Best Wry Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of wry cinema — measured across 1,288 indexed frames from 15 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
Wry films over-index on palm tree, chandelier and sunglasses — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
May December (2023)
Todd HaynesDP Christopher BlauveltIMDb 6.7TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →
Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.
- 2
American Fiction (2023)
Cord JeffersonDP Cristina DunlapIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →
A novelist who's fed up with the establishment profiting from Black entertainment uses a pen name to write a book that propels him into the heart of the hypocrisy and madness he claims to disdain.
- 3
Michael BayDP Dion BeebeIMDb 7.3TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →
Libya, 2012. At an unofficial CIA base in Benghazi, a group of ex-military contractors are providing security. In the aftermath of Gaddafi's downfall, a power vacuum exists and the climate is volatile. Military weapons are freely available. The US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, makes a visit to the area, staying in a compound near the CIA base. On the night of 11 September, 2012, the Ambassador's compound is attacked by hordes of heavily armed locals; the only forces willing and able to defend it are six CIA contractors.
- 4
Annie Hall (1977)
Woody AllenDP Gordon WillisIMDb 7.9TMDB 7.7See in full on FrameThrower →
Alvy Singer, a forty year old twice divorced, neurotic, intellectual Jewish New York City stand-up comic, reflects on the demise of his latest relationship, to Annie Hall, an insecure, flighty, Midwestern WASP aspiring nightclub singer. Unlike his previous relationships, Alvy believed he may have worked out all the issues in his life through fifteen years of therapy to make this relationship with Annie last, among those issues being not wanting to date any woman that would want to date him, and thus subconsciously pushing those women away. Alvy not only reviews the many ups and many downs of their relationship, but also reviews the many facets of his makeup that led to him starting to date Annie. Those facets include growing up next to Coney Island in Brooklyn, being attracted to the opposite sex for as long as he can remember, and enduring years of Jewish guilt with his constantly arguing parents.
- 5
Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)
Don CoscarelliDP Adam JaneiroIMDb 6.9TMDB 6.5See in full on FrameThrower →
Bruce Campbellas Elvis Presley / Sebastian Haff
Ossie Davisas John F. "Jack" Kennedy
Ella Joyceas The Nurse
Based on the Bram Stoker Award nominee short story by cult author Joe R. Lansdale, Bubba Ho-tep tells the "true" story of what really did become of Elvis Presley. We find Elvis (Bruce Campbell) as an elderly resident in an East Texas rest home, who switched identities with an Elvis impersonator years before his "death", then missed his chance to switch back. Elvis teams up with Jack (Ossie Davis), a fellow nursing home resident who thinks that he is actually President John F. Kennedy, and the two valiant old codgers sally forth to battle an evil Egyptian entity who has chosen their long-term care facility as his happy hunting grounds.
- 6
The Killer (2023)
David FincherDP Erik MesserschmidtIMDb 6.7TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →
Solitary, cold, methodical and unencumbered by scruples or regrets, a killer waits in the shadows, watching for his next target. Yet, the longer he waits, the more he thinks he's losing his mind, if not his cool.
- 7
Marie Antoinette (2006)
Sofia CoppolaDP Lance AcordIMDb 6.5TMDB 6.7See in full on FrameThrower →
"All eyes will be on you," says the Austrian Empress, Maria Theresa to her youngest daughter Marie Antoinette. The film, marketed for a teen audience, is an impressionistic retelling of Marie Antoinette's life as a young queen in the opulent and eccentric court at Versailles. The film focuses on Marie Antoinette, as she matures from a teenage bride to a young woman and eventual queen of France.
- 8
The Ladykillers (2004)
Ethan Coen, Joel CoenDP Roger DeakinsIMDb 6.2TMDB 6.1See in full on FrameThrower →
A remake of the 1955 comedy, the story revolves around a Southern professor who puts together a group of thieves to rob a casino. They rent a room in an old woman's house, but soon she discovers the plot and they must kill her, a task that is more difficult than it seems.
- 9
Poor Things (2023)
Yorgos LanthimosDP Robbie RyanIMDb 7.7TMDB 7.7See in full on FrameThrower →
From filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and producer Emma Stone comes the incredible tale and fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter (Stone), a young woman crafted by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under Baxter's protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a slick and debauched lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella experiences sexual trials and a desire for equality.
- 10
Fresh (2022)
Mimi CaveDP Pawel PogorzelskiIMDb 6.7TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →
Frustrated by scrolling dating apps only to end up on lame, tedious dates, Noa takes a chance by giving her number to the awkwardly charming Steve after a produce-section meet-cute at the grocery store.
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What wry films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a wry frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — palm tree is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- palm tree5.4×
- chandelier4.0×
- sunglasses3.9×
- house3.4×
- wristwatch2.8×
- glasses1.9×
- chair1.9×
- bed1.9×
How wry films are shot
Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate wry from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 24%widevs 20% baseline
- 83%eye levelvs 69% baseline
What breaks the pattern
The Social Network is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.
Method
Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 1,288 frames from 15 films carrying the wry label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (404,689 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.
Machine-readable: /api/list/wry
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