Shame (2011) poster
2011 · drama

Shame

Directed by Steve McQueen1h 42m2011
ElsewhereIMDb7.2216kRT79%Metacritic72TMDB6.93k
  • heavy
  • measured
  • intense
  • bleak
  • cold
Movie DNA

Heavy, measured, measured drama, grounded in texture. Nihilistic, intimate, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

Brandon, a thirty-something man living in New York, eludes intimacy with women but feeds his deepest desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his younger sister temporarily moves into his apartment, stirring up bitter memories of their shared painful past, Brandon's life, like his fragile mind, gets out of control.

Our read · Shame (2011) reads as a heavy, measured, grounded drama entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, cold in temperature, nihilistic in outlook, with a strong directorial signature. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
Fingerprint

The shape of Shame

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want a cold, unflinching portrait of sex addiction and urban loneliness tonight.

ends devastatingit will wreck youmeditativegrips by minute 12attention 5/5earns its length
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upexplicit sexnudity

Skip it tonightSkip if explicit nudity or emotional devastation is the last thing you need.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Your take
Rate it
star-clip-1-0star-clip-2-0star-clip-3-0star-clip-4-0star-clip-5-0
React
Discussion

Discussion

cmd enter to post

What does your Movie DNA look like?

Rate a few films you've seen. We map your taste across the same twelve axes and find the films you'll actually want to watch tonight.

Calibrate yourself