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Contact
I did a big 180 on this—it seemed so stupid and eye roll-inducing for the first half, but the second half reeled me in and really made me care about Jodie Foster’s journey. The conversation this film is having between science and faith is great and nuanced, and while the “twist” was something I somewhat saw coming, it was exactly what I was hoping for. In a lot of ways, this movie reminds me of the The Andromeda Strain or the first Star Trek film with its long runtime and clinical, bureaucratic plot lines… which is to say, I really really like style of science fiction.

Gattaca
Ethan Hawke has never looked so good, has he? This is a movie that has loomed over me since high school, for the simple reason that so many of my classmates watched this movie during class (Science, I think?) and I never did! Well, now I’ve seen it and I really get the hype.

Ethan Hawke steals the show, but Jude Law and Uma Thurman make for a great trio. The world-building is exceptional and though the plot isn’t necessarily the most groundbreaking, the execution is clean. One thing I really liked in comparison to some of the other sci-fi movies I’ve been watching is that Gattaca plays up the melodrama without being overly cheesy. The sheer amount of sci-fi sad boi energy oozing off the screen is amazing.

Starship Troopers
Yes yes yes.

I want to watch this movie like 12 more times right now. It’s so so dumb and it’s so so smart at the same time. The genre elements work perfectly, the visual effects are incredible, the performances are hilariously cheesy and the social commentary is on point. There is not a chink in this movie’s armor. Robocop was fun, but this has to be Verhoeven’s masterpiece. I have not stopped thinking about this movie and I anticipate many more watches in the months and years to come.

Face/Off
Yes yes yes yes yes.

Cheesy, over-the-top, melodramatic science fiction is so good when done well. Travolta and Cage literally could not be a more perfect pair in this nonsensical, ridiculous action romp. None of the plot makes sense and it does not matter AT ALL. Nicolas Cage grabs an ass within the first five minutes. John Travolta tries and fails to act convincing as a police detective. I just re-read the entire plot description on Wikipedia and I don’t even remember half of it… in a good way! Sometimes all you want in a movie is something that goes all out and never lets up, and this movie does that and more.

Event Horizon
Noooooo, my 5FFF hot streak has ended with Event Horizon. The movie this most reminds me of is The Cloverfield Paradox, which is to say it’s a mediocre trapped-in-space movie that uses generic horror tropes to try and emulate the Alien franchise without ever coming close. I don’t even know if I truly liked anything in this—the effects and set design were pretty good for the time? Still, the plot was pretty banal and none of the performances really did it for me, so this was mostly just a miss unfortunately.

Escape from New York
Everything about this movie was cool. From the impressive world building and set design to the unique characters and fantastic performances, Escape from New York is an all-around classy sci-fi romp. Carpenter’s vision is incredibly crisp—it really seems like every last detail was thought of. The suspense is palpable, the music is iconic and Kurt Russell gives a fantastic performance as the war hero/criminal Snake Plissken (what a fuckin’ name). The supporting characters hold their own too, especially Harry Dean Stanton, Lee Van Cleef and (wtf) Isaac Hayes! Not much else to say on this one, except “watch it.”

Dune
So weird, so out there, so fun! No, it’s not a “great” movie by any stretch, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a total blast. For all its shortcomings, David Lynch’s Dune is still a wildly stylish, cerebral space voyage that is bolstered by its formidable cast and charming world-building. The effects are certainly dated, but it’s all but forgiven when you stop to appreciate the costumes and set design. Watching this in 2021, it’s hard to believe that Dune was once dubbed “the wort film of 1984.” I’m really excited to see what Villeneuve is going to do with this—if it’s anywhere on the level of his latest sci-fi efforts (like Arrival and Blade Runner 2049), I think it’s going to be epic.

The Dead Zone
I liked this one! I was a bit disappointed that this didn’t reach a higher plane for me, but with a concept this intriguing and an actor as good as Christopher Walken at the center, it’s hard to hate on this. I’ve just found myself consistently enjoying but not necessarily loving Cronenberg’s films, and this was no exception. Other than a few truly well-done, exciting moments (like the film’s finale), I just sort of felt neutral on this. It’s competent, but I expect more of a “wow” factor from a Stephen King adaptation.

