Film

I Am Another You

Name: I Am Another You
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2017

Social drama

A 2017 documentary following a young American drifter who deliberately chose homelessness as a rejection of society's constraints. Filmmaker Nanfu Wang uses this intimate portrait to examine what personal freedom truly costs and whether opting out is ever really possible. Thoughtful, unsettling, and genuinely curious—it doesn't judge its subject, but it doesn't romanticize either.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are drawn to quiet, observational documentaries that let a single unsettling life speak for itself, and you're happy to sit with a stranger's choices without being told what to think.

Skip it if you need a documentary with a clear argument or a brisk pace, since this one drifts along at its subject's unhurried rhythm and rarely pushes you toward a conclusion.

What it asks of you: Eighty minutes at a loose, unhurried pace, so it asks you to settle in and let its questions build rather than waiting for answers.

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

If you liked this

The Pursuit of Happyness2006

A story about economic desperation and survival that doesn't flinch from showing the dignity and ingenuity required to keep going. Will Smith is unexpectedly moving in a role that demands real vulnerability.

But The sentimentality can feel heavy-handed, and the ultimate message about personal determination skates past the systemic barriers that make some people's pursuits easier than others.

Nomadland2021

Frances McDormand in a documentary-hybrid about aging Americans living van-to-van by necessity and choice. It's meditative, gorgeous, and asks hard questions about what we call freedom versus what we call survival.

But Long stretches of landscape and silence. If you need plot momentum or clear narrative arc, this will feel like it's moving too slowly.

Winter's Bone2010

A fierce, uncompromising portrait of rural poverty and the resourcefulness required to survive it. Jennifer Lawrence as a young woman holding her family together—no sentimentality, just necessity.

But Bleak and claustrophobic. The Ozark setting and meth-trade backdrop aren't pleasant, and the film doesn't offer easy answers or redemptive arcs.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from I Am Another You

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Stalker1979

Both interrogate the romanticization of freedom and rejection: the film explores whether opting out of society is actually possible, and Stalker asks whether the freedom to pursue desire ever frees us at all.

Andrei Tarkovsky's hypnotic science-fiction meditation on desire and the things we're willing to sacrifice for freedom. A man leads two travelers through a mysterious zone toward a room that grants wishes—but the journey reveals that wanting something isn't the same as being free to want it.

But 163 minutes of deliberate, contemplative pacing. Tarkovsky treats cinema like sculpture; if you're accustomed to conventional narrative propulsion, this will feel glacially slow and sometimes impenetrable.

Hoop Dreams1994

A three-hour documentary that follows two basketball players from childhood through their college years, revealing how systems exploit hope. Intimate, sprawling, and utterly gripping—a template for how to do documentary storytelling.

But The length demands commitment, and it's structured around the sports world rather than a traditional three-act narrative, which can feel formless if you're used to tighter docs.

The Florida Project2017

Shot like a fairytale but set in motels on the margins of Orlando. Sean Baker finds joy and childhood wonder amid poverty, never condescending to his characters. It's heartbreaking and occasionally funny in the same breath.

But The handheld, observational style is deliberately unglamorous. If you're expecting a clear plot or emotional catharsis, you'll feel frustrated by its deliberate open-endedness.

My Own Private Idaho1991

Gus Van Sant's masterpiece about young street hustlers in Portland, shot with dreamlike intensity. River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves in a film that finds strange beauty and genuine affection between its damaged characters.

But Deliberately non-linear and sometimes opaque in its storytelling. The subject matter—sex work, addiction—is unflinching, and the film doesn't provide moral clarity or comfort.

Synecdoche, New York2008

Charlie Kaufman's fevered meditation on ambition, mortality, and the impossible gap between life and art. It's structurally audacious and deeply weird, but beneath the fractured narrative is genuine human yearning.

But It's intentionally confusing and demands active interpretation. Some viewers find it self-indulgent or exhausting rather than transcendent.

Cameraperson2016

Kirsten Johnson's experimental documentary constructed from thirty years of footage she shot as a cinematographer. Fragmentary, moving, and philosophically restless—a love letter to the act of bearing witness.

But This is essay-film territory without traditional narrative. If you need clear through-lines and conventional structure, it will feel scattered and oblique.

Stranded: I've Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains2007

Frank Marshall's documentary about the 1972 Andes plane crash survivors. Startling interviews, archival footage, and the survivors' own reckonings with chance, mortality, and the moral weight of staying alive.

But The subject—cannibalism to survive—is handled factually but cannot be sanitized. Some viewers may find the documentary approach to such extreme circumstances feels exploitative.

Stranded: I've Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains poster

Grey Gardens1976

Like Wang's film, it's an intimate portrait of someone who has rejected conventional life, but asks whether such rejection is an act of freedom or a symptom of something darker—and whether the camera has the right to document either answer.

The Maysles brothers' documentary about two eccentric recluses—a mother and daughter—living in decaying aristocratic splendor on Long Island. It's mesmerizing, unsettling, and treats its subjects with genuine tenderness rather than mockery. A foundational work of cinema.

But The subjects live in squalor and display disturbing psychological dynamics. It's easy to watch voyeuristically, which raises uncomfortable questions about what we're complicit in by observing.