Robert Daniels

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.

In Gormican’s uproarious The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Cage delivers a crowd-pleasing triumph that reminds audiences that he’s always been — no matter the part, no matter the reviews — a star who makes the movies infinitely better just by being him.

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

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.