The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2008)

  This took ages to find.  I tried a couple of different times to watch it but the subtitles were messed up so I had to wait until it cycled back onto HBO Max.  Not 100% sure it was worth the trouble.

Makoto (Riisa Naka) was a normal high school girl until an accident gave her the power to jump through time.  At first, this seems like an easy way to fix all the minor inconveniences in her life.  Fail a test?  Do it again.  Accidentally set something on fire?  No, you didn't.  Best guy friend asks you out and you don't know how to respond?  Go back and avoid that whole conversation.  But when the changes begin to have consequences for the people around her, she begins to truly understand the cost of knowledge.

It's fine.  It's a very slight film that doesn't have anything profound to say, but it was entertaining enough for a Sunday.  Everything stays very localized around Makoto which makes it more digestible.  It's kind of funny that I managed to watch two films about high schoolers traveling through time this weekend.  I feel like Masoka would have gotten on with Bill and Ted like a house on fire.  They're all equally stupid.  It's currently streaming on HBO Max.

Game Night (2018)

  Content warning:  blood

Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams) host a weekly game night for their friends while trying to duck their creepy next-door neighbor, Gary (Jesse Plemmons).  Max is extremely competitive but constantly feels like he's in the shadow of his rich brother, Brooks (Kyle Chandler).  Brooks hosts a game night, promising a wild time with an incredible prize:  whoever can solve a mystery kidnapping will win Max's dream car.  Then masked men break in and take Brooks.  Max and Annie are determined to win and track Brooks' phone, hoping to get ahead of their friends, only to find that the kidnapping is real and Brooks has been leading a very different life than they thought.

I could tell this was a comedy because I recognized what the characters said were jokes, but at no point did I find this funny.  All the characters were pretty grating, except Rachel McAdams and Sharon Horgan, one because she can do no wrong and the other because she was the only normal one.  I also found the pacing off.  Again, I could tell that the structure of the film was meant to layer the jokes so it was like twist on twist, ramping up while building off the jokes that came previously;  I just didn't think it was funny, so everything got more and more irritating and tiresome.

A misfire for me but maybe not for you, as a lot of people apparently really liked it.  It's currently streaming on HBO Max.

The 400 Blows (1959)

  Content warning:  child abuse

Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is finding childhood difficult.  His mother (Claire Maurier) neglects and berates him until he catches her having an affair, while his stepfather (Albert Rémy) accuses him of theft but can be boisterously affectionate.  He rebels at school, earning disciplinary action and runs away, living in a friend's (Patrick Auffey) house, and committing petty theft to pay for cigars and magazines.  After being caught trying to return a stolen typewriter (because it wouldn't sell), his parents sign him over to a juvenile detention facility.

This movie is a great argument for birth control.  I wish I had seen it before I watched Capernaum, which was clearly influenced by this film.  According to Wikipedia, this was a semi-autobiographical work for writer and director François Truffaut, which just goes to show that men will create an entirely new movement in cinema rather than go to therapy.  

It is a classic of the French New Wave and has been hailed as one of the greatest films of the century.  I don't know that I'd go that far, but it is an excellent portrayal of childhood without the sentimentality of nostalgia.  Léaud is very young to carry a film this well but successfully manages to play a child pretending to be an adult, if that makes sense.  Like, he seems like a real kid wanting to be older and sophisticated instead of a Child Actor told to act like a Kid.  Watch the movie.  You'll see what I mean.  It's currently streaming on HBO Max, the Criterion Channel, and Kanopy.

Battle of the Sexes (2017)

  Hey, look, a sports movie.

Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) is at the top of her sport but finds her real competition is the inherent misogyny behind the scenes.  While she is campaigning for equal pay, founding her own women's league, and participating in a national championship tour, former men's tennis champion and current inveterate gambler, Bobby Riggs (Steve Carrell), calls her up with a proposition:  an exhibition match billed as the ultimate battle of the sexes.  

This was pretty fun.  A nice easy watch.  You don't have to know anything about tennis to enjoy it, although I'm sure that would have helped.  Carrell is great as the loud, larger-than-life Riggs, playing against Stone's straight-woman act.  The actual villain is Bill Pullman, who is smarmy and unctuous while being quietly enraged that these broads are demanding to be treated as equals.  And it was nice to see Lewis Pullman in an early role.

It's currently streaming on HBO Max.

