Michael Nordine

Brazil might not want you to know it, but Aquarius is something special.

Schnabel fuses form and content in a way that’s rarely attempted and even more rarely achieved; in risking the same derision with which Van Gogh was sometimes met, he transcends the limitations of the conventional biopic and creates something that feels genuinely new.

There’s sadness and beauty in every frame.

Lanthimos wants us to examine the different reasons we grasp at power — avarice, self-preservation, even fear — and better understand its corrosive effects.

Lanthimos's consistently hilarious, borderline anti-humor slowly gives way to a romantic streak of surprising warmth.

Denis Villeneuve's shared dream of a film takes the simple premise of a man glimpsing his doppelganger while watching a movie and mines every bit of tension and oddity from it — there's hardly a scene that doesn't exude menace.

First-time writer-director Bi Gan and cinematographer Wang Tianxing infuse the imagery with a feeling at once otherworldly and familiar — the kind of thing you can't put a name to but would swear you've already experienced.

Our glimpses of what's already occurred and what will soon come are vivid and impressionistic, prophetic warnings about which everyone seems powerless to do anything other than silently observe.

The film is an exemplar of its genre, one that honors its forebears while also acknowledging and attempting to correct their more glaring faults.

There are no jump-scares in this sensuous thriller, and the lack of anything corporeal on which to focus our unease only makes Butter on the Latch more darkly exhilarating.

Wry and self-aware but never finger-wagging, Office looks back on an economic precipice and finds more humor and spirit than any other depiction yet made about it.

Manages to be intimate and impersonal at the same time, a trait constantly reinforced by his portrayal of not only Ceausescu but the populace he led, represented, and controlled for nearly three decades.

Vox Lux is a powerful, haunting film in part because Portman is a powerful, haunting presence — you can’t turn away from her, even if you occasionally want to.

A docudrama that in its early scenes feels like a documentary — the co-directors have a nonfiction background, and the actors are actual carnival performers — the film plays out like a small-scale fairy tale.

First Man is an anti-thriller of rare intensity, with lived-in performances from Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy heightening the sky-high drama at every turn. It’s not a comprehensive look at the Apollo 11 mission, but revisits that famous story from a more intimate angle, even as it delivers a satisfying ride.

Dragged Across Concrete may be a hard movie to love, but it’s a much harder one not to respect and even admire.

Kill Me Please is as much a teen movie as it is a horror movie, vacillating between the genres in such a way that you’re reminded from one scene to another how similar the two really are.

Alita: Battle Angel is [Rodriguez’s] best film since he brought Frank Miller’s graphic novel to the screen, a sci-fi epic that does something rare in an age of endless adaptations and reboots: lives up to its potential while leaving you wanting more.

Acclaimed filmmakers often face the challenge of big expectations on their second features, but Kent joins the ranks of sophomore filmmakers whose new movies expand on their debuts in startlingly ambitious ways.

Even the best records start skipping after a while, and once The Sound of Silence gives in to the demands of conventional narrative it begins feeling less fresh and new than it did when it was simply introducing us to Peter and his work.

This is the kind of experience that might tell you more about yourself as both a viewer and a person than you’re comfortable knowing; it’s also the most alluringly strange movie of the year so far.

Angels Wear White brings into relief the bureaucratic corruption and class tension that inform the power dynamics of such situations.

Somewhere in Queens is a low-stakes slice of life for much of its runtime, with most of the actual conflict stemming from a questionable decision Leo makes to ensure his son’s success. That doesn’t necessarily make it feel slight, however, as the film is such an affectionate love letter to the Italian American families who populate the eponymous borough that you don’t mind simply sharing the dinner table with them.

As a sensory experience, Under Paris is never less than seaworthy.

Fear Street Part 3: 1666 isn’t just the best of the Netflix horror trilogy; it also recasts the prior two entries, “1994” and “1978,” in a more favorable light by deepening the mythology and underscoring just how crucial it is to watch all three chapters consecutively.

Writer-director JT Mollner flips the script on this tired genre, crafting the cleverest thriller of its kind in a while with a mighty assist from a pair of killer performances by co-leads Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner. Best experienced with as little foreknowledge as possible, Strange Darling demands a bit of patience, but it also rewards it.

Without coming across as a soapbox for narcs or unserious stoners, Rolling Papers gives a clearheaded account of things as they stand and where they might be headed.

If one measure of a documentary’s quality is whether it inspires you to learn more about its subject after the credits roll, The League is an unqualified success.

Everything about the film manages to be forward-thinking and old-school at the same time, giving the genre a bite in the neck it might not have wanted but certainly needed.

Little of what happens will come as a surprise, but Corbet's narrative restraint coupled with his formal daring makes for a gripping experience. It's a slow burn, but the fuse attached had me holding my breath.

