Rodrigo Perez

Featuring two exceptional lead performances from these two boys, first rate beauty-in-ugliness photography and an unusually extraordinary command of tone, Carbone’s picture skillfully articulates the inexpressible.

You may not be able to figure it out, but that's part of the point of this sensually-directed, sensory-laden experiential (and experimental) piece of art that washes over you like a sonorous bath of beguiling visuals, ambient sounds and corporeal textures.

This terrific and sublime experience, and strikingly original film, is mandatory watching for the adventurous viewer.

A heartbreaking and poignant story about choices, country, commitments, sacrifice, and love, Brooklyn is a superb, luminous, and bittersweet portrayal of who we are, where we’ve come from, where we’re going, and the places we call home.

A deeply impressive first film by director Robert Eggers, “The Witch” is immaculately constructed, evinces an exquisitely ominous tone, and is unequivocally haunting. It’s exacting look at the dissonance of human nature is terrifying.

Immersive and committed to its austere form, the solemn, often-dialogue free Dark Night never spoon feeds and always allows the viewer to draw their own conclusions.

Resurrection is emotionally searing, wildly unhinged and maybe even a little batshit crazy. However, as anchored by its two fiercely committed and convincing lead performances (Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth), a menacingly disquieting tone, and a frightening ambiguity about a disintegrating mental state, Resurrection is a deeply distressing and compelling drama that will shock and shake you to your core.

Fierce and unrelenting, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” burns as both an incendiary action epic and a tender family drama, alive with humor, conviction, and revolutionary spirit. And amid all its pandemonium, Sergio’s reminder that “freedom is no fear” lingers as the film’s quiet truth, a mantra passed down like a torch. Few films this year feel so vital, so breathtaking in scope and soul. Viva la revolución, indeed.

All of the elements of impressive craft blend to make a wholly unique concoction, a bloody, eerie, creepy and yet thoughtful and emotional exploitation movie about demons, ghosts, black magic and haunted things.

It’s disturbing and engrossing. It doesn’t fully grapple with every moral, political, or philosophical consequence of the AI rush, and there are moments when it arguably lets some of its most powerful interview subjects off the hook too easily. But it still lands because it understands the essential terror at the center of this conversation: not simply that we are building intelligence at breakneck speed, but that wisdom—human, moral, civic—may be arriving nowhere near fast enough.

Annihilation is mesmerizing and its awe-inspiring conclusion will leave your mind blown and splattered against the wall. In its final, surreal biopsychological moments the movie goes to an astonishing interstellar gear.

Poetic and bittersweet, Cmon Cmon is a special film, one that asks us to recognize the mistakes we make, the people we wound, the feelings we hurt, and to maybe give ourselves a break in the process and hold on for what better future tomorrow may bring.

Bloodcurdling to the last delicious drop, Nosferatu is extraordinarily compelling, one of the best films of the year, and an unforgettable, phantasmagoric experience for theaters that will astonish.

The film’s anger is muted but unmistakable. “Thoughts & Prayers” is about a nation that would rather teach children how to hide, how to bleed, how to die — than pass even the most modest gun reforms. It’s about an America that keeps choosing adaptation over prevention, ritual over change, and performative sorrow over meaningful protection.

Transmitting such a deep and moving paean of a band, the music they’ve created, the complex humans behind it, and bow-down respect for the long-haul resilience they’ve demonstrated over years of ups and downs, Wright presents a movie like a superdeluxe mixtape gift, adorned with loving attention to detail, gorgeous artwork, footnotes, and other bells and whistles, that is extremely easy to fall head over heels for regardless of your conversant knowledge of the band or its odd, but catchy music.

Tipping’s bold and meditative drama with its reflective moods and streetwise grime has delivered one of the best feature-length debuts of 2016 and one of the best films of the year, period.

A stunning, often flooring masterwork about desperation, writer/director Tim Sutton’s, “Donnybrook” is a brutal elegy for those living on the forgotten fringes of America.

As much as “Top Gun: Maverick” whips from a technical, visceral, thrill-making, supersonic-level, the entire endeavor and every little moment of introspection, suffering and determination is all the more accentuated, strengthened and fist-pumpingly good because you care so damn much about the story, the people and their very human concerns.

It’s a striking and intimate piece of cinema, a heartrending tale of living with and battling neurological disorders, the love necessary to endure it, and the anguished dolor of remembrance.

Poignant and poetic, After Yang is a soulful and heartbreaking meditation on impermanence full of poignant wonder and riches of human grace.

Mangold has crafted the definitive portrait of this era and the poetic, aspiring, rebellious kid who refused to be pigeonholed, held down and defined.

Marty Supreme isn’t a moral fable about discipline and sportsmanship; it’s a portrait of ambition as a living, breathing necessity—something Marty must manifest into existence, from his lips to God’s ears. Throughout the madness, Safdie finds an unexpectedly human pulse within the chaos, transforming it into an ecstatic, white-knuckle rollercoaster ride.

Enemy is a transfixing grand slam that certifies Villeneuve as the real deal and one of the most exciting new voices in cinema today.

Friendship is awe-inspiringly twisted by the end, a jaw-droppingly comical tale of tragedy, even. But it is masterfully rendered; the rare movie seemingly built from a sketch series turned into a genuinely riotously amusing and f*cked movie that still has the sense to comment on the dark and totally warped corners of the human condition.

It’s a breathlessly told movie; both meticulous and frenetic, sweat-soaked and methodical. It will take hold and won’t let you go, and it’s one of the most engaging movies of the year.

The VU feels like it’s told from the perspective of the band members and is always veering far away from talking-head doc standards.

Make no mistake, Exhibiting Forgiveness can be painful but rewardingly so; it’s complex, unresolved ending all the more honest and true.

Weapons underscores how in command Creeger is of his entire movie, the mise-en-scène, the craft, tone, mood and sweaty, ominous, dread-inducing atmosphere. Its final act is batshit crazy and climaxes in a jaw-dropping wave of exhilarating, terrifying feeding frenzy of satisfying comeuppance. Weapons will leave you thrilled, aghast, horrified and wowed.