If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You (2025)

Nominated for Best Actress     Content warning:  medical horror, child endangerment, animal death (hamster)

Linda (Rose Byrne), a chronically sleep-deprived mother, is trying to fight a number of battles.  The ceiling of her apartment has collapsed, forcing her and her daughter (Delaney Quinn) to move into a run-down motel.  Her daughter has a feeding tube and requires constant attention, while also weaponizing her condition to manipulate the adults around her.  Linda's job as a psychotherapist is unfulfilling, and her husband (Christian Slater) is absent much of the time while doing his job as a cruise captain, leaving Linda to handle everything in his absence and berating her for not doing it perfectly and without complaint.  Then one of her patients abandons a baby in her office and goes missing.

This was the most claustrophobic movie I have ever seen.  The camera stays so tightly on Byrne, it makes you feel like you are nose-to-nose with her.  Honestly, this would be such a good double-feature with The Babadook.  I'm counting it as horror, even though Wikipedia is claiming this is a comedy-drama.  There was not a single moment of comedy for me, though, so I have no idea what it is talking about.  Just skin-crawling anxiety and stress.  So much more effective than Marty Supreme even though Linda is also an unlikeable character making bad choices, but crucially, remained somewhat sympathetic.  I can't claim that I liked this movie but I can recognize that it worked.

It's currently streaming on HBO Max.

The Smashing Machine (2025)

Nominated for Best Hair and MakeupContent warning:  drug use, violence, suicide attempt

Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) was a championship wrestler who became a forerunner in Mixed Martial Arts/Ultimate Fighting spaces in the late 90s and early 00s.  His first professional loss coincided with the mounting toll fighting put on his body and his toxic relationship with his girlfriend (Emily Blunt) to kick off a drug addiction and subsequent overdose, which is helpfully faced and overcome in the first 30 minutes of the movie.  

So I'm going to address some aspects as tactfully as I can without disrespecting Mark Kerr, a real person, or UFC fighters, who work and train really hard, or even UFC fans.  

This movie didn't need to be made.

It especially didn't need to be a boilerplate biopic complete with training montages.  For a guy who lost ONCE.  Again, no shade.  The first time you fail at something is really hard, and the longer it takes for you to fail, the harder it is.  That's why it's better to learn that lesson as early as possible so you develop the coping skills you need to deal with future failures.  But it does not feel like particularly high stakes in the film, so the resulting come-apart feels like an overreaction.

This was directed by one half of the Safdie Brothers (Benny).  Later, we'll watch Marty Supreme which is directed by the other one (Josh) and see which brother has been carrying the other.

The movie really wants Dawn the girlfriend to be the villain, if there is one, without ever once acknowledging Mark's own toxic behavior.  There's some commentary to be made there but I frankly don't have the energy to spend any more time on it while the gushing fanboy glaze is catching so much light.  I'm not going to discount the effort fighters put in, the time and energy --mental and physical-- analyzing their own and opponents' tactics and strategies.  That's real and valid.  But you are getting beat up by a stranger for money.  You're not curing cancer.  There is zero reason for you to have a full "Know His Name" end title card like you're Rosa Parks.  It comes off as silly and indulgent.

Still, if you are interested in one of the foundational members of UFC, The Smashing Machine is streaming on HBO Max.

One Battle After Another (2025)

Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best Director, Best Lead Actor, Best Supporting Actor x2, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, Best Sound, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, and Best Casting    So this was the big frontrunner before Sinners came in and dominated the nominations and I'll be real with you, this doesn't live up to the hype at all.  Not only is it not one of "the best films of the year," it's not even a particularly good comedy.  

Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) used to be a revolutionary with the group French75.  His girlfriend (Teyana Taylor) ditches him with their baby, then gets rolled up by the cops, forcing Bob to go into hiding.  Sixteen years later, the cop that was leading the charge against them, Col. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), is up for membership in a prestigious secret society but needs to tie up some loose ends.  Bob spends his days in a paranoid haze of alcohol and weed while his daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), is blissfully unaware of the past that is bearing down upon them both.

Look, if goofy stoner action comedies are your thing, great.  You will probably like this movie.  I found it interminable.  It's basically a weirdly horny Taken meets The Pineapple Express.  I have no idea why it's been nominated for 13 Oscars.  It for sure only needed one Supporting Actor nod, if that.  Benecio Del Toro is fine but he did not need a nomination for this.  Teyana Taylor is also fine but did not need to be nominated, especially just for being hot and DTF.  It reminded me of when everyone went nuts for Katherine Waterston's performance in Inherent Vice, when all she did was be naked and die off-screen.  Actually, this was written by the same director as Inherent Vice, so that tracks.  

