As explored in that now infamous Family Guy clip where Peter confesses he didn’t care for The Godfather because “it insists upon itself,” there are sometimes movies that get praised, and you hear they’re great, and then you watch them, and they don’t do much for you. Worst-case scenario, you might well find yourself thinking they’re totally overrated, like, if you hate a movie most people love… but what about when it’s not quite so dramatic?

Enter the following movies, which are generally well-regarded, and here, they’re going to be acknowledged as just fine. More along the lines of “good” than “great.” You won’t like seeing certain films here, but if you clicked on this, you accepted it might make you angry before that click was completed. Admit it. Also, if you don’t like the detached writing style here, just pretend phrases like “I believe” and “I feel” are sprinkled throughout, because this is subjective, even if it’s not being written in the first-person. And, if you have further complaints and wish to voice them, please click here.

10

‘Opening Night’ (1977)

Image via Faces Distribution

Like a fair few movies that are going to be mentioned here, Opening Night is very long, perhaps even to the point where it’s a bit self-indulgent. John Cassavetes was a filmmaker who very much did his own thing, and was a trailblazer as far as independent directors went for sure, but his movies are sometimes easier to admire than they are to genuinely feel engaged by. Opening Night is one such film.

It’s a rambling movie about a group of people involved with putting on a stage play, and as that titular opening night gets closer, they all get a bit more stressed about all the drama in their lives. Kind of. It doesn’t really build in the same way that better Cassavetes films like A Woman Under the Influence or the underrated Gloria do. But, like those films, Opening Night does boast a strong lead performance by Gena Rowlands, so that’s definitely something.

9

‘Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles’ (1975)

Image via Olympic Films

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Credit where credit’s due, Chantal Akerman was surprisingly young when she directed the incredibly mature Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. At least it’s fair to say that it doesn’t feel like it was directed by someone who was still in the first half of their 20s while making it, because this is a film about a middle-aged woman and the emptiness of her existence.

It’s a movie about a routine that gets followed, but then unravels, albeit incredibly slowly. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is like an anti-epic, running for almost 3.5 hours while spanning a small period of time, having very few characters, and also being purposefully repetitive until, eventually, it’s not. It’s arduous to get through, and it’s supposed to be, but still. It asks a lot of you, as a viewer, and doesn’t give you much in return, but then again, the titular character sacrifices a lot in her life, and gets little in return, so yes… very clever, Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. You’re still a waste of time, but at least you’re a thematically effective waste of time.

8

‘Secrets & Lies’ (1996)

Image via FilmFour Distributors

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A little like John Cassavetes, Mike Leigh has a distinctive style that he pretty consistently sticks to, with about as much variety as you get being the fact that some of his films are dramedies, or dark comedies, while others are more straightforward dramas. In either instance, there’s usually a good deal of realism and solemnity, with a slow pace usually found alongside all that dourness.

Secrets & Lies is one of many movies of his that aren’t particularly exciting or entertaining, yet it’s not really trying to be, because this is a drama about what happens after a woman connects with her birth mother and finds she wasn’t who she expected. And there are some secrets and lies that get kept, and then get revealed. What a twist. Look, it’s okay. It’s fine, it’s cool.

7

‘All About Eve’ (1950)

Image via 20th Century Fox

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There was a lot Joseph L. Mankiewicz did throughout the years he was active, and he did conclude his filmmaking career on an incredibly strong note, thanks to Sleuth (1972) being his final directorial effort. All About Eve might well be the most celebrated film he directed, though, from about two decades earlier. It’s the one that won a bunch of Academy Awards, at least.

It’s a movie about people being endlessly snarky at each other for a runtime that nears 2.5 hours, for some reason. If you click with the dialogue here, and like the actors, it’s probably glorious, but if you find it’s not really working for you early on, then little about how it plays out later is going to win you over. You can single out numerous elements here that are technically well executed, sure, but as to what they all add up to… not sure. Just not sure. Don’t get this one. Help.

6

‘Ordet’ (1955)

Image via A/S Palladium

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Ordet is a very slow-moving drama about faith, and even if you’re not particularly wild about the film, it does feel like it achieves what it (seemingly) set out to do. There are some family members who are all dealing with following their religion in their own personal ways, and they grapple with some very personal issues very internally, so Ordet does demand a viewer’s attention, for what that’s worth.

It’s not a particularly eye-opening or interesting film, though, unless you find yourself really relating to one or more of the personal journeys being undertaken here. It has something of a distinctive atmosphere, and so maybe you’ll find Ordet kind of haunting at times, but it’s also likely going to be too hard to penetrate – or really care about – for other people.

5

‘3 Women’ (1977)

Image via 20th Century Fox

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If you prefer psychological dramas to psychological thrillers, and don’t mind things getting quite surreal at points, then 3 Women might be your kind of thing. Robert Altman was definitely doing something a little unexpected here, which has to be admired, since so many of his best-known movies have huge ensemble casts and feel very spontaneous, while 3 Women has fewer main characters, and there is also a greater feeling of purposefulness to it all.

That being said, it does still drift and seems keen to confound at times, but there are probably things to unpack here if you’re willing to put in the time analyzing and/or rewatching it. It’s got that haunting quality to it, which is something, even if, in the moment, it’s a difficult film to really get immersed in and blown away by.

4

‘Rear Window’ (1954)

Image via Paramount Pictures

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The good thing about Alfred Hitchcock is that you can find yourself slightly underwhelmed by a couple of movies of his, here and there, and you’ve still got so many more to dig into. He was prolific for sure, and he made a number of movies that are pretty much masterpieces during that time, so it was a bit of a quality and quantity kind of thing. He got stuff done on both fronts.

With Rear Window, this one is often considered one of his very best, but since it’s here, and what “here” is has already been established… uh… you know. It’s good. Like, actually, conceptually, it’s amazing. To have a character who’s stuck in an apartment, and then filming pretty much the entire movie from his perspective, it’s all very immersive. It’s just a shame that much of the film’s so slow, and it plays out like a mystery story where there’s little to no actual mystery as to what’s happened, and what’s going to happen. Also, the part near the end where the footage of people running and reacting to an alarming sight is so goofy in a way it’s probably not supposed to be.

3

‘The Leopard’ (1963)

Yes, The Leopard is a lengthy film, at just over three hours, so it can be expected to feel long… but not this long, right? It goes on and on, perhaps to reflect a certain emptiness within the privileged lifestyles many of its characters live, but there’s an eventual repetition when it comes to how it drives home that point again, and again, and again.

