Jacob Oller

King Coal might not be an invigorating, fire-lighting work like Harlan County, USA, but it is still a startling piece of anthropology: An expression of a place and a people, and their local god, ruler and captor.

Passages is this close, painful, sexy twisting of the screws at its best, as Sachs and his frequent co-writer Mauricio Zacharias observe the havoc wreaked by a bisexual brat’s latest dalliance.

You Hurt My Feelings, which confronts middle-aged neuroses and creative anxieties with all the subtlety of a bestselling author with a new Twitter account, still finds warmth amid its middling dramedy.

A movie completely in the addictive thrall of cinema, unhealthily enamored with the act of creation itself, Arrebato is an unnerving and enthralling fetish empowered by its hedonism: Drugs, sex, beauty, nostalgia and a disillusioned disaffection with them all.

The Valet parks itself squarely between the lines of established genre tropes, but with such precision and flair that you can’t help but be charmed.

Crafted with such delightful suspense that you can’t help but smile as you squirm, Brief History of a Family pulls from plenty of genre influences (its have/have-not friction and affluent apartment confines will be familiar to Parasite fans) to construct a tight dramatic metaphor encompassing Chinese parenting values and the end of a sociopolitical era.

Other People’s Children doesn’t merely focus on a woman weighing her options when it comes to the prospect of motherhood; it also exemplifies the myriad ways that we can foster genuine, compassionate bonds with kids—particularly those acting outside the “parent” label.

While the youth are still game to rebel, the film’s calculated spontaneity leaves its travelers stranded in search of something real, an ironically contrived quest whose very undertaking undermines its goal

Plenty of the film feels vital—its observations of a nation’s shifting attitude towards war, towards hate, is crushing and familiar.

Mank might not nearly live up to its subject’s crowning achievement, but it’s still a dense and enjoyable cinematic rant that would make its central lout proud.

Architecton acknowledges that everything we do is fleeting. There’s meaning in that. But it also posits that putting thought and respect into our temporary, tiny changes to Earth—laying fertile foundations that can roll with the punches that will always come—has a higher virtue.

Feels Good Man’s greatest strength is affirming that even the most lighthearted things are worth fighting for. Even when it means buying a suit and going to court to protect your frog-man.

That stupid-smart mix of clunkers, wordplay, old-school set-ups, prop humor, and left-field ideas that the writers just couldn’t stop laughing at doesn’t inherently make for a comedy classic—especially as a late plot escalation draws attention to the dull sheen shining over much of the film—but it does prove how effective these films’ formula can be when followed properly.

Sometimes her script devotes too much ink to reinforcing ideas already well-established by her images, and sometimes her dialogue can veer towards flowery YA conversations. But Talati’s made a gripping and beautiful debut, filled with reasons to watch her next movie.

Monster’s mystery is one only in the ways that all of our experiences are inherently mysterious to others; its drama is devastating, a tragically inevitable snowball rolled by this existential loneliness; its warmth is gloriously defiant of this fate.

Aside from these shallow moments of over-explanation and a kinetic ending that lifts whole cloth from the aforementioned Beau Travail, this exciting debut boasts some honest and cutting commentary around these angry, confused little boys.

The First Slam Dunk, with familiar characters, an innovative art style, and a narrative that’s helped structure an entire subgenre of anime, plays both sides of the court as it finds a delicate balance between flash and fundamentals.

Hilarious, scary, tragic and sometimes flat-out jaw-dropping, Kokomo City is a gripping and accessible dissection of modern life, told through a brutally specific point of view.

As its characters make bad choices, some foolish, some perverse, and some truly Machiavellian, Twinless sticks with the absurd emotional catastrophe that follows. That dedication to the mess it’s made is often captivating, even when the film’s intentional line-blurring between comedy, romance, and gaslighting thriller never reaches the heights of its twin-centric sources of inspiration, like Brian De Palma.

Of course things get out of control—it’s not like the dark underbellies of music-world organizations haven’t always exceeded our worst expectations. The strength of Lurker, though, is when it’s operating as a slick, slimy social-engineering thriller that anyone could relate to.

Those looking for bleak, slow horror and who are willing to suspend plenty of disbelief might want to check it out, but it won’t rock the worlds of the rest of us.

Farrelly’s film wanders aimlessly without being driven by anything absurd or outrageous enough to conjure a Hangover-like reaction, nor anything with enough humanity to justify the occasional heart-to-heart conversations between Brad and Elijah.

Moss’ creation is more than a sentient pile of parts with a fresh coat of mortuary makeup: It’s a savvy, gross, black-hearted gem with a humanity all its own.

Blessed/cursed with a charmingly unwieldy title (To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar comes to mind), Good Luck to You, Leo Grande can bobble the more dramatic elements of the pair’s professional and personal relationship, but its feel-good story satisfies to completion.

As soon as you unearth a place’s past, it lives on in you—changes you. This is the heart of folk horror that Enys Men speaks to, but its dull, repetitive, padded delivery of images makes its genre findings (in words British enough to befit the film) weak tea.

It’s 81 damning minutes of tight filmmaking, great storytelling, and riveting investigation.

In truth, this isn’t a movie about understanding why—a question that desperately wants an easy answer to a complicated problem—but about understanding Bourdain. Appreciating him. Mourning him. To that end, Roadrunner succeeds once the mythologizing dies down and we see the person inside the romantic.

The Summit of the Gods’ complex storytelling and convincingly lovely vistas make its philosophical case well: Whether you’re risking it all to get to a peak, to get to the bottom of a mystery, or to create a painstaking piece of animation, you’re lucky enough to have something you love.