I've also seen this touted as somehow politically divisive and uhhhhhh... not really?  It's not actually taking any kind of stand beyond "do what you believe in."  If that is the bar for political activism, we are fucked, folks.  You could have set this in the 70s with the Weather Underground and it would have been the exact same story.  All the jokes are tired retreads about liberal purity in-fighting and right-wing shadowy cabals of the lamest sort.  

It's streaming on HBO Max but save yourself some time and skip this one.

The Wages of Fear (1953)

  Starting off the year with some depressing French shit, courtesy of Movie Club.  Content warning:  animal abuse, violence against women

Mario (Yves Montand), Jo (Charles Vanel), Bimba (Peter Van Eyck), and Luigi (Folco Lulli) are hired to drive trucks of nitroglycerin over 300 miles of bad road and jungle and deliver them to an American oil field.  The men start as hard, desperate drifters but as the conditions deteriorate and death becomes almost certain, their inner truths are revealed.

This is not a fun, uplifting movie.  It is bleak in the way only really French films can be.  Which is not to say it's a bad film.  It maintains the tension of man vs nature throughout the run time (nearly two and a half hours, so plan accordingly).  Just don't go in expecting any kind of warm and fuzzy moments.  It's mostly in French with some Spanish, English, and Italian thrown in so make sure you have subtitles on.  The funniest thing about the film is precisely how little has changed in the social commentary.

It's available for streaming on HBO Max, or on Kanopy if you have a library card.

Mickey 17 (2025)

  This movie is hilarious and weird.  If you watched Snowpiercer and thought "This needs more jokes," Mickey 17 is for you.  Content warning:  animal death (creeper - don't ask, it's traumatic, trust me), animal abuse, some blood, medical horror

To escape from a loan shark, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) signs up for a colony expedition as an Expendable.  He gets assigned hideously dangerous jobs, dies, and a clone is printed in the lab.  Despite over a dozen miserable deaths, Mickey is doing okay, until he is left for dead on the surface of a planet and survives.  By the time he gets back to the colony ship, Mickey 18 has already been printed.  Having two copies is illegal so now Mickeys 17 and 18 have to figure out which one gets to live and which one gets recycled.

Bong Joon Ho wears his heart on his sleeve when he makes movies.  You never have to wonder where he stands.  Depending on how much you agree, that could be great, could be not.  But it is very clear.  I respect it.  I also love that he just doesn't care how hot people are and will let them be incredibly weird.  Mark Ruffalo in this, Tilda Swinton in Snowpiercer, he never misses a chance to let gorgeous people be characters.  That's got to be really fun if you're sick of being typecast.  

Speaking of Weird Little Dudes, Pattinson is carrying this entire movie while playing multiple versions with distinct personalities.  He does a great job, but also shout-out to my girl, Toni Collette, because she never gets the recognition she deserves.  Her character is creepy and evil and deeply weird and it works.  Ruffalo gets the big, dramatic moments, but Collette is the backbone anchoring them both.

It's currently streaming on HBO Max.  

Horror Watch 2025 - Day 24 - Heretic (2025)

  I was worried this was over-hyped and it definitely was.  Lower your expectations, kids.  Content warning:  blood, mild gore

Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) are Mormon missionaries.  That's not the horror part, calm down.  They are nice young ladies who just want to share their beliefs.  Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) indicated interest, so they go and knock on his door.  He, too, wants to share some deeply-held beliefs.  Unfortunately, his beliefs tend to be a little more ...visceral.  

In principle, I believe that religion --like all things-- should be mined for horror.  There's a lot of really valuable stuff there!  But this feels like some smug-ass r/philosophy post that somehow got Hugh Grant money.  And sort of feels like it's punching down at Mormons?  Which is bizarre considering the Church of Latter-Day Saints is a very large Christian denomination that rakes in billions of dollars!  Maybe it only seems like that because the personification of the Church is two young, naive women that spend a good chunk of running time standing helplessly mute.  It just kind of made me feel icky for watching.  It's streaming on HBO Max and a lot of people really, really liked it.  I just wasn't one of them.

