What do you want to watch tonight?
Each title says who it's good for, and who it isn't. Tap what you want tonight, or say no to one and why.
Closest to Defending Jacob first
The Night Of 2016
Series
After a night of partying with a female stranger, a man wakes up to find her stabbed to death and is charged with her murder.
The sides of The Night Of
- A borrowed taxi and a woman found stabbed
- A lawyer scratching his eczema in court
- A college student learning Rikers Island
Good for you if
- you like hours spent on one night and all its paperwork.
- you like watching a case close slowly around someone.
- you watch for one performance. John Turturro's lawyer takes the case in sandals, scratching his eczema.
Bad for you if
- you need to know for certain who did it.
- you need a story to leave you some hope.
- you'd rather not watch prison, drugs and a family coming apart.
About: justice · prejudice · prison
Mystic River 2003
Film
The lives of three men who were childhood friends are shattered when one of them suffers a family tragedy.
The sides of Mystic River
- Three childhood friends in Boston
- A murdered daughter
- A past that never healed
Good for you if
- you like raw, powerful acting.
- you like a tragedy with no clean ending.
- you like a murder investigation in a tight neighbourhood.
Bad for you if
- child abuse and a parent's grief are too heavy for you.
- you need momentum. Eastwood lets the grief and the silences run long.
About: trauma · guilt · loyalty
Big Little Lies 2017
Series
The tale of three mothers of first graders whose apparently perfect lives unravel to the point of murder.
The sides of Big Little Lies
- Three mothers in a rich seaside town
- A death at a school fundraiser
- A marriage hiding violence
Good for you if
- you like Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern at full force.
- you like knowing someone died at trivia night but not who.
- you like friendships and rivalries between mothers at the school gate.
Bad for you if
- you can't take domestic abuse and rape on screen.
- you'd rather not see sex scenes, or you watch with others.
About: domestic violence · friendship · motherhood · secrets
Shutter Island 2010
Film
In 1954, a U.S. Marshal and his new partner go to a psychiatric hospital on an island to find a patient who escaped from a locked room.
The sides of Shutter Island
- A mystery that turns on you
- Gothic dread on an island
- A man haunted by loss
Good for you if
- you love a story that makes you question everything you just saw.
- you like a film you want to restart as soon as it ends.
- you like a mood that gets under your skin: storms, cells, a lighthouse.
Bad for you if
- grief and mental illness hit too close for you.
- you want to be sure what happened when the credits roll.
About: grief · guilt · madness · the truth
Adolescence 2025
Series
When a 13-year-old is accused of the murder of a classmate, his family, the psychological expert and the detective in charge are all left asking: what really happened?
The sides of Adolescence
- A 13-year-old boy arrested for murder
- Episodes filmed in one continuous take
- A father asking what he missed
Good for you if
- you like a young actor holding his own against Stephen Graham.
- you like each episode filmed in one unbroken take, from the first second to the last.
- you can take a story that leaves you with no easy answer.
Bad for you if
- a child accused of killing a classmate is too much for you.
- you want a classic whodunit with clues to follow, and this is the portrait of a family and a school.
About: masculinity · social media · parenthood · bullying
Bates Motel 2013
Series
A "contemporary prequel" to the 1960 film Psycho, depicting the life of Norman Bates and his mother Norma prior to the events portrayed in Hitchcock's film, albeit in a different fictional town and in a modern setting. The series begins after the death of Norma's husband, when she purchases a motel located in a coastal Oregon town so she and Norman can start a new life.
The sides of Bates Motel
- A young Norman Bates and his mother
- A motel bought for a fresh start
- A small Oregon town full of secrets
Good for you if
- you like Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore as a mother and son too close.
- you like knowing where Norman ends up and dreading every step.
- you like a quiet Oregon town that lives off a hidden drug trade.
Bad for you if
- you can't take abuse and mental illness on screen.
- you can't watch murders on screen.
About: mothers and sons · madness · secrets
The Outsider 2020
Series
When an insidious supernatural force edges its way into a seemingly straightforward investigation into the gruesome murder of a young boy, it leads a seasoned cop and an unorthodox investigator to question everything they believe in.
The sides of The Outsider
- A boy's murder in a Georgia town
- A suspect seen in two places at once
- An investigator who sees what others miss
Good for you if
- you like dread that builds in quiet rooms and dark caves.