Also, for all the lavish costumes and party scenes, there’s one battle set piece early on that’s woefully directed and executed, looking like a film within a film (like, if one of the characters were directing a movie somehow, and they weren’t good at directing, you might show such a sloppy scene and have it be a fake-out; a movie within a movie). Though longer, you’re better off watching War and Peace, another epic from the 1960s that has better scenes of lavishness and opulence, and then it also has war sequences that actually look impressive.

2

‘Cries and Whispers’ (1972)

Image via Svensk Filmindustri

Cries and Whispers is noteworthy for being one of the (relatively) few films not in the English language to be nominated for Best Picture, doing so decades before one actually ended up winning Best Picture (2019’s Parasite). It’s also an Ingmar Bergman film, so you can rely on it being emotionally intense and visually engaging while boasting at least a couple of good performances.

It’s also really tedious, to be honest. Like, it’s well-made to some extent, so calling it an outright terrible movie would be dramatic, yet it’s hard to see what other people see in this. So many other Bergman films are worth your time before this one. It’s too mopey, despair-filled in a borderline comical way, and almost like a parody of arthouse cinema, rather than a genuinely great example of an arthouse film.

1

‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’ (1962)

Image via Paramount Pictures

Saving what’s probably the most brazen hot take for last, here’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. If you were still waiting to hurl rotten produce, and made it this far without making any of it airborne, feel free to fling all that moldy stuff now. But also, this is still a good Western, and is admirable for being a little heavier and weightier than your typical John Wayne film.

He’s fine here, as he usually is, and James Stewart is also good, because James Stewart couldn’t really help but be good, whatever he was in. If you’re in the mood for something deliberately dry and somber, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance might scratch that itch. There are far better subversive Westerns, and it’s not nearly as good as The Searchers, which was another John Wayne and John Ford collaboration that stands as an early revisionist Western of sorts, but this is fine. It’s a tricky one to get excited about, but you can more or less see why it’s considered a classic.

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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

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Release Date

April 22, 1962

Runtime

123 Minutes

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Director

John Ford

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Writers

James Warner Bellah, Willis Goldbeck, Dorothy M. Johnson

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Bob Dylan might have built one of the greatest discographies in music history, but with more than 700 songs to his name, some are bound to slip through the cracks. Since releasing his debut album in 1962, Dylan has gone through countless creative and personal phases, from his marriages and bold artistic reinventions to a quieter life away from the spotlight.

Along the way, plenty of songs—both released and unreleased—have quietly faded into obscurity. That doesn’t make them any less brilliant. In fact, some of Dylan’s most overlooked tracks rank among the finest he’s ever written. Without further ado, here are 10 forgotten Bob Dylan songs that are masterpieces, ranked.

10

“Sign on the Window” (1970)

By 1970, at just 29 years old, Dylan had already accomplished everything a young musician could dream of: a record label contract, nine studio albums (with several becoming essential pieces of American music), and the creative freedom to pursue whatever genre he wanted. There was only one thing still missing: contentment.

As part of his move into country music, “Sign on the Window” is a warm piano ballad that shows that, despite everything the music industry says about success never being enough, Dylan simply longs for a quiet, ordinary life. Isolation and heartbreak may be inevitable, but by the final verse, he realizes it’s the simple things in life that matter most.

9

“Moonshiner” (1963)

“Moonshiner” might not be Dylan’s original song, but he sings it with genuine sincerity and deep respect for the people at its center. In the song, alcohol becomes a symbol of working-class communities that have long been overlooked by society. Historically, moonshiners produced liquor without government permits, making it an illegal trade.

But Dylan doesn’t villainize the people who choose that life, nor does he romanticize breaking the law in search of fortune. Instead, he focuses on the hardships they endure. Being a moonshiner offers a sense of freedom, but it also traps people in a cycle of crime and poverty that feels impossible to escape—lasting, in the song’s words, “for seventeen long years.”

8

“Sweetheart Like You” (1983)

“Sweetheart Like You” sounds like a typical love song about meeting a woman in a seedy place: “But what’s a sweetheart like you doin’ in a dump like this?” The first half recreates a conversation between Dylan and the woman, making it feel intimate and personal.

But beyond the surface, the song is about someone caught in a world where people constantly trade their morals for success. Even the kindest people can be worn down by a system that punishes loyalty instead of rewarding it. As Dylan puts it, “They say that patriotism is the last refuge”—a line that hints at how blind idealism can be misused for someone else’s personal gains.

7

“Up to Me” (1974)

We can’t control the cards life deals us, but we can choose how we play them—hence the title, “Up to Me.” For the longest time, Dylan sang about how unfair the world can be. But “Up to Me” reinforces the idea that resistance can also mean taking control of what happens next in our lives.

Even when everything goes “from bad to worse,” and life gives you little reason to smile—”In fourteen months I’ve only smiled once”—nobody can decide what we do next except ourselves. Had he followed what everyone else thought was the right way to live, Dylan declares with dramatic conviction, “the heart inside me would’ve died.”

6

“Red River Shore” (1997)

“Red River Shore” shows how much Dylan’s songwriting had matured from his early days. The Dylan of the ’60s experimented with surrealism, layered meanings, and stream of consciousness. By the ’90s, the much older Dylan had grown more reflective, opting for narrative structures that retell different scenarios while immortalizing each moment in its essence.

Dylan pieces together little quirks and intimate moments he shares with his lover. Every stanza in “Red River Shore” feels like a memory, moving naturally from the smallest details, like what he wears, to the best advice she’s given him. But by the end, it all comes together on a bittersweet note: nobody could truly see him except the girl from the Red River shore.

5

“Abandoned Love” (1985)

The best heartbreak songs are often the ones based on real pain. Inspired by Dylan’s failing relationship with his then-wife, Sara Lownds, “Abandoned Love” grasps the moment when a romance can no longer be saved, yet letting go still feels impossible. Rather than recounting specific events, Dylan expresses his emotions through surreal imagery.

From being deceived by “the clown inside of me,” suggesting he was foolish to believe the relationship could survive, to his “patron saint… fighting with a ghost,” implying that even faith cannot rescue him, he blames himself throughout the song. Despite every attempt to disguise his feelings, his heart remains certain: it’s “a-tellin’ me I love ya still.”

