The Safdie brothers universe is somewhere in between the gritty verité of 70’s William Friedkin and the neon pastiche of 80’s Michael Mann, and yet their films always escape feeling derivative. Their singular vision isRead Full Review

There are few characters in Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and scant dialogue. Feelings are expressed through glances and averted eyes, passion is displayed through slight, nearly imperceptible acts – the touch of a hand,Read Full Review

The main detective in Knives Out – Rian Johnson’s masterful whodunit murder mystery – is man named Benoit Blanc. Blanc speaks in a hilariously affected Southern American drawl (at separate points he’s referred to as ColonelRead Full Review

The two characters at the heart of Queen & Slim don’t really like each other in the beginning. They’re on a Tinder date and they’re eating in a run-of-the-mill Cleveland diner. He orders breakfast (his eggsRead Full Review

Dark Waters, on the surface, may seem like a departure for director Todd Haynes, whose films more often cover transgressive subject matter with striking, conceptual filmmaking. His latest is a legal thriller, a ripped-from-the-headlines story aboutRead Full Review

The casting of Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers seems a bit like a stunt, a stacking of one famously decent person atop another. The announcement of Hanks’ casting in Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in theRead Full Review

Inspiration. Creation. Sharing. These are the three things that legendary filmmaker Agnès Varda cites as most important in her creative career. Varda passed away in March of this year, two months before her 91st birthday. VardaRead Full Review

Despite its title, Ford v Ferrari is less a tale about a storied Twentieth Century battle between two titanic auto manufacturers – it is partially about that – but more a showdown between strident male egos, allRead Full Review

Throughout the three feature films by Trey Edward Shults, families face tragedy and trauma, in both past and present tense. They seek survival, and sometimes they find it. Sometimes, uncovered truths only bring further pain,Read Full Review

Marriage Story is the most violent movie that I’ve seen this year. Its characters are measured, intelligent, nice people turned ruthless by the anxiety of a divorce lawsuit. This is the latest release from NoahRead Full Review

Is there a more courageous story in American history than Harriet Tubman’s? You’d be hard pressed to find one. Her struggle and sacrifice speak to the best and worst of this country’s history, and yet,Read Full Review

I admire the fact that there isn’t any version of “Based on Real Events” in or around Martin Scorsese’s latest feature, The Irishman. The robust new film is filled with the recollections of a man namedRead Full Review

Nazi comedies are a bit of a third rail as far as mainstream comedies are concerned. To the extent that a few of them have been successful (The Great Dictator, The Producers, to a certain degree Inglourious Basterds),Read Full Review

It’s tradition for storied filmmakers to look back later in life, and craft something “autobiographical”, though Pedro Almodóvar has seldom been described as traditional. Pain & Glory catches the Spanish filmmaker at his most reflective, following anRead Full Review

The satire at the heart of Parasite is not a difficult one to parse. Its ideas are shouted pretty clearly, even bluntly. In a way, the film is almost about the limits of satire, its inabilityRead Full Review

It feels odd to call a film like The Lighthouse beautiful. After all, it takes such refuge in its unseemliness. Its imagery is bleak, soiled and occasionally violent. But director Robert Eggers (The Witch) knows exactlyRead Full Review

The arrival of Eddie Murphy in Dolemite is My Name has an exciting ring to it. It is both a return for Murphy toward more dangerous, R-rated comedy as well as a platform to showcase theRead Full Review

Where’s My Roy Cohn? features several interviews with the title figure, Roy Marcus Cohn. Cohn was a very media savvy figure, and more importantly he liked to be in front of a camera. Bombastic andRead Full Review

Ad Astra is a perfect illustration of the paradox of Brad Pitt. He’s a born movie star who wishes desperately to be a serious character actor. He prefers idiosyncratic characters, to show off a range thatRead Full Review

The women in Hustlers want independence more than anything – independence from men, specifically. They have no problem working for men – or working them over – but the film goes out of its way to showRead Full Review

The billionaire family at the center of Ready or Not made their fortune from games. As the patriarch explains in a monologue near the beginning of the film, what started with one man selling playing cardsRead Full Review

Who is Luce? You can watch the entirety of Luce, the new film from Nigerian filmmaker Julius Onah, and not really have a solid clue. The title character from this film is a touted high schoolRead Full Review

Quentin Tarantino is now part of the Hollywood elite that he used to fantasize about. The very films and filmmakers that he used to skewer and homage are now his peers, even the dead ones. HeRead Full Review

I don’t think the existence of this “live action” (“live CGI”?) version of The Lion King means that Disney thinks it has improved upon the original 1994 film. That movie is one of Disney’s definitive masterpieces,Read Full Review

Everybody knows that they’re going to die. This knowledge accounts for a lot in life; some good, most bad. Our daily existence depends on how much we ignore it, planning for tomorrows that aren’t guaranteed.Read Full Review

The roles of men within The Art of Self-Defense are all dual caricature: frightened nancy boys and fierce, strapping burlymen. Even a dog, a small dachshund with sorrowful eyes, is framed as an anxious coward. Another oneRead Full Review

I remember a previous decade when Pixar was considered to be the best of the major Hollywood studios. The only mainstream film company interested in making consistently good films, who cloaked deep, moving stories withinRead Full Review

Ari Aster’s last two films – last year’s Hereditary, and this Summer’s Midsommar – are both bleak, complex stories about the human mind’s ability to process horror. Not simply odes to the horror genre (though they areRead Full Review

Late Night is a movie about a talk show host who is told several times to embrace political tension in order to make her show more relevant. It’s telling that the film doesn’t accept thisRead Full Review

The main character in Wild Rose – played with great charm and grit by newcomer Jessie Buckley – loves country music. A young Scottish woman just released from a twelve-month prison sentence, she is not yourRead Full Review

I fear that the audience for this documentary – a fantastic film which focuses on the life and impact of one of America’s greatest Twentieth Century literary figures – will not expand much further past fans ofRead Full Review

A legend within American independent cinema, writer-director Jim Jarmusch has gained that reputation because of his penchant for unique, often odd experiments in narrative filmmaking. His interest in examining characters or story is often missing,Read Full Review

Occasionally you see a film so stunning, so beautiful that it stops you in your tracks. The Last Black Man in San Francisco is that kind of film. Awash in gorgeous colors and evocative imagery, thisRead Full Review

The mythology built within 2014’s John Wick felt so overwhelmingly refreshing. There was a simplicity to it: its protagonist was a ferocious man, known for being an unstoppable killing machine while also being equally un-killable. AndRead Full Review

The concept of ‘one crazy night’ high school films has become one of Hollywood’s greatest fantasies. It taps into the imaginations of different people and age groups, so it makes sense that they keep gettingRead Full Review

There’s a gulf in The Souvenir that lies between the clarity with which the film views the troubled relationship at its center, and the ways in which its characters distort their reality to imagine a normalityRead Full Review

Trading in on the kind of nostalgia that Pokémon Detective Pikachu shamelessly languishes in should be more of a turn-off than it ultimately is. The film is working overtime to generate feelings from 90’s kids (which, full disclosure,Read Full Review

The lure of a movie like Under the Silver Lake – the new thriller-comedy from David Robert Mitchell, which is busting at the seams with LA noir allusions – is in what it denies its audience.Read Full Review

If reducing half of your characters to dust felt like a radical way to end Avengers: Infinity War than its immediate follow-up, Endgame, will give you an even greater feeling of misdirection. From the very start, Endgame expertlyRead Full Review