Moonlight

Chiron at three ages — child, teenager, adult — growing up Black, poor and gay in Liberty City, Miami. Barry Jenkins gives each act its own colour and its own actor, and the through-line is how much of himself Chiron has to bury to survive, and what it costs to dig any of it back up.

The beach scene is the one everyone talks about, but the film is really about the diner in the third act: two grown men, a jukebox, and a conversation that takes twenty minutes to get to one sentence. It won Best Picture in the most chaotic way possible and deserved it without the drama.

The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.

Synopsis and poster via TMDB.