David Fear

They've given their star one rotten peach of a role, and Depardieu makes the most of it. Because of him, such surreal Gallic scuzziness has rarely seemed so sweetly tender.

You’re never sure which truth is out there, exactly, in Lanthimos’ caustic, chilling, and occasionally chuckle-inducing poke in the eye. You just acknowledge that no one seems to find one we can all agree on.

What The Whistlers lacks in terms of the rigor associated with its creator’s back catalog, it makes up for as a deadpan genre piece with a sly jab. It’s a serious work of pulp friction.

An American remake is already being prepped. We suggest Hollywood simply cries uncle now and calls it a day.

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.

By the end of this funny, insightful doc, you get a sense of an extraordinary mind that both fueled and fed the zeitgeist. Don't miss it.

It’s not cynicism but a chuckling curiosity that fuels this sideways parable, which aligns it with Lanthimos’ past work in the most perfect of ways. You can’t say that it’s a movie for everybody. But it takes all kinds.

Gideon Koppel's free-form portrait of a Welsh farming community may be the most subtly poetic piece of cine-anthropology to come down the pike in eons.

Movies about children fending for themselves are predicated on pushing prepubescent despair into viewers' faces, which only makes this Swedish film's graceful mixture of terror and transcendental girl power that much more impressive.

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

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

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

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.

Ping-ponging between grisly South of the Border carnage and Angeleno musician Edgar Quintero’s growing success as one of the subgenre’s stars, you start to see how this parasitic relationship works.

You think you're in for another coming-of-age movie about getting into someone's pants until you realize Deep End's real goal is getting under your skin.

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.

It’s to the filmmakers’ credit that we also see how insecurity and proximity to fame both drove him and drove him crazy, resulting in a layered look at a man who was a jack of all trades, but a master of one: being George.

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

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.

If you can say nothing else about this free-form valentine, it’s genuinely eye-opening.

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.

The Laundromat ends on a pre-credits image that feels destined to become a meme. Everyone’s hands are dirty, it tells us. Maybe it’s time hold folks accountable and clean up our act.

It truly is a solid match of moviemaker and source material. Yet none of this would work as well as it does without Craig.

A wise man once said that every film is a documentary of its own making, and Philip Hartman’s No Picnic doubles as a chronicle not just of a lost paradise but a forgotten era — of downtown NYC, of genuinely independent moviemaking, of an alternate version of the “greed is good” go-go Eighties.

What Will & Harper is, at its heart, is a portrait of a friendship and how the fundamentals of a deep and lasting bond doesn’t change even when the people within it do. That alone makes it worth the trip.

Mira Nair’s lush, heartfelt romance glows with humanity and desire; it puts the “passion” back in “compassion.”

If Sunset doesn’t hit with nearly the impact that "Son of Saul" does — and it doesn’t — his look back at the chaos before the storm solidly establishes Nemes as a major world-cinema voice.

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.

Nouvelle Vague is as much a testament to being young, idealistic and a cinephile — full of opinions, drunk on your own taste, and madly in love with the movies — as it is a making-of recounting.

This West Side Story proves someone can still leave their mark on the legend without building it from the ground up. It’s a classic Spielberg joint, a classic hat-tip to Hollywood, and a classic, period.

The reason you need to see Bull, however, and we do not use that verb lightly, is Morgan. The calm, concentrated, understated manner in which he presents this man, who’d rather have a battered body than a bruised pride, is something to behold.

You could spend a lifetime peeling the glass onion of Shirley Clarke’s merciless documentary, in which a born performer drops incinerating truth bombs while putting the con in confessional moviemaking.

If Rustin only gives you a slice of a story — you could make seven different films out of his life and achievements — it assures you walk away knowing who Bayard Rustin was. The same can be said for Colman Domingo. Attention must be paid a hundredfold.

At its best, this pomo oater gets within chaw-spitting distance of action-flick greatness; at its worst, the movie is simply unadulterated guns-and-guts fun.

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.

The more Shepard & Dark rewinds through their shared history, the more the film blossoms into something far richer than a simple tribute to a long, beautiful friendship—it becomes an ode to a long-lost era of bohemia, an insightful look into male psychology and pathology, a valentine to the art of letter writing and an illustration of how the past is never dead, because it’s not even past.

The film has its narrative flaws and, occasionally, distracting stylistic flourishes. Harrelson's portrayal of a swinging dick staring down the abyss, however, is perilously close to perfect; it's the finest, most harrowing thing he's ever done.

Both a baroque thriller set in New York's ballet demimonde and a portrait of artistry as schizoid perfectionism, Darren Aronofsky's new film percolates parallel lines of fine madness-but then, doubling down on duality is this movie's raison d'etre.

