Christian Gallichio

Seeds may be indebted to the elder subjects that Shyne centralizes, but it’s also a film that dares to look forward, suggesting that — despite everything — these farms will continue.

Flight Risk is never as campy as it should be.

From Ground Zero isn’t a hopeful film by any measure. In fact, it’s a painful and upsetting watch that nevertheless does find some semblance of optimism in the filmmakers and the work that was made. By putting these stories on camera — whether they be nonfiction or scripted — these filmmakers are nevertheless shedding light on a conflict that many would prefer not to see.

With its short runtime and heady mix of styles, scenes, and ruminations, it’s still a fascinating refraction of one of the most interesting filmmakers working today.

Even if the film threatens to bustle over with ideas, the Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat format deftly juggles several narrative threads, making history feel more alive — and in sync — than many other documentaries of its kind.

It’s a quiet film in every sense of the word. One that relies on the expressions of its actors over the words that they are saying, but it’s also one of the more compelling debuts in some time and a film that’s well worth seeking out.

Morris is at the stage of his career where everything he makes is both polished and interesting. But, in recent years, he’s oscillated between sweeping institutional exposés and zoomed-in portraits of characters. If anything, Separated again demonstrates that he’s at his best with the latter, as the documentary’s interests stretch far beyond its grasp.

Sorelle may not offer much hope in terms of how one can fight against these systems that preach continual change, but her film is still a striking if slightly overstuffed, debut from a filmmaker to watch.

Nash’at may have started the filmmaking process looking for something resembling humanity in the Taliban fighters, but what he found instead was a shocking level of resolve that we, and the US military, underestimated.

The exploration of a survivor and their child navigating post-Soviet Poland is, on the surface, compelling, but Treasure doesn’t seem capable of threading the needle between a micro portrait of generational trauma and macro, collective trauma that is omnipresent throughout Poland in this era.

It might not break new ground, but Babes is nevertheless something quite rare these days: both emotionally complex and hysterical. Adlon has perfected this form of comedic earnestness in her TV work; it’s a welcome move into feature filmmaking.

The People’s Joker is deeply weird and often feels like the first draft of someone’s first attempt at using genre as a type of autofiction. But it’s also heartfelt, fascinating, and a really compelling introduction to an original cinematic voice.

When the film firmly goes off the rails in the second act, [Cronenberg] still showcases an ability to play up tension as the four children hunt each other in the expansive mansion. In isolation, the bifurcation works but, taken together, it suggests an underbaked concept that was never fully realized and, alternatively, a slasher that never makes its characters feel human.

The film, then, is a useful primer for historicizing and contextualizing the relationship between methods of social control and the rise of policing, both as an unchecked institution and a term associated with the history of the United States. One just wishes the film would slow down every once in a while.

Transition works as both a personal accounting of Bryon’s journey and a fascinating exploration of how gender is treated within conservative societies. That the film can account for both, drawing out the parallels, schisms, and nuances that exist within a society that strongly believes in a gender binary, is something of a minor miracle.

Akin’s film draws connections to suggest that maybe through these crossings, we begin to understand each other.

The Goldfinger isn’t per se bad. It’s consistently watchable, Lau and Leung are capable actors, and the narrative––even if standardized––is interesting. But this is perfunctory in a way Infernal Affairs never was.

It’s a film that not only works as a self-reflective biography and community portrait but also as a testament to the living nature of literature, where a work is able to be interpreted and reinterpreted by the generations to come.

A marvel of economic storytelling, Waikiki spotlights the social and spiritual erosion of colonial tourism on the indigenous population.

It’s a powerful, infuriating document of a family’s resilience in the face of massive communal pressure and to the notion that these types of small, necessary shifts can add up.

Even if Story Ave occasionally dips into a well-worn narrative, it nevertheless features two powerful performances and acts as a showcase for its first-time director.

It’s a weird movie, to be sure, but never an off-putting one. It’s also one that sometimes feels like a chimera itself, pushing various genres and ideas together without fully synthesizing them. But it’s consistently beautiful, watchable, and a truly memorable debut for Oren.

If anything, the murder is tertiary to the gossipy takes and fanciful camera work — this film is built around vibes, right down to its pulsating score by the electronic musician Koreless and its dancehall end credits.

Gladstone manages to sell every emotion, moving from despair to wonder as the journey continues.

Only time will tell if The Beanie Bubble represents the final dying gasp or merely the end of first-wave product-driven narratives. But, like Beanie Babies themselves, one hopes that this bubble will burst sooner rather than later.

In digging up what seems to be his own personal history, Honoré doesn’t trust the audience fully to fill in those silences.

Twilight suggests the futility of trying to solve some labyrinthian plot and that, instead, one should train their lens away from the facts and onto the people affected.

Paint is a truly strange film that is never the full-on comedy that one might expect, but it also never commits to the despair that seems to be lingering right under the surface. Despite a truly unhinged final twist that almost makes the entire film worth it, “Paint” is more amusing than laugh-out-loud funny.