Predator
My only big takeaway from this film is that this is where the bicep meme comes from?! But seriously, this thing had a lot of cool moments and an interesting villain that didn’t really add up to something greater for me. I get that a lot of this could be considered satirical and tongue-in-cheek, but even knowing that didn’t sway my opinion of the cheesy action and melodramatic performances. This just isn’t my type of flick!

RoboCop
My first Verhoeven! I liked this, though it took me a while to adjust to this level of camp and satire (I seriously didn’t realize that so many 80s sci-fi movies were actually satires). I can tell there’s a lot more bubbling under the surface than just a cop who gets turned into a robot (though as I write that I realize that “a cop who turns into a robot” is about as obvious a metaphor as it gets…). Still, this thing was cheesy and fun for me in a way that Predator was not. What I liked best about Robocop was the world-building, though even some of the performances, particularly Miguel Ferrer and Kurtwood Smith, were delightful!

What is 5 Film Film Festival (5FFF)?
In short, 5 Film Film Festival is an ongoing personal project to help me watch more classic films. For each mini “festival,” I will choose a random theme (be it a genre, actor, director, etc.) and curate five movies that fit that theme to watch for the first time. When I started this journey, I posted my brief, unpolished thoughts on Letterboxd. I like this more informal, less pretentious mode of watching older movies, so as I begin documenting the project here on the site, don’t expect a lot of in-depth analysis— every “review” will read more like a “first reaction.”​

If you’re like me, and you have more than a few blind spots in your cinematic knowledge, then consider joining me on this lifelong endeavor. Watch along, recommend themes, and organize some mini festivals of your own!

The Andromeda Strain
This movie really reminded me of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which is ironic since both are directed by the great Robert Wise. But the real reason I made the connection is the procedural nature of it all. The Andromeda Strain is a movie with huge stakes, and yet most of it is simply scientists talking about different rules and protocols. The simplicity of the story/dialogue really lets some of the other elements shine, like the performances, production design, lighting and costumes. As far as 1970s sci-fi goes, this is exactly the kind of movie that pulls me in.

P.S. the one thing I really did not love was the monkey death scene. In the context of the movie, it’s a great scene, but reading about how they pulled it off was unsettling. No movie should have to torture or injure an animal just to get a shot, even in the days before CGI.

Soylent Green
So I spent about half of this praying that the “IT’S PEOPLE! SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!” line was more of a midpoint or climax than the literal last line of the movie, but alas. Still, I’m surprised by how much I liked this thing, despite knowing how it ends. 

All the production design and costuming elements are really great and I love how they don’t spend much time explaining the world they live in, but the standout moment in this film for me is Sol’s awe-inspiring death scene. It’s a scene that feels beautiful, sad and all too real. This is easily one of my “favorite” death scenes in any movie I’ve watched, and it’s probably one of the best scenes I’ve seen in a long time, period. I actually think maybe knowing how the movie would end allowed me to focus on all the little scenes that lead up to that point (like Sol’s death) without trying to “solve” the movie.

The Stepford Wives
What’s not to love about a suburban horror/sci-fi picture with feminist themes? 

The concept is simple but effective—Joanna moves to a quaint Connecticut town with her family, where she notices the strangely perfect behavior of the other female residents—and I think the music, costumes and settings all compliment it really well. The performances are also very good, especially once the “twist” (which I have to say, I didn’t totally see coming) is revealed.

My one problem with this movie is I think it suffers from being so influential. You can see its fingerprints in all sorts of modern horror/sci-fi movies, so much so that the “original” feels a bit stale by comparison.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Hmm, did my high expectations and appreciation for the 1956 original spoil this for me? I didn’t hate this by any means, but I really was expecting to be more blown away, especially considering the great cast. I’m looking forward to another re-watch on this, because at the moment I just feel sort of mixed. I liked it in general (you gotta admit it’s a really engaging concept), but I wanted to love it.

Mad Max
Another “Hmm” on my list and it’s Mad Max! Unfortunately, I think this is another case of mismanaged expectations. I am a huge fan of the 2015 reboot/sequel Mad Max: Fury Road and I definitely knew going into this that this would not be that, and yet I still felt a little let down. 

On the plus side, I liked some of the world-building and action scene with practical effects. I also thought Mel Gibson was pretty well-cast as Max and Hugh Keays-Byrne was great as Toecutter (though surely not as great as Fury Road’s Immortan Joe). On the downside, this was far from the most exciting movie I’ve ever seen… and it’s called Mad Max.

