Monica Castillo

Harrill, who wrote and directed the film, isn’t as interested in the supernatural elements in the film as he is with the story’s few players. There’s a lot of room for emotions to breathe and wash over its characters, but never does it tip over into excess.

Rich in personal archival footage and first-hand accounts. It’s as if every other clip in the movie is a peek into a bygone era.

The playful “will they or won’t they” dynamic has kept the series moving since Lara Jean first learned that Peter received her love letter. Even if it seems like it's wearing a bit thin by the events in Always and Forever, the affectionate energy between stars Condor and Centineo keeps the sparks flying.

With a knowing smile, she revisits her memories in one-on-one style interviews, looking directly at the camera—at us—to tell her story. A chorus of scholars, critics and friends join her to sing praises for her work that she’s too modest to bring up herself.

It’s one of those rare horror movies to leave you with good holiday cheer.

This is not your typical “bank robbery gone wrong” kind of movie, nor does it follow the familiar beats of a Bonnie and Clyde-style “lovers on the lam” story. “Marmalade” is a strange mix of its own, launching the rom com criminal premise to thrilling heights.

Kendrick’s performance is one of the strongest aspects of “Alice, Darling.” Under Nighy’s direction, they create an emotional portrait of someone on the verge of being lost to a warped distortion of love but who realizes they were surrounded by the real thing the entire time.

The film is a history lesson, a poetic cry for justice, a testament to the Lakota Nation’s resilience and acknowledgment of the community’s loss—an incalculable loss that can never be fixed with underwhelming financial reparations—from the U.S. government’s 150-year betrayal of their people.

Like last year’s crowd-pleasing documentary, “Sally,” “Spacewoman” is a heartwarming and inspiring story of a woman defying the odds, sexism, and workplace danger to make history.

Marty: Life Is Short is an overdue appreciation of a performer who’s underestimated as a clown only because he makes being funny look so easy.

From Cole's own words and interviews with his friends and loved ones, Peck writes a thorough narrative through the highs and lows of the photographer's life, including details about his childhood in South Africa and many years of homesickness abroad.

Alex Schaad’s feature debut “Skin Deep” is a stripped-down sci-fi drama that takes its time to explore the social and romantic ramifications of its simple premise.

Zombieland: Double Tap continues the original’s cheeky tone and irreverent humor, while it also acknowledges that it’s a series a little out of place and time with the current political age. But if all you’re looking for is “Shaun of the Dead,” but American, then this is the movie for you.

The Day Shall Come is greatest when skewering power and shining a light on grave legal overreach. That we can laugh about it is great, but it’s a sign of our own security, of how unlikely we feel that we would be targeted in the same way. For others, laughing at this movie may not be so easy.

Heading into the homestretch of this year’s election, Represent feels like a balm. A reminder that, win or lose, there’s something to be gained by reigniting people’s interest in civil engagement, especially at the local and state level.

Ozon’s The Stranger keeps the spirit of its source material alive as a timeless warning in a modern world of stark polarization, ongoing colonialism, and plenty of Meursaults ignoring the suffering of others.

By anonymizing both the callers and the places featured in the documentary, “Intercepted” becomes a sobering portrait of the many millions of lives interrupted by this war.

Through cinematographer Mark Schwartzbard’s lens, The Photograph feels like a gentle throwback to romantic movies that left their audiences in good spirits as they filed out of the theater.

With “The Moogai,” Bell wrestles with the horrors of the past and acknowledges the history of the Aboriginal children who never had a chance at a future.

Far from being just a simple comedy about fitness and weight loss, Brittany’s journey includes the healing and forgiveness it takes to really meet those goals.

It is an educational journey, an uncompromising look into the challenges of an artistic life, and a tribute to the man whose studio and dance company still bear his name.

Young and Johnson drive home Harris’ emotional story with a potent chemistry both tender and volatile. They’re brilliantly paired as twins who are so closely connected that they know when the other is in trouble, but are so unique in personality that they are their own separate entities.

