17 Best Movies To Watch After Free Guy (2021)
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A few weeks ago, a picture of M. Night Shyamalan and his family at the premiere of his Apple TV show Servant surfaced on my social media timeline. All five of them dressed exquisitely, Shyamalan with his goofy dad smile, his Ph.D. wife Bhavna looking glamorous, and their three adult daughters, bright with talent, love, and creative potential. Continue Reading →
The King's Man
SimilarBatman Forever (1995),
Bend It Like Beckham (2002) Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), Mary Poppins (1964), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005),
Watch afterEternals (2021), Free Guy (2021), Nightmare Alley (2021), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021),
StarringRhys Ifans, Robert Aramayo,
Studio20th Century Studios,
Early in the King's Man, Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes) reads a newspaper chronicling the human cost of the then-nascent World War I. The headline for all this carnage reads "When will this misery end?" It’s fitting since I found myself constantly asking myself the same question as The King's Man dragged on and on. For some reason, a franchise that’s previously leaned heavily on anal sex jokes and Elton John beating up evil henchmen wants to get serious in the most superficial way possible. Continue Reading →
Robin Robin
SimilarBugsy Malone (1976), Mary Poppins (1964), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971),
Watch afterFree Guy (2021), Licorice Pizza (2021), tick tick... BOOM! (2021),
MPAA RatingG,
Though their first project made exclusively for Netflix, Robin Robin brings animation studio Aardman back to familiar territory. Aardman’s big claim to fame was Wallace and Gromit shorts released as TV specials like A Grand Day Out or The Wrong Trousers. It may be dropping on a streaming platform rather than on broadcast television, but Robin Robin allows Aardman to once again cram a lot of beautiful animation and charm into 30 minutes of storytelling. Continue Reading →
怒火
SimilarCarrie (1976),
Watch afterFree Guy (2021),
Bong (Donnie Yen) is a hero cop. He's bold, decisive, and always gets his man. For good and ill, he's got no patience for the brass and their smirking politicking. And he's got even less patience for those of his peers who grin through the sleaze and kiss up to their superiors anyway. But Bong being a hero isn't the same thing as his being good. His derring-do, damn-it-if-it-doesn't-get-us-our-guy mode and his attempts to pass it on have cost people he's cared for terribly. And that cost isn't something he's fully faced. Continue Reading →
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
SimilarBring It On (2000), Free Willy (1993), Hellboy (2004), Night at the Museum (2006), Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), Superman Returns (2006),
Watch afterEternals (2021), Free Guy (2021), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021),
StarringShohreh Aghdashloo,
StudioBron Studios, Columbia Pictures,
One of the few moments of genuine humanity from Ghostbusters: Afterlife comes before the movie starts. In the press screening intro video, director and co-writer Jason Reitman shows up to tell everyone to please enjoy the movie. Then he briefly mentions the high stakes pressure of taking up the mantle of a beloved film property from his father, Ivan Reitman. Continue Reading →
Ron's Gone Wrong
Watch afterFree Guy (2021), Thanksgiving (2023),
StudioTSG Entertainment,
Ron’s Gone Wrong has some lofty goals: it’s a bold attempt to talk about how social media addiction, consumerism, and technology at large has taken over kids’ lives in a way that’s not just unhealthy, but that’s actively leaving them lonelier. And if anything can be applauded about writer and director Sarah Smith’s film, it’s in the way it wants to tackle all of this head on. Only in this world, swap the iPhones and tablets for “B-bots”—cute little AIs proudly labeled “your best friend out of the box!” They follow you everywhere, learn everything about you, and use that info to help you make new friends via other kids’ B-bots. It’s the tech solution to friendship! ...And a handy little metaphor for the way tech once designed to bring us together has mutated into something else entirely. Continue Reading →
Dune
SimilarResident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Stalker (1979),
Watch afterDon't Look Up (2021), Eternals (2021), Free Guy (2021), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), The Batman (2022),
StarringBabs Olusanmokun, Stellan Skarsgård,
When I first heard the announcement of a new adaptation of Frank Herbert’s magnum opus Dune, I think I might have groaned and said, “God, not again.” Even with the cult followings that Lynch’s now-disowned 1984 version and SyFy’s plodding 2000 miniseries have amassed, there has yet to be a version that had the kind of mass appeal that gets butts in seats. Continue Reading →
The Many Saints of Newark
SimilarA History of Violence (2005), Brubaker (1980), The Departed (2006),
Watch afterDon't Look Up (2021), Free Guy (2021),
StudioNew Line Cinema,
When Anthony “Tony” Soprano first appears in Alan Taylor’s The Many Saints of Newark, he’s just a kid, hanging on the shoulder of his Uncle Richard “Dickie” Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola). Much like the show it precedes, Taylor’s crime drama focuses on family, a group of related and unrelated men and women influencing and subsequently controlling various parts of New Jersey. Billed as a Tony Soprano origin story, a prequel that wasn’t needed but wanted, the film never feels inherently necessary or emotional. It coasts upon characters it has already set up, actors with pedigree playing said characters, and the understanding that this David Chase-created world is still connected and worth our time. Continue Reading →
No Time to Die
Watch afterDune (2021), Eternals (2021), Free Guy (2021), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021),
