About American Beauty
American Beauty depicts the story of Lester Burnham, a gainfully employed suburban husband and father. Tired of his boring, stagnant existence, he lets go of his job and decides to reinvent himself as a pot-smoking, responsibility-shirking teenager. What follows is at once cynical, hysterical, and, eventually, tragically uplifting.
After a recent watch I started to think about movies like American Beauty and believe it or not – they’re out there. Here’s hoping you add a few to your bucket list.
1. Shame (2011)
Directed by Steve McQueen, Shame is an erotic psychological drama starring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan. It was released in the year 2011.
Shame follows Brandon, a successful New York professional who secretly struggles with a compulsive sex addiction that dominates his carefully controlled private life. When his troubled younger sister Sissy unexpectedly arrives to stay at his apartment, her presence disrupts his routine and forces him to confront his isolation, his inability to form genuine connections, and the painful past the two of them share.
2. Girl, Interrupted (1999)
Directed by James Mangold and written by James Mangold, Lisa Loomer, and Anna Hamilton Phelan, Girl, Interrupted is a psychological drama movie starring Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Clea DuVall, Brittany Murphy, Elisabeth Moss, Jared Leto, and Whoopi Goldberg. It was released in the year 1999.
Girl, Interrupted is based on Susanna Kaysen’s memoir of the same name and follows Susanna, an 18-year-old who is admitted to a psychiatric hospital in the late 1960s after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. During her stay, she forms close bonds with the other young women on her ward, including the rebellious and magnetic Lisa, while struggling to understand herself and decide whether she truly belongs there.
3. The Virgin Suicides (1999)
Directed and written by Sofia Coppola, The Virgin Suicides is a coming-of-age drama movie starring Kirsten Dunst, James Woods, Kathleen Turner, Josh Hartnett, A.J. Cook, and Hanna R. Hall. It was released in the year 1999.
The Virgin Suicides offers a glimpse into the murky unknowability of adolescence, and its legacy is tied to the portraits of femininity with which Sofia Coppola has crafted her filmography. The story is about the five beautiful, dreamy Lisbon sisters, whose doomed fates indelibly marked the neighbourhood boys who to this day continue to obsess over them. At its core – it’s a mystery story. One filled with love, isolation, repression, fantasy, terror, sex and death.
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4. Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Co-written and directed by Darren Aronofsky, Requiem for a Dream stars Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans, and Christopher McDonald. It was released in the year 2000.
Requiem for a Dream follows four characters affected by drug addiction and as the movie progresses they eventually deteriorate into seeing and believing their own delusions. Not to mention severe catastrophes which soon follow. This is a generational film and a philosophical one, as well as Trainspotting. Its themes are indeed at the heart of contemporary youth. But beyond that, Requiem is a reflection on addiction, on the alienation and self-ownership.
5. Closer (2004)
Directed by Mike Nichols and written by Patrick Marber, Closer is a romantic drama movie starring Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, and Clive Owen. It was released in the year 2004.
Closer is based on Patrick Marber’s stage play of the same name and follows four strangers in London whose lives become entangled through love, lust, and betrayal. An obituary writer, a young American waitress, a photographer, and a dermatologist fall in and out of relationships with one another over several years, as their affairs and deceptions leave each of them questioning what they truly want. As a modern day reinterpretation of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 1790 opera, Cosi fan tutte, there are many references in both the movie and its soundtrack.
6. Marriage Story (2019)
Directed and written by Noah Baumbach, Marriage Story is a drama movie starring Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, and Julie Hagerty. It was released in the year 2019.
Marriage Story follows Charlie, a New York theatre director, and Nicole, an actress, as their marriage falls apart and they navigate a gruelling bicoastal divorce. What begins as an amicable split soon spirals into a bitter legal battle over custody of their young son, with the couple torn between Los Angeles and New York as they try to hold on to what remains of their family.
7. Lady Bird (2017)
Directed and written by Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird is a coming-of-age comedy drama movie starring Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, and Beanie Feldstein. It was released in the year 2017.
Lady Bird marked Greta Gerwig’s solo directorial debut and follows Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson, a headstrong high school senior at a Catholic school in Sacramento who dreams of escaping to a college on the East Coast. Over the course of her final year, she navigates first loves, shifting friendships, and her family’s financial struggles, all while clashing with her loving but fiercely critical mother.
8. Cruel Intentions (1999)
Directed and written by Roger Kumble, Cruel Intentions is a teen romantic drama movie starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon, Selma Blair, and Joshua Jackson. It was released in the year 1999.
