Jordan Hoffman

A hundred well-placed plot breadcrumbs lead us to our perfect ending, but apart from scriptwriting craft Rees gets in some bravura scenes of high tension.

If there’s a message in Visages, Villages (both to us, and from Varda to her young friend) is that one does not need to be a tortured and nasty person to make great art. She is living and still-working proof.

Ciro Guerra’s gorgeous picture just has that ripped-from-your-dreams sensibility, where surprising turns float alongside a story you feel like you’ve known your whole life. Embrace of the Serpent is the type of film we’re always searching for, yet seems so obvious once we’ve found it.

The movie snaps together like a jigsaw puzzle, a series of concluding beats that seem inevitable and perfect, and designed to please all parties, so long as you don’t dwell on the logic too much.

While formally quite different from his more universally-respected early work, Chi-Raq has the exuberance and wit you’ll find in Do The Right Thing and Crooklyn. It’s the best film he’s made in a very long time.

Flux Gourmet is very much a “not for everyone” type of movie, but even people unwilling or unable to connect with it must recognize that it isn’t simply weird for weirdnesses sake. Beyond the obvious theme of the artist’s eternal struggle with those who offer patronage only to start shortening the leash, there’s a frank look at just how strange it is for people to come together to make art in the first place.

The lack of awareness of this event is another tragic example of black history being ignored. Only this time the record survived, and now we all get to share in it.

Lore is a rare, wonderful film that works not just as surface entertainment, but has deeper historical meaning, as well as an even grander, more universal statement.

I want more people to see The Tale because it’s such an innovative, honest and important film. It is a landmark, and Laura Dern is absolutely extraordinary. But I know for certain I’ll never watch it again.

This is a gift to cinephiles everywhere from deep in the cellar and we’re all lucky to get a sip.

It’s worth mentioning again that, somehow, this movie, with all its full-frontal historical horror, is still loaded with laughs.

Ex Libris rolls out like a collection of short films.... It’s like watching Wiseman skip along through the stacks of all accumulated human knowledge.

Call Me By Your Name is a masterful work because of the specificity of its details.

The Kindergarten Teacher is probably the only movie about poetry with an ending as tense as any thriller.

While minimal on plot, the film digs in its nails on the day-to-day struggles of poor people in America.

Kasper Collin’s I Called Him Morgan isn’t just the greatest jazz documentary since Let’s Get Lost, it’s a documentary-as-jazz.

American Utopia is an outstanding collaboration between two essential artists; I can’t believe there’s anyone alive who won’t be moved by this document. Byrne’s career is a testament to never resting on one’s laurels, to always searching for creative expansion—but more than anything, American Utopia proves how electrifying he still is as a performer. Same as it ever was.

The scenes of artistic, scientific and communal triumph were significant. The isolated, solipsistic anger of each character, lost in their own identity loop, seemed like a perfect analogy for the conflicts in eastern Europe in the mid-1990s.

This is a gripping and sad drama that puts a tremendous amount of faith in its performers and audience, and for all the emotion and tenderness in the rest of this year’s Sundance crop, this is the first film that left me a complete broken-down mess by the end.

Directors and activists Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis’s outstanding and incendiary documentary about Ferguson does a tremendous end run around mainstream news outlets and the agenda-driven narratives that emerge, particularly on television.

Not since Grey Gardens has a film invited us into such a strange, barely-functioning home and allowed us to gawk without reservation. This is a nosy movie, but it is altogether fascinating.

It is a striking work of storytelling. By assembling the scattered images and historical clips suggested by Baldwin’s writing, I Am Not Your Negro is a cinematic séance, and one of the best movies about the civil rights era ever made.

A damn near perfect film.

A fantastic, sleek and fun satire.

The emotions the Shinoharas’ story inspire are all over the road. It is at times triumphant and warm, then sad and even enraging.

It’s a character piece, and one of the best and most understated movies I’ve ever seen about the grieving process.

Only Lovers Left Alive is an exhibit A example of how to use style to enhance substance, not overwhelm it.

Chandor delivers pure cinema. Thrilling and adventuresome, this is a career highlight from the uniquely sympathetic Robert Redford.

He’s taken what, on paper, boils down to an extra ridiculous episode of “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” and passes it off as high cinematic art.

There’s nothing about this film that is uplifting, but Davies’ handling of the material is so exquisite that the overbearing melancholy becomes, in the end, a work of poetry.

It asks more questions than it answers, and doesn’t let anybody off the hook. It’s also a great movie for anyone who grew up in New York City area in 1980, with the right needle drops and art direction. This is James Gray’s eighth feature and, in the end, his simplest. It may also be his best.

