Paper Tiger‘s setting might be 1986, but director James Gray renders its aesthetic with a clear love of classic 1970s New York cinema.

It’s thanks to John Turturro that the film’s flaws are so easy to forgive.

A two-handed psychological thriller consisting of a series of cinematic Russian nesting dolls, stories within stories.

A thriller whose soulfulness and brutality stem from the moral duality within its hero.

When it’s not Steve Jablonsky’s original score, you’ll regularly be listening to classic ’70s songs straight out of James Gunn’s favorite soundtracks.

A good noir murder mystery, in this case set in Saudi Arabia.

Its vivid sense of place is one of the film’s strengths.

Though Tuner doesn’t reinvent the wheel (or in this case, the piano), it makes the most of a very tight script with excellent performances, strong pacing, and a fun balance of genre tones.

What, in this age of isolation and the male loneliness epidemic, are all the sad young men up to?