David Fear

As with other movies that capture the joys of cooking and the carnal thrill of eating, this French romantic drama is as much an ode to regional bonne bouches as it is an epic tale of two epicures.

Poetic is a word that goes thrown around easily and abundantly, especially when it comes to documentaries that forego any sort of standard interview-clip-context-rinse-repeat format. But it’s hard to think of a better adjective to describe the early sequences of Honeyland.

Anyone who’s ever wondered what a rom-com collab between Nora Ephron and Tom of Finland might look like now has a definitive answer to that question.

It’s a great espionage thriller, and an even better scenes-from-a-marriage drama. Ian Fleming would love this. So would Ingmar Bergman.

What eventually emerges is a peerless portrait of collective trauma — a devastating look at how this law not only sociologically gutted a country but made everyone complicit in the crime.

You can barely call it a movie. You can, however, recognize it as one of Wes Anderson‘s best attempts at transforming both his and his literary idol’s idiosyncrasies into something like art — and the most satisfying posthumous double act in ages.

We expect cinematic fireworks with a stylist like [Park]. It’s his sense of restraint and his substance, however, that makes what could have just been a clever check-out-these-moves exercise feel like a genuinely emotional showstopper.

Rather than telling you how young women are affected by this, Patton and Rae show you. And to watch one of the interviewees go for being a joyous, giddy, chatty child to being a slightly older, more distant and jaded tween is heartbreaking.

If the movie does adhere to his signature beats, and feature so many recognizable Spielbergisms, occasionally to its detriment, it’s still one of the most impressive, enlightening, vital things he’s ever done.

It’s a demonstration of directorial chops that somehow never devolves into a look-mamushka-no-hands display, and a textbook example of how to use handheld camerawork (courtesy of cinematographer Kseniya Sereda) and splashes of red, green, and goldenrod effectively without being garish or grandiloquent.

What’s remarkable is how [Torres] never overplays anything, or goes for easy histrionics and rending of garments even when the movie itself becomes heavy-handed in the back half.

It's not perfect, but it is a gift to Sam Elliott – and to us.

Savanah Leaf’s slice-of-life movie is full of these revelatory moments — sometimes lyrical, sometimes gritty, often swirling the two together — and the former Olympian-turned-filmmaker‘s feature debut pitches itself somewhere between the detail accumulation of cinéma vérité and the feeling you’ve stepped into someone’s dream.

Sweeney has finally got her serious-actor moment and delivered.

Sirāt...is not for everyone. But it is the sort of overwhelming cinematic experience and undeniable work of sound and vision that could be life-changing for those ready to receive it.

How sexism, toxic masculinity, complicity, and not-so-borderline criminal behavior is baked into the music business gets pecked at but never fully unpacked.

The doc is a capsule history lesson on an eons-old natural phenomenon. But it’s also the greatest lava-fueled love story ever told, and the fact that those two elements remain as inseparable as the spouses at the center of it all is a testament to how sublime this stranger-than-fiction masterpiece really is.

Hamnet has managed to make the lines “goodnight, sweet prince” somehow sting more than ever, but it leaves you in a state of emotional bliss.

The Square offers more than just pictures of a revolution; it lets you into the mind-set of those fighting for their future, and that makes all the difference.

It’s an exhilarating and profoundly sorrowful work.

The real strength of Cohen’s occasionally didactic drama, though, is in the way the film redirects your focus to the periphery and reminds you of the richness that resides there. It was an achievement Bruegel mastered early on. And it’s what makes Museum Hours its own work of art.

There is no single category that you can slot Rankin’s mix of a wink, a nudge and an embrace into, so we guess “lo-fi masterpiece” will have to do until a better option comes along.

Thanks to Jacobs’ extraordinary ear for how people use words to wound and mask, and a holy trinity that knows not only how to speak those words but how to complement one another’s disparate performing styles, His Three Daughters ends up being nothing less than the single best movie you’ll likely see this year.

It’s a devastating look at paternal love and resilience, which respectfully follows this grieving father (and several others like him) as he refuses to give up.

So call Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets a documentary, or a docufiction, or an ecstatic-truth improvisation — just don’t let it miss last call.

There are many elaborate lessons on life and how to live it in Soul, though its best may ironically be its simplest: Look. Listen. Learn. Enjoy. You may not turn the film off with an answer to what a soul is. But you may find yourself wondering if you’re forgetting to occasionally connect with your own.

