Knives Out: Sharpest Writing of 2019?
Knives Out doesn’t just defy the whodunit narrative, it uses the weaknesses to its advantage. It’s well aware of the genre’s faults and tropes

José Pérez Ocaña was one of the symbols of the counter-culture in 1970s' Spain. He was of Andalusian origin but adopted Barcelona as his hometown and Las Ramblas as his stage, where he promenaded in drag. He died in 1983, at only 36 . A painter, famous for his Andalusian virgins (et alia), he was a radical and multifaceted artist during the last years of Franco's dictatorship and during the period of transition towards democracy. An inveterate provocateur, he used transvestitism, surreal performances and extreme fetish acts as forms of artistic resistance, and he was a GLBT activist in the struggle for civil rights. This film features the memories of his family members and friends (Nazario, Jesús Garay and Gérard Courant) and rare historical footage from that period, some never previously released.
Knives Out doesn’t just defy the whodunit narrative, it uses the weaknesses to its advantage. It’s well aware of the genre’s faults and tropes
This 2016 winner of an Ophir Award for Best Film focuses on the forbidden romance of a young, Bedouin woman and the ramifications it has for her family, her identity, and her culture.
A film loosely based on the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, with major twists to the original story.
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.
Despite its aggressiveness, the Beef anthology series is about romantic love in all its forms. The final scene of the first season led us to believe that, despite the conflict, drama, and toxic traits, the main characters would end up together and, most likely, live happily ever after. The whole “beef” plot was the prelude to their love story.