No film here is good or bad. It is only like something.

2007 · Comedy

Two best friends about to leave for different colleges try to buy drink for a party, mostly so the night will mean something. The plan rests on a fake ID with one name on it.

• SimpleStrongly simple

2016 · Drama

Three chapters in the life of a quiet boy growing up in Miami: as a child, as a teenager, and as a grown man. Each one turns on who he is willing to be seen as.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven

2016 · Musical

A boy in 1980s Dublin, moved to a rough school when his parents run short of money, starts a band mostly to impress a girl standing outside it. They learn to play as they go.

• LightClearly light

2025 · Horror

Almost thirty years after a virus emptied Britain, a boy leaves the island community he was born into and crosses to the mainland with his father. Much of it is the two of them walking.

• HeavyClearly heavy

2009 · Comedy

Two friends go looking for the classmate who vanished after they survived a brutal engineering college, and the search takes them back through their student years. Broad jokes and songs, then it turns serious.

Sits near the middle on every axis.

2009 · Crime

A nineteen-year-old with no family and no schooling starts a six-year sentence, and the Corsican men who run the prison put him to work. It takes its time, and the violence is sudden and close.

• HeavyStrongly heavy
• RealisticClearly realistic

2016 · Animation

A boy who led the bullying of a deaf classmate in primary school tracks her down years later to try to say something to her. Most of it is quiet, awkward conversation between teenagers who do not know how to start.

• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• IntimateClearly intimate
• HeavyClearly heavy

2022 · Drama

An eleven-year-old girl and her young dad spend a week at a cheap Turkish resort, filming each other on a camcorder by the pool. Very little is said out loud; it is small moments and long silences.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• SlowStrongly slow
• IntimateStrongly intimate

2022 · War

A German schoolboy signs up in 1917 with his friends, excited about the war, and is sent to the trenches of the Western Front. It is loud and muddy and there is almost no let-up.

• HeavyStrongly heavy
• RealisticStrongly realistic

2000 · Drama

A fifteen-year-old talks a music magazine into sending him on tour with a rising rock band in 1973, without mentioning how old he is. Warm and funny, and most of it happens on the bus.

• RealisticClearly realistic
• Character-drivenClearly character-driven

2021 · Drama

A nine-year-old boy's street in 1969 Belfast turns overnight into a place with barricades, and his parents have to decide whether to stay. Black and white, shot at kid height, and mostly family talk.

• RealisticClearly realistic
• Character-drivenClearly character-driven

2013 · Romance

A French teenager drifting through school meets an older art student with blue hair, and her whole life reorganises around her. It runs three hours and stays very close to her face.

• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• RealisticStrongly realistic
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• SlowStrongly slow

2022 · Horror

Two young cannibals meet in 1980s America and drive its back roads together, keeping clear of towns and of others like them. A road film and a first-love story, with a lot of blood in it.

• HeavyStrongly heavy

2019 · Comedy

Two straight-A students find out the night before graduation that the classmates they looked down on got into the same colleges, so they cram four years of fun into one evening. It is one long night, mostly the two of them talking.

• SimpleClearly simple
• IntimateClearly intimate

2023 · Comedy

Two unpopular high school seniors start a self-defense club, mostly as a way to get near the cheerleaders they like. Broad, rude, and set in a version of high school where nothing has consequences.

• SimpleClearly simple
• IntimateClearly intimate

2015 · Drama

A young woman leaves a small Irish town for New York in the 1950s, homesick and alone until she meets someone. Gentle and slow, and mostly about one person working out where she belongs.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven

2017 · Romance

A seventeen-year-old spends the summer at his family's house in northern Italy, where his father's new research assistant comes to stay for six weeks. Long hot days, and nothing happens quickly.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• SlowStrongly slow
• IntimateStrongly intimate

2012 · Science fiction

Three high-school boys climb down a hole in a field and come out able to move things with their minds, and at first they mostly mess about. Shot as if one of them is filming the whole time.

