Moonlight

Moonlight (2016) is Barry Jenkins' quiet, devastating drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. It follows one life in three movements: a small boy, a guarded teenager, and the hardened man he becomes. The setting is Miami, where poverty and drugs shape a childhood before the child can even name what is happening.

His name is Chiron, and three different actors carry him through the years — Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes. Around him stand an unlikely mentor, a dealer named Juan played by Mahershala Ali, a mother slipping into addiction (Naomie Harris), and a boyhood friend whose closeness becomes both refuge and wound. The film explains almost nothing aloud. It simply watches a kid learn to hide who he is.

Made for just 1.5 million dollars, Moonlight won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2017, with further Oscars for Ali and its screenplay. Tender and unhurried, it is a story about growing up, race, and the right to love. Stream Moonlight (2016) online on iFILM.