I didn’t start with a theme; I followed the films that lingered in my mind. Only later did I realize that this quiet instinct had been reaching for a kind of comfort I didn’t yet know I needed. Seasonal depression is a bitch, and this collection helped me stay afloat. I hope it offers you even a fraction of the solace it gave me. 

Some soothe simply by being beautiful, others in the kind of humor that asks nothing of you. Yet many of the selected films find their beauty in transcendence; the screen is no longer a boundary but a bridge, and the space between us and the character quietly dissolves. 

Oslo, August 31st (2011) by Joachim Trier 

Description: This is less a story than a state of mind. 34-year-old Anders wanders his hometown for a single day and night, and director Joachim Trier turns the city itself into a meditation on absence. Fresh from rehab with a job interview as his excuse to leave, Anders drifts through cafés and parks like a ghost in his own life, measuring the distance between who he was and who everyone else has become. This film captures the specific loneliness of returning to a place that no longer holds space for you. 

When to watch: For quiet evenings when you can give it your full focus and sit with its melancholy afterward. 

The Great Beauty (2013) by Paolo Sorrentino 

Original Title: “La grande bellezza”

Description: Jep Gambardella wrote one great novel in his twenties and has been coasting on it ever since, gliding through Rome’s glittering party circuit like a man who forgot he was supposed to have a second act. Now 65, news of his first love’s death unleashed something – suddenly the endless nights and witty small talk start looking less like la dolce vita and more like an expensive way to avoid himself. At one of his notorious rooftop parties he remarks that the conga lines at his parties are the best in Rome because they don’t go anywhere, and Sorrentino depicts that aimless circling as both intoxicating and terrifying. 

When to watch: Save it for when you’re feeling both glamorous and doomed, perhaps with a good bottle of wine and no plans for the next morning. 

The Fall (2006) by Tarsem Singh 

Description: In 1915, within the white-tiled limbo of a Los Angeles hospital ward, a bedridden stuntman tells a child patient an epic tale, where bandits and mystics cross deserts that look like fever dreams painted onto reality. The little girl, however, doesn’t know she’s being manipulated – each fantastical twist is calculated to get her to steal more morphine for him. The boundary between his invented legend and their hospital ward keeps disintegrating: her innocence redirects his dark tale in real time, while his desperation contaminates what should be pure imagination. The film’s genius is how it refuses to separate the manipulation from the magic, until you’re caught in the same spell as she is. 

When to watch: When you want a movie to swallow you whole.

Motel Destino (2024) by Karim Aïnouz 

Description: This Brazilian roadside motel hosts transient encounters, but its employees are stuck. The arrival of a young fugitive in need of employment and a hiding place disrupts the motel’s uneasy equilibrium, as he and the owner’s wife begin a dangerous orbit around each other. The neon hums, the heat never breaks, and the husband’s suspicion thickens like the coastal humidity – the violence is imminent, but no one knows when it’ll erupt. 

When to watch: A late-night when you’re in the mood for something that prioritizes atmosphere and tension over tidy resolution. 

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) by Pedro Almodóvar 

Original Title: “Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios”

Description: Pepa’s boyfriend dumped her via answering machine, and suddenly her apartment turned into Madrid’s least likely crisis center: his manic ex-wife keeps breaking in, his confused son needs relationship advice, a friend is hiding from alleged terrorists, and the gazpacho in the fridge is spiked with enough sedatives to knock out a small wedding party. Almodovar stages this chaos in lipstick-bright primary colors, proving that when men push you to madness, the only rational response is to become operatically, unapologetically unhinged right back. 

When to watch: When life feels absurd, and you need reassurance that everyone else’s romantic disasters are just as ridiculous as yours (preferably with subtitles you can actually focus on). 

Soul Kitchen (2009) by Fatih Akin 

Description: Zinos never asked to become the enemy – all he did was hire a chef who swapped the frozen calamari for meals requiring more than just a microwave, and suddenly his beloved Greek joint attracts customers who use “rustic” unironically. His girlfriend fled to Shanghai, his back’s destroyed, his ex-con brother keeps making things worse, and the health inspector wants him dead. Akin frames gentrification not as policy but as heartbreak: the aching realization that improving your restaurant means losing it, one artisanal menu item at a time. 

When to watch: Perfect comfort viewing when you need something unpretentious that understands how quickly life’s chaos can compound. 

The Lovers on the Bridge (1991) by Leos Carax

Original Title: “Les Amants du Pont-Neuf”

Description: Alex the fire-breather and Michèle the painter claim Paris’s Pont-Neuf as their bedroom while it’s closed for renovation. He’s chasing oblivion through alcohol; her vision is vanishing along with her old life. What starts as parallel desolation turns into something more dangerous: a relationship that exists entirely outside the rules, because both of them have already fallen off the map. Together they turn the derelict bridge into their private cosmos. But as her sight deteriorates and his grip turns possessive, their love starts to feel less like salvation and more like a trap. 

When to watch: Perfect for when you’re ready to be emotionally demolished by something 

stragglingly beautiful (ideally after you’ve already seen safer, saner romances). 

Caché (2005) by Michael Haneke 

Description: Someone’s been filming Georges and Anne’s house from outside. Never breaking in, just watching, then mailing them the tapes like menace without message. When a childhood betrayal surfaces from the footage, Georges’ meticulously maintained life starts to fracture, but Haneke refuses to offer the anticipated confrontation or resolution. The surveillance continues, the guilt spreads outward, and the film ends exactly where it was always heading: with you still watching, still complicit, still searching for answers that will never come.

When to watch: When you’re prepared to be frustrated, trusting that intellectual discomfort is the entire point. Not for casual viewing. 

Paris is Burning (1990) by Jennie Livingston 

Description: Harlem’s 80s ballroom scene mastered a simple magic trick: when the world refuses you, construct your own. Livingston captures the houses, the legendary categories, the vogue battles – the whole shimmering world –  but never lets you forget the brutality outside those ballroom doors. What seems like pure performance is actually a masterclass in survival, each ball an ephemeral utopia armored in sequins and defiance. The joy is real; so is everything trying to extinguish it. 

When to watch: Essential viewing any time.