No tears go by on Marianne’s part as she reminisces, though you’re a stronger person than we are if you don’t choke up at the documentary’s closing number.

What instantly elevates Gasoline Rainbow to the canon of teen hangout movies, several notches below American Graffiti and Dazed and Confused but still trespassing its way into the Pantheon’s foyer, is how well the Ross brothers’ methodology captures the free-floating moment between dwindling childhood and dawning adulthood.

For all of the multiplex-friendly fun Wright’s conjuring with this over-the-top spin on dystopian sci-fi blockbusters, the prevailing feeling here is dread. Most filmmakers would have diluted the grit and genuine sense of moral free-fall. Wright doubles the dosage. Every adrenaline rush comes with a chaser of low rage and simmering despair.

A cross-pollinated mixture of Hollywood-blockbuster bombast, Asian cool and '60s Vegas ring-a-ding swing.

Yes is easily the most controversial film to hit theaters this year so far. It’s also, for all of the intoxicating rush of Lapid’s excessive style and cup-spilleth-over storytelling, one of the more sobering and vital ones as well.

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.

The fact that In a Violent Nature sets up a storytelling style that utilizes highbrow aesthetics while still keeping one foot firmly planted in the genre gutter is what makes this feel like a once-in-generation slasher flick.

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.

You leave impressed that Anderson can still manage to do what his does best without succumbing to self-parody here. The blueprint may be familiar. But it’s still a pretty foolproof plan.

It’s faint praise, even in the post-MCU era of the genre, to say that Superman is a solid superhero film; the caveat is hiding in plain sight. What Gunn has pulled off is something more complicated, more interesting, and far tougher: He’s given us a Superman movie that actually feels like a living, breathing comic book.

Fremont is neither game-changing nor revolutionary. It’s merely a throwback, in the best possible way, to a low-fi aesthetic and low-key way of storytelling you thought had gone the way of the Triceratops. That, in fact, is what makes this deceptively placid, supremely wry movie so damned moving.

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.

You can easily see why Ichikawa's vision of the 20th-century Japanese-lit landmark is considered definitive; the way he elevates the story's soap-operatic elements to a level of extraordinary sublimity makes the melodramatic seem positively majestic.

An actor with a handful of shorts under his belt — including a Cesar-nominated 2017 one that served as the basis for this feature — Ladj Ly juggles a variety of perspectives, subcultures and intersecting storylines like a pro.

Forget the snark about him ransacking Eric Rohmer's bag of tricks; the gentle ironies and droll, bitter wit here prove Hong is the French New Waver's heir apparent.

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

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.

By the time you realize how stealthy the film's critique has been, you've already fallen right into its trap.

Though the characters are fictional, Polytechnique hews close to the facts regarding the 1989 incident, down to its misogynistic Marc Lépine avatar (Gaudette) separating "feminist" coeds in a classroom.

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.

Kelson ushers in a more meditative tone for this entry, which reveals that it is, among other things, a coming-of-age story. Yet this swerve into more emotional territory doesn’t dampen the tension or the terror that Boyle remains an expert at conjuring up; if anything, it acts as a countermelody to the genre aspects.

A portrait of a sycophant as a pure, unbridled sociopath, Lurker understands the relationship between fame and fandom all too well.

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.

This is where Fonte comes in. An actor who can make Marcello seem like a pitiful beta-male grotesque one second and a noble, sympathetic hero the next, he’s the thrumming motor behind this fairy tale of dogs and monsters. It’s hard to underestimate how his award-winning performance — good call, Cannes Film Festival — shapes the film and sets its humanistic tone.

It may not be Larraín’s best film (we’d nominate No). But it’s unquestionably the movie he was, in so many ways, born to make.

What is certain is that Mossfegh’s exploration of secrets, lies and liberation plays well on the page, but works even better on the screen. Good luck in getting this movie out from under your skin.

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.

What starts out as an impressive mix of various classic-Italian-cinema strains turns into something much richer, rewarding and singular. Rohrwacher isn’t interested in resurrecting the ghosts of movies past so much as channeling the spirit of the Brothers Grimm and modern-day anger.

This colorful, cranium-bursting film isn’t about one specific tale so much as the endless ways you can present narratives; it’s nothing less than a kitchen-sink deconstruction on the art of storytelling.

Parenting relies on stamina as much as compassion, and Donzelli has, against all odds, crafted a genuinely moving ode to both the tenacity of filial love under extreme circumstances and the toll it extracts. Consider this a coup.