Horror Watch 2025 - Day 15 - Companion (2025)

This is my 3000th post!    I loved this so much.  I'm sad it took almost half the month to get to it, but better late than never.  Content warning:  blood, gore, domestic violence, sexual assault

Iris (Sophie Thatcher) is nervous about traveling with her boyfriend, Josh (Jack Quaid), for a weekend at his friend's "cabin", which is actually a huge lakeside house.  And it doesn't really belong to Josh's friend, Kat (Megan Suri), but to her shady Russian boyfriend, Sergei (Rupert Friend, looking damn near unrecognizable).  Things get worse when Sergei tries to sexually assault Iris and she has to kill him, but then she finds out that she's actually just Josh's fuckbot: a literal companion android, and that he's planning to shut her down and turn her over to the manufacturer.  Suddenly, Iris is experiencing a whole new range of important internal directives, like self-preservation and righteous anger.  

This might become my new litmus test for whether or not dudes are okay to date.  With whom do you sympathize in this movie?  There is a wrong answer and a right answer.  Between this and The Menu, I've got my traps all set.  

If you watched Ex Machina, and thought, yes, more, please, this is for you.  Also, if you have ever dated a dude who treated you like an emotional support robot that they could fuck.  

Ultimately, this is a feel-good movie about empowerment and liking who you are.  It's currently streaming on HBO Max and I highly recommend it.

2025 Horror Watch - Day 8 - Bring Her Back (2025)

  I know this is supposed to be the new hotness this year but I think it's wildly overhyped.  Content warning:  blood, dead animals (chicken), vomit, child endangerment

When Andy (Bill Barrett) and his blind step-sister, Piper (Sora Wong) are orphaned, they are adamant that they not be separated.  The system puts them with Laura (Sally Hawkins), a former child counselor, who seems like an ideal match.  She even had a daughter (Mischa Heywood) who was also blind so she knows the accommodations Piper needs without coddling her.  But when the kids arrive, Andy finds that Laura isn't all that she seems and the other foster child in the house, Ollie (Jonah Wren Phillips), a selective mute, is almost unbearably creepy.  The more he tries to figure things out, the more isolated he becomes from Piper, who is literally and metaphorically blind.  

This is an A24 film and it's trying really hard to be an A24 film.  Honestly, I think Hereditary ruined some people.  Like, do they know it's okay to make horror movies that aren't about the grieving process?  There is some really cool imagery here and the makeup design for Ollie is excellent but it's so sad and just drags on forever.  Very disappointing.  

It's currently streaming on HBO Max or whatever the hell it's calling itself now.

Sully (2015)

  This would have been a great Father's Day post.  Oh well.

In the days after a forced water landing on the Hudson River, airplane pilot Captain Chesley Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) must defend himself in an inquiry by the NTSB to determine what, if anything, could have been done better.  

My brother recommended this to me a long time ago.  It's a little hagiographic for my taste but this is a solid Dad-movie directed (of course) by Clint Eastwood.  Tom Hanks has the appropriate amount of gravitas, Aaron Eckhart radiates charm, and it's stuffed to the gills with character actors whom you'll recognize even if you have no idea what their names are.  If you're looking for a nice quiet movie to put on so your dad can nod off while he swears he's just resting his eyes, look no further.  It's engaging but not so much so that you'll be irritated if someone texts you while you're watching.  

Currently streaming on HBO Max.

A Different Man (2024)

Nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling     Our second Sebastian Stan performance and the one that should have gotten him nominated.

Edward (Sebastian Stan) has a rare cancer that causes tumors to grow on his face.  He joins an experimental drug trial that gives him back the life he thinks he should have had.  By chance, he discovers the neighbor he had a crush on (Renate Reinsve) has written a play about a man with facial deformities and the girl who loved him.  You can see where this is going.  He auditions for the part, using his old face as a mask but is quickly upstaged by Oswald (Adam Pearson), a man with facial deformities who is comfortable in his own skin.  Edward's life spins out of control as he grapples with a number of truths.

This just in:  Local man discovers beauty means nothing without a personality (and money but mostly personality)!  News at 11!

I called this The Substance for dudes and I'm not wrong.  Frankly, if either protagonist had a single (1) friend, neither one would have ended up where they did.  And/or a therapist.  Stan does a good job here but the material is frustratingly navel-gaze-y.  Pearson is a bubbly delight, but Reinsve feels underwritten in a Manic Pixie Dream Girl way.  For once, that actually serves the story since Edward mostly perceives her as an archetype, not a person, anyway.

Pacing is glacial.  There are long moments where the camera just pans between characters like Iñárritu in molasses.  I respect the attempt but it didn't work for me.  I just started fast-forwarding in 30-sec jumps and missed nothing.  

I thought this movie was a hot mess but it's streaming on (sigh) Max so you can see for yourself.  

