A First Quarter (1975)

What seems like such a simple story of survival is so much more than that—it’s a story of family, and of war, and of destruction. It’s painful to watch, but not in a bad way. It makes its audience reflect on their own actions, and in how they are complicit in the sufferings of others as the adults in this film are. Grave of the Fireflies does not hold back from being heartbreaking, and it shouldn’t. It tells a message that needs to be heard decades after the war, and a story that cannot be forgotten by history.

Through its morbidly humorous storytelling, Wednesday tells a tale of a world divided that explores the manifestation of generational trauma in its protagonist Wednesday Addams.

Portraying how easy it is to be an ally heavily benefits the majority audience. The more we encourage it, normalize it, and give people the tools to become one, the sooner we can co-exist peacefully.

Meander, released in 2021, is a French gory horror film featuring a woman trapped in small spaces as she fights for her life, paralleling real pandemic life.

'Free Guy' combines classic Disney (a white heteronormative love story), exploration of popular video games and the culture around them, and Ryan Reynolds adult humor in the best way to make a super fun family flick.

Netflix’s Shadow and Bone has a complicated relationship with race. It has a diverse cast, but not without its problems. Based on Leigh Bardugo’s two book series, the show features characters from the Shadow and Bone trilogy, which is very straight and white, and the Six of Crows duology, which is much more diverse. When bringing together a cast and writing about these characters, the team behind the show expanded upon some of the representation missing from the first trilogy, then seemed to take away representation from the duology. Shadow and Bone seems to play a bit of a push and pull game when it comes to portraying diversity onscreen.