Robert Daniels

Charm City Kings is beautiful and important, unabashedly Black, yet rarely traumatic, and almost always determined statement. Soto has crafted an incredible empathetic narrative, one mile of road at a time.

Writer-director James N. Kienitz Wilkins’s “Still Film” is a stunning, acute critique of the regressive artistic sensibilities that plague contemporary Hollywood.

It’s a film that’s as aching as it is defiant, reflecting its diverse subjects.

With Night of the Kings Lacôte collapses the bounds between eras, and dissolves myth and reality, performance and remembrance, into one whole. It’s an assured, energetic piece of epic filmmaking, one that celebrates how storytelling, oration, and folklore teach us about our past so we might change our present.

Rich in thought, Origin is a dense, forceful masterwork, and, quite simply, the most radical film of DuVernay’s career.

David Byrne’s American Utopia is an ideal world; it’s exhilarating and joyful; and Byrne and Lee actually do make a perfect pair.

It is, through every composition, every serrated cut, and every lived-in performance, a rebellious and revolutionary masterpiece that swims so deep into the historical and public consciousness of race, you can’t help but be equally consumed by its unwavering depths.

Palm Springs adds meaning to the seeming meaninglessness of life, with infectious fun and introspective pleasure to boot.

With her harrowing film In the Same Breath, Wang has established herself as the preeminent documenter of the pain inflicted by oppressive regimes on their people.

Through cinematographer Amin Jafari’s sense of environment, the script’s agile tonal changes, and the attentive cast, we are enthralled from minute one until the end of an intense thriller that operates quietly but with no less punch.

Jane Schoenbrun’s second narrative feature is a gnawing search for belonging in the static spaces between analog pixels.

There are few gentler films you’ll find this year than Rohan Kanawade’s “Cactus Pears.” A touching queer romance whose subtle rhythms pull us into its tender embrace.

Spencer is an act of psychological horror, a kind of ghost story, and a survivalist picture carried by an uncannily immersive Kristen Stewart, in the best performance of her career.

Compensation, director Zeinabu irene Davis’ masterpiece, is a film guided by the desire to represent facets of Black life and history left relatively unexplored.

Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth is the kind of visionary art that happens when a group of artists, at the top of their game, assemble to work on a legacy that’s near to their hearts because of the challenge, not in spite of it. Denzel and McDormand are fearless, and The Tragedy of Macbeth is an enthralling jolt of verse and just good old-fashioned dread.

By fashioning a kinetic work that pulls together references and sources from Black literature, music, politics, and meme culture, “BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions” stands as a seismic intellectual awakening.

When Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt forms its full portrait, pulling together these seemingly disparate images for seismic import, the film is a treasure of community, a bold depiction of Black life, and a sumptuously crafted piece of personal storytelling that rises above tropes and cliches toward a piercing intimacy.

When combined, the diametric halves form a charming diptych whose thematic and emotional profundity make for Miyake’s most accomplished work yet.

Gerima’s Sankofa is an invocation not just to African ancestors, but also the present-day viewer. It calls to attention how history exists in the present, how the spirits of the long-gone can still affect today.

A clear masterpiece held together by visual splendor and idiosyncratic performances.

A harrowing piece of filmmaking, and a fitting, powerful remembrance of those who fought for their humanity.

The Power of the Dog doesn’t just mark Campion’s return — it’s the best movie of 2021 so far. This psychological Western’s themes of isolation and toxic masculinity are an ever-tightening lasso of seemingly innocuous events, and they import more horror and meaning on every closer inspection, corralling viewers under an unforgettable spell.

It’s difficult to fully contextualize how incredible Torres is here; she matches the film’s silent grief by keenly deploying her character’s internal angst into her slender frame. Through her formidable presence, the deliberate “I’m Still Here,” a film that locates further meaning in the face of Brazil’s present Far-Right wave, remains in the heart long after the picture fades.

All That’s Left of You, a multi-generational Palestinian epic, is the kind of accomplished, immaculately rendered film that’s indicative of a director who’s learned much and is ready to seize more.

It’s a disturbing work, guided by a discomforting sense of immaculateness that chills the viewer. It is the sanitation the film performs, which speaks to the now, in a way few Holocaust films have done before.