4

“Series of Dreams” (1991)

“Series of Dreams” opens with rolling drums and soaring guitars that immediately pull listeners into a dreamlike adventure. Fittingly, the song is literally about the metaphysical sensation of entering the dreamworld. As Bob Dylan himself explained, there’s no deeper rationale behind them—”nothing too very scientific”—because dreams simply happen.

Like much of Dylan’s work, “Series of Dreams” recreates an experience. The song seizes the fragmented, mysterious nature of dreams, where the subconscious becomes an unexplored landscape. Logic disappears; there is “no exit in any direction,” and “anything you’re holding on to, they’ll just collapse.” Instead of searching for meaning, Dylan invites listeners to surrender to the moment.

3

“Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)” (1978)

Another song inspired by Dylan’s breakup with Lownds, “Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)” is the singer’s desperate plea as he realizes that, like the relationship itself, he’s far from perfect. Dylan once said that a person’s greatest battle is against “the enemy within,” and that idea shapes the song as he wrestles with guilt, temptation, and self-doubt.

Sometimes mourning a relationship isn’t just about losing someone you love, but grieving the person you could’ve been. Drawing on Biblical imagery, Delta blues, and a gospel-tinged sound, Dylan turns heartbreak into a spiritual struggle rather than simply blaming his former lover, making it one of his most cathartic songs.

2

“Caribbean Wind” (1985)

An unreleased track from Shot of Love, “Caribbean Wind” is one of Dylan’s songs from his early ’80s Christian era. Where there’s faith, there’s desire. And in a world full of turmoil, desire becomes even more tempting, none more so than the woman Dylan describes as “the Rose of Sharon from Paradise Lost.”

With images of “armies on the march,” famines, and earthquakes, personal love still survives despite a world filled with spiritual anxiety. The recurring chorus, where the “Caribbean winds” keep “fanning the flames in the furnace of desire,” shows that his feelings refuse to fade. Dylan rewrote and revised the song several times, but it was never released on the album.

1

“Angelina” (1981)

One of his most mysterious songs, “Angelina,” is up to anybody’s interpretation. Written after his Gospel Tour, the song attracted attention because each stanza contains an intentional rhyming scheme. However, each line doesn’t seem to connect to another, with no overarching theme to link them all together.

The lyrics jump from personal confessions like “it’s always been my nature to take chances” to strange, dreamlike visions filled with biblical imagery. Giants, the “pale white horse,” and an “angel with four faces” all echo the Book of Revelation, but Dylan never explains what any of it means. Whether Angelina is a real woman, a symbol of faith, or something else entirely is left up to the listener.

The Dark Winds are blowing in for another season of AMC’s acclaimed 1970s-set neo-noir mystery series. Jessica Matten, who stars on the series as Bernadette “Bernie” Manuelito, is hyping up the new season, with one particular scene serving as a “career high” for the actor. Collider’s Perri Nemiroff caught up with Matten at San Diego Comic Con, where she’s promoting her new animated movie, Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender.

Based on the Southwest-set novels of the late Tony Hillerman, Dark Winds follows a trio of Navajo Tribal Police officers in the 1970s; veteran Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon), his longtime deputy Manuelito (Matten), and newcomer Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon). Over the course of the show’s four seasons, the initial rivalry between Manuelito and Chee has turned to romance; having endured a bout of “ghost sickness” and a life-or-death battle with a lethal survivalist assassin in the last season, their relationship has only become stronger. That’s set to continue in the show’s fifth season.

It won’t be too long before that new season hits AMC, as Matten reveals that season 5 is now in the can, having wrapped shooting last month. And while she can’t say much about the upcoming season’s plot, she can reveal that the new season was a personal milestone for herself, and gave her an experience she’d never had before as an actor:

“The producers pulled me aside, and they said they think it’s a career-high performance for me in Season 5. I’m very good as an actor at separating my personal life from the characters I play, and I have a lot of coping techniques for that, and it was the first time where those lines really did get blurred. You hear about it so many times through other performers and how they couldn’t shake off a character. I’m a little tough about it. I’m like, “I’ll just shake it off. It’s fine.” And I experienced for the first time what they were talking about. So, I will say it’s so not characteristic of who I am as a performer, going into Season 5.”

And although the series is now in its fifth season, Matten isn’t experiencing any fatigue. She’s grateful that the show exists as a space for Indigenous actors and creators to tell their stories, beyond the confines of a conventional detective series.

“Because we’ve been running for so long, you think you know these characters, and so it was surprising for me to say that, being like, “Oh, I did not expect this,” especially for Dark Winds. But I’m really grateful because, with it being one of the few Indigenous shows out there, globally seen and acknowledged, it’s a big deal for me. And to be able, as an actor, to play a role with so many layers, I think it’s going to be something. I think all of my costars are doing an incredible job of also showing the different many facets and the layers of the human soul, just being a Native person, or a person, a human being, in general.”

Season 5 of Dark Winds will premiere on AMC in 2027.

What Is ‘Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender’?

A continuation of the acclaimed animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, Avatar Aang is set thirteen years after that series’ finale, and sees Aang (Eric Nam), a man with the ability to control the element of air who believed he was the last of his kind, discover a long-lost fellow airbender in the form of Tagah (Dave Bautista). Learning of a powerful staff that could restore the airbender’s lost culture, his old friends, including Katara (Matten), Sokka (Román Zaragoza), Toph (Dionne Quan), and Zuko (Steven Yeun) unite to aid him in his quest, even as the sinister organization known as The Denied seeks it for their own evil ends. It will debut exclusively on Paramount+ on July 25.

Season 5 of Dark Winds will premiere in 2027. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.

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Release Date

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June 12, 2022

Network

AMC

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Directors

Michael Nankin

Writers

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John Wirth, Steven Judd, Max Hurwitz, Rhiana Yazzie, Thomas Brady, DezBaa’

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By TeeJay Small
| Published 2 hours ago

Though I’ve had many critiques of the Marvel Cinematic Universe over the years, it’s impossible to deny the scope and impact that these movies have accomplished. Sometimes I think we take for granted just how much coordination, logistics, and careful planning has gone into a decades-long movie universe that delivers such hits as Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Endgame. Even still, not every move made by the architects of the franchise has paid off, as Marvel head Kevin Feige would be quick to admit. In fact, Feige recently sat down with the Happy Sad Confused podcast to discuss his handling of Mahershala Ali’s Blade film, concluding “I’m feeling … like a gigantic loser and failure that we didn’t get off the ground with Mahershala.”

