What movies will my parents like?
a brianna's digest investigation
I credit my parents as the main reason why I love movies. Nowadays they mostly watch Netflix original series, but much of my childhood is recalled in nights tucked into the living room with bowls of popcorn and whatever mostly appropriate adult movie they wanted to show me (Lord of the Rings trilogy, A Fish Called Wanda, Men in Black, anything Monty Python) or stupid kids movie I wanted to force on them for the millionth time (Recess: School’s Out, Space Jam). I revered the television much to the chagrin of my literature-loving mom, and evenings became sacred rituals of worship for visual art. As Sky Ferreira once titled her album, as Laura Palmer once told Donna Hayward before she prostituted herself: “Night time is my time,” and by that I mean, it’s movie time.
When I leave New York to visit my parents every few months, I usually stay for about a week. In that week I like to carry on this communal tradition and watch a family movie as many evenings as we can. But if the three of us are ever stuck at a crossroads, it’s because no one can, or wants to pick a movie. As much as I plead with my family to just search through HBO Max and pick something themselves, they usually don’t want to and I am burdened with choosing a film for the group. You might be thinking, “Well, Brianna watches and writes about movies, she went to school for movies, obviously she should be the one to pick what they watch.” WRONG. I hate to be the movie chooser. It is an impossible position I resent being forced into in almost any situation, with any group of people. If I’m the sole “cinephile,” I’m viewed as both the arbiter of taste and also the pretentious highbrow elitist. It makes choosing a movie that I think people could like an unreasonably loaded task: I have to pick the film because I’m the film person, but if people dislike it then I have soured the evening and wasted everyone’s time. And regardless of whether I like it or dislike it, if I’m ever alone in my reaction it must be because I’m a snob.
These hang-ups always in mind, my parents can be especially difficult people to pick a movie for. They are at once fairly open-minded about film (some notable wins include Sinners, Malignant, Oppenheimer, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood) but also extremely picky and can have opposing or contradictory tastes that make guesswork a minefield. My dad will go for period pieces and some costume dramas that my mom likes, but other “women-focused” stories like Carol or 20th Century Women will make him fall asleep. My mom will accept something bonkers like Malignant but Trap is too silly. My dad can enjoy basically all of David Lynch’s work and Eyes Wide Shut, but wage open revolt against May December. Both of them loved Heretic and Dream Scenario. They thought Nosferatu was “ok” but "a gruesome adventure.” My dad got angry at Gremlins.
This most recent visit to my parents’ house, it once again mostly fell on Brianna to be the movie decider. But this particular visit may have achieved the most watches we’d done in a while. Through a combination of science, logic, strategy, and both of them randomly remembering a couple movies they had wanted to watch on streaming, we managed to pick six movies total—a huge accomplishment. I thought it would be fun to write a little bit about each film in this context of watching them with my parents, why I thought my parents would like each film based on their tastes and then their final reactions. I present to you all now an anthropological study on the complex taste dynamics of the Zigler Household.
Black Bag (2025)
At the dinner table my first night back we’d already been agonizing over the night’s entertainment until my mom remembered that “that Black Bag movie looked interesting.” Eureka! I thought this was a great idea. Black Bag is a breezy film and aligns well with my parents’ interests. They like captivating dramas with interesting characters, they love crime stories, and they love short movies. I suspected at the very least my dad might have trouble following along with the plot, and though we had the subtitles on the whole time I still had to clarify a few things for him along the way. To be fair, it is kind of an intricate, talky web that you need to be paying close attention to, and I’m pretty sure he was intermittently checking a Cincinnati Reds game on his phone.
The final verdict: A little confusing, but good. (Streaming on Peacock)
Novocaine (2025)
The Novocaine trailer played before Nosferatu back in December and my dad got a kick out of the premise (he told me he once knew a guy with CIPA). He likes action films, but not just any action films. He’s got specific taste and he’s a little highbrow himself (sometimes I forget he was trying to get me to watch Kurosawa films before I knew who Kurosawa was). He’s not gonna throw on any old Tubi schlock, but he likes basically anything from Quentin Tarantino. I guess this is to say he likes an action film with personality. Novocaine has a gimmick and purported to have a sense of humor, which can also appeal to my mom who is more generally averse to action. I hadn’t seen it either, which was good. I like going in blind too so I have less chance of getting blamed for a bad time.