Sits near the middle on every axis.

2002 · Crime

Two boys grow up in a Rio housing project through the sixties and seventies, one drifting toward photography and the other toward the drug trade. It moves fast and jumps between dozens of lives.

• HeavyStrongly heavy
• RealisticStrongly realistic
• FastClearly fast

2022 · Drama

Two thirteen-year-old boys who have been inseparable their whole lives start a new school, where the other children ask what exactly they are to each other. Quiet, slow, and close to their faces.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• HeavyStrongly heavy
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• SlowClearly slow

2021 · Drama

The only hearing member of a deaf fishing family joins the school choir and finds she can sing, just as the family business needs her on the boat. Warm and straightforward, moving between sign and speech.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenClearly character-driven
• SimpleClearly simple
• IntimateClearly intimate

2001 · Science fiction

A teenager in 1988 sleepwalks out of his bedroom, and a jet engine falls through the roof into it. A figure in a rabbit suit tells him the world ends in 28 days, and the film is in no hurry to explain.

• ComplicatedClearly complicated

2018 · Comedy

A thirteen-year-old girl posts advice videos nobody watches and tries to get through the last week of middle school. Small scenes shot close up, and often hard to watch out of sheer embarrassment.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• SimpleClearly simple

2004 · Fantasy

In his third year at Hogwarts, Harry learns that the man who broke out of the wizard prison is looking for him. Greyer and rainier than the first two, and it moves quickly for a long film.

• FantasticStrongly fantastic

2010 · Animation

A Viking teenager who is no good at killing dragons brings one down, finds it hurt, and starts working out what dragons actually want. Flying scenes, and a father who is hard to talk to.

• FantasticStrongly fantastic

2016 · Comedy

A city kid placed with a foster family in the New Zealand bush ends up out in the wild with his grumpy uncle while the whole country hunts for them. Jokes every minute, and a lot of scenery.

• SimpleClearly simple

2024 · Horror

Two lonely teenagers in the suburbs bond over a late-night TV show about girls fighting monsters, and one of them cannot let it go. It is slow and dreamlike, and more sad than scary.

• SlowStrongly slow
• HeavyClearly heavy
• IntimateClearly intimate
• Character-drivenClearly character-driven

2015 · Animation

The feelings inside an eleven-year-old girl run her from a control room in her head, and two of them get lost the week her family moves across the country. Bright and fast, with a lot underneath.

• FantasticStrongly fantastic

2024 · Animation

Riley turns thirteen and a new crew of feelings, Anxiety among them, muscles into the control room in her head just as she leaves for hockey camp. Bright, fast, and mostly set inside her mind.

• FantasticStrongly fantastic

2017 · Horror

In a small Maine town where children keep going missing, a group of misfit kids works out that something lives under the streets and wears a clown's face. As much a summer-holiday adventure as a horror film, with the scares on a schedule.

Sits near the middle on every axis.

2014 · Horror

After a date, a nineteen-year-old is told that something will now walk towards her, slowly and without stopping, wherever she goes. Wide empty suburbs, a loud synth score, a lot of watching the background.

Sits near the middle on every axis.

2019 · Comedy

A ten-year-old in the Hitler Youth, whose imaginary friend is a clownish Adolf Hitler, finds out his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in the attic. Broad silly jokes sitting right next to the worst thing in the room.

Sits near the middle on every axis.

2007 · Comedy

A sixteen-year-old finds out she is pregnant and picks a couple in the suburbs to raise the baby. Everybody talks in a very particular way, and the whole thing is over in an hour and a half.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• IntimateClearly intimate
• Character-drivenClearly character-driven

2010 · Action

A comic-obsessed teenager buys a wetsuit online and starts patrolling his neighbourhood as a superhero, which goes about as well as you would expect. Very violent, and going for laughs throughout.