The Blade That Got Away

Feige didn’t officially confirm that the Mahershala Ali Blade reboot is dead in the water, but his comments, paired with the fact that we’ve had virtually no updates about the project in years, suggest that the film will never hit the box office. This is obviously a massive disappointment to fans, since the Blade character is one of the greatest comic book characters to ever be adapted for the screen. Wesley Snipes famously bolstered the franchise for an epic (if slightly dated) trilogy back in the late 90s and early 2000s, long before the MCU had even kicked off.

Ironically, Feige and company had the perfect opportunity to trojan horse the new Blade into the MCU with 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine, which featured a cameo appearance from Snipes in the iconic leather duster. The Marvel creative head did mention during his podcast interview that he was proud of how that appearance shook out, though it seemed to weigh heavily on him that he couldn’t organize the new Blade film to coincide with Deadpool & Wolverine‘s release.

In case you’re not up to date on the timeline here, Mahershala Ali’s Blade reboot was initially announced over seven years ago. That’s back before the COVID-19 pandemic, before the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, and long before GTA VI was given an official release window. Since then, the film has languished in development hell, with multiple writers and directors departing the project over creative differences. Variety reports that the film has fumbled no less than five screenwriters, and insiders have still been unable to confirm whether a completed screenplay has been locked in.

Kevin Feige’s official explanation for the film’s failure is Marvel’s aggressive over-expansion into Disney+ limited series. He even went so far as to comment that “for the very first time ever, quantity trumped quality” regarding his own prioritization of streaming shows over Blade. So the next time you’re laying in bed at night, tossing and turning with anxiety about the times you’ve screwed up at work, just remember that the guy who turned Marvel into the biggest cinematic profit mill in history experiences imposter syndrome too.

With The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan spent a reported $250 million and every available inch of IMAX 70mm film to drag Homer into the multiplex. But, before a single frame rolled, Nolan did the thing every serious director does with a star-studded cast and a story burdened by big expectations: he handed out homework. Three films, specifically, that he wanted stars like Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, and Zendaya to sit with before they picked up a spear.

The Odyssey is dense with the influence of other films, and Nolan has been unusually open about where some of it comes from. Those three assigned titles are the ones he’s shared on record. Look closely, and you can find plenty more: David Lean‘s boundless deserts, the sword-and-sandal epics that made a Greek myth bankable again, one of the director’s own recent blockbusters, even a monster movie still warm from a Netflix-backed Oscar run. The list of must-watch movies below traces all of it, starting with the three films Nolan named himself.

‘Andrei Rublev’ (1966)

Image via Mosfilm

Andrei Tarkovsky‘s three-hour-plus film, Andrei Rublev, follows a medieval icon painter drifting through a Russia that’s coming apart at the seams. It takes two decades, famine, and a brutal Tatar raid to set the stakes for Rublev (Anatoly Solonitsyn) to lose faith in his art and stop painting. But then, he watches a young man strain to cast an enormous church bell and finds his reason to begin again. It’s all shot in long, patient takes that hold on mud and faces, and Nolan screened it for his cast because of that texture.

With The Odyssey, Nolan wanted an ancient world with weight to it, where the light and the faces belong to the era and not to a green screen. Odysseus (Damon), like Rublev, is a man ground down by cruelty and by the sheer length of his own road, and the film needs you to believe he has lived through every brutal year of it.

‘Ran’ (1985)

Image via Toho

With Ran, Akira Kurosawa took King Lear to feudal Japan and set it on fire. An aging warlord hands his kingdom to his sons and then watches his family and his country tear each other apart, in some of the largest and most punishing battle scenes ever filmed. The armies march in blocks of pure color, and the wind moves through everything, bending grass and banners and smoke. Nolan zeroed in on exactly that, praising the movie’s use of “landscape” and the “banners flapping in the wind.”

It’s a natural fit. Nolan builds his films out of real places at real scale, and The Odyssey is about a hero at the mercy of forces far larger than himself. Kurosawa supplies the template for how to translate that on-screen.

‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ (1988)

Image via Universal Pictures

Martin Scorsese‘s sweaty, doubt-ridden, once-scandalous take on Jesus (a raw Willem Dafoe) tells a familiar myth from the inside out, as the story of a man arguing with his own destiny. It was protested and picketed on release. It’s also one of the boldest things Scorsese ever made. Nolan called it “a fresh and accessible window into history” and admitted the technical work Scorsese was doing struck him as “quite inspiring.”

The connection isn’t hard to trace. Odysseus is a hero who lies, cheats, and stalls his way home, and Scorsese’s blueprint for a flawed legend given a human pulse is key to making The Odyssey‘s sheer density palatable.

‘Interstellar’ (2014)

Sometimes the biggest influence on a Nolan movie is another Nolan movie. Interstellar sends a father into space to save the human race and loses him in time, so that every hour out there costs him years with the children he left on Earth. The whole movie yearns for a homecoming that always feels heartbreakingly out of reach.

Swap the wormhole for the wine-dark sea, and you’re most of the way to The Odyssey. Both follow a man desperate to get back, and both let time do the cruelest work, piling up while he is powerless to stop it. Odysseus loses ten years to the gods; Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) loses decades in the span of an afternoon. Nolan has clearly been mapping this particular journey for a while.

‘Gladiator’ (2000)

Image via Universal Pictures

“Are you not entertained?” turned out to be a rhetorical question with a very obvious answer in this Ridley Scott banger. The director dragged the sword-and-sandal epic out of the grave and stood it back on its feet with Russell Crowe playing a betrayed Roman general fighting through the blood and sand of the arena toward home… and revenge. The film became a sensation, winning Best Picture and reminding Hollywood that the ancient world could still fill a theater.

Every toga-draped blockbuster since has walked through the door Gladiator opened. Without its success, no studio would hand Nolan a quarter of a billion dollars to put a Greek myth on IMAX screens 26 years later.

‘Troy’ (2004)

Image via Warner Bros.

This is the most obvious comparison on the list, and the one Nolan may be subtly answering. Wolfgang Petersen took The Iliad, cast Brad Pitt as an oiled, sulking Achilles, and swung for grand, star-driven spectacle. Because of that, Troy landed somewhere between genuinely stirring and faintly ridiculous.

The Odyssey picks up the very next chapter of the same story, which makes the contrast feel almost pointed. Where Troy went for beefcakes and battlefields, Nolan seems to be after the interior wear of the myth, the psychology of a man who can’t stop scheming even when scheming is what keeps him from his wife and son. It is the same source material approached from the opposite direction.