Tamahori and co-writer Shane Danielsen may have taken some historical liberties in loosely basing their script on true events, creating composite characters or writing in new figures. Still, if the goal of “The Convert” was to give a sense of New Zealand when most of its residents called it by its Māori name, Aotearoa, then it is successful.

Although the characters tend to lean heavily on caricature, Rodriguez, Wise, and Snow seem to have plenty of chemistry with each other.

Touzani’s “Calle Málaga” is a reminder to savor the days we have in the places and communities we hold dear.

The movie feels instructional without getting too preachy, taking time to explain various inequalities and barriers facing black Americans, typically in exchanges between father and daughter.

While Mercedes Bryce Morgan’s newest film, “Bone Lake,” doesn’t necessarily break new gory ground in the category, it’s a fun, messed-up horror thriller playing with both familiar tropes and modern-day anxieties of love, sex, and finding out that someone has booked the same rental home for the weekend.

As wonderful as The Other Lamb appears on screen and its cast embodies the story’s tension, it feels as if there is missing something from the final picture. The movie is slight in its exploration of dark subjects like cults, inter-generational dynamics and abuse, without coming to any kind of conclusion or closure.

The Graduates is a reflective movie, an emotional story without telling you how to feel, only that for many people across the country, learning to live with grief can be just as important as planning for the future.

Writer and director Ekwa Msangi constructs this nontraditional narrative with an attention to detail for each of these characters. Just as important as their conversations is their body language and how it shifts around one another.

One thing that comes across so clearly in Finding Yingying is the ripple effect the disappearance of a loved one has on their family and friends. It’s a waking nightmare of uncertainty that stretches for years. A grief that’s always just on the surface waiting to unleash itself once again.

Linklater not only pays his respects to Godard but also shares that adoration for his craft with his own audience.

Julia Jackman‘s beguiling feminist fairytale “100 Nights of Hero” is an enchanting tribute to the power of storytelling.

Science Fair melts your heart almost as soon as it begins, with an emotional clip that went viral of a young winner who is so overjoyed, he cries on stage while holding his award.

This strange and creative approach to storytelling and family therapy is a small wonder to see in action.

Quiet yet moving, “The Room Next Door” is a heartfelt meditation on friendship, grief, and death.

Yen Tan’s “All That We Love” is a quiet drama that’s surprisingly moving yet gentle, giving a well-known comedian a complex role to prove herself. And in this case, Margaret Cho defies expectations, bucking the caustic and bombastic persona we’ve grown used to seeing her bring to the screen for an on-screen performance that’s almost soft-spoken, a woman who genuinely feels lost among life’s many changes.

Pablo Larraín’s Spencer is a haunting reimagining of a tense Christmas holiday in the life of Princess Diana.

Knowing Julio Torres’ previous work is the key to understanding his feature debut “Problemista,” which combines his love of design, the inner lives of toys, surrealism, and whimsy into a race against the clock, the immigration system, and the art scene in New York City.

Somehow, Yamanaka finds a balance for her complicated character to navigate her tantrums and tender moments.

Hernández is the standout actor in the troupe of professionals and non-actors.

Filmed in Central Appalachia—including the director's home state of West Virginia—King Coal moves beyond shallow impressions of the region with a real love for her neighbors and prodding questions about what it means to identify with an industry that has harmed and exploited generations of families.

Written by Jesse Orenshein, the script for “The Secret Art of Human Flight” is just as inventive as it is emotional.

Even if it falls short in some regards, “Kidnapping Inc.” is a splashy debut that commands your attention from start to finish.

While some elements of the story don’t work as well as the visual playground Ameen sets up for her characters, Scales is still an impressive feature debut.

It becomes something heartfelt yet funny—a truly hard balance to strike—but Drunk Bus pulls through for our enjoyment.

Minihan’s stylish film taps into our deepest fear as women, queer folks, or survivors of domestic abuse that the person we love may be the reason we end up in a body bag.

As Alice, Piponnier is phenomenal, putting in a meticulously reserved performance in what could very well have been a melodramatic role.