The strange, ever-changing result is, at times, as original as loose remakes come, with Bidegain using his hallowed source material as a springboard for something rare: a "writer's movie" that loses nothing in the jump from script to screen.

Indivisible is above all else a mood piece humming with energy and marked by wondrous moments.

Before, Now & Then moves with its own dreamy cadence, with narrative developments washing over the film like waves. Closing your eyes once it’s over, you might even experience the sensation of having been in the water all afternoon as those gentle waves lapped over you — and longing to return to them.

Sensuous and arresting, Alleluia constantly feels as though a séance or ritual murder is about to be performed; the actual deaths, when they arrive, turn out to be rather unceremonious affairs.

A cutting, at times unwieldy exploration of trauma and forgiveness, the enigmatic drama goes places you almost certainly won’t expect — and, once there, makes you wonder how you ever thought it could have gone anywhere else.

Shot on delightfully grainy 16mm and featuring a cast of nonprofessional actors, the film is so alluringly disorienting that, by its end, some viewers will find themselves struggling to remember how this fever dream started.

Not since The Tree of Life has Christianity been explored onscreen in such serious, conflicted terms, but Scorsese has crafted a far less grandiose experience than Terrence Malick did five years ago. Silence is restrained, austere, even ascetic.

Olli Mäki isn't a knockout, but it does go the distance.

Few movies swap genres halfway through, and even fewer do so successfully. “Bloody Oranges” does both.

Skyler Davenport’s lead turn in director Randall Okita’s no-nonsense thriller (which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival last summer) will be worth remembering well after the January doldrums have passed.

Like the hardboiled detectives of yore, Too Late ultimately gets the job done — even if it's in its own off-the-books way.

As a descent into the apparently high-stakes world of truffle-pig-poaching, Pig is unexpectedly touching; as a showcase for Cage’s brilliance, it’s a revelation.

Beach Rats has an experiential, almost docudrama aesthetic whose lived-in authenticity is in keeping with that of the film as a whole.

Hathaway makes Gloria feel familiar and unique all at once. The same can be said of Colossal itself, which lives up to its title without losing sight of small-scale human drama.

As ever with Aardman, the cleverest moments are also the most fleeting.

This leaves the viewer with two choices: reject the parasite or let it take you over. Fight it off and you’ll have a bad time; become one with it and you may achieve a kind of symbiosis.

The animation itself is striking — an early sequence in which the sky is filled with dragons is an early sign of the visual treats to come — and ends up being the film’s highlight.

Custody begins with an air of documentary reality before evolving into a thriller so claustrophobic its climax fits inside the bathroom of a modest apartment.

And Then I Go isn’t elegiac or fatalistic, nor is it a dread-filled slog toward an inevitable conclusion.

Set at a prestigious drama school and frequently engrossing, the film unfolds like an experimental acting workshop that occasionally falters when the plot intrudes on the performances.

Creepy is both a return home and a return to form.

Though full of anger and grief, the film is more than just a screed. Greengrass’ docu-real aesthetic doesn’t allow for grandiosity even when he gives in to more heavy-handed impulses. He’s on a soapbox at times, but his message is worth hearing.

Bier’s direction is coolly efficient, which fits the material to a t — anything more ostentatious would just feel wasteful.

Fire Walk with Me isn’t what many wanted it to be, it’s easy to accept the film for what it is: a bracing look at incest and rape.

Much like the music, Lords of Chaos is frequently unpleasant but oddly compelling — not least because Åkerlund ensures that the film never takes itself as seriously as its subjects did.

Everything about La Flor — that financiers agreed to bankroll it, Llinás and his team were able to complete it, and festivals, distributors, and exhibitors are now screening it — is a marvel. Anyone with a disdain for the studio system’s endless parade of franchises (and with 14 hours) to spare would do well to give it their undivided attention.

Credit to Cooper for delivering his best, most soulful performance while pulling double duty behind the camera, but it’s his co-star whose magnetism most draws you into their world — and keeps you there even when the film hits the occasional wrong note.

There’s nothing particularly new or inspired about Zippel’s decision to simply train a camera on Friedkin and let him riff, but the man is such a captivating speaker that it ultimately doesn’t matter much.

Pop Aye never dips into cutesiness or sentimentality, even when you might find yourself wishing it would; it’s less a big-top circus and more a low-key character study.

Schrader’s direction is unobtrusive but agile, as though she considers it her duty to provide a cinematic soapbox for Zweig and politely exit the spotlight.

Propulsive battle sequences in which sandstorms make the fog of war quite literal are the ostensible focus of American Sniper, but the real tension comes from our anticipation of how they'll affect the life this sharpshooter is reluctant to return to until he feels he's done everything he possibly can.

Fightville's most worthwhile material tends to lie in the space between what its subjects say and what we know to be true.

