Film

Hyde Park on Hudson

Hyde Park on Hudson is a peculiar romantic comedy about FDR's affair with his distant cousin, framed around a 1939 royal visit. It's awkward, intimate, and tonally uncertain—part period piece, part bedroom farce, shot through with Bill Murray's bemused detachment. For anyone drawn to unconventional historical fiction that prioritizes gossip and personality over grandeur.

TMDb rating2.7

If you liked this

The Crown2016

Lavish royal drama that shares this film's interest in the private lives and petty anxieties of the powerful, particularly during wartime. Olivia Colman's performance here connects directly to her acclaimed turn as Elizabeth.

But It's a massive time commitment—five seasons—and the tonal range varies wildly. Some episodes feel like soapy melodrama; others like prestige television. Takes itself far more seriously than Hyde Park does.

The Crown poster

Jackie2016

Another intimate portrait of a political spouse coping with public duty and private grief. Natalie Portman delivers a whisper-soft performance that captures the gap between the icon and the person inside it, much like this film attempts.

But It's deliberately narrow and claustrophobic in its focus. Long stretches of mourning and silence. If you want sweep and spectacle, this isn't it.

Jackie poster

The Favourite2018

Yorgos Lanthimos makes history weird, funny, and sexual in ways that feel genuinely transgressive. Like Hyde Park, it's interested in power dynamics and desire in palaces, but with far more swagger and visual invention.

But It's arch and mannered to the point of exhaustion. The stylization can feel like affectation. Some find it brilliant; others find it show-offy.

The Favourite poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Hyde Park on Hudson

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

A Serious Man2009

Both films use comedy as a tool for examining male fragility and the gap between public facade and private chaos, but Serious Man is far more willing to let its protagonist suffer without redemption.

The Coen Brothers' strangest film: a Jewish man in suburban Minnesota experiencing a cascade of indignities and confusion. Like Hyde Park, it's fundamentally about a man trying to maintain dignity and composure while everything unravels, treated with dark comedy rather than sympathy.

But It's deliberately alienating and offers no catharsis or resolution. The tone is uncomfortable and the humor is bleak. Many viewers leave it feeling hollowed out rather than moved.

A Serious Man poster
More like this (8)

A Single Man2009

Tom Ford's directorial debut about a man moving through a single day of private sorrow and public composure. Shares this film's interest in restraint, loneliness, and the masks we wear around others.

But It's slow, melancholic, and plotless. Nothing happens in the conventional sense. Beautiful but demanding.

A Single Man poster

The Straight Story1999

David Lynch's only G-rated film: a gentle, strange portrait of an elderly man and his motivations. Like Hyde Park, it's interested in the gap between public identity and private desire, but approached with affection rather than mockery.

But It's glacially paced and has almost no dramatic conflict. The subject matter—a man on a riding lawnmower—suggests a punchline that never comes.

The Straight Story poster

Darkest Hour2017

Gary Oldman as Churchill during the fall of France in 1940, one year after the events in Hyde Park. Explores how leaders manage crisis while dealing with personal doubt and physical frailty. Same era, similar preoccupations.

But It's a relatively conventional biopic with Academy Award written all over it. Not interested in undermining or complicating its subject. Rather earnest.

Darkest Hour poster

The King's Speech2010

Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth navigate the formality and emotional constraint of royal life. Warm, funny, and genuinely moving about the cost of duty. Shares this film's interest in how power and personality collide.

But It's comforting to the point of blandness. Everyone learns something and feels better. Very much the kind of film that wins Oscars by being inoffensive.

The King's Speech poster

Citizen Kane1941

Orson Welles' masterpiece about a man's rise to power and his private hungers. If you're interested in how cinema can suggest the complexity beneath a public figure, this is where the conversation starts.

But It's nearly a century old and looks it. The narrative is fragmented. It's one of those films everyone says is great but many find impenetrable on first viewing.

Citizen Kane poster

Mank2020

David Fincher's exploration of the man behind Citizen Kane's screenplay. A film about ambition, ego, and the gap between intention and legacy. Visually sophisticated and endlessly rewatchable.

But It's deliberately styled as a 1940s Hollywood picture, which means the dialogue is florid and the pacing is deliberate. Some find it suffocating. The subject matter—screenwriting politics—can feel narrow.

Mank poster

Synecdoche, New York2008

Both explore the gap between the person we perform and the person we are, but where Hyde Park is intimate and specific, Synecdoche is vast and recursive—the same emotional architecture, wildly different scale.

Charlie Kaufman's dizzyingly ambitious film about a theater director whose life and art collapse into one another. It shares Hyde Park's interest in how desire and delusion shape our sense of self, but scaled up to surrealist proportions.

But It's bewildering, exhausting, and demands multiple viewings to parse. The narrative is intentionally labyrinthine. Many viewers find it frustratingly opaque.

Synecdoche, New York poster

Chungking Express1994

Where Hyde Park is a psychological realist film about desire, Chungking Express is a dreamlike one, but both are fundamentally interested in how people use objects and fantasies to bridge the gap between what they want and what they have.

Wong Kar-wai's lovesick fever dream about two policemen and the women who pass through their lives. It's about longing, objects as substitutes for people, and the romance of surfaces. Formally experimental in ways that feel almost impressionistic.

But It's a 1990s Hong Kong film shot on different stocks, which means the image quality varies wildly and the narrative refuses to cohere. Subtitled. Some find it precious; others find it opaque.

Chungking Express poster

People

Cast

Directing

Writing

Production

Recommended by

The Roosevelts: An Intimate History, 37 Days