Half asleep is a valid viewing state. These were made for it.
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.
Works even when you're fading. Strong enough to hold you, soft enough to let you drift.
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.
You'll catch the important moments even half-gone. It's paced for that.
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.
Works even when you're fading. Strong enough to hold you, soft enough to let you drift.
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.
Works even when you're fading. Strong enough to hold you, soft enough to let you drift.
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.
Works even when you're fading. Strong enough to hold you, soft enough to let you drift.
The films that hold up half-watched are usually doing something right with tone and pacing.
Emotional arc is simple enough to follow with one eye open.
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
Works even when you're fading. Strong enough to hold you, soft enough to let you drift.
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.
You'll catch the important moments even half-gone. It's paced for that.
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.
You'll catch the important moments even half-gone. It's paced for that.
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.
You'll catch the important moments even half-gone. It's paced for that.
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.
Works even when you're fading. Strong enough to hold you, soft enough to let you drift.
These films were chosen for the state you're in, not the state you wish you were in.