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Genre: Satire

Comedy with a target. Satire takes aim at institutions, fashions, and human folly, then exaggerates until the truth becomes impossible to ignore.

A man in dark clothing stands against a white wall, looking directly at the camera with a calm expression. TITLE: Man BitesComedy

Man Bites Dog (1992) Review

Man Bites Dog (1992) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A Belgian film crew follows a serial killer, films his work, and gradually starts helping. Made by three film students for almost nothing, and it is the…

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Zombies attack the Big Brother house in a scene from the 2008 horror series Dead Set.Horror

Dead Set (2008) Review

Dead Set (2008) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Charlie Brooker locked the Big Brother house against a zombie apocalypse, cast the real presenter as herself, shot it in the actual studio, and then refused to let…

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Arnold Schwarzenegger as Jack Slater stands next to a young boy in a movie theater, wearing a leather jacket and holding aAction

Last Action Hero (1993) Review

Last Action Hero (1993) rates 6 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Columbia made a deconstruction of the action film starring the biggest action star alive, marketed it to children, and opened it one week after Jurassic Park. The…

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Dwayne Johnson in a scene from the 2006 film Southland Tales, looking anxious and troubled.Black Comedy

Southland Tales (2006) Review

Southland Tales (2006) rates 5 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Richard Kelly took an unfinished cut to Cannes because nobody turns down a competition slot, was booed, recut it, and watched it earn under four hundred thousand dollars.…

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Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as Mickey and Mallory Knox in a scene from the 1994 film. TITLE: Natural Born KillersBlack Comedy

Natural Born Killers (1994) Review

Natural Born Killers (1994) rates 6 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Oliver Stone made a satire about media appetite for violence that is itself a two-hour delivery system for violence. Tarantino wrote the story, disowned it, and asked…

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Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury in a tense scene from the 1962 political thriller, with shadowy lighting and black andDrama

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) Review

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) rates 10 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Frankenheimer made a political thriller that is also a comedy, a nightmare and a story about a mother, released it thirteen months before Dallas, and Angela Lansbury…

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Wikus van de Merwe in the District 9 refugee camp, holding an eviction notice amid corrugated metal shacks.Action

District 9 (2009) Review

District 9 (2009) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A first-time director shot an alien occupation film in a real Soweto township for thirty million dollars, cast his friend who had never acted, and got a Best…

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Cleavon Little as Sheriff Bart in a Western saloon scene, wearing a black hat and sheriff's badge.Comedy

Blazing Saddles (1974) Review

Blazing Saddles (1974) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Mel Brooks made an anti-racist film by putting the ugliest language available in the mouths of idiots and letting the sheriff outthink them. Made for two point six…

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Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in a tailored suit, face blank and eyes cold, embodying the film's deadpan satire of WallBlack Comedy

American Psycho (2000) Review

American Psycho (2000) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Mary Harron read a novel everybody called unfilmable and found the comedy in it. Made for seven million dollars, mostly in Toronto, and it is far funnier and…

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A modern minimalist house with geometric architecture sits on a hillside, with steps leading up to its entrance behind aBlack Comedy

Parasite (2019) Review

Parasite (2019) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A house built on a vertical axis, a family climbing it, and a genre change at the midpoint that almost no film survives. The first non-English winner of Best…

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Bette Davis in a scene from All About Eve, looking over her shoulder with dramatic intensity in a classic Hollywood setting.Drama

All About Eve (1950) Review

All About Eve (1950) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. The best script ever written about ambition, in a film where everybody is intelligent and nobody has to be dim for the schemer to win. Fourteen nominations,…

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Edward Norton as Miles Bron stands in a glass dome surrounded by expensive art and stolen objects on his private GreekComedy

Glass Onion (2022) Review

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A tech billionaire's private island weekend where the solution is that the clever man has nothing inside. Better as satire than as a puzzle.

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