Film

Holy Man

A 1998 comedy-drama about a wandering holy man (Eddie Murphy) who disrupts the lives of two shopping-network employees in Los Angeles. It's earnest, strange, and tonally wayward—part satire of consumerism, part spiritual fable, part romantic comedy. For viewers drawn to singular visions and willing to follow a film that doesn't quite know what it is.

TMDb rating2.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy broad, shiny satires of television and advertising where a sincere oddball gets swept up in a corporate machine, and you don't mind a sweet, sentimental streak.

Skip it if the satire is soft and the jokes often land on the broad side, and its sentimentality can feel heavy-handed if you want Murphy's comedy sharper.

What it asks of you: A brisk, undemanding ride of under two hours, gags arriving steadily and feelings on schedule, so little concentration is needed beyond keeping up with the sheen.

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

If you liked this

Groundhog Day1993

A man trapped in repetition finds grace through repetition, learning to value connection over acquisition. Warm, funny, and genuinely moving about transformation and purpose.

But It's been seen to death, and its worldview might feel sentimental to you, which would be fair.

Groundhog Day poster

American Beauty1999

Simultaneous critique and love letter to suburban American life. Visually stunning, darkly comic, built on the tension between surfaces and truth, yearning and emptiness.

But The ending undercuts some of its philosophy, and the film's perspective on its own characters can feel smug in retrospect.

American Beauty poster

The Hudsucker Proxy1994

Two Coen Brothers at peak whimsy: a screwball comedy about a naive man upending a corrupt corporation through sheer decency. Visual invention on every frame, utterly alive.

But The tonal whimsy won't work if you need your stories to stay in one register. It's performative in a way that exhausts some viewers.

The Hudsucker Proxy poster

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.1953

Both use a protagonist who appears almost saintly to disrupt a system of control—one built on TV commerce, one on discipline and conformity. Both are sincere critiques wrapped in fable.

A musical fantasy nightmare about a tyrant music teacher with a 5,000-key piano, by Dr. Seuss. Visually unhinged and morally clear: commerce and control versus childish freedom.

But It's genuinely strange and deeply uncomfortable in places. The surrealism doesn't always cohere, and children find it disturbing.

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. poster
More like this (8)

Ghostbusters II1989

A sequel that deepens its predecessor's themes about faith, community, and the supernatural as metaphor for collective belief. Funnier and stranger than memory serves.

But The original is better. This one feels like a retread until you notice it's actually about something different.

Ghostbusters II poster

The Majestic2001

Jim Carrey in a sincere, small-town drama about identity and redemption, playing against type with grace. A film about the power of stories to heal.

But It's earnest to the point of mawkishness, and Carrey fans wanting laughs will feel shortchanged.

The Majestic poster

Midnight Run1988

A bounty hunter and a fugitive bond across America. Sharp dialogue, genuine warmth, and a structure that lets character development happen alongside the plot.

But It's a bit baggy, and the buddy-comedy formula is exactly what it seems to be, no more.

Midnight Run poster

The Fisher King1991

Terry Gilliam's sprawling fever dream about grief, redemption, and two broken men. Visually audacious, emotionally raw, willing to be messy in service of truth.

But It's overstuffed and loses focus. The logic is associative, not narrative, which reads as self-indulgent.

The Fisher King poster

It Could Happen to You1994

A cop wins the lottery and gives half to a waitress. It sounds saccharine and is treated sincerely—a fairy tale about kindness and connection in a city of strangers.

But Relentlessly sentimental. If you can't meet it halfway on goodwill, it will seem unbearably naive.

It Could Happen to You poster

Coming to America1988

Eddie Murphy at his most charismatic, playing an African prince learning humility in Queens. Funny, romantic, and genuinely interested in its own sweetness.

But It's broad, it's dated, and the gender politics haven't aged well. Also, you might have simply outgrown it.

Coming to America poster

The Midnight Gospel2020

Both treat a wanderer as a catalyst for spiritual reckoning in others. Both juxtapose surreal spectacle with sincere questions about what matters.

An animated series about a man interviewing dying people while traveling through digital worlds. Silly visuals, profound conversations about death, meaning, and connection.

But It's a Netflix limited series about mortality and existential crisis. The comedy can feel like avoidance, and it requires you to sit with grief.

The Midnight Gospel poster

Synecdoche, New York2008

Both wrestle with the gap between performance and authenticity, spectacle and grace. Both feature a central figure whose presence reshapes those around him, and both are fundamentally about whether redemption is real or just another performance.

Charlie Kaufman's maze about a director building a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse. Formally ambitious, melancholic, and genuinely haunting about the cost of art and meaning-making.

But It's deliberately oblique and repetitive by design. If you need clarity, this will frustrate you. Some find it pretentious; that might be fair.

Synecdoche, New York poster

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