Not everything needs to be a project. Sometimes a film should just carry you.
The epic saga continues as Luke Skywalker, in hopes of defeating the evil Galactic Empire, learns the ways of the Jedi from aging master Yoda. But Darth Vader is more determined than ever to capture Luke. Meanwhile, rebel leader Princess Leia, cocky Han Solo, Chewbacca, and droids C-3PO and R2-D2 are thrown into various stages of capture, betrayal and despair.
This one works when your attention keeps drifting. The pacing carries you without demanding anything back.
Léon, the top hit man in New York, has earned a rep as an effective "cleaner". But when his next-door neighbors are wiped out by a loose-cannon DEA agent, he becomes the unwilling custodian of 12-year-old Mathilda. Before long, Mathilda's thoughts turn to revenge, and she considers following in Léon's footsteps.
This one works when your attention keeps drifting. The pacing carries you without demanding anything back.
Set in the 22nd century, The Matrix tells the story of a computer hacker who joins a group of underground insurgents fighting the vast and powerful computers who now rule the earth.
Easy to follow even when you're half gone. The film does the heavy lifting.
After getting a green card in exchange for assassinating a Cuban government official, Tony Montana stakes a claim on the drug trade in Miami. Viciously murdering anyone who stands in his way, Tony eventually becomes the biggest drug lord in the state, controlling nearly all the cocaine that comes through Miami. But increased pressure from the police, wars with Colombian drug cartels and his own drug-fueled paranoia serve to fuel the flames of his eventual downfall.
Easy to follow even when you're half gone. The film does the heavy lifting.
Ten years after the events of the original, a reprogrammed T-800 is sent back in time to protect young John Connor from the shape-shifting T-1000. Together with his mother Sarah, he fights to stop Skynet from triggering a nuclear apocalypse.
This one works when your attention keeps drifting. The pacing carries you without demanding anything back.
The best films for low-energy viewing are usually better than you'd expect.
Easy to follow. Mostly visual. Good for distracted watching.
Shakespeare's King Lear is reimagined as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan where an aging warlord divides his kingdom between his three sons.
Easy to follow even when you're half gone. The film does the heavy lifting.
A young boy and a girl with a magic crystal must race against pirates and foreign agents in a search for a legendary floating castle.
This one works when your attention keeps drifting. The pacing carries you without demanding anything back.
Ripley, the sole survivor of the Nostromo's deadly encounter with the monstrous Alien, returns to Earth after drifting through space in hypersleep for 57 years. Although her story is initially met with skepticism, she agrees to accompany a team of Colonial Marines back to LV-426.
Easy to follow even when you're half gone. The film does the heavy lifting.
Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's soldiers. This leads the village to revolt and, eventually, the entire country to rise up against English rule.
This one works when your attention keeps drifting. The pacing carries you without demanding anything back.
A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psychic psychopath that only two teenagers and a group of psychics can stop.
Easy to follow even when you're half gone. The film does the heavy lifting.
These films work because they match where you actually are, not where you think you should be.