Moonlight (2016)

Most people think so. 80% of audiences gave it a thumbs up, by Google's archived audience score. Critics gave it 98%.

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. Wikipedia ↗

Moonlight is a 2016 American coming-of-age drama directed by Barry Jenkins, structured in three chapters following the life of Chiron, a young Black man growing up in a rough Miami neighborhood. In childhood, the painfully shy Chiron, called "Little," finds a father figure in Juan, a drug dealer played by Mahershala Ali; as a teenager, he experiences his first intimate encounter with his friend Kevin; as an adult, now muscular and hardened, he reconnects with Kevin and confronts his suppressed identity. Moonlight was one of the most acclaimed and culturally significant American films of the 2010s, presenting the intersection of Black masculinity, poverty, drug culture, and queerness with a lyricism and tenderness that had never been seen in mainstream cinema.

Barry Jenkins's direction drew from Wong Kar-wai's atmospheric romanticism, using close-ups, available light, and Nicholas Britell's achingly beautiful score to create an intimate, sensory experience. Mahershala Ali won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor despite appearing in only the first of three chapters. The film earned $65 million worldwide on a $1.5 million budget.