Ross Bonaime

It'll get your heart pumping from the very beginning, rarely giving you time to breathe, and boasts a lead performance from an actor who's truly in command of his greatness.

The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie shows just how much life there still is in these characters and this world, and that they’re malleable enough to continue providing entertainment to every generation. The Day the Earth Blew Up is the welcome back that the Looney Tunes have long deserved.

The People's Joker is a bold vision, a mixture of a coming-of-age story and parody, infused with a transition story that is emotionally powerful and absolutely necessary.

The combination of Byrne's haunting, brilliant performance, and Mary Bronstein's unrelenting handling of tone here makes If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You one of the first must-watch films of 2025.

I Love Boosters is full of major swings and plenty of individual concepts that could take up an entire film, yet Riley balances everything this movie is trying to do quite well.

The way Leigh uses these characters to inform us of Pansy’s story is impeccably handled, a sign of a master storyteller that still has plenty to offer.

Paddington in Peru might not be at the same level as the first two films, but it’s still absolutely a worthwhile adventure. We’re still getting all the characters and ideas that we love, just packaged in a different way than we’re expecting. If anything, Paddington in Peru proves just how malleable this character is, and how well he can work in either quiet, simple stories or grand adventures.

With Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger, Hinton shows the legacy that films can have and how time can benefit films that don’t receive the recognition they deserve.

With undertone, Tuason has created one of the few horror films that’s even more horrifying to hear than it is to see.

From its narrative that blends so many ideas exquisitely, to the gratifying characters and narrative arcs, to the absolutely stunning animation style, Arco is quite possibly the best animated film of the year.

Caught Stealing, on the surface, doesn’t look like what we expect from an Aronofsky film, and yet, once you dive deeper, it seems like the most obvious version of a dramedy crime-thriller that the director could make. The film isn’t afraid to get its hands dirty and go to some truly dark places, yet it always manages to come back to a place where this story becomes entertaining again.

Little Amélie or the Character of Rain is, without a doubt, one of the best and most touching animated films to come out this year, a remarkable example of what this style of storytelling can do.

Brian is an absolute blast and a hysterical coming-of-age story, centered on an impressive lead performance by Ben Wang, and an absolutely perfect handling of character and tone by Ropp and Scollins. Brian deserves to be amongst the great high school coming-of-age comedies that paved the way before it.

Considering how electric Stone’s work and life are, SLY LIVES! more than makes up for its standard documentary style through Stone’s gripping story, and Questlove’s exploration of the revolutionary music.

Saturday Night is a loving celebration of SNL that captures the spirit of trying to put on a live comedy show every week.

Three films in, Johnson continues to surprise and amaze with his ability to craft a masterful tale, one that hits everything we love about this series, while still finding new angles to approach in this world.

Louis-Dreyfus is subtly excruciating in her grief here, and it’s marvelous to watch her work in a story that allows her to play with such a range of feelings.

It ends up becoming one of the best DC films in years, and one of the best movies of the summer.

Perry’s work in Pavements is one of the wildest and unhinged approaches to a music documentary ever made, but the fact that he pulls it all together into something that isn’t a mess is a testament to Perry’s craft.

I Saw the TV Glow is bold, unhinged, extremely unusual, and also kind of magnificent—a daring step forward for Schoenbrun as a filmmaker, and a film that will certainly divide audiences not sure what the hell to make of it.

Deadpool & Wolverine is a shot in the arm that the MCU needed, and finally shows the full potential of Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool.

The Drama is a film that will stick in your mind long after you’ve left the theater.

Torres' humor might be too niche for some, but Problemista shows that it can be used to tell a compelling and heartfelt story for the masses.

After all these years, Left-Handed Girl is a terrific return to directing for Shih-Ching Tsou, who crafts a wonderful, often moving, and splendidly told story of three characters coming into their own.

Compared to his other recent work, Carney’s latest pulls back a bit on the music and leans more into the comedy side of things, yet Power Ballad maintains the heart and optimism that is brimming from all his films, and hopefully, it will get the attention it deserves.

Bong has some cache to make whatever he wants, and he uses this freedom to build a wild and intriguing world that is both humorous and politically charged.

Weird might not be the best biopic parody (Walk Hard still holds that crown), but it is an absolutely charming and often hilarious look at the world’s greatest parody musician, packed with an excellent cast that wants to pay tribute to this weird man. Weird dares to be stupid and succeeds because of it.

Bullet Train is knowingly absurd and has plenty of fun with the wild lengths it can go, and for the most part, that keeps Bullet Train on the rails.