Here are Cinephile Corner’s 10 recommendations for movies like The Banshees of Inisherin:
The Eternal Daughter
I truly wanted to like The Eternal Daughter for its precise attention to atmosphere and its gothic tone, but the story is stripped back to a fault. There’s a full coarse meal of thematic ideas and questions, but it’s delivered in a lean narrative that doesn’t offer enough reflection points.
Read our full review of The Eternal Daughter
Dual
Dual is bleak. And by bleak, I mean bleak. Riley Stearns (The Art of Self-Defense, Faults) excels in this field. His films bask in off-kilter, dry-as-can-be comedy and dread. The Art of Self-Defense was a pleasant surprise in 2019, but it was clear Stearns would pull together a film that would indulge his idiosyncratic taste even more, while still being engaging and bludgeoning at the same time. And while Dual is better than his previous works, mostly by having such a tight grasp on concept and execution in a film that barely hits 90 minutes, it’s another film that itches the correct spot for a very niche group of moviegoers. Luckily enough, I found myself being won over by the end of this deadpan dark comedy.
Triangle of Sadness
Although it’s visually pleasing and pretty refreshing at its peak moments, Triangle of Sadness doesn’t come together as tight as it should. For many filmmakers, winning a Palme d’Or would be a reason to stay the course for the foreseeable future, but Ruben Östlund keeps audiences guessing. He didn’t hit a home run here, but I can surely admire the effort and vision that he is trying to complete. It probably won’t compete for many awards this upcoming season, but I imagine Östlund will be back for a vengeance.
Read our full review of Triangle of Sadness
Fight Club
Released over two decades ago, David Fincher’s Fight Club remains in popular culture the way few films ever do. A movie that often resonates with those feeling marginalized by society, Fight Club lives on for each generation to interpret in new ways.
Read our full review of Fight Club
The Favourite
The Favourite sees director Yorgos Lanthimos recontextualizing 18th-century British royalty. A searing dark comedy featuring many of 2018s’s best performances, including Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz.
Read our full review of The Favourite
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou may never be the most celebrated or critically lauded of Wes Anderson’s movies, but it’s undeniably one of his most distinctive. Over time, its stature has grown—not just as a quirky outlier, but as a poignant, unpredictable exploration of legacy, family, and self-reckoning. It’s a movie about a man who tries to film everything so he doesn’t have to feel anything, only to discover—too late—that the feelings are all that matter. For all its eccentricities, it sticks with you. That’s the mark of a great film, even a strange one.
Read our full review of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Kinds of Kindness
As a side project conceived during the creation of Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness is quite the undertaking for Yorgos Lanthimos. The movie is hefty and left with a lot of gristle. While the performances of the cast suggest a film trying to have a lot of fun, the lack of cohesion took me out of a movie overstaying its welcome.
Read our full review of Kinds of Kindness
Inside Llewyn Davis
Inside Llewyn Davis is indeed a masterpiece of nuanced character study, where the Coen brothers bring their signature blend of dark humor, existential despair, and offbeat storytelling into a film that feels as emotionally resonant as it is stylistically unique. It’s a film that pulls no punches in portraying the painful, humbling reality of an artist struggling against not just the world, but also his own shortcomings. Llewyn Davis (played perfectly by Oscar Isaac) may be a man adrift, emotionally wounded by the loss of his partner, selfish and hard to like, yet he is also profoundly human, filled with raw talent and unfulfilled potential.
Read our full review of Inside Llewyn Davis
Nebraska
In classic Alexander Payne fashion, the setup for Nebraska is equal parts funny, sad, and deeply personal. And the payoff is well worth the wait due to remarkably nuanced and layered performances from Bruce Dern and Will Forte as a complicated father-son duo.
Read our full review of Nebraska
The Iron Claw
The Iron Claw is a powerful reminder of the human spirit being both enduring and fragile. It’s a movie that redefines what a sports movie can be, leaving viewers emotionally spent and profoundly moved. This is, without a doubt, one of 2023’s greatest achievements in filmmaking, a confirmed *masterpiece* that will linger in your mind and heart long after the final bell rings.