Leah Greenblatt

Worst has no shortage of gorgeous-people problems — more than enough, in fact, to fill 12 cinematic "chapters" — but it vibrates with real life, a film so fresh and untethered to rom-com cliché it might actually reshape the idea of what movies like this can be.

It’s not a movie for admiring in freeze frame; it’s the kind you fall into with your whole heart and emerge from feeling, for two hours at least, what it is to fully be transported by the magic of film.

Cary Fukunaga’s stark, beautifully shot drama was likely never meant to be a blockbuster; its brutal account of a child soldier in an unnamed African country is far too discomfiting for wider audiences. It absolutely does belong on a big screen, though, and more important, it just deserves to be seen.

The movie belongs to Blanchett, in a turn so exacting and enormous that it feels less like a performance than a full-body possession.

It's hard, too, to picture any actress other than McDormand (who also has a producer credit) in the part. She doesn't just become Fern, she creates her: melding Zhao's screenplay to her own fierce character in a way that feels almost uncannily real. Together, they've managed to make that rare thing: a film that feels both necessary and sublime.

If the movie's entire axis spins on the kind of extreme discomfort comedy you almost need a pillow to chew on and a pile of Xanax to get through, that's also the particular genius of Baron Cohen, an artist who instinctively knows how to hold up a mirror — and that a cracked one can show us, maybe better than anything, exactly what we need to see.

There’s a raw, tangible humanity to nearly every scene that sets the film gratifyingly apart.

At just under 90 minutes, the movie is as short and sweet as its stamp-size muse, but an uncommon loveliness lingers; Marcel might just be the most purely joyful, stealthily profound movie experience of the year.

Even as the story's inevitable reckoning descends, Farhadi allows his modest morality tale to take on a note of battered, ambiguous hope: a cautionary fable whose purest notes ring poignantly, painfully true.

It feels like a rare achievement to even attempt to scale the unscalable and still, after more than half a century, be able to make it sing.

Shot in alternating French and Flemish, it's also quintessentially European, but the language of his storytelling is the most universal kind: a moving and often sublime piece of small-scale filmmaking, told with uncommon empathy.

Even as the pacing falters, Majors is impossible to look away from: a man who desperately needs the world to see him — and if they refuse, to feel his pain.

Kore-eda is working up to something else, steering the story he’s built so carefully toward an utterly unexpected detour. As much of what we think we know unravels, the film becomes not just an enjoyable, intermittently poignant portrait of imperfect people but a profound meditation on the meaning of family.

[Taylor] deftly translates the bleak, raw-boned menace and tricky time signatures of Train’s intertwined plotlines, and draws remarkably vivid performances from his cast, particularly his two female leads.

Kimberly Reed’s taut documentary is also damning, clear-eyed, and as gripping as any John Grisham thriller.

The skating scenes, too, are thrilling, but Robbie is the real revelation. In a performance that goes far beyond bad perms and tabloid punchlines, she’s a powerhouse: a scrappy, defiant subversion of the American dream. You won’t just find yourself rooting for this crazy kid; you might even fall a little bit in love.

The movie’s darker allegory of persecution and internment isn’t hard to miss, though, and the dogs themselves, with their tactile tufts of fur and Buster Keaton eyes, have an endearing, complicated humanity.

Though it may not be an easy movie to watch, or even a particularly original one — there’s still Kramer vs. Kramer, after all — Marriage still feels like something special on the screen: a movie that somehow makes its intimacy seem like a radical act, one messy, heart-wrecking moment at a time.

It’s shaggy and self-indulgent and almost scandalously long; and in nearly every moment, pretty glorious. Once also has the good luck of being anchored by what might be two of the last true movie stars: Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton, a boozy, anxious actor staring down the bell curve of a never-quite-stellar career, and Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth, his taciturn stuntman turned trusty sidekick and consigliere.

What keeps the film from feeling like period-piece amber, all whispered alliances and wiggery, is the keenly feminist sensibility of first-time director Josie Rourke (her background is largely in theater) and the fierce charisma and complicated humanity of its two leads, sovereigns till the end.

Officially, Knock follows four progressive female candidates, though the one who inevitably dominates is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Bronx-bred waitress–turned–congressional unicorn. It’s a lot of fun to ride along on her wildly improbable rise, from slinging margaritas and scooping out ice buckets to taking down one of the most powerful Democrats in the House.

There’s something uniquely, transcendently beautiful in Campillo’s particular vision and the unhurried way he unfurls it.

A quintessentially American tale; profane, profound, and beautiful.

It’s real life, heartbreaking and sublime.

Licorice (the title, never once mentioned or explained, remains a happy non sequitur) is a love letter to an era, and more than that a feeling: a tender, funny ramble forged in all the hope and absurdity of adolescence, one wild poly-blend rumpus at a time.

But here they’re all still young and flannel-y and full of hope—and nobody needs an app for that.

A measured if still-maddening look into the 2016 USA Gymnastics scandal.

It’s heartbreaking, illuminating, and yes, fantastic, just to watch her (Marina) live.