Not bothered about Barbie? Not optimistic about Oppenheimer? Flora Trost has some recommendations for what films to watch if you're staying in this weekend.

This week, I returned to the Sam Steen Show on Today Radio to recommend three more films.

My penultimate list includes Night of the Living Dead, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and NOPE.

Night of the Living Dead is a cult classic for the ages that invented the modern zombie movie - if you're a fan of The Walking Dead, this is where it all began. Fantastic Mr. Fox is a delightful stop motion film, while NOPE is Jordan Peele's newest terrifying movie.

Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968, US)
I am often shocked by how few people have seen this film. Night of the Living Dead stands out to me as one of the most iconic films ever made and maybe the most influential horror move. Full stop. It is also one of the most successful independent films ever made grossing nearly 300x its micro budget of $114,000 since its initial release. If you have not seen it, let me enlighten you.

An epidemic of mass murders has broken out on the East Coast of the United States, causing people to kill and cannibalize each other. A rag tag assembly of people hide out in a Pennsylvanian farm house fighting for their lives and hoping to be rescued from swarming killers who are themselves dead. The film, starring Duane Jones, has one of the most shocking endings in all of film history. Often, horror B-movies tend to be more campy than scary, but that is not the case in Night of the Living Dead.  It is sure to send shivers up your spine and make your stomach sink.

The film is in the public domain and is free here on YouTube.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (Anderson, 2009, US)
Listen... I know you know this movie. I know I don't need to tell you to show it to your kids. But I'm going to anyway. You and your family should really watch Fantastic Mr. Fox, and if you've seen it before, you should see it again!

Mr. Fox (George Clooney), before he was Mr. Fox, was a very talented thief who would steal from local farms. Now he is a bored dad, desperately trying to relive his glory days by attacking the farms of Borris, Bunce, and Bean. He finds, though, that these farmers won't stand for his antics. Quickly, he, his family, and community are themselves under attack in retaliation.

If you have somehow missed it, go watch it, even if you don't have kids. Because while it is certainly appropriate for children, and is based off the Roald Dahl book of the same name, it is aesthetically wonderful and pehaps slightly darker than the average kids film.

It is available on Netflix.

NOPE (Peele, 2022, US)

When picking films, I try to choose movies that might be unknown to a broader audience or are potentially a little niche. Nope is neither of those things. It was a massive blockbuster by horror/comedy extraordinaire Jordan Peele and it only came out last summer.  Nonetheless, I feel it is misunderstood and underappreciated.

OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) owns and operates a failing horse ranch with his sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) in Southern California until one day they encounter something menacing hidden in the clouds. This is a film that requires your undivided attention and should be watched on as large of a screen as you an find. I said it about Close Encounters of the Third Kind but I'll say it again here, it is difficult to make a film feel truly large, to get scale correct. I've watched this film about seven time since its release, but every time I'm cowering in my seat feeling truly small in comparison to the size of the film. 

Jordan Peele's Nope tackles big questions about spectatorship and spectacle and what it means to profit from spectacle in the modern world. It is a direct response to Steven Spielberg and what Peele has described as "the Spielberg gaze." If you've seen it before, but were unconvinced, I implore you to watch it again.

It is available to buy on Apple TV.