Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

While escaping the social hell that is high school with his best friend and 'co-worker' Earl (RJ Cyler), our lead protagonist Greg (Thomas Mann) unexpectedly finds himself forced by his mother (Connie Britton) to spend time with a classmate diagnosed with cancer (Olivia Cooke). But thanks to Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s dynamic direction – marked by the influence of Martin Scorsese, who he previously worked for as a personal assistant – and the irresistibly hip, sarcastic wit of its dialogue, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl provides plenty of painfully honest laughs along with more fragile, profound moments in its exploration of a refreshingly nonsexual male-female relationship.

This Sundance 2015 Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award winner is also a delightful homage to filmmaking itself, including plenty of savvy film references, and even films-within-a-film, as Greg and Earl churn out quirky, home-made parodies of Criterion classics like 400 Bros, A Sockwork Orange and Burden of Screams. Just never mind that the average teenager’s probably never heard of Herzog.