Simon Abrams

A massive, imposing work of non-fiction filmmaking that demands attention despite also being the sort of artwork that doesn't really need any of our attention to be great. Like a monolith, this thing just is. It also just happens to be great, sometimes despite and sometimes because of its mega-sized breadth and scope.

It's loud, it's gory, and there are musical numbers. Behold, the first great summer film is here, and it's a three-hour-long action-adventure about a leader whose heroic deeds make Conan the Barbarian look like a wimp.

Việt and Nam only initially looks like something that you might expect to find on John Waters’ Best of the Year list. Soon enough the movie becomes a gentle romance about loving the dead.

Everything matters in Cronenberg's Cosmopolis, but not everything is necessarily the same as DeLillo's book. And that makes the film, as a series of