David Sims

It’s funny, high-spirited, and giddily loopy, a descent into madness told with the energy of a sea shanty. But it has that same attention to detail that makes Eggers such an exciting filmmaker.

Nomadland is a work of exploration, and not just across the sprawling American West. Fern is exorcising her darkest demons, which spring from the systemic neglect that has been visited on so many Americans in recent years. The odyssey makes Zhao’s film a transfixing mix of reckoning and catharsis.

That Rose-Lynn is an onstage force is easy to tell from the second she picks up a microphone, but Taylor makes this film less about her gift than about the maturity she needs to take it beyond the local Glasgow pubs. As a result, the film’s melancholy but uplifting closing notes land that much more powerfully.

For all its eerie focus on the end of our lives, that’s what Johnson’s movie is about: celebrating the people we love.

It’s scary. I’ve seen plenty of Godzilla movies and enjoyed most of them, but the title character has rarely been so frightening to behold.

In Palm Springs, the journey the central characters go on isn’t just about trying to escape the loop—it’s about understanding that no matter how tedious life might seem, there are always ways to find joy in living it.

Triet skillfully spins the viewers’ sympathy into a worst-case scenario, literally putting these feelings on trial, and it serves to compound the excitement. It’s a simple question, really: What if a domestic drama got crossed with a courtroom thriller? Anatomy of a Fall is the glorious answer.

I’d forgive anyone for thinking this all sounds a little too precious, but that’s Rohrwacher’s storytelling skill: She can make such a fairy tale feel familiar without sapping it of its dreamlike charm.

The dazzling ambition on display, both aesthetically and narratively, justifies the swing. But I won’t be ready to call the Spider-Verse series a masterpiece of the genre until I watch it stick the landing next year—even though I’m a firm believer that it will.

Jenkins uses her gift for capturing intimacy as a weapon, telling a story that’s sometimes brutal, other times acidly funny, but always honest.

In depicting the out-of-sight, out-of-mind bubble mentality of Israel’s civilian citizens (and how easily that bubble can burst), Foxtrot is a uniquely powerful work.

With Tick, Tick … Boom, Miranda celebrates the power and the pressure of the world he loves most, and he’s picked a subject who encapsulates those warring dynamics perfectly.

It’s breathtaking to watch the director work on such a grand scale, but the humans within his film do sometimes get lost. For all Nolan’s metaphysical mastery, there’s an undeniable coldness to his twilight world.

The horror genre has, of late, been hijacked by purportedly “elevated” takes that avoid the simplicity of something like a slasher. X provides a map for how to do the classics right while still taking the formula somewhere original.

The Tale is above all a work of profound empathy, as a look inside someone’s psyche would have to be. Fox isn’t just excavating the abuse she suffered as a girl; she’s also engaging with and forgiving herself, reconciling with the damage that she had convinced herself to ignore for years.

CODA is insightful and moving enough to be worth all the fuss.

The film is simply intent on capturing the energy of that special “us against the world” connection that can exist only in high school and unleashing it onto the screen.

This film is not a grandiose tale of love transcending all, but it does find all kinds of sweet, specific ways to portray a lasting partnership.

What most stunned me about Eighth Grade was how well directed it is. It’s rare that teen movies have the kind of visual acuity and verve that Burnham achieves here.

This is a movie that deserves to be seen—it’s a work of maturity and confidence from one of the indie world’s best young directors.

The highest compliment I can bestow on it is that Corbet’s drive has paid dividends, leaving much for me to puzzle through.

The Woman King is a barn burner if you’re just looking for an invigorating night at the movies. But Prince-Bythewood’s real triumph is in grounding that sterling entertainment in a challenging dramatic text.

Despite the grand scale, like all of Jia’s works, Ash Is Purest White leaves questions of good and evil to the viewer—this isn’t a philosophical story, but a personal one.

Ducournau challenges viewers to find the humanity in a character who seems intent on rejecting her own, all while provoking as many laughs as gasps.

Green has crafted a hermetic, office-bound world so ambiguous that the moments when she reveals its dynamics directly sometimes come off as disconcerting.

