11 Very Demure Movies to Watch For a Very Mindful Fall

Hayao Miyazaki isn’t like you other girls. You see how he creates gorgeous, human movies without doing too much? This delightful anime film—which follows two young sisters who befriend a fluffy wood spirit only they can see named Totoro—feels like coming home after a very long day. The animation, like all Miyazaki films, is beautiful, and the adventures, like the Cat Bus, are creative and inventive. Featuring the voices of Tim Daly, Lea Salonga, and Dakota and Elle Fanning, My Neighbor Totoro is a demure, mindful watch for new generations of children and for nostalgia-seeking adults. You can stream My Neighbor Totoro on Max.

Filmmaker Richard Linklater is arguably the king of demure, mindful movies that rely more on impeccable vibes than plot. Perhaps the most demure of all his is Before trilogy, starting with 1996’s Before Sunrise. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy star as two young drifters who meet on a Eurail train, share a connection, and agree to get off at Vienna together. They share a magical night together, part ways, and meet again twenty years later in 2004’s Before Sunset, and then again in 2013’s Before Midnight. You should absolutely watch all three films, which all very demure, mindful, and classy as Hawke and Delpy age, grow, and change. You can buy or rent the Before trilogy on digital platforms.

The same year that Jesse Eisenberg became a major movie star thanks to his not-very-demure big budget action comedy, Zombieland, he also starred in a much quieter, much more mindful indie comedy called Adventureland. Also starring Ryan Reynolds, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Martin Starr, Adventureland—written and directed by Superbad‘s Greg Mottola—stars Eisenberg as a recent college grad in 1987 who gets a summer job at a run-down amusement park. He meets a cool, funny, down-to-earth girl (Kristen Stewart), falls in love, and makes some friends. It’s a sweet, cutesy little coming-of-age comedy, and it’s available to stream on Paramount+ and Prime Video.

You see the way that Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig combined their filmmaking strengths to create the perfect movie? You see the way they don’t need flashy shots, or even color, to tell the story of a broke twenty-something drifting through life in New York City? Starring Gerwig as a twenty-something dancer whose life is upended when her best friend decides to grow up without her, Frances Ha is The Graduate for millennials. It’s a very mindful and classy mash-up of Baumbach’s mumble-core intellectualism and Gerwig’s endearing naïveté. And it’s streaming on Netflix.

The romance at the heart of Barry Jenkins’ Oscar-winning drama, Moonlight, isn’t like other romances. Chiron and Kevin—played by Ashton Sanders and Jharrel Jerome as teenagers and Trevante Rhodes and Andre Holland as adults—are not ones for flowery declarations. They didn’t grow up in a world where gay Black men’s feelings were celebrated, or even tolerated. But the romance they tell via body language is all the more heart-wrenching. Very demure, very mindful, not very cutesy, but very classy. You can stream Moonlight on Kanopy, or buy or rent the film on digital platforms.

Given that “demure” literally means “quiet,” we simply had to include John Krasinski’s very demure horror movie, A Quiet Place, on this list. Doing too much in the Quiet Place universe will quite literally get you killed! Directed by Krasinski—with a screenplay by Krasinski, Scott Beck, and Bryan Woods—this movie takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where blind, alien monsters with hypersensitive hearing have invaded the earth. The monsters hunt humans by sound, so you must be very, very demure and mindful in order to survive. Thankfully, the family we follow (Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, and Noah Jupe) all know sign language, because they are raising a deaf daughter. You can stream this demure watch on Paramount+.

Yes, the character of Emma, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, is perhaps doing too much in this 2020 adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic 1815 novel. But the movie itself—directed by Autumn de Wilde, with a screenplay by Eleanor Catton—is very classy and very cutesy. Joy stars as the self-centered and privileged daughter of Mr. Woodhouse (Bill Nighy) who has a bad habit of manipulating the love lives of everyone around her for her own amusement. Her step-brother, George Knightley (Johnny Flynn) finds her insufferable, but he also secretly loves her. It’s pure cotton-candy fun, without any explosions or deaths or real problems of any sort. Very demure! You can buy or rent Emma on digital platforms.

You see the way Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi lets his scenes linger and breathe, which lets his actors shine? This quiet, demure, and very mindful masterpiece—about a Japanese theater director grieving the sudden death of his wife—is an exquisite deep dive into grief, suffering, and human connection. Don’t let the three-hour runtime or the subtitles scare you away. Hamaguchi will reward your patience and attention with gorgeous, sweeping visuals and a profound sense of catharsis by the time you reach the film’s end. This is a mindful drive you definitely want to take. Drive My Car is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, or is available to buy or rent.

Unlike you other girls in those other Predator movies, Amber Midthunder doesn’t have any fancy machine guns or space lasers in Prey. She’s not doing too much! As a Comanche Nation woman in 1719 who faces off with the Predator, she is forced to get creative. Or mindful, if you will. The dialogue in this Predator prequel is sparse—demure, if you will. The action is clear-cut. Midthunder is compelling in this back-to-basics survivalist tale. Also: The dog lives. Thank god. Prey is available to stream on Hulu.

Rye Lane isn’t like you other British rom-coms that are set in the rich, upper-crust, and gentrified neighborhoods of London. No, Rye Lane is a very mindful—very authentic—love letter to the South London areas of Peckham and Brixton. Directed by Raine Allen-Miller, with a screenplay by Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia, this delightful little indie stars David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah as two strangers—both recently separated from their significant others—who spend the day together. You can stream this one on Hulu.

You see how Greta Lee doesn’t let a beautiful man from her past entirely derail her life? In Song’s heartbreaking directorial debut, Lee stars as a Korean woman named Na Young—and later, Nora— whose family immigrated to Toronto when she was a little girl—right after she fell in love with a boy, Hae Sung. Many years later, the two reconnect. Nora is now a Korean-Canadian, while Hae Sung is still very much Korean. It’s more than just bad timing—it’s that Nora was ripped away from her old life, and planted in a new one. Past Lives is a beautiful, quiet—and very demure—rumination on loss, and not quite regret. Plus, it’s streaming free with a subscription on Paramount+.