Stay (2005) poster
2005 · mystery · thriller · drama

Stay

Directed by Marc Forster1h 39m2005
ElsewhereIMDb6.792kRT26%Metacritic41
  • heavy
  • extreme
  • twisty
Movie DNA

Heavy, steady, extreme mystery / thriller, inventive in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

Psychiatrist Sam Foster has a new patient, Henry Letham, who claims to be suicidal. In trying to diagnose him, Sam visits Henry's prior therapist and also finds Henry's mother -- even though Henry has said that he murdered both of his parents. As reality starts to contradict fact, Sam spirals into an unstable mental state. Then he finds a clue as to how and when Henry may try to kill himself, and races to try to stop him.

Our read · Stay (2005) reads as a heavy, steady, inventive mystery · thriller · drama entry — extreme in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of Stay

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want a mind-bending psychological puzzle that rewards close watching.

ends ambiguousit leaves you shakenbuilds to a gut-punch finalegrips by minute 30attention 5/5earns its length
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upsuicide themestrobe

Skip it tonightFrustrating ambiguous finales leave you angry rather than intrigued.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Nearest by DNA

Eight films that read most like this one.

Closeness in the twelve-axis space — how the film actually reads, not “people also liked.”

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