Robert Daniels

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.