Robert Daniels

With a jukebox parade that will invite viewers to inevitably sing-along to classic earworms, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart is the Bee Gees documentary you’ve been waiting for. It’s a fitting tribute to their unending love for each other.

Tariq’s Mogul Mowgli is enrapturing, revelatory, and at all times, a nightmarish accounting of the bonds that make us, but can easily break us as well.

Without hesitation, she talks about her own shortcomings too. She does so with an assured hand, an open heart, and a heady way of seeing the world. But other parts of her are obscured, and those questions might leave one wanting.

Lover’s Rock is a personal love note, not only to an era and a culture, but to the days of youth and all-night parties.

This is a uniquely Chinese-American documentary. And an immersive film concerning the immigrant experience. It’s also a work that shows the humanism needed for great journalism to happen.

Icarus: The Aftermath is a poignant and powerful document about the unpredictable burdens of heroism.

Chemistry wise, Miller and Luna work wonders together. Miller’s intense dynamic range: from impassioned to ebullient and afraid, plays well off of Luna’s boyish charm. They imbue these characters with troves of insecurities and mountains of love.

A fitting follow-up to “Minding the Gap,” Liu and Altman’s All These Sons is a sharp, deeply personal piece, equal parts devastating and inspirational.

Bruiser is an anxious film filled with unmistakable beauty and obsessed with conceptions of family, love, growth, the past, and the future.

Stowaway is shrewd in its decision-making and even better in its execution.

Even when the dialogue runs long and the film’s frights offer less terror than you’d want in a sci-fi-mystery flick, an inspired Foxx, a subversive Parris, and a ruthless yet melancholic Boyega, who shoulders the bulk of the dramatic weight, retrofit common stereotypes of urban Black life into the rich, dynamic humanism of its reality.

The Fall Guy is at its best when it captures the frenzied energy, the multiplicity of artisans, and the devoted precision necessary to bring a scene together.

There’s a tense beauty to 40 Acres. Deadwyler’s forceful energy fills the frame; through her rigid stature and her cleareyed speech, she lends power and humor to this lovingly stern mother.

Though its many narrative twists and amusing turns might wear down less adventurous viewers, this film will be embraced by those who enjoyed the director’s dystopian critique Sorry to Bother You and his equally scathing series I’m a Virgo.

Nobody gathers from the familiar blood-soaked stream of “John Wick,” “Death Wish” and the “Taken” franchise to fashion a savage ode featuring the same mettle of its inspirations but with far greater humor attached to the well-worn beats.

God’s Country is a film that wants to disarm you at every turn, and it often succeeds with a transfixing, acute spirit of retribution against society’s toxic racial and gender power dynamics.

This violent franchise has rarely felt so assured, so relaxed and knowingly funny.

Who We Are, a revelatory, albeit stiff documentary, anchored by Robinson’s personal anecdotes and footage of his 2018 lecture at New York City’s Town Hall Theater, uncovers startling research while surveying the country’s unimaginable racial crimes.

With style, strong performances and emotive use of mis-en-scene, On Swift Horses is a flawed but intense critique of Americana.

This is a wonderfully messy genre flick that takes pleasure in offering the kind of startling revelations mixed with sharp barbs that will make many clap deliriously while leaving some wanting more answers.

Brendan Walsh’s cold survivalist thriller, Centigrade, is a creatively crafted claustrophobic study of a fractured marriage. Strongly acted, the drama wallows in melancholy while presenting peaks of hope amid its simple icy setting.

As a star, Patel has rarely been better. And as a director, he grants an intoxicatingly gruesome vision of the kind of gritty vehicles he could steer in the future.

Once Upon a Time in Uganda reminds you how the art of moviemaking can make dreams real.

The film’s conclusion leans too closely to the melodramatic. But Kurosawa’s assured direction is enough to make Wife of a Spy an enrapturing, stylish wartime period piece.

This violent franchise has rarely felt so assured, so relaxed and knowingly funny. If Bad Boys: Ride or Die means that Smith, post-slap, will remain a bad boy for life, there are worse punishments to endure.

BenDavid Grabinski’s time-twisty, sci-fi gangster comedy Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice is brimming with hair-brained schemes and hilarious gags; the kind of unruly one night adventure that isn’t about logic, it’s about stoking delirium.

