Bad-on-purpose is, flatly, not my thing. Films that actively court the notoriety of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode always reek of desperation, an embarrassing attempt to reverse engineer cinematic infamy. Cocaine Bear is working within thisRead Full Review

The creative success of 2015’s Creed is a result of director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordan perfectly measuring Creed’s character arc against the mythos of Rocky. Rocky Balboa and Adonis Creed have little in common asRead Full Review

There’s a simplicity to the story and the characters throughout The Quiet Girl that could possibly misdirect your expectations. In a tight 94 minutes, writer-director Colm Bairéad manages to exact a wealth of suspense and feeling,Read Full Review

The literary legacy of the Brontë sisters has sustained itself for centuries. Their novels and poetry are amongst the most well known in the world. Emily Brontë, the author of Wuthering Heights, is the most mercurial.Read Full Review

It’s indicative of Steven Soderbergh that each film in the Magic Mike franchise distinguishes itself against the one that came before it. Soderbergh has done this before, with Ocean’s Eleven and its two subsequent sequels. Despite hisRead Full Review

When Walt Whitman declared “I contain multitudes”, it was a defiant statement of personhood that contained a solidity of purpose and place; but containing these multitudes can often be a burden. Such is the caseRead Full Review

Mia Hansen-Løve has made no secret about the autobiographical nature of her films. If anything, it seems to be a point of pride. Her films have a kind of frank, episodic nature that might remind youRead Full Review

The central conceit of Alcarràs – a Catalan family that runs a peach orchard in rural Spain faces the existential threat of globalization when their owner wants to convert their land into a plot of solarRead Full Review

Over time, the Belgian film industry has developed a well-earned reputation for grim slice-of-life dramas that examine the granular aspects of domestic ennui. Writer-director Lukas Dhont is a follower in that tradition, though his twoRead Full Review

The story of Medea, the sorceress from Greek mythology, is of a spurned woman who killed her children. On paper, this sounds like the worst crime imaginable. As the title character in Euripedes’ most famous play,Read Full Review

“What would happen if Noah Baumbach got $100 million to make a movie?” is a question that, more likely than not, you’d expect to stay as a hypothetical. Thanks to Netflix, this thought exercise becomes aRead Full Review

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s uber-humanist approach to storytelling has produced some of the best films of the last twenty-five years, but his penchant for melodrama and sentimentality can sometimes lead him astray. His best films (like After Life or StillRead Full Review

As Babylon winds down to its end – a conclusion that manages to be both sentimental and ostentatious – it seems to be making a case for the end of movies. Or, more specifically, that the “endRead Full Review

It’s said that limitations can fuel creativity. No living filmmaker has taken more credence in that theory than Iranian director Jafar Panahi, a filmmaker whose persistence and prolific output hasn’t ceased even after being legallyRead Full Review

The face of Bill Nighy is a character actor’s dream. Expressive, handsome, slightly devilish, Nighy has used that face (and his expansive, wiry frame) to great success in his decades-long career, which has seen himRead Full Review

We all know what to expect of a royal biopic. The vast, sweeping palaces. Complex, ornate clothing. Rigid interiority thinly veiling robust emotion. Whether by design or by necessity of a limited budget, Corsage sidesteps a lotRead Full Review

The last time we had a new Sarah Polley was all the way back in 2013, when her documentary Stories We Tell laid bare the secrets that lie within her family. That film was tinged withRead Full Review

When he’s in between films, it does always feel like we’ve lost James Cameron to his infatuations. His submarine expeditions to explore the wreckage of the Titanic is still one of his great obsessions all theseRead Full Review

Empire of Light is a movie that has a lot of reverence for the more granular details of cinema. Yes, it takes place in a movie house and you often see the marquee lit upRead Full Review

Samuel D. Hunter’s play The Whale is a work brimming with so much self-hatred that you can almost forgive the complete lack of care it takes with its delicate subject matter. Almost. The subjectivity of itsRead Full Review

2022 has been a historically lucrative year for naval aviation dramas. Well, for one movie anyway. Top Gun: Maverick has made over a billion dollars worldwide since its release on Memorial Day weekend, a triumph that feltRead Full Review

David Foster Wallace once famously claimed that “every love story is a ghost story”. Like many of Wallace’s quotes, it’s a romantic gesture flush with alternate meanings. I don’t think of Joanna Hogg as a DavidRead Full Review

The Inspection excels at subverting your expectation. We have our notions about a US Marine Basic Training drama, and that notion gets even more narrow when you learn that the protagonist is a queer characterRead Full Review

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is part biography, part protest, part photo slideshow. The protagonist is groundbreaking photographer Nan Goldin, whose life is a constant battle between the hardships of her past, the emotionalRead Full Review

Perhaps the most notorious line in the Lennon-penned Beatles song “Glass Onion” is “Well, here’s another clue for you all… the walrus was Paul”. The lyric is considered a smoking gun confession in the deepRead Full Review

The empire of Harvey Weinstein was built upon the idea of prestige. Weinstein and Miramax were a symbol of high artistic standard – in simpler terms, he ran successful Oscar campaigns. While his brother Bob reeledRead Full Review

In the annals of doomed Hollywood epics, the production of Wakanda Forever has to be up there. After suffering the death of its main star Chadwick Boseman in 2020 – a presumably insurmountable hurdle for any movie –Read Full Review

Luca Guadagnino is far from the first director to make the connection between romance and violence, and to equate the rush both can give to a person. Bones and All has a lot of carnage throughout, butRead Full Review

EO follows the existence of a stoic donkey who performs in a Polish circus. EO is the name of the film but it’s also the name of the donkey itself, whose life is in constant flux betweenRead Full Review

The extravagances of fine dining are ripe for skewering. Chefs who fancy themselves geniuses – crafting plates that more closely resemble modern art than an edible meal – reach a level of pretension that canRead Full Review

In a year filled with auteurs making their autobiographical films, Bardo certainly stands out. If James Gray’s Armageddon Time is a New Hollywood-style exploration of the troubled domestic ethics within the Reagan era and Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans is a wide-eyedRead Full Review

The name ‘Steven Spielberg’ is synonymous with the best in Hollywood filmmaking. Other than Hitchcock, Spielberg’s name may be the first most people think of when they think of “movie director”. We are getting closeRead Full Review

The meteoric rise of Jennifer Lawrence was so fast and furious that it’s difficult to remember that it all started with a tiny independent film called Winter’s Bone. Soon after Bone got her the first of herRead Full Review

There’s a moment early in Holy Spider, Ali Abbasi’s new murder suspense film, where a news report about 9/11 plays on a television while a man has sex with a prostitute in the next room. It’sRead Full Review

Henry Selick has directed a lot of animated films that you love, though you may not know it. James and the Giant Peach, Coraline, and his most famous film, The Nightmare Before Christmas have become so intertwinedRead Full Review

New York City is essential to the films of James Gray, where the outer boroughs provide a home for his various downtrodden characters. His last two films – The Lost City of Z and Ad Astra –Read Full Review

The story of Emmett Till is a tragedy that has haunted several generations. His senseless murder at the hands of white men in Money, Mississippi caused a major shift in American politics which crescendoed in the CivilRead Full Review

The characters in The Banshees of Inisherin do not behave logically. In a way, the entire plot is pushed forward by inexplicable behavior by some and absolute befuddlement by others. As you watch, you may find yourselfRead Full Review