Richard Roeper

Moonlight is gorgeous and yet bleak, uplifting and yet sobering, exhilarating but also grounded in some unshakable realities.

This is a film of such dramatic power and innovative comedy and romantic poetry and melancholy beauty that upon exiting a screening, you might well feel the urge to tell everyone in the lobby of the multiplex to delay their plans to check out some mainstream offering because if they truly love cinema, they should see THIS movie, immediately.

Cuarón’s artistry yields a film with the pinpoint authenticity of a docudrama, but also the intoxicating and lyrical poetry of memories as filtered through a perfect dream. Sometimes we go to the movies and we’re rewarded with a masterpiece.

Thank the cinematic and music gods it was never destroyed or lost, as Summer of Soul is an absolute found treasure of golden onstage moments, interspersed with interviews from participants such as Gladys Knight as well as attendees and cultural commentators, along with celebrity artists such as Chris Rock and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Unflinchingly directed by Steve McQueen, led by Ejiofor’s magnificent work, 12 Years a Slave is what we talk about when we talk about greatness in film.

This is one of the funniest films about coping with tragedy I’ve ever seen. Not that it’s a comedy, not for a second. It’s an immensely moving and beautifully resonant drama about the walking wounded and how they cope with a horrific event from many years past.

This is one of the most stunning visual treats of the year and one of the most unforgettable thrill rides in recent memory.

The Scottish writer-director Charlotte Wells’ minimalist masterpiece Aftersun draws us into the lives of a father and daughter on a summer vacation in such a natural and gradual way that we feel like we truly know them as the days and nights go by, and we care deeply about them. And yet it still comes as something of a jolt when the final moments of this movie hit us SO hard, like a sledgehammer to the heart.

Director Haynes has a knack for framing his characters with just the right touch. There are no throwaway shots in this film.

A rich, smart, funny, sometimes acidic portrayal of a couple who can be spectacular when they’re in tune — and toxic when they’re at each other’s throats.

Nolan has crafted a tight, gripping, deeply involving and unforgettable film that ranks about the best war movies of the decade.

This is the best movie of the year so far and one of the best films of the decade.

Directed with great flair and pitch-perfect timing, brimming with sparkling visuals, filled with first-rate voice performances, thrilling adventures and unforgettable moments, Inside-Out is an instant classic.

It’s a beautiful film, finely written and well acted.

I’m not buying every chapter of this Marriage Story, but there’s enough material here to warrant a look.

Chazelle’s script is hopeful and sweet and clever and rich. His direction is innovative and captivating.

It is smart without being smug, insightful without being condescending, funny without being mean-spirited and genuinely moving. It’s unique and original and fresh and wonderful, and can you tell I loved it?

Uncut Gems is part psychological thriller, part black comedy, part thriller and part dysfunctional extended family drama — and it clicks on all those cylinders.

This is a well-crafted look at the American folk music scene of the early 1960s, a sometimes hilarious dry comedy — and oh yeah, the music is terrific.

Even as TÁR delivers as an intellectually soaring, elaborately constructed and passionate tribute to the technical AND emotional joys of playing, conducting and appreciating beautiful music, it also becomes a knowing and timely #MeToo fable.

It’s not easy to make an emotionally involving film in which some of the most pivotal moments are about phone calls and making copies of documents and a source circling names on a document — but save for a few overly dry moments, Spotlight prevails.

It’s film that’ll make you wince at times, and you’ll most likely not want to see twice, but seeing it once is an experience you’ll not soon forget.

What it does, and does so effectively, is remind us that the orchestrators of this genocide weren’t one-dimensional, psychopathic creatures out of a horror film; they were something far more terrifying. They were people.

Virtually every frame of this film is strikingly effective.

Keith Maitland’s Tower is a stunningly powerful and gripping documentary.

Son of Saul is lasting work of art — difficult to watch, impossible to forget.

Her works as a real romance, and as a commentary on the ways technology connects everyone to the world but also isolates us from legitimate, warm human contact.

Through Gerwig’s wonderfully creative prism, it’s as if we’re meeting the March sisters for the very first time, and we’re immediately swept away in a gorgeously filmed, wickedly funny, deeply moving and, yes, empowering story with themes still relevant some 150 years after the time period of these events.