The Lighthouse

When seaworn sailor Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) ferries itinerant ex-lumberjack Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) to a remote New England island, he promises to show him the ropes in the art of lighthouse keeping. But Winslow soon finds himself mostly grunting through punishing manual labor while enduring Wake’s drunken taunts. As the nights get long, the booze runs out, and a Nor’easter rumbles in, tensions rise like the tide as ominous portents circle the cut-off duo.

Robert Eggers (THE WITCH) delivers a tense, atmospheric, and surprisingly humorous period piece about two men brought to the brink of delirium by crushing loneliness. Willem Dafoe is incredible as a boorish-but-erudite old sea dog, while Pattison seethes with a gruff dejection that turns into vindictive rage. Unsettling and gorgeous, this elegantly claustrophobic black-and-white drama hints at the supernatural while diving headfirst into a roiling sea of masculine fury.