Collateral
The only thing I knew going in is that Michael Mann directed it and Tom Cruise is the villain. That first fact scared me a little bit (I have not been very fond of Mann’s work in the past, with the exception of Manhunter) and the second half made me really really excited (as an unapologetic Tom Cruise fan, I have long waited for him to take a juicy villainous turn). All in all, this movie was just pretty good to me. 
As I expected, I loved Cruise’s slick and chatty hitman character, but Mann’s direction fell flat for me and Jamie Foxx’s performance was way too hammy. Juxtaposed against Cruise’s equally ostentatious performance, Foxx actually holds his own, but whenever he was alone it just felt way too stilted. His neurotic cabbie persona is definitely a classier version of his performance as the disgruntled scientist-turned-villain Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (whose civilian name is also Max, ironically). I was surprised to read that Foxx was actually nominated at the Oscars for this performance and I was even more surprised when I realized that this was also the year he won Best Actor for Ray! He’s only one of twelve performers to be nominated for two acting Oscars in the same year. Even though Cruise was the clear standout in this otherwise mediocre thriller, I seem to have spent most of my time thinking about Jamie Foxx? Not sure how that happened…

Minority Report
In a really rare moment of self-doubt, I watched Minority Report two days in a row. And let me tell you, sometimes a rewatch really changes your perspective. 

My first time through I felt very dismissive of the dated special effects, convoluted action plot and occasionally laughable dialogue. If I’m being honest, I just thought “oh, this is another B-tier Spielberg movie that’s 90% fluff.” But the second time I watched it I was blown away—like literally jaw open, eyes widened with excitement from the first act on. 

Peeking past the early 2000s VFX, I saw a movie that was narratively daring. The world-building on its own is Blade Runner level good, even if the end result is a bit schlockier, and the countless instances of religious metaphors and symbolism make for a thought-provoking film. At its core, Minority Report is a morality tale sewn into a sci-fi crime thriller. 

Oh, and how could I get this far without talking about Cruise himself? The whole cast is great (I’m thinking specifically about Max von Sydow, Colin Farrell and Samantha Morton), but Cruise is electric. He brings the physicality of Ethan Hunt with a little extra humor, especially as it relates to the film’s more gory plot points (no spoilers, you’ll know it when you see it). I definitely see this one shooting up on my list of favorite Spielberg films and I don’t doubt I’ll be watching it again very soon.

Vanilla Sky
After something as magnetic and thrilling as Minority Report, this movie really suffered. I definitely appreciated the cerebral mystery thing it was going for, but boy was this melodramatic, and not in a good way. As usual, I felt like Tom Cruise really embodied his character and the final thirty minutes were a nice showcase for what he can do with some meaty dialogue. That said, I sort of figured out the twist very early on (I’d say I had it 75% solved by the midpoint) so the big finale didn’t strike the way it probably should have. I can see why some people like this—it’s fun and romantic in a very very cheesy way. But on a fundamental level this one just didn’t click for me, even if I actually did enjoy it at times.

Days of Thunder
This is Top Gun but with racecars and not as good. Young Tom Cruise is young Tom Cruising, but this might be one of his least compelling performances. Really everything about this movie seemed average to me. Even his character’s romance with Nicole Kidman was surprisingly lifeless. The only thing I was really impressed by were the racing sequences and special effects. According to Wikipedia, the movie’s special effects were subject to criticism as the time of its release for being “unrealistic,” which is crazy to me because the effects in the racing sequences are clearly the stand-out for me, even considering this was made in the late 80s. I don’t want to rag on it too much—it’s still a treat to watch a young Cruise race around, get sweaty and throw a tantrum—but compared to the very similar and much superior Top Gun, this movie is just kind of unnecessary.

Born on the Fourth of July
This is the the movie that gave Tom Cruise his first Academy Award nomination (for Best Actor) and of course it’s a 2.5 hour Vietnam war epic from Oliver Stone. What can I say? I liked this thing, and Tom Cruise is legitimately great. Still, it’s very long and dense and some of it is tough to watch (like the prolonged sequence in the hospital). I think this movie definitely worth your time, especially if you are a Tom Cruise completionist like me, but I somehow don’t feel like Cruise’s performance is actually good enough to warrant a watch if you’re not already in on the premise. War movies are a tough thing to recommend, and even though all the best war movies are really anti-war movies (like this one), it doesn’t make them any less taxing. I guess what I’m trying to say is this: Born on the Fourth of July doesn’t really bring anything new to the conversation, unless you’re really not sure what side of the fence you’re on. For me, Vietnam War = bad and stupid, and I didn’t need a long-winded character study to reinforce that ideology. On the other hand, tour de force from Tom Cruise, so you decide!

