7) Olivia Cooke And Thomas Mann – Me And Earl And The Dying Girl
Another cheat, but you really can’t pick the Me from Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and not have the Dying Girl in there too. While RJ Cyler does fine work as Earl, it’s Thomas Mann and Olivia Cooke who are absolutely put through the wringer in Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s movie, an indie heartbreaker that asks more of its young stars than these Sundance darlings typically dare to.
Mann is the geeky, awkward teen; Cooke is his slightly ‘kooky’, unpredictable crush. Only the pair make their characters more alive than that, like anything but indie caricatures. They make Greg and Rachel into complex souls attempting to navigate inconceivably difficult territory with humor, even as the reasons to be optimistic dwindle.
Prepare yourself for the final 20 minutes of the movie, during which Cooke and Mann will have you pretending you have something in your eye throughout.