Bill Goodykoontz

Moonlight is a minor miracle, a movie that mines beauty out of the ugliest situations, and a glimmer of hope from heartbreak.

Nothing is off the table when your status is threatened, no matter what your station in life. Parasite explores this in stunning fashion.

Of course, you could just watch this for the performances and it would still be one of the best movies of the year. But why sell yourself short? Watch it for everything that it is, a kind of miraculously unearthed treasure trove of music and politics and culture and soul. So much soul.

It doesn’t offer anything new to the genre, but chugs along pretty well until the plot holes begin to pile up.

The acting is outstanding, the direction assured if straightforward. 12 Years a Slave is a history lesson of the best type. It’s brilliant. But, more crucially, it’s important. It’s brutal truth that demands to be seen.

Manchester by the Sea is a masterpiece in a minor key, an exploration of grief that never lets its characters — or its audience — off the hook. It manages this even when it’s funny, which is surprisingly often.

It is a remarkable achievement.

One of the creepiest horror films ever. [24 July 2009, p.2]

The whole movie is amazing.

It's one of the best movies of the year, one of the best entries ever in the Way We Live Now oeuvre.

Its importance lies in Baldwin’s insistence on exposing truths, many of them uncomfortable, many of them more urgent than ever.

Riva, meanwhile, is astounding, not just in the way she portrays the physical manifestation of her decline, particularly later in the film, but also earlier, when she knows she is fading and does not wish to do so. The look in her eyes, the sadness in her face, is crushing.

A great movie, an astonishing achievement on nearly every level.

A great movie, a look inside a world so foreign that it might as well be another planet, yet so universal that its observations are painfully familiar to anyone, anywhere.

Carol is a simple story that sneaks up on you. Todd Haynes takes such care in the telling of it — and the gorgeous depiction of it — that it's impossible not to be moved.

Though everyone is older this time around, and the themes are darker, harder to enjoy, the conversation is just as engrossing. So is the film.

Dunkirk is a great movie, both an old-time inspirational war epic and at the same time very much a Christopher Nolan movie.

Brilliant performances from Tom Courtenay and especially Charlotte Rampling make the proceedings all the more genuine, as they bring to piercing life the relationship of two people who maybe don't know as much about each other as they once believed.

This isn't a warts-and-all portrayal. More like a warts-and-little-else one. But it is an inspired film, a beautiful exploration of art and creation and difficulty, with Spall's brilliant performance at its center.

The Irishman is a great movie, easily one of the best of the year, one of the best of the great Martin Scorsese’s career.

Inside Out is terrific, a mind-bending concept turned into a brilliant film, a return to form for Pixar not just in terms of quality but in taking risks — risks that pay off.

Emotionally engaging from the start, bolstered by brilliant performances and held together by Song’s understated direction that weaves timelines together flawlessly, it’s more than just good.

It's powerful stuff.

Call Me by Your Name is a lush, heartbreakingly beautiful film about first love, but also the glories of youth, when everything is new and any number of paths open before you.

Gosling is terrific, playing hangdog and irritable yet still managing to be someone you root for (even if you want to smack him in the head every now and then). Stone is even better. It’s her best performance, and that’s saying something. Their relationship, their chemistry, everything about it, and everything about La La Land is, well, magic.

This is a fully realized film, with a confident eye and lived-in performances. What a treat.

Maren Ade's film, an Oscar nominee for best foreign-language film, is almost painful to watch at times, but it's also funny and touching and reflective of the world, all courtesy of Ade and terrific performances by Peter Simonischek as a goofy father who refuses to act his age and Sandra Hüller as his daughter, as buttoned-up as her dad isn't.

Cinematographer Darius Khondji gives the film a gritty, twitchy feel. The Safdies give it a story and a pace that never lets up. But Sandler gives it life, and makes Uncut Gems a must-see movie. Just remember: breathe.

This is one of the strangest yet most satisfying movie experiences of the year, one of those films in which you can’t really appreciate what you’ve seen until it’s over. You just have to trust that the trip is worth the trouble. And it is.

Blanchett navigates this journey with ferocious power — even as Lydia is losing her own. It sounds like a cliche, but her performance is so believable, so natural, which at times means so disturbing, that it doesn’t seem like she’s acting. She’s just being.

There Will Be Blood is a masterpiece; Daniel Day-Lewis' performance as a ruthless oilman is without flaw.

McCarthy and his brilliant cast make hard work and truth-telling inspiring.

