The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)

Sometimes, you never know what the actions of now will create for the future. The Place Beyond the Pines is an incredible film in that it's story goes in one direction and then swerves into another, only to come back around at the end. Not unlike a motorcycle ride. I was thrown for a loop, in the best kind of way. We follow Ryan Gosling's character, a criminal carny performer desperate to provide for his newborn child by robbing banks. He is stopped in his tracks by Bradley Cooper. Cooper kills him, but the guilt he is left with him nearly gets him in the end. He lives with the grief of leaving a little boy fatherless in comparison to his own son, who will never know that his father is a murderer. What happens then is even more interesting. The two sons, a generation apart, form a bond with drugs and alcohol, and both end up repeating the sins of their fathers. One becomes a thug, especially when he realizes that his best friend's father killed his dad all those years ago.

What started out for me as shaky territory (love story between Gosling and Mendes) turns into something of a masterpiece that most film lovers overlooked five years ago. A truly captivating drama, with real, raw performances from everyone involved and an intriguing way to tell a tragic story.