Clooney’s a strong-enough star to sell Jay’s achy heart, even amid the glitz and glamour. Baumbach’s odyssey into more treacly territory is an attention-worthy gambit, though one hopes he doesn’t lock the grouchiness away forever.

The film hums with energy anytime Merlin is on-screen, but even when it’s in the hands of its very sweet preteen ensemble, it’s a lively watch.

Barbarian serves up all the requisite thrills with panache, but it also provokes deeper, longer-lasting reflections. That balance is why the film has continued spreading so organically months after its release, and why it’ll keep tempting viewers down to the basement for years to come.

Lowery’s film is an easy-breezy celebration of Redford’s charisma and a fitting swan song given that it might be his final on-camera role.

Scott has long made movies about how systems of power exist to serve only the powerful, from the faceless corporations of Alien to the indifferent cops of Thelma and Louise. As The Last Duel rumbles to its bloody conclusion and its two leading men clash, it’s clear that the filmmaker’s allegiance lies elsewhere.

The Suicide Squad is very funny, bleakly self-aware, and shockingly violent—a refreshing mix of familiar conventions and gory satire.

The aesthetic is Twilight Zone, and the plot could be right out of The X-Files. But despite its small-screen influences and tiny budget, The Vast of Night is shockingly cinematic, overflowing with the kind of inventiveness you rarely see from a first-time filmmaker.

Beats Per Minute is specific in topic, to be sure—this is a moving account about the gay experience at a particular point and place in history—but it’s also fascinating to consider from a wider angle, as many people continue to grapple with how to carry out different kinds of political protests.

For all Sandler’s screaming, and Hoffman’s imperious rambling, the film builds to some quietly tragic moments amid its chaotic comedy of family manners.

Paddington 2 is gorgeous to look at, smartly written, and gleefully funny, boasting a fierce ensemble of estimable British thespians. For those looking specifically for excellent family entertainment, it’s a must-see; but even other viewers will find this movie well worth their time.

The world doesn’t really need another Spider-Man movie, which is exactly what makes Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse such an unexpected delight: Here’s the latest entry in a fully saturated genre that somehow, through sheer creative gumption, does something new.

Wright has found an ideal collaborator in Oldman, an actor who knows how to embrace his most dramatic side but who still excels in his quieter moments.

It’s a sincere, measured, and clever homage to its subject, a work of storytelling that would have made Mister Rogers proud.

Wiseau’s odd appeal is the only reason anything in The Disaster Artist is remotely believable, even though it’s based on a true story. James Franco is magnetic in the role, so committed to precisely replicating Wiseau’s unique presence, that you understand why so many people went along for the ride with him.

The clever script, written by Glass herself, is designed to keep the viewer guessing until the very last minute, and it’s the foundation of the first great horror movie of the year.

With its precise production design and rumbling racing scenes, Ford v Ferrari is as sleek and visually alluring as the vintage vehicles it showcases—but beneath its shiny hood is an engine with real complexity.

This is a film loaded with broad comedy, bold speechifying, blunt depictions of racism, and astonishing visual flair; it is a Spike Lee movie, made with the kind of artistic and political verve that recalls his best work.

The entire film has the sense of something being profoundly, and mercifully, upended; the result is engrossing, satisfying, and more than a little heartbreaking.

76 Days is unvarnished and raw, a first draft of a history that’s still being written.

Pig is a blend of absurd cooking melodrama, jokey revenge thriller, and allegory, and Cage is the connective tissue holding all those ridiculous elements together. He may have abandoned the brightest spotlight, but he’s lost none of his edge.

The sparseness of the script matches the modesty of the staging. Because the film lacks lush period detail, or really any specific background visuals at all, the audience’s attention is thrown onto the performances, and the cast rises to the occasion magnificently.

As is typical of a Soderbergh production, The Christophers doesn’t waste an ounce of its limited resources; the director always knows exactly how to keep the viewer on the hook while allowing the story’s emotions room to breathe. The real heist of The Christophers is that Soderbergh snuck such a bittersweet tale into cinemas, dressed up as a silly caper.