Alice Winocour’s captivating fashion drama Couture is a quiet, observational picture about creative women finding solace in one another.

An unassuming character study set to poetic rhythms makes for an empathetic study of Black life, full of resolve.

Barry Jenkins’ Mufasa is a strong, uncomplicated effort that should charm kids. The Moonlight directors involvement in a CGI-heavey Disney prequel caused serious film lovers to wring their hands, but the results speak for themselves: This is simply a lovely movie.

MoviePass, MovieCrash is an abundantly entertaining, easily digestible rendering of a ‘too crazy to be true’ story that looks at the turbulent, short life of the company from the perspective of its creators, its destroyers, and the rank-and-file workers who could do nothing but watch it all go down in flames.

In the illuminating This Is the Life, DuVernay not only fills in an important formative gap in California’s hip-hop history, she displays the inventive eye that would later lead to her future cinematic successes.

Sometimes Wolf is slight, relying on mystery and metaphor to build suspense, but Biancheri’s sense of narrative adventure imbues this survivalist picture with more than uneasiness. She gives it tenderness.

Ansari’s screenplay makes the most of the comedy talents of himself, Palmer and Rogen, with each getting their fair share of jabs and zingers. Yet Reeves is the star of the movie, givig the best comedic performance of the year.

The sincerity of Rental Family’s characters, the Tokyo location and a narrative playfulness more than make up for the film’s less complex threads.

It’s not the promised spectacle that cements Venom: Let There Be Carnage as touching, wild entertainment. It’s the themes of home, love, and companionship that make Serkis’ sequel another reason to want more “Venom” movies, and quickly.

Remi Weekes’ feature directorial debut not only exposes the horrors of the immigration system, but mines survivor guilt for a clever, bone-chilling thriller.

Unclenching the Fists isn’t perfect. Rather it’s a daring and complex leap by Kovalenko.

Smart and affecting ... It’s not flashy. It’s not often revelatory for any super fans, or even anyone who watched "Being the Ricardos" ... "Lucy and Desi," however, is still meaty as a standalone work, and an essential, authentic salute to these trailblazers.

Linoleum is difficult to pin down; the obfuscations and slippages that run through it seem just as likely to frustrate viewers as they might compel them.

Edralin’s Islands is a patient debut that reminds us that while our parents are important, our own happiness cannot be understated or ignored. In this sense, through its final seconds, “Islands” is a life-affirming achievement.

These young performers are always true to themselves. Honest and bare without inhibitions. Which is fitting for a movie that’s about rebuilding oneself and one’s connections to the world by telling yourself that the pain is okay. The hurt is real. And the love we give never dies. Park’s The Fallout is a resilient character study of grief in all its forms.

Told through a humanist lens, it never resorts to simple sentimentality.

Sweet and earnest, this is the kind of film that’s easy to wrap your arms around because it understands that coming of age is inherently traumatic. It needn’t be overly dramatized.

Every scene, effective but long in the tooth, is built on the entertainment value of these oddball figures, sorta like “Tiger King” but less gross and exploitative.

While the killer with a heart of gold trope works to varying degrees, mostly because of Manganiello’s unvarnished presence, the thematic heft of The Kill Room is enough to make it an intriguing and entertaining early work.

Even when there’s a comically large moon that feels ripped from a Méliès movie undercutting whatever emotional drama Ayer wants to pull in the film’s climactic raid on a brothel, it doesn’t matter. Because if “The Meg,” “Wrath of Man” or “The Beekeeper” proved anything, it’s that it doesn’t matter how outlandish or overcooked the movie is. Nothing can slow down Statham.

It’s a fun soulful documentary that’s rarely ever invasive, depicting the type of statesman we’re sorely missing today.

A bundle of taut nerves stretched to their vomit-inducing breaking point, Talk to Me, the directorial feature debut from Australian Youtube brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, is the type of horror film whose effectiveness arises from its barebones simplicity.

Inside Out 2 zips confidently along, fashioning a hypnotic and transportive imaginativeness that is incredible to take in.

The film bewitches you with its seemingly spontaneous humor, a cadre of original soulful folk tunes, and its adoration of the breathtaking surroundings.