At 76 minutes, Caesar Must Die is more of an art piece than a thick steak of a feature film, but it maintains a fascinating hum from start to finish.

The look (and sound) of Murina are mesmerizing.

There's a ton of technobabble that you have to take on faith, but Jones and Powell do more than sell it; they make it compelling.

For his third feature, Cronenberg the Younger doesn’t ape his father’s style so much as he expands upon it. With Infinity Pool, in comparison to Cronenberg the Elder’s good-but-not-great Crimes Of The Future, you could even say he’s perfecting it.

An essentially plotless but engaging and enriching recollection of childhood steeped in warmth, grace, honesty, and crystalline specificity.

To put it in a way the kids do: Men is vibes.

[A] blend of classic sci-fi fare and current pop-culture irony is what rockets “Guardians” into the stratosphere.

It is extremely clever and deeply moving, and winningly gets at the essence of Goldin’s current and past work, without straining too hard to ape her style.

The first feature from Owen Kline, Funny Pages is not a dramatic masterpiece, but its setting, tone, look, feel, and casting would send real comic book geeks off doing cartwheels—if only we possessed the coordination. Instead, it will have to suffice to sit there, mouths open with the typical drool, thinking “I feel seen.”

Prepare for more gruesome kills, more gross-outs, more insight into how a society might actually look a generation after an unfathomable event. These movies are clearly infectious.

The film, which uses the gimmick of jumping between parallel universes to explore, essentially, how to be your best self, is awash in zany sci fi culs-du-sac, sly movie references, and a deranged high fructose attitude that scoffs at the idea of everything but the kitchen sink. The Daniels want infinite kitchen sinks.

Form and content collide in inspiring ways in this documentary about Milford Graves — avant-garde jazz percussionist, educator, gardener, martial artist, and cardiovascular researcher. Milford Graves Full Mantis is a jazz movie in every sense of the word.

Directors Katie Graham and Andrew Matthews create a great framework for the epic nemesis battle, but also know when to pull back to keep the movie grounded in reality.

The Walt Disney World-set Escape From Tomorrow is both a great gimmick-dependent story and a remarkable piece of filmmaking. It is a radical, transgressive departure that exploits new technology in heretofore unseen ways.

The location photography does much of the film’s heavy lifting, especially visits to Mount Kilimanjaro and Mulanje’s Sapitwa Peak. (The rumor is that a young J.R.R. Tolkien visited there, and Barbosa leans into this a bit for the big finish.) The star of the show, however, is the dialogue between cultures.

This movie will spark debate, even with an end title card that reminds audiences of the concept of dramatic license. But as a movie, and not a court document, it is extraordinary.

The key word in the title is My. Bertrand Tavernier’s three-hours-and-change film-essay is not a history lesson. It’s an invitation to take the seat next to a renowned director as he shares the movies that mean something to him.

The movie on its own is great, but with this music it's sublime.

Shyamalan teases out new information in just the right doses, remembering all the while that this is, at its core, a B-picture. It isn’t gory, but it’s gross, and the camera knows just how much to show to keep us dialed in.

I spent the bulk of Paradise Love mimicking Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a disturbing film.

The film is so engaging because it's so damn funny.

This immersive, richly detailed snapshot of hoarders undergoing a mandated apartment cleaning is equal parts horror film and existential howl.

Serkis’ Caesar gets more than his fair share of rip-snortin’ badass moments. He’s arguably the finest leader of men we’ve seen on screen since “Lincoln.”

Throughout the picture you understand the miracle and good fortune of finding love, and recognize the great changes in tolerance American society is currently (albeit slowly) undergoing.

Listen Up Philip is big, sprawling and tortured, if a little lacking in focus – while funny in parts, it isn’t really a comedy.

Nothing short of fascinating.

The first half of “The Congress,” while still fascinating, does suffer a bit from keeping its focus on the gripes and accusations between Hollywood actors and producers...Once the Philip K. Dick-meets-”Inception” second half kicks in, the implications grow more universal.

It is a shaggy dog road movie, and a drug-hazy one at that, but beneath the silliness and character-based gags, Crystal Fairy is, I feel, an unusually insightful look at self-imposed false identities and group dynamics.

It transcends the usual biopic limitations to tell a specific story about some well-known people with larger, universal implications.

Bluebird is undoubtedly a remarkable achievement, especially for a first-time filmmaker.

The Past is just about as good as a relationship drama is ever going to get. The plot is teased out with deliberate grace, the performances are sublime and the revelations, even the most melodramatic, feel right and true. It’s big canvas stuff painted by a new master.

