Anchor Bay via Everett Collection
It’s Saturday night. The game is on. The town is yours. You’re ready to go. But you need a little cinematic pep-talk. A movie that’ll get your adrenaline rushing top speed. Something with action, adventure, excitement… hell, maybe even something fantastical every so often. This week, our Netflix Hand-Picked Flix recommendation for Saturday Night Fever is Battle Royale.
It says a lot when a movie’s title becomes a permanent fixture in the international lexicon. The 2000 Japanese action movie Battle Royale is an unmistakably influential piece of cinema, predating America’s fight-to-the-death franchise The Hunger Games by more than a decade. The movie, itself adapted from a 1999 novel, centers on a junior high school student who is thrust into a lethal competition with his classmates at the whim of the government.
Making everything in American cinema look tame by comparison, Battle Royale is not only brutal but skillfully delivered, with dazzling aesthetics, fun characters, and the emotional throughline of the hero’s journey to overcome the death of his father. There are few films as capable of kicking up your pulse, and even fewer that can do so and still maintain an artistic air.
You can watch Battle Royale on Netflix, and check back tomorrow for our Lazy Sunday pick.