‘Lawrence of Arabia’ (1962)

Image via Columbia Pictures

If Nolan has a sacred text, this is it. Lean drops Peter O’Toole‘s unreadable T. E. Lawrence into a vast desert and shoots it on 70mm, until the sheer size of the landscape presses down on you in your seat. Nolan has cited it for years as the film that shaped the way he thinks about scale. In fact, the whole IMAX 70mm bet of The Odyssey comes straight from Lawrence of Arabia: set a single small figure against an overwhelming world and let the size of the image do the work.

Even the heroes at the center of these two films feel connected. Both men are magnetic and evasive, half-turned into legend but never fully known by the people who follow them. You don’t really need a reason to watch this, one of the greatest films ever made, but Nolan just gave you one anyway.

‘Spartacus’ (1960)

Image via Universal International

Stanley Kubrick’s Roman masterpiece gave us Kirk Douglas as a slave leading a doomed revolt, and the famous moment when a captured army rises one man at a time to claim his name. Spartacus is a huge, crowd-filling spectacle with a real brain behind it. It’s not the Kubrick entry most associate with Nolan’s work, but it’s the one that connects best here.

The balance between cerebral and crowd-pleasing is what The Odyssey is after. Spartacus carries weighty ideas without ever shrinking from the size of its audience, which is the same line Nolan walks, in every film really, but especially here.

‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

George Miller made two hours of near-wordless road chase with real vehicles hurled across real desert and virtually nothing faked that could instead be built and crashed for the camera. His Mad Max: Fury Road is a journey film that runs on pure motion and a myth told at full speed. Put it next to Nolan’s newest film and the fit is closer than you’d expect.

The director is a practical-effects true believer, and Fury Road is the modern peak of that faith. When The Odyssey puts its monsters and shipwrecks on screen, this is the tradition it draws from, the conviction that an audience can always feel when something on screen is tangible on set.

‘Frankenstein’ (2025)

Image via Netflix

The outlier here, and the newest by a wide margin. Guillermo del Toro finally made the film he had chased for more than a decade, with Oscar Isaac as an obsessive Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as the creature he abandons. It’s a creation myth staged at full operatic scale and sent to Netflix last November. It shares nothing with Homer and everything with the moment Nolan is working in.

Frankenstein and The Odyssey arrived barely a year apart, two celebrated directors wagering enormous budgets on the idea that audiences still want an old myth told seriously, with real craft and real feeling behind it. And del Toro’s approach to his monsters — his love for them, his compassion, and his commitment to displaying their grotesque, awe-inspiring physicality — is echoed in how Nolan depicts his own mythic beasts. If The Odyssey has one clear peer in the current landscape, this is it.

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Frankenstein

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Release Date

October 17, 2025

Runtime

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149 Minutes

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Camille Kostek is tired of keyboard warriors commenting on her appearance from behind a screen.

“Me wondering when I’m going to stop opening my phone to losers having conversations about my body,” Kostek, 34, wrote alongside a Thursday, July 23, TikTok video.

In the clip, the model shakes her head back and forth and slightly covers her mouth in disappointment.

“Go outside and get some sun!!” Kostek told her haters in the comments section.

Related: Rob Gronkowski Calls Camille Kostek the ‘Secret Sauce’ in Their Relationship

Rob Gronkowski gushed over his girlfriend, Camille Kostek, and her ability to keep their relationship afloat — even if she doesn’t want all the credit. During an exclusive interview with Us Weekly over Super Bowl weekend, Gronkowski, 34, said that Kostek, 31, is “definitely the secret sauce” in making their romance work. “She’s special,” he […]

The model wasn’t alone in her annoyance over being publicly ridiculed. Many of Kostek’s followers showed her support and fired back at the body-shamers as well.

“You are and have always been a baddie, please don’t let those trolls get to you ♥️,” one social media user replied.

Another person noted that Kostek is a “SI Swimsuit covergirl BY THE WAY 👏🏼 they can kick rocks ✌🏼,” referring to the model previously landing the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover.

A third user replied, “You are literally so hot I don’t understand any different POV.”

“You are my BLUE PRINT babe — tell everyone to stfu,” a separate fan wrote.

“Girl, you are the type of woman that I want my daughter looking up too. Smart, driven, kind, beautiful!!!” a fifth TikToker added. “Pay no mind to the ones who enjoy tearing down others to make themselves feel better!!”

Kostek, who is a former New England Patriots cheerleader, has never been shy about speaking her mind and standing up for herself.

In fact, Kostek revealed during a June 2025 episode of the Honestly Cavallari: The Headline Tour during Kristin Cavallari’s stop in Boston that she didn’t always feel welcome among the NFL WAGs when dating boyfriend Rob Gronkowski.

Related: Rob Gronkowski Describes His Perfect Day With Girlfriend Camille Kostek

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Kevin Mazur/Getty Images Since officially retiring from the NFL in June 2022, Rob Gronkowski is still figuring out what work-life balance looks like in a post-football world.  Gronkowski, 35, who now works as an analyst for Fox Sports after 11 seasons with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, still keeps himself remarkably busy […]

“I felt like I was seen as a lesser than girlfriend because I didn’t have a ring on my finger,” Kostek told Cavallari, who was previously married to retired NFL quarterback Jay Cutler. “But you want to know what’s so interesting about that? The woman that’s coming to mind [who] judged me the most, she’s divorced.”

Kostek began dating Gronkowski, 37, in 2015 after meeting when she was a cheerleader for the Patriots and he played tight end for the team. (The couple didn’t go public until after she left the squad, due to rules between cheerleaders and football players.)

While Kostek didn’t get the warmest of welcomes from some of the Patriots players’ wives, she said that Tom Brady’s ex-wife Gisele Bündchen was always sweet and friendly.

Related: Rob Gronkowski Calls Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s Wedding ‘Top-Notch’

To no one’s surprise, Rob Gronkowski was the life of the party at Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s wedding.  “It was top-notch. Hats off to Taylor and Trav,” Gronkowski, 37, said Thursday, July 9, on Tubi’s The Other Football. “The dance floor, that’s the one thing, it was popping. It was popping.” Gronkowski’s cohost, NFL […]

“Honestly, what’s so special about Gisele is when we would cross paths, she would embrace me and talk to me like we’ve known each other forever,” she said during the reality special. “I only have great things to say about her.”

