Such a huge amount of TV, and especially Movies, are geared towards a neurotypical audience.
As an autistic kid growing up, the only actor I ever cared about was Brent Spiner (Data, from Star Trek). I never watched the original series as a kid, but after watching it as an adult, Data was obviously carrying on a role started by Spock, another all-time great. Maybe they both count as rare role models for ASD folks?
My favorite movie is this non-movie called Gizmo! (1977). (It’s free on youtube among other places.) It’s mostly a collection of old black and white footage of weird inventions. It definitely has neurotypical folks in mind as part of the audience, giving them lots of weird things to laugh at, but I could watch or scroll through info about random unique contraptions for days.
I can’t think of any off the top of my head that are specifically about neurodiversity. It’s hard to find representation at all, let alone good representation. Most is inaccurate to the point of being harmful.
One movie I quite like is Thelma, a Norwegian spookythriller from 2017. Sort of like Carrie if you’re familiar with that book (and subsequent movie).
Thelma was great! I loved the atmosphere and trying to figure out the character’s emotions throughout the movie.
Yay! Glad you liked it! 😁
I can’t pick only one. I’m going to go with (1) The Insider (1999) because I’m a stickler for whistleblower/legal dramas, plus I really like Al Pacino in the 90s (minus the godfather movie we don’t talk about,) and (2) 24-Hour Party People (2002) because of its humorous and stylistic portrayal of one of my favorite musical artists and one of music television’s most eccentric figures.
I’ll watch more or less anything within reason, except for musicals.
Thinking back on it I would say my favorite movie has always been The Count of Monte Cristo which was remade when I was young and I just love the main character.
But media that is very different ,and probably appealed to me due to being nuro divergent, I would say The Triplets of Belleville. It is a French silent animated film that is very quirky with mostly implied thoughts and feelings. Also the plot has some buck wild choices, such as the mob kidnapping professional cyclists and giving them wine in an IV and forcing them to race while people bet on them. Also using old German hand grenades to fish up frogs to make frog leg soup. Gonna have to rewatch it now.
I find it really interesting the way sound is done in Bullitt. It’s so sparse that when there is a sound or a musical score it leaps out at you and the way mundane background sounds are amplified almost reflects how I experience things.
The film doesn’t try to throw a bunch of noise and lights at you to keep your attention, although it does have one of the coolest car chases in the history of cinema.
And don’t worry about trying to read emotions, everyone in this film is far ‘too cool’ for that. Repeated viewings are also rewarded with a better understanding of the plot.
Severance was also great for me, I love being able to dig through and find all the little details about the world that aren’t really explained (yet at least)
Scott Pilgrim vs the World. Somehow everytime I watch it, it sucks me into its world. The comics are better, but it’s much easier for me to rewatch this every year than the comics every few years.
The movie Wayne’s World was my very first ‘special interest’ that I became obsessed with. Especially Garth, who I really related to (and still do) and who is definitely neurodivergent if you ask me!
I wore out multiple VHS tapes of that movie as a youngster from watching it sooo many times. I still love that goofy-ass movie with all of my heart and I always will.
“Okay… first I’ll access the secret military spy satellite that’s in geosynchronous orbit over the midwest…”
I could never really pick just one, but for the sake of discussion I will go with:
2005 Constantine with Keanu and Rachel Weisz.
The reason I am going with this is that its one of my all time favourites, but more importantly I had never thought to look at Constantine’s ability to see evil is like being divergent. His interaction with normies parallel those in the community although at a very different level and fictionalized.
John sees the world differently, reacts to it differently, prioritizes things differently, feels things differently, judges things differently. In the process he takes someone who has masked and rejected her differences and gets her to accept that she too is divergent.
I never connected these dots but I can see how the divergent part of me identified with this almost unconsciously.
No wonder I loved that movie!
I love Mad Max: Fury Road. All of the visual storytelling, the world building through costume and vehicle designs, the shot compositions, the colors, the movements, the pacing, the fight choreography, it’s all just chefs kiss. I love the whole post-apocalpyse genre a lot but the worldbuilding in Fury Road is so layered and complex yet subtle. I notice new things every time I watch it.
Fisher King
Avatar. The tall Smurf one, not the blue arrow tattoo one.
Given the other comment ITT about constantine, I suppose I love it for similar reasons, thematically.
Someone at odds with society finally meets kindred spirits and is freed from society entirely, finally able to live the life she always deserved, bonding with her new family in a way others could only imagine.
We should all be so lucky.
Memento. Maybe something about bumbling through life a bit lost and not really knowing where you came from or where you are going and the way the filmmakers advance the story backwards through time. My notes and reminders are in my phone instead of on my body, but sometimes it really doesn’t feel so different. I am terrible at remembering things in chronological order so I love the unique utilization of time here. I also love a good mystery. The whole thing is top notch.
I am mostly a novelty seeker and rarely watch anything twice, but this is one I am always down to watch again whenever I come across it.
Oddly enough my favorite TV show, Dark, also is a mystery that has to do with time as a central theme.
I mostly pass on the Star Trek episodes with time shenanigans, however. I do think Data and Spock are such great characters. I don’t have autism so far as I know, but the whole “what does it mean to be human” exploration and struggle is still incredibly relatable.
Memento is one of my favorites too. I relate way too much to the main character.
I’m a fan of time shenanigans. The series finale of TNG did such an excellent job of exploring the paradox. I can’t imagine that concept was easy to flesh out. It’s impressive that they were able to bring everything full circle when they changed so much from the first season.
One of the more recent movies that became a favorite for me is Everything Everywhere All At Once. It’s so strange yet relatable. The older I get and the more I learn, the less sense the world seems to make. The absurdity of it all becomes more apparent.
I remember watching Apollo 13 a large number of times when I was younger (~10) but I haven’t watched it in several decades. Goldeneyes is still one of my favorite movies to this day.
I think the movie I admire the most is The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, because it’s just the most beautiful film I’ve ever seen. But in terms of my ADHD, it couldn’t be any further away from apt. It’s a glacially slow movie that’s damn near three hours long, so shouldn’t be able to hold my attention the way it does, but fuck me is it beautiful.
I sometimes bring up the last ten minutes of it on YouTube, and sink back into the familiar melancholy of Bob’s final years, wrapped up in the stunning score from Nick Cave.