Miller isn’t here for tawdry melodrama, algorithmic plotting, or art designed for the small screen. “Furiosa” aims to blow you away. And it does. To Valhalla and beyond.

Unlike other political documentaries, “Lowndes County” isn’t afraid to end on a bleak, truthful note. One that challenges our modern perception of what is better and what is merely different. It is, quite simply, one of the best documentaries of the year.

At every turn, “The Annihilation of Fish” is wonderfully surprising.

The only request you can make of a documentary is for it to be as interesting as its subject. Alex Ross Perry’s slippery experimental mockumentary “Pavements,” a film about the 1990s slacker band behind Slanted and Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, is as gleefully idiosyncratic and as suspicious of mainstream success as the band and its fans.

Lowery more than catches an attentive audience’s attention with this film. His dazzling visuals, brilliant spectacle, and petrifying sequences are enrapturing. Likewise, Patel finally lays claim to the leading-man mantle so often bequeathed to him, yet so rarely earned.

Pollards’ MLK/FBI is more than an eye-opening look at an icon, and the evil forces working to tear him apart, it’s a critical chapter that should be imprinted inside every white American’s heart. Especially right now.

Detailed and deliberate, assertive but rarely obvious, Diallo’s Master is a towering, inventive shot in the arm for Black horror.

Its radical sweetness arises from a wellspring of empathy. Its radiant colors and lucid conception of vulnerability in the face of a largely inconsiderate world, sink deep beneath the skin in the liminal space between the soul and the heart that can make animation such a wondrous medium. Berger’s “Robot Dreams” is its stunning reality.

Education ends “Small Axe” on unsuspectingly grand terms. Yet the compact 63-minute coming-of-age film never loses its soft devoted touch. And McQueen, already an incredible filmmaker, shows another facet to his immense range.

In Everything Everywhere All At Once, a dizzying and aching bit of popcorn entertainment, in fact, Yeoh has never been better.

As a living record of the history of the Negro Leagues — it’s role in shaping America, in the prospects of upward mobility, in providing a playing field for Black folks to express themselves — Pollard’s The League is a rich, engrossing, and necessary tribute to a critical early wave in the Civil Rights movement.

The seven filmmakers at the center of “The Year of the Everlasting Storm” do give a slash of cathartic release, a dash of humor and a large batch of necessary pathos to make the world feel a little less lonely, a little less small.

By the waning minutes, when the film’s glimmering neorealism energy returns, cleansing the abrupt conclusion with a spellbound spirituality, Wladyka has assuredly provided a distinct vision that pulses to potent degrees.

Mangrove is rebellion. Mangrove is liberation. McQueen’s Mangrove, in its every personal minute, is love and devotion, not just to the now, or even the past, but for the progress of Black generations yet to come.

The rom-com is a rich and vital love story that breaks the mold with its visual acumen and bright spirit. “Rye Lane” doesn’t gesture toward an awkward cool; it’s an effortlessly cool picture that finds glee in the sights and sounds of these characters’ lush surroundings.

Larraín’s Ema will grate some. Even so, it’s one of the most ambitious and visually stunning films of the year.

Queen & Slim is an extraordinary Black Odyssey; a film whose tracks reverberate with echoes of the underground railroad.

Matt Reeves’ The Batman should tell audiences that other superhero movies are possible, and yet more, they can be had outside the formulaic tentpoles filling theaters today.

Rather than outlining a mere monolithic presence, it displays the multifaceted distinctions of Blackness. We witness and appreciate these works with the same reverence that Mitchell espouses. Is That Black Enough for You?!? is indeed more than enough, and makes you hope Mitchell gives us plenty more documentaries to come (and soon).

Diop’s Saint Omer doesn’t condescend to the viewer by slinking toward black-and-white offerings of good and evil, or broad statements about race or gender. This ripped-from-the-headlines narrative accomplishes a feat far more creative, and a bit less forced. It dances on the surface of these participants, and in their subtle ripples, to reveal the humanity in the seemingly inhumane.

Unique and unfazed, hilarious yet philosophical, Black Bear is the comedic form reinvented and re-conformed to mad and intoxicating ends.

Hatching, a smartly constructed fright machine, not only introduces a new and exciting voice to the horror landscape but cracks its way through the brain like a beak through a shell.