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Bündchen, 46, who divorced Brady, 48, in 2022 after 13 years of marriage, isn’t the only famous WAGs member that Kostek gets along with.

Kostek and Gronkowski were among the A-list guests in attendance at Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce’s July 3 nuptials at Madison Square Garden.

Kostek told People earlier this month that Swift, 36, looked like “a real-life princess” at the wedding.

Jennifer Lopez is celebrating her 57th birthday with some words of wisdom.

Taking to Instagram on Friday, July 24, the “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” singer commemorated her special day by posting a video of herself riding in a car with the windows down as the sun shined on her and the wind gently blew across her hair.

JLo chose a reading of Theodore Roosevelt’s poignant 1910 speech, “The Man in the Arena” as the audio to accompany the post.

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better,” the speech begins.

The passage made famous by the late president then praised “the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again.”

For her part, Lopez captioned her Instagram with a simple message, writing, “When you keep going it just keeps getting better ✨🥳.”

In the past, Lopez has spoken candidly about the rhetoric surrounding aging in the public eye.

Speaking to Elle in 2020 ahead of launching her JLo Beauty collection, Lopez said age should never be mentioned when complimenting someone’s looks.

“You never want to hear you look great for 50. [People] want to just hear you look great, no matter what age you are. And for me and for the company, that is a big part of it,” the actress told the outlet at the time. “We don’t want people going, you look great for 60, 50, 40, 35. You want people to just go, wow, you look amazing.”

She continued, “[When people say] ‘Oh my God, she’s 50.’ It’s like, does it matter? You’re just your best self, no matter what.”

In December 2024, Lopez also reacted to a reporter who joked about her age “getting up there.”

“Listen, I can’t believe it’s been 30 years since Selena. I can’t believe that 30 years we do the retrospective of this and you will be 60 by then,” a reporter said in a video obtained by TMZ at the time.

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Jennifer Lopez is baring it all as she turns 56. The pop star and actress marked her 56th birthday on Thursday, July 24, by sharing a carousel of photos and videos via Instagram from her celebrations in Antalya, Turkey, including a gorgeous makeup-free selfie proving that she is aging like a fine wine! In the […]

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“It’s funny you think that I’m getting up there,” Lopez began, while the journalist interjected to clarify that his comment was a “joke.” Lopez appeared unfazed by the remark, and instead chose to praise the audience.

“It’s because I want to say thank you, you guys. Because we’ve been doing this a long time together. Been doing it a long time and you guys have been here with me,” Lopez said. “Today, I was singing some new songs and I went back and sang ‘If You Had My Love,’ which is my first song, 1999. It’s that thing, of like, what a journey this has been.”

She continued, “I honestly feel that the best is yet to come. I honestly feel that my creativity and who I am as an artist — like you said, I also feel that this for me, was another kind of level for me of going deeper into who I am as a person, as an artist.”

Most rebellious animated movies are usually the darkest ones. But then you realise that the subversive films simply take ideas that most animated movies treat as unquestionable, for instance, happy endings, good versus evil, perfect families, noble heroes and quietly pull them apart until those ideas look completely different. That is probably why these movies have aged so well.

They trust the audience to connect the dots instead of announcing what they’re trying to say, which makes discovering those ideas far more satisfying. Here are ten animated movies that challenged expectations, questioned familiar stories, and proved that some of the boldest filmmaking has happened in a medium people still underestimate.

10

‘Chicken Run’ (2000)

Image via DreamWorks

When people remember Chicken Run, they usually remember the chickens building an airplane or Rocky (Mel Gibson) crashing into the farm pretending he can fly. I always come back to something else. The film is mainly about workers who are trapped inside a system that is designed to profit from them, where every failed escape attempt ends with somebody disappearing forever. That is an incredibly bleak idea for something sold as family entertainment, but it is worth a watch.

Maybe that’s why it has aged so well. Ginger (Julia Sawalha) is not trying to become special or discover who she is. She simply refuses to accept that survival is the best life available to her, while everyone around her slowly starts believing escape is impossible. The jokes are still funny, but they almost distract you from how angry and serious the story actually is. Beneath all the clay animation and visual gags sits a prison-break movie that questions authority, exploitation, and the comfort of accepting the way things have always been.

9

‘The Triplets of Belleville’ (2003)

Image via Tartan Films

The first time I watched The Triplets of Belleville, I kept waiting for somebody to explain what was happening. They never did, and that turned out to be the point. Champion’s grandmother, Madame Souza (Monica Viegas), barely speaks as she crosses an ocean searching for her kidnapped grandson. Meanwhile, the famous Triplets help her in ridiculous but very natural ways.

That confidence that the film has in its storyline and cast is exactly what makes it so unusual. Most family films are terrified that children might miss something, so every emotion gets explained and every joke gets underlined. However, you won’t see it with The Triplets of Belleville. It asks you to pay attention, sit with silence, and figure things out for yourself. Even its strange, exaggerated world says something about modern society without ever stopping to make a grand speech.

8

‘The Iron Giant’ (1999)

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

People often describe The Iron Giant as a children’s movie about friendship. I don’t think that’s wrong, but it barely scratches the surface. Hogarth Hughes (Eli Marienthal) finds a machine that everyone else immediately assumes must be a weapon simply because of what it was built to do. The adults never ask whether it has a choice.

That idea feels even more relevant now than it did in 1999. The Giant spends the entire film trying to decide if his purpose has already been chosen for him or he can become someone else. It is a surprisingly mature conversation about fear, identity, and the way societies create enemies before they understand them. I cannot stop but think that the whole film is based on this one question that if the whole world expects you to become a monster, how difficult is it to choose kindness instead?

7

‘Persepolis’ (2007)

Image via Diaphana Distribution

I love that Persepolis refuses to turn Marjane Satrapi (Chiara Mastroianni in the French version) into either a hero or a victim. She is stubborn, funny, immature, angry, hopeful, and selfish depending on the moment. That honesty is the best part of the film because movies about war and revolution often reduce ordinary people to symbols. But Persepolis never does.

The political events are obviously important, but they are not the only story being told. Marjane worries about fitting in, embarrasses herself, argues with her family, falls in love, makes mistakes, and regrets them. Those moments make the larger history feel very real instead of distant. The film in the end reminds you that history happens to people who still have to wake up, go to school, disappoint their parents, and figure out who they want to become.

