Jordan Raup

The psychological weight of our certain death and the fact that life will go on long after we are departed is difficult to visually convey, but A Ghost Story is one of the most poignant films to ever grapple with this existential question.

A directorial debut of unfiltered frankness in both its tragedy and comedy, Sorry, Baby is a singular feat of storytelling.

Providing levity and comfort to ideas of mortality, Kirsten Johnson has illuminated the sweet embrace of death.

It all culminates in a final scene that is as eloquent as it is wise.

A conspiracy thriller as euphorically entertaining as it is devastatingly bleak.

What makes Boys State so compelling is it appeals both to the most cynical and hopeful of viewers.

For relying on the barest narrative threads, watching All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is more an experience of transformative renewal than gleaning specific details of Mack’s story.

The Tale is a soul-excavating reckoning with the suppression of trauma and a testament to the courage required for a victim to confront the most damaging moments of their lives.

In capturing the crumbling of a family and the scars left behind, Paul Dano has made a fascinatingly complex portrait of the fracturing of American ideals.

Hittman has provided an essential, specific look at just one person’s struggle to have control over her own body. By doing so with such a delicate, considered perspective, she’s giving a voice to millions of women going through the same experience. And it’s time to listen.

[A] thoroughly engrossing documentary.

Seeing how Soderbergh and Koepp can expertly stack the deck to always be one step before the viewer is an exhilarating thrill to behold.

Joseph’s mesmerizing debut feels like a living, breathing dispatch from a time beyond ours, ushering in new possibilities for the form.

Gandbhir isn’t here to provide those answers, but with her unembellished, formally compelling vision, she gives all the evidence needed for those in power to rethink the laws and systems in place.

Hogg’s earlier films are striking in their picturesque abstractness as we sit in on conversations from a distance, but the ambition and warmth on display in The Souvenir makes this her greatest achievement.

It’s a film of overwhelming empathy and playfulness as loneliness turns into gratification and desires are slowly manifested into reality.

There are no clichés here, and Lonergan flawlessly carves out the most sincere moments to reveal a sprawling, deeply affecting odyssey of emotional recovery.

Thoroughly engrossing ... The way the directors are able to provide a portrait of empathy on all sides is astounding.

It’s such a step-up in vibrancy, scope, and emotion that it feels like the introduction of an entirely different, more accomplished filmmaker.

It’s a depressing, disturbing journey to witness, but an essential one to see the machinations of evil that pervade and influence our daily life on the internet and beyond.

A culturally specific story is being told, but the film’s familiar structure helps to add a commonality for any viewer.

Weaving in skillfully employed, grounded visual effects, it’s rather shocking just how much the ghost, sight unseen, feels like another character in the movie.

One of the most subtly striking decisions in Minari is to not focus on the major moments in their path towards the American Dream, but rather memorable interactions within this tight-knit family, however minor they may be.

While Rebel Ridge hints at larger systemic issues that could be part of a million other small towns across the country, the film works best when solely anchored on Terry’s perspective. The experience is one of riveting twists, turns, and unnerving tension.

With a gentle yet rigorous vision, Eephus coalesces into a reflective study of nostalgia: both for a game that has evolved and for a certain kind of American social life that is dwindling as fast as the sun fades.

Beautifully showing the importance of healing through art, Sing Sing skirts the treacly traps of a feel-good crowd-pleaser by providing a detailed, authentic roadmap for restoring a life burdened by trauma.

Considering how Perry intricately carves out the understated instincts of each of these characters, it’s easily his most humane and emotionally complex film.

With remarkably immediate cinematography and an intimate understanding of its subjects, Descendant becomes an essential ideal of how to tell a community’s story: not through distant talking heads, but capturing moving bodies through land and history, giving a voice to those that can often feel powerless.