Desert Hearts
Beautiful landscapes. Great cinematography. Perfectly simplistic dialogue. And a happy ending that makes you want to run it all back again.

This was a sleeper hit for me. I chose it from a long list of female-directed films simply based on the title font. And what can I saw? I loved it. I could definitely see myself buying this Criterion Blu-ray before the year is over.

The cinematography brilliantly captures the beautiful Nevada landscapes and the dialogue is perfectly poetic in its simplicity. The cast is great too, especially Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau. Without spoiling anything, I also want to add that more movies deserve happy endings like this one. If you are a fan of queer cinema, add this to your watchlist.

Beau Travail
I was so tired when I watched this, but once it ended I really felt like I just wanted to watch it again. I didn’t, because I was practically asleep, but when I woke up the next day I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The cinematography, the settings, the fragmented narrative, the magnetic lead performance from Denis Lavant, THAT ENDING?! Legitimately a Top 10 movie ending of all time, and probably a Top 5 needle drop? I’m putting “The Rhythm of the Night” on all my playlists.

Losing Ground
I love the dreamy color palettes and the poetic, low-budget energy that Kathleen Collins brings to every scene—there’s a reason this film was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress—but as a whole movie this one didn’t really click with me. That said, I feel like the most intriguing parts (which for me were the abstract/avant-garde/meta moments) will only grow on me with more rewatches, so I am looking forward to giving this one another chance.

Daughters of the Dust
Okay, so this is one that’s been in my list for a long while, for obvious reasons. Daughters of the Dust has been included in film school syllabi and touted as one of the great masterpieces of independent cinema. And I get it, this is a fever dream of a movie with immaculate costumes and amazing shots throughout. And I also have no idea how I feel about it, because I watched it over the course of four days. It’s not a particularly long film, but it is slow and dense (great films often are) and I don’t feel like I gave it the “sit down” attention it deserves. This isn’t generally the type of film I gravitate towards, but I will revisit it, probably in a few months.

Whale Rider
This was so sweet and endearing—yet another great experience watching a movie from New Zealand! I also liked watching it in this lineup of films, because a lot of the themes of ancestry and spirituality felt like they carried over from Daughters of the Dust. 
Though I think the story itself was a bit predictable, you can’t not fall in love with this family. I was happy to read that Keisha Castle-Hughes got an Oscar nom for this because she is legitimately great in this and it was awesome to see Rachel House in one of her younger roles—she is never not great.

Also wanted to give a shoutout to the cinematography, which was striking (especially the underwater shots).

Point Break
I’ve been excited for a while now to dive deeper into Keanu’s filmography and really examine whether he is a great actor or just a great action star. Honestly, it’s hard to tell. He definitely has the looks and the charisma necessary for a role like this, and his physicality is not lacking whatsoever, but the cheesy dialogue and over-the-top machismo obscures the answer for me. Regardless, this movie is so much fun. Any bit of the movie that’s meant to be serious or sincere falls on its face, but by God there are a buttload of awesome action sequences that make it all worthwhile. While its flaws were a bit too apparent for me to fully immerse myself, I think with more viewings Point Break could be a lot like Top Gun for me— a movie I can put on any day of the week and just have a blast.

My Own Private Idaho
“I love you and you don’t pay me.”

One of my new favorite Shakespeare adaptations and a film that perfectly utilizes Keanu’s aura without making him feel unnatural. Unlike the sensual scenes in Point Break, the intimate moments of this film felt totally real and I never doubted Scott’s credibility for a second. 

River Phoenix is (of course) magnificent and the snapshot-style sex scenes were miles more effective any “traditional” sex scene I can think of. Both edgy and tasteful, I think My Own Private Idaho holds up as an entertaining and important mile-marker in queer cinema.

