A redemption arc is the hardest thing in fiction to earn, because the debt has to be paid on the page. This tag collects reviews of redemption stories and the craft of making change cost something.
2010sSeptember 11, 2026
Warm Bodies (2013) rates 6 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A zombie romance narrated by the zombie, which is a better idea than it sounds and is executed with more wit than the premise deserves. It is also…
1970sSeptember 11, 2026
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A revenge Western that abandons the revenge about halfway through and becomes a film about a man accumulating a family he keeps trying to leave behind.…
1950sSeptember 11, 2026
Rio Bravo (1959) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Howard Hawks made it as a direct rebuttal to High Noon, which he considered un-American because the marshal asks townspeople for help. It is a hangout film with…
2000sSeptember 11, 2026
3:10 to Yuma (2007) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. James Mangold opens the story out, adds an hour, gives the rancher a limp and a war record, and turns a chamber piece into a journey. Ben…
1990sSeptember 10, 2026
The Straight Story (1999) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. David Lynch made a G-rated film about a seventy-three-year-old man driving a lawnmower three hundred miles to see his dying brother, and it is the least ironic…
1980sSeptember 10, 2026
Rain Man (1988) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Everybody remembers Hoffman and the Oscar, and the film belongs to Tom Cruise, who plays a genuinely unpleasant man for ninety minutes and earns the change without ever…
1980sSeptember 10, 2026
Paris, Texas (1984) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A man walks out of the desert after four years of silence and the film spends two hours working out why. The peep show scene at the end…
1930sSeptember 10, 2026
The Natural (1984) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Levinson took a bleak 1952 novel about a man who takes the bribe and inverted its ending completely, which is either the film's great betrayal or the reason…
2000s
2000sMay 17, 2026
Lessac's 2006 juvenile detention football drama. Dwayne Johnson as the coach.
1990sMay 16, 2026
David Fincher's 1997 psychological thriller. Michael Douglas as a wealthy banker experiencing immersive CRS service.
CrimeApril 20, 2026
A career criminal and a veteran patrolman collide on a desert highway, and what is in the trunk forces both to decide who they are. A 146-page thriller.
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