Little Wome fills and drains your heart, fills and drains your heart, fills and drains the heart. But the best remains the same. ‘Little Women’ lives by vitality and hope.

The film’s simple premise is supported by smart plotting, nimble editing and evocative sound, and lands with frightening force. An engagingly frigid performance by Scott furthers the film’s keen ability to conjure overwhelming anxiety from its many punchy jump scares, combining to make Hokum an exceptionally chilling horror film.

In Endless Cookie, Seth and Pete Scriver’s kooky, grotesquely animated documentary, a rich oral history poetically blended with oddball comedy invites surprising political revelations.

The unguarded authenticity of this film shifts its simple story away from any banality towards being a revealing narrative which celebrates the creative spirit and ponders the invisibility of Blackness.

A stirring debut by both Thyberg and Kappel and a daring picture that makes you love it, not for tawdry reasons but for all of the truthful crimes, perils and delights it covers.

Not only do Wright and Dinklage fashion an unrequited anguish worth crying over, again and again. Cyrano is the best movie musical of the last decade.

Deadwyler is the heart and soul of a film whose every inch is deeply felt.

The Fabelmans is Spielberg exercising his vast filmmaking knowledge to compose a story where his entire heart is stapled across the screen. It’s beautiful, evocative, enthralling blockbuster filmmaking, perfectly tuned to remind viewers of the power that can reside within a movie.

In this melancholic, thoughtfully attuned cinematic essay, no mountain is more important than the people who are still confined to the claustrophobic tunnels of the past.

The Last Showgirl is an achingly vulnerable picture that both catapaults Pamela Anderson into the awards conversation and stands as Gia Coppola’s best film to date.

Beneath the gore that ensues is a story about understanding.

While the film boasts a strong ensemble, all of whom give fantastic performances, especially Davis, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is Boseman’s movie from beginning to end. He shows his full range. All the tools, from his charm to piques of anger, that fated him for stardom.

Arrestingly plotted and bracingly acted, this story about the biting hardships faced by refugees who have left the danger of their homeland only to be left nationless could hardly be more relevant.

It’s difficult to believe The Lost Daughter is Gyllenhaal’s feature directorial debut. The rhythms of the narrative, the assured visual language, the precise performances she pulls from each actor moves with the confidence of a veteran filmmaker.

The Fire Inside, in a deceptively brilliant twist on the inspirational sports film, is a humanist story, whose every hard hitting beat and aching emotion is also truly earned.

A Crime on the Bayou never explodes with fury. But that doesn’t mean you won’t feel enraged while taking in the maddening series of systematic wrongs committed against Sobol and Duncan.

Peck’s film is a rich chronicling of Cole’s unique career, peerless artistry, political strength and moving end.

Devotion walks the tightropes between discord and harmony, hard lessons and heroic triumphs, and full-throated allyship and useless white guilt with aplomb.

If there’s one misstep to “The Bone Temple,” it’s the ending, which features a cameo that alters the tenor of the picture’s emotional hostility.

Foumbi’s Our Father, The Devil manages to take overused themes like trauma and grief and imbue them with every facet of their respective meaning.

Melodically vital and bracingly frank, Questlove’s uptempo Sundance documentary “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)” is a sonic kick to the soul.

McQueen doesn’t aim to achieve an arresting horror or to explain one person's grief. This urban interrogation is a frank interplay between survival and oblivion, selflessness and selfishness, continuity and demolition.

After the story of the Tulsa Massacre entered the national consciousness because of Damon Lindelof’s “Watchmen” and Misha Green’s “Lovecraft Country,” Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street this Memorial Day feels like the first time that the voices of the victims have finally been heard.

28 Years Later is a deeply earnest film, a picture whose sincerity is initially off putting until it’s endearing.

The film holds the kind of dumb, action beats and inventive kills, hokey yet fun dialogue that Hollywood used to be so good at producing. It remembers that villains can be wholly evil and that heroes can be bulletproof but still be engaging.

An unnerving character study that often borders on thriller territory, “The Things You Kill” is a psychologically intense piece of genre filmmaking.

It’s A Wonderful Knife has plenty of attributes—charm, blood, and angst—that should fit right in at any family holiday gathering.

