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 Glass first
Marvel's Jessica Jones 2015
Series
After a tragic ending to her short-lived super hero stint, Jessica Jones is rebuilding her personal life and career as a detective who gets pulled into cases involving people with extraordinary abilities in New York City.
The sides of Marvel's Jessica Jones
- A super-strong private eye who drinks too much
- A man who controls minds with his voice
- Cases in Hell's Kitchen
Good for you if
- you like a hero who is rude, broken and drinks alone.
- you want David Tennant as Kilgrave, a villain you can't look away from.
- you like a private detective's noir cases.
Bad for you if
- a story about abuse, control and trauma is too much for you.
- you need a superhero show that moves fast.
About: trauma · control · survival
Split 2017
Film
Though Kevin has evidenced 23 personalities to his trusted psychiatrist, Dr. Fletcher, there remains one still submerged who is set to materialize and dominate all the others. Compelled to abduct three teenage girls led by the willful, observant Casey, Kevin reaches a war for survival among all of those contained within him — as well as everyone around him — as the walls between his compartments shatter apart.
The sides of Split
- Three girls kidnapped
- A man with many personalities
- Something else waiting to come out
Good for you if
- you like one actor playing many people, each one different.
- you like a captivity thriller where escape keeps slipping away.
- you like an ending that changes what kind of film you were watching.
Bad for you if
- child abuse in flashbacks is too hard for you.
- you can't stand blood. The attacks in the last act are brutal.
About: trauma · identity · survival
Unbreakable 2000
Film
An ordinary man makes an extraordinary discovery when a train accident leaves his fellow passengers dead — and him unscathed. The answer to this mystery could lie with the mysterious Elijah Price, a man who suffers from a disease that renders his bones as fragile as glass.
The sides of Unbreakable
- The only survivor of a train crash
- A man who's never been sick
- A collector of comics
Good for you if
- you like a quiet superhero story told like a drama.
- you like a son who believes his dad is a hero before his dad does.
- you like an ordinary man discovering what he is.
Bad for you if
- you want superhero action. It's slow and quiet.
- you want a superhero film with jokes. David hardly smiles once.
About: purpose · fragility · fate
Moon Knight 2022
Series
When Steven Grant, a mild-mannered gift-shop employee, becomes plagued with blackouts and memories of another life, he discovers he has dissociative identity disorder and shares a body with mercenary Marc Spector. As Steven/Marc’s enemies converge upon them, they must navigate their complex identities while thrust into a deadly mystery among the powerful gods of Egypt.
The sides of Moon Knight
- A London gift-shop worker who keeps losing time
- A mercenary sharing his body
- An Egyptian moon god giving orders
Good for you if
- you like piecing together what Steven misses during his blackouts.
- you like Oscar Isaac playing two men with two accents in one body.
- you like Egyptian gods, tombs and a hippo goddess in the afterlife.
Bad for you if
- you want a classic superhero story, and this one keeps you unsure of what is real.
- you'd rather not watch childhood trauma and grief behind a superhero story.
About: identity · trauma · faith
Severance 2022
Series
Mark leads a team of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives. When a mysterious colleague appears outside of work, it begins a journey to discover the truth about their jobs.
The sides of Severance
- Office workers with their memories split in two
- The endless white corridors of Lumon Industries
- A team sorting numbers they don't understand
Good for you if
- you like piecing together what Lumon really does.
- you like goats in an office basement and a waffle party as a reward.
- you like Mark slowly realising what his other self lives through.
Bad for you if
- you need things to move fast from the first episode.
- you want answers at the end of every season.
About: work · identity · grief · control
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
WandaVision 2021
Series
Wanda Maximoff and Vision—two super-powered beings living idealized suburban lives—begin to suspect that everything is not as it seems.
The sides of WandaVision
- A couple living in old sitcoms
- A perfect suburb with cracks
- Grief that bends reality
Good for you if
- you like a show that changes decade and style each episode.
- you like slowly working out what's really going on.
- you like a superhero show that's really about grief.
Bad for you if
- you find old black and white sitcoms dated. The first episodes copy them on purpose.
- you need logic that holds up, and this one runs on magic and sitcom rules.
About: grief · denial · love
Joker 2019
Film
During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.
The sides of Joker
- A man the world keeps ignoring
- A city about to explode
- A dance down the stairs
Good for you if
- you like one performance that carries the whole film.
- you can take a story that only goes down.
- you like watching, step by step, how someone breaks.
Bad for you if
- sudden, brutal violence ruins a film for you.
- mental illness and cruelty hit too close tonight.
About: loneliness · madness · society
Loki 2021
Series
After stealing the Tesseract during the events of “Avengers: Endgame,” an alternate version of Loki is brought to the mysterious Time Variance Authority, a bureaucratic organization that exists outside of time and space and monitors the timeline. They give Loki a choice: face being erased from existence due to being a “time variant” or help fix the timeline and stop a greater threat.
The sides of Loki
- A god of mischief arrested by a time agency
- Offices outside of time
- Many versions of himself
Good for you if
- you like Loki being sarcastic to bureaucrats.
- you like time-travel paperwork and retro offices.
- you like a villain learning who he is.
Bad for you if
- you want a plot that's easy to follow. Variants, branches and the Sacred Timeline pile up fast.
- you need time travel with rules that hold up. The TVA runs on magic paperwork and time doors.
About: identity · free will · time
The Shining 1980
Film
Jack Torrance accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy and their son Danny, must live isolated from the rest of the world for the winter. But they aren't prepared for the madness that lurks within.
