One of my New Year’s resolutions is to watch as many new movies as I can each month. I know that many can relate, but with all these new streaming services, I feel stuck watching the same five comfort films every time instead of giving the new ones a shot.
But just in 2020, along with the pandemic and COVID-19 restrictions, 329 films were released in the US and Canada. That number makes me realize that I’m missing the work of many talented artists who labor daily in the film industry to bring their creations to the big screen. So the least we as an audience can do is watch a different movie every once in a while.
February is now over, and I’m happy to share that I watched 20 movies that I hadn’t seen before. So in this article, I would like to share my top 5. If you haven’t seen any of these movies, you should absolutely watch them!
1.- I, Tonya (2017) by Craig Gillespie
This movie follows the story of famous American real-life figure skater Tonya Harding who achieved great fame in the 90s because she could do a triple axel in a competition. Her career full of triumphs begins to go downhill when in 1994, her main rival for the Winter Olympics, Nancy Kerrigan, is hit in the knee with an iron bar, and one of the first suspects is Harding.
Throughout the film, we follow Tonya as she lives crucial parts of her childhood, adolescence, and life as a 20-year-old who knows nothing beyond competitions and figure skating.
This movie received much recognition back in 2018, and it’s pretty understandable. The performances of Margot Robbie, who played Tonya Harding, and Allison Janney, who played LaVona Golden (Tonya’s mother), are extraordinary.
2.- The Fallout (2022) by Megan Park
It’s a movie that explores the life of a teenage girl named Vada and the feelings, traumas, and actions that come after she witnesses a shooting at her high school. After the event, for Vada, life doesn’t make sense anymore, and it shows when her relationships with her parents, friends, and sister begin to change.
The Fallout is the first film by Megan Park, and it’s a 90-minute drama that deserves so much recognition because it makes you feel helpless, angry, sad, happy, and many other emotions that resemble what a drama should be. The performance of Jenna Ortega, who plays the main character, is incredible, and it shows all the talent she has. She is part of the new generation behind great young actors like Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Zendaya, and Timothée Chalamet.
3.- Licorice Pizza (2021) by Paul Thomas Anderson
It’s a movie about a complex relationship between a 25-year-old woman and a 15-year-old boy who meet in San Fernando Valley, California. The lead character, Alana Kane (played by Alana Haim), is a woman who is still discovering herself and what she wants for her life. Her friend and the second main character, Gary Valentine (played by Cooper Hoffman), is a charismatic boy dedicated to acting and creating businesses with his high school friends to scam people and earn money. The two meet at Gary’s high school when the company Alana works for goes to take the student’s yearbook photo, and from there, an almost impossible romance between the two releases all the conflicts of the plot.
Licorice Pizza is nominated for the 94th Academy Awards in the most important categories: Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture. It is the second time in recent years that a coming of age and romantic film, and with some drama and comedy, is nominated in these categories. The most recent was Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird from 2017.
4.- The Farewell (2019) by Lulu Wang
It’s a movie about Billi, a Chinese-American woman who returns to her native country when she finds out that her grandmother has terminal cancer. Things don’t improve when she realizes that her family had hidden the disease from her grandmother, planning a fake wedding to meet before she died.
The Farewell is a drama/comedy film that gives us many life lessons. We learn that family, our place of origin, and culture are things that influence our lives every day and that when we least expect them, returning to the place where we came from can give us the answer to our problems.
5.- Marie Antoinette (2006) by Sofia Coppola
It’s a movie about the story of Marie Antoinette (played by Kirsten Dunst) from Austria. The audience follows her from her engagement to Louis XVI (played by Jason Schwartzman) at fifteen, her reign at nineteen, and her unfortunate end.
This film highlights the way of life in the Palace of Versailles humorously but realistic at the same time. Some parts of this movie remind me of a 2000s film, but Sofia Coppola elevates the expectations in this period movie.