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6

‘Coraline’ (2009)

Image via Focus Features

As a child, I thought the Other Mother was terrifying because of the button eyes. Watching Coraline again as an adult, I realized the buttons are probably the least frightening thing about her. The Other Mother (Teri Hatcher) never forces Coraline (Dakota Fanning) to stay. She simply offers everything a lonely child thinks she wants until leaving starts to feel like the wrong decision.

That is a much darker idea than people usually give the film credit for. Nothing about the Other World looks frightening at first. It is brighter, kinder, more exciting, and filled with adults who seem willing to pay attention. The horror comes from realizing that manipulation does not always begin with threats. It often begins by making someone feel understood. Coraline hides one of animation’s sharpest warnings inside a gothic fairy tale, and that is exactly why it still unsettles audiences years later.

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5

‘Anomalisa’ (2015)

Image via Paramount Pictures

Every character in Anomalisa except two shares the exact same face and the exact same voice, played by Tom Noonan, regardless of whether they’re a taxi driver, a hotel clerk, a child, or Michael Stone’s own wife. Michael (voiced by David Thewlis) can’t tell people apart anymore, and Charlie Kaufman doesn’t explain that as a metaphor, he builds it directly into the puppets. You can see the seam lines running across their faces, something stop-motion animation usually spends a fortune hiding.

Then Michael meets Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh), the one voice that sounds different from everyone else, and the film gives them a sex scene shot with the same patience and awkward pauses a live-action drama would use, which got the film an NC-17 rating before it was cut down to an R. Animation almost never asks to be taken that seriously as a medium for adult intimacy. Kaguya’s sketch lines fade as her freedom does; here, the puppet seams stay visible on purpose, the whole way through.

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4

‘The Tale of the Princess Kaguya’ (2013)

Image via Studio Ghibli

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya looks unfinished on purpose, all loose watercolor lines and bare white space, which is strange for a Studio Ghibli film given how polished the studio’s other movies usually look. Director Isao Takahata spent eight years on it, and the softness of the drawing isn’t a budget shortcut, it tracks with what’s happening to Kaguya (voiced by Aki Asakura). The more her father forces her into noble clothes, blackened teeth, and an arranged marriage, the more the lines around her start to fray and blur, as if the film itself is losing its grip on her the same way she is.

The story ends with Kaguya taken back to the moon against her will, stripped of every memory of the life and people she loved on Earth, and there’s no rescue waiting in the final act. Takahata died five years after finishing it, and this was his last film. It says something that his final statement as a director was about a girl who never got to choose her own ending.

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3

‘Princess Mononoke’ (1997)

Image via Studio Ghibli

Lady Eboshi (voiced by Minnie Driver) gives lepers and former sex workers real jobs and real dignity inside Irontown, and she’s also the reason the forest is dying and the Forest Spirit is about to lose its head. San (Claire Danes) was raised by wolves and will kill any human who threatens her forest without hesitation. Hayao Miyazaki gives neither of them the villain role, and Ashitaka (Billy Crudup), the character stuck between them, never fully cures the curse eating away at his arm, not even by the film’s final shot.

When Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax wanted to trim the film for its American release, Miyazaki’s producer reportedly mailed Weinstein a real katana with a note attached that just said “no cuts.” The film stayed intact, arms getting severed and all. An animated fantasy that refuses to hand you a clean winner, backed by a director willing to threaten a studio executive with a sword to protect that refusal, is a rare thing.

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Collider Exclusive · Universe Personality Quiz
Which Iconic Universe Do You Belong in the Most?
Star Wars · Lord of the Rings · Harry Potter · Game of Thrones · Star Trek

Five legendary universes. Five completely different visions of what the world could be — or already was. One of them is the world your instincts, your values, and your particular way of existing were built for. Eight questions will tell you which one.

🚀Star Wars

💍Lord of the Rings

🧙Harry Potter

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👑Game of Thrones

🖖Star Trek

FIND YOUR UNIVERSE →

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01

What gives your life its deepest sense of meaning?
Every universe is built around a different answer to this question.

ABeing part of something larger than myself — a cause, a rebellion, a fight for freedom that outlasts me.
BThe journey itself — the places I’ll go, the companions beside me, the world I’ll discover on the way.
CLearning — unlocking what I’m capable of, understanding the world’s hidden mechanics, growing into something more.
DLegacy — the name I leave behind, the power I build, the mark I make before the world moves on without me.
EUnderstanding — exploring what exists beyond the horizon and asking what it means to be alive in a universe this vast.

NEXT QUESTION →

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02

Which kind of world do you most want to inhabit?
The environment shapes who you become. Choose carefully.

AA galaxy of planets, each with its own culture — connected by conflict, trade, and the Force.
BAncient lands of breathtaking beauty, deep history, and a creeping darkness at the edges.
CA world hidden inside our own — full of wonder, community, and magic waiting to be learned.
DA brutal, beautiful continent where power is everything and every alliance is a calculation.
EA future where humanity has reached the stars — and must decide what kind of species it wants to be.

NEXT QUESTION →

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03

How do you prefer your conflicts resolved?
The shape of a world’s conflicts tells you everything about its soul.

AThrough sacrifice and courage — someone has to make the impossible choice so others don’t have to.
BThrough fellowship — the impossible becomes possible when the right people walk the same road.
CThrough growth — confronting what you fear, understanding what you lack, and becoming equal to the challenge.
DThrough strategy — outthinking, outmaneuvering, positioning yourself so the outcome was never in doubt.
EThrough dialogue — finding the third option, the peaceful resolution, the answer that doesn’t require a body count.

NEXT QUESTION →

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04

Who do you want beside you when things get difficult?
Your ideal companions reveal the world you were made for.

AA small crew — a pilot, a rogue, a warrior — each broken in their own way, unbeatable together.
BA fellowship of different kinds of people, bound by purpose and deepened by the long road.
CFriends who grew up alongside me — who knew me before I knew myself, and stayed anyway.
DAllies whose loyalty I’ve earned — and tested — and whose ambitions align with mine, for now.
EA crew of brilliant, curious, principled people from every corner of known space.

NEXT QUESTION →

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05

What is your relationship with power?
How you seek, wield, or resist power is the map of who you are.

AI want to use it to protect — and I’m terrified of what I might become if I’m not careful.
BI distrust it. The most important power in this story is the courage to give it up.
CI want to earn it — through knowledge, through effort, through becoming someone worthy of it.
DI want to wield it. Preferably before someone else decides to wield it against me.
EI want to understand it — its structures, its limits, its ethical dimensions. Power without accountability is the real threat.

