Sarah Kurchak

Roma is both visually and emotionally arresting, grandiose and intensely intimate all at once.

The execution of this story is almost uniformly perfect. Haigh’s script and direction are a clinic in careful and measured storytelling, favoring a delicate and devastating slow burn of a narrative over big dramatic moments and outbursts.

The superficial thrills of the genre are all present and adoringly rendered, but the actual purpose of the whole exercise is much harder to discern.

Despite hitting so many classic coming-of-age hallmarks, Lady Bird never feels anything but fresh (and refreshing). This is, in part, due to the the film’s remarkably realistic performances.

Leave it to writer, director, and professional expectation-defier Charlie Kaufman to make existential angst so completely delightful.

Weaving together the past and the present, masterful interpretations of Baldwin’s incredible prose, gorgeous visuals, and a sweeping score, If Beale Street Could Talk draws audiences into its overwhelming mix of emotions all at once.

On almost every level, in almost every way, Jane is an exemplary work of documentation, storytelling, and filmmaking.

Filmed in aquatic hues and bathed in nostalgic mid-century style, The Shape of Water is both a love story and a love letter to monster movies, musicals, and classic cinema. Del Toro’s affection for the genres – and for the magic of film in general – is clear in so many charming and not-so-charming touches.

Given that The Salesman strives to be far more than a revenge thriller, Emad’s story isn’t enough to make it an unqualified triumph, but it’s still a genuinely good film, and worth watching.

It falls short of an instant classic. It’s not a mind blowing achievement in horror. But The Witch is a solidly good film.

It’s all deliciously fun and deliriously devious, but Widows isn’t just an exercise in sheer escapism.

The way that Chazelle films the inside of a cockpit (claustrophobic, sensorily overwhelming, fraught with potential danger) and space (stark, haunting, stunning) are both testaments to what’s possible with the latest advancements in technology and vision in filmmaking. That said, it’s hard not to wonder why this particular film, as well-crafted as it is, was made now.

[A] truly remarkable film.

While Lean on Pete risks turning gratuitous in terms of narrative flourishes and excess, it’s never gratuitous in its characterizations. Each individual encounter is rendered with compassion and respect.

Instead of simple heroes or avatars for big ideas about equality, Loving delivers complex, imperfect human beings who are struggling to find their place in a far from perfect world.

The plot unravels beautifully, at a pace that’s methodical but still anxiety-inducing, building up an air of psychological fear so impenetrable that the only relief from it is an occasional splattering of visceral horror or an even more rare quip along the way.

It is, for all of its action, and unexpected hints of the underbelly of humanity, and bodily fluids, actually quite a languid, melancholy film. It doesn’t shock its viewers, nor does Denis seem to have any interest in doing so. It quietly, meticulously unmoors them instead.

A celebration of Rudy Ray Moore, the creative process, and black creativity, Dolemite Is My Name is an absolute joy to watch.

Although it stumbles a bit at the end with a self-aware redemption that isn’t entirely earned or particularly in character, Diamond Tongues is still a brilliant and realistic portrait of the young artist as a bitter borderline failure.

While the quality of the film’s craft is up for little debate, though, it’s overall appeal and impact are far more polarizing.

At turns funny and harrowing, lyrical and stark, Honey Boy is a clear-eyed take on toxic family dynamics, fame, emotional and physical abuse, and accountability. It’s a rare treat to see characters and their pain taken so seriously and treated so delicately.

A Haneke who’s treading water is still a bizarrely entertaining filmmaker, but the fun is tinged with a hint of disappointment and a certain feeling of lost opportunity.

Molly’s Game is a successful crime drama, but it’s also a film that acknowledges the presence of both good and bad luck in the pursuit of excellence. Most importantly, it allows failure to exist as a living and breathing entity, rather than a tragic ending or a fate simply suffered by the morally impure. And that is what you might call exceptional.

Weird is an unapologetically ridiculous and over-the-top romp that’s sold by people who are completely, sincerely, and unfailingly committed to the bit on every level. It’s not particularly groundbreaking or subversive, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s smart (or so silly it’s smart), expertly executed, and genuinely funny.

With its wacky space shit, off-kilter gore, creepy atmospherics, and hammy breakdown, most of which happen all at the same time, Colour Out of Space is, inarguably, one hell of a trip. It’s just not a trip that everyone is going to enjoy taking.

As a parade of exaggerated neon-soaked atrocities, Climax is certainly never boring, but it often strains credulity where it aims to provoke genuine discomfort. It exhausts where it should provoke.

In a climate where far too much entertainment passes itself off as “resistance” for making empty gestures and landing easy punchlines, this is at least a step toward a more honest and open look at what America has always been, what it really is now, and what it’s going to take to make it live up to even a fraction of its dream.

Angela Robinson, who wrote and directed the film, has managed to take what could have been a tawdry or salacious look into Wonder Woman’s naughty roots and give her real-life characters – and their genuine love for each other – the same amount of respect that any vanilla, monogamous heterosexual historical figure would receive.