There's something to be said about a two-and-a-half-hour war epic that manages to make each of its countless decapitation scenes feel earned, even called for, in the moment.

Clay Tweel’s Gleason documents the agony and the ecstasy of its subject’s life, and is similarly exceptional in its avoidance of the cliches so common among inspiring documentaries.

It’s like we’re front-seat passengers, and though it induces much anxiety, “The Load” compels us to keep both eyes forward lest we miss whatever might happen next.

With a firm commitment to its alluringly offbeat premise and a grounding lead performance from Susanne Wuest, this indie oddity is an enjoyable descent into the absurd despite an apparent lack of interest in answering most of the questions it raises.

It's like an odd storybook you'd find in the attic and have trouble putting down — the more quixotic Lian's journey becomes, the more you want her to see it through to the bitter end.

This is an inside joke of a film, but it’s also one that wants you to be in on it.

Sin Alas matches the half-awake feeling evoked by Luis's ruminations — on love, on Cuba's history, and on himself — well enough to feel authentic even when it meanders too far from what makes it most compelling.

“Christmas” is a cut above the usual holiday dross.

You wouldn't lose anything watching Fastball on ESPN rather than in the movie theater, but it does stand as further testament to baseball's status as our most chess-like sport, and one that, even when broken down to its tiniest component parts, never loses its magic.

Though far from perfect, Toad Road is also the first unique horror film to come along in years.

No aspect of history is off-limits here, the result being a grab bag of references, battles, and jokes that are constantly trying to one-up each other in terms of absurdity.

Steve Hoover's film (which was executive-produced by Terrence Malick) doesn't feel dishonest in its behind-the-scenes glimpse at its subject.

Tickled inspires many laughs throughout but, true to its subject, more and more of them are born of discomfort as it goes on — part of you wants it all to stop even as you’re amused.

Knowing something is up and knowing just what that is prove to be two very different things for both protagonist and viewer, however, and The Wicker Man is propelled by the thrill of not knowing.

Trash talk among competitors and spectators alike is a constant background hum, the informal banter taking the place of traditional talking-head documentary interviews.

While the landing isn’t as smooth as might be hoped for after the exemplary first act, neither does I.S.S. burn up on reentry.

Suffern strikes a respectful, not entirely hopeless tone throughout.

Louis Black explores the casual philosophizing of his subject's work in Dream Is Destiny, an admiring documentary that wisely lets Linklater do most of the talking in his plainspoken, unpretentious manner.

You might not want to live here, but the imagery makes for a nice postcard.

That Battered Bastards is practically a hagiography doesn't negate the fact that it has more anti-establishment joie de vivre in any given scene than most talking-head docs about previously unheralded mensches contain in their entire run times.

It's better than the first.

While hardly the first or most accomplished film of its kind, Death Metal Angola's focus on the ability of abrasive music to act as a healing agent builds toward genuine moments of renewal and serenity.

They're still thirteen-year-olds, which leads to Breaking a Monster's funniest moments.

Call it a dissenting opinion if you must, but Dirty Grandpa has sporadic moments of hilarity.

Lapid is so unconcerned with crafting a conventional crime drama that merely titling his film Policeman reads as a minor subversion, a way of defining the narrative in relation to a genre it hardly fits into.

Gilady never treats her heroine as a prop in someone else's redemption arc, and Rosenblatt's performance will have you looking for her work in other films.

That the film has so many partial reference points only makes the ultimate amalgamation stranger, as the chimeric whole can't be fully explained by its parts. The Wailing enters the world malformed and screaming, as powerless to stop itself as we are.

The film's most worthy detour is into the history and personal significance of masks.

While a bit of ironic detachment isn’t necessarily a hindrance, too many latter-day horror flicks’ attempts to show they’re in on the joke make it difficult to get invested in their stories. Despite initially appearing poised to repeat this too-cool-for-school mistake, “Someone” moves past it by emphasizing not vengeance but redemption.

Focusing on the moment-to-moment thrills proves more satisfying than wondering what actually sparked this intrigue.

Though quite silly, none of this feels self-reflexive or -satisfied. It delights in its own stupidity the way a dog rolls in dirt, but is nearly as difficult to get mad at after it muddies up the rug.

“In My Mother’s Skin” finds a rare sweet spot between story-book nightmare and historical allegory.

While passive and/or helpless characters rarely make for the most engaging protagonists, the sensitivity with which this story is told coupled with Wright’s performance makes for an experience that’s never less than engaging.

Both Aria and the film as a whole are very much in their own head, which is a nice place to visit but probably not the healthiest environment to grow up in.

[Michelle Monaghan's] at her best as Army medic/staff sergeant Maggie Swann in writer-director Claudia Myers's Fort Bliss.

An airy, low-key drama that doesn’t suffer for its lack of narrative tension, The Passengers of the Night further proves the old adage about the journey mattering more the destination.