It’s interesting how your Netflix algorithm can suggest your next favorite film, which, quite conveniently, just happens to be another film on Netflix.
Does anyone actually think their algorithm “knows” them in any meaningful way? You watch Twilight, and it gives you 25 more vampire films. You watch a Norwegian crime show, and it shows you every other one, just ranked by popularity.
It doesn't know what mood you are in. It doesn't know who you are watching with, or what kind of night this actually is. It sees you just watched Requiem for a Dream and assumes you want more, not that what you actually need is a Miyazaki film to take the edge off.
I have spent an unreasonable amount of my life trying to solve this problem. Not because anyone asked me to, but because choosing the right film for the right moment, for the right person, is something I’ve gotten very good at. It turns out this is basically a science. Or at least I have been treating it like one.
What follows is not really a list. It’s a set of equations.
Each one starts with films you already know (and if you don’t, run don’t walk to see them), then bends them into something you probably don’t. Sometimes by genre, sometimes by plot, but always by feeling. Five moods, five recommendations.
Think of it as cinematic alchemy.
Think of me as your film sherpa.
Oceans Eleven + Bicentennial Man + Sentimental Value = Robot & Frank
The Equation: Part heist film, part human and robot cooperation, part a family drama about the weight of things left unsaid for too long.
The Summary: Frank Langella plays a retired jewel thief who is given a robot by his son to help around the house, and the two of them team up to pull off a heist.
How it feels: Robot & Frank is one of the most heart-warming films for an hour, and then suddenly one of the most devastating films of the last twenty years.
Who to watch it with: Watch this one with someone who doesn’t call AI a “clanker”. Ideally, someone who you want to emotionally gut-punch.
Anvil! The Story of Anvil + Inside Llewyn Davis + Paddington 2 = Searching For Sugar Man
The Equation: Part music documentary, part melancholic folk music story, part low-stakes mystery.
The Summary: Two South African fans investigate the fate of Sixto Rodriguez, a 1970s American folksinger who failed in the US but became a superstar in South Africa, becoming a symbol of anti-apartheid sentiment.
How it feels: Like listening to Bob Dylan while learning the world occasionally rights its wrongs. Warm, mysterious, and life-affirming.
Who to watch it with: Anyone. This is the rare film that works for everybody.
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Moonrise Kingdom + The Lobster = Submarine
The Equation: It is part coming-of-age love story and part deadpan absurdist romance.
The Summary: Oliver Tate is 16, keeps a thesaurus by his bed, and has decided that saving his parents’ marriage and losing his virginity are problems of equal and immediate urgency.
How it feels: Like being sixteen, but narrating your own life as if it matters more than anyone else’s. The embarrassing, overwhelming certainty that everything you feel is more profound than anyone else has ever felt it. Set to a soundtrack from Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys.
Who to watch it with: Watch it with someone who knew you at sixteen, or someone you trust enough to tell them about the person you were at sixteen. Or someone who knows who Alex Turner is.
Kill Bill + Oldboy + John Wick = A Bittersweet Life
The Equation: Part stylized revenge story, part operatic tragedy, part someone running across a table to roundhouse someone in the teeth.
The Summary: A South Korean crime boss's enforcer is given a simple job: follow his girlfriend, whom he suspects is cheating. It goes wrong. Inevitably.
How it feels: Like a melancholic, chain-smoking version of John Wick.
Who to watch it with: Your friend who likes Lost In Translation and Man On Fire in equal measure.
Y Tu Mamá También + The Road + The Mist = It Ends
The Equation: Part coming-of-age road trip, part journey through the end-of-the-world, part not knowing what ended it.
The Summary: A group of friends on a drive find themselves trapped on an endless road with no clear cause or explanation.
How it feels: An existential road trip with your college dorm friends, but it never ends, and the jokes slowly stop being funny.
Who to watch it with: Someone you’ve discussed the meaning of life and zombie outbreak logistics with at least once.
If you have seen all five of these already, first, congratulations. Here are five equation-free deep cuts that nearly made the list, each with fewer than 3 reviews from people I follow on Letterboxd:
Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
Invader (2024)
Greener Grass (2019)
Troll Hunter (2010)
Thunder Road (2018)
The mountain is large, but we have barely started. There are more equations where these came from. Some of them are even more improbable than a retired jewel thief and his robot friend.
If you watch one and think yes, “That’s exactly what I needed”, come back and tell me, and we will do this again.
I’m not suggesting I sit on call, waiting for people to ask what to watch, while I come up with increasingly unhinged film hybrids. But also, I do have a price.
The next piece in the Denis Villeneuve series is coming soon. Subscribe if you want it landing in your inbox when it does.
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