Dick Johnson Is Dead (2020)
Director: Kirsten Johnson
Genre: Documentary
MPA rating: PG-13
Rotten Tomatoes: 99%
Metacritic: 89
Kirsten Johnson is always breaking the boundaries of what we think a documentary can be—never more so than in her deeply moving yet not-depressing tribute to her father on the eve of his death. Between candid interviews with her father, Dick, Johnson stages his death in various, surreally funny scenarios, such as a fall down the stairs or being struck by a rogue air conditioner. The director told Vanity Fair that making the film was an act of coping with her beloved parent’s dementia: “How can my father and I together confront the fact that he, who is irreplaceable, will disappear?” The effect is whimsical, profound, and restorative, making for the wildest study of love and loss in Netflix’s vast stable.
Fargo (1996)
Director: Joel Coen
Genre: Crime
Notable cast: William H. Macy, Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, and John Carroll Lynch
MPA rating: R
Rotten Tomatoes: 95%
Metacritic: 88
Heard of it? The film that brought the Coen brothers to critical mass and earned them their first Oscar nominations is a darkly hilarious crime fable that’s as eccentric as it is disarming in its humanity. Frances McDormand’s now iconic small-town investigator, Marge Gunderson, looks into a heartless kidnapping and murder, questioning kooky characters in pursuit of William H. Macy’s dim-witted Jerry Lundegaard. After a lot of ultimately meaningless bloodletting, Marge lets the darkness in just enough to decisively choose to see the goodness in people, and the film locks into the power that made it an instant classic. The legacy series it spawned has had its highs and lows, but the film’s enduring legacy is its status as one of the greatest films of the 1990s and a must-watch-masterpiece calling card for the Coens.
Frances Ha (2013)
Director: Noah Baumbach
Genre: Comedy
Notable cast: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Adam Driver, Michael Zegen, Charlotte d’Amboise, Josh Hamilton, and Grace Gummer
MPA rating: R
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
Metacritic: 82
A gorgeous and sardonic fable about a screwup who stumbles her way toward getting her life together, Frances Ha remains the most essential collaboration between Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig. In an absolutely must-watch performance, Gerwig plays New York dancer Frances as she loses connection with her best friend, Sophie (an underrated Mickey Sumner), and as her rapidly approaching 30s begin to catch up to her. The joy of Frances Ha comes from its romantic vantage on New York City living and Frances’s antics: twirling herself through the streets to David Bowie, having boy roommates, taking an ill-advised trip to France. But it also possesses a sly quotability that leaves gems hiding in plain sight.
Gone Girl (2014)
Director: David Fincher
Genre: Thriller/screwball romantic comedy for sickos
Notable cast: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Tyler Perry, Carrie Coon, Neil Patrick Harris, Kim Dickens, Patrick Fugit, Emily Ratajkowski, Lola Kirke, Boyd Holbrook, Sela Ward, Missi Pyle, Scoot McNairy, and Casey Wilson
MPA rating: R
Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
Metacritic: 79
