Best and Most Beautiful Things

May 4, 2016

1h 30m

★ 5.8

Not your average outcast.

Overview

Off a dirt road in rural Maine, a precocious 20-year-old woman named Michelle Smith lives with her mother Julie. Michelle is quirky and charming, legally blind and diagnosed on the autism spectrum, with big dreams and varied passions. Searching for connection, Michelle explores love and empowerment outside the limits of “normal” through a provocative fringe community. Will she take the leap to experience the wide world for herself? Michelle’s joyful story of self-discovery celebrates outcasts everywhere.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

Beacon Street Films

Carriage House Pictures

Only Bright Productions

VFR Films

Best and Most Beautiful Things Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

No Cast found.

Across the installation's multiple channels, the camera circles a group of artists as they sit together in a field eating, licking, and squeezing ripe tomatoes. Throughout the ever-changing scene, kisses, whispers, and caresses are shared with a casual, gentle intimacy that reflects interconnectivity and abundance. These queer and desirous exchanges constitute a portrait of collectivity wherein individuals come together as distinct parts of a whole.

0.0

Two Trees

Mar 13, 2024

In the early 1900s commercial loggers cut down an old growth spruce tree growing on a small island surrounded by tide pools on the coast of Maine. Out of the trunk of this ancient tree grew two new trees, side by side.

0.0

The Forest and The Sea

Jan 7, 2024

A short film featuring a coastal forest and the rocky coastline of downeast Maine.

6.5

The Horse Boy

Nov 25, 2009

Filmmaker Michel Orion Scott captures a magical journey into a little-known world, in a documentary which chronicles Rupert Isaacson and Kristin Neff's personal odyssey to make sense of their child's autism, and find healing for him and themselves in the unlikeliest of places.

No Image Available

0.0

Autism

Mar 18, 2015

A documentary about autism and Albion House.

0.0

Lost Contact

May 21, 2021

Aldo has always felt like a being from another planet, stranded on Earth. His autism and long struggle to speak fluently alienated him from others. Now, he searches for meaning in the esoteric and for connection with people like himself.

0.0

Lake

Dec 30, 2019

Lake gazes down at a still body of water from a birds-eye view, while a group of artists peacefully float in and out of the frame or work to stay at the surface. As they glide farther away and draw closer together, they reach out in collective queer and desirous exchanges — holding hands, drifting over and under their neighbors, making space, taking care of each other with a casual, gentle intimacy while they come together as individual parts of a whole. The video reflects on notions of togetherness and feminist theorist Silvia Federici’s call to “reconnect what capitalism has divided: our relation with nature, with others, and our bodies.”

0.0

Deej

Oct 17, 2017

Robert Rooy's documentary follows DJ Savarese ("Deej"), a nonspeaking autistic writer and poet. The film explores his difficult early life, his quest for an education, and his advocacy for other nonspeaking autistics.

0.0

You Have No Idea

Mar 12, 2023

One family's journey with autism through the lens of community in a small town in southern Arkansas.

8.0

La mente en blanco

Apr 26, 2025

No overview available.

7.4

The Speed Cubers

Jul 28, 2020

This documentary captures the extraordinary twists and turns in the journeys of Rubik's Cube-solving champions Max Park and Feliks Zemdegs.

7.2

Wretches & Jabberers

Apr 1, 2011

In 'Wretches & Jabberers and Stories from the Road', two men with autism embark on a global quest to change prevailing attitudes about disability and intelligence. With limited speech, Tracy Thresher, 42, and Larry Bissonnette, 52, both faced lives of mute isolation in mental institutions or adult disability centers. When they learned as adults to communicate by typing, their lives changed dramatically. Their world tour message is that the same possibility exists for others like themselves. At each stop, they dissect public attitudes about autism and issue a hopeful challenge to reconsider competency and the future. Along the way, they reunite with old friends from the USA, expand the isolated world of a talented young painter and make new allies in their cause.

6.6

How to Dance in Ohio

Jan 25, 2015

In Columbus, Ohio, a group of autistic teenagers and young adults role-play this transition by going through the deceptively complex social interactions of preparing for a spring formal. Focusing on several young women as they go through an iconic American rite of passage, we are given intimate access to people who are often unable to share their experiences with others. With humor and heartbreak, How to Dance in Ohio shows the daily courage of people facing their fears and opening themselves to the pain, worry, and joy of the social world.

Best and Most Beautiful Things

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

Best and Most Beautiful Things Trailers

Cast

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