Jake Cole

Philippe Garrel's film uses its characters' stodgy, formal language to betray their self-consciousness.

The film reinforces only the most simplistic and patriotic vision of Churchill, its closed-off view of the man reminiscent of the many tracking shots that wind through the underground tunnels of the U.K.‘s war command, constantly peeking into rooms with classified meetings as doors are abruptly closed to keep them secret

John Wick: Chapter 2 remarkably balances its predecessor’s spartan characterizations and plotting with a significant expansion of scale.

A Private War ultimately sides with the late journalist’s assertion that the whos and whys of war matter far less in journalism than finding the right human-interest angle to hook an audience.

The undeniable fun of Civil War's action scenes only exacerbates the failure of the narrative to adequately contend with its own themes.

The film’s occasional gestures toward pseudo-feminist empowerment only compound the hollowness of its protagonist.

The film is an unbroken chain of one-liners, sight gags, and pop-culture references, and the hit-to-miss ratio is high.

Mann’s focus is so esoteric that he slowly turns the garish thriller into a kind of poetry.

The film is at its strongest when depicting how Diamantino becomes a tool of politicians hoping to oust Portugal from the EU.

Miracle Mile is one of the most fascinating curios of the ’80s, a disaster movie that turns the decade’s optimism back onto itself.

To see the old-timers pass the torch to their acolytes cements the improbable importance of Jackass in American pop culture.

Throughout, Joyce Chopra patiently and shrewdly observes the contradictions of human behavior that Laura Dern brilliantly conveys.

Thelma's transition into a paranormal thriller doesn’t complicate its initially potent character study.

The film is never more compelling than when relying on footage of the real radical DREAMer group the National Immigrant Youth Alliance.

The star of the show here is Collet-Serra. Nothing here reinvents the genre wheel, but the way that the stakes and scope of Carry-On keep escalating even as the focus remains resolutely intimate and paranoid showcases a refreshingly old-school grasp of thriller mechanics.

Dash Shaw’s deceptively simple animation regularly descends into phantasmagoria that delivers on his story’s strange premise.

For a spell, Melina Matsoukas’s film exudes the concision of an old B movie.

Petra Epperlein's personal ties to the subject matter provides the documentary with a necessary anchor point.

The film is initially distinguished by its poetic understatement, only for it to eventually succumb to staleness.

For all of its farcical overtones, the film contains many shrewd observations about the power games inherent in relationships.

In Alma Har’el’s film, Shia LaBeouf’s plays an avatar of his father as an expressionistic act of self-therapy.

The structure of Wildfire’s narrative doesn’t emerge out of a simplistic progression from strife to reconciliation, as writer-director Cathy Brady has her characters follow a realistically erratic trajectory.

Lois Patiño’s Red Moon Tide is a work of unmistakable horror, one predicated on such ineffable dread that the impact of climate change becomes a sort of Lovecraftian force.

Joel and Ethan Coen's idiosyncrasies elevate the film above the level of a mere creative exercise.

The film is a reminder of the potential of these films before they became weighed down by blockbuster-ready excesses.

As ever, Paolo Sorrentino ironically cuts the legs out from under his protagonists' wistfulness with grotesquerie.

Nothing that Marvel Studios has produced can compare to the visual splendor of Scott Derrickson's Doctor Strange.

Throughout the film, James Gunn renders the half-grim, half-absurdist nature of the Suicide Squad with delightfully bloody abandon.