|
|
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1
(2024)
|
Aja Romano
|
It wouldn’t be an American dream if it weren’t giant, over the top, and fueled less by reason than by sentiment.
Posted Jul 01, 2024
|
|
|
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
(2024)
|
Aja Romano
|
Thanks to a strong ensemble cast, incredible action scenes and production values, and a high-stakes, high-concept chase that lasted for most of the run time, the film gave depth and beauty to its brutal post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Posted May 25, 2024
|
|
|
Luce
(2019)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
It’s a tense, sometimes incendiary movie that constantly challenges its audience. You never know who has the upper hand in any conversation, or who is telling the truth.
Posted May 21, 2024
|
|
|
Back to Black
(2024)
|
Kyndall Cunningham
|
Back to Black adds up to nothing more than Daily Mail headlines.
Posted May 21, 2024
|
|
|
Civil War
(2024)
|
Zack Beauchamp
|
Once you understand that Civil War isn’t about what you think, you can appreciate it for what it actually is: a searing meditation on what happens when political orders collapse and violence takes on a sinister logic of its own.
Posted Apr 13, 2024
|
|
|
This Is Me... Now: A Love Story
(2024)
|
Kyndall Cunningham
|
This Is Me… Now is a statement of Lopez’s cultural resilience, if not just her ability to rebound from a bad relationship and find herself in another attention-grabbing power couple.
Posted Feb 20, 2024
|
|
|
Anyone But You
(2023)
|
Alex Abad-Santos
|
The movie is bad, but the chemistry: It’s good.
Posted Dec 21, 2023
|
|
|
American Fiction
(2023)
|
Constance Grady
|
Debut director Cord Jefferson handles the satire of this premise with a feather-light touch. In Jefferson’s hands, it’s clear that Monk has a point when he rails about the blind spots of the publishing industry.
Posted Dec 11, 2023
|
|
|
Poor Things
(2023)
|
Constance Grady
|
Bella is an enormously lovable character, a fitting heart for this lovable movie from one of our prickliest directors.
Posted Dec 08, 2023
|
|
|
Wonka
(2023)
|
Esther Zuckerman
|
Just like Willy’s new friends, you’re swept up by his optimism, as well as the delicate touches King brings to every scenario.
Posted Dec 04, 2023
|
|
|
Leave the World Behind
(2023)
|
Constance Grady
|
Esmail’s characters are blinded by a different kind of bourgeois comfort food, one that only comes into focus in the film’s final, biting, and deeply satisfying sequence.
Posted Nov 21, 2023
|
|
|
Thanksgiving
(2023)
|
Aja Romano
|
You can’t have well-done social satire without follow-through, and Roth ultimately isn’t aiming his darts where he should be.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
|
|
|
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
(2023)
|
Alex Abad-Santos
|
Remarkably, Songbirds & Snakes has found a way to make the Hunger Games feel new and sharp.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
|
|
|
Priscilla
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
Priscilla is not a “biopic” about Priscilla Presley; it’s a memoir. It is a story told not about, but through its main subject.
Posted Nov 13, 2023
|
|
|
The Marvels
(2023)
|
Alex Abad-Santos
|
The Marvels maintains its structure and doesn’t try to function as a springboard to the next Marvel movie or television show. The Marvels gets the space to let the characters just be themselves and for us to better understand what makes them heroes.
Posted Nov 10, 2023
|
|
|
The Exorcist: Believer
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
As a film, it’s at best serviceable, stronger in its world-building than in its climactic exorcism and nowhere near as unnerving as the original.
