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 Her first
Blade Runner 2049 2017
Film
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.
The sides of Blade Runner 2049
- What makes someone human
- Slow, vast, overwhelming
- A love that might not be real
- A decaying, lived-in future
Good for you if
- you want every shot to look like a painting of the future.
- you like long, silent scenes that let you look.
- you like a score that rumbles in your chest.
Bad for you if
- nearly three hours at this pace is too much for you.
- you want a fast science-fiction action film.
About: humanity · memory · loneliness
WALL·E 2008
Film
After hundreds of years doing what he was built for, WALL•E— a robot designed to clean up the earth—discovers a new purpose in life when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE. EVE comes to realize that WALL•E has inadvertently stumbled upon the key to the planet's future, and races back to space to report to the humans. Meanwhile, WALL•E chases EVE across the galaxy and sets into motion one of the most imaginative adventures ever brought to the big screen.
The sides of WALL·E
- A little robot alone on Earth
- A love story with almost no words
- Humans who forgot how to walk
Good for you if
- you like being moved by a robot holding hands.
- you like silence, stars and a lonely planet.
- you like a film that tells everything with images.
Bad for you if
- you don't watch animated films.
- you need dialogue. The first part has almost none.
About: loneliness · love · waste
Lost in Translation 2003
Film
Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.
The sides of Lost in Translation
- An actor and a young woman sleepless in Tokyo
- A hotel bar
- A whisper you never hear
Good for you if
- you like a quiet film that drifts like a night without sleep.
- you like a connection that doesn't need a label.
- you like Bill Murray's dry deadpan as a director's long instructions come out as one short line.
Bad for you if
- you want things to happen. Very little does.
- you need a story that ties everything up. Bob and Charlotte's week in Tokyo leaves questions open.
About: loneliness · connection · being lost
Joel Barish, heartbroken that his girlfriend underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory, decides to do the same. However, as he watches his memories of her fade away, he realises that he still loves her, and may be too late to correct his mistake.
The sides of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Loving someone when you know how it ends
- A mind-bending premise
- Tender, lonely melancholy
- Memory as the plot
Good for you if
- you like a love story that hurts in a true way.
- you like memories collapsing around the characters.
- you like messy, real couples more than perfect ones.
Bad for you if
- you want a story told in order. This one jumps through memories.
- you want a light romantic comedy.
About: memory · love · regret
Call Me by Your Name 2017
Film
In the summer of 1983, a 17-year-old Elio spends his days in his family's villa in Italy. One day Oliver, a graduate student, arrives to assist Elio's father, a professor of Greco-Roman culture. Soon, Elio and Oliver discover a summer that will alter their lives forever.
The sides of Call Me by Your Name
- A summer in Italy in 1983
- A student staying with the family
- A father's speech at the end
Good for you if
- you like a first love told with patience and sun.
- you like long lazy days by the pool.
- you like a heartbreak that feels true.
Bad for you if
- sensual scenes aren't for you, or you're watching with family.
- you want something to happen. Not much does.
About: first love · desire · memory
Brokeback Mountain 2005
Film
In 1960s Wyoming, two men develop a strong emotional and sexual relationship that endures as a lifelong connection complicating their lives as they get married and start families of their own.
The sides of Brokeback Mountain
- Two cowboys on a mountain one summer
- A love they hide for twenty years
- Two shirts in a closet
Good for you if
- you like a love story that breaks you.
- you like a forbidden, lifelong love.
- you like quiet landscapes and few words.
Bad for you if
- sex scenes aren't for you, or you're watching with family.
- you want things to happen. It's slow and quiet.
About: love · shame · time
5 Centimeters per Second 2007
Anime
Three moments in Takaki's life: his relationship with Akari and their forced separation; his friendship with Kanae, who is secretly in love with him; the demands and disappointments of adulthood, an unhappy life in a cold city.
The sides of 5 Centimeters per Second
- A train delayed by snow on the way to a first love
- A surfer girl in love with a boy who looks elsewhere
- An adult life in a cold city
Good for you if
- you want falling cherry blossoms and snow drawn in detail.
