Still Hungry After ‘Society of the Snow’? Snack On These Suggestions

J.A Bayona's Society of the Snow is (or, at least was, when I typed this) the top-viewed movie on Netflix in the United States. I can tell when a lot of people are watching a movie because people in my day-to-day life ask me if I've seen it. (I have! And I have opinions!)

This is a big win for a Spanish-language film without any well-known stars, but when you learn what the movie is about, you can understand the interest. Like the 1993 feature Alive, Society of the Snow details the shocking, harrowing, revolting circumstances of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 — the rugby team that crashed atop the Andes Mountains and were forced to mangia on their fallen comrades in order to stay alive. It's intense.

Society of the Snow isn't an outstanding movie (though it did get nominated for Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language by the Golden Globes, losing to Anatomy of a Fall), but it certainly lingers in the mind. So, if you've dialed it up on Netflix and are looking for something similar, here are some suggestions by category.

Cannibalism Movie — Raw (2016)

French director Julia Ducournau's Raw is, on the one hand, a marvelous inquiry into the panic of early adulthood, but it's also an outrageously gross and strangely energetic look at hereditary cannibalistic tendencies. Ducournau later won the Palme d'Or at Cannes for her next film, Titane, which we'll discuss when looking for movies about people who fornicate with automobiles.

Plane Crash Movie — Sully (2016)

How about we focus on a movie in which a plane absolutely does crash (it's supposed to go on land, not water!) but crashes safely, okay?

Clint Eastwood's terrific and succinct 96-minute drama about the "Miracle on the Hudson" has been aptly dubbed "competency porn," and, frankly, when it comes to aviation safety, we're down with that.

Being Cold Movie — Doctor Zhivago (1965)

Sorry for being a classicist, but when I think about being cold in a movie, I automatically flash on Julie Christie and Omar Sharif in the ice palace in Doctor Zhivago. (There are other scenes of freezing while riding trains through the Urals and suffering in poverty in Moscow in this movie, too — Russia'll do that to you.) Anyway, if you've never seen Sir David Lean's classic adaptation of Boris Pasternak's novel, now's the time.

Walking Long Distances Movie — The Way Back (2010)

The Way Back is an overlooked survival drama from the great Australian director Peter Weir, starring Colin Farrell, Saoirse Ronan, Ed Harris and Jim Sturgess. It is set during World War II and follows the supposedly true story of Polish prisoners in a Soviet gulag who escaped and then ... walked to India. Walked to India! Across the Gobi Desert and into the Himalayas. I'll never complain about my subway stop being closed for maintenance again.

Rugby Movie — This Sporting Life (1963)

What the heck is rugby? Is it soccer? Is it football? No one could ever possibly know for sure, but you'll see a few good rugby sequences in Lindsay Anderson's British drama This Sporting Life. It stars young Richard Harris (nominated for an Oscar for this) as an angry young man in a coal mining community and is told with the expressive editing style that was common in British high modern dramas of the time.

Uruguyans in Movies Movie — Whisky (2004)

While Uruguay has not exported as many movies to the world stage as their neighbors Argentina or Brazil, if Society of the Snow has you itching to see more Urugayans on film, there are some options. The most visible title from the last 20 years is probably Whisky, which won the Un Certain Regard award at the Cannes Film Festival. The very stylized picture concerns the emotionally stunted owner of a sock factory who lies to his brother about having a "normal" family life. I know that doesn't exactly scream excitement, but it's actually rather funny and touching.

Note: Hollywood director Fede Alvarez, who'll be giving us the next Alien picture in 2024, hails from Montevideo, Uruguay — same as the doomed rugby players in Society of the Snow.

Another J.A. Bayona Movie — Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

Spanish director J.A. Bayona is, as far as I am concerned, the only one who made a good Jurassic World picture — the second one, which kinda becomes a haunted house movie for a while. (And then a cursed auction.) It seems weird to recommend something that made a zillion dollars, but this is probably worth revisiting.