It’s the unbreakable friendship between Kunle and Sean, the ways their time together, good or bad in college, will mark how they see the world, and how the world sees them, forever, that makes Williams’ Emergency an elaborate, chaotically hilarious, intensely terrifying journey worth taking.

A meeting of “Leave No Trace” and “Hell or High Water,” “Sovereign” is a thought provoking political work whose sympathetic eye is given focus by its potent cast.

The Boys in Red Hats is a necessary watch that elicits frustration by exposing our insular ideology with a raw aplomb.

It’s that assured blending of emotions that makes “LaRoy, Texas” a sturdy tonal journey—a film enamored with those living on the fringes of respectability—that bodes well for whatever freewheeling story Atkinson hopes to tell next.

She Paradise is a love letter not only to the autonomy of a young Black woman but the culture of a proud island nation, too.

With visual precision and remarkable intimacy, Hannah Olson's documentary The Last Cruise recalls the harrowing 40-day quarantine aboard the Princess Diamond cruise ship at the outset of the pandemic.

Cooper doesn’t try to tie neat bows either. He allows this superstar to be flawed and damaged, but not in a cheap melodramatic way, in a relatable way that actually gives you strength to find a reason to believe in seeking help. Springsteen becomes as raw and as frank as the characters in his songs.

It’s a meticulously crafted, albeit not totally original critique of internet culture, bursting with color and melodramatic teen angst.

Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band isn’t looking to put a new spin on a familiar artist. It wants to rotate, spinning round and round from A-side to B-side to back again until the sense of mortality at the heart of this tour becomes as unshakeable as the music itself.

While [Lawless] only scratches the surface of Moth's traumatic past, "Never Look Away" still stands as a formidable anti-war project.

Even when the courtroom scenes fall into overly familiar visual patterns, Foxx adds tension, frivolity, and a sense of rigor, elevating The Burial from its common bones to a stirring, distinctive comedy with high re-watch value.

Despite its name and copious sex, Lonesome is surprisingly wholesome.

Vibrant, silly, and unwaveringly vulnerable, “Pools” is an invigorating party movie whose non-stop reverie uplifts its protagonist’s downcast spirit.

The film’s sci-fi tone holds best, not when the McManus brothers try to explain the technological components, but when these characters’ find solace in their shared trauma.

Though the delightful ensemble allows this slight comedy to bob along, it’s Henry who steers this ship into gentle waters. He imbues Charles’ substantial reawakening with great tenderness.

While the autobiographical elements are incredibly light, there’s enough humility here to make the viewer surrender to the film’s melodic charms.

I could see passing references to “Eighth Grade,” “Skate Kitchen,” "Mid90s,” “Minari,” and “Minding the Gap”—better films that seemed to capture their intended spirit with greater urgency and originality. But upon a recent second watch, I have found that “Didi,” [Wang's] feature directorial debut, is far stronger and far more affecting than I initially gave it credit for.

It doesn’t deal in easy gags or low-hanging speeches. It understands both the thrill and the agony of desperately waiting for your dream to ripen on the vine.

The Killers of the Flower Moon, a visceral epic, is the story of the wreckage of a people, the evil in white men’s hearts and the poison they spread, and the erasure that occurs when their stain touches you. It’s powerful, even when you’re left wondering if someone else could’ve spread the gospel.

Saad’s sharp psychological character study doesn’t provide the cathartic ending audiences might crave. The perspective is too cold, too ambiguous to give such easy answers. The film, instead, serves as a showcase for Badhon and a platform to examine the limits of unbendable ethics in a sexist culture.

While not perfect, nothing worthwhile ever is, Da 5 Bloods sees Lee exploring brotherhood, PTSD, greed, and how lost legacies and voices have led to present protests for a deceptively rousing war drama.

It’s a shaggy hangout film where McCartney and Wonder are dimwitted adversaries who spend their days getting high, insulting one another, and eating veggie dinners. In short, it’s incredibly fun.

It flourishes as a modest picture, an acute character study of men and women picking up the pieces of a patriotic ideal that seems to have failed them

Most of the best portions of “Ricky” are hard-earned enough to look past moments of inconsistent tone and approach. Because when this character study hits, it can often feel divine.