- you like an hour of trains, letters and silences.
- you can take a love story about distance and time pulling people apart.
Bad for you if
- you don't watch anime.
- you need a happy ending. This one is about letting go.
About: distance · first love · growing apart
Arrival 2016
Film
Taking place after alien crafts land around the world, an expert linguist is recruited by the military to determine whether they come in peace or are a threat.
The sides of Arrival
- The grief underneath the sci-fi
- Aliens that are truly alien
- Understanding as the plot
- Time that doesn't run straight
Good for you if
- you like a film that quietly breaks you at the end.
- you like patient scenes where people try to understand each other.
- you like aliens treated as a real problem of language and science.
Bad for you if
- you want an alien invasion with battles. There are none.
- you'd rather not work to follow a story. Louise's memories only fall into place in the last act.
About: language · grief · time · choice
Blade Runner 1982
Film
In the smog-choked dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, blade runner Rick Deckard is called out of retirement to terminate a quartet of replicants who have escaped to Earth seeking their creator for a way to extend their short life spans.
The sides of Blade Runner
- A hunter of artificial humans
- Rain, neon and smoke
- Tears in rain
Good for you if
- you like a Los Angeles of rain, neon and smoke, every frame composed.
- you like a slow, moody film you sink into.
- you like wondering who's human and who isn't.
Bad for you if
- you want action. It's slow and quiet.
- films from 1982 feel dated to you.
About: humanity · memory · mortality
La La Land 2016
Film
Mia, an aspiring actress, serves lattes to movie stars in between auditions and Sebastian, a jazz musician, scrapes by playing cocktail party gigs in dingy bars, but as success mounts they are faced with decisions that begin to fray the fragile fabric of their love affair, and the dreams they worked so hard to maintain in each other threaten to rip them apart.
The sides of La La Land
- An actress and a jazz pianist
- Dancing above Los Angeles
- Dreams that cost something
Good for you if
- you like songs and dances in the middle of real life.
- you like a love story told through the seasons.
- you like colourful dresses and purple skies.
Bad for you if
- you need a classic happy ending.
- you need a story that stays grounded. Here a traffic jam on the freeway turns into a dance number.
About: ambition · love · sacrifice
Moonlight 2016
Film
The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.
The sides of Moonlight
- One life in three chapters
- A boy taught to swim
- A diner, years later
Good for you if
- you like a quiet film that hurts and heals.
- you like blue, gold and pink light.
- you like silences that say everything.
Bad for you if
- you want things to happen. It's quiet.
- a mother lost to crack and a boy bullied at school are too much for you.
About: identity · masculinity · love
The Garden of Words 2013
Anime
Takao, who is training to become a shoemaker, skipped school and is sketching shoes in a Japanese-style garden. He meets a mysterious woman, Yukino, who is older than him. Then, without arranging the times, the two start to see each other again and again, but only on rainy days. They deepen their relationship and open up to each other. But the end of the rainy season soon approaches.
The sides of The Garden of Words
- A teenage boy sketching shoes in a park
- An older woman drinking beer at dawn
- Meetings only on rainy mornings
Good for you if
- you want rain on leaves drawn drop by drop.
- you like a story told in quiet mornings under a shelter.
- you like a bond between two lonely people that has no name.
Bad for you if
- you don't watch anime.
- you want a full evening's film. This one lasts forty-six minutes.
About: loneliness · age difference · rain
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 Curious Case of Benjamin Button 2008
Film
Born under unusual circumstances, Benjamin Button springs into being as an elderly man in a New Orleans nursing home and ages in reverse. Twelve years after his birth, he meets Daisy, a child who flits in and out of his life as she grows up to be a dancer. Though he has all sorts of unusual adventures over the course of his life, it is his relationship with Daisy, and the hope that they will come together at the right time, that drives Benjamin forward.
The sides of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- A man born old who grows young
- A love that meets in the middle
- A century of America
Good for you if
- you like a long, melancholy love story.
- you like two people who keep missing each other.
- you like a life that crosses the 20th century, from New Orleans in 1918 to the Second World War.
Bad for you if
- nearly three hours is too much for one evening.
