Nick Schager

Bolstered by performances that convey profound grief and remorse without look-at-me histrionics, The Past is steeped in the believable micro details of its scenario while also expanding to universals.

Melville’s 1967 masterpiece, which—through assuming the same systematic attention to detail as its iconically cool protagonist—achieves an atmosphere of mesmerizing, otherworldly beauty and grace.

Though Point Blank is rife with existential malaise, it is also one of the most ferociously sexy crime movies ever made.

Sitting through Peckinpah’s controversial classic is not unlike watching a lit fuse make its slow, inexorable way toward its combustible destination—the taut build-up is as shocking and vicious as its fiery conclusion is inevitable.

Based on the harrowing book by Eric Schlosser (who not only co-wrote, but also appears in the film), this unsettling production...is equal parts history lesson, cautionary tale and nerve-rattling thriller, using all manner of nonfiction devices to elicit both horror and outrage over the precariousness of our deadliest arsenals.

To hell with equivocation or beating around the bush: Terrence Malick's 1978 Days of Heaven is the greatest film ever made. And let the word film be emphasized, since Malick's sophomore masterpiece earns this exalted designation from its position as a work of pure cinema. [22 Oct. 2007]

Rob Zombie understands horror as an aural-visual experience that should gnaw at the nerves, seep into the subconscious, and beget unshakeable nightmares.

A monument to dark desire and the corruption it breeds, and a masterpiece of unholy terror that instantly takes its place alongside the genre’s hallowed greats.

The film serves as an authentic examination of the mid-twentieth-century immigrant experience — and an intimate exploration of one woman's attempt to understand who she is and where she wants to belong.

Affording viewers a trip to the Chilean desert to gaze up at the crystal-clear sky, Cielo is a rapturous act of cinematic contemplation.

It’s an investigation into memory, intolerance, corporate-labor conflicts and race relations that’s as audacious as it is timely — and further confirms that director Robert Greene is one of America’s finest new voices in nonfiction.

With quiet, seething intensity, Kinski turns Dracula into a simultaneously sinister and sympathetic creature—one whose viciousness curdles the blood, even as his fanged ferocity comes across as merely a wounded-animal reaction to his eternal loneliness.

Like few modern films, Alfredo Garcia seems to not only be a product of a director’s singular vision, but a virtual window into one man’s fractured, tortured soul.

A divided epic of awe and horror, fission and fusion. It’s simultaneously a unified portrait of a conflicted man and a singular achievement for Hollywood’s reigning blockbuster auteur.

A superb companion piece to the director’s 2022 biopic Elvis, it’s a feat of showmanship both by Presley on stage and Luhrmann behind the camera.

The result is even better than his initial design: a sharp, hilarious, self-aware, and acutely insightful work of both celebration and critique.

A beautiful and bountiful bite-size film, it stands as Anderson’s second triumph of 2023 (following June’s Asteroid City) and a mini-masterwork in its own right.

With thrilling dexterity and acerbic wit, finds a way to mock crass commercialism, cultural misogyny, corporate greed, worker exploitation, bigotry, social media hate, and the many systems and forces conspiring to crush us all.

Heartbreaking barely begins to describe it, although the terms masterful and transcendent also apply.

A stirring testament to both [Rushdie's] resilience and to freedom as a vital bulwark against the forces of extremism and evil.

As superb as any feature debut in recent memory, its power derived from its marriage of graceful writing, subtle direction, and unbearably expressive performances. Movies don’t come much more exquisitely heartbreaking than this.

Poor Things is a work about distortion, assemblage, and invention, and thus it’s apt that the film deforms and amalgamates to beget something thrillingly unique.

A three-hour drama whose slender story serves as the skeleton for a formally exquisite examination of loss, faith, family, and connection, it's the year’s first masterpiece.

It’s arguably the greatest expression yet of Fincher’s style and worldview—caustic, unrelenting, and wickedly funny.

A mesmerizing film about the sweep and swirl of life, love, and the relationship between yesterday and today.

A triumphant satire about race, exploitation, family and identity that’s as rich and captivating as [Wright's] tour-de-force.

A tour-de-force of unbound creativity, its silky staging, enchanting performances, and playful inventiveness combining to make it one of the year’s undisputed big-screen highlights.

As incisive as it is thrilling, Carpenter’s film is also gorgeous. Carpenter’s imagery is a thing of propulsive beauty that both enhances suspense and expresses his characters’ ever-changing relations to one another. It’s a fleet, ferocious piece of genre craftsmanship.

The use of the actress’ own archival material in 'In Her Own Words' results in a tribute to both her titanic career, and to her belief in the movies’ capacity to safeguard the past, and to maintain it long after its makers are gone.

