Matt Donato

Guardians Of The Galaxy is everything we go to the movies for, as Gunn is able to build an intricate intergalactic world full of multiple races, lush scenery, and maximum escapism through action, romance, comedy, and interstellar drama.

Blindspotting is a force to be reckoned with in terms of experience, anger and boiled frustrations that beg anyone watching to lead the charge for change.

When Evil Lurks is a capital “H” horror film that risks it all and hits the jackpot, pummeling its audience into submissions and still leaving us asking for more.

Prepare to be turned-ghost pale by horrors of the mind, body and soul, unlike you’ve experienced in quite some time.

Prevenge is a breathtaking, savage debut from Alice Lowe, one that boasts horrific moral deprivation and a sense of humor drenched in maternal madness.

It’s not just one of the best superhero movies ever – it’s a damn-fine cinematic representation of the human condition in all its agonizing forms.

This is a masterpiece of woven ancestral roots and the importance of “familia,” confident in song and poetic in vision.

Garland may have just delivered one of the most vicious and unrelenting watches of the year, one that I’ll keep debating and untangling both in my head and with others for a good long while.

My Dead Friend Zoe opens wounds and douses them in peroxide — the immediate sensation stings, but eventually cleanses and soothes.

Kill is a near-perfect action thriller that's stuck in overdrive.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is a celebration of limitless creativity that honors comic book runs of the same freeing mentality.

As far as mainstream horror goes, It is a brilliant example of what can happen when equal attention is paid to story and scares.

Evil Dead Rise is both a familiar and refreshing Evil Dead sequel that delivers all the gore you’d expect with a measured dose of the humor that makes this series a fan favorite.

12 Years A Slave will beat you down emotionally, scene after scene, without any mercy - but that's just a testament to the brilliant direction, transformation-like performances, and unapologetic storytelling that elevates Steve McQueen's movie high above the masses.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is striking, stunning, visually hypnotizing, thrilling - everything "epic" about the famed franchise rolled into a tremendously overcharged start to Rian Johnson's Star Wars career.

Project Wolf Hunting goes for broke in terms of exquisite beatdown violence in the pursuit of primal genre happiness. Writer/director Kim Hong-seon executes like there’s a going-out-of-business sale on fake blood, and we reap the benefits as showstopping displays of action-horror devastation take center stage.

Delightful, inventive and deeply affecting, Inside Out embodies the very best of what Pixar has to offer.

Cooper Raiff dances around complex emotions with the smoothest of steps in Cha Cha Real Smooth, sliding into the definition of feel-good filmmaking.

The Endless is a masterful cinematic echo chamber with incomprehensible depth. You will feel, laugh and be forced to address emotions shared with all on-screen personalities.

Ti West is back with a violent vengeance, slicing and dicing through likable characters that light up the screen throughout their doomed and debaucherous overnight shoot. West is operating on another level — even the slightest editing cut cranks fear factors another notch higher.

Boyz In The Wood is the hippest, wildest, most energetic genre blowout to come from the UK since Attack The Block.

Writer/director Jang Jae-hyun’s Exhuma bobs and weaves in ways American exorcism stories couldn’t fathom.

Arachnophobes beware: Infested is the best spider-centric horror movie since Arachnophobia.

The Harbinger is observant, relatable, scare-ya-silly horror. Andy Mitton uses ominous imagery, sorrowful atmospheres, reliable templates, and resonating paranoias to so effortlessly hit upon those feelings we all felt under lockdown: insignificance, loneliness, and worst of all, our social disappearance.

Sonic The Hedgehog 3 lets its animated heroes shine. There’s less “live” in this impressively blended live-action movie, which is not a detriment.

This is a glamorous, commanding and important watch, primed to corrupt audience minds for a multitude of passionate reasons – first and foremost of which is that Takal stages one damn fine free-thinking thriller.

Amy Seimetz plays by her own rules like this is the last film she’ll ever make (it won’t be, no shot). She Dies Tomorrow ponders self-fulfillment with agency and riveting execution. Seimetz’s fearlessness is what sells every ounce of this uncontrollable narrative’s every zig and zag. From tone to philosophy to composition, this is Seimetz’s soul on celluloid.

If your script is good enough to pull Steven Soderbergh from “retirement,” color me intrigued. Such is true of Logan Lucky. An Ocean’s 7-11 hootenanny with Southern charm and Coen sensibilities.