Film

Godless

Name: Godless
Released: 2017
Cast: Richard Glover, Harriet Thorpe, Simon Cotton, Rachel Parris, James Wren

Other titles called Godless: the 2017 series (Netflix).

Drama

A locked-room short film about a group of filmmakers trapped in their office while a furious crowd gathers outside, all wanting to suppress a movie they've made about disproving God. It's a sharp, escalating thriller about free speech, conviction, and how quickly civilization frays when belief is threatened. For anyone who loves ideas colliding with consequences.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like a tight, talky chamber piece where a single room holds the argument, and you enjoy ideas that suddenly carry real risk for the people arguing them.

Skip it if you need a story that moves outside its premise, since this is a brief, closed-room argument that leans on dialogue and a mounting, unsettled mood rather than incident.

What it asks of you: Fifteen minutes of close attention to talk, with the tension ratcheting in one space; little room to drift, and nothing to do but lean in and keep listening.

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

If you liked this

Four Lions2010

Chris Morris makes a comedy-thriller about incompetent would-be terrorists that finds dark humour in fanaticism without endorsing any of it. Fiercely intelligent and genuinely tense, it asks hard questions about ideology and belonging.

But The subject matter is deliberately provocative and the comedy is bleak. If you need your films to be reassuring, this will feel wrong.

12 Angry Men1957

Twelve jurors in a single room, one changing his mind, the pressure building. Lumet's masterpiece proves a locked-room argument can be gripping cinema when the ideas matter and the dialogue is sharp.

But It's dialogue-heavy and static by modern standards. Nothing blows up. If you're looking for action, you'll be disappointed.

Network1976

Chayefsky's dark prophecy about media, outrage, and how crowds are manipulated into fury. The trapped broadcast booth feels like a spiritual ancestor to Godless's claustrophobic tension.

But It's a satire made in 1976 about 1976 America, which means some references have calcified. It can feel more lecture than drama.

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Handmaid's Tale2017

Both are about how ideology—whether suppressing it or enforcing it—can turn ordinary people into a crowd. Both understand that conviction, right or wrong, can override mercy.

Atwood's vision of a theocracy that controls women through religion and ideology. Season one traps you in Gilead's escalating oppression. It understands how crowds, belief, and power convert individuals into instruments.

But By season two the repetition sets in and the show becomes smaller. Later seasons feel like they're stalling. The religious imagery is sometimes heavy-handed.

Come and See1985

A Belarusian war film that puts you inside escalating horror with an intensity that builds and never releases. Like Godless, it understands how quickly civilisation collapses when ideology meets survival.

But This is genuinely traumatic viewing. It's not entertainment. Watching it feels like an endurance test, and that is entirely the point.

The Nightingale2018

Jennifer Kent's Australian gothic traps you in a house with a woman and a couple as their relationship corrodes under stress. Claustrophobic, morally murky, and utterly committed to making you uncomfortable.

But It's slow, repetitive by design, and the characters make choices you'll find infuriating. Some viewers describe it as punishing.

The Sunset Limited2011

Cormac McCarthy's only screenplay: two men in a subway, then an apartment, debating God, meaning, and despair. Philosophically fierce and utterly dependent on dialogue and performance.

But It's essentially a filmed play. Nothing external happens. If you can't sit still for metaphysical argument, you'll hate it.

Under the Skin2014

Glazer's film traps you in a car with an alien harvesting humans. It's formally experimental, hypnotic, and asks questions about empathy and otherness without ever spelling them out.

But It's oblique, slow-burn, and deeply ambiguous. Watching it feels more like a dream than a narrative, which some find pretentious.

The Lobster2015

Yorgos Lanthimos makes the absurd logical and the logical absurd. People are hunted like animals in a hotel and no one questions it. Dark, blackly funny, and structurally perfect.

But The premise is surreal and the tone is cold. If you need emotional warmth or narrative clarity, it will frustrate you.

Rubber2010

A sentient tire rolls through the desert killing people. It's a metafictional joke about filmmaking and audience expectation that somehow works, despite—or because of—its complete audacity.

But It's deliberately stupid and self-congratulatory. The joke can feel thin, and repeating it for ninety minutes tests patience.

The Act of Killing2012

Where Godless shows a crowd trying to suppress dangerous knowledge, this shows how crowds are created to enforce ideology. Both ask: what do we do with power once we have it?

Joshua Oppenheimer films perpetrators of Indonesian genocide re-enacting their murders. It's a documentary that becomes something stranger: a meditation on how killers justify themselves, perform innocence, and live with what they've done.

But It's morally vertiginous and sometimes feels like it's complicit in the very mythology it documents. The length is punishing. Watching it is genuinely disturbing.

Stalker1979

Both are short films (in duration or form) that take a simple premise and extract maximum existential weight. Both understand that belief is the real subject, not its object.

Tarkovsky's science fiction film about three men walking toward a room that grants wishes. It's hypnotic, metaphysical, and completely unconcerned with plot. A profound meditation on desire, faith, and what we're actually looking for.

But It's slow, repetitive, and you have to surrender to its pace. There are long shots of nothing happening. Most viewers find it either transcendent or tedious; rarely in between.