Perhaps more than any other director working right now, Luca Guadagnino understands that fucking is one of humanity’s greatest motivators, dictating nearly every aspect of our lives, it’s consequences rippling forever through our relationships, ourRead Full Review
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
What are the foundations of an oppressive regime? Paranoia, complicity, fear. Whether you’re on the side of the oppressor or the oppressed, those three factors are always present. Mohammad Rasoulof’s latest film, The Seed of theRead Full Review
Gladiator II
There are legacy sequels and then there is Gladiator II. Ridley Scott returns as director, as do several clips from the Best Picture winner of 2000, in case you were wondering about the connection. Scott’s ownRead Full Review
The Piano Lesson
In the latest stage of Denzel Washington’s career, canonizing the work of August Wilson appears to be of great importance. Washington himself directed and starred in the 2016 adaptation of Fences, while drafting stage director GeorgeRead Full Review
Blitz
They just gave Richard Curtis an honorary Oscar last weekend, and if he had directed Blitz, it would be the best movie that he ever made. But he didn’t make Blitz, Steve McQueen did, and there liesRead Full Review
Dahomey
Mati Diop’s Dahomey is a visually arresting and intellectually heady documentary about twenty-six pieces of art being returned to Africa. The items were seized by French soldiers in 1892 from what was then the nation ofRead Full Review
All We Imagine As Light
In the urban streets of Mumbai, people cram together in search of the life that modernity promises. But what if that promise is false? All We Imagine As Light is a tenderly told story about twoRead Full Review
Emilia Pérez
The good thing about French artists across all mediums is that they attack projects with an intellectual rigor that instills in them a confidence that they can tackle any subject matter. This is also oneRead Full Review
A Real Pain
What is the pain referenced in the title of A Real Pain? Our main characters are depressive, though they show it in completely different ways. They’re visiting Poland to partake in a days-long tour of Holocaust rememberence.Read Full Review
Small Things Like These
Claire Keegan’s fiction is riddled with silences pregnant with foreboding. The rural Irish settings of her books contain characters weathered into submission, accepting the things they cannot change, which is almost everything. In Small Things LikeRead Full Review
Juror #2
Three years between film projects feels like an eternity for Clint Eastwood. His prolific output both in front and behind the camera ran steady for sixty years up until 2021’s Cry Macho. At that point, ClintRead Full Review
No Other Land
I don’t think of this as a spoiler, but be aware: Near the end of No Other Land, there’s a title card that gives the audience a desperate, sinking feeling. At this point you’ve already watched ninety minutesRead Full Review
Conclave
In the realms of “they just don’t make ’em like this anymore”, Conclave stands proud. A deeply engrossing and profoundly silly suspense film set in the Sistine Chapel, director Edward Berger shifts from the vast andRead Full Review
Anora
If Sean Baker wasn’t such an exceptional filmmaker, his interest in sex work as the narrative catalyst of his films would feel like an uncomfortable fetish. Since 2012’s Starlet, all of his films have dealt with sexRead Full Review
We Live in Time
There were rumblings last year when darling indie distributor A24 put out into the trades that they were beginning to look into more mainstream, commercial projects. In a little over a decade, they’ve put out someRead Full Review
The Outrun
At just 30 years old, Saoirse Ronan has already established a sterling reputation as an actor who can “do anything”. Nominated as an adolescent for her precocious performance in Atonement, she’s only capitalized on her potential inRead Full Review
Saturday Night
This year marks fifty years of Saturday Night Live on NBC, a live sketch comedy show that has survived dynastic political and cultural shifts, wild fluctuation in performance talent, and endless accusations of being “not funnyRead Full Review
A Different Man
It’s kind of a miracle that a film like A Different Man – an elliptical, analytical film the persistently prods it’s audience with moral and ethical questions – can also be such a compelling drama. OurRead Full Review
Will & Harper
Will & Harper is a film going for a broad audience and delivering mass messaging. Its cause is righteous and its motivations pure. The movie’s premise is simple: two longtime friends, one of which hasRead Full Review
Megalopolis
The journey of Megalopolis to the screen is astonishing. So much so it almost feels impossible that it would produce a mediocre film. Yet, here we are. Francis Ford Coppola called his shot in 2020, in anRead Full Review
The Wild Robot
Imagine, if you will, a movie for children that truly captures the full scope of everything that cinema has to offer, that doesn’t condescend to them with immature humor or overprotect them by hiding painful realities.Read Full Review
The Substsance
If there is one thing that stands out about the Cannes hit The Substance – well, apart from how gross it is – is it’s blistering rage. French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat does not have the inclinationRead Full Review
Rebel Ridge
Filmmaker Jeremy Saulnier wears a lot of hats in Rebel Ridge. He’s the writer and director, the producer, and the editor. He’s certainly not the first person to do all of these things on his movie,Read Full Review
His Three Daughters
The implacable tone of an Azazel Jacobs film – comedies tinged with melancholy, where moods swing inconsistently and dollops of surreality pierce the heightened exterior – is a very difficult balancing act. So difficult, inRead Full Review
Close Your Eyes
It’s been over thirty years since the last Victor Erice film. Considered to be among the greatest Spanish filmmakers of all time, his latest, Close Your Eyes, is only the fourth film he’s ever made. HisRead Full Review
Between the Temples