Herzog’s latest proves a masterful inquiry into technological evolution.

A harrowing first-person view of a ceaseless nightmare, defined by both blistering immediacy and crushing sadness.

Even though Chatwin is only seen in a handful of snapshots and one brief video snippet, Herzog brings him to vivid life.

Mimicking the form, and channeling the spirit, of ’70s big-screen blockbusters, it’s a bravura tale of community, persecution, and the way in which memory is both stolen and recovered.

It remains a rousing portrait of creative renewal and, specifically, the way in which - by attempting something daring and new in the face of an opera culture deeply invested in tradition - Lepage proves that classic art can survive and flourish in a marriage with modern technology and imagination.

At once incisive and ambiguous, it’s proof that Jude is operating on a completely different level than most of his contemporaries.

No matter its title, it’s a full-bodied triumph bursting with humor, tenderness, and imagination.

Akin doesn’t untangle his main character’s inner life; rather, he simply recognizes that healing is a process that both begins with oneself and is aided by those we allow into our lives and hearts.

A harrowing 215-minute epic of perseverance, trauma, exploitation, and anti-Semitism, it’s a bracing examination of the scars of war, the difficulty of recovery, and the genius, madness, and self-destruction begat by calamity.

Partnered with the always ridiculous Rudd, Robinson reconfirms his standing as the reigning master of discomfort. Together, they make "Friendship" the funniest movie of the year.

A story about home, inheritance, and fiction’s ability to reveal truths capable of bringing alienated individuals together, it’s a tumultuous, moving triumph.

Angels Are Made of Light serves as a lament for a prosperous past that can’t be reclaimed, a volatile present that affords few prospects for joy or success, and a future that’s terrifyingly uncertain.

Rasoulof’s film damns Iran for its fanatical, corrupting, chauvinistic tyranny, all while generating breakneck suspense and, ultimately, resolving its tale with a disaster that contains within it a measure of hopefulness.

With his maiden foray into drama, the writer/director continues to prove himself one of modern cinema’s true greats.

A sweet and sad slice-of-life about the comfort and sorrow of solitary repetition, buoyed by a Yakusho performance that rightly earned him the Best Actor prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Escalating at a mad rate until it tips into outright lunacy, it’s a higher and more hellish brand of nightmare.

A taut and terrifying portrait of courage under fire.

Reynolds’ film conveys a legitimate, stirring sense of awe about mankind’s innate desire for adventure, discovery and communion with all that surrounds it.

Replete with superb performances led by a paranoid Sackhoff and unhinged Cochrane, it's the rare horror film to know how to tease malevolent mysteries and deliver satisfyingly unexpected, unsettling payoffs.

A film that, regardless of its easy-going pace, demands active engagement with its action—a request that’s innately in tune with its depiction of creation through dialogue.

Understated, graceful, and moving, it’s the first great film of 2026.

A movie that’s about—and asks its lead to literally and figuratively wear—masks, A Different Man is a multifaceted meta mind-melter.

Hit Man is hot and hilarious, a winning combination amplified by a story that gets knottier at every turn.

Like so much of his celebrated work, documentarian Frederick Wiseman's National Gallery is long, leisurely paced, wide-ranging, meticulously crafted, intellectually intricate, and touched with profundity.

Rife with Trump-era parallels that only augment its global relevance, it’s a warning about those who seek power by claiming holy authority.

Stacy Keach engages in highway warfare in Road Games, an Australian thriller that drums up suspense from its assured plotting and direction, and generates humor from its star’s charismatic lead performance...Taut all the way through to its well-staged finale, it’s a superior genre import—and one that also features, in Quid’s silent travel partner Boswell, the finest big-screen performance ever by a dingo.

A towering genre film about a not-so-fanciful end times—one that both understands, and proves, the peerless power of the visual image.

Modest and moving, it’s a new sports-movie classic, as sneakily effective as the pitch which gives it its title.

Driven by both empathy and a passion for justice, “How to Survive a Plague” director David France’s stellar documentary charts an investigation into the still-unsolved death of trans icon Marsha P. Johnson, along the way illuminating the persistent discrimination that exists today, and the bonds of community designed to counter it.

Robert Altman’s most overlooked gem.

When it comes to sleek, stylish genre movies, Soderbergh remains a maestro at the top of his game.

Portraits of institutional dysfunction don’t come much more urgent, and quietly bleak, than this.

Another [Petzold] masterwork about characters who are trapped by internal and external circumstances from which they find it intensely difficult to escape.

As unhinged as it is hilarious.

A film that's in perfect sync with its subject.