I can tell my parents aren’t into a movie when they start picking at stuff that wouldn’t matter if they were engaged with the story. “Why would his disease even affect his ability to pee?” and “How can he keep going if he’s been beaten so bad? Shouldn’t it be affecting his body even if he can’t feel pain?” and “Isn’t switching clothes with his friend too much of a risk to his friend’s life? Why would he do that?” Suspension of disbelief matters a lot less if you aren’t having a good time, and Novocaine isn’t a very good time.
The final verdict: Meh. (My parents are critics of few words, if you couldn’t tell) (Streaming on Paramount+)
Blink Twice (2024)
Not much to say here. This was an easy win. My parents like mysteries and they like to have fun, and I knew Blink Twice would achieve this perfectly for them. This film got mixed reactions among my oomfs but I gave it a positive review for The A.V. Club and I’d give it a positive review again after this rewatch. It is fun!! Zoë Kravitz can make a pretty good film! Whatever! The only thing that got skewered by my dad was the ending—he didn’t really understand how Frida could manipulate and take control of Slater King’s company so quickly, but my mom and I were like “The perfume, DUH!!” I think he still mostly liked it anyway.
The verdict: Fun! (Streaming on Amazon Prime)
Barbarian (2023)
I used my parents’ previous enjoyment of Malignant as the basis to take a chance on Barbarian one night where the window of movie-watching time was rapidly closing, no one had offered up a single idea, and I was getting desperate. It’s not quite as gonzo or fantastical as Malignant, but it’s similarly silly, tongue-in-cheek. My parents can do horror, though they get scared pretty easily and they hate excessive violence that isn’t Tarantinoesque. The biggest indictment of Hereditary I’ve ever seen was when they laughed through the whole thing.
Regardless of a filmmaker’s intended or unintended comedy, they love to laugh. They love a movie with a good sense of humor about itself. I felt like all the stuff with Justin Long’s character would be really amusing to them, especially the bit where he’s trying to measure the square footage of the dungeon in his Airbnb so he can upsell it (they did like that—a lot). I had waffled for a while on whether I should subject them to “Mother” and her giant fake boobs, but the gamble paid off. They laughed and laughed and laughed when she tries to breastfeed Justin Long. A major success. Good times had by all.
The final verdict: Very strange, but funny. (Streaming on Netflix)
Red Rooms (2024)
Red Rooms as a viewing option came to me in a brilliant moment of clarity. This movie was basically primed for them to at least find interesting. Again, they love mysteries, crime, and courtroom dramas, and despite the grisly subject matter there isn’t any actual violence in the movie. My mom was near silent for the entire runtime which was a fantastic sign, although my dad started getting confused by Kelly-Anne’s motives towards the end. Here’s a guy who loves David Lynch but when it comes to any other movies or shows, he wants character motivations laid out as cleanly as possible. Even my mom was getting a little frustrated with his questions about why Kelly-Anne dressed up as Camille and left Camille’s mom the snuff film hard drive. Otherwise, they were both on board. Brian was also with us by this point in my visit and he really liked it, too.
The final verdict: Strange, but very interesting. (Streaming on Shudder)
The Brutalist (2024)
Since my parents can’t usually watch anything longer than two hours in one sitting (except maybe Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, which is like their favorite movie of the past decade?) we broke up this hefty viewing into two nights. This was the one other film aside from Black Bag that they had already loaded in the chamber. Echoing other criticisms I’ve read, they were engaged by the first half and thought it fell apart after the intermission. They were also really annoyed by how ugly László Tóth’s buildings were.
Being intimately familiar with Doylestown, Pennsylvania (I grew up just one county over) my dad was skeptical that Doylestown’s landscape would have mirrored that of present-day Budapest (where those scenes were shot), although my mom and I both suspect it was a lot of open farmland back then anyway. My dad also asked multiple times if László Tóth was real and if there was a brutalist-style recreational center in Doylestown and my mom and I assured him that there isn’t. I told them that Harrison Lee Van Buren was partly inspired by Albert C. Barnes, and my dad reminded me that the Barnes Foundation is way too expensive now. Brian was with us for this one as well and we both think this movie is goofy.
The final verdict: Good first half, bad second half. (Streaming on HBO Max)