Barbarian (2022)
A slow burn horror film about ownership and different—but nonetheless connected—generations of misogynistic violence, Zach Cregger’s low-budget feature begins with the unsettling double booking of a Detroit rental house before tearing its dimensions apart with hidden tunnels and historic crimes. It packs an almighty kick.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Although the set-pieces of directors Anthony and Joe Russo lacked a decisive energy, the first sequel to the story of Captain America (Chris Evans) had an intimate scale and a knowing condemnation of how the heroic become a weapon for corrupt institutions. There are diabolical World War II computers and fantastical assassins, including Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, but this is a thriller about the loss of personal and systemic faith.
Fantasia (1940)
Originally screened in Fantasound, a system that had to be specially installed in theatres, this animated anthology set eight fantastical segments to classical music by the likes of Johann Sebastian Bach and Igor Stravinsky. It is the boldest, and sometimes the strangest, of the original Disney animations. If a few parts are now dated many more retain their visceral impact.
Gone Girl (2014)
David Fincher cuts from a passionate kiss to a DNA swab of a mouth, encapsulating the transformation of desire into desperation that informs this corrosive vision of marital domesticity. Ben Affleck is the philandering husband whose glibness comes unstuck when Rosamund Pike’s wife disappears, leaving him vulnerable in ways the dual narrative eventually makes brutally clear.
The Kid Who Would Be King (2019)
Joe Cornish’s follow-up to Attack the Block is this update of Arthurian legend, which breathlessly follows a 12-year-old London schoolboy, Alex (Louis Ashbourne Serkis), who finds the magical sword Excalibur and a raft of ancient trouble. In this meticulous and inspiring coming of age adventure, the ingenuity of children holds sway over the forces of darkness.
Pete’s Dragon (2016)
Here’s an exception to the ‘original over the remake’ rule. Independent filmmaker David Lowery’s 2016 version of the lesser 1977 Disney musical begins with an orphaned child being rescued by a giant dragon, the bond between them resulting in a film that celebrates friendship but acknowledges trauma. The effects are first-rate, be they digital, animatronic, or the star power of Robert Redford as a wise septuagenarian.
Tron (1982)
One of the earliest movies to feature CGI sequences, this tale of a sacked computer programmer (Jeff Bridges) who gets digitised inside the mainframe where his programs live—and fight—was visually and thematically prescient, shaping a generation’s understanding of computer architecture and the seriousness of reaching game over. It’s an enjoyable time capsule.