Sometimes infuriating but never depressing, The Florida Project doesn’t just shine a light on people rarely represented in anything but a condescending manner. Instead it brings us into their world and introduces us to its inhabitants in a meaningful way. We care about them.

The Act of Killing is a horrifying film, a surreal experience that explores the limits of human cruelty. It’s a film that is absolutely hard to watch. It’s also a film that absolutely should be seen.

“Never Rarely” is not strident, it doesn’t preach, it doesn’t harangue. Instead it relies on confident direction, brilliant acting and a deceptively straightforward story to make its point. Really, you probably haven’t seen anything like it.

The Zone of Interest, then, serves as a horror story about the past, and a cautionary tale for the present.

A sense of dread hovers over all these characters, and, by extension, the audience. It's in the air of the place, like oxygen. And vodka. Lots of vodka. Yet Zvyagintsev's achievement, or one of them, is creating a film that is not one long downer. It's not exactly a laugh riot, but we do care about these people.

Toy Story 3 is very much a worthy entry in the series, a movie well worth making (and seeing). It continues the legacy. It just doesn't expand upon it.

What Rukun wants, one suspects, is closure. What he gives the rest of us is a face in which to see the pain the butchers caused, a reminder that the architects of a massive tragedy remain present and unrepentant, the personification of the evil men do and a warning that it could happen again.

With Drive My Car, the journey is as satisfying as the destination. It’s great.

Son of Saul offers Nemes' harrowing vision of the possibility of peace, at least within oneself. And it is a singular vision, one that demands to be shared.

Her is an outstanding movie, in part because of its originality, but also because of its execution.

While Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a good movie and a worthy entry, it would have been stronger if Johnson didn’t telegraph those new directions before leading us to them.

What a great movie.

Spare, haunting and in its own way beautiful, Ida is an absorbing film about discovering the truth, and the attendant price we pay to learn it.

Using the interviews along with news footage and occasional re-enactments, Moreh conducts a kind of primer in the organization’s history, which is, in its own way, a history of modern Israel. It’s fascinating.

It’s 3 hours and 35 minutes long (including a 15-minute intermission), and while it’s full and complete, it never drags or feels padded. It is, simply put, a great movie.

Occasionally you see a movie that just satisfies on all fronts — the performances, the direction, the whole package. Even less occasionally you see one that does all that and moves you, too. “The Worst Person in the World” is one of those.

Anderson’s vision of this world, this era, these people, is so winning that you feel a part of it, yet with the removal of an observer. It works. That’s why Licorice Pizza is a blast.

Only Yesterday is a mature work of art, no matter what the genre, no matter what the format, no matter what.

First Cow sneaks up on you a little bit. You become engrossed in these men and their relationship, then their business, then their survival. And that’s definitely not nothing. Far from it, in fact

It is insane. In a good way. Whoever said "Too much is never enough" made an impression on Miller, who uses the phrase as a starting point and blasts off from there.

A genuine triumph, a great movie with astounding performances so natural, so genuine, that you forget it's a movie.

All of Us Strangers, defies easy categorization in the usual fashion. But it’s also easy to place it in one category: that of really, really good movies.

Checking in at nearly three hours and so full of passions and appetites, it’s impossible for it not to exhaust you.

If you’re making a movie about someone with exacting standards, Day-Lewis is your man. Yet what’s so exciting about Anderson and Day-Lewis’ collaborations is that while the actor is always superb, they’re very much the director’s movies. They feed off of one another, creating collaborative works that show off each other’s strengths.

As its title suggests, This Is Not a Film may not be what we're used to in a movie, but in many ways it's much, much more.

It’s powerful, a technically dazzling achievement; so audacious is Nolan’s filmmaking that if it didn’t serve the story you’d think at times he was just showing off. He’s not.

Paterson keeps plugging away, despite the intrusion of some outside forces. Making art is simply part of his makeup, and it makes Paterson a hopeful film.

Genuine, honest, thrilling.

Boasting terrific acting, a brilliant soundtrack, outrageous outfits and hair, and a kinda-sorta based-on-fact story of ambition and greed, it’s relentless, in the best possible way.

The last act takes a couple of turns that rely too heavily on coincidence, but overall Whiplash (the title comes from the name of one of the songs the band plays) hits very few sour notes.

There is strength in simplicity, something the Dardenne brothers' Two Days, One Night and its brilliant star, Marion Cotillard, prove emphatically.