To speak of No Time to Die is to speak of what came before it. Of course, that sounds obvious in theory; the Daniel Craig era of 007 comes to an end here. They lightly tied into each other until Spectre drunkenly tried and failed at deepening the mythology. While the quality of the films varied, at least they were all distinct. It's been fifteen years and five movies -- now it all comes to a head, the stakes ostensibly high and the emotions primed to be deeper. And yet, against all odds, Cary Joji Fukunaga's offering to the franchise is derivative enough of its most recent predecessors to fumble conceptually and concretely. Continue Reading →
Kate
SimilarBatman Returns (1992), Blown Away (1994), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004),
Shaft (2000) Zatoichi (2003),
Watch afterFree Guy (2021),
Mary Elizabeth Winstead as the next cinematic revenge thriller brawler is too brilliant not to at least try. Her bonafides in 10 Cloverfield Lane as lead and then clutch supporting turn in Birds of Prey do more than enough to establish precedent. Throw in a unique location (Tokyo) with an urgent, grisly hook (an assassin only has 24 hours to enact revenge), and Kate should be one of the most satisfying Netflix originals to presumably hit the Top 10 in 2021. Sadly, the only watchers who might find this satisfying have either watched too many action revenge thrillers or not nearly enough. Continue Reading →
The Suicide Squad
SimilarFree Willy (1993), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), Hellboy (2004),
Live and Let Die (1973) Superman Returns (2006), The Legend of Zorro (2005),
Watch afterBlack Widow (2021), Eternals (2021), Free Guy (2021), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021),
StarringDee Bradley Baker,
In the last decade, there have been numerous shitty attempts to replicate the success of the Marvel Studios formula, but Suicide Squad (2016) may be the worst of the worst. Writer/director David Ayer’s dark and gritty tone clashed with the pop music-heavy trailers, marketing that included songs already used by – and meant to remind viewers of – Guardians of the Galaxy. In the end, the studio hired that same trailer company to re-cut the movie, which was released into theaters as an incomprehensible mess. Noticeably missing a “2” in its title, The Suicide Squad is essentially a 200 million dollar do-over. It’s the movie Warner Brothers should’ve made five years ago. Continue Reading →
Jungle Cruise
Watch afterBlack Widow (2021), Free Guy (2021), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), The Suicide Squad (2021),
StudioTSG Entertainment, Walt Disney Pictures,
The phenomenon of Disney adapting its own theme park rides to the silver screen will never not be fascinating to me. It's the ultimate act of corporate synergy: watch Disney movies, come to Disneyland to experience them in real life, come ride our rides, then watch the movie based on the rides. What's even more fascinating are the ones that work: Gore Verbinski's Pirates of the Caribbean pulled off a minor miracle in adapting a pretty groan-worthy theme park ride into a vibrant, Errol Flynn-like adventure. And in an attempt to recapture that kind of heat, we now have Jungle Cruise, which gets points for referencing the right things, even as it refuses to reinvent the wheel. Continue Reading →
Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain
Watch afterBarbie (2023) Free Guy (2021), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023),
When someone chooses to end their life, even if they’re open about their mental health struggles, it’s still often a shock to their friends and loved ones, who will then wrack their brains and agonize over whether they missed a sign that it was coming. The question always arises: how could they do that? They had so much to live for. They had so many people who cared about them. We’ve learned some pretty harsh lessons in the past decade about “what kind of person” commits suicide, first with Robin Williams in 2014, and then someone else who truly seemed to know how to grab life by the balls, Anthony Bourdain, in 2018. Morgan Neville’s Roadrunner is a moving film about Bourdain, arguably the most important modern travel documentarian, and his internal conflict over having a life most people only dream of, while feeling like he didn’t really deserve it. Continue Reading →
The Tomorrow War
Similar28 Days Later (2002), Back to the Future Part II (1989), Back to the Future Part III (1990), Star Trek: First Contact (1996),
Watch afterBlack Widow (2021), Free Guy (2021), The Suicide Squad (2021),
StarringSam Richardson,
It's clear from the starting gun that Paramount originally intended to push The Tomorrow War as a major summer theatrical release. But given the pandemic, Amazon Prime Video has stepped up to rollout this 140-minute sci-fi action romp starring Chris Pratt of Marvel’s Cosmic corner and Jurassic World fame. Continue Reading →
Infinite
Watch afterBlack Widow (2021), Free Guy (2021), The Suicide Squad (2021),
The action genre has a special built-in cheat code where the movie can be so stupid that it becomes a fun experience. There’re also action films like Antoine Fuqua’s Infinite, streaming on Paramount Plus this month, which is idiotic on a level that’s so extreme it becomes a chore to watch. Continue Reading →
Cruella
Watch afterBlack Widow (2021), Free Guy (2021), Thanksgiving (2023), The Suicide Squad (2021),
StudioWalt Disney Pictures,
Cruella de Vil is an A-List villain in a B-List franchise. Sure, 101 Dalmatians and its spinoffs have their charms, but no other aspect in the franchise has the staying power of Cruella and her iconic theme song. It’s no surprise that Disney would release an origin story for the character with Craig Gillespie’s Cruella. It’s a logical step for the company to take, but the iconic villain presents a major stumbling block: how can you make a villainess whose traditional motivation is to kill dogs for a coat into a likable hero, or at least an antihero? Continue Reading →