20. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021)

Director Jane Schoenbrun made waves this year with I Saw the TV Glow, but one of her earlier films, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, is notable for taking the found footage concept and going in different directions with it. She continues to establish herself as a unique director with a lot to say, though her films require a good deal of patience. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair centers on a lonely teenager named Casey, who becomes obsessed with an internet challenge that involves pricking her finger with blood, repeating a chant, and undergoing a supernatural transformation. We witness all of this through her computer monitor. It seems like innocuous kids’ stuff, but the line between reality and fantasy begins to blur throughout the film.

As Casey’s “symptoms” intensify, she tears apart her favorite stuffed animal, lets out blood-curdling screams while singing and dancing, and even threatens to use her father’s gun. She also connects with a lonely internet user who likes watching other people’s World’s Fair videos. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is undeniably weird and may feel too abstract for some, since it doesn’t really go much of anywhere. However, it does capture the loneliness and yearning for connection in our digital society, as well as the struggle of finding one’s place in the world as a young person.