It’s so refreshing to see an unhurried, patient documentary, one that trusts its audience to follow along rather than relying on cheap gimmicks to manipulate emotions.

"Sujo" is a direct, unvarnished window into the near inescapable pressure of cyclical violence.

While “Souleymane’s Story” throws many roadblocks in this Guinean man’s way, it’s pretty clear where we’re heading. And while that predictability does slightly undermine the weightiness of the journey, the ending, a cathartic revelation, is granted immeasurable pathos due to Sangaré’s overwhelming openness as an actor.

Unlike most other true-crime films, "The Order" isn't out to titillate or digress into exploitation. The film instead heeds to a strict hold on tone, mood and pacing that doesn't aim to manipulate the viewer but to slowly unravel them to the point of feeling as hollowed out as Husk. In the process, it furiously tears us apart

By making a film that says there is no complicated legacy to Riefenstahl, Veiel’s uncomplicated approach, supported by Riefenstahl’s own words, is strongly rendered into a direct, inarguable slashing of Riefenstahl’s importance.

It’s a profoundly Catholic work, whose slippery sense of sin and living instils great confusion and consternation to those occupying the narrative’s solemn monastery setting.

All Shall Be Well is a picture of cruel realities. It’s a deliberate, nimble drama, one about major slights, class imbalance, and rampant homophobia.

Visually evocative and uniquely conceived, Cristian Carretero and Lorraine Jones’s “Esta Isla” (“This Island”) is a lovers-on-the-run narrative unafraid to pause for emotional and thematic effect.

While this documentary doesn’t rise to the level of his masterwork “Exterminate All the Brutes,” the pain and anger, resolve, and courage that Peck captures in Silver Dollar Road make it a complex, intense document of the persistence of Black existence in a world hell-bent on erasure.

Blue Film, through its many frank observations, stands as a vulnerable work about one’s past colliding with one’s present, in a bid to make peace with one’s true self.

When The Woman King works, it’s majestic.

It’s very easy to dismiss a film about a hapless loser. But it’s nearly as difficult to ignore a performance like the one Rios gives.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat succeeds as an intense piece of reclamation and rejuvenation, giving breath to Lumumba’s spirit by sporting the same kind of defiance the political leader espoused.

This is an enchanting film. At every moment, one feels spellbound by its earnest aims and its heartwarming excursions.

It’s a collective dream coated in a blue lacquer dancing on the edge of something unrecognizable, something wholly transcendent. And it arrives with an exceptional display of bravura.

Riddle of Fire can sometimes lose its spit, however, spinning too listlessly to the script’s mazy ruts. But there is an uncommon, finely struck sweetness to this film that keeps it from tumbling down mean, unsavory paths.

Similar to Lee’s public persona, “Highest 2 Lowest” is a chaos agent of a movie, the kind of lavish, unpredictable crime thriller that zips when you expect it to zoom.

Weerasethakul’s Memoria doesn’t give too many answers. It moves at an interminable pace. But those are mostly strengths rather than faults, methods that force the audience to engage with the thoughts and collective memory buried deep within their psyches. In that sense, Memoria is a sensory explosion, and its dense, immersive shrapnel isn’t easily removable.

Populated by a feverish humor and governed by fatalistic doom, Reijin’s Bodies Bodies Bodies moves with a slapdash pace that belies its sturdy aesthetic construction.

Boyega is superhuman here. Because no matter the decade, Logan isn’t an easy character to understand with regards to decision making. Yet Boyega’s sincerity holds us in this story, even when we can’t fully understand the why behind Logan.

Magazine Dreams, even with some shortcomings, is dense, deftly composed, yet oddly overbearing. It’s uncomfortable and conflicting and may even prove divisive. And it’s unquestionably unforgettable.

Featuring a breakout performance from an enrapturing Wong-Loi-Sing, and a beguiling turn from Siriboe, Really Love is a timeless black romance. Kristi Williams is an assured new voice already nestling herself inside audiences’ hearts.

While West isn’t always operating on the same levels as his influences, his signature flair for tension through simmering slow-burn pacing remains unparalleled.

A tightly constructed narrative, which examines the role of forgiveness,The Two Popes is a lowkey buddy comedy that simply follows two actors at the top of their game.