Every film selected for November’s Watchlist This! column is both personal and political. Whether they’re intense thrillers, emotional dramas or informative documentaries, the gamut runs from modern-day Iranian unrest to the Magdalene Laundries of 1980s Ireland to the unexpected impact of American jazz on the 1960s Global South—also, two docs directed by women (one being New Zealand’s own Lucy Lawless), one on the horrors of witches and the other on those of war. The empathy machine of cinema remains well-oiled and churning.

This month’s picks come from Robert Daniels, Marya E. Gates, Ella Kemp, Dan Mecca and Rafa Sales Ross. Get watchlisting!

The Graduates

Written and directed by Hannah Peterson.
Now playing in select US theaters.
The Future of Film Is Female

Written and directed by Hannah Peterson, The Graduates lives in its silence. Set one year after a fatal school shooting, Genevieve (Mina Sundwall) is doing her best to finish high school and move on from the tragedy. Her boyfriend Tyler was killed in the gunfire, and his best friend Ben (Alex R. Hippert) has reemerged after time away, reminding Genevieve of all that’s been lost. What Peterson captures deftly is the settling into routine: the school sits quiet and haunted, even as the students enter for another day of class.

Jonathan offers some sobering, real-world context: “I have spent the last eighteen years in a classroom as a teacher in various capacities, and have experienced numerous drills and fortunate false alarms geared around the threat of violence. As this plague upon our youth has become disturbingly normalized, many films now approach the topic from different angles. Writer and director Hannah Peterson’s film The Graduates addresses the question: how do survivors move on?” How indeed?

Tyler’s dad (John Cho, superb) still coaches the basketball team, struggling to get to the end of the school year. Meanwhile, Genevieve’s mom (the great Maria Dizzia) is exhausted trying to get her daughter through this impossible time. One of the bravest emotions underlined in The Graduates is hope. There is guilt in those who lived, and maybe even shame in being happy ever again. Sundwall’s complex lead performance is soaked in all of this. Berta puts it succinctly: “Impeccable depiction of the bittersweetness of a life after an incredibly violent loss no child or adult should ever endure. Never again.” DM

The Seed of the Sacred Fig is above all an intense watch, as Elisaserra notes: “Amazing, I was on the edge of my seat and sweating and anxious and fixated all the time.” And yet, even when keeping in mind the surprising thriller components that Rasoulof embeds throughout, it must not be forgotten, as Spencer observes, how rebellious this film is: “This is a work of cinematic bravery. Making a film so critical of a regime when you exist under that regime is truly humbling to think about.” RD

Never Look Away

Directed by Lucy Lawless.
Now playing in UK theaters. In select US theaters November 22.
Greenwich Entertainment

It feels serendipitous that Lucy Lawless, the New Zealander actress best known for playing the fearless fighter Xena in Xena: Warrior Princess, would turn her eyes to yet another valiant dark-haired woman with piercing blue eyes for her directorial debut. In Never Look Away, Lawless chronicles the life and career of countrywoman Margaret Moth, a legendary war photojournalist who worked for CNN in the US. Throughout her career, Moth covered pivotal events such as the Persian Gulf War, the Bosnian War and conflicts across Lebanon, Somalia and Chechnya.

Many Letterboxd first heard about Moth while watching the doc and are grateful to Lawless for the introduction, with Steve saying that he has “found a new hero,” and Jay calling it “a must-see for a generation who may not fully recognize the integrity of those [who] put their lives on the line for truth.”

Lawless’s documentary mostly focuses on the aftermath of the journalist’s life and career following a devastating injury in Sarajevo. Moth was shot in the face by a sniper, surviving the injuries but sustaining slurred speech and grave facial disfigurement for the rest of her life. She eventually returned to work and continued to cover history-defining wars for more than a decade. Never Look Away is anchored by Moth’s tremendous life story, a moving, era-defining career by a trailblazing professional who inspired a generation. Although a little rough around the edges, the film greatly benefits from incredible archival material plus personal s from Moth’s loved ones, who speak fondly of her freedom and lust for life and the living. RSR

Through flashbacks to Furlong’s childhood, we learn a comionate employer took him and his mother in, rather than sending her to the Laundries. Em notes that the film does “a great job of showing how privilege was also a huge factor in how unwed mothers were treated.” As townsfolk warn Furlong not to speak out about what he witnessed, Small Things Like These also shows how holding on to their privilege causes many people to look away from suffering. I was moved to tears by the story’s heartrending conclusion, as were many other like Katie, who wrote, “Nothing as freeing as publicly crying in the cinema.” MEG

Soundtrack to a Coup d’État

Written and directed by Johan Grimonprez.
Now playing in select US theaters.
Kino Lorber

Often considered the most freeing and revolutionary musical genre, jazz is synonymous with the upward mobility Black Americans came to feel during the twentieth century. That history makes the music’s utilization by the CIA as a means for destabilizing recently independent African nations—like the Patrice Lumumba-led Congolese government during the early 1960s—especially infuriating.

Belgian director Johan Grimonprez’s jam-packed documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d’État recalls the moment when major jazz figures like Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone and more were unwittingly pulled into the latest front in the Cold War in a bid to undermine the very Black people they ed. Through a deft mixture of literature, music, archival footage and ment, Grimonprez also demonstrates how, despite African countries gaining their sovereignty from their previous colonial rulers, they remain shackled, even today, due to industrial powers stealing their natural resources.   

This searing documentary manages to galvanize viewers. Coke_in_Coke writes in their five-star review, “Now, I was very angry watching this because it details just how much the Belgian/European colonizers and the Americans and the UN worked together to sabotage Congolese independence (and, really, the continent of Africa). Those people can go to hell.” Chris succinctly summarizes the sheer scope of the film: “Epic historical tragedy rendered with crisp verve and slashing irony, set to a syncopated and haunting beat that evokes all the great unfulfilled promises of the postwar years.” RD

The film breaks the curse of silence that forces women to deny their own pain, their own curse, and to find their own coven. Sankey grapples specifically with the mental toll of motherhood, but the observations and confessions of Witches extend a helping hand to those at war with themselves and the way the world perceives them across a huge spectrum. It takes a brave, but more crucially, incredibly bold filmmaker to stick the landing like this. EK