Here are Cinephile Corner’s 10 recommendations for movies like Heartland:
Mothers’ Instinct
Mothers’ Instinct pairs Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway as best friends and neighbors in 1960s suburbia whose bond curdles into suspicion after a tragedy. Cinematographer-turned-director Benoît Delhomme gives it a glossy, Hitchcockian surface, and both stars clearly relish the paranoia. The twists don’t always earn their talents, but it is a fine companion piece for anyone who wants more of Chastain in mystery-thriller mode.
Memory
Michel Franco’s Memory features one of Jessica Chastain’s most raw, unshowy performances. She plays Sylvia, a social worker and recovering alcoholic whose life is shaken when Saul, a man with early-onset dementia played by Peter Sarsgaard, follows her home from a high school reunion. It is a devastating film about the scars of the past, and how hard it can be to trust anyone again.
Song Sung Blue
Song Sung Blue is a showbiz story about the working musicians who never make it to the top of the charts. Craig Brewer directs Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as a real-life Milwaukee couple who built a Neil Diamond tribute act together, chasing small-stage glory through personal hardship. It leans a little Hallmark, but the performances and the music carry it.
Mother Mary
Mother Mary peers behind the curtain of pop stardom and finds something haunted. Anne Hathaway plays a superstar on the eve of a comeback who reconnects with her estranged costume designer, played by Michaela Coel. David Lowery’s A24 drama is a moody, stylized concert-film nightmare, and while it tested our patience, it shares Heartland’s fascination with the darkness beneath music-industry glamour.
Opus
Opus sends a young journalist, played by Ayo Edebiri, to an exclusive listening party for the first album in decades from a reclusive pop legend, played by John Malkovich. What starts as a dream assignment at his remote compound turns into a nightmare. It is a satire about celebrity worship and the cult-like machinery of fame.
The Rivals of Amziah King
The Rivals of Amziah King is Andrew Patterson’s ambitious follow-up to The Vast of Night. Matthew McConaughey stars as Amziah King, a beekeeper with a singing voice, in a film every bit as offbeat as that description suggests. For viewers drawn to Heartland’s blend of music and menace, it is a strange and rewarding detour from a filmmaker with a singular voice.
A Complete Unknown
A Complete Unknown follows a young Bob Dylan from his arrival in early-1960s New York to his notorious electric set at the Newport Folk Festival. Timothée Chalamet’s pinpoint imitation is the main attraction, and James Mangold stages the music with real energy, even if the plotting gets messy. It is a sharp look at the pressures an industry puts on a rising star.
Elvis
Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is a hot mess, but a fascinating one. Austin Butler throws himself into the role of the King of Rock and Roll, and the film is at its most compelling when it explores how Tom Hanks’ Colonel Tom Parker exploited him for decades. Few movies capture the predatory side of the music business so vividly, even when the story flounders.
Wake Up Dead Man
Wake Up Dead Man is Rian Johnson’s third Knives Out movie, and the franchise’s best. Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc heads to a small-town parish to untangle a seemingly impossible crime, with Josh O’Connor as a young priest caught in the middle. It is a moodier, more spiritual mystery than its predecessors, full of suspects who are not what they seem.
Holland
Holland casts Nicole Kidman as a teacher and homemaker in tulip-filled Holland, Michigan, who begins to suspect her seemingly perfect husband is hiding something. Mimi Cave’s Prime Video thriller has an intriguing small-town setup and a game cast, including Matthew Macfadyen, though it never fully lives up to its star. It still scratches the itch for a picturesque surface hiding rot.
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