NEXT QUESTION →

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06

How does your universe treat good and evil?
A world’s moral architecture tells you more about it than any map.

AThere is a dark side and a light side — and the choice between them is always present, always personal.
BEvil is real and ancient and patient — and goodness, however small, is the only thing that can undo it.
CGood and evil are real, but they live inside people — and people are complicated, always capable of both.
DGood and evil are mostly a matter of perspective and proximity. Power is the only honest currency.
EEvil is usually the result of ignorance, fear, or broken systems — and understanding it is the first step to solving it.

NEXT QUESTION →

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07

What role would you naturally fall into?
Every universe has archetypes. Which one fits you without trying?

AThe reluctant hero — ordinary origins, extraordinary moment, changed forever by the choice to act.
BThe unlikely carrier — the one nobody expected to matter most, quietly bearing the weight of everything.
CThe student — not yet who I’ll become, learning through every mistake, growing into something the world needs.
DThe player — sharp enough to see the game for what it is, ambitious enough to try to win it.
EThe explorer — drawn to the unknown, driven by curiosity, most alive when standing somewhere no one has stood before.

NEXT QUESTION →

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08

What do you ultimately believe about the future?
The answer to this is the clearest window into which universe already lives inside you.

AThat hope is real — that even in the darkest galaxy, a new hope is always possible.
CThat even the smallest person can change the course of the future, if they have the courage to try.
CThat love and friendship and doing what’s right will matter in the end, even when everything says otherwise.
DThat the wheel keeps turning — that power shifts, winters end, and what endures is those willing to fight for it.
EThat humanity — or whatever we become — is capable of extraordinary things, if we choose to be.

REVEAL MY UNIVERSE →

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Your Universe Has Been Chosen
You Belong In…

Your answers point to the iconic universe your values, your instincts, and your particular way of seeing the world were built for. This is where you would find your people — and your purpose.

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A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Star Wars

You believe in the cause — in the idea that freedom is worth fighting for even when the odds are impossible and the empire is vast.

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• You are drawn to the moral clarity of a universe where hope itself is a form of resistance.
• You’d find your people in the Rebellion — a ragtag coalition of true believers held together by conviction more than resources.
• Star Wars is fundamentally a story about ordinary people choosing to matter in an extraordinary conflict — and that is exactly your kind of story.
• The Force may or may not be with you. But the will to use it for something larger than yourself certainly is.

Middle-earth

Lord of the Rings

You understand, in the deepest part of yourself, that the journey matters as much as the destination — and that the world’s beauty is worth protecting even at great cost.

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• Middle-earth is a world of ancient wonder, deep friendship, and a darkness that only retreats when enough small acts of courage accumulate.
• You would thrive here because you value the fellowship more than the glory — the road more than the arrival.
• Tolkien’s universe rewards patience, loyalty, and the willingness to carry something heavy across a very long distance.
• Those are not burdens to you. They are simply how you move through the world.

The Wizarding World

Harry Potter

You believe that love, loyalty, and doing what’s right are not naive sentiments — they are the most powerful forces in any world, magical or otherwise.

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• The Wizarding World is a place of wonder hidden in plain sight, where learning is transformative and the bonds you form at school follow you into every battle.
• You would flourish here because you take both the magic and the friendships seriously — and you understand that one without the other is incomplete.
• Harry Potter’s universe ultimately rewards those who choose to stand for something even when standing is terrifying.
• That choice — made quietly, without guarantee — is something you understand completely.

Westeros · The Known World

Game of Thrones

You see the world clearly — its power structures, its hypocrisies, its brutal arithmetic — and you are not paralysed by that clarity. You use it.

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• Westeros is a world that rewards intelligence, adaptability, and the willingness to understand that every alliance is also a negotiation.
• You would survive here — possibly thrive here — because you don’t confuse the world as it is with the world as you’d like it to be.
• Game of Thrones is a story about what happens when the idealists and the realists collide. You are sharp enough to know which one lasts longer.
• Winter always comes. You are already prepared.

The United Federation of Planets

Star Trek

You believe the future is worth building — that curiosity, cooperation, and the expansion of understanding are not just ideals but the most practical path forward for any civilisation.

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• Star Trek is a universe where the questions matter as much as the answers, and where encountering something utterly alien is cause for wonder rather than fear.
• You would belong here because you are fundamentally optimistic about what intelligence and decency can achieve — while being honest about how hard that achievement is.
• The Federation is the universe’s most ambitious thought experiment: what if we actually got better?
• You don’t just hope that’s possible. You think it’s the only thing worth working toward.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

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2

‘Watership Down’ (1978)

Image via Nepenthe Productions

British censors rated Watership Down a U, meaning suitable for the whole family, and then the film opens with a rabbit creation myth about a god of death called the Black Rabbit of Inlé before moving into scenes of rabbits drowning, getting gassed inside their own warrens, and tearing each other apart in a fight against General Woundwort. When the BBC aired it in a teatime family slot years later, the switchboard reportedly lit up with parents complaining about what their kids had just watched.

John Hurt voices Hazel, the rabbit leading his warren to safety, and the film never once cuts away from what happens to the rabbits who don’t make it. Bambi’s mother dies offscreen with a gunshot you only hear. Watership Down shows you the blood directly, frame by frame, and dares you to still call it a children’s film afterward.

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1

‘Shrek’ (2001)

Image via DreamWorks Animation

Looking back, it is almost impossible to overstate how much Shrek changed mainstream animation. Shrek (Mike Myers) was never interested in becoming the handsome prince, while Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) turned out to be the person the fairy tale was trying to “fix.” Even Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow) exists to mock the perfect kingdoms that older animated classics spent decades celebrating.

The clever jokes are only part of the reason the film became such a phenomenon. What really made Shrek feel fresh was its willingness to question stories that audiences had accepted for generations. It laughs at fairy-tale traditions, but it also asks why those traditions existed in the first place. Beauty, heroism, romance, and happily-ever-afters all get turned upside down without ever feeling cynical. Plenty of animated films have been funny since then. Very few have been bold enough to rewrite the rules of the genre while millions of people were laughing.

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Shrek

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Release Date

May 18, 2001

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Runtime

90 minutes

Director

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Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson

Writers

Terry Rossio, Joe Stillman, Roger S.H. Schulman, Ted Elliott, William Steig, J.M. Barrie, Carlo Collodi

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• 

  Shrek / Blind Mouse (voice)

• 

  Eddie Murphy

  Donkey (voice)

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