Karen Gordon

Yes, it’s a formula and we’ve been here before. But the characters are engaging, the performances elevate the material, and the various dilemmas of each gives this more layers than you might expect.

A major factor in making this work as well it does are the performances, which are pitch perfect.

Life, like love is messy. The beauty of the film is the way Miele, through the dilemma of Adrienne and Matteo, asks us to look at our own messy lives and see it through fresh eyes.

In the end, The Phoenician Scheme has a warm and beating heart.

The Old Man & The Gun is, on the surface, a low-key, easygoing movie that is funny and charming. But it’s also slightly subversive, nodding to the appeal of the great American anti-hero, a role that Redford played many times in his career.

Ava DuVernay’s beautiful and visually imaginative A Wrinkle In Time is a magical mystery tour for teenage girls. It’s a female empowerment movie that says love triumphs over evil and light trumps darkness. It says that the many teenage girls who believe they’re not good enough can find their strength and beauty, even through their flaws.

Brainy, talkative, full of ideas and questions about contemporary culture and human nature, writer-director Todd Field’s Tár is a character study of a talented, flawed character. It’s also a comment on cancel culture though it could be the other way around: a film about cancel culture wrapped around a complicated character.

This is the feature film debut of veteran television director Tom George, and his experience directing comedy shows in the perfect comedy timing here. There are small bits that turn into running jokes through the movie. Then again George was given a lot to work with by screenwriter Mark Chappell, whose tight script uses every genre cliche in the service of clever fun. And this top-notch cast is a joy to watch.

Greek director Christos Nikou makes an impressive feature film debut with Apples, a subtle, offbeat and quietly affecting movie about amnesia, identify and grief.

The focus on Woody means that Toy Story 4 is less of a metaphor about the things we leave behind as we leave childhood, which means emotionally it's the lightest of the series. That may mean fewer hankies for those of us sitting together in the dark falling in love all over again with a box of animated toys. But the sweetness persists.

[Hirokazu Kore-eda's] magic power is building stories from the small moments that feel so familiar and yet add up to movies that are gently, but deeply resonant.

Aster packs a lot into the film but never loses control of the material. In his most mainstream work to date, he once again shows his mettle as a serious filmmaker.

It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley is a reminder of the beauty of what he was looking for, and why his loss still reverberates so many years after his death.

If everything is fair in love and war, buckle your seatbelts. Aided by a superb cast, writer-director Chloe Domont makes a strong feature debut with Fair Play, a deft drama about gender dynamics in intimate relationships and in the workplace.

By not hammering on a hot-button issue, by avoiding turning this into a lecture, she has given us a movie about how some things in life come down to choices that are so intimate and personal that sometimes words won’t help you understand.

The new Netflix documentary Marty, Life Is Short is a portrait of the man and the artist, that prioritizes heart and affection and doesn't pretend otherwise. And it’s not just affection for the film’s subject.

The action, the battles, the love story… all of this continues through the film, but as it progresses it subtly turns, leading us to some bigger, and heavier themes such as the pointlessness of war, the dangers of religious fanaticism, fascism, and the questions of people who find themselves swept up in fate. It works as pure action, but with all of this, Dune: Part Two is a potent and layered film.

It’s an easygoing, highly enjoyable look at the life and considerable influence of Julia Child.

Led by a beautiful performance by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, writer-director Ava DuVernay’s fact-based Origin is a profoundly moving and humanistic movie that explores a range of complex issues about race and culture through the lens of a woman coping with loss and grief.

Most importantly, what the film really accomplishes, is bringing back to life Tenório Cerqueira Junior, a terrifically talented musician whose career was ended abruptly. They’ve restored his work and his legacy. It's no small thing.

Aranoa has pulled together an excellent cast. But holding it all together is the formidable and always watchable Bardem. His performance makes this satire also a character study.

Bolstered by superb performances by two Oscar-winning actors, director Tobias Lindholm’s The Good Nurse is a subdued, elegantly made true crime film about how a heinous crime spree was brought to an end.

Uncut Gems is a heart-pounding sprint of a movie, a two-hour anxiety attack, anchored by a tour de force performance by Adam Sandler.

The Irish have struggled to find peace on a road historically paved with war. The little village in The Banshees of Inisherin seems a microcosm of the complexity of maintaining that peace, even among ostensible friends.

It is engaging, warm, touching, and sincere without being cloying or manipulative.

What’s miraculous is that, through it all, Kaufman stays on course in a movie that is as intriguing as it is wonderfully odd.

How wonderful to see a movie that deals with the emotional and sexual life of two very different women north of 60, who are the sum of their lives, not bound by cultural cliches or perceptions.

Is this about forgiveness as a pathway to love? Lowery doesn’t sew it up for us in a neat package or give us the answers, but I have no doubt that anyone who resonates with the film will come away with thoughts of their own.