Sometimes we watch movies to escape from our own stress, or from thinking, or from a world that we no longer understand. We take comfort in being so immersed in someone else’s problems that we can’t remember our own — in cinematic worlds that feel related, but very different, from our own. Here are seven movies for when you need to escape.
And if you have any suggestions, by all means let us know.
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
“This feels like a weird art movie,” a friend once said, when we came across an old VHS of The Empire Strikes Back at a bachelor party cabin in Lake Tahoe and watched it, instead of going to casinos or whatever broish thing we were supposed to be doing.
As much as this movie upset me as a kid — the good guys don’t win — it comforts me endlessly as an adult. We relate very much to Han and Leia and company staying just one step ahead of the Empire, solving problems, often in unconventional if not incredibly messy ways.
At every turn, the obvious decision isn’t always the best one. Little victories lead to defeats — and vice versa. But we know Luke’s inner instincts and goodness will ultimately triumph over the Dark Side. (At least, as long as you ignore the terrible sequel trilogy, which we do.)
Let yourself be pulled into this weird art movie.
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I try to think of an incredibly hard problem and how to solve it. Silence of the Lambs finds Clarice Starling in a literal and figurative labyrinth — the movie begins and ends with dark, mazelike corridors — and she finds herself out with skill, yes, but also her profound empathy.
Remember that she finds the big clue that leads her to Jame Gumb (Ted Levine) by finding the hiding spot in a girl’s room that dozens of male investigators have overlooked.
But also: The performances are electrifying, with several straight-to-camera line readings, especially by Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) that will make it impossible for you to think of anything else.
It’s possible to pull this movie into modern-day criticisms about identity and representation, but please, let’s not, for reasons we detail here.
Anora (2024)
Anora is, among other things, astonishingly beautiful. Made on a shoestring budget, with shots often stolen on the streets of Brooklyn without the usual permits, it finds luminous visuals in strip-club light and an oligarch’s McMansion and Las Vegas and especially, near the end, in a weather event. (We don’t want to give too much away.)
You quickly find yourself completely immersed in the world of stripper Ani (Mikey Madison), who is offered what seems like a Cinderella escape from her rough and tumble life. But things go awry.
And it’s funny, in many ways you don’t seem coming. You often find yourself laughing in places where it doesn’t feel right to laugh, and those can be the best kinds of laughs.
Casablanca (1942)
“Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world,” says Rick (Humphrey Bogart), in this, one of the greatest films ever made. “Someday you’ll understand that. Now, now. Here’s looking at you, kid.”
Whatever your problems, Isla (Ingrid Bergman) has bigger ones. She’s torn between Rick and a resistance leader, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) who is, whether or not he knows it within his time frame, fighting to save the entire world from evil.
You can take comfort in having less on your shoulders than Casablanca‘s characters do, or in the quaint charms of Rick’s cafe, and an expertly played piano, and some of the best dialogue (and one-liners) ever committed to the screen.
Terrifier 3 (2024)
Yes, we’re including a hyper-violent slasher movie on the list, because there’s something oddly cathartic about making it through a movie that’s sometimes hard to watch — and yet coming out of it OK.
We promise that whatever you think of Damien Leone’s grisly (and oddly funny) splatterfest, you won’t spend a lot of time worrying about whether you’re putting enough into the 401 (k) or climate change or whatever keeps you up at night.
Of course, you may spend more time thinking about home security systems. So that’s the tradeoff.
We also like Terrifier 2 but haven’t seen the first Terrifier. It’s on our list.
Oppenheimer (2023)
Another movie about someone who has much, much bigger problems than you: Robert Oppenheimer is haunted by the (quite reasonable) thought that his life’s work may well destroy the entire world.
But Oppenheimer isn’t just a good escape because it makes your problems seem so small. It’s so dense and fast-moving that it requires your total concentration, and once you give yourself over to its rhythms, you may want it to go on forever.
It’s also, despite its subject matter, fun: You never know what major actor will show up for a surprisingly small role, like Gary Oldman as U.S. president Harry S. Truman, who derides Oppenheimer as a crybaby.
La Piscine (1963)
Also prominent on our list of excellent movies where not much happens, La Piscine is a luxuriantly slow movie that invites you to savor every inch of sun-splashed movie-star skin onscreen, and every gentle splash of the swimming pool of the title.
The plot is essentially a man (Alain Delon) finds his lazy days with a woman (Romy Schneider) disrupted by the arrival of a more successful friend (Maurice Ronet) and his daughter (Jane Birkin).
Eventually something happens, because that’s how movies are, but it’s so casually thrown away — so French — that you aren’t even sure it’s happening. Then there are consequences, kind of. Just let yourself be absorbed into its darkly casual idyll.
Liked These 7 Movies for When You Need to Escape?
Again, let us know your favorites. These are only a few of ours.
And you may also like this list of 12 Rad Movies Only Cool Kids Remember.
Main image: La Piscine. Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie
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