A prison drama less interested in crime and punishment than in catharsis and the creative power of theater, director Greg Kwedar’s chronicle of how the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program affects its participants wants you to focus on the humanity on display over everything else.

20 Days in Mariupol gives you a sense of life during wartime that isn’t an abstraction, some distant thing happening to people thousands of miles away. The intimate feeling of what it’s like to have your country invaded, your living spaces demolished, and your closest family members killed before your eyes is palpable, and also gut-wrenching.

The Guilty is many things, not all of which work 100-percent of the time. But it does succeed as one hell of a radio play with benefits, letting a literal call-and-response crime procedural play out in real time.

It’s the sort of movie that likes its volume dial to be permanently stuck at 11, its references to be hidden in plain sight and/or deafeningly trumpeted and its freak flag flying very, very high.

The sisterhood who have made this an art form mostly remain unsung heroes, as it were, of the hit parade. Their collective bow is long overdue.

Apted once wanted to give us "glimpses into Britain's future," per the archival-footage announcer. With this installment, he's delivered an intimate portrait of settling down and finally making peace with one's well-publicized past.

What you ultimately get out this chronicle of people trying to get in the family way, and who end up experiencing their own sense of parenthood via their young guest/partner-in-crime, is enough to sustain you through the rougher patches.

It’s the kind of minimalist, yet emotionally rich memory piece that’s so quietly attuned to people, place and the passing of time that, ironically, it makes you want to shout hosannahs from a mountaintop until you’re hoarse.

It’s a genuine revelation, and the sort of holy terror that restores your faith in a genre.

Be warned that it is a gateway drug. It’s also the sort of movie that makes you understand why people fall in love with movies in the first place.

The director’s sophomore feature brims with so many tender mercies, so many quietly observed moments, that even its light touch leaves a mark.

Directed by Sundance veteran Ira Sachs, Peter Hujar’s Day takes an extended conversation between talented, creative friends and elevates it to the realm of both first-rate voyeurism and the second-hand high of reliving a lost era.

Come for the way this film twists a disaster-movie premise into sociological commentary while still bringing the weirdness. Stay for how Kircher and Duris embed a father-son story into the fantastical elements, and transform a far-out tale of genetics run amuck into an elegy about the pain of letting go.

Your suspension of disbelief may get tested more than a few times as Linklater’s crime comedy shuffles to its ironic happily-ever-afters — ditto your tolerance for self-consciously jaunty scores — yet your faith in Powell as a real-deal leading man who can work miracles is never shaken.

Filtering the fallout of Mexico's drug wars through the eyes of one stoic security guard, documentarian Natalia Almada (El General) avoids the head-on journalistic approach and emerges with something far more impressive: a piece of lyrical, sideways social reportage that still connects an astounding number of dots.

Short Term 12 isn’t without drawbacks, occasionally dipping into a too-neat narrative tidiness and a self-conscious sloppiness. Yet the film’s charms and ability to cut through jadedness despite the subject matter makes it a rarity — a modest indie that’s feels like it’s in it for the long haul.

Despite its creator’s puckish charm, the movie occasionally sputters and detours down dead ends. Still, the promise on display is impressive; consider the film a calling card from someone to keep a very close eye on.

When it comes to capturing the man behind the phenomenon, however, the film never progresses beyond a superficial, weird-yet-wonderful portraiture.

That’s the real Boss Battle of Bodied: Major Rush vs. Missed Opportunity. Whether you pick a winner here or think they fight it out to a draw is your call.

It’s a love letter — to New York, to the bohemians and musicians who still live there come hell or high water, to the art of crafting a damn fine customized Stratocaster, to taking pride in your work, to shooting the shit and most importantly, to finding a place for fellow freaks and misfits to call home.

Her (Binoche) award-winning performance is reason alone to dive into such intellectual gamesmanship. (She can suggest an entire emotional arc with one facial tic.)

For a film so consumed with hitting something over a net, O’Connor’s work here is practically an ode to performing without the safety of one.

To watch Sorry We Missed You is to realize that, despite its dedication to showing how people live and love and work (and work, and work, and work) in everyday Britain, this is a story that goes far beyond the United Kingdom.

It becomes more of an actor’s showcase, in other words, which has always been one of Payne’s strengths — he’s an old-school director of performers, with a penchant for conjuring memories of several old schools in particular.