Speed
I know it’s been said before, but this is, for all intents and purposes, three mini action movies rolled into one. You have the elevator rescue, the bus rescue, and then the train rescue— and it’s fucking great. Speed is all the fun of Point Break without any of the narrative baggage. The chemistry between Kenau and Sandra Bullock is really natural and Dennis Hopper kills it as the former bomb squad expert gone rogue, but really everything in the movie hinges on those actions sequences, so it’s a good thing they’re all top-notch. This is definitely the best (and most?) Keanu movie I’ve seen thus far!

The Devil’s Advocate
This review may contain spoilers.

This movie is so weird, I kinda liked it? Keanu and Charlize are both doing way too much, and considering they’re acting opposite Al Pacino as literal Satan, that’s saying something. Still, the horror elements of this movie are really intriguing and the chemistry between the three leads is the glue that holds it all together. But let’s just be honest, this thing isn’t even arguably good, like at all. I just can’t deny that the movie had me smiling and laughing all the way through… and sometimes on purpose, I think.

P.S. The scariest part of this movie is the face Keanu makes when he ugly cries over Charlize's suicide. Stupefying shit.

Constantine
Well, we finally hit a full-blown stinker. You’d think a horror-inspired comic book adaptation starring Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, and Tilda Swinton would be right up my alley, but this was just so boring. I really tried to pay attention and get into the story but nothing about the plot or characters made me care at all about what was happening. I’ll be honest— I tuned out for the last forty-five minutes, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. I definitely was not expecting to have such a viscerally negative reaction to this, but I think I can safely say that Constantine is one of the worst movies I have seen in a long, long time.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture
This movie is my first foray into the world of Star Trek, so I had little to no expectations going into it. What struck me right off the bat was how procedural it all is. For a franchise about galactic adventures there’s a whole lot of bureaucratic nonsense. I totally see why Star Wars and Star Trek fans are often so split, because these franchises couldn’t be more tonally different. That said, I kinda loved it?
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I have no clue what’s in store with the next four films, but The Motion Picture was very visually dynamic with great music, production design, and performances. It’s slow-moving for sure, but I actually really liked the film’s cold, meditative mood. This is the kind of movie I would turn off if I just wanted to veg out and relax. It’s mind-numbing and yet it’s totally gorgeous. I really dug it.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
A worthwhile sequel that ups the action and downplays the poetry, The Wrath of Khan is known as the best Star Trek film. Though this one doesn’t have enough Spock for my taste, Shatner’s dialed-up performance and the exciting action sequences almost make up for that. Ricardo Montalbán also deserves a shoutout for his over-the-top performance as the titular villain. This is a superior film by all accounts, but in some ways I think I enjoyed the procedural slog of the 130-minute Motion Picture more than Khan.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Like both prior films, The Search for Spock is an odd and beautiful sci-fi melodrama, but unlike its predecessors this film feels boring and underdeveloped. I liked the way the plot picked up right where we left off in Wrath of Khan, but despite the fact that Spock’s name is front and center in the title, I still felt like I was missing Nimoy’s dynamic on-screen presence. I like where it started and I even liked the way it ended, but everything in the middle just felt like it sort of happened. If nothing else, I’d say this movie acts as a beautiful bit of filler.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
What I’m coming to enjoy about this franchise is the fact that each film has its own distinct energy, and this is probably my favorite one yet. Thanks to some questionable time travel science, The Voyage Home delivers a kooky fun adventure with an environmentalist tinge. Oh, and Spock is BACK!
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What’s not to love about this thing? On any given day I could be feeling more Wrath-y or Motion Picture-y, but the entire whale-heist-while-trying-to-blend-into-1980s-California aspect just makes this one sing! 

The Voyage Home is goofy in the best possible way, and I think it may actually be the most accessible Star Trek film of any I’ve seen. The time-heist plotline and the quirky style of humor actually remind me of something you’d see nowadays in the MCU, so if that’s something you’re into I’d definitely recommend this one.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
So, this is clearly the weakest of the five Trek movies I’ve seen. There’s nothing particularly terrible about it, but it’s all just a little flat. The camping stuff was, well, campy for lack of a better word, and the whole *spoiler?* God reveal left me wanting so much more after all we got with The Voyage Home. I kind of liked Sybok’s Scarlet Witch-like powers when he took the crew through their most traumatic memories/nightmares, but by that point in the film I was basically checked out already.

Still, the seductive Uhura dance scene is the easily strangest scene in any Star Trek film. So this film is good for something I suppose. 