Kwaidan (1965)

  Some bonus post-Halloween ghost content for your All-Souls Day.  

This is an anthology of four traditional Japanese ghost stories.

The Black Hair - a samurai (Rentarô Mikuni) regrets the choices he made in service of ambition.

The Woman in the Snow - a woodcutter (Tatsuya Nakadai) has a terrifying run-in with a snow demon (Keiko Kishi).

Hoichi the Earless - a blind monk (Katsuo Nakamura) is summoned to perform a historical epic for its victims.

In a Cup of Tea - a samurai (Kan'emon Nakamura) is tormented by a ghostly presence reflected in his teacup.

I don't throw the word "masterpiece" around very often so trust me when I say it.  Kwaidan is a masterpiece of Japanese cinema.  The scare factor of this is very low while the art factor is extremely high.  Every scene is basically a painting that moves.  It is a stunning film.  The performances feel a little wooden, a little stage-y, but it just adds to the vibe.  It does run a little over three hours but I did not feel it.  

It's streaming on the Criterion Channel and also (sigh) Max.  Treat your eyeballs.

RoboCop (1987)

  Content warning:  some gore, violence

In the near-future, a mega-corporation has contracted with the city of Detroit to provide an alternative to the police force.  But the main prototype, ED-209, still has some bugs to work out.  Fortunately, executive Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer) has a back-up.  His project takes an existing human body and combines it with machine for the best of both.  Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is volunteered for the procedure after being gunned down by a gang of criminals led by Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith).  Morton's team insists that all that's left is a brain running pre-programmed software, but it turns out androids dream of electric vengeance.

Sad to say that RoboCop was the closest predictor of our actual future.  In that sense, it's aged like fine wine.  Everything else is pretty dated, though.  Weller is the least main Main Character in a movie.  He has a lot of screen time but is literally robotic.  It's hard to root for him when he gets introduced, murdered, and then put in a tin can like five minutes in.  The Omni Consumer Products executives have more of an inner life, even if it's a soulless 80s yuppie one.  

A lot of people love this movie and it's considered a classic.  I thought it was okay but I wouldn't rush out to find the sequels.  It's currently streaming on (sigh) Max along with the 2014 remake that I also haven't seen.

The Batman (2022)

Normally, I wouldn't repost something that I had seen so recently but it's been kind of a shitty summer for me and Batman is like comfort food.  This is my second viewing and it holds up pretty well.  I didn't get any new insights in it but that's not really what I was looking for.  I actually forgot about it when I was doing my Top Ten for 2022.  Didn't even include it in the ranking.  So it's a little surprising how often I thought about it since and I needed to revisit to see if I was mis-remembering or if it was Actually Good.  Verdict:  Actually Good!  I think it's still streaming on whatever Frankensteinian monstrosity (sigh) Max has become but I bought it.  Originally posted 07 May 2022.    I did not hate this movie!

Like many of you, I'm a little Batman-ed out.  Zach Snyder Batman has not been my favorite interpretation and I was concerned about yet another unnecessary origin story, but Matt Reeves Batman was refreshingly to-the-point.

Gotham City is wracked with corruption.  The mayor, Don Mitchell, Jr. (Rupert Penry-Jones) is up for re-election against a feisty and motivated opponent, Bella Reál (Jayme Lawson), but is spared from losing at the polls by being brutally murdered by the Riddler (Paul Dano).  Riddler has a grand scheme to expose the many ills of his hometown, leaving a complicated trail of clues for Gotham's caped crusader (Robert Pattinson), in whom he feels a kindred spirit.  Batman follows the leads to an underground club run by the Penguin (an unrecognizable Colin Farrell), and a missing girl named Annika (Hana Hrzic), who might have witnessed some shady dealings of the late Mayor.  

Somebody finally let Batman actually do some detective shit!  Yes, he's still dark and gritty and emo AF but this time it works.  He looks like a 20-year-old billionaire stuck in permanent adolescence trying to figure out exactly what running around the city in costume is getting him.  Reeves has said in interviews that he wanted Batman to be more DIY, less high-tech, and that grungy effect works to astonishing degree.  And there are moments of humor that work even more because the rest of the film is so stark.  No spoilers, but about 3/4 of the way through, there is a reveal and Pattinson's "wait, wut" look is pitch-perfect.  Like, you can see his brain just blank and then frantically try and cover for it.  It's subtle but great character work.

