Here are Cinephile Corner’s 10 recommendations for movies like Emily the Criminal:
Love Lies Bleeding
There’s really nothing like Love Lies Bleeding. I don’t necessarily subscribe to the blanket notion that they don’t make movies like they used to anymore – but I will say, Hollywood hasn’t consistently made films as erotic and thrilling like this since the 1980s and 90s. Rose Glass directs the dynamic duo of Katy O’Brian and Kristen Stewart.
The Killer
The Killer is nothing short of a triumph for David Fincher and a treat for fans of his filmography. It may be the most Fincherian movie ever made, but far from devolving, it solidifies his mastery of the medium. A calm Michael Fassbender performance helps seal The Killer as on of the best movies of 2023.
Wolfs
The appeal of Jon Watts’ Wolfs is obvious. The film serves as the long-awaited reunion between George Clooney and Brad Pitt. The two mega movie stars have shared the screen for a handful of projects over the years, most notably the Ocean’s franchise and Burn After Reading.
Uncut Gems
Uncut Gems compounds tension about as well as any movie made in the 2010s. Josh and Benny Safdie announce themselves as filmmakers to keep an eye on moving forward with this grisly thriller set in the world of high stakes sports gambling. Adam Sandler and Kevin Garnett co-star, along with a supporting cast for the ages.
The Batman
The Batman is a complete reimagining of superhero genre tropes. A moody noir piece backed by a haunting score and Robert Pattinson as the caped crusader, Matt Reeves’ 2022 blockbuster rewrites what’s possible for these genre films.
The Gray Man
When The Gray Man is working at its best, it has the wiseass-ery of Chris Evans at the center, even if it takes a decent amount of runtime for him to even enter the fold. Otherwise, Ryan Gosling barely ties this comatose Netflix action movie together.
Lost Highway
Lost Highway is the most underappreciated David Lynch movie, one that served as an introduction to where he’d be heading in the early 2000s on. Because Lost Highway doesn’t make much sense, and the illogical, beguiling snippets and vignettes that take place within the movie are of a similar nature to Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire. And while Lost Highway is slightly less operatic than Mulholland Drive (and much less indulgent than Inland Empire), it’s still one of Lynch’s best movies, and one of the best movies of the 1990s, period.
Nightmare Alley
Guillermo del Toro has built a career on finding beauty in darkness, crafting stories that, even in their bleakest moments, hold onto some sense of wonder, nostalgia, or hope. Movies like Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water, and his stop-motion Pinocchio remake all explore the perseverance of the human spirit, even in the face of terrible atrocities. That’s what makes Nightmare Alley such a striking outlier in his filmography—it’s a film almost entirely devoid of hope, a cynical neo-noir that suggests people are, at their core, selfish and opportunistic. Instead of offering redemption, Nightmare Alley leaves you with a sick feeling in your stomach, hammering home its central thesis: trust is a liability, and grifters will always find a way to exploit it.
Punch-Drunk Love
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love is the rare romantic comedy that hums like a live wire. The movie finds Anderson collapsing love and rage into the same nervous system, paring down the sprawl of Magnolia to something smaller, stranger, and sharper. The film’s scale is modest compared with Boogie Nights or There Will Be Blood, but its voltage is unmistakable—an anxious fairytale painted in glowing blues and reds, propelled by Jon Brion’s jittery, percussive score and bursts of abstract color.
Blue Velvet
If for nothing else, Blue Velvet serves as a key to unlock the filmography of David Lynch, as if every subsequent movie would take bits and pieces from Blue Velvet and expand them into their own ideas and themes. It’s cryptic, morally ambiguous, and set in the heart of a deep underbelly within small town life. The film is beguiling as hell, and even features many of Lynch’s recurring actors and actresses, led by Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern. The movie isn’t as nearly as cut-and-dry as its noir elements suggest and its contemporaries often were, and it seems that public consensus has only further improved since Blue Velvet‘s release in 1986.
READ MORE: Emily the Criminal (2022)