- you like a case with proof that a man was in two places at once.
- you like a patient story that takes its time with grief.
Bad for you if
- the murder of a child and a grieving family are too much for you.
- you need a crime explained without anything supernatural.
About: grief · belief · evil
Prisoners 2013
Film
When his young daughter and her friend disappear on Thanksgiving, a father takes the law into his own hands while a detective works the case.
The sides of Prisoners
- A detective who won't let go
- How far a father will go
- A case built like a maze
- Rain, cold, and grey light
Good for you if
- you like being tense for two and a half hours straight.
- you like collecting clues and trying to get ahead of the detective.
- you like watching an actor go somewhere raw. Hugh Jackman does.
Bad for you if
- a child in danger is too much for you.
- two and a half hours is too long for your evening.
About: faith · revenge · guilt · fatherhood
The Haunting of Hill House 2018
Series
Flashing between past and present, a fractured family confronts haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events that drove them from it.
The sides of The Haunting of Hill House
- Five siblings and the house they fled
- A night their father never explained
- Ghosts hiding in the background of shots
Good for you if
- you want ghosts you only spot in the corner of the frame.
- you like a horror story that is really about brothers and sisters.
- you like a reveal that makes you rethink the first episode.
Bad for you if
- you can't take grief, addiction and suicide on screen.
- you need horror that moves fast. This one lingers on memories.
About: grief · family · memory
Mare of Easttown 2021
Series
A detective in a small Pennsylvania town investigates a local murder while trying to keep her life from falling apart.
The sides of Mare of Easttown
- A detective in a small Pennsylvania town
- A teenage mother found dead
- A grandmother raising her late son's child
Good for you if
- you like a small-town murder where every neighbour could be hiding something.
- you like Kate Winslet as a tired, stubborn local cop.
- you like a crime story that cares as much about Mare's family as the case.
Bad for you if
- you can't take grief, addiction and a son's suicide on screen.
- you need chases and shootouts more than slow detective work.
About: grief · small towns · motherhood · guilt
Nocturnal Animals 2016
Film
Susan Morrow receives a book manuscript from her ex-husband – a man she left 20 years earlier – asking for her opinion of his writing. As she reads, she is drawn into the fictional life of Tony Hastings, a mathematics professor whose family vacation turns violent.
The sides of Nocturnal Animals
- A gallery owner reading her ex-husband's novel
- A story inside the story
- A night on a Texas highway
Good for you if
- you like cold, elegant images.
- you like a roadside scene that's hard to breathe through.
- you like a story within a story, where the novel Susan reads keeps echoing her own past.
Bad for you if
- brutal scenes in the novel Susan reads are too much for you.
- cruelty told without comfort is too heavy for you.
About: revenge · regret · art
The Imposter 2012
Documentary
In 1994, a 13-year-old boy disappeared without a trace from his home in San Antonio, Texas. Three-and-a-half years later, he is found alive in a village in southern Spain with a horrifying story of kidnap and torture. His family is overjoyed to bring him home. But all is not quite as it seems.
The sides of The Imposter
- A Texas boy missing for three years, found in Spain
- A family welcoming him home
- A man telling the camera how he lied
Good for you if
- you like a story that gets stranger every ten minutes.
- you like an investigation where the questions keep changing.
- you like hearing a con man explain his con himself.
Bad for you if
- you can't take a real missing child and a grieving family.
- you can't stand not knowing who to believe. Each witness tells the story their own way.
About: identity · lies · grief
The Act 2019
Series
Gypsy Blanchard struggles to deal with the toxic relationship with her overprotective mother, but her attempts to free herself lead to murder.
The sides of The Act
- The true story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard
- A mother who kept her daughter ill
- A murder in Missouri
Good for you if
- you want to understand a true crime from inside the house.
- you like Joey King and Patricia Arquette in a mother-daughter story.
- you like dread that builds toward something you know will happen.
Bad for you if
- you can't stand child abuse and medical cruelty on screen.
- you need some hope, and Gypsy's life is a cage that keeps closing in.
About: control · abuse · freedom · motherhood
How to Get Away with Murder 2014
Series
A sexy, suspense-driven legal thriller about a group of ambitious law students and their brilliant, mysterious criminal defense professor. They become entangled in a murder plot and will shake the entire university and change the course of their lives.
