Rafael Motamayor

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is a bigger, bolder, funnier, angrier sequel that improves on almost every aspect of its predecessor.

The First Slam Dunk delivers a high-octane thrilling sports anime film with mind-blowing animation that serves as a great conclusion and introduction to a classic '90s anime.

Make no mistake, this is a musical turned into a blockbuster, as Chu treats the wide shots of the dozens of background dancers with the same eye you could see Christopher Nolan apply to Tenet, or the Russo brothers apply to Endgame.

A Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a richly textured, highly evocative story of love, lust and longing, and thanks to exceptional direction and remarkable, talented actors it’s a work to be cherished.

Overlord may not be the Call of Duty: Zombies movie you were expecting, but it is a damn entertaining film about the horror of war, and the thrills of a zombie invasion.

Apollo 10 1/2 is a charming, visually striking blend of history and fantasy that captures the way children see and process historical events happening around them, and considers what they choose to remember — and how those choices affect them as adults, and the worlds they choose to build around them.

Butt Boy is an exceptionally entertaining and weird film that defies every expectation. Everyone should see this tragic and thrilling story of a man who becomes addicted to shoving things up his butt.

Evil Dead Rise is a movie made by sickos for sickos. It’s a fantastic update to the iconic franchise, a movie that upholds the manic glee of Sam Raimi’s original 1980s Evil Dead films while bringing in a taste for the disgusting and upsetting from Fede Álvarez’s 2013 remake.

A kitchen sink drama, a pulpy crime movie, and a bloody revenge tale all held together by one hell of a performance.

Ride Your Wave may be predictable, but it quickly becomes a charming and heartfelt story about loss and clinging to life, one with realistic and likeable characters that may even teach you something about yourself.

Providing many questions and very few answers, Alegría and co-writers Fernanda Urrejole and Manuela Infante make a point to show that life can emerge from death, imploring the audience to stop fixating on the damages done in the past and focus on saving the present and future.

Tost’s film is charming, gritty, and all-round entertaining one that boasts gallows humor, compelling performances, and a big heart (plus lots of actual hearts being shot at and stabbed).

Música heralds the arrival of a filmmaker, an actor, and a musician worth paying attention to, while also delivering a winning and visually inventive musical comedy.

By the end of this adaptation, we get the full picture of this romance and the two people involved.

Lost Illusions may not break the mold in the way Goodfellas did, but it does provide a fun, provocative, hilarious, and at times even moving rags-to-riches tale with a protagonist and a setting we have not seen before.

Problemista is not just funny, however, it is also rather earnest and compassionate towards its characters.

"Deadstream" feels like ’80s Sam Raimi traveled forward in time, became obsessed with streaming culture, and turned Ash Williams into the dumbest possible stunt streamer. And it rules. With stunning creature effects, a great balance between laughs and scares, and one of the best uses of the Screenlife format, this is a film that could easily become a Halloween tradition.

West delivers a crowd-pleasing return to horror that’s a love letter to the genre without becoming a parody.

With Apostle, Gareth Evans has proven he can not only master action films with stunning choreography, but he can also deliver a bone-chilling folk horror tale rich in mythology and shocking in violence. Apostle owes a lot to classic folk horror films, but Evans manages to make his film feel fresh and gripping enough to satisfy even the most blood-thirsty horror fan.

Robert Rodriguez delivers a family-friendly film that feels like his most personal project yet. We Can Be Heroes is a cheerful and colorful take on the superhero genre with a powerful message about empowering younger generations to take the reins and do better than their parents.

This is a movie that is both familiar and fresh. Scary, yes, but mostly disturbing, gory, smart, quite expansive, and all around created in the bowels of hell itself. 

Jason Yu knows how to stage a tense thriller and gives Sleep a sense of claustrophobia, using the small size of the apartment and some inventive camera movements to slightly change the apartment throughout the film, showing how the characters are losing their grip by making them unfamiliar with the place they know best in the world.

PG: Psycho Goreman is campy, ridiculous, and low-budget, and it absolutely owns it.

Nimona lives and dies by its main character, and it greatly succeeds in adding to the canon of great animated protagonists. Despite some rocky visual choices, this is a film worth the wait.

Mars Express works because even its most outlandish and complex sci-fi concept is grounded in human drama.

Concrete Utopia is not subtle about its allegories, particularly when it comes to immigration. Thankfully, the focus on character and the fast pace of the story that moves us from one crisis to the other keep the message from becoming overwhelming. Likewise, the script and visuals tease a larger world with stories just outside of what is on screen, adding to the film's worldbuilding.

Tringle of Sadness is an utterly hilarious satire told in three acts, each more ludicrous than the last.

O'Dessa delivers a bold, catchy musical set in a vibrant cyberpunk world that mixes naturalistic visuals with an aesthetic indebted to 1980s sci-fi and fantasy films. Sadie Sink shines as a singer who can change the world with her ballads, with a gender norm-defying performance and an enchanting singing voice.