Watching a movie with friends and loved ones can enrich the experience for everyone.
But, as with all things, there are exceptions.
Trust us, you won't want someone sitting next to you while any of these movies are on.
Her is a film about a lonely dude who buys a sophisticated operating system that contains
a charming artificial intelligence, and then promptly falls in love with her.
It's quite literally about a man who falls in love with a screen.
In that way, there's something absolutely perfect about watching it by yourself, particularly
if you're feeling a tad lonely, just for the sheer satirical value of it all.
Beyond that, though, there's something more to Her that begs to be considered in a solitary,
quiet way.
Some people see the film as more of a comedy mocking our relationship to technology.
Others, meanwhile, see it as a very sincere study of our relationship to tech, and to
each other.
Either way, it's a fascinating film full of questions you'd rather not have a friend asking
aloud in your ear while you watch.
Alex Garland's gorgeous yet disturbing sci-fi masterpiece was one of the most underseen
but fascinating films of 2018, and now that it's available to watch at home, you're in
a prime position to watch it in the dark, by yourself, absorbing every little detail
of the Shimmer and the weird way it seeps into the brains of the film's characters.
Annihilation is a film rich in visual and thematic textures.
It's a treatise on trauma and guilt, an exploration of what it means to be an individual, and
a glimpse at what happens when we finally get the transformation we so desperately seek.
It's also a film that leaves the answers to the questions it ponders somewhat ambiguous,
and while it can be fun to discuss theories with people the moment the movie is over,
Annihilation is a story that rewards silent contemplation.
It's a film that begs you not only to watch it intently, but to sit with it in silence
for a while after the credits have rolled.
With the right audience, the original Twin Peaks series can be a blast to watch in a
group.
It's quirky, it's funny, it's scary without being overwhelming, and it's full of fun little
character details and quotes you can all talk about later.
"Entering the town of Twin Peaks.
It's 5 miles south of the Canadian border, 12 miles west of the state line.
I've never seen so many trees in my life."
Fire Walk With Me, the prequel film that followed the original show's cancellation, is a different
beast.
Directed by co-creator David Lynch without his Twin Peaks creative partner Mark Frost,
Fire Walk With Me abandons many of the more comedic and lighthearted elements of the series
in favor of the bleak, brutal, absolutely nightmarish story of the last week of Laura
Palmer's life.
It's often a hard film to watch, and it expands the Peaks mythology in ways that are often
hard to grasp upon first viewing, even with that feature-length collection of deleted
scenes to expand the series' lore.
Watching it with a raucous crowd of Twin Peaks fans might not work, so, instead, watch it
quietly and absorb the many mysteries of a place both wonderful and strange.
Even at their zaniest, the films of the Coen brothers are all marked by the duo's detail-oriented
and deeply intellectual signature style.
That makes nearly all of them challenging in some way, but Barton Fink might be their
most cerebral effort ever.
The surreal story of a gifted playwright who heads out to Hollywood in an attempt to bring
a degree of seriousness and meaning to motion pictures, the film is an existential examination
of creative self-seriousness, which the film itself both embraces and pokes fun at.
"Strange as it may seem, Charlie, I guess I write about people like you: the average
working stiff, the common man."
"Well, ain't that a kick in the head."
The film's themes, dialogue, and visual symbolism all mirror the process of Fink's own confidence
and intellectual prowess going up in flames, and what a glorious fire it is!
Watching the film alone both enhances the sense of isolation you share with Fink as
a viewer, and underlines the cerebral loneliness at play.
Like the films of The Coen brothers, the films of Paul Thomas Anderson are often overwhelmingly
cerebral, rich with a meaning that isn't always obvious but is always compelling enough to
make a careful viewer lean forward and take notice.
The Master, perhaps more than any of his other work, deliberately grabs at viewers' attention
with a tale about a charismatic leader, played by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the
curious convert who joins his cause.
"You shouldn't work in your condition."
"No, I can work."
"You're aberrated."
"No, I'm not."
"Know what that means?"
"No."
Comparisons to L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology are obvious on the surface, but whatever The
Master is searching for in its own tense, fascinating way runs much deeper than a thinly
veiled allegory for a real life belief system.
In Anderson's hands, the film becomes a meditation on manhood, faith, self-destruction, longing,
fear, and raw human endurance.
These are heavy things in a heavy movie, and they're really worth sitting with alone, particularly
if the people you typically share your couch with are the type to ask too many questions
the film itself isn't willing to answer.
"If we meet again in the next life, you will be my sworn enemy, and I will show you no
mercy."