The Dreamers

In Brief: One of the most controversial and sexually frank movies of its decade, Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers (2003) is a classic example of a film that’s not for everyone. Fully earning its NC-17 rating, its themes are adult and the use of sex and nudity is pretty unflinching, and should be borne in mind. The story concerns a movie-obsessed American student (Michael Pitt) in Paris who becomes involved with a pair of equally film-crazed French siblings (Eva Green and Louis Garrel). He moves in with them, becoming part of their world — and a possible means for them to explore their own feelings for each other. It most certainly will have greater resonance if you came of age as a movie fanatic in the late 1960s and early 1970s. (And if you did, I only hope that you will have the same feeling as I do about the choice of the song on the soundtrack when the credits start at the end.) However, I suspect that anyone who grew up living vicariously through movies — or really any art form — will find something to relate to.