Leigh Monson

Not every story needs to follow the hero’s journey, but it’s a bold choice to craft a main character who does nothing but reject the call to adventure. Poignant? Perhaps. Entertaining? Less so.

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

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.

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

This is a reaffirmation of the author’s impact and importance to an audience that already agrees with that assessment, leaving the film as unchallenging as it is pleasant.

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.

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.

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.

The film is named after the dog. The memoir upon which the film is based is about the transformative meeting with this dog. It seems clear that this should be a story about a dog! So it’s baffling to realize that the dog is almost an afterthought. Instead, it’s yet another star vehicle for Mark Wahlberg to unconvincingly sell himself as a likable everyman.

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.

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.

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.

Though the path to its conclusions is at times more plodding than meditative, the finale is a subtle, emotional twist of the knife that makes the journey worth taking.

Ultimately, House Of Darkness exists in a strange and equally fatal no man’s land of being simultaneously under- and overwritten. As a feature film, it’s entirely insubstantial, with a premise better served in short form as part of an anthology.

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.

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

There is a compellingly naturalistic chemistry between Kazan and Mulligan as the reporters develop a bond of their shared pursuit of the truth, but these character beats are, at best, a garnish on the side of a relatively bland meal.

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

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

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.

Although the film makes some notable insights about the teenage psyche, there isn’t quite enough ‘there’ there to elevate the film above the ranks of average horror programming.

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.

Like the cobbled-together parts of an aging engine, or the seemingly incompatible members of a chosen family, Blood Relatives holds together with just enough passion and love that its sturdy engine takes audiences for an enjoyable if not always memorable ride.

Bayard Rustin deserves to be remembered for the entirety of his being, both as an activist and as an openly gay Black man in a time when it was criminal. As much as Rustin attempts to balance both, it carries the former better than the latter.

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.

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.

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.

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.