Posted Oct 06, 2023
|
|
|
Woman of the Hour
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
Woman of the Hour smartly weaves into the narrative the many ways in which women are conditioned to put up with men.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
|
|
|
Wildcat
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
A dreamy movie that evokes O’Connor’s biggest project: an inquiry into the broken nature of grace.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
|
|
|
The Teachers' Lounge
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
The Teachers’ Lounge starts to feel like a high-stakes thriller, with no need to teach a lesson beyond the limits of do-gooder idealism. The deliciously twisted turns are enough to keep viewers riveted.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
|
|
|
Songs of Earth
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
A remarkable, poetic meditation, Songs of Earth weaves the smallness of human lifespan into the grandness of the earth’s history, and does it all with unspeakable beauty.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
|
|
|
Sleep
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
Jason Yu crafts a twisty delight that leaves you doubting what you’re seeing and wondering what to believe right till the last moment.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
|
|
|
Shayda
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
Noora Niasari’s drama slowly builds into a thriller, and Ebrahimi’s enthralling performance coaxes us to lean in.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
|
|
|
The Royal Hotel
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
It’s a thriller, and an uncomfortable one, in which dangers lurk around corners so common that we sometimes forget how dangerous they really are.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
|
|
|
The Pigeon Tunnel
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
It’s much richer than a mere biographical documentary, fascinating even to those who haven’t read Cornwall’s work.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
|
|
|
Perfect Days
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
Perfect Days is a poem of extraordinary subtlety and beauty.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
|
|
|
Pain Hustlers
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
Pain Hustlers manages to be lively and moving, while also illuminating exactly how broken the American health care system is and how all of us are caught in its claws.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
|
|
|
The Mission
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
It’s a troubling, smart, must-see documentary.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
|
|
|
Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
It’s about as far from pedantic as you can get, instead giving viewers a long, gentle glimpse into the superior craft of the Troisgros chefs and the hospitality they hold out to those who visit them.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
|
|
|
Janet Planet
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
The kind of luminous portrait of a summer where nothing happens and yet everything happens.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
|
|
|
Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
First-time feature director Phạm Thiên Ân, and his deeply religious inquiry aims to crack open the trap by forcing Thiện, and the audience, into a confrontation with eternity itself.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
|
|
|
In the Rearview
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
An extraordinary film.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
|
|
|
The Holdovers
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
It’s a lighthearted film on the surface, but themes of grief, loss, and the fear of mortality for teenage boys who know they might be drafted and sent to Vietnam at any moment run beneath the beat of the plot.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
|
|
|
Hit Man
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
I’s just fun to watch good old-fashioned comedy in which love, danger, and happy endings are all part of a damn fine evening at the movies.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
|
|
|
His Three Daughters
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
Writer and director Azazel Jacobs unspools the family’s story little by little, exploring the absurd humor of deathbeds and the meaning of memory and grief with extraordinary love.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
|
|
|
Gasoline Rainbow
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
Gasoline Rainbow is a joyous movie for everyone who’s ever sought community and found it waiting for them where they least expect it.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
|
|
|
Fingernails
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
Director Christos Nikou turns the premise into a subtle meditation on how different every partnership’s story is and the result is both kind and thought-provoking.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
|
|
|
Fallen Leaves
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
Aki Kaurismäki’s deadpan dark comedy dips with style and just a hint of weird whimsy into the lives of his working-class characters, and the tableaux he crafts give off the whiff of a Finnish spin on Hopper’s alienated figures.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
|
|
|
Evil Does Not Exist
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
Evil isn’t some disembodied thing, in Hamaguchi’s worldview: it’s something embodied by humans, who can choose whether they’ll fight it or just give in.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
|
|
|
Dream Scenario
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
Director Kristoffer Borgli’s comedy Dream Scenario makes joking feints toward being “about” cancel culture or internet fame, but it’s pretty clear he doesn’t have a particular ax to grind.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
|
|
|
The Boy and the Heron
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
The Boy and the Heron revisits many of Miyazaki’s themes — loneliness, fear, sorrow — with his signature imagination and underlying reflection of Japanese history.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
|
|
|
Days of Happiness
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
Days of Happiness examines familiar territory — the musician battling her demons — but with a fresh, engaging touch.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
|
|
|
American Fiction
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
It’s an extremely funny movie that lands some sharp blows, and a stellar feature debut from seasoned TV writer Cord Jefferson.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
|
|
|
All of Us Strangers
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
Emotional and lyrical, All of Us Strangers is a meditation on what it means to really be a human.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
|
|
|
Dumb Money
(2023)
|
Emily Stewart
|
The movie is well-executed, exhilarating, and captures the tenor of the times.
Posted Sep 15, 2023
|
|
|
Oppenheimer
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
Nolan’s Oppenheimer barely qualifies as a biopic... Instead it’s a movie investigating the nature of power: how it is created, how it is kept in balance, and how it leads people into murky quandaries that refuse simplistic answers.
Posted Jul 21, 2023
|
|
|
Barbie
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
in Gerwig’s hands, along with her co-writer Noah Baumbach, it’s sly and just about as subversive as a movie can be.
Posted Jul 21, 2023
|
|
|
Elemental
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
The best thing about Elemental is that it looks incredible.
Posted Jun 16, 2023
|
|
|
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
(2023)
|
Alex Abad-Santos
|
It challenges ideas about great power and responsibility, stories about the worlds we live in and the things we’re searching for, and our concepts of heroism and morality.
Posted Jun 01, 2023
|
|
|
Youth (Spring)
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
This is less a social-issue documentary and more about an extreme existential poignance... These are young people in the prime years of their lives, but without the means or mobility to move forward, living years of monotony without a break.
Posted May 31, 2023
|
|
|
Strange Way of Life
(2023)
|
Alissa Wilkinson
|
Strange Way of Life is not really a very good film; Hawke and Pascal deliver the mannered lines with discomfort, and there’s not much to grab onto.
Posted May 31, 2023
|
>