Leigh Monson

And that’s perhaps the most amazing thing about Lisa Frankenstein: its instant timelessness. Sure, it may be a pastiche, or a love letter to previous eras, or any other euphemism for cinematic recycling, but that doesn’t prevent it from being just as much a singular creation as any of its forebears, sidestepping derivative rehashing in favor of an original take on teen angst that isn’t bound by its homage.

Bros is an excellent comedy, both as an expression of classical romance on screen, and one of a queerer, more diverse variety.

Overall, the narrative, performative, and visual splendor of The Sea Beast are enough to vastly outweigh minor issues in presentational consistency. This is a richly realized nautical world, with the animation team expressing an obvious love for the adventure stories that inspired it and a passion for telling a story as hopeful as it is exciting.

This is a funny, sweet, heartfelt exploration of pubescent self-discovery that lives up to its namesake.

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish is one of cinema’s biggest surprises of the year.

Joy Ride is a real blast, offering its sentimentality as a garnish to a road trip that emphasizes the sex in sex positivity.

Cregger delivers an absolutely stunning addition to the horror canon. Barbarian is a twisted little film, a descent into a hell that is so achingly human that it loops back around as a funhouse reflection.

Bruckner, Collins, and Piotrowski plant their vision in fields that are no less rich, terrifying, or gorily violent than the hellbound story that started it all.

On one level, it directly lampoons the artificial mechanisms by which big-budget blockbusters tell their stories, yet it also provides an avenue for deeply personal storytelling within the framework of our shared cultural mythology.

At its most powerful, Adamma Ebo’s film is an empathetic indictment of a culture that has evolved—and perhaps mutated— from intercommunity support toward the asphyxiating glorification of gaudy figureheads.

Though not without its rough edges, McGlynn’s film is emotionally raw and willing to engage with the complexities and nuances of her situation, providing a fascinating look at the intersectionality of burgeoning womanhood, intersex identity, and messy sexuality that doesn’t adhere to rigid or widely acknowledged labels.

Screenlife may never be one of the primary ways we tell cinematic stories, but Missing is a prime example of what the format is capable of, tapping into our increasingly digital humanity to excellent effect.

Still is a solid reminder of why Fox is a magnetic camera presence and why he continues to be beloved, both as an actor and an activist for Parkinson’s research. As rote as many celebrity navel-gazing documentaries have become, it’s refreshing to see a film that can still find the strengths of the format.

Knock At The Cabin is a harrowing and intense home invasion thriller that feels like a step in the right direction for Shyamalan.

For a singularly outlandish and specific premise, this is a film that lets its audience experience the horror right along with the characters on screen. This is cinema as spectacle distilled down to its rawest form, where basic storytelling leads directly to visceral and emotional catharsis.

Women Talking is about as direct as cinema gets in portraying the complexities and nuances of the feminist struggle, and it achieves much with characters who wouldn’t likely consider themselves feminist or revolutionary.

Though the contortionist-level juxtaposition of an American Girl murderbot should probably be more viscerally satisfying, Cooper’s offbeat humor and Johnstone’s ability to build tension with her characters make for a potent combination.

Despite briefly losing its balance, Stay On Board sticks the landing, crafting a story of self-love and determined self-actualization that many pre-transition queer folks will find aspirational.

Low on incident but high on emotion, The Colors Within poignantly draws a line from our most private selves to the art we create as an expression of who we really are inside.

Despite its limitations, 20,000 Species of Bees is crafted from a place of empathy so often lacking in conversations about trans childhood.

In the tradition of Britain’s class comedies, what makes Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris comes down to the difference between, say, your average fashion designer and someone like Dior: with a pattern, anyone can make clothes—but in Manville’s hands, she stitches together something magical.

Newman’s film gets enough right to be just as solid as a summer cinematic distraction as Owens’ book was as beachside literature. The atmosphere and beauty of the Carolina marshes are masterfully captured, and it bears repeating that Daisy Edgar-Jones is a magnetic leading presence, investing Kya with equal parts relatability and spiny distance for a character that seems to have leapt from the page, whole and vivid.

Rye Lane never tips over fully into cartoonish exaggeration, but the playful presentation of ids and egos through the dreamlike perspectives of its leads goes a long way toward making the film stand out as more than just a showcase for freewheeling chemistry.

These are jump scares done right, where the struggle to see what’s there is much more effective than any cheap lurch into frame.

Anything’s Possible may be flawed for what it fails to fully develop around the edges of its story, but the central relationship that holds the film together is so compelling that the rest hardly matters.

If anything, the rarity of a franchise film that seems principally concerned with appealing to a new generation is more in line with the legacy of the original series than any film that has come since.

Frequently hilarious and never lacking in heart, there’s plenty to love about this story of an offbeat, cabbage-loving weirdo and his three-meter-tall mechanical son. Even if it’s a bit thematically slight and doesn’t quite stick the landing in congealing what themes it does have into a cohesive whole, sometimes all that’s necessary is an offbeat sense of humor and a weird enough premise to make a lasting impression.

The core of the film is in Tremblay’s and Matarazzo’s portrayal of a budding friendship, and the resulting adventures that Elmer and Boris have are certain to entertain plenty of families looking for a comfortable evening on Netflix. It will just be difficult for fans of Cartoon Saloon’s previous films not to notice that My Father’s Dragon has more modest goals than its forebears.