Rambling in the best manner imaginable, it’s an amusingly heartbreaking (and hopeful) portrait of misery’s messiness.

A romantic comedy that tears down, and then builds back up, its intertwined characters to amusingly penetrating effect.

Striking in its evocation of a demanding time and place, this intimate drama about individual and national transformation heralds the arrival of an arresting new filmmaking voice.

Practically guaranteed to elicit tears within its first five minutes, Alive Inside... is nonetheless more than just a tearjerker.

A movie about cancer has no right to be as consistently amusing as Paddleton — a triumph for which credit should be spread around, even if it most deservedly goes to Ray Romano.

It’s a nightmare that burrows under one’s skin like a virus (or a curse), and it heralds its creator as a bracing new genre-filmmaking voice.

A breakneck rollercoaster—about ping pong!—infused with a manic desperation that’s almost as electric as its athletic centerpieces are taut.

With an intimacy and empathy that's all the more powerful for its modesty, the film investigates the complicated feelings of resentment and affection between wife and husband.

Setting a new benchmark for diverse, agile, breathtaking animation, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is as striking as non-live-action films come.

A true American original, and proof that, while the hype surrounding [Aster] may have been early, it wasn’t wrong.

Chuck Smith’s documentary is at once accessible and formally daring, echoing its subject’s style while simultaneously celebrating her radical achievements. It’s an enlightening nonfiction portrait of a feminist pioneer that, in this #MeToo era, should strike a timely chord.

The Invisible Woman finds Ralph Fiennes proving as adept behind the camera as he is in front of it.

A testament to the vitality and fragility of memory that itself serves as an act of preservation—of a prized past, a fraught present and an everlasting devotion.

The film proves a rousing, and ravishing, call-to-engineering-arms for future generations.

An unforgettable portrait of the search for unity at the edge, and end, of the world.

Hermanus’ latest establishes him as a filmmaker of uncanny grace and Mescal and O’Connor as two of Hollywood’s finest young stars.

Both a nail-biting thriller and a messy moral drama, rife with tensions between justice and vengeance, healing and suffering, and reality and fantasy.

Exuding nobility, modesty, and down-home wit, Henry Fonda assumes the iconic top hat as America’s 16th president in Young Mr. Lincoln. Far from a traditional decades-spanning biopic, John Ford’s drama instead provides a snapshot of a moment in Lincoln’s life.

A WWII horror story rooted in separation, alienation and a cold indifference that shakes one to the very core.

Linklater’s latest is a moving and multifaceted ode to a bygone era and an artist whose creativity and contradictions were equally titanic.

Bolstered by the writer-director’s own journey, recounted via a collage-like aesthetic that eloquently conveys his circumscribed condition, it’s a nonfiction study of artistic creation and, also, of individual courage and perseverance.

The film’s placid aesthetics help the directors strip away any artificial barriers between the audience and their subjects, thereby eliciting immense, compassionate engagement with Tori and Lokita’s plight.

A sumptuous period-piece celebration of sensory delights—both culinary and otherwise—infused with all manner of complex, intoxicating flavors.

A masterful film that invites contemplation and, in return, delivers lyrical beauty, haunting mystery, and more than a bit of unexpected terror.

At once sorrowful and optimistic, Heal the Living captures the terrifying fragility of life, even as it also recognizes the strength derived from the many connections — organic, emotional, and associative — that bind and define us.

Trophy’s wealth of conflicting facts, figures, and arguments routinely force one to re-calibrate their feelings about the issues at hand. The result is a lament for both the animals at the center of so many crosshairs, and for a modern world seemingly only capable of saving lives by taking them.

A beguiling psychodrama about familial fractures, slippery identity, and the difficult means by which people move on from tragedy.

An alternately (and sometimes simultaneously) harrowing and hallucinatory story of an OB-GYN who discovers that her every attempt at nurturing life leads only to more death.

As the fourth entry in a long-running franchise (written, like its ancestors, by Alex Garland), it is, to borrow a phrase uttered by its protagonist, “miraculous”—and marks this zombie saga as a nightmare with few equals.

A thriller that grows fouler and scarier with each step toward damnation, as well as providing an unforgettable showcase for Nicolas Cage as a zealous maniac unlike any other.

A story of courage, trust and tragedy, the last of which materializes in ways that are at once shattering and uplifting.

More impressive than its nimbleness, however, is its poise and empathy, the latter of which is chiefly bestowed upon its protagonist.

A breakout (produced by Barry Jenkins) that heralds Victor as an idiosyncratic and exciting new American artist.

They Drive by Night never coalesces into a coherent whole, but as far as sturdy ’40s Hollywood melodramas go, it’s a pretty sweet two-for-one movie deal.