Sound of Metal understands the importance of immersing you in this brave new noiseless world and giving you a compelling Virgil to guide you through it, but its real strength may simply be its powers of observation.

Funny, poignant, personal and a rage-filled valentine to a metropolis that’s seen its fair share of gentrification.

It’s the kind of alchemy achieved when an artist has his or her vision brought to a larger audience by someone who understands exactly what they’re doing. It’s a testament to the power of the material and the determination of its interpreters to not dilute it one ounce.

The movie itself ends up just hustling a stock redemption story window-dressed with issues as opposed to exploring them.

A horror movie that hides its monsters in plain sight, Soft & Quiet is meant to disquiet you from the very beginning, forcing you to ride shotgun with these “jus’ folks” who mix matchmaking suggestions for single members with toxic comments about immigrants and minorities.

There's too much beauty and ballast in the movie's early stages to dismiss Ceylan's cerebral cop drama, and too much genuine banality in its latter acts to justify a sluggish slouch into the shallow end.

There are some breathtakingly gorgeous images the movie throws at you — the townsfolk silently waving white handkerchiefs during a funeral — among the few giddily grotesque visuals that you can’t shake. (Pedro Sotero’s cinematography is as stunning as a painting and as psychotropic as the drugs the villagers take before the finale.)

This is Transformers-level inanity. This is a blow to your head from a mallet. It will not make you feel like a 10-year-old, but it will make you feel 10 years older than when you first entered the theater. It is certainly not personal in any way, shape or form, just strictly chilly, corporate to a fault and somehow both chintzy and wildly overblown.

This is a tale that’s carefully crafted as much as told, with hints hiding in plain sight and surreal touches that add more to the vibe than the momentum. But you never feel like you’re in the hands of someone who doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing.

The only agenda in Warfare, in other words, is to give you a sense of not just what happened but how everything felt while it was happening. A tall order, to be sure, but one that Garland, Mendoza, their cast and the crew pull off shockingly well.

If "Get Out" reminds folks that you can smuggle intelligent social commentary and timely conversation-starters in to theaters via explosive genre packages, then Ducournau's feature debut doubles down on the notion. In terms of the female-body politic, it's an art-horror dirty bomb.

It's a compelling, twist-filled tale, one told with a highly developed sense of empathy, a few aesthetic missteps (perhaps it's time to issue a permanent moratorium on montages set to "Walkin' on Sunshine"? Actually, scratch the perhaps there) and a knack for turning the triplets' experience into something bigger than just stranger-than-fiction tabloid fodder.

It helps that American Fiction has, at its center, someone who gives Monk a keen intelligence, a razor-sharp wit, and a spiky exterior, as well as showing you the perpetually scratched romantic beneath the battle-tested cynic.

For all of its curated channeling of past midnight-movie programming, In Fabric doesn’t feel like it’s cut from the same cloth as anything else. It’s a singular trip into a singularly warped mind.

Robert Greene's documentary captures so many wonderfully delicate, private moments in Kati's life that it seems churlish to wish the film said more about what it's actually like to be a young woman today.

Shadow isn’t a bad epic so much as a banal one.

These two trash-talkin’ Picassos may or may not end up getting their due, but Leon and his two extraordinary actors (especially Washington) have already put us squarely on the side of the beautiful losers regardless.

Furiosa runs on a high-octane philosophical perspective that finds hope in a hopeless place. Also, a lot of cars go fast and sh*t blows up. It’s a win-win.

For 91 minutes, the pleasure of the Guiteauxes’ company is ours. We are ultimately the richer for it.

A genuine labor of love and fictional self-loathing, Sullivan's animation style is undeniably compelling, whether he's channeling Grant Wood's paintings or Robert Crumb's monochromatic sketches. But the interweaving stories of commercialized religion, rancid Americana and alcoholic wretches start wearing thin around the movie's midpoint; by the end, the whole morose endeavor risks becoming downright threadbare.

The doc’s goal: Don’t think of the Go-Go’s as a bit of Reagan-era nostalgia, the musical equivalent of a Rubik’s cube. Think of them as a first-tier, kick-ass rock group, period, full stop, the end. Mission accomplished.

You may also feel so exhilarated watching an insanely creative voice in animation flex his storytelling muscles that you don’t realize the huge lump in your throat.

