Jenny Nulf

Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s feminist views have consistently been at the center of his work, but his latest film, No Bears, is an ambitious, powerful piece that puts himself in the center of two narratives, parallel to each other, in which two generations of women are forced into difficult situations because traditions and laws have made it almost impossible for them to be with who they love.

Hamaguchi’s films, from Happy Hour to Asako I & II, are all explorations of love, the complex, overwhelming emotion that has the power to break your heart. Drive My Car dissects that heartbreak, what it means to love someone and how to come to terms with that love once they are no longer around to fix what was broken.

There’s a sharpness to Poitras’ filmmaking that’s remarkably powerful, a film that’s sure to leave one breathless as the credits roll, an utterly effective snapshot of a woman who has dedicated her life to those who deserve a louder voice. It’s a film that’s simply stunning.

Hit the Road is stuffed with thoughts, ideas, and metaphors, which can leave the film feeling weighty and thick, but for those willing to dig and see past its simplistic charms, it’s quite an ambitiously layered debut.

This Is Not a Burial, it’s a Resurrection is arthouse cinema at its best, a lyrical eulogy from a confident auteur whose poetic touch is meticulous and grand.

The Inheritance is a metrical, stunning piece of cinema. There’s so much to unpack within its layers, and its vision and dissection of what Blackness means for Julian and his community is absorbing, perceptive, and stirring. Asili is truly a talent worth keeping an eye on.

Hamaguchi has a beautiful outlook on mistakes and the complex emotions that make up humanity, and his tenderness toward each character he brings to life makes him one of the best storytellers working today.

It’s a slow burn of a film, one that creeps through the consciousness. But it is not without levity.

Atlantis isn’t an easy film to watch, and it’s not meant to be. It’s an anti-war film without solutions, but what it clear is that Vasyanovych believes in humanity rebuilding from tragedy.

Writing With Fire is at its best when emphasizing the barriers these women have to overcome daily to fulfill their desires to be journalists, and showcasing the importance of Khabar Lahariya’s work where corruption runs amok.

For years it feels like the upcoming tequila shortage has been whispered about. But with so many celebrities announcing their own tequila brands, sometimes it’s hard to grasp the dire situation many tequila plants are facing. Juan Pablo González’s film Dos Estaciones centers around this very real crisis, a subtle reflection on the political and environmental pressures Mexican-owned tequila factories are facing.

Labyrinth of Cinema is a chaotic entanglement of ideas and endearing characters, a sweet departure for the luminous artist Ôbayashi was.

Goran Stolevski’s dreamy debut You Won’t Be Alone is a poetic glimpse at generational trauma.

The Unknown Country is a naturalistic exploration of America that’s hopeful of human connection in the midst of a country that sometimes feels hostile. It’s simplistic, but honest and true to Maltz and Gladstone’s optimism in the face of a place that sometimes bleeds hopelessness.

Farhadi takes a seemingly simple idea and threads holes and complications into it, creating a pressure cooker of intensity based on a handful of white lies and distrust. It’s a tragedy of simple misunderstandings, and misgivings.

Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont’s latest film Close is a devastatingly heavy watch, a delicately filmed tragedy that takes hold of your emotions and never lets go for the duration of its run time.

Thorough and competent, The Dissident works as an essential political documentary. It covers Khashoggi’s assassination in detail, and very clearly makes it known that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the one behind it. However, it’s certainly a step down for Fogel, and while its production is glossy and polished, the lack of inertia keeps The Dissident from reaching its full potential.

The film itself is fictional, filmed in a 1.33:1 ratio to mimic the framing of the inspirational photographs. It’s absolutely breathtaking work – the camera helmed by Maria von Hausswolff captures the unassuming beauty of Iceland, but also does not hide its frigid nature, both terrifying and beautiful.

The Croods: A New Age takes wacky, weird turns, and yet somehow still manages to be dull and lifeless.

The expectations for West’s return to film were high, and luckily X brings this master of horror back with a bang.

Sachs’ downward spiral into her father’s personal life has been in the works for roughly 26 years, with footage collected from 1984 to 2019. By using a mixture of 8mm film to pristine digital, her experimental documentary feels worn, an eclectic mixture of home videos that blends in with the film’s familial nature.

The problem between Anika and Martin is the problem they had from the beginning: He is a shell of who he once was, lost in his own middle-aged melancholy. The problem is not the substance, it’s the person, and with Another Round, Vinterberg has crafted a beautiful dissection of that conundrum.

With Roadrunner, Neville is able to give the icon a send-off that’s tear-inducing and loving, a gift to those who will always be inspired by him.

Parmet’s ability to repackage a story that oftentimes can feel exploitative and gritty through a more mature and compassionate lens is quite sincere – a challenging film that’s worth the effort.

As an introductory lesson to what it means to be intersex, Every Body serves its purpose well enough, but there’s no bite to the storytelling, no immediate call to action.

Kore-eda’s nonjudgmental approach to all his films is what makes him such an enticing auteur, and with Broker he brings what he excels at to a new destination with an all-star South Korean cast that really understands his material and delicate subtleties.

Introduction feels like a mediation on how time chips away at first impressions: What started as something beautiful and simple can become complicated, unattainable, and hard to hold on to.

Yet while this vibrant and energetic version of Miike is certainly a blast, it can feel underwhelming when you know this was the same man who made the visceral and disturbed "Visitor Q" and the bone-chilling "Audition."