The algorithmic machinations of Netflix are just like the rest of the internet. Provoked by curiosity, you might Google images of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, or (because you perceive yourself to be more culturally discerning than the average Joe) the Louvre. A few clicks and scrolls later, you find yourself reading an in-depth history of the French Revolution or the Napoleonic Wars. After the nine seconds of these articles occupying your attention, you predictably flick back to social media.

Like magic, you’re bombarded by ads from Airbnb to “Book Your Trip to Paris;" the airlines catch on, and an ad asks, “Looking to Jet Off to Paris?” Then lo and behold, Alexa starts talking to you in French, “Les meilleurs choses à faire à Paris” (“the best things to do in Paris;” come on, I thought you were culturally discerning!). Before you know it, a French tour guide has turned up at your door… Algorithms and AI are a great idea in theory, but for a society that has a deep resentment for pigeonholing, it proves catastrophic in practice.

Everyone accepts cookies from strangers these days; it’s the digital norm, contrary to parental advice to any child brought up pre-2005. Like with all websites nowadays, Netflix employs the use of algorithms to maximal effect. Designed to help its users find bespoke, personally curated content in the form of movies and TV shows, it is initially a very useful tool – until you’ve watched all of its suggestions, that is. Left with regurgitated flicks, many resign to laziness and just watch the same type of thing again, and again, and again. After a while, these films can get rather boring. With that in mind, here are some movies that may help to relieve the boredom perpetuated by the algorithmic cycle, some unique alternatives to the same movies.

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5 The Hand of God

     Netflix

The phrase “Hand of God” makes the English collectively wince with negative connotations. It directly commemorates footballing great, Diego Maradona’s antics in the 1986 FIFA World Cup when he handled the ball whilst scoring for Argentina against England. Based around the Italian Director Paolo Sorrentino’s life growing up in Southern Italy, the Netflix Original, The Hand of God is set against the backdrop of 1980s Naples and Napoli Football Club’s signing of Diego Maradona. It documents the story of Fabietto Schisa, a Neapolitan adolescent, and the trials and tribulations, complications, and adversities of him and his family, all while being guided by his and his city’s shared love of Napoli FC, and their beloved Maradona.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

The Hand of God incorporates the beautiful and often under-appreciated simplicities of life, and somehow manages to locate the tiny moments of joy nestled within grief. Sorrentino synthesizes this style by creating a visually-stunning narrative, and capturing it through a hazy 80s lens, awash with a refined palette of color in-line with the film’s visual brilliance. The Hand of God is a real gift to film (and film lovers), and a major coup for Netflix in securing its distribution rights, as this is typically a film one would usually find at an art house cinema.

4 Mudbound

Nominated for four Oscars, Mudbound presents the story of two Mississippi farming families during WWII. The Jackson’s, a black family of sharecroppers, and the white McAllan’s. The families live side-by-side and utilize a mutually beneficial business relationship on their farming land. At the sound of WWII air-raid sirens, the sons of the two families, Jamie and Ronsel, go off to war. Upon their return, their family’s livelihoods and fortunes have not changed. The two are forced to confront their own demons, as PTSD plagues their lives, as well as the ever-increasing threat of the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan.

Mudbounddirector Dee Rees delivers the harsh reality of post-traumatic stress disorder and offers an insight into the fragility of the human mind post-war. More prominently, the film displays a community divided by racial hatred, with prejudice by one faction towards the other, in spite of Jamie and Ronsel’s hopes of returning to a more enlightened society.

3 Dangal

Frustratingly, Bollywood movies seldom cross the pacific and enter the American or Western mainstream, but luckily, Dangal is an exception. Featured on both the American and UK Netflix, Nitesh Tawari’s Dangal follows the true story of Mahavir Singh Phogat and his daughters. A wrestler at national level, Mahavir was denied the chance of furthering his career and achieving his dream of an Olympic medal, thus he works tirelessly to live his dream vicariously through his daughters, training them up from infancy. Dangal is a feel-good motion picture that encapsulates the essence of a father’s devotion to his children’s success. As The Times of India states, “The director should be complimented for their tongue-in-cheek quality, peppered with humor and several poignant father-daughter emotions all through.”.

2 The Florida Project

     A24

The coming-of-age film The Florida Project is a detailed portrayal of the lives of single-parent Halley and her daughter Moonee. Perhaps unconventionally, the pair live in a Florida motel, the Magic Castle, run by the kind-spirited Bobby (Willem Dafoe in a beautiful performance), located next to Disneyland, as Halley struggles to deal with life’s financial pressures. The Florida Project extrapolates the meaning of innocence and how it is inextricably linked with one’s childhood. As the poverty experienced by mother and daughter becomes unbearable, Halley turns to more extreme lines of work, both as a stripper and in prostitution.

The movie offers a fascinating, albeit saddening, oxymoron in the form of a mother selling part of herself, in order to simultaneously preserve her child’s malleable, innocent young mind. Whilst director Sean Baker experiments with socially challenging themes, he concomitantly echoes the motivations of Halley throughout the film, emphasizing the importance of the preservation of youth. Remarkably, Baker successfully manages to depict Moonee’s unworldliness as she plays with friends and enjoys her juvenescence concurrently with her mother’s questionable, but understandable, endeavors, avoiding any cross-contamination. Despite the film battling with the hard-hitting realism of poverty, broken dreams, and desperation, it somehow sustains a real sense of light-heartedness, caring nature, and community.

1 Phantom Thread

Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 flick Phantom Thread was the recipient of six Academy Award nominations, and was his second collaboration with Daniel Day-Lewis, after There Will Be Blood. Phantom Thread tells the story of Reynolds Woodcock, a high-profile, London-based fashion designer whose creations are often commissioned by members of Royalty. It details his relationship with a waitress, Alma, and the pair’s turbulent time together, as Reynolds’ stubborn, pedantic ways threaten their future.

Daniel Day-Lewis is as distinguished as actors come, so it hardly comes as a surprise that his depiction of the painstakingly meticulous, bordering on obsessive-compulsive Reynolds Woodcock is simply breathtaking. Day-Lewis produces an eye-of-a-needle performance, his sleight-of-hand method-acting carefully sews together every seam, button, and frill, and subsequently fabrics this strange, elaborate masterpiece of a film.