If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

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A woman in Harlem desperately scrambles to prove her fiancé innocent of a crime while carrying their first child.

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Directed By: Barry Jenkins

Written By: Barry Jenkins, James Baldwin

Starring: Michael Beach, Diego Luna, Regina King, Dave Franco, Aunjanue Ellis, Finn Wittrock, Brian Tyree Henry, Pedro Pascal, Colman Domingo, Teyonah Parris, Stephan James, KiKi Layne

Genres: Romance, Drama, Crime

Country: USA

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If Beale Street Could Talk belongs to 36 collections

1. boobs (collaborative: moderated by Pickpocket - 53 stars)

2. AAA: Empire's five star movies (collaborative: moderated by KasperL - 25 stars)

3. Based on a Book (collaborative: moderated by iconogassed - 24 stars)

4. Academy Award - Oscar - ALL Best Picture, Directing, Acting & Screenplay Nominees (collaborative - 22 stars)

5. Films available in HD (collaborative: moderated by kubricksucks - 12 stars)

6. Rape (collaborative: moderated by Moribunny - 7 stars)

7. Based On Novel (collaborative: moderated by tathiel - 7 stars)

8. Black Cinema (collaborative: moderated by Pickpocket - 7 stars)

9. 1970s period film (collaborative: moderated by djross - 6 stars)

10. Best by different standards (public: sesito71 - 6 stars)

11. Race / Racism (collaborative: moderated by Moribunny - 4 stars)

12. Adaptations from Classic Literature made into Movies (collaborative: moderated by Dunstan-xxx - 4 stars)

13. mother-daughter relationship (collaborative: moderated by livelove - 3 stars)

14. Movies with Black leads (collaborative: moderated by PerryStroika - 3 stars)

15. African-American protagonist (collaborative: moderated by Moribunny - 3 stars)

16. Oscar: Best Actress In A Supporting Role (collaborative: moderated by doganay - 2 stars)

17. false allegations of rape or sexual abuse (collaborative: moderated by livelove - 2 stars)

18. Oscar Nominations 2019 (public: Adds - 2 stars)

19. 38. İstanbul Film Festivali (collaborative: moderated by Johnny Mo - 1 star)

20. Netflix Sverige (collaborative: moderated by Jakobostgren - 1 star)

21. African-American director (collaborative: moderated by djross - 1 star)

22. 2019 Academy Awards- Nominated Feature Films (Non-Documentary) (collaborative: moderated by joel-w-m)

23. NAACP Image Award Nominees and Winners (collaborative: moderated by Roman_Herbom)

24. Annapurna Pictures (collaborative: moderated by elhenzo)

25. Adapted from Novels of Non-White Authors (collaborative: moderated by Dunstan-xxx)

26. African American Cinema (collaborative: moderated by PerryStroika)

27. Available on Divicast (collaborative: moderated by Dunstan-xxx)

28. Films I saw in the cinema (public: Malcym)

29. Black Men Can't Jump in Hollywood Podcast (public: TychoCelchuu)

30. seen in 2019 (public: sproost)

31. seen (public: gamzeknc)

32. 2019 (public: gamzeknc)

33. 91st Academy Awards: Nominated (2019) ? (public: 5Z5qjRCfM2)

34. 2019 (public: cash)

35. I read the book (public: MzeeShikamu)

36. Sight & Sound 50 Best Films of 2019 (public: TychoCelchuu)

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All Ratings | With Reviews

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TCI | Percentile | Date Rated | # Stars (Reviews)

