strung and fun to watch.
Happy Death Day: Groundhog Day but with a murder mystery and a horror twist. The dark comedy keeps everyone interested and leaves everyone as a suspect. Jessica Rothe kills in this role as the final girl who keeps dying (pun not intended).
Blade Runner 2049: Listen if you can get Harrison Ford to actually try in your movie, and you deliver on a theme of intrinsic human value, you’ve done something great. Ryan Gosling is the perfect leading man here too.
Good Time: Did you like Uncut Gems but wanted it to be even crazier and even higher strung? Great! Watch this movie with Robert Pattinson losing his mind trying to get his brother out of the clink in New York City by doing literally every illegal thing you can imagine. Pattinson had to play Batman after this to get the stink of being such a terrible person off his resume.
Logan Lucky: Steven Soderburg makes a heist story that has a massive ensemble cast and has a wonderful southern charm. All the while it tells a great story about not devaluing a certain region’s locals or stereotyping. At one point in this movie, they jokingly call the heist that happens in this movie “Oceans 7-11.” That makes the movie for me.
Wind River: Hawkeye and Scarlett Witch investigate a disappearance in the Alaskan wilderness. Thrilling action sequences and tense confrontations combined with a wonderful mystery keep us interested.
Free Fire: This movie is just one group of crazy people stuck in a standoff after a gun deal goes wrong in an abandoned warehouse. Almost everyone dies and everyone goes out well because it’s a firefight.
Raw: The family that cannibalizes together, stays together! I know that sentence grabs your attention, so go watch this one about a young woman who comes into her own when she realizes has a desire for human flesh.
Silence: Martin Scorsese can do stuff other than gangster stories. And the deep question pressing here about the impact of sharing the Gospel to an oppressed people and the difficulty of hearing God’s voice is a wonderful dual-threat for a movie.
Sully: Clint Eastwood efficiently delivers on an incredible true story about the miracle landing on the Hudson River. Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart make for a wonderful duo.
Shin Godzilla: I have not seen the original Godzilla movie, but this is certainly the best depiction of how a country would respond to a legitimate Kaiju showing up. The political and scientific side of this movie is honest and harsh as well. The atomic sequence is chilling.
The Nice Guys: Ryan Gosling makes this list for the second time; this time with Maximus from Gladiator in tow as an unlikely pairing of a private eye and some muscle that are knee-deep in a crazy conspiracy involving the porn industry and emissions laws on car companies. It’s a lot to take in, but it’s hilarious the entire time.
Green Room: What happens when a traveling rock band doesn’t realize they’re playing a gig for a white supremacist compound? Well, they freak out and try to leave, but it’s not that simple. On a sad but interesting side, Patrick Stewart plays the leader of the White Supremacist gang actually.
Boom. 25 movies you should see. I did it. I completed the clickbait!
Until I see another one.