Richard Whittaker

After the facile mysticism of Silence, the tone-deaf anti-union cant of The Irishman and the self-indulgent cutesiness of Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story By Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon feels like the work of a filmmaker who is doing more than just ticking off boxes on a decades-old wish list.

The film further establishes the Philippous as some of the best directors of young actors working today.

Much as Blue Moon is a eulogy for the death of a creative life, it’s also a testament to Linklater’s continued vitality as a filmmaker.

Lean as a hellhound, Shelby Oaks doesn’t rely on jump scares, although there are plenty of those. Instead, its true terror is found in writer/director Chris Stuckmann’s ability to move effortlessly from adrenaline shocks to creeping psychological strain.

As always, Affleck remains one of the directors who can disguise a powerful parable as giddy, crowd-pleasing entertainment.

Vogt brings out the ugliness of childhood (the shallow empathy, the lashing out, the selfishness, the curiosity about the disgusting) and ramps it up with endless malice that slowly builds to horrific action. It's the anti-jump scare, with a sickening catharsis that what you think is coming does, indeed, come to pass.

Blanchart’s not reinventing any wheels – if anything, there’s a certain pleasure to be had from his decision not to follow the current trend of trying to simulate a real-time effect.

The Thunderbolts may not be the Avengers, but they’re the heroes we need now.

Even among all the fictions, audiences will find more truths about modern Russia than they’ll get from most news broadcasts.

Like any great funfair ride designer, it’s Barker’s grasp of pacing, of when to lull and when to launch, that makes Obsession such a terrifying blast.

After the inexplicable roars of applause for the ham-fisted Promising Young Woman, seeing first-time feature director Molly Manning Walker treat similar issues with so much more empathy and nuance makes How to Have Sex a disturbing if welcome addition to the conversation.

The key to a great literary adaptation is not to slavishly replicate but to find a way to change everything for the new medium except the heart. The Wild Robot, the 49th animated feature from DreamWorks Animation, doesn’t just put a digital coating on that heart, but celebrates every vibrant beat.

Anderson still directs with purpose, and while One Battle After Another is never as coherent as it is exciting, it avoids the tag of being “lesser Anderson.”

Weaving, who excels at this kind of character-driven action-horror, plays perfectly with our empathy, wordlessly guiding us through this damned land.

Watery-eyed and drowning in contrition, Junejo finds a touching, tragic inner life to Haider's passivity: But in Urdu and Punjabi observational tragedy Joyland first-time director Saim Sadiq isn't interested in simply telling a story of sexual and social liberation.

It may all be a flashback, but Black Widow is truly a bridge with a true direction as the MCU moves into its post-Avengers era.

Kudos to the suits for backing a horror film this provocative and spine-chilling.

O’Sullivan’s script is also a remarkable document of community theatre: again, often a place for cheap laughs about hams and backstage romances, but it’s never played for comedy at the character’s expense.

Johnson may need reminding that atheists aren’t just here to provide comfort to believers. That misstep aside, Wake Up Dead Man is a cunning and entertaining mystery, a return to form for the franchise.

The first film was both a fun and furry buddy cop romp and a gentle metaphor for acceptance and cohabitation. Zootopia 2 goes further down that path in a fashion that is unabashedly moralizing when it comes to how some groups are excised and othered in a community, and how gentrification can be a tool of oppression.

Truly, Everything Everywhere All at Once does one thing: exactly what the title promises.

It's a film that you absorb, until it slithers around and engulfs you.

It all comes back to Sorkin's core idea, implicitly and expertly expressed: that the tactic of violence and provocation, then making the victims seem like thugs, is still performed in Portland and St. Louis and New York, just as it was in Chicago. It's also a reminder that there was no Chicago 7 until the establishment brought them together.

There is truly magic in this long, golden summer day.

Violation, much like Brea Grant's Lucky, strikes hard at the heart of the impossibility of revenge. In her elegantly-structured script, writer/director Sims-Fewer rejects the idea of a revelation changing the perspective on a moment we have already seen. Instead, she contextualizes what we are to see.

Director Scott Glosserman began his film as a found footage mockumentary before flipping into a conventional slasher for the final act as a deliberate, subversive plot point. Nash keeps his deliberate pacing to emphasize the grisliness.

Only when The Inspection is complete does it truly reveal itself: a powerful, poignant, and complicated look at what people will do for acceptance.

It's a deliberate effort by director, co-writer, and rom-com veteran Nicholas Stoller (The Five-Year Engagement, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) to get inside modern gay relationships – or, more especially, affluent, white, middle-class, cis gay male relationships in New York.