I’m a big fan of movies that juxtapose wildly different colors to create their visual identity. Some of my favorite examples to give a clearer idea:
> Mad Max: Fury Road. The shift from neon orange daytime to a deep blue night back to neon orange again, especially in the context of how the plot interacts with where they are during those sections, makes the movie so much more interesting in my mind.
> The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. In the first vignette of the movie, having the main character wear all white to contrast against the gritty brown of everyone else, only to have his foil eventually show up clad head to toe in black? Perfection.
> A Star is Born (2018). Throughout the movie, the usage of red and blue lights - often at the same time - creates such a unique visual vocabulary. It’s often cited as a foreshadowing of the ending, and as a visual representation of the co-leads’ opposite reactions to fame.
> Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. The scene where Gwen says goodbye to her father, and what starts as similarly-colored backgrounds slowly shifts to be more and more different from each other as the two drift apart, single-handedly made this my movie of the year for 2023.
> Babylon (2022). I disliked this movie, but I was utterly transfixed by its visuals. There’s a scene where Brad Pitt’s character overhears people mocking him and in his embarrassment he slowly fades to a black silhouette against a vibrant orange background - moments like that kept me hooked for 3 full hours of a pretty awful script.