Ranking August 2016's Movies - From Worst To Best

4. Southside With You

Suicide Squad Nine Lives Kubo And The Two Strings
Miramax

RottenTomatoes Score: 93% (7.5/10)

Box Office: The Obama date movie cost just $1.5 million to make and swept that up in its opening weekend. It won't be a monster hit, but it'll do just fine given the minimal costs involved.

Verdict: The prospect of a dramatisation of the first date between Barack and Michelle Obama (then Robinson) may sound utterly torturous and gimmicky, but writer-director Richard Tanne's directorial debut is a surprisingly smart, sweet romance not unlike Richard Linklater's Before series.

Parker Sawyer and Tika Sumpter give magnificently spot-on performances as their respective "characters", and Tanne imbues them with significantly greater depth than you might be expecting. A crappy Lifetime movie this is not: it has actual substance and would still work well enough even if you removed the real-life context.

Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.