Ultimately, the spirit of “Love, Brooklyn” is tenderness. It is both a love letter and a sympathy card: an acknowledgement that growing up sometimes means letting go, embracing the changes that come with time, and that loving someone does not always mean holding on to them.

A movie steeped in the traditions of film noir, and its narrative will become complicated very quickly. Winterbottom, who also wrote and co-produced the movie, creates a story about gorgeous people committing crimes and double-crossing each other, where no one is innocent.

It may not meet the high watermark of the brothers’ first outing, but “Bring Her Back” is still quite the wild ride and shows the pair still have plenty of spooky tricks up their bloody sleeves.

Ramen Shop believes that the healing power of food can satisfy our hunger for comfort in difficult times, and that should be filling enough for now.

The Forger is constantly wrestling with its comedic impulses and the gravity of its time.

There’s a strange peace and acceptance in the film, painful as it is, that life did not work out in favor of the youthful hopes and dreams of its characters. Perhaps it’s because so many of us have had to mourn some sort of loss and move on with our lives like the family.

The Swimmers is about a cause much bigger than the Olympics and is told on a personal scale that makes the issue accessible and unforgettable.

Similar to how Pixar’s Coco paid tribute to Mexican culture, Encanto holds many nods to its Colombian roots, from the use of flowers and animals specific to the regions to crafting songs that incorporated their respective countries’ musical palette.

As a documentary, The Apollo is an illustrative tour through its hallowed backstage, its history and an exploration into its current mission as a cultural institution. It’s a place whose present will always be tied to its past and to how we preserve that history for future generations.

Following the stylish mountain man as he reverts to his base, feral nature, the movie itself feels sparse, almost minimalistic. It’s stripped down to its barest essentials, just a crazed individual under the influence of the illusion of masculine power.

The camera looks lovingly at the Fifties American muscle cars while also capturing the enthusiasm and hope in these men's stories.

Gayle's good-natured fight to reconcile with a person who sees nothing wrong with her own behavior proves both a fascinating character study and an intimate portrayal of a mother's love turned hostile.

While the plot is familiar, Katie Silberman’s witty script plays with expectations.

Director Ivie, one of the co-founders of Arbella Studios, focuses on faith and social justice, and “Emanuel” perhaps best embodies those two tenets without seeming like it’s proselytizing. But the movie is strongest when it just lets its subjects talk with no agenda at hand.

The movie can shift unevenly from effusive love letter to travel lust to sentimental moment, but that doesn’t break the fantasy.

The Kid Who Would Be King is a charming story of fantasy, pop-culture references and myth-making. It’s a movie with the playful camaraderie of “Goonies” and a few elements from ’80s sagas — like “Labyrinth,” “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” “The NeverEnding Story” and “Legend” — where young people go on character-building adventures.

“The Kill Team” is both a tense moral thriller and a disheartening account of our country’s actions abroad.

Becoming Bulletproof extols that virtue of inclusivity by not only showing the diverse actors onscreen, but giving them the chance to share their behind-the-scenes stories as well. Unfortunately, the documentary never transcends its rather conventional structure, relying instead on the do-good intentions of its audience to see it through.

India Sweets and Spices works so well in part because Ali gives her character the authenticity of someone trying to do the right thing while still figuring out how to handle her privilege and tradition.

A sweet and affecting story, one that forgoes the awkward moments of teenage romance and offers the possibility of reliving a bit of our youthful amor — if just for the film’s 90-minute running time.

The energy never falters as the film jumps from talking-head testimonies to on-the-streets footage of rallies and riots.

Good Boys is a snappy comedy that pokes fun at those painful pubescent years and, by the credits, grows up into a somewhat mature comedy about friendship.

Several scenes have a warm, rosy tinge to them, even during the sisters’ meanest blowups, as if to assure the audience that, for these two, there will always be a reconciliation.

The movie is front-loaded with exposition, but once the action gets going and the narrative pieces fall into place, “Bad Hair” is a creepy movie with thoughtful political twists and thrilling supernatural turns.

