Curator Watchlist
A sweaty, lurid Southern gothic melodrama that swings hard for camp, provocation, and emotional messiness. It’s divisive by design: some viewers will find it overcooked and tonally chaotic, while others will enjoy the feverish performances, swampy atmosphere, and trashy-noir energy.
Where to watch: Buy
Fri · 1h 47m
Director: Lee Daniels
Starring: Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman
A reporter returns to his Florida hometown to investigate a case involving a death row inmate.
Lee Daniels
Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman
A sweaty, lurid Southern gothic melodrama that swings hard for camp, provocation, and emotional messiness. It’s divisive by design: some viewers will find it overcooked and tonally chaotic, while others will enjoy the feverish performances, swampy atmosphere, and trashy-noir energy.
The Paperboy is all humidity, bad judgment, and emotional bruises. Lee Daniels pushes the material into a fever dream of swamp noir, where every performance feels slightly unhinged and every scene seems to sweat through the screen. That makes it fascinating even when it’s frustrating: the movie is less interested in solving its mystery than in wallowing in desire, shame, and rot.
The cast commits to the bit, especially in the film’s more outrageous and unflattering turns. The result is a movie that can feel both ridiculous and strangely alive, with a pulpy, exploitative energy that never quite settles into a single mode. If you like your crime dramas messy, lurid, and emotionally volatile, there’s real value here.
At the same time, the film’s excess can be alienating. Its shocks don’t always land with the intended force, and its tonal lurches may read as self-parody or incoherence depending on your tolerance for chaos. But for viewers who appreciate a bold swing, this is a memorable failure-or-success hybrid: ugly, strange, and hard to forget.
Matt Singer (1★) · 579 likes
Worst video game adaptation ever.
russman (2★) · 301 likes
Not about that rapper from Atlanta
single white femalien (3★) · 239 likes
this is good because nicole kidman fights off a bunch of hot girls that want to pee on zefrons face, so she can pee on zefrons face also i was describing this movie to my friend and i told her john cusack killed someone and she thought i meant john cusack for real killed someone, which isnt impossible because lots of celebs have manslaughtered people on accident. can someone find me a good clickbait listicle of top 10 celeb killers please, i cant do it myself i dont know how internet works also macy gray? also john cusack is gross
Matt Singer (1★) · 197 likes
Public masturbation. Jellyfish attacks. Bad accents. Zac Efron. Flop sweat. Macy Gray. Aligator intestines. Swamp people. John Cusack with Nicolas Cage hair. The line "If anyone's gonna piss on him, it's gonna be me! He don't like strangers peeing on him!" It should be trashy fun. It's not, and to be honest, on first viewing I'm not entirely sure where it went wrong. But I hated it too much to care to watch again and figure it out. Great soundtrack, though.
Matt Erspamer (2.5★) · 187 likes
will never forget when I saw this at Cannes and half the audience gave it a standing ovation and the other half booed very loudly. feels right
A tightly wound crime drama that pairs domestic unease with sudden brutality and moral rot.
Shares the same nasty, darkly comic Southern-fried sleaze and escalating bad decisions.
Another humid Southern story about secrets, class tension, and a river-country sense of menace.
For viewers drawn to rural desperation, family pressure, and a bleak American landscape.
A classic of lurid Americana where suburban surfaces hide sexual menace and decay.
A heightened, sweaty thriller with obsession, punishment, and a deliberately nasty edge.
A landmark of small-town melancholy, sexual frustration, and fading American innocence.
Expressionistic Southern Gothic dread with mythic menace and unforgettable visual style.
A claustrophobic, sensual Southern chamber piece about repression and power games.
A morally collapsing crime story where greed and panic steadily poison everything.
A Southern mystery with psychic unease, gossip, and a strong sense of local rot.
For the racial and regional tensions, though in a more grounded and tragic register.
Southern gothic, crime investigation, death row, sexual obsession, family dysfunction, racial tension, small-town corruption, tabloid sensationalism
southern gothic, neo-noir, melodrama, camp, swamp atmosphere, crime thriller, provocative, small-town corruption, period drama, psychological tension