Film

Cherry

Name: Cherry
Genre: Drama, Crime
Released: 2021
Cast: Tom Holland, Ciara Bravo, Jack Reynor, Michael Rispoli, Jeff Wahlberg

Other titles called Cherry: the 2009 film.

War drama
Very dark

Cherry follows a young man's catastrophic unraveling across decades—from aimless college dropout to combat medic to drug addict and bank robber. It's unflinching about trauma, addiction, and the specific American despair of someone trying to outrun himself. Emotionally punishing and visually inventive, it's for viewers who want cinema that doesn't look away.

TMDb rating

3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a bruised, unflinching portrait of how war and addiction chew up an ordinary young man, and you can stay with a story that refuses to tidy itself up.

Skip it if you need brisk momentum, since its 142 minutes are loose and often linger in the same grim rooms longer than the story strictly needs.

What it asks of you: Expect a long, heavy sitting in a restless style: jittery camera, abrupt jumps across years, and scenes that stay painful rather than resolving quickly.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

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But It's deliberately torturous and designed to be difficult. The editing and sound design are assaultive. Not a film that lets you sit comfortably.

The Wolf of Wall Street2013

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But It's sometimes seduced by its own excess—the film can feel like it's celebrating what it means to critique. Nearly three hours of noise and indulgence.

Trainspotting1996

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But Graphic depictions of drug use and withdrawal. Some sequences are genuinely nauseating by design. The film doesn't soften anything.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Cherry

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Come and See1985

Both chronicle the specific machinery by which young men are fed into systems that destroy them—war, addiction, circumstances—and left to reckon with what remains. Both are formally audacious about showing psychological devastation.

Elem Klimov's apocalyptic Soviet war film follows a boy's transformation into a hardened witness to atrocity. Unlike any war film you've seen—visually nightmarish and morally annihilating. About how trauma doesn't ennoble; it erases.

But Extraordinarily difficult. It's propaganda-heavy in places and relentlessly bleak. Some sequences are genuinely hard to watch. Not a film that gives you distance.

Manchester by the Sea2016

Lonergan's portrait of a man buried under grief and regret, unable to move forward or explain why. Quiet, glacial, and achingly human. Casey Affleck at his most internally fractured.

But Glacial is the operative word. It moves at its own pace and offers no shortcuts or catharsis. Some find it remote rather than moving.

Moonlight2016

Barry Jenkins' luminous study of identity formation across three decades, told in chapters. Tender and visually rapturous. About how trauma shapes who we become but doesn't determine our entire story.

But Deliberately paced and lyrical rather than narrative-driven. Expects patience and reflection. The deliberate rhythm isn't for everyone.

The Master2012

Paul Thomas Anderson's portrait of two damaged men—a charismatic cult leader and an unstable drifter—who need and destroy each other. Phoenix's physicality and Anderson's formal control create something hypnotic and terrifying.

But It's oblique and refuses easy interpretation. There's no clear plot arc. Some experience it as brilliant; others as pretentious and frustrating.

Sicario2015

Denis Villeneuve's moral descent into the drug war. A woman complicit in something she doesn't understand. Dread builds methodically. Lean, intelligent, and darkly precise about systemic corruption.

But It's a procedural thriller with a bleak view of American institutions. If you want hope or resolution, this isn't it.

Uncut Gems2019

The Safdie brothers' adrenaline-spike nightmare about a man whose desperation makes worse choices inevitable. Adam Sandler unrecognizable. Formally agitated in ways that mirror the protagonist's spiraling panic.

But Relentlessly stressful. The film is designed to make you uncomfortable. No breathing room, ever. Some find it exhausting rather than gripping.

A Ghost Story2017

David Lowery's meditative film about loss, time, and the things we leave behind. Strange and quiet, it works through big ideas with genuine poetry. Surprising emotional power from radical simplicity.

But It's genuinely unconventional—a ghost in a white sheet for much of it. Some passages feel self-consciously artful. Takes real patience.

Dopesick2021

Where Cherry is interior—one man's collapse—Dopesick zooms out to show the deliberate apparatus that made millions of addicts possible. Same drug, different scale. Cherry is the tragic result; Dopesick is the crime scene.

Danny Strong's limited series about the opioid epidemic traces the corporate machinery that created addiction on an industrial scale. Rigorous storytelling, ensemble acting, and genuine anger at systemic corruption. It refuses easy villains.

But It's a TV miniseries rather than a film—six episodes. More procedural than emotionally immediate. Focuses on architects of crisis rather than individual suffering.

Werckmeister Harmonies2001

Both depict civilizational rupture through the collapse of an individual's ability to function within it. Cherry spirals inward through substance; Werckmeister watches a whole society externally fail. Both are formally adventurous about depicting psychological and social disintegration.

Béla Tarr's 145-minute Hungarian masterpiece about apocalypse arriving as silence and civic collapse. Shot in luminous black-and-white, it feels like watching civilization crack. Meditative, hallucinatory, unforgettable.

But It's a three-language film in Hungarian with long, static shots. Nearly two-and-a-half hours. No plot to speak of. Demands complete attention and rewards it differently than conventional narrative.