But honestly the thing that impressed me the most was Colin Farrell.  It is unreal how completely he disappeared into that character.  Not even his voice sounds the same.  It might be his best performance ever and it's in a goddamn comic book movie.  That is wild.  The Batman is currently streaming on HBO Max but I don't know for how much longer.

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

  I'm sorry, I just don't buy that anyone ever thought Hugh Grant was attractive.  

Charles (Hugh Grant) sees Carrie (Andie MacDowell) at a wedding.  Sparks and some bodily fluids are exchanged but then Carrie goes back to America and Charles loses track until another wedding where they are again both guests.  Over a year or so, the pair keep running into each other but the timing is never exactly right.

MacDowell is charming enough but most of the ensemble felt terribly underwritten.  I could not have cared about any of Charles' friend group and the humor felt very flat.  Kristin Scott Thomas was criminally underused, although John Hannah had a very good role.  In fact, for the mid-90s, this was great LGBT rep (even if it still falls prey to the Bury Your Gays trope).  

I am very clearly not the target audience for this.  I remember when it came out and it was all people could talk about.  My mom rented it.  I'm pretty sure she liked it.  But I was 13-ish and this held no interest for me.  Still, it won a bunch of awards so a lot of people must have enjoyed it.  Maybe you will too.  It's currently streaming on (sigh) Max.

All the Way (2016)

  Everything I've read about Lyndon B. Johnson paints him as a loud, crass, blustery asshole.  This HBO Original tries to ameliorate that by also claiming that he was genuinely trying to improve the lives of Black people in the Civil Rights debate instead of just using them for political points.  Content warning:  racism, racial murder, homophobia

Thrust unexpectedly into the Presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson (Bryan Cranston) has to scramble with pushing legislation from his predecessor, including the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  His Southern Democrat compatriots vehemently oppose the Act but Johnson knows that the South must change or be left behind.  He tries to walk a fine line between appealing to Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. (Anthony Mackie) and not pissing off his oldest supporters, like Senator Dick Russell (Frank Langella). Then there's a re-election campaign and a looming war in southeast Asia to consider.

I feel like history has judged LBJ already and it was not a positive legacy but I'm not a presidential scholar.  This biopic is pretty decent.  Stephen Root plays J. Edgar Hoover and Bradley Whitford is back in the West Wing as Herbert Humphrey.  Cranston kind of disappears under the makeup but Melissa Leo quietly steals the show as Lady Byrd.  All the starry performances can't quite get it out of the shadow of JFK, though.  As always, your mileage may vary.  It's currently streaming on Max.

Stagecoach (1939)

  This Western is 85 years old and still feels completely modern.  And that's why John Ford has 4 Oscars for directing.

Nine strangers board a stagecoach bound for Lordsburg, by choice like Mr. Peacock (Donald Meek) the whiskey salesman, by happy coincidence like Doc Boone (Thomas Mitchell) the drunk, because they're running away like Mr. Gatewood the banker (Berton Churchill), because they're running towards something like Mrs. Mallory (Louise Platt) the soldier's wife, or Hatfield (John Carradine) the gambler, for vengeance like the Ringo Kid (John Wayne), for justice like Marshal Wilcox (George Bancroft), because they were paid to like Buck (Andy Devine) the driver, or because they were run out of town like Dallas (Claire Trevor) the prostitute.  Nine people in cramped conditions under the constant threat of attack by famed Apache warrior Geronimo, each with their own secret.

Unlike the majority of Westerns that came after, this is not a homogenous narrative of White People Good, Indians Bad.  It's a story of outsiders, people on the fringe of society.  Geronimo is a boogeyman here, a name on the wind.  Yes, the main cast is all white, but all the Native Americans are played by actual Native Americans, and all the Mexicans are played by actual Hispanic people which is better than most productions from that time.  I'm not going to sit here and say it's not racist because how could it not be?  But it was at least making an effort.

John Wayne is the big name but this was early enough in his career that he mostly has a supporting role in the ensemble.  Claire Trevor is the powerhouse in this film and she carries the vast majority of the emotional connection with the audience, but no one is miscast here.  Every story has weight and every character feels fully realized.  That is really hard to do in a nine-person ensemble without pacing problems but the script is so tight, it never feels like it's rushed.  The denouement does lose a little momentum but your tolerance for that may vary.

It's currently streaming on (sigh) Max and the Criterion Channel for money, Roku, Crackle, and Tubi for free, and Hoopla with a library card.  Give it a shot, even if you don't typically like Westerns or John Wayne.