The Blackcoat's Daughter (2017)

In Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It (1986), we follow the love life of powerful female protagonist Nola Darling (Tracy Camilla Johns) and explore the relationship dynamics she has with her partners. She sees three men simultaneously: Greer Childs, (John Canada Terrell) Mars Blackmon (Spike Lee), and Jamie Overstreet (Tommy Redmond Hicks). Though an 80’s film, She’s Gotta Have It is surprisingly progressive with its themes of female sexuality, although at some points in the film it is handled clumsily. Overall Nola is an incredibly compelling character especially for modern women, as we as a society acknowledge female sensuality more and more without the negative stigma.

“I’m always interested in exploring female fantasy, and the sexy witch is a loaded archetype that is simultaneously about men’s fears and fantasies about women, and women’s feelings of empowerment and agency. So whereas we are used to seeing the sexy witch or the femme fatale from the outside, I wanted to explore her from the inside.” - Anna Biller, on why she made The Love Witch

This fantasy movie released on Disney+ has strong topics and themes related to magic.

Michael Shanks’ Together is a queasy, hilarious, and surprisingly heartfelt body-horror trip that fuses love and terror in the most literal sense. Starring real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie, this midnight gem twists Plato’s soulmate myth into a gory, darkly funny tale of codependency, cults, and chainsaws — equal parts romance and nightmare.

Stand and Deliver is an inspirational classic from 1988 starring Edward James Olmos as Jaime Escalante, and his class of rag tag students in East Los Angeles. It’s the story of how a new teacher shows a motley group of students in the inner city with backgrounds as gang members, dishwashers, and mechanics — the power of self-determination. He teaches the teenagers to believe in themselves through algebra and calculus.

Pressure is an unambiguously great movie, lead by convincing performances, a well-crafted script, good direction, and at least some social awareness.