Film

Cycles

A fifteen-minute dark comedy about a dysfunctional couple whose evening with neighbors spirals into chaos, dragging them into complicity that—perversely—reinvigorates their dying relationship. It's a sharp, claustrophobic piece that finds dark humour in desperation and codependency, with the energy of a pressure cooker about to explode.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like tight, uneasy portraits of a couple's worst habits, where the unease builds steadily inside fifteen minutes and never overstays its welcome.

Skip it if you need a plot that unfolds at length or characters you can warm to, since these two are deliberately hard to like and the set-up is all there is.

What it asks of you: Fifteen minutes of close, cramped attention with no room to drift; it is a short, sharp sit that rewards staying put through the uncomfortable pauses.

If you liked this

Scenes from a Marriage2021

Intimate, brutal exploration of a couple's dissolution and interdependence across five episodes. Bergman's original remade by Ivo van Hove with devastating precision and unflinching emotional honesty.

But Bleak and uncompromising; there's no comfort or resolution, just the slow recognition of incompatibility and pain.

Scenes from a Marriage poster

After Hours1985

Scorsese's darkest comedy: an ordinary man's evening collapses into surreal nightmare as he navigates downtown Manhattan. Chaotic, funny, and deeply unsettling—mundane reality becoming increasingly unhinged.

But Deliberately alienating and disorienting; the protagonist is hapless and often unsympathetic, and nothing resolves cleanly.

After Hours poster

The Killing of a Sacred Deer2017

Yorgos Lanthimos's slow-burn psychodrama about a surgeon whose comfortable life implodes when a mysterious young man insinuates himself into his family. Formally precise, morally impossible, utterly transfixing.

But Glacial pacing and sterile dialogue can feel alienating; the premise asks you to sit with profound discomfort.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer poster

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Squid Game2021

Both examine how extremity—whether moral or social—paradoxically binds couples together. Shared transgression becomes intimacy.

A survival competition where the desperate play children's games for money. It's a formal thought experiment about desperation, compromise, and how far people will go to save their relationship to shared delusion. Binge-worthy, visceral, anthropologically precise.

But Extremely violent and exploitative; the show asks you to watch humans destroyed by circumstance, which can feel gratuitous.

Squid Game poster
More like this (8)

Happiness1998

Todd Solondz's fearless ensemble comedy about suburban New Jersey families. Crude, devastating, and unexpectedly hilarious—it finds dark comedy in genuine human wretchedness without flinching.

But Extreme subject matter and graphic language; the humour derives from depicting deeply uncomfortable truths about desire and failure.

Happiness poster

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?1966

Nichols's adaptation of Albee's play: two couples, one evening, a masterclass in how intimacy and rage can coexist. Taylor and Burton are ferocious, and the dialogue crackles.

But Nearly three hours of people verbally eviscerating each other; there's no respite and no one to root for.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? poster

Eating Raoul1982

A prim, broke couple murders swingers for profit. It's campy, shrewd social satire masquerading as exploitation comedy, with genuine warmth between the protagonists despite their crimes.

But Deliberately trashy and absurdist; the charm is in its bad taste, which won't land for everyone.

Eating Raoul poster

The Honeymoon Killers1970

A couple on their honeymoon becomes trapped in an Airbnb with a mysterious intruder. Lean, paranoid thriller that escalates into moral chaos as secrets emerge and identities splinter.

But Deliberately obscure narrative structure; you may leave confused about what actually happened, which is the point.

The Honeymoon Killers poster

Before Midnight2013

Linklater's final installment of his romance trilogy: a long-married couple fights through a Greek evening. Achingly real dialogue about resentment, desire, and the work of staying together.

But If you haven't seen the first two films, you're adrift; it's slow and mostly talk, with no narrative momentum.

Before Midnight poster

The Banshees of Inisherin2022

McDonagh's tragicomedy about a friendship ending on a small Irish island. Dark, funny, beautifully crafted, with genuine pathos underneath the eccentric characters and absurdist humour.

But Unresolved and melancholic; the ending doesn't satisfy, which is deliberate but may feel unsatisfying.

The Banshees of Inisherin poster

Come and See1985

Both compress a moral rupture into a brief timeframe and ask what remains of the self after compromise. Cycles finds dark comedy there; Come and See finds only ash.

Elem Klimov's Belarusian masterpiece about a boy conscripted into WWII. It's a film about the annihilation of innocence—formally brilliant, narratively harrowing, and morally unsparing in ways that feel prophetic.

But Genuinely traumatizing; it documents atrocity with unflinching precision and will leave you damaged. Not a film you 'enjoy.'

Come and See poster

Norwegian Wood2010

Both explore how couples use each other as shields against the world's coldness. One finds dark comedy in that arrangement; the other finds devastating sadness.

Tran Anh Hung's adaptation of Murakami's novel: a lyrical, melancholic film about a young man navigating grief and codependency in 1960s Tokyo. Visually rapturous and emotionally precise, it moves at the speed of memory.

But Glacially slow and narratively gossamer; it's a mood piece that demands patience and won't reward plot-driven viewers.

Norwegian Wood poster

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