There’s a good deal of fun in Glass Onion too, along with some sharp throwaway lines and the joy of watching actors dig into parts in which the option of going over the top has already been built in.

Dead Reckoning never rises to that best-in-series movie’s level, though McQuarrie (and cowriters Bruce Geller and Erik Jendresen) concocts set pieces and the cast carves out stand-alone moments that stick with you past the credit roll.

It feels both timeless in its ability to channel a universal fear of mortality and if it has arrived, regrettably, right on time.

It’s the star himself who, even more than the decor and the change of cultural scenery, lifts Living out of the realm of a remake and into something far more profound. It becomes another story of a man at long last learning how to embrace the world, yet one that is completely substantial and shattering and, yeah, even life-affirming on its own.

An attempt to detail the plight of North Koreans in their new homeland, The Journals of Musan doesn't soft-pedal the hardship; Park, however, apparently felt obligated to stack the deck against the film's passive protagonist to a ridiculous degree.

Law and Coon aren’t the only reason to see Durkin’s marital nightmare of a movie, but they are the main reason to see it, and both of them give these characters so much shared history communicated without saying a word.

Even if you remove the questionable quasi-religious touches, Flight doesn't quite soar past its narrative limitations. There's plenty of virtuosity to go around here - just precious little transcendence.

Take away the serrated satirical edges of this showdown between suburbanites and self-aware smart devices, and you’re still left with a surprisingly delightful, moving story about a dysfunctional family learning how to connect again.

Novelistic is a term that gets thrown around a lot these days, but Diaz’s film more than earns the adjective, and you’d have to go back to Edward Yang’s "Yi Yi" to find another movie that approaches a marathon-length running time yet still makes you wish it were twice as long.

The plentiful pop-doc touches ensure that this wake-up call won't put you to sleep, even if the ratio of spoonfuls of sugar to medicine occasionally seems skewed.

So much of this drama about interrupted lives, unexpected detours, and attempts at (re)connection requires a deep reading between the lines. That’s a big part of its power.

New director Nia DaCosta — the sort of filmmaker who can handle both a continuation of the racially charged Candyman mythology and a radical take on Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler — brings pints of fresh blood to the proceedings, as well as a keen eye for compositions and an inherent sense of how to sustain tension.

No one would claim that director Lance Daly delivers an Emerald Isle version of "The Spirit of the Beehive," though this scrappy film does have a knack for capturing the elation and confusion of late childhood in their ragged glory.

This much-beleagured cinematic universe has finally hit upon a winning film, and one that will be forever tainted.

Everyone seems to be having a blast, and the filmmaker knows how to take both the ensemble he’s assembled and his congregation of Knives Out fans — call us Blanc-heads — to church, literally and figuratively.

The movie isn’t just a paean to a pioneer spirit. It’s equally a testament to the actor playing her.

Come to West’s celebration of the movies’ darker underbelly for the adrenaline rush of sex and violence. Exit it having witnessed something that marks the spot where baser impulses meets artistry, in more ways than one.

This is Williams’ spotlight, and it’s worth slogging through some of the soapier-to-sludgier aspects to watch her ply her craft

For all of the painstaking work that went into making this intricate animated feature feel not just handmade but heartfelt, Marcel is a wisp of a wistful film, whether it’s being existentially deep or essentially silly. Most of all, it just feels like a salve.

There is real joy in how this man lives perpetually in the moment, embracing the small, unassuming pleasures of the present.

You can find hundreds of egotistical monsters who’ve graced movie screens (don’t get us started on the ones working behind the scenes; that’s a whole other piece), but few of them can compare to Tomas Freiburg.

What started as an underground goof ended up becoming a fascinating foul-mouthed curio; though it aims for profundity, Winnebago Man seems destined to suffer the same fate.

It’s the perfect movie for Louis-Dreyfus to flex her comitragic chops.

To make a Western now is in itself a subversive act. Improving, embellishing and reclaiming an old-fashioned oater from the vintage studio-cheese bin with such humor and vigor seems truly, truly ballsy.

Housekeeping for Beginners will not tell you much about keeping order amidst domestic chaos, per se. It is a primer, however, for turning a house into a home.

The filmmaker has given us a pitch-perfect, punk-as-fuck portrait of a movement. She’s also reminded us that, regardless of bygone victories, the fight still goes on. Here’s a blueprint for resistance.