The feeling of being seen in a film is one of the stranger pleasures of cinema.
Bud Baxter is a minor clerk in a huge New York insurance company, until he discovers a quick way to climb the corporate ladder. He lends out his apartment to the executives as a place to take their mistresses. Although he often has to deal with the aftermath of their visits, one night he's left with a major problem to solve.
There's something in here that will feel very specifically aimed at you. That's not an accident.
1930s Korea, in the period of Japanese occupation, a new girl, Sook-hee, is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, Hideko, who lives a secluded life on a large countryside estate with her domineering Uncle Kouzuki. But the maid has a secret. She is a pickpocket recruited by a swindler posing as a Japanese Count to help him seduce the Lady to steal her fortune.
It articulates something you've felt but never quite had words for. That's the whole effect.
A family dog – with a near-human soul and a philosopher's mind – evaluates his life through the lessons learned by his human owner, a race-car driver.
There's something in here that will feel very specifically aimed at you. That's not an accident.
In 1999, a teen girl keeps close tabs on a boy in school on behalf of her deeply smitten best friend – then she gets swept up in a love story of her own.
It articulates something you've felt but never quite had words for. That's the whole effect.
A retired San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.
It articulates something you've felt but never quite had words for. That's the whole effect.
Being understood is a complicated feeling. These films produce it reliably.
The experience of being truly seen by another person. Core theme.
Good for the specific solitude of post-breakup evenings.
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
There's something in here that will feel very specifically aimed at you. That's not an accident.
In 1927 Hollywood, a silent film star falls for a chorus girl just as he and his paranoid screen partner struggle to make the difficult transition to talking pictures.
It articulates something you've felt but never quite had words for. That's the whole effect.
A bullied teenage girl forms an unlikely friendship with a mysterious young man who protects her from her assailants, while she copes with the pressures of her final examinations.
It articulates something you've felt but never quite had words for. That's the whole effect.
On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.
It articulates something you've felt but never quite had words for. That's the whole effect.
In the summer of 1983, a 17-year-old Elio spends his days in his family's villa in Italy. One day Oliver, a graduate student, arrives to assist Elio's father, a professor of Greco-Roman culture. Soon, Elio and Oliver discover a summer that will alter their lives forever.
It articulates something you've felt but never quite had words for. That's the whole effect.
Some films earn their effect. These do.