It’s ambitious, sprawling, and sometimes shockingly counter to tradition for the series. But it’s also hugely effective: In offering real closure for the first time, No Time to Die sheds Bond’s mystique. It cements Craig’s legacy of playing Bond not just as a reliable institution, but also as a flawed human.

Guardians 3 is a cheerful goodbye to many of the studio’s best heroes, who somehow managed to get through an entire series without being ruined by the larger superhero universe they inhabit. For Marvel, that’s both a win and a problem.

It is, in short, a film to scowl to. But if you can lock into that moodiness, it’s also quite enthralling.

It’s a roller coaster that viewers can enjoy riding all the way up, but it’s not afraid to question its own climax the whole way down.

True to its origins, Alita is a living cartoon of a film, which only makes its ridiculousness easier to absorb.

Kimi is yet another inventive blend of throwback suspense storytelling and current concerns; if Soderbergh wants to keep churning out one of these a year, he’s unlikely to run out of thematically ripe material.

The movie is weird and wrenching, asking the viewer to find humanity within the unreal tale of a puppet child’s rise to fame.

A gorgeous and impossible puzzle of a movie.

With the inventiveness of Creed III, an old franchise suddenly feels fresh.

Unsane is a great worst-nightmare movie from Soderbergh, a tense piece of low-budget auteurship that plops the viewer into an absurd scenario and then ratchets up the tension for the next 90 minutes.

If the sequels keep coming, the John Wick story may one day collapse on itself. For now, the series remains the most reliable purveyor of high-stakes, onscreen combat around, a franchise that hasn’t yet been tarnished by its ongoing success.

A Fantastic Woman, nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category at this year’s Academy Awards, is a tremendous portrait of grief and prejudice. It’s also an incredible showcase for Vega, who excels in a role that’s unfortunately rare in film—as a trans character who’s more than the butt of a joke or an exoticized other.

Us is a thrill ride, a somber parable, and a potential first chapter in a vast, encyclopedic sci-fi story; talented as ever, Peele has found a way to cram all of that into a gleeful blast of a film.

Fennell has streamlined the book’s narrative, yes, but not its white-hot melodramatic core—and she understands it well enough to create a worthy swoon-fest for the ages.

It’s a film that sometimes plays more as a rambling TED Talk than as a straightforward thriller. But, in this case, I admired Shyamalan’s overreach, even as the auteur laid meta-textual twist atop twist in the movie’s giddily loopy ending.

That unsettling feeling is communicated by Torres’s devastating, genuine performance.

Babylon is the kind of grandiose folly that at least gives the viewer a big old mess to chew on.

This is a film about Cameron’s core personhood, and how it stands up to concentrated efforts to transform it, and it’s told with quiet steeliness and grace.

Another kill is coming, and because we’re in this peculiar, mischievous film, it’ll be a playful one. But the outcome will always be the same: Someone who was once there is now gone. In the face of that chilling, prosaic nightmare, all Perkins can do is laugh.

Aquaman works because it isn’t laughing at itself—it’s both joyously whimsical and confident in its own seaworthiness.

The result is a documentary that’s fascinated with its subject without being reverent, one that’s beautifully photographed (the way that Vasarhelyi and Chin capture the scale of Honnold’s climb is stunning) without ignoring the horrifying consequences lurking if he fails.

A sensitivity to both petty human concerns and striking natural beauty is what makes Honeyland a particularly enthralling documentary.

Decker’s filmmaking is often dreamlike, but her storytelling has a cruel bite of reality to it—just as Jackson’s writing did decades before.

The story’s heightened reality works best when it’s barely distinguishable from our own—though it starts to lose steam the more it drifts into fantasy. The movie is at times a mess, but a compelling one, and this debut from Boots Riley should herald a fascinating filmmaking career.

It’s a movie that gleefully kicks its characters out of their comfy environs to plunge them into New York’s rattling, noisy crowds—and it’s worth watching with the biggest audience you can find.

There are no quick cuts here, no goofy ways of hiding gore from the audience: Nash wants the viewer to engage with the pure terror of what’s going on just as much as he wants them to sit in the tedium of it.