Good Boy could easily devolve into merely being a gimmick. But Alex Cannon and Leonberg’s dialogue-light script is aiming for more than DTV silliness. They’re making a movie about heart, loyalty, and friendship.

Frédéric Jardin’s “Survive” doesn’t necessarily break the mold. But being original isn’t totally important for this schlocky French disaster flick.

The film’s quiet approach doesn’t rely on overworked sentimentality or melodramatic angst. It washes over you, pulling you forward toward its heart through the natural strength of its emotional tide.

O’Shay doesn’t deify these two women; she presents them as human, and uncovers how comfortable they are in their own skin.

Eggers’ brand of psychological shock is bolder here than his prior works and potent in bursts, but barely works on boldness alone.

The director’s best asset remains his indelible style. In his films, he usually doesn’t employ much fluff, limiting how often he cuts. Instead, he relies on pans and savvy blocking. That’s imperative in Richard Jewell, a steady biopic whose best upticks arrive through patience.

Crater might be too dark on a thematic level for some tweens, but the light it brings into the genre makes Alvarez’s film a soul-stirring escapade, one that introduces young audiences to ways to reform the fractured world they call home.

Shortcomings is a wickedly funny, absorbing character study and solo feature directorial debut by actor Randall Park (“Fresh off the Boat”). In the hands of Park, Adrian Tomine's graphic novel (adapted here by Tomine) finds cutting new dimensions in the miserabilism of an unabashed assh*le.

Lewis’ In Our Mothers' Gardens requires time to find its footing, but the documentary ultimately offers a salute to the generationally important women who fought to give their families a more fruitful future.

There are plenty of flaws in Spaceman. Mulligan’s character is underwritten . . . The overall tone might also be too sleepy, too introspective and despondent to some’s liking. But I just love Sandler in this register.

Told in 71 minutes, the breezy melodrama moves through reality and happenstance with a winking glee that recalls the gentle works of Bill Forsyth—albeit with less thematic heft.

For the acclaimed Chadian filmmaker, Lingui, his first foray into women-driven stories wobbles with underdevelopment but still manages to be a harrowing tale of bodily freedom.

King comes so close to rendering Hampton’s life and legacy anew for a younger generation. But for all of the film’s eloquent crafts and the audacious performances from a deep ensemble, which includes an under-sung Dominique Thorne as Black Panther member Judy Harmon, Judas And The Black Messiah doesn’t fully encapsulate either its Judas or its messiah.

No Time to Die works best when Fukunaga and Craig work to reimagine the emotions that can drive a Bond movie.

Filmed in a rich black and white, director Zeshawn Ali’s documentary and feature debut Two Gods is an intimate, lyrical exhumation of the cycles that haunt Black youth and the challenge of putting to rest old habits.

Wachowski’s The Matrix Resurrections, a fun, albeit messy metatextual sequel that struggles to find its narrative footing, soars whenever Wachowski focuses on sci-fi’s best power couple.

Possessor is a bloody existential fever dream that, at its best, is unnerving and thrilling, and, at its worst, is tiring and misbegotten.

Montana Story doesn’t reinvent the Western wheel. Rather it offers tender mercies as a sentimental work that explodes in well-earned fury.

This epic, crowd-pleasing adventure, one of the funniest movies of the year, needn’t be as good as “The Truman Show” or “Wreck-it-Ralph” to be entertaining. It just needs to emotionally feel real, as real as Guy feels himself to be. In that regard, “Free Guy” is a winner.

Goodrich is the type of rewatchable adult-minded comedy that feels like a welcome sight.

Subject includes harrowing stories while leading voices in the documentary sphere offer their insights. It’s not a film out for blood, which becomes a blessing and a curse for its filmmakers.

Directed by Ángel Manuel Soto (“Charm City Kings”), this heartwarming, crowd-pleasing comic book flick is less serious and more colorful than the tonally dour mood of many contemporary superhero films.

Though Till can not rewrite all of history’s wrong, you never doubt the genuineness of Chukwu’s intentions. This isn’t a salacious film. This isn’t taking advantage of Emmett Till’s memory for cheap prestige. Rather Till is an urgent and reverent, albeit flawed, pursuit of justice.

The quiet soulfulness of Buckley, Ahmed, and White makes for a banquet of slow cinema, one that haunts more than shocks in its parsing of love, lust, and longing.