
Ask HN: Great movies/series you saw lately? - yesenadam
Preferably ones made in the last few years, but doesn&#x27;t have to be. Stuff not in English is particularly welcome. Thank you!
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yesenadam
_Succession_ (2018-), 2 seasons so far, which "follows a dysfunctional
American global-media family", is wonderful. Although a creation of Jesse
Armstrong, creator of brilliant comedies like Peep Show and Four Lions, it's
more pure drama, although has many funny moments.

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outinvietnam
The most unassuming movie I was recommended, but turned out to be spectacular:
Upgrade. I read somewhere the producers had really low expectations for this
movie as it is low budget and not about comic book superheroes. Apparently,
there are no plans for the 2nd installment. But, imho, creative camerawork,
beautiful cinematography and wild choreography put it anywhere above and
beyond most any superhero flick out now.

The movie that shattered any expectations I had for it: Enter Nowhere. I
stumbled upon it on Amazon Prime, thought the synopsis was somewhat
interesting and went into watching it with extremely low expectations (the
title is crap, the poster is crap, it has Clint Eastwood's son with wooden
expression throughout the movie). But this movie turned out to be a trippy
puzzle unlike what we are used to (Cube, Saw, Escape Room). Instead of wealthy
people with kinky(?) sense of entertainment and insane philosophers, it has
something to do with WW2. Unusual.

Low budget movie that takes place in a single room, yet won't bore you even
for a second: Circle. It's a survival game movie where predicting the outcome
of the game is half the fun. Blew all my expectations out the park. I watched
a lot of survival movies of late and this is one of the (very few) best.

The movies that deserved all their hype: Arrival, It, Us, Annihilation. In
Arrival I loved the design of aliens, their environment, the way the linguist
tries to decipher their language and the final twist. One negative is how the
movie deals with geopolitics - it's crude and laughable. For a movie led by
kids, It (the movie) is really a solid one. It is polished like a huge budget
superhero flick, but also, uh, literate and entertaining. Us is a beautiful,
very slick movie that pops in your face. It has a couple of interesting twists
and some funny bits. Refreshing break from the regular Hollywood
fare(schlock). That said, Us is riddled with holes as if someone shot at it
from a semi. But even with that it's fun to watch as Hollywood doesn't make
movies like Us often (only on special occasions?). Annihilation is gorgeous.
Period. The set design is a work of art and I love the subject matter. Again,
H'wood doesn't dabble in this sort of stuff very often. The move signals the
ending twist half-way through, but I am not sure it's even a twist. This movie
doesn't end with a bang as it's all about the process. To me it is a
meditation on research, often frustrating and unsuccessful (though, the
linguist in Arrival was very much successful in her endeavor :) The soundtrack
is unusual (and beautiful) for this kind of movie (although the movie itself
is unusual). I love the sound design in all these four movies. Really
attractive.

Among the memorable shorts (I watch a lot of them; I can recall many, but
can't remember their titles) I saw are The Gun Fighter [0], Paradox (try
solving the problem in the movie before it ends)[1], Thresher [2], Rakka [3].

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWs4WA--
eKU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWs4WA--eKU)

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnfh3qcpBxA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnfh3qcpBxA)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqNdbHHWtBc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqNdbHHWtBc)

[3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjQ2t_yNHQs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjQ2t_yNHQs)

~~~
yesenadam
Thank you! :-) Really great answer, I shall check those out. Yup, Upgrade was
awesome.