- you want something to happen. It's slow and gentle.
About: time · love · mortality
Edward Scissorhands 1990
Film
A small suburban town receives a visit from a castaway unfinished science experiment named Edward.
The sides of Edward Scissorhands
- A boy with scissors for hands
- A pastel suburb
- Snow made of ice sculptures
Good for you if
- you like a sad fairy tale about an outsider.
- you like odd, gothic characters with big hearts.
- you like a castle above a candy-coloured town.
Bad for you if
- you need the logic to hold up. An inventor builds a boy with scissors for hands.
- you want things to happen fast. Most of the film is hedges, haircuts and neighbours.
About: difference · love · belonging
Cast Away 2000
Film
Chuck Noland, a top international manager for FedEx, and Kelly, a Ph.D. student, are in love and heading towards marriage. Then Chuck's plane to Malaysia crashes at sea during a terrible storm. He's the only survivor, and finds himself marooned on a desolate island. With no way to escape, Chuck must find ways to survive in his new home.
The sides of Cast Away
- A man alone on an island for years
- A volleyball named Wilson
- Making fire for the first time
Good for you if
- you like watching someone learn to survive from nothing.
- you like one actor holding a film almost alone.
- you like being moved by a man whose only friend is a volleyball.
Bad for you if
- you need people talking. He's alone for most of it.
- over two hours alone on an island is too long for you.
About: loneliness · survival · time
Guardian: The Lonely and Great God 2016
Series
In his quest for a bride to break his immortal curse, a 939-year-old guardian of souls meets a grim reaper and a sprightly student with a tragic past.
The sides of Guardian: The Lonely and Great God
- A 939-year-old immortal looking for his bride
- A grim reaper for a housemate
- A high school student who can see ghosts
Good for you if
- you like a love story that spans centuries and lifetimes.
- you like a K-drama that makes you cry over fate and goodbyes.
- you like the goblin and the grim reaper bickering under the same roof.
Bad for you if
- you won't read subtitles for a Korean series.
- you can't watch child abuse or suicide on screen.
About: fate · immortality · grief · love
Interstellar 2014
Film
On a dying Earth, a former NASA pilot leaves his two children behind to travel through a wormhole and look for a planet humans can live on.
The sides of Interstellar
- The father and the daughter
- The science you can believe
- The organ and the silence
- The loneliness out there
Good for you if
- goodbyes hit you harder than explosions.
- you like wormholes, black holes and a planet where one hour costs years.
- you want to feel very small in your seat.
Bad for you if
- you'd rather not think about relativity and time stretching to follow a plot.
- big speeches about love make you roll your eyes.
- nearly three hours is too much for one evening.
About: time · sacrifice · home · the people left behind
Passengers 2016
Film
A spacecraft traveling to a distant colony planet and transporting thousands of people has a malfunction in its sleep chambers. As a result, two passengers are awakened 90 years early.
The sides of Passengers
- Waking up ninety years too early
- A spaceship with only two people awake
- A swimming pool losing gravity
Good for you if
- you like a love story alone in space.
- you like a sleek ship and a pool floating in zero gravity.
Bad for you if
- you can't get into space films. It all happens on a starship, with the stars outside.
- you need a crowd of characters to stay interested. For most of the film it's two people and a robot barman.
About: loneliness · love · ethics
Drive 2011
Film
Driver is a skilled Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver for criminals. Though he projects an icy exterior, lately he's been warming up to a pretty neighbor named Irene and her young son, Benicio. When Irene's husband gets out of jail, he enlists Driver's help in a million-dollar heist. The job goes horribly wrong, and Driver must risk his life to protect Irene and Benicio from the vengeful masterminds behind the robbery.
The sides of Drive
- A silent professional with a code
- The city at night, neon and synths
- Tenderness, then sudden violence
Good for you if
- you like neon Los Angeles nights.
- you like a synth soundtrack you'll play on repeat.
- you like long silences and a hero who barely speaks.
Bad for you if
- sudden, very brutal violence ruins a film for you.
- you want characters who talk.
About: loneliness · protection · violence