• FastClearly fast

2014 · Action

A London teenager with a police record is recruited into a very old and very well dressed secret spy service, while a tech billionaire hands out free SIM cards to the world. Loud, rude and full of fights.

• FastClearly fast

2017 · Comedy

A high school senior in Sacramento calls herself Lady Bird, wants to go to college on the other coast, and fights with her mother about all of it. Short scenes, one school year, funny and quick.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• SimpleClearly simple

2018 · Drama

A veteran and his teenage daughter live hidden in a park outside Portland until they are found and moved into a house. Quiet and slow, mostly the two of them working out what the other one needs.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• SlowStrongly slow
• IntimateStrongly intimate

2008 · Horror

A bullied twelve-year-old in a snowed-in Stockholm suburb makes friends with the girl who has moved in next door and only comes out at night. It is very quiet and very cold, and it takes its time.

• IntimateStrongly intimate
• HeavyClearly heavy
• SlowClearly slow

2021 · Comedy

A fifteen-year-old child actor in 1973 Los Angeles decides he is going to be with a woman ten years older, and the two of them drift in and out of each other's schemes. Loose and wandering, a run of episodes rather than a plot.

• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven

2019 · Drama

Four sisters grow up in Massachusetts during and after the Civil War, one of them trying to make a living writing. It cuts back and forth between their childhood and seven years on, so you have to keep track of where you are.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven

2021 · Animation

Two sea monster boys pass as human in a seaside town on the Italian coast for one summer, chasing a Vespa and a place in the local race. Sunny, quick, and aimed squarely at kids.

• FantasticStrongly fantastic
• LightClearly light
• SimpleClearly simple

2004 · Comedy

A sixteen-year-old raised in Kenya starts at an American high school and gets adopted by the three most popular girls in it. Fast, quotable, and a joke every few seconds.

• IntimateClearly intimate

2016 · Animation

The daughter of a Pacific island chief sails past the reef her people never cross, looking for a demigod who can put right what he took. Bright, fast and full of songs, with a lot of open ocean.

• FantasticStrongly fantastic
• LightClearly light
• SimpleClearly simple

2012 · Comedy

On a small New England island in 1965 a scout and a girl who has had enough of her family run off together, and the whole place goes looking for them. Neat, funny and told like a storybook.

Sits near the middle on every axis.

2004 · Comedy

A teenager in small-town Idaho draws mythical creatures, feeds his brother's llama and helps a friend run for class president. Deadpan, barely plotted, and full of long flat pauses.

• SimpleStrongly simple
• LightStrongly light
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• Character-drivenClearly character-driven

2020 · Drama

A seventeen-year-old from small-town Pennsylvania takes the bus to New York with her cousin to get an abortion she cannot get at home. Very little talking, and a great deal of waiting around.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• HeavyStrongly heavy
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• SimpleClearly simple
• SlowClearly slow

2023 · Comedy

A Victorian surgeon brings a drowned woman back to life, and she starts again from nothing, learning fast and then running off across Europe with a bad lawyer. Big sets, odd colors, and very blunt talk about sex.

• FantasticStrongly fantastic
• Character-drivenClearly character-driven

2023 · Drama

A fourteen-year-old army daughter in Germany is invited to a party at Elvis Presley's house, and spends the next decade mostly waiting for him inside Graceland. Quiet and slow, almost entirely from her side of the room.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• Character-drivenStrongly character-driven
• SlowStrongly slow
• IntimateClearly intimate

2016 · Horror

A lifelong vegetarian starts at the veterinary school where her older sister is already a student, and hazing week makes her eat raw meat. Bloody, funny in places, and hard to watch in others.

• HeavyStrongly heavy

2020 · Comedy

A student turns up at a family shiva and finds her ex-girlfriend and the older man she has been seeing in the same crowded house. Seventy-eight minutes in one home, and it tightens the whole way.

• RealisticStrongly realistic
• IntimateStrongly intimate
• Character-drivenClearly character-driven