The Lighthouse (2019)

Robert Eggers made a movie that sounds like a foghorn and looks like a photo pulled out of a shipwreck, and it is not trying to be your friend. The Lighthouse is shot in black and white in a nearly square frame, so the walls feel close before anything strange even happens. Willem Dafoe is a force as Thomas Wake, an old sailor who speaks in curses and sea legends, and his big rant at the dinner table deserves its own museum. Robert Pattinson matches him, wound tight and getting tighter by the day. The catch is the second half. Once the storm hits, the movie loops through the same arguments and the same visions until the island feels stuck on repeat, and that’s where it loses people. It’s deeply unsettling and strictly for grown-ups. It made $18.2 million worldwide on a reported $11M. An 8.5 because two actors go fully overboard and the craft is spotless. $3,573 says you hear a seagull this week and instinctively apologize to it.

What works: Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson go all the way, and the black-and-white photography makes every frame look ancient.

What doesn’t: The second half circles the same fights and visions so many times that the tension starts to leak out.

Who it’s for: Fans of strange, slow-burn horror who like their movies salty, weird and impossible to explain at dinner.