Cruel Intentions is loosely based on the 18th-century French novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses and is set in modern-day New York City. The premise of the movie revolves around two wealthy and decadent step-siblings, Kathryn and Sebastian, who make a wager to see if Sebastian can bed the headmaster’s daughter, Annette, before the start of the school year. Themes like love, power, sex, manipulation and white privilege are explored throughout the movie.
The bizarre thing is half the time you’re cheering Sebastian on so that he wins the wager and gets to have sex with his step-sister which is a weird flex. The 90s was a wild time!
9. Fargo (1996)
Directed and written by Joel and Ethan Coen, Fargo is a black comedy crime thriller movie starring Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, and Harve Presnell. It was released in the year 1996.
Set in the town of Fargo, North Dakota, the story follows a desperate car salesman who fakes his wife’s abduction by hiring two criminals with the plan to extort tens of thousands of dollars from his rich father-in-law. However, when a state trooper get shot, the plan goes from bad to worse very quickly.
Unlike, the TV show that re-imagined the movie and had a serious tone, the Fargo film swings from comedic to deadly quite rapidly – which is part of the reason it’s a well-loved classic.
10. The Piano Teacher (2001)
Directed and written by Michael Haneke, The Piano Teacher is an erotic psychological drama starring Isabelle Huppert, Annie Girardot and Benoît Magimel. It was released in the year 2001.
The Piano Teacher is set in the 1950s and is based on the 1983 novel of the same name which was written by Elfriede Jelinek. It’s very Mrs Robinson in the way of how it tells the tale of a single unmarried piano teacher who starts a highly sexually charged relationship with one of her students. The two leads even won Best Actor and Best Actress at Cannes Film Festival so there’s reason enough to give this a watch!
11. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Directed, produced and co-written by all time great Stanley Kubrick, Eyes Wide Shut is an erotic psychological movie starring Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack and Marie Richardson. It was released in the year 1999.
Eyes Wide Shut is based on the 1926 novella Traumnovelle (translates as “Dream Story”) by Arthur Schnitzer. The movie is a modern day reinterpretation which transplants the setting of early 20th Century Vienna to New York City in the 1990s. The movie is centered around Tom Cruise’s character who is taken aback when his wife admits to contemplating having an affair. The movie then follows his character as he goes on this crazy adventure which involves infiltrating a masked orgy of an unnamed secret society.
12. Donnie Darko (2001)
Directed and written by Richard Kelly, Donnie Darko is a science fiction psychological thriller movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Mary McDonnell, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Noah Wyle. It was released in the year 2001.
Donnie Darko is set in the late 80s in which a depressed teenager sleep walks and in doing so escapes an accident which should’ve killed him. When he’s warned by a mysterious figure in a rabbit costume called Frank that the world is about to end in 28 days his life begins to spin out of control. He’s drawn into a series of strange visions, acts of vandalism, and theories about time travel that blur the line between reality and madness
Make sense? No? Watch the movie.
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13. Nomadland (2020)
Directed and written by Chloé Zhao, Nomadland is a drama movie starring Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, Linda May, Charlene Swankie, and Bob Wells. It was released in the year 2020.
Nomadland is based on Jessica Bruder’s non-fiction book of the same name and follows Fern, a widow who loses her job and home after the gypsum plant that sustained her small Nevada town shuts down. Packing her life into a van, she sets out across the American West as a modern-day nomad, taking seasonal work and finding community among the people she meets on the road. The film went on to win the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress.
14. American History X (1998)
Directed by Tony Kaye, American History X is a thriller x crime drama starring Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Fairuza Balk, Stacy Keach, Elliott Gould, Avery Brooks and Beverly D’Angelo. It was released in the year 1998.
American History X is about Edward Norton’s character, a white supremacist neo-nazi, and tracks his life as he goes into prison and becomes a reformed white power skin head. Eventually, his younger brother follows his brother’s earlier life choices and the movie provides an interesting narrative on racism and neo-nazism being a learned generational behaviour.
15. American Honey (2016)
Directed and written by Andrea Arnold, American Honey is a coming-of-age road drama movie starring Sasha Lane, Shia LaBeouf, Riley Keough, McCaul Lombardi, and Arielle Holmes. It was released in the year 2016.
American Honey follows Star, a teenage girl who escapes a troubled home life in Oklahoma by joining a travelling crew of young misfits selling magazine subscriptions door to door across the American Midwest. As she falls into the crew’s hard-partying lifestyle and a volatile romance with its charismatic top salesman, Star must figure out who she is and what she really wants from life on the road.
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