Killers of the Flower Moon is a full-on cinematic experience. It’s rare that a movie that you should see is also one you want to see. This is one.

Minari is as moving as it is entertaining, and it is a lot of both.

This is a man who knows things, and Hawke creates an inspiring platform that allows him to share (at least some of) them.

Marty Supreme is breakneck, it’s nerve wracking and it is above all entertaining as all get out. It makes you eager to see what Chalamet’s going to do next.

It's the best kind of fairy tale — tough, deep and meaningful, with a heroine who stays true to herself in spite of shallow temptations.

The Alto Knights is a good movie, but one that feels like it could have been great. And for what it’s worth, although I’m still not sure why it’s here, De Niro’s Pesci imitation is killer.

The ending is stunning, a brilliant and forceful reclamation that doesn’t necessarily provide answers, but does provide hard-earned satisfaction.

There is not a frame of The Power of the Dog, based on the Thomas Savage novel, that isn’t essential to the movie. This includes the first and certainly the last.

Much of the film is inert, like a still life with dialogue. That’s not a detriment. That’s an invitation to see a movie whose beauty stays with you long after it ends.

The Artist is such an engaging, delightful film that, if you like movies, you will walk out of the theater with a smile. You just will; it's that inspired.

There was a cry from Wallace fans when Segel was cast (some are still up in arms), but he’s terrific. So is Eisenberg, in an even more difficult role.

It’s a uniquely affecting experience, and a uniquely affecting film. Cameraperson shows us the power of image as a tool of recording life, but also finds reasons that even in the worst situations, it’s still worth living.

Kaufman and King somehow give felt puppets an independence they might otherwise have lacked. How? The magic of movies, I guess. Or, more likely, the magic of Kaufman’s mind.

Lots of movies mix comedy and horror. But Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin makes real-life horrors the source of hilarity — and it is hilarious — while never making light of the insanity that inspired it.

"Three Billboards" is a really good movie filled with terrific performances, but what McDormand is doing here surpasses them all.

To say that the film is uncomfortable to watch is an understatement. It's searing. Yet it's also invaluable.

[Huppert's] remarkable. So, too, is Things to Come.

It's a terrific movie.

The story Snowden tells is, of course, absorbing, disturbing and, yes, scary. Poitras' film, playing out as more and more is revealed, reported and published, comes off like a real-life spy thriller.

Hamilton defies a cynical reading. It is a great show, and an important one. Right now the latter might be more a more crucial description that the former. Don’t miss it.

The Father has occasional splashes of humor, but, by design, it’s tough to watch at times. Hopkins’ performance makes it impossible not to.

Scarier than anything you'll find in a horror movie this time of year.

Leave No Trace is a beautiful film, heartbreaking in the self-awareness — both existing and burgeoning — of its characters.

A host of British acting royalty, meanwhile, roams around the film: Derek Jacobi as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Claire Bloom as Queen Mary, Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill and so on.

It is a beautiful excavation, fueled by tremendous performances from frequent Almodóvar collaborator Penélope Cruz and relative feature-film newcomer Milena Smit.

Foster was born to this kind of role, rugged but soulful, and he’s outstanding. The surprise is Pine, giving by far his best performance.

It’s delightful to see filmmakers and actors take such big swings. It’s even more delightful when they connect, and in Poor Things, they do.

Napoleon isn’t a failure on anyone’s part. But it’s not a rousing success, either. It’s not really a rousing anything, which is the problem. Maybe Scott should have gone in even more on Phoenix’s quirks and mannerisms, which are the most purely entertaining things about the film. Whatever the case, it doesn’t quite measure up.

It is a terrifically entertaining film, alive from the start, following its Marvel mission (for good and bad) while rising above it.

Brooklyn often feels like a throwback in the best way, while Ronan has an old-time star turn, and she makes the most of it.

Yun's performance is genuinely beautiful, a haunting expression of life, of its disappointments and its possibilities, rendered in a way that befits the title.

Jenkins brings an urgency to If Beale Street Could Talk, along with the melancholy of problems still yet to be solved.

Birdman is a treat. But it's also more than that. It's a full-fledged wonder.

Although the film features a powerhouse performance by Clarke Peters as Da Good Bishop Enouch Rouse, it's saddled with a sloppy story.

Whether it’s the next in a long line or a summation of a fun series, Mission: Impossible — Fallout is a movie that all but defines escapism at its finest.