In Search of the Ultimate Comfort Movie
Over the course of 2020, I’ve compiled several movie-recommendation lists for viewers who are at once in desperate need of distraction and yet never able to fully escape the year’s pressing realities. A global pandemic. Economic turmoil. An impending election showdown. Natural disasters. Police killings and unrelenting national protests. With movie theaters shut down around the world, I curated collections of films to watch at home—works that were unheralded upon release, took singular approaches to storytelling, or told stories about horror, government mistrust, and the end of the world.
But I think this fall season calls for lighter fare—movies that don’t make serious emotional or mental demands of you, that entice you to sink deeper into the couch and give yourself over to the screen. These films lend themselves best to multiple viewings (and eventual line-memorization). Everyone has their own personal list of “comfort movies,” but the films I rewatch the most have no particular theme or genre. Some of the movies that relax me the most are intense action epics, while others are quiet conversational […]