Air is a great return to Affleck’s original impulses as a director: It’s a fun, well-made film for grown-ups that gives its actors room to flesh out their characters and, most important, doesn’t rely on Affleck’s star persona.

Its advertising promises goofy hijinks amid an enclave of diverse species whose ecosystem is threatened by humans. The movie, in actuality, is refreshingly mordant about what might really happen if prey and predators were to try banding together: Their efforts would immediately devolve into a despairing, even political quagmire.

Coupled with Stewart’s exposed nerve of a performance, the suffocating intensity of Larraín’s filmmaking, and Jonny Greenwood’s droning score, the movie brings a fresh sense of tragedy and loss to a tale that might otherwise feel familiar.

The film may be too much of a bloody slog for some; others will be on board for every gruesome minute like I was.

The Square is darkly amusing, but it’s also bracingly honest in its absurdity, and that’s what kept me coming back to each one of its wonderfully knotty scenarios even months after seeing it.

This is the rare comic-book movie that actually seems geared toward families, mixing adolescent humor with sincere sweetness that doesn’t cloy.

When it’s at its subtlest, Lean on Pete sings with power; but when things get outwardly grim, it loses a little of its impact.

It’s a refreshingly silly and airy adventure focused on the emotions of one character, Wonder Woman (played by Gal Gadot), and a charming end to a tiring year of cinema.

Men would likely drown in its own weirdness were it not for its dynamic leads.

Wonka is saccharine, yes, but if you’re going to indulge, it’s better to be in the hands of a master confectioner.

Even by Kiarostami’s standards, this is a daringly, charmingly tedious piece of cinema, one pushing at the boundaries of what you could even call a “movie.”

Amazingly enough, the result is a witty, visually inventive, and fittingly sober story about the perils of the internet, told through the eyes of a video-game avatar with unusually large forearms.

Luhrmann’s approach works for one reason: Elvis should be a mess. Presley’s adult life was chaotic, and it unfolded almost entirely in public, from his spectacular successes to his ignominious decline. Watching it play out on film ought to feel a little disorienting.

The Last Black Man in San Francisco works best as a mood piece, and as its final act swung back toward heavy plotting, it mostly lost me, getting bogged down in thinly sketched interpersonal dynamics.

The most shocking thing about the film is its unabashed cheerfulness. For all Korine’s trademark provocation, The Beach Bum somehow manages to be an upbeat, triumphant tale of creativity and free-spiritedness.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind could’ve been a conventional narrative of despair and redemption; in Ejiofor’s hands, it builds realism and context into both sides of that story and manages to be a winning adaptation as a result.

As a piece of pure exposition, Dark Waters is interesting enough. But around the hard work and do-goodery, Haynes also provides a sense of crushing dread—the kind of unsolvable paranoia these procedure-bound movies usually work to counter.

Stillwater is a mainstream work that contradicts preconceived notions, and is all the more fascinating for it.

This is a comedy that knows how to make fun and have fun.

Christopher Robin is the kind of uncanny experiment that only gets to happen in children’s films once every few years.

The Menu is unique, because it casts Slowik as both hero and villain. He’s not wrong to simmer with hatred for his elitist customers, but he’s also seething at the fact that he has, in fact, become one of them, propped up by the very system they created.

Knock at the Cabin avoids this problem partly through its deft casting, with Bautista serving as the most pivotal player. So much of the movie revolves around Leonard’s surreal monologues; the actor keeps a firm grasp on Leonard’s belief in his every word.

Chadha is showing how art, be it familiar or far from one’s comfort zone, can inspire a sense of freedom. Blinded by the Light does that wonderfully, in a jubilant story that’s told with grounded honesty.

Everyone plays it reliably straight, a contrast that helps the film maintain its zany energy—and, in the spirit of the original trilogy, maximize the number of jokes per minute. If one bit flops, another arrives in a few seconds to make up for it.

Spider-Man: Far From Home is a bouncy addition to a bulging franchise, with just enough fringe zaniness to help it stand out from the pack.