Great Expectations
*nods vigorously*

My first (and really only) experience with Great Expectations was in high school, when I read the novel and performed in our school’s stage production (I played Joe Gargery and Herbert Pocket, thank you very much). Watching this film brought back a lot of great memories and reminded me of how much I loved this novel.

Dickens’s dialogue is as breathtaking now as when I first read the novel, and David Lean captures it faithfully on the screen. But surprisingly enough, I found myself as interested in Lean’s visuals as I was in Dickens’s language.

Lean’s adaptation features incredible performances, costumes, production design, cinematography, and music. With seemingly little effort, Lean transforms Dickens’s verbose novel into a magnificently visual feast.

I think one of the reasons this is considered a masterful adaptation is the mere fact that it is two hours long. David Lean is known for his lengthy dramas, and yet he adapts Dickens’s beefy novel in just 120 minutes? I am often a proponent of *shorter runtimes!* but I think I actually could’ve watched a three or four hour version and still felt fully engaged.

Monsieur Hulot's Holiday
What’s with the sound? It’s freaking wild!

There’s a lot of cool stuff going on here (especially with Tati’s performance, the sound design/cinematography, and the miss en scene), but I didn’t feel fully connected to it on first watch. I could definitely see this one growing on me, and even after it was done I found myself appreciating different moments and scenes that I didn’t think much about while watching.

With the big cast of unique side characters (the blonde woman, the elderly couple, the waiter, the hotel manager, the children), I was waiting with bated breath for all the threads to connect. Alas, Hulot just keeps wandering around with no direction, causing a ruckus.

Like I said, I’m curious to watch again, maybe after I’ve gone through some of Tati’s later films, but my first impression was mixed on this.

Invention for Destruction
Not as instantly engaging as The Fabulous Baron Munchausen, but a marvel nonetheless. Like Baron Munchausen, Invention for Destruction is a Jules Verne-inspired, mixed medium adventure story from the great Karel Zeman. Using live actors, hand-drawn animation, stop-motion, miniatures, matte paintings, and even stock footage, Zeman creates a unique world in his own style. If you’ve never seen a Zeman film, Invention for Destruction would be a great place to start, but just be prepared for sensory overload— trying to take in every little detail of the frame is both fun and futile.

The Last Unicorn
This is quite a strange film… in a good way? Though sometimes light and colorful, The Last Unicorn is more of a wistful acid trip than a sweet kiddie flick. I don’t think the dark themes and trippy sequences would be “too much” for a younger audience, but it is noticeably less cushy than your typical Disney or Dreamworks fare.

What I liked best about The Last Unicorn was its animation style. Directed by Rankin and Bass, this film is a prime example of offbeat, 70s/80s era animation, fitting in nicely alongside similarly timed releases like The Lord of the Rings and The Secret of Nimh. Though Rankin and Bass are probably best known for their stop-motion Christmas fare (Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Santa Clause Is Coming to Town, etc.) their 2D animation is equally impressive… and a little creepy.

One other thing I wanted to note is that the voice cast is also weirdly stacked, featuring the likes of Alan Arkin, Mia Farrow, Jeff Bridges, Angela Lansbury, and Christopher Lee. Arkin and Farrow specifically carry the film with their great vocal performances.

If you’re even a little curious to see a 2D fantasy film with a lot of heart, then I’d give this a try. It’s not going to end up on any all-time lists for me, but I’m certainly glad to have tried it out.

Kirikou and the Sorceress
I went into Kirikou with little to no expectations, and let me tell you I was kind of blown away!
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Kirikou follows the adventures of a clever newborn boy in West Africa who tries various schemes to help his village escape the oppressive grip of Karaba the Sorceress. A mixture of folktale whimsy and coming of age adventure, Kirikou and the Sorceress is a legitimately exciting film. From the dialogue and voice acting to the music and breathtaking visuals, this film is a treat in every sense. At just an hour and 17 minutes, there’s not a single wasted second in this film. Every scene has a purpose. If you want to show your kid something a little off the beaten path, I highly recommend Kirikou and the Sorceress. 

All that said— one important thing I would point out before showing this to your child is that nearly every character (including little Kirikou) is naked, or at least partially naked in the film. This caused some controversy upon initial release in Western countries like the US, but just remember that the film depicts a society that views the human body in a much less sexualized way. If your children are mature enough to handle that, or are at least able to have a conversation about it with you, then by all means let this movie roll!