The sides of How to Get Away with Murder
- A law professor who teaches how to win at any cost
- Five students caught in a murder
- A story told in flash-forwards
Good for you if
- you like a flash-forward that changes what you thought you knew.
- you like Viola Davis as Annalise Keating.
- you like students hiding a body and lying to everyone.
Bad for you if
- you need law school and the courts to look like the real thing.
- six seasons is too much for you.
About: guilt · ambition · secrets
ERASED 2016
Anime
Satoru Fujinuma is a struggling manga artist who has the ability to turn back time and prevent deaths. When his mother is killed he turns back time to solve the mystery, but ends up back in elementary school, just before the disappearance of his classmate Kayo.
The sides of ERASED
- A manga artist sent back to his 1988 childhood
- A classmate who disappears in winter
- A mother who notices everything
Good for you if
- you like hunting who took a classmate with nothing but a child's clues.
- you like knowing a disappearance is coming and racing the date.
- you like a grown son getting his mother back for a while.
Bad for you if
- you can't watch a child being hurt at home.
- you don't watch anime.
About: childhood · regret · a mother's love
Gone Girl 2014
Film
On their fifth wedding anniversary, a man's wife disappears, and as the police and the press dig in, he becomes the main suspect.
The sides of Gone Girl
- A marriage seen from both sides
- A trial on television
- A story that changes shape halfway
- Cold, precise, and darkly funny
Good for you if
- you love it when the floor drops out from under you halfway.
- you like a lead performance you can't look away from. Rosamund Pike holds every scene Amy is in.
- you like people who are hard to like.
Bad for you if
- you'd rather skip sex scenes, or you're watching with family.
- one sudden, very violent scene would ruin the evening for you.
About: marriage · lies · the media · image
Your Honor 2020
Series
New Orleans judge Michael Desiato is forced to confront his own deepest convictions when his son is involved in a hit and run that embroils an organized crime family.
The sides of Your Honor
- A judge whose son kills a boy in a hit and run
- A New Orleans crime family looking for a name
- A father burning everything to protect his son
Good for you if
- you like watching one lie force the next one.
- you want Bryan Cranston as a decent man coming apart slowly.
- you like following a judge who breaks every rule he enforces.
Bad for you if
- you need some hope. Here every choice makes things worse.
- you can't watch a story that opens on a dead teenager.
About: guilt · fatherhood · justice
Twin Peaks 1990
Series
The body of Laura Palmer is washed up on a beach near the small Washington state town of Twin Peaks. FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper is called in to investigate her strange demise only to uncover a web of mystery that ultimately leads him deep into the heart of the surrounding woodland and his very own soul.
The sides of Twin Peaks
- A murdered homecoming queen wrapped in plastic
- An FBI agent who loves coffee and cherry pie
- A red room with curtains and a dancing man
Good for you if
- you like David Lynch's dreams, giants and backward talk.
- you want to know who killed Laura Palmer.
- you like a story that leaves its secrets in the woods.
Bad for you if
- you need an investigation that follows clues and logic.
- you find early-90s TV dated.
- you can't take a teenager's murder, drugs and domestic violence in one small town.
About: secrets · small towns · good and evil
Hannibal 2013
Series
Both a gift and a curse, Graham has the extraordinary ability to think like his prey—he sees what they see, feels what they feel. But while Graham is pursuing an especially troubling, cannibalistic murderer, Special Agent Jack Crawford teams him with a highly respected psychiatrist – a man with a taste for the criminal minded – Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
The sides of Hannibal
- An FBI profiler who thinks like killers
- A psychiatrist who cooks his victims
- Murder scenes staged like works of art
Good for you if
- you like crime scenes composed like paintings and dinners shot like still lifes.
- you can't take your eyes off Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal Lecter.
- you like watching Will Graham get closer to the man sitting across from him.
Bad for you if
- you can't stand corpses turned into displays.
- you want a crime show that plays like real police work.
About: manipulation · obsession · friendship · madness
Bird Box 2018
Film
Five years after an ominous unseen presence drives most of society to suicide, a survivor and her two children make a desperate bid to reach safety.
The sides of Bird Box
- A mother and two children blindfolded
- Something that makes you want to die if you see it
- A river trip
Good for you if
- you like survival with a strict rule.
- you like a threat you never see.
Bad for you if
- you want answers. What the creatures are and why they kill is never explained.
- mass suicide shown on screen is too much for you.
About: motherhood · survival · fear