As a macro- to micro-exploration of guilt—over giving in to sexual deviancy, its use as a psychological crutch or as something that keeps grief from transforming into closure — The Silence speaks volumes.

It's a moody horror movie that favors metaphor over mayhem until its violent, chaotic final third, at which point the screaming starts in earnest. A bit more balance between gnawing guilt and plain old gnawing would have done this scare-parable wonders. Its bark is worse than its bite. But you hear every point that bark is making loud and painfully clear.

Elliott is a recognizable archetype. Thanks to Park’s writing and Stella’s ridiculously charismatic performance, she’s anything but a generic one.

This Wrinkle in Time is undoubtedly flawed, wildly uneven and apt to tie itself in narrative knots in a quest to wow you with sheer Technicolor weirdness. It's also undeniably DuVernay's movie as much as Disney's, and works best when she puts her feminine energy, high-flying freak flag and sense of empathy front and center.

Free Fire may suggest Wheatley is deservedly moving up the industry food chain – it's executive-produced by Martin Scorsese – but it also merely a formal exercise, albeit one buoyed by the sense that the director is having the time of his life behind the camera.

Woodshock is both gorgeous and pretentious in equal measures, and it's hard to reconcile the fact that you don't get one without the other – or that, coming in the shadow of another free-form swing for the fences, any rush to ding the movie for being an exercise in style over substance isn't even slightly tinged by gender.

You just wish the film itself was half as compelling as its subject; not defaulting to piano-tinkling sentimentality or old-people-sure-are-adorable cutesiness at every opportunity would have been a bonus as well.

Robert Wise's adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel about a deadly space pathogen trades in the genre's cosmic pulp and head-trippiness for a procedural-like seriousness. Germaphobes, proceed with extreme caution.

That's what Blanchett is doing here. She adds a human element. She can turn anything into art. Even artistic navel-gazing.

The surprise MVP runner-up here is Connelly, despite her tendency to get kind of yell-y during key dramatic moments. Her lonely Amanda is a better written version of a typical long-suffering-spouse.

The story is stock, but thanks to the behind-the-scene fire wranglers, you can practically feel the heat.

What keeps Adrift from feeling like just a travelogue tacked on to a tragi-sploitive star vehicle is, ironically enough, its star. Shailene Woodley has always been great when it comes to bringing the radiance – she's like a sunbeam made sentient – and even better when she can use that California Dreamin' glow semi-subversively a la "The Spectacular Now" or "The Descendents."

If their contribution to the man-vs-nature genre isn't exactly top-tier, Walking Out still hits its marks in terms of father-son melodrama with an uncanny precision.

The effects here run the gamut from grandiose to goofy, but watch the upside-down ballroom sequence again. It's a set piece of pure destructive bliss, set to a symphony of screaming and breaking glass. Awesome.

It may feel insubstantial at times, but somewhere out there, there's a twin of this film that lays on the L.A. Self-Owns Itself mojo in thick clumps. Gemini is the good-sibling version. It's worth a whirl.

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

To use the film's terms: You go expecting a World Cup qualifying round. You leave having just seen a decent enough exhibition match.

You inherently felt that he had incredible work in him if you could simply wait out his enfant terrible phase. Golden Exits is the first of Perry's people-behaving-badly pieces to start to make good on that promise.

If many male stars of a certain age are destined to become late-act action heroes, we hope this is Vaughn's "Taken," and his particular set of skills will continue to involve dishing out such graceless, effective hurt.

The result is inspiring, which isn't something you associate with this series.

With House of Gucci, you get a jumble of stories jockeying for screen time, and then you get a supernova blazing at the center of all of it that burns everything superfluous away. If the film is remembered for anything, it’s for being Exhibit A as what a great actor she is. Forget Gucci. Long live the house that Gaga built.

While there’s nothing on the level of Pearl‘s climactic monologue or credit-roll close-up, Goth still turns this revenge-of-the-final-girl parable into superior flashback pulp.

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

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.

Even when Light of My Life feels like it’s straining under the heaviness of its storytelling, there’s something about the way he guides us to an inevitable endgame that suggests the filmmaker knows what he’s doing. It’s not a pretty picture he paints here. But it makes you want Affleck to keep picking up that brush.

The expression here is one of shared humanity regardless of background, gender identity, race or creed. The common language being used here is cinema.

The movie comes not to bury this legend but to praise him. Inhuman endurance or not, you worry it may end up having to do the former regardless.

Seen more as a complement to that actual interview than a forensic breakdown of the story behind it, the movie succeeds in showing viewers that, even in this age of clickbait and quick hits, the slow and steady professionalism of real journalists attempting the Quixotic quest of practicing real journalism can still bring down a giant.