A superb thriller that employs common genre devices for a canny and caustic rumination on right and wrong, love and lust, virtue and vice.

A deliriously pointed cautionary tale about the perils of getting what you want, and an instant contender for classic midnight-movie status.

El Velador doesn't pass judgment or manipulate emotionally, instead choosing simply to consider the arduousness of survival in a land wracked by slaughter.

A medley of fears, anxieties, and regrets that repeatedly messes with the senses, it exists at the nexus of sanity and madness, life and death, Heaven and Hell, and sound and image.

A rousing elegy to an underworld saga par excellence and, in particular, to a ruthless and tormented gangster whom, in Murphy’s expert hands, stands as an undisputed crime-fiction icon.

A raucous mélange of the demented and the degrading, indulging in the very garish, grotesque, X-rated madness it condemns.

This creepy nerve-rattler confirms that the director’s excellent 2024 breakout Oddity was no fluke.

Boasting an exceptional Nicole Kidman performance as a woman recklessly in search of who she is and what she wants—as well as the orgasm that she’s long coveted—it’s a thrilling and amusing shot of cinematic Viagra.

Pulsates with harsh, anguished emotion, thanks in no small part to splendid visuals that make it the most beautiful film of the year.

A dreamy tale of loss and grief, death and resurrection, as well as a supernatural reverie about the mysterious relationship between the present and past—one in which the living are reborn as ghosts.

A drama expertly modulated to raise both eyebrows and pulse rates, led by a superb Léa Drucker performance that’s rooted in uncontrollable self-destructive passions and intense self-preservation instincts.

A quietly explosive tale of disconnection and betrayal, its placid exterior masking a wellspring of combustible tensions that are both impossible to ignore and difficult to resolve.

[Boasting] an ambitious and exhilarating story that matches its style, it’s the finest thing Villeneuve has helmed and the 2024 film to beat for outsized sci-fi showmanship.

Strap in, hold on, and succumb to this ecstatically inventive one-of-a-kind film.

Evan Glodell's debut has the sweetness of a lullaby reverie and the blazing ferocity of a monster-car nightmare, a first-comes-elation, then-comes-madness structure that resembles that of "Blue Valentine," another tale focused on the commencement, and then collapse, of an affair.

Painting a multifaceted portrait of the racing legend during a particular moment of personal and professional crises, the auteur’s first feature since 2015’s Blackhat hums with steely passion and pain.

Both understands our private relations as enigmas to those on the outside, as well as wields that mystery for a subtle, striking examination of the imaginative means by which we fill in personal and collective blanks.

Casts itself as a frightening saga about tyranny’s capacity to acclimate its subjects to slaughter and slavery, and to coerce them into performing (and celebrating) self-destruction under the guise of unity, strength, and progress.

Subscribing to the belief that the eyes are the windows to the soul, Tarkovsky locates Stalker’s spiritual center in his protagonists’ weathered countenances.

A peerless example of using exacting form to not simply inform and enhance content, but to create a profound link between movie and moviegoer.

A model of tone, concision, and emotional and psychological insight, led by a staggering performance from John Magara and an equally moving one from pint-sized co-star Molly Belle Wright.

He’s a grand chronicler of his own biography, and expertly goaded on by Morris, whose queries challenge present and past statements and compel further elaboration and contemplation.

Israel's fractured psyche is plumbed via narrative splintering in Policeman, Nadav Lapid's compelling drama about his homeland's burgeoning social unrest.

Lino Brocka's portrait of familial treachery and societal abandonment channels its melodrama through the filter of neorealism.

The titular “stuff” is shown to be a combination of courage, determination, and recklessness, but, as Kaufman’s stirring epic reminds us, an equally important motivation for greatness is the fear of being merely second best.

It’s a feature debut that portends big things for the up-and-coming filmmaker.

Barriers both transparent and persistently present encase the characters of A Separation, constricting them in ways social, cultural, religious, familial, and emotional.

Humor and sorrow are equally immediate emotions throughout, whether in the writer-director's traditionally structured setup-punchline scenes or his strange non sequiturs

With his maiden cinematic venture, Wilson doesn’t break new ground so much as continue his idiosyncratic artistry on a larger scale.

It's a thriller, a heist caper, and a surprisingly moving romance all in one, and it seems destined to be one of the breakout hits of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

At first glance, Tuesday, After Christmas seems, in both form and content, only a modestly ambitious endeavor. Yet the singular attention with which it carries out its aims-and the rigorous success it ultimately attains-is nonetheless unsparing, and bracing.