Stars	User	Rating
7	jacobclark12	95 _93rd
Barry Jenkins's follow-up to Moonlight is a warm and dreamlike romantic tragedy that brings the past vividly into the present. If Beale Street Could Talk showcases some powerhouse performances from its entire cast as well, but the questions it poses about race and the judicial system linger long after the credits roll. This is a haunting, beautiful portrait of a time not long ago -- and unfortunately not far from the present day.
5	saudade	20 _8th
2-hour fashion magazine ad. Interesting title for a film with terrible dialogue.
4	frederic_g54	7 _57th
Shit, I need Barry Jenkins to film my sex tapes.
4	CosmicMonkey	83 _77th
Half warm, compassionate love story between two young people, half scathing critique of the American criminal justice system and its role in perpetuating generational poverty and trauma in the Black community. A fitting companion piece to Moonlight, as both deal with the struggle to live and love under systemic oppression, however IBSCT explores the causes and effects of that oppression in a far more powerful and moving way, making it, in my opinion, the better film.
3	MontyCircus	20 _11th
If Beale Street could talk, it would yawn apparently. The first quarter of this film was shaping up for a good time out at the movies. Bitch got slapped. Some fun lines. Cool. But then, dude meets up with his old friend Paper Boi and has a long, boring conversation and the movie never recovers ANY momentum. It's all emotion and no narrative. A title card might as well have come up half-way through that says "Yadda-yadda-yadda, he pleads guilty to a rape he didn't commit. The End." Jenkins 0-2.
2	twincinema	70 _53rd
With limited screen time, you can see why Brian Tyree Henry is getting so many roles recently. I don't smoke, but this film made me want to start.
2	Ross	45 _38th
If Beale Street Could Talk, it would be in a low monotone sleep-inducing voice.
2	Neonman	58 _13th
The earnestness and technical craft in showing this wholly loving romance is respectable and will sweep you off your feet (if you're not dead-hearted like me). But along with how this romance connects to the social injustices, this film is painted in broad strokes that make the viewing tiresome and constantly reiterative. It has most of the qualities of a great film, aside from some stilted novelistic dialogue/acting, but it has very extremely little to convey or teach.
2	Sadman	85 _81st
This movie is channeling pure emotion. The cinematography is tremendously vivid, accompanied by the most haunting score of the year. The movie, and especially Brian Tyree Henry's standout scene, elicits empathy and outrage about past and present injustices. Every word delivered by the dads in this is pure dialogue gold. James, Layne and King all deliver Oscar-worthy performances. Unfortunately a few melodramatic notes hindered total immersion. Still a complete work of art.
2	Leonardis	89 _61st
I thought this was very endearing and well made. I loved Moonlight, so I was excited to see what Jenkins would do next. He doesn't disappoint. The cinematography is gorgeous, the score is beautiful, and the performances all feel very real. I personally thought the dialogue felt raw and honest. I'll probably like the movie even more after another viewing. All in all, this is really solid.
2	joel-w-m	8 _81st
The unique narrative construction works really well-instead of a storyboard, it's a portrait, rich with history (both intimate and expansive, romantic and tragic), colour (the cinematography is great), and overflowing emotion (joy/hopelessness, love/anger), painted with the exquisitely beautiful strokes of the score (with Tish's narration an excellent extra touch). Some scenes are maybe a bit too long, but the emotional build-up remains powerful (the climax-less ending doesn't do it justice).
2	Corbad	85 _90th
Flawless colours and smooth cinematography provide an absolutely gorgeous backdrop for strong performances across the board. Possesses a collection of extremely powerful scenes, but the film is perhaps too long, and ends without a resolution. The composition, though; those colours
2	rebeccalex	80 _69th
Powerful & truly heartbreaking
1	Ytadel	4 _43rd
It’s beautiful to look at - both in terms of cinematography and the bevy of hot black chicks - with strong performances all around. It’s also wildly unfocused and tonally scattershot - it’s a family drama, wait no it’s a romance, no a legal film, it’s about racial politics now, now this dude we’ve never met before is monologuing about prison for five minutes, now let’s drop the protagonist and head to Puerto Rico for a while - in a way that makes it less than the sum of its parts.
1	Nathan S	4 _74th
Yes, this is the burnish of a Hollywood mid-century period piece. The acting is stagey, the visuals are meticulously, immaculately composed, and it carries the solemnity of a message movie. The choice to forego aesthetic realism doesn't necessarily preclude emotional truth. Jenkins uses a sumptuous palette tuned to a subjective experience: the state of being black in a white man's world, furthermore conveyed as a memory, doesn't exist for every viewer. For this filmmaker, this is how it feels.
1	KasperL	40 _20th
The effective cinematography and score make this atmospheric, but it's a super slow film, and the script is littered with really bad dialogue.
1	zwyk	47 _13th
despite talking about relevant topics as injustice and racism, the characters are just plain characters, the black characters are portrayed as some pure figures of virtue, and some of the non-black characters are just charicatures of evil; the first 30 minutes r decent (the difficulties of unveiling the pregnancy), it becomes a poor work when it engages in being a racial political work (it doesn't just show evil, it wants to demonstrate the supposed greatness of the victims - not credible).
1	sellis	83 _68th
Sacrifices psychological complexity and viscerality for something less subtle and affecting - and more didactic. Where Moonlight is more of the story about a young man, this is a message film. Its statement is important and not wrong, but I wonder if the characters needed to be so simplified? If certain elements (like the Christian mother) could be set up/payed off without telling the audience directly? I won’t complain too much, as there’s much beauty to be found. Just not much to revisit.
1	Darren	87 _87th
Didn't hit me on that visceral level that Moonlight did. But it's still crafted beautifully.?Obviously very indebted to 90's Asian masters WKW/HHH etc. The colours in this were nuts. Loved the expressions used. Loved the use of close ups. The way the film is able to balance the brutality of what it means to be a POC in America/Canada (trust me as a POC in Canada it ain't immune to this) with the beauty of Fonny and tish's love for each other, their families and friends.
1	auhasarderik	5 _23rd
One of those very arty movies that maybe you really wanna watch, but the director won't let you. It also feels very bookish, and I'm guessing that shouldn't be what you want when adapting a book for the screen. Ends up feeling like glorified maudliness, and the material seems to deserve better.
1	fuzzleshnops	70 _42nd
How many times do we have to see slow, close-up romantic shots of the couple that don't advance the narrative OR any development/complexity of their feelings (or relationship)!? I swear they had 10+ scenes of them silently swooning over each other. It made me feel like their characters were 1-dimensional and boring. I wanted to see anger, despair, frustration...SOMETHING from being caught in this horrible systemic racism. But no. (btw I LOVED Moonlight! I should have just watched that again.)
1	mattorama12	61 _36th
Sometimes book adaptations really falter because a 2-hour movie just can't match the scope of a book. Here, the movie feels so unfocused with so many threads only addressed cursorily. Nicely filmed and acted (and the score was pretty, but felt weird not being a jazz score?), but the meandering story made this a lot more of a chore than I was expecting.
1	thuckabe	87 _65th
Jenkins has a gift. The moments of disconnect came from weird clashes between strong performances and weak performances. Got long winded at times. The score is immense - breathtaking.
1	P u l p	56 _46th
Its form and style is too good for its content.
1	Jasongirl67	50 _31st
I can't deny this is well written But it's very dark and depressing Not my idea of a romantic movie and definitely my type of movie

Average Percentile 56.87% from 703 Ratings