If the documentary starts to feel like a blur, that’s exactly how a member of Lil Peep’s entourage describes the experience of living beside someone who rose and fell so quickly.

While there’s no recapturing the delightful surprise of the first, The Devil Wears Prada 2 is still a treat for fans of the original.

As tragic biopics go, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain isn’t interested in wallowing in misery. Instead, this amusing retelling of Wain’s life is a way to introduce his quirky illustrations to a new generation, putting them in a new light that’s more in line with the irreverent and animated creatures Wain once imagined years ago.

In its modest efforts, That Way Madness Lies embraces a kind of sensitive nuance you don’t always see in depictions of mental illness in the movies.

Titely’s feature debut does an admirable job condensing the show into a powerful hour-and-change saga.

Maria by Callas offers a new side to her legend, one that was also vulnerable, smart but also lonely, a fate that sometimes befalls headstrong women.

Doin’ It is more of a fling than one for the books, but it’s a fun one, nonetheless.

Overall, Concrete Utopia is more ambitious than its execution, but nonetheless sustains its suspense with an emotional journey into the depths of what scarcity can do to humanity.

Thankfully, it’s Kirby’s performance that makes Pieces of a Woman memorable.

This movie promises dancing, and it delivers.

Although it’s stuffed with many cliches, The Aeronauts can feel like a rather enjoyable bit of historical fantasy.

Rourke, who comes to the film industry from the theater, has an eye for pageantry and staging that make even dull conversations about power struggles feel lively.

Sick of Myself works as well as it does due to Kujath Thorp’s charismatic performance.

While “The Love Scam” isn’t breaking new rom-com ground, it sufficiently checks the expected boxes and features a formidable romantic pair with Folletto and Adriani.

It’s as if Lim and fellow co-writers Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao saw the antics in Malcolm D. Lee’s “Girls Trip” as a challenge to top. It’s safe to say the crew in Joy Ride do top the outrageous factor, but whether or not it’s as effective will depend on the viewer’s stomach for bawdy humor.

While this remix of "House Party" may leave some nostalgic for the original, it smartly doesn't try to copy the first film. However, it does stay true to the first version's celebration of friendship.

Director Raoul Peck, no stranger to connecting the past to the present as he did with “I Am Not Your Negro,” collaborates with the Orwell estate to retell the story behind the man who gave the world 1984 and Animal Farm and explore the themes Orwell illustrated in those works to current events to show how Orwell’s warnings have gone unheeded through the years. The result, “Orwell: 2+2=5,” is an ambitious work that is provocative but sometimes convoluted.

It took a second screening to better appreciate what the Zellners brought to the screen, but for some, that might not be enough to get past some of the movie’s weirder notes.

Archive is a somewhat unwieldy sci-fi thriller to get into. The plot twists are many, and so are the cliches.

Awake has just enough scares and strangeness, plus a sense of dread and paranoia, to make its horror creepy and enjoyable. It’s not a flawless thriller, but enough different elements click into place, like Rodriguez and Greenblatt’s performances.

It’s no surprise that the cinematographer’s directorial feature debut is an alluring ghost story full of visual intrigue and surrealist imagery, giving him the space to showcase his strengths while working out some of the storytelling mechanics.

A movie with good intentions but is uneven in tone, leaving me with mixed feelings. It felt like the speech was preempting any criticism with sentimentality. The uneasiness continued in the film’s wild swings between tragedy and goofy comedy.

As far as Scream sequels go, we’ve seen worse, but the wear and tear of the years are showing on Ghostface’s mask. The script is serviceable but surface-level, bringing up interesting ideas but never following though on them.

The Columnist hits more like a one-note horror movie, less intellectually deep than its original introduction.

While the documentary’s heart is in the right place, and loaded with many historical goodies for silent movie fans and those interested in championing women directors, the way “Be Natural” presents its findings feels unorganized — like walking through a busy museum exhibit with too many objects, not all of them especially necessary.

Far from feeling like a eulogy, the tone of 306 Hollywood is magnificently playful.