The sides of The Shining
- An empty hotel in winter
- A father going mad
- A boy riding his tricycle down the halls
Good for you if
- you like dread that builds slowly in empty corridors.
- you like long gliding shots behind a boy on his tricycle.
- you like a performance that becomes truly frightening.
Bad for you if
- you scare easily. Some images stay for years.
- you can't watch a family threatened by the father. Jack's drinking and rage turn on his wife and son.
About: isolation · madness · family
X-Men 2000
Film
Two mutants, Rogue and Wolverine, come to a private academy for their kind whose resident superhero team, the X-Men, must oppose a terrorist organization with similar powers.
The sides of X-Men
- A school for gifted mutants
- A loner with claws
- Two old friends on opposite sides
Good for you if
- you like Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, all claws and bad temper.
- you like outsiders finding a family.
Bad for you if
- you need the science to hold up. A machine on the Statue of Liberty turns humans into mutants.
- you'd rather your superheroes skip politics. A senator wants every mutant registered.
About: prejudice · belonging · fear
The Umbrella Academy 2019
Series
Reunited by their father's death, estranged siblings with extraordinary powers uncover shocking family secrets — and a looming threat to humanity.
The sides of The Umbrella Academy
- Adopted siblings with powers
- An apocalypse in eight days
- A brother stuck as a teenager
Good for you if
- you like odd, colourful superhero stories.
- you like a dysfunctional family where everyone shines.
- you like dark comedy and dance scenes.
Bad for you if
- bloody fights ruin a show for you.
- you can't watch addiction on screen. Klaus spends much of the first season high.
About: family · trauma · time
INVINCIBLE 2021
Series
Mark Grayson is a normal teenager except for the fact that his father is the most powerful superhero on the planet. Shortly after his seventeenth birthday, Mark begins to develop powers of his own and enters into his father's tutelage.
The sides of INVINCIBLE
- A teenager getting his powers at seventeen
- A father who is the strongest hero on Earth
- Superhero fights with real damage
Good for you if
- you like a first season that changes everything in its last episodes.
- you like superhero fights that level whole cities.
- you like a son trying to understand who his father really is.
Bad for you if
- you can't stand gore and bodies torn apart.
- you don't watch animated series.
About: fatherhood · responsibility · growing up · power
Ex Machina 2015
Film
Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.
The sides of Ex Machina
- A programmer invited to test a robot
- A house in the middle of nowhere
- Who is testing whom
Good for you if
- you like quiet unease between three people in a house.
- you like science fiction that feels like next year.
- you like conversations that are really tests.
Bad for you if
- you want action. It's mostly talking.
- nudity isn't for you tonight.
About: control · consciousness · manipulation
The Sixth Sense 1999
Film
Following an unexpected tragedy, child psychologist Malcolm Crowe meets a nine year old boy named Cole Sear, who is hiding a dark secret.
The sides of The Sixth Sense
- A boy who sees dead people
- A psychologist trying to help him
- A mother who doesn't understand
Good for you if
- you like an ending that makes you replay the whole film in your head.
- you like quiet, creeping fear.
- you like a ghost story that's really about grief.
Bad for you if
- you scare easily, especially with children in danger.
- you need momentum. It moves quietly, one session with Cole at a time.
About: grief · communication · fear
Black Swan 2010
Film
A committed dancer struggles to maintain her sanity after winning the lead role in a production of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake."
The sides of Black Swan
- A dancer chasing perfection
- A rival who might not be real
- Swan Lake from the inside
Good for you if
- you like a lead performance that cracks in front of you.
- you like paranoia that keeps tightening.
- you like not knowing what's real and what's in her head.
Bad for you if
- sex scenes aren't for you, or you're watching with others.
- self-harm and mental breakdown are too hard for you.
About: perfection · obsession · identity
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
Westworld 2016
Series
A dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the evolution of sin. Set at the intersection of the near future and the reimagined past, it explores a world in which every human appetite, no matter how noble or depraved, can be indulged.
The sides of Westworld
- A Wild West theme park run by robots
- Hosts who start to remember
- Guests who pay to do anything
Good for you if
- you like a plot you have to piece together across timelines.
- you like a story that keeps changing what you think you know about the park.
- you like a show where the first season hides clues for the second viewing.
Bad for you if
- you can't stand graphic shootouts and violence against the hosts.
- you'd rather skip the nudity and sex scenes, or you watch with others.
About: consciousness · free will · memory · control
Mr. Robot 2015
Series
A young programmer, Elliot, suffers from a debilitating anti-social disorder and decides that he can only connect to people by hacking them. He wields his skills as a weapon to protect the people that he cares about. Elliot finds himself in the intersection between a cybersecurity firm he works for and the underworld organizations that are recruiting him to bring down corporate America.
The sides of Mr. Robot
- A lonely hacker at a security firm
- A group of hackers named fsociety
- A plan to erase all debt
Good for you if
- you like piecing together a hacking plot against the giant E Corp.
- you like the floor dropping out from under Elliot.
- you like living inside one troubled man's head.
Bad for you if
- you can't stand drug use, trauma and depression on screen.
- you need momentum, and some episodes sit inside Elliot's silence.
About: loneliness · reality · revolution · trauma
Fight Club 1999
Film
A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground "fight clubs" forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion.
The sides of Fight Club
- The twist
- A satire of the life you're sold
- The rush of breaking free
Good for you if
- you love a story that makes you rethink everything you just watched.
- you can laugh at a man selling soap made of something awful.
- you like a film you want to restart to look for the clues.
Bad for you if
- bare-knuckle fights and bloody faces ruin it for you.
- you want to feel good after. This one leaves you uneasy.
About: masculinity · consumerism · identity