Mark Hanson

The film is a vivid meditation on human possibility in the face of fate and nature’s tumultuous might, ending in a fog of ambiguity that mirrors that characters’ bewilderment.

More broadly appealing than Kleber Mendonça Filho’s past films, The Secret Agent is still unmistakeably the work of an artist who’s deeply fascinated with the ways in which cinema, politics, and personal history co-mingle.

The film is astutely aware of the physical and psychological scars that that result from living in a state of tyranny.

The Visitor ultimately posits a vision of transcendence through anarchy, seeing repression as the enemy of social progress.

Heretic intriguingly plays with our expectations of who the heroes and villains are in this scenario.

The film is winningly defined by its peculiar admixture of national pride and self-deprecation.

Perhaps the script is deliberately harking back to a storytelling mode that was characteristic of Hollywood cinema for dramatic effect, but the musical aspect, while a neat gimmick, isn’t memorable or cohesive enough to make the homage, well, sing.

The film’s initial pull lies in the way that Sean Baker intoxicatingly keys his aesthetic to the fervor of a budding romance that we clearly know won’t end well.

Lee Daniels does such a good job investing us in the human drama of The Deliverance that it almost feels unnecessary when the supernatural elements inevitably take over in the final act.

Concrete Valley reveals itself as a thrilling example, both in form and content, of the way that the fostering of community allows us to regain some measure of control over life’s adversities.

The film reveals itself as a prototypical yet surprisingly tender love story between two damaged people re-learning how to move through a world that’s unable to adequately support them.

The Holdovers is ultimately a story about the absence of family, and as it watches three individuals come together and apart, it’s subtly attuned to the way that class constricts people’s lives.

It may indeed be the perfect cinematic representation of our current media landscape, adapting to our collective brain rot from being terminally online instead of fighting against it.

Kristoffer Borgli’s film presents a perfectly absurdist setup that allows Nicolas Cage to flex his singular acting muscles in increasingly hilarious directions.

At its best, Anatomy of a Fall is nothing less than a rigorous modern treatise on the knotty interpersonal dynamics of long-term relationships and how conveniently they can be distorted when exposed to public scrutiny.

The film embodies the alienating angst of millennial life in all its nakedly neurotic glory.

As dark as things get, the film never abandons its sly sense of humor.

Few films feel as excitingly jacked in to our current social climate as Daniel Goldhaber’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline.

Throughout, the film’s characters impressively hold their own when forced to defend their lives, with director John Hyams catching every incident of bone-crunching mayhem as if he were shooting a martial arts film.

Weird accordingly (or is it accordion-gly?) takes everything to new heights of glorious ridiculousness.

Holy Spider trickily manages to bridge the gap between social realism and exploitation cinema in a way that hints at how both are rooted in a similar place of gritty authenticity.

Ashley McKenzie’s film blossoms into a moving story about two people trapped by the institutions that they’re beholden to.

Scott Mann’s film succeeds by simply committing to and steadily ratcheting up the ludicrous awesomeness of its premise.

David Cronenberg stares upon humanity’s need to evolve toward some kind of survival with a serene, godlike assurance.

At its best, Alfonso Pineda Ulloa’s film gleefully embodies the grungy spirit of classic exploitation cinema.

Despite this clever setup, Tom Gormican’s film isn’t the self-reflexive skewering of Hollywood that one might expect.

While the canvas of Robert Eggers latest is considerably broader than that of The Witch and the Lighthouse, it feels as if its psychological chaos hasn’t expanded accordingly.

While still intermittently thrilling as a basic retro-outfitted slasher, X ultimately comes off in a way that no porn (or horror) film should: like a tease.

Taurus is in the business of self-aggrandizement, but this is a film that understands that stardom is inherently aggrandizing.

The film is one of the more intrinsically frightening evocations of a traumatized mind since Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

Riley Stearns’s film consistently tickles the funny bone, even when it comes at the expense of psychological nuance.

Until its contrived conclusion, the film plays as a queasy satire of conditioned interpersonal behavior.

While its plot is strictly by the numbers, Clean is elevated by its stylistic flair and propulsive pace.

At its best, the film suggests some kind of hellish Nike commercial, where “just do it” becomes less an inspirational motto than a grueling portent of doom.

Though often abstract in its imagery, the film’s blistering commentary remains firmly rooted in our present reality.

While the film intermittently stuns in revealing Everest’s topographical mystique, its expedition into what makes climbers tick struggles to get off the ground.

Kenneth Branagh's film understands the malleability of memory, and it embodies cinema’s ability to offer a kind of escapism, but up until its climax it plays like a retreat from reality.

Pablo Larraín’s film readily conjures a paranoia-suffused atmosphere of fear for what might happen at any moment.

It’s hard to deny that Michael Mohan’s preposterous fable doesn’t exert the dark pull of voyeurism itself.

The film intimately immerses us in the psyche of a woman for whom each day is a minefield of uncomfortable interactions.

Despite the film’s narrow scope, it’s hard to not be impressed by the political and civic engagement of its teen subjects.

The disconnect between the realities of different generations of gay men is one of Swan Song’s most unexpectedly joyful through lines.

The film’s fanciful archival montages shrewdly demonstrate the ways in which memory and art seamlessly combine to document reality.

Sweat mostly adheres to a time-honored tale of the pitfalls of fame, despite its ultra-modern context.

Throughout, Jane Schoenbrun reveals themself to be adroitly plugged into both the current technological and sociological landscape.

The film allows the scion of one of Hollywood’s most notable families to interrogate her relationship with celebrity in self-aware fashion.