Turtles All the Way Down(2024)
dir. Hannah Marks
Living inside a mind that won't quiet down.
Where to watch: Streaming on HBO MaxLetterboxd ↗
A sixteen-year-old chasing a missing-billionaire mystery with her best friend has to navigate love, friendship, and grief while living inside an unrelenting spiral of intrusive thoughts. Adapted from John Green's novel.
Why it’s here
Punk in depicting intrusive thoughts from the inside without turning them into a redemption arc or a clean cure — Aza's experience isn't resolved, it's managed, imperfectly, alongside friendship and love. Pedagogical in normalizing that living with a mental health condition is compatible with a full life, not a tragedy to overcome.
Where This Film Lives
- Setting
- North America
Read Alongside
Books that share a topic, theme, or setting with this film.
A Man Called Ove
Fredrik Backman
A miserable man is interrupted from dying by his neighbors.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini
Two women. One house. Thirty years between them.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Anger Is a Gift
Mark Oshiro
The anger you've been told to put down.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Anthills of the Savannah
Chinua Achebe
A dictatorship and the three friends it destroys.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Be You!
Peter H. Reynolds
Be true. Be different. Be you. That's the whole book.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Black Boy
Richard Wright
The autobiography Jim Crow didn't want written.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Camera Lucida
Roland Barthes
When looking becomes longing.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Counting by 7s
Holly Goldberg Sloan
Her parents died. She counts by 7s. She finds her people.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST