Robert Daniels

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

As a gangster film, “The Alto Knights” does little more than putter along, taking in very few new or interesting sights along the way.

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 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.

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.

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

There is a good movie lurking within writer/director Cinqué Lee’s survivalist coming-of-age thriller “Last Ride.” It’s just suspended between two half-told stories.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

With an incredible ensemble and an elegant eye, Hall’s Passing is a high-wire act of a debut that tackles its several thorny issues with nary a scratch.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Even if Coogler doesn’t know where to end his movie, it’s tempting to be swept up in his expansive vision, if only because his intent is so firm.

Sometimes Leaf asks us to see too much. But Earth Mama is grounded enough and empathetic enough to be worth the bleak toll it exacts.

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.

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.

As a small amusement, “Chicken for Linda!” is an enjoyable enough lark. But its flightless emotional course leaves its profundity just out of range.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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).

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.

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.

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.

Stolevski aims for a life-affirming treatise on the poetics of human existence but strains to be more than a pretty copy of his well-known influences.

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.

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.

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.

By playing with formalism, using faux documentary, and cranking out hedonistic scenes of excessive drug taking and partying, Yates aims to blend “Erin Brockovich” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.” But the director’s filmic language never offers quite enough sex, quite enough excess, quite enough of capitalism’s depravity. Pain Hustlers just doesn’t know how to commit.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Master of Light is a gentle and graceful film defined by the capriciousness of sight.

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.

Michelle Ford’s Test Pattern, with patient specificity, probes the institutional injustices suffered by black women to potent, provoking effect.

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.

Martin and Lindsay’s Tina all too often struggles to show Turner as a three-dimensional person — her wants, her beliefs, her passions — in lieu of her being a product of the abuse she withstood from Ike. As a tribute, it’s a disappointing slog for an always-vibrant legend.

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

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.

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.

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

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

With a colorful blend of biting absurdity and copious dad jokes to offset the commonplace narrative, Rianda and Rowe optimize their dysfunctional family road trip for high-functioning enjoyment.

In a cinematic landscape where the anxiety of surveillance has been sufficiently explored — with movies like “The Conversation,” “Enemy of the State” and “Kimi” — this simplistically dreary offering doesn’t crack a new code.

While A Thousand and One is a breathtakingly beautiful portrait of Black womanhood and is thoughtfully political, the character beats heave with a noticeable unevenness. The fascinating parts rarely add up to a satisfying interpersonal whole.

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.

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.

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.

As a double act, McKellen and Coel are a charming pairing, combining a classic wit and neo-soul cool to delightful results.

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.

Technically immaculate and marked by sensorial storytelling, it’s also a film whose undeniable style can overwork the simple message it wants to tell.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

As a film, The Humans provides serrated frights and big challenges for its actors, but ultimately, it is too cold and never believable enough to immerse one in its purported dread.

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

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

Both Dickey and Studi shoulder the lesser material through a charming naturalism that papers over the script’s artificiality.

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.

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.

Unfortunately, Iannucci and Blackwell are so intent on making every quip funny, they lose the story.