Many try to recreate the arch whimsy of Hal Ashby, a director whose offbeat comedies feel wholly singular even with all the imitators that have followed him. Wes Anderson has spun that quirky sensitivity intoRead Full Review
Sing Sing
When you get a movie like Sing Sing, which blends elements of narrative and documentary filmmaking, there can be a tension between the two disciplines as they fight against each other. It’s not always as seamlessRead Full Review
The Instigators
You don’t have to get too far into The Instigators before you realize just how low a priority it is for everyone involved. The movie stars Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, two actors whose canonical BostonRead Full Review
Good One
With a debut film, it’s easy to credit influence. You could watch India Donaldson’s Good One and notice that it’s all-natural set pieces and lived-in performances recall the earthy existentialism of Kelly Reichardt; or you may pegRead Full Review
Dìdi
Sean Wang’s Dìdi is a pretty standard coming-of-age indie dramedy. Think Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade meets Bing Liu’s Minding the Gap. The beats all have the familiarity of films you’ve seen from Rebel Without a Cause to Armageddon Time.Read Full Review
Twisters
Twisters is something less than a remake and something more than a sequel. It carries over none of the characters from the 1996 film Twister, but its spirit – and structure – recalls the regality of theRead Full Review
Longlegs
Now that we’ve retired the idea of “elevated horror” – a popular expression in the early 10’s, when exciting filmmakers started excelling within the genre – what to make of a film like Longlegs? Released by Neon, the latestRead Full Review
Green Border
In Green Border, director Agnieszka Holland is attempting to show us the wide swath of human behavior, from the inhumanly cruel to the generously kind, and everything in between. The film is set against the Polish-BelarusianRead Full Review
Kinds of Kindness
Yorgos Lanthimos achieving mainstream success in Hollywood probably seemed like a long shot if you were watching his 2009 film Dogtooth. That film, graphically violent and sexually explicit, got a miraculous Oscar nomination for Best International Feature atRead Full Review
The Bikeriders
In The Bikeriders, we have the return of Jeff Nichols, a director whose steady hand was behind several great films from the 2010s, including Take Shelter and Loving, his previous film. It’s been eight years since Loving, a movie thatRead Full Review
Janet Planet
“Every second of my life is hell,” states Lacy, an eleven-year-old girl living with her mother, Janet. Earlier in Janet Planet – the directorial debut from Pulitzer-winning playwright Annie Baker – Lacy calls Janet from aRead Full Review
Robot Dreams
The beauty of simplicity is that recreating it in art actually takes a good amount of complexity. Truly affecting the wonder of the everyday takes commitment and skill. Pablo Berger’s Robot Dreams is a testament toRead Full Review
Hit Man
When we bemoan the loss of “real” movie stars, what we’re really yearning after are performances like Glen Powell’s in Hit Man. It’s not just that we want to see our favorite big screen crush inRead Full Review
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
If Mad Max: Fury Road felt like so much more than a legacy sequel, that’s because it was. Perhaps it was the abundant trend in the 10’s of rebooting every stitch of franchise IP that madeRead Full Review
The Fall Guy
Ah, the movies. You gotta love ’em. Director David Leitch is a stuntman turned filmmaker, and his films have always had a self-referential wonder with their own existence. It’s never been more explicit than it isRead Full Review
I Saw The TV Glow
I Saw the TV Glow, the latest film from Jane Schoenbrun, is perhaps the most quintessentially millennial film ever made. Its fondness for the unhinged television programming of the 90s and 00s goes beyond nostalgia.Read Full Review
Evil Does Not Exist
Attempting to properly tell a story that fully encapsulates our ecological moment is a daunting task. Say what you will about Paul Schrader’s First Reformed – I find its ideas fully cooked but its narrative underwhelmingRead Full Review
Challengers
It’s pretty common for sports movies – the good ones, anyway – to use said sport as a metaphor for what the characters are going through off the field. It’s a standard screenwriting conceit, practicallyRead Full Review
Civil War
Alex Garland has never been a political artist, though politics are often hovering uncomfortably in the background of his films. He prefers the intimacy of immediate experience, but his scripts – both the ones he’sRead Full Review
Monkey Man
The promotional materials for Monkey Man want you to think of John Wick. You can say this about the promotional materials about any action movie nowadays, but with this film we get some direct parallels, including theRead Full Review
The Beast
There’s always a risk when making a film as wide-ranging as The Beast, an intentionally strange and melodramatic film about the most common of human emotions. A magnum opus about the constant battle between love andRead Full Review
La Chimera
Alice Rohrwacher is creating in a league of her own. Her narratives possess a deceptive formlessness that requires an amount of commitment from the audience. If you don’t lean into the romantic idiosyncrasies of her storiesRead Full Review
Problemista
When A24 decided to market Problemista, they chose to emphasize its idiosyncrasies, as if writer-director Julio Torres was a Gen Z Charlie Kaufman. This seems to be the best way for any indie distributor looking toRead Full Review
Love Lies Bleeding
Movies as thoroughly – and earnestly – horny as Love Lies Bleeding don’t get made very often anymore. And much has been written about how they don’t get made very often anymore. I don’t think that directorRead Full Review
Dune: Part Two
If 2021’s Dune feels more like a commercial for a sequel than its own complete story, it’s because it was just Denis Villenueve’s proof-of-concept, a cinematic argument that the sequel was actually possible. It was onlyRead Full Review