Fight Club (1999)

The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club. The first rule of REWIND, however, is to tell everybody who will listen, bring them along, and treat them to popcorn.

Directed by David Fincher and based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club is a dark, psychological roller coaster starring Edward Norton as an unnamed insomniac office worker who forms an underground fight club with crazy/cool soap maker Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). Along for the ride are Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf, and Tampa Bay’s own Eugenie Bondurant, With us so far?

On its bloodied face, the club is a way to beat down (literally) work-a-day fatigue and consensually tap into primal energies. But as it grows, it begins to evolve into an anarchistic organization that encourages its members to challenge consumer culture and question societal norms of what it means to be a man.

Even 25 years after its release, Fight Club remains terrifyingly relevant – maybe even more so than in 1999 – with its exploration of toxic masculinity, mental health, and the struggle to square our social media-fueled self-worth against the pursuit of authentic self-identity in a world obsessed with money and “stuff.”