1986 | USA | R | 114 min.
It’s the rare movie that can endure both as a piece of high-art, auteurist cinema and also as a delightfully populist relic of its cultural moment, but Jonathan Demme’s 1986 gem Something Wild is just such a flick. Melanie Griffith seized her big star moment by playing Audrey, a Madonna-styled girl who just wants to have fun (and an early prototype for the manic pixie dream girl fad to come). Audrey happens upon Charlie (Jeff Daniels), an uptight stock broker, and she steals him away for a wild few days of adventure that most prominently involve running from her psychotic ex-boyfriend, Ray (Ray Liotta, in his first major film role). Everything Demme excelled at is on full display—memorable characters, great tunes, and a movie that exists wholly on its own terms while still feeling just right.