Bonello's decision to show rather than tell keeps the audience on its toes.

This is a fast and lean film, an absolute workout for its outstanding cast and a devilish roller coaster ride for audiences. It’s funny, disturbing, cringeworthy, nerve-wracking and, for some, will feel a little too realistic.

The kid performances are impressive and the subtext of a region still shaking off the effects of a long-ended war gives seed to some much needed discussion.

It’s all about the performances. McConaughey and Leto don’t just give voice to the disenfranchised of the 1980s, but all people suddenly faced with impossible challenges.

There are countless clever dialogue parries as well as some quite outstanding rants. It definitely takes the movie outside of the world of pure realism, but the theatricality is well worth it.

Some Velvet Morning is a horror film with no blood, with words the only weapon for 98% of the picture.

Forbes’ film is a fine tribute to him, and a fascinating glimpse at a different, but not distant, past.

It's got the thrills, it's got the creepy-crawlies, and it's got just enough plot to make you care about the characters. Alien: Romulus is a hell of a night out at the movies.

It’s the film’s mercurial nature, its hazy dreamlike logic, that makes it so extraordinary.

The imagery runs backward and forward, gets freeze-framed, goes through different filters, and is blown up, reduced, diced, and re-assembled like playing cards. But director Bianca Stigter fully commits to this formalist dare—and it pays off tremendously.

The entire picture exudes the wide-eyed (some might say immature) wonderment found around slobbering beasts and magic spells. No, you absolutely do not need to know a thing about D&D to like this. But if you have a familiarity with the Forgotten Realms, the 1980s D&D cartoon show, or if you’re just a Led Zeppelin fan, there’s something here for you. Otherwise, there’s too much going on to ever feel left out.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, a treasure as always, basically plays it straight and is terrific.

Even on the couch, with the ability to hit pause, it reaches heights (ha!) of quintessential B-movie greatness, causing exactly the kind of discomfort that elicits verbal rebukes.

I'd place it more alongside the enjoyable The Visit or Split, and, indeed, there are some story commonalities with both. It is, however, masterfully shot, with great use of wide angles, cropped frames, and a sense of foreboding inside and around the concert venue.

It does a marvelous job at giving us an impressionistic taste of horrific circumstances without using them to beat us into submission.

If there’s a message at all in Moonage Daydream, it is secondary to the experiential nature of the movie. That’s hardly a knock. One goes to a concert to be thrilled, not necessarily to gather life lessons. Leave that sort of thing for the other, lesser documentaries.

This picture isn’t as showy or obvious as one of his (many) masterpieces, but it is quite good and deserves your time and respect.

Movies like Resurrection are terrific because they blur the line between how you’d act in reality and what’s appropriate for a film.

As with the others in the series, this is not an upbeat picture, but it is effective and unsettling without being too gory.

From a distance The Spectacular Now is mere soap opera, but it is one of those films that grow more fascinating upon inspection.

Formulaic, dare-I-say-sappy movies, when done right, can be really good, and Nonnas is one such example.

There’s little about it that is realistic, but it has points to make about the real world.

This movie is foremost an ethnographic exercise, and whether it is a rallying cry or poverty porn is for the viewer to decide.

This isn’t a particularly chancy film, unless the decision to go old school is considered such. It is still, however, quite good.

We can debate if Burn Your Maps merely fetishises a different culture or holds it in true reverence, but I’d like to give it the benefit of the doubt. If nothing else, the performances are terrific all around.

The landscape is a definitive presence throughout the film, which has almost no music and very little dialogue. The film is short (approximately 80 minutes) and maintains a good sense of dread throughout.

It’s all wonderfully preposterous, but also endearing and gratifying.

This is an urgent, deep soak in the current refugee crisis.

While the subject matter is enraging, the film is not without warmth and occasional levity.

Writer-director team Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (It’s Kind of A Funny Story, Half Nelson) must be applauded for refusing to let their shaggy dog tale line up with any predictable storyline.

22 Jump Street is a success, as there is a little good ol’ fashioned “heart” beneath its post-modern veneer.

[A] gripping, well-acted and sharply-written low-budget drama.

For all of Mills’s cinematic tricks, he’s emerging as a great realist film-maker.

While some viewers may complain that the action is too heavily weighted toward the ending, I’d argue that this is a strong example of destination-not-the-journey film-making.

Private Property’s vicious form of prurience may make some queasy, and is hardly the type of movie that could get made today without great backlash, but there’s definitely more going on here than mere time-capsule curiosity.

Cage, not one known for subtlety of late, is truly great in this sad, funny and tender role.