A caustic portrait of the rat race as legitimately killer, and another feather in the cap of one of world cinema’s true maestros.

Even at its stagiest, it’s a film that, courtesy of both its director and star, burns with unbridled passions.

[Gudegast] infuses his inspired-by-real-events tale with the muscularity of its metal-titan namesake, all while pivoting everything around the grungy, rugged charisma of his star.

Habitually shooting her characters through narrow doorways and windows, the better to convey their isolation as well as their squeezed-by-circumstance states, the director fashions a sinister atmosphere, aided by intermittent pregnancy and corpse imagery.

A joyous return to form for the Evil Dead auteur, whose no-holds-barred verve is equaled by that of Rachel McAdams.

With an unhinged Sally Hawkins spearheading its mayhem, this sinister saga firmly establishes the filmmakers’ place near the head of the contemporary horror class.

Ultimately, the truths of Hard Truths are as simple and poignant as they are difficult to initially discern. An unmistakable certainty, though, is that this reunion of Leigh and Jean-Baptiste was too long in the making—and should be repeated once again post haste.

A gripping, unnerving, and altogether thrilling saga that both continues its predecessors’ illustrious legacy and initiates what’s shaping up to be a promising new horror trilogy.

True cinema is John Lithgow terrorizing Geoffrey Rush in a nursing home with his creepy hand puppet.

A stirring celebration of bravery, camaraderie, and human ingenuity that goes big in every respect, not least of which by recognizing and foregrounding the majesty of larger-than-life movie stardom.

Mordantly, head-spinningly convoluted, it’s a unique take on the director’s favorite themes, laced with bleak wit and encased in an icy chill that’s fitting for a tale fixated on the grave.

With Ian McKellen in superbly crotchety form and Michaela Coel exuding chilly cunning, it’s further proof that Soderbergh remains one of American cinema’s most inimitable, and adventurous, auteurs.

The director’s latest is a distinctly cool, dynamic Soderbergian riff on Michael Powell’s "Peeping Tom" via "The Haunting," with a dash of "Paranormal Activity" sprinkled around its edges.

Rock ‘n’ roll portraits this vibrant, introspective, and nimble don’t come around very often.

Its poignancy and humor is amplified by its canny decision to let Fox tell his own tale.

Provides a remarkable snapshot of the war crimes that—as the daily news reminds us—are still being perpetrated today

A delightfully zonked marital satire that lurches in various demented directions.

An electric thriller with blood on its hands, flesh in its mouth, and deviance on its mind.

Together, [Culkin and Eisenberg] make for a winning pair, balancing each other in a variety of ways that speak to the material’s larger concerns about loss, grief, remembrance and regret.

Taut and entrancing, it’s a stark reminder that adolescence sucks.

One of the director’s finest, its thematic scope and emotional power growing with each new revelation.

A small-scale tragedy about arrogant intolerance and self-centeredness that’s at once highly specific and, more depressing still, universal.

With wit, wonder, warmth, and a few wink-wink nods to the Indiana Jones movies, it’s further evidence of this franchise’s cute and cuddly preeminence.

A giddy grotesquerie that has midnight-movie crowd-pleaser written all over it.

Not for the faint of heart but precisely the sort of nightmare that fans of Cronenberg (and his father David) crave.

Pushes everything past the point of moderation and decency until it becomes a riotous discourse on the personal and cultural forces that drive women to madness in search of physical perfection.

An old-school melodrama of pride, folly, and sacrifice that’s electrified by yet another superb turn from its leading man.

With an uninhibited fieriness that’s rooted in profound need and longing, Lawrence—opposite a beleaguered Robert Pattinson—delivers one the finest performances of her career, energizing the writer/director’s portrait of feminine rage, sorrow, and mania.

Pictures of Ghosts isn’t a timeline but a winding journey through remembrances of things past, and it moves with entrancing gracefulness through a history that’s near and dear to Kleber Filho’s heart.

As Toho Studios’ new Godzilla Minus One proves, the Japanese know how to get the iconic radioactive behemoth right.

Knowing just how much to say aloud and how much to suggest through visual and aural means, this superb Irish fable feels at once modern and ancient, and hums with mystery and malice.

A zombie film unlike any other, focused less on mayhem than on grief, loss, and the quiet, tragic terror begat by the dead’s return.

A snapshot of an annual family gathering that’s laced with an array of prickly emotions, it’s an evocatively ragamuffin and rowdy mood piece.

Taking aim at the left, the right, and every mad thing in-between, it’s a fierce and funny provocation designed to p--- off everyone along the political spectrum.

Even in a genre that’s long indulged in excessiveness, this is the ruthless over-the-top carnage aficionados covet.

The series’ second-best installment and a rousing start to what appears to be a grand new franchise future.

Blending horror and humor, sweetness and scares, and fantasy and family melodrama, it shoots for the moon—and, more often than not, scores a bullseye.

Another of Eastwood’s inquiries into the nature of justice, the limits of the legal system to attain it, and the possible need, in that case, to take matters into one’s own hands.

Like the best of its genre, it affords tantalizing entrée into a universe lurking just below society’s surface to which few are privy, and stages engrossing cloak-and-dagger games between players who know the rules and, more dangerously, how to break them.

A superb coming-of-age saga that lives in the intersection of youthful euphoria, despair, insecurity, irresponsibility, and fearlessness.

A frenzied plea for compassion and a stirring tribute to the men and women who sacrifice their lives, and sanity, for those in need.

Told with a sensitivity that’s matched by its subtlety, it earns the waterworks it quickly and consistently elicits.

A stark window into the conflicted soul of [Ceylan's] homeland, whose tensions and schisms are subtly evoked throughout the course of this challenging, if ultimately rich and rewarding, 197-minute import of longing, resentment, compromise, and self-interest.

Saying little but speaking volumes about American disaffection, apathy, self-interest, and foolishness, [O’Connor’s] performance bolsters this askew heist film and cements his status as cinema’s most magnetic new leading man.

Cares far less about scares than thrills, and it generates plenty of giddy ones as it mires its characters in a predicament of head-spinning proportions.

A marvel of slapstick invention that in terms of pure unbridled creativity puts most big-screen comedies to shame.

A boldly demented science fiction saga (executive-produced by Steven Soderbergh) that melds the unsettling body horror of David Cronenberg and the seductive surrealism of David Lynch with a menacing video game-inflected spirit of its own.

Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One isn’t quite as dynamic as McQuarrie’s preceding Fallout, but it’s not far off that standout’s pace, and it finds a way to concoct a satisfying resolution to its tale even as it sets up its closing 2024 chapter.

A big, brash, laugh-out-loud crime spoof led by a great Liam Neeson performance.

A quiet and formally rigorous portrait of a paternalistic society, the crimes it breeds, and the fury, shame, regret, and self-loathing that follows.

Cloud is a portrait of merciless 21st-century commerce and social cruelty that’s filtered through various genre lenses.

Capturing the pulse-pounding emotional whirlwind of its source material (and its characters), it’s a florid reimagining that’s at once bold, beautiful, and, at its peak, brilliant.

A timely cautionary tale whose overwhelming suspense is apt to leave viewers sick with dread.

A tense, fatalistic saga of bad luck and worse decisions, it’s a throwback that feels as fresh and alive as its predecessors did decades ago. Not to be missed, it stands as one of the most welcome surprises of this moviegoing year.

Initially teasing a condemnation, only to come away with something less certain and more fascinating, it straddles various lines, and perspectives, with impressive confidence.

Johnson’s franchise remains a sly and sure-footed delight, as well as demonstrates, with its religiously minded latest, that it’s capable of coloring its Christie-esque mysteries in a variety of shades.

A film about the unremarkable that’s anything but.

A true-crime thriller that also operates as a damning commentary on societal misogyny—especially in Hollywood—it’s as chillingly sharp and canny as its deranged fiend.

A compassionate portrait of mourning and the bonds that keep us united.

Last Stop Larrimah is a tale about provincial dynamics and the hostilities they often breed, as well as about the unique types of men and women who willingly choose to spend their days and nights on the outer edges of civilization.

Suggests that the Taliban are engaged in an elaborate role-playing performance for which they’re unqualified.

A unique saga of fathers, sons, and brothers, of fate, vengeance, and survival, and of a wind-up simian toy that just might be the Grim Reaper.

Delivering the male-entertainment goods while radiating a newfound degree of tender romanticism, it’s a fairy-tale coda that’s at once sensual, lyrical, and liberating.

With star Imogen Poots vividly capturing the roiling contradictions born from her character’s crises, it’s a raw, rugged wound of a film.

Its sentimentality expertly balanced by its humor, The Holdovers is a story about the lies we tell ourselves (for good and ill) and the reality of our not-so-dissimilar human conditions.

A fiery sermon of despondency and damnation, as well as a memorable nightmare of marriage, motherhood, and madness.

Composed to seem at once off-the-cuff and mannered (replete with varying film stocks), La Chimera blends sweetness, sorrow and silliness with a lyrical touch.

A stinging political, social, and media critique made from digitally altered bits and pieces of entertainment favorites, at once hilarious, enraged, and as zonked out of its mind as many viewers will prefer to be while watching it.

A taut, tense, of-the-moment thriller with real (reel?) bite.

It’s material primed for mushiness, yet Eastwood shrewdly marries sentimentality to both self-deprecating humor (including a late bullhorn gag) and darker, more desolate undercurrents.

As with its predecessors, those who can’t stand Deadpool or aren’t educated in Marvel movie lore won’t tolerate a second of it. The rest will be in bleeping heaven.

An elaborate imitation of its predecessor. If little more than a cover song, however, it’s a majestic and malicious one that reaffirms its maker’s unparalleled gift for grandiosity.

As grim, and transfixing, as they come.

Electrifying a taut tale of tough times and the desperate men they breed, [Hawke] makes sure that, even when it could stand to be a tad weightier, this genre film packs a wallop.

Steeped in centuries of custom and dependent on the ever-fickle relationship between soil, weather, and human craftsmanship, the work is likened by Francis Ford Coppola to a “miracle,” and one that tells a story about the time, place, and circumstances that gave each vintage its birth.

Destined to be passionately adored and despised, it’s a provocation, a stunt, a dare, and an experiment—as well as a bold one-of-a-kind experience that...shouldn’t be missed.

[The] aesthetic structure creates a haunting sense of the simultaneously wonderful and sad feelings both men have about lives and loves now gone, never to be recaptured.

A directorial debut of poised peril that should inspire both laughs and a few sleepless nights.

Resembling an ethereal and despondent companion piece to Jonathan Glazer’s "Under the Skin," it’s a genre effort that’s off the beaten path—even if an invisible path is precisely what its protagonist traverses.

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story paints a rich portrait of Reeve as an individual, celebrity, activist, and family man, bolstered by commentary from his children and friends and, additionally, from Reeve himself.

It may not be a complete return to form for the once-revered auteur, but as an unexpectedly chilling horror concoction defined by skillful scares, it’s a significant step in the right direction.

An underrated entry in the horror subgenre, generating consistent unease through long, ominous pans—up and down staircases, through hallways—that assume the perspective of its searching-for-peace specter.

Aided by three-dimensional performances that exude a convincing mixture of bitterness, selfishness, desperation, and hate, Ayouch film casts a sharp gaze on tragedy, and the larger socio-economic issues that beget fanaticism.

The camera tracks every emotional up and down, through tests and surgery, with an unfussy precision that allows the themes to arise naturally.

It may eventually champion love as the guiding light amidst so much homicidal darkness, but Meyer’s film—happy ending be damned—resonates most deeply when confronting the ugly, inescapable reality that man’s murderous past is likely also his future.

With formal polish and deep compassion, it proves to be the most heartwarming film of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

This understated indie deepens its portrait of growing up by suggesting, ultimately, that anyone who thinks wasting time is a reasonable course of action needs to wake up.

This winning non-fiction portrait proves equally adept at eliciting laughs and tears.

For the most part, writer-director Sophie Fillières’ If You Don’t, I Will strikes an engaging tone of melancholic humor through its portrait of a French marriage slowly falling to pieces.

A model midnight-movie beat-’em-up.

A big-hearted fable of self-actualization, tolerance, and togetherness.

Buoyed by a script brimming with authentic back-and-forth ribbing and confessional exchanges, newcomers Baquet and Dargent exhibit an alternately ribald and frank rapport that, like the film itself, taps into the volatile anxiety of finding one’s self.

Asylum was written by Robert Bloch, the author of the original novel Psycho, and produced by the U.K.’s Amicus Productions, which was responsible for a series of horror anthologies during the ’60s and ’70s. Asylum remains, by far, their finest offering, in part because of its pitch-perfect gothic mood, and in part because its stories present varied perspectives on the depths of obsessive madness.

There may be no American movie more patriotic than Yankee Doodle Dandy, a jingoistic biopic of famed Broadway star George M. Cohan that transcends its innumerable genre clichés through the sheer willpower of its star.

Jessica Chastain is a great actress, but with Miss Sloane, she also proves that she’s a great movie star.

A refreshingly eccentric spin on the staid biopic.

Notwithstanding its cop-out upbeat ending, Red Rock West solidified the expert neo-noir credentials of John Dahl (The Last Seduction). A taut, nasty bit of crime-genre business, Dahl’s tale (co-written with brother Rick) is in most respects archetypal.

An off-kilter creation that feels like the wacko offspring of Aki Kaurismäki and Abbas Kiarostami’s cinemas.

A remarkably intimate non-fiction exposé about the ordeals women suffer after being sexually assaulted—and the strength, courage and togetherness required to change that status quo.

For sheer unadulterated geekiness, it’s got few contemporary equals.

An affectionate homage that captures the psychosexual delirium of its genre inspirations, it’s a throwback chiller steeped in blood, kink, and the terrifying thrill of violation.

Prepare to bang your head and raise your horns to what is surely the most epically metal release of 2023—and a satisfying conclusion to a gonzo parody par excellence.

A damning portrait of an unrepentant cheat and the unregulated system—and unsuspecting people—he bamboozled for his own gain.

It’s a worthy tribute bound to illuminate and inspire.

Bernal is a charismatic force of nature, his magnetism so great that it elevates Williams’ drama above its clunkier, clichéd elements.

An audacious indie that plumbs the depths of passion, loyalty, and sacrifice with beguiling earnestness and intensity.

Survival is depicted as a double-edged sword in Destination Unknown, an accomplished and heartrending documentary.

An overpowering work of excavation and confrontation—as well as a timely and urgent warning about the continuing threat of antisemitism.

A rousing underdog saga that—like Ben Affleck’s prior directorial efforts Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and Argo—has the type of snappy energy and charm that should earn it a long post-theatrical shelf life.

Makes up for any narrative patchiness with a bevy of unforgettable images and an attendant sense of ancient beliefs and rituals that divide as much as they unite.

With vibrantly expressive aesthetics that match the energy of its defiant and distressed heroine, this impressive coming-of-age indie . . . heralds the arrival of both a distinctive new filmmaking voice and a leading lady with charisma to burn.

Subtly visualizing the connection shared between the land and its people (and their interior conditions), Tanna proves rich in both sociological detail and roiling emotions.

An investigation into the myriad means by which the internet can be wielded to nefarious ends.

If the spell it casts is somewhat familiar, it’s nonetheless enlivened by surefooted atmosphere, excellent puppetry, and charismatically outsized performances from Emily Watson and Willem Dafoe.

An agonized drama about the burden of yesteryear and the conflicting ways to embrace and transcend it—one that’s rich in character, conflict, detail, desire, and history.

Bolstered by superb lead turns from Chris O’Dowd and Andie MacDowell, as well as a formal structure that enhances the roiling emotions propelling its characters into a downward spiral, Love After Love is an assured debut feature that announces its writer-director as a formidable new American indie voice

Feels Good Man offers an inside peek at the internet’s growing ability to affect and shape modern society, which often makes the film a nightmare about extremism and technology.

With Florence Pugh as the intensely magnetic center of this ramshackle maelstrom, and despite a couple of familiar Marvel shortcomings, it’s a protean superhero saga that stands on its own—regardless of its title’s qualifying asterisk.

Kathy Brew and Roberto Guerra’s documentary boasts an economical sleekness that’s in tune with the designers’ concepts.

The definitive spaghetti Western parody.

A rugged affair that’s canny and concussive enough to compensate for a somewhat deflating ending, it proves that its headliners remain cinema’s preeminent BFF duo.

Amusing, energetic, and just clever enough to sustain its brief runtime, it serves up a boisterous and bruising brand of B-movie bedlam.

This breakneck Netflix offering confirms the enduring vitality of its chosen formula—and, in the process, proves an unexpected and welcome Yuletide streaming gift.

A lyrical tale of combatting misfortune via community.

Incisively intimate, it's a small but stirring snapshot of a gifted, hopelessly lonely soul.

Delivering scares at a pace that rarely allows one to catch their breath, and with enough gruesome surprises to consistently startle.

Jacobson’s documentary resounds as merely a small victory in an ongoing war.

Anything but a morose tale of a bright light snuffed out far too soon, Bernstein’s documentary is an inspiring heartstring-tugger.

The Witness functions as a project of not only confrontation but resurrection, as Bill’s sleuthing sheds new light on Kitty’s personality, romances and career, and thus finally re-emphasizes her as a flesh-and-blood person rather than just a famous victim.

[Its] staginess is offset by their blistering investigation of morality, manipulation, individual and social responsibility, and masculine power.

Concise, clever, and unnerving, it’s a perfect film for the onset of winter.

No matter the out-of-this-world nature of their adventure, they remain an amusing and endearingly down-to-Earth doofus duo.

Funny and charming as ever, it’s a welcome cinematic reprise for the British icons, even if this latest outing is slight enough to suggest that it might have been perfectly fine as a short.

A hysterical, insightful, and ultimately moving portrait of the difficulties of keeping long-term relationships alive.

The film rests on the desperate chemistry of a paunchy, weathered Owen and a tense, quietly ferocious Riseborough.

More turns out to be just about right in this case, with the film offering up such an onslaught of brutal, breakneck action that it’s easy to forgive its less compelling narrative excesses.