Captain Phillips (Greengrass, 2013)

There are some moviegoing experiences that make it difficult to come out of the theater with a sense of satisfaction, regardless of the film’s quality. In these instances, the film’s director has usually made a movie that feels so unsettling and visceral that you are left haunted by it hours after the experience. Paul Greengrass is a director that specializes in putting the audience right in the heart of the action, with the general desire to make the audience feel like they’ve experienced something as it really happened. Greengrass’ Academy Award-nominated work in United 93 is a prime example of placing the audience in a dangerous, thrilling situation, no matter how uncomfortable it may be. Just as United 93 put us on a plane full of horrified people headed toward Washington, D.C. on 9/11, Captain Phillips places us on a 2009 ship off the coast of Somalia that just so happens to be taken hostage by pirates.