Fall Movie Recommendations
Or, the Beauty of the Unspoken Word
It’s been a while since I’ve done anything pop culturally here in the ‘stack- and that’s ridiculous! To keep track of my various watchings (no small feat), I use Letterboxd- a Myspace for movies- and I’ve been quite busy this year, on track for my first “one movie a day" year since I started keeping count!
One of my favorite aspects of Letterboxd is not only reading about what other, equally obsessive cinephiles are watching, as well as the tracking/rating flicks, but also how easy it is to make lists- every year I keep a list of “Best first Watches”- maybe not all movies on there are new, but they are at least new to me.
Looking at my top ten of the 50-ish movies I’ve considered outstanding so far in this, our year of the lord 2025, there are a couple of commonalities- six are dramatic features, three of those are non-American (different from “unamerican”, depending on who you ask). My two favorite things of the year are actually mini-series (one of which, “Adolescence”, is immensely real and so painful to watch that it’s hard for me to recommend it, excellent though it is), my other favorite is fantastical and animated- both about loss and moving on), and two of my absolute favorite things I’ve seen this year are dialogue-free animated movies about friendship, wonder, and trauma- and are ostensibly made for children.
“Flow” and “Robot Dreams” have more in common than just being kids’ movies and relying on zero dialogue- they are both made by small, scrappy animation studios in Europe, both tell a story in a powerful enough way to absolutely emotionally overwhelm my son Ezra (a ten-year-old, and one of the most empathetic creatures I have had the pleasure of meeting in my life).
But that’s a good thing! One of the best and most wonderful things about movies, especially excellent ones, is that they give us a safe space to contextualize big emotions from the comfort of a theater/couch. I think of good, big feelings movies as “emotional training wheels”- we hopefully grow past the need for them as our only means of (emotional) conveyance, but the practice is good!
With both of these movies, I was prompted to have conversations with my elementary-aged son (almost exclusively at bedtime, where many of the lingering thoughts of the day/week/month/year/lifetime bubble to the surface) about loss, moving on, the power of friendship, and more- brought up organically by a movie about a cat on a boat and another about a dog with a robot pal.
Since this is a recommendation essay, let’s talk about why I require you to seek out these movies pronto: Robot Dreams first. I believe that the US rating on Robot Dreams is PG-13. This is patently absurd, and highlights the problem with the MPA- smaller movies don’t have the ability to fight ratings the way larger movies do. If you want to know the reasons for the teenaged-rating, there is a scene of NY 80’s punk-rock animals giving the “finger” (you know the one), but it’s blacked out for comedic effect. There is also a wizened old Chinese shop character smoking a pipe too. Scary.
But the main reason this is PG-13 is because of how bittersweet the emotions are- these “big feelings” remind me more of the childhood trauma at the hands of All Dogs go to Heaven, or An American Tail, or The Land before Time— all kids movies, but all movies that deal with peril, loss, and friendship in ways that totally belie their cartoony visuals and fantastical nature.
And that’s what Robot Dream is! A vivid, charmingly grimy 80s New York, the movie is grounded by Earth, Wind, and Fire’s “September,” which plays throughout the movie and adds to the bright, colorful joys of new friendship that the movie portrays. The main character, Dog, is lonely: he eats microwaved meals and watches cable all night long- until he sees a commercial for a mail-order Robot “friend”. From there, this scrappy little French-Spanish feature shows a Zootopia-like version of New York, as Robot and Dog become best friends.
Unfortunately, disaster strikes- I’m not going to spoil anything here, but the bittersweet nature of the titular robot dreams are beautiful and also each packs a distinct and emotional punch. One dream is a Wizard of Oz-based fantasy that does credit to the original, both in terms of colorfulness and weirdness. Robot Dreams is a love letter to 80s New York, to friends loved and lost. It reminds me of some of the best animated movies from my childhood, has enough visual pop-culture1 easter eggs and NY-based references that a rewatch will happen soon.
In contrast, “Flow” is rated PG- but can also deliver an emotional gut punch. Described by NPR as “the most breathtaking cat video in history” the main character, cat (I appreciate the level of pet-balance I’m showing, recommending both dog and cat movies in the same essay), lives in a world not quite Earth, more like a pre-fall Eden, full of deer, dogs, and other animals, but with abandoned remains of various civilizations- European cottages coexist with Inca, Aztec, Assyrian, and Roman-like ruins that heighten the alien-ness of the landscape.
Suddenly, a flood starts- judging by the boat seen in a tree at the beginning, this probably isn’t the first flood in recent times- but the flood quickly becomes biblical, with the cat finding its way on a boat with an assortment of other creatures- lemur, crane, dog, and my personal favorite, a capybara.
Flow used real animal sounds for authenticity- even though for the capybara they used a llama, I read- and this is all we get throughout the movie. The animation is clear in showing the communication uniquely and wonderfully, making it an excellent movie for pre-verbal and younger kids, as well. There’s plenty of peril- how many times can the cat fall into the water?- and the movie can be a launching point for conversations about climate change, environmentalism, stewardship- even maybe about what the earth will be like after humans. And it does all this in the most sincere and unpreachy of ways, telling a story through the eyes of a little black cat.
I will be making more recommendations throughout the fall and winter, hopefully something worthwhile that works for any cold, rainy, and/or cozy day.
Enjoy.
-JS
My wife and I cackled over the Big Lebowski reference.
Loved Flow. Will have to check out Robot Dreams now.