Natalia Keogan

While 3 Faces explores the social position of women in Iran through oft-whimsical encounters as Panahi drives across northwestern Iran with actress Behnaz Jafari (also playing herself), No Bears feels much more darkly prophetic, seemingly aware of the filmmaker’s encroaching imprisonment.

Time melts beyond its tangible limits when watching Memoria, resulting in an audiovisual trance disorienting in its peculiar placidity.

By delicately weaving the veracity of archive, the reverie induced by celluloid, and the inevitability of corruption into its narrative, The Secret Agent becomes a career-spanning treatise that cozily situates itself amid the staggering cinematic epics that Mendonça pays respect to.

Though Drive My Car reaches a significantly less smoldering conclusion than Burning, it channels a similar feeling of catharsis. Though certain things are still left unsaid or incomplete, the tension they create—or shatter—conveys just as much as simple words or actions.

By narrativizing the collective mistreatment of political dissidents—both those he personally forged bonds with and the countless others persecuted by the Iranian state—the fearless filmmaker crafts his most radical condemnation of the forces that have long attempted to silence him.

Brimming with potential that it doesn’t exactly follow through on, You Are Not My Mother is nonetheless another aesthetically rich horror film that clearly mines an individual’s personal history.

If the film wants to implore us to understand the essence of man, how its portrayal of burgeoning American capitalism and entrepreneurial spirit is undoubtedly, jarringly, at odds with the nature of mankind. At its core, humanity craves companionship, stability and understanding, while capitalism breeds selfishness, inequality and isolation.

As a standalone film, The Souvenir provides Hogg with the means to articulate and meditate on her past, creating a work that is bleakly beautiful and enchanting all on its own.

Wiseman’s top-down approach to looking at government is both effective at sketching out the priorities of those in charge as well as demonstrating what they’re actually able to execute.

Particularly paired with Cruz’s knockout performance of a woman whose life endures the legacy left by the trauma of her family’s unresolved past, Parallel Mothers is a deeply political example of what is lost when we have forgotten—and what is achieved when we fight to remember.

Instead of acting as a short, satisfying jaunt through Almodóvar’s aesthetic, The Human Voice is an exercise in deconstructing the very tenets the filmmaker has propped himself on throughout the entirety of his career.

In exposing the horrifying reality of giving birth while Black—and providing tangible alternatives for increasingly dangerous hospital births—Aftershock might very well save lives. Most importantly, the film immortalizes two mothers whose deaths never should have occurred, giving space for the innumerable victims of this crisis to similarly take action and memorialize those they’ve lost to senseless medical racism.

Without the looming pressures of rent, work-from-home set-ups and casual business meetings, Hong suggests that we might just finally be free.

Compared to the stark comparison in Camperforce of Jeff Bezos’ unparalleled global wealth to the fact that nearly one-third of American households headed by people 55 years and older have no pension or savings to their names, Zhao’s Nomadland can’t help but come off as somewhat toothless.

Joel Coen’s Macbeth lacks risk, ingenuity and, most importantly, reward. For those who seek a safely satisfying rendition of the lean Shakespearean tragedy, this latest execution will surely suffice.

Part procedural, part granular portrait of an increasingly silenced demographic, Nuestra Tierra asserts the global scale of Indigenous persecution from its opening shot.

Racked with emotional tension and visceral turmoil, it paints a painful portrait of how women have suffered—and will, sadly, continue to suffer—for the ability to make their own precious choices.

Though [Hamaguchi's] highly anticipated Drive My Car distills these musings in a slightly more meticulous manner, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy cuts to the chase in a way that’s quaintly quirky—and never dull to watch unfold.

In most other filmmaker’s hands, these seemingly inconsequential observations wouldn’t seamlessly create a tender and alluring narrative. Yet Hong Sang-soo seems to have it all down to a science.

Pleasant and contemplative, Close to Vermeer chronicles an exhibit of a master that both civilians and historians know startlingly little about, considering the profound impact he’s had on the craft of painting.

Rawly exposing the cruelty imposed upon predominantly Black children by the carceral state while also capturing the emotional whiplash of this fleeting encounter, Rae and Patton construct a visually stunning and narratively resonant portrait of love and longing.

There’s still an element of unshakable realism embedded in the film’s core, owed greatly to the largely non-professional Bay Area actors that form Gia’s immediate social circle and Nomore’s resonant performance. But Earth Mama is strongest when it indulges in Leaf’s sharp cinematic sensibility.

Concise and crucial, Writing with Fire adeptly and urgently conveys the necessity of journalism—especially in places that actively try to suppress its reach.

The idea of being confronted with temptation and trepidation in the desert is reminiscent of a classic Biblical encounter between Jesus and Satan. Laxe offers a much-too-literal takeaway during the film’s final moments, a sour comedown after some truly breathtaking shots of adrenaline. But as the cliché advises, it’s the journey Sirāt takes us on that truly merits appreciation.

Not only does the film successfully advocate for, and humanize, a populace that has been routinely silenced in popular culture, but it demonstrates that the destruction of these cultures has been emblematic of humanity’s extended downfall.

Told through a series of metropolitan vignettes, documentary filmmaker Elizabeth Lo’s Stray deftly weaves together a sprawling narrative of human and canine vagabond life on Istanbul’s city streets.

The strength of the cast alone can’t elevate Sing Sing to the realm of truly socially conscious cinema.

Gorgeously realized and bolstered by amazing performances by Souleymane and Alio, Lingui, the Sacred Bonds is a prescient portrait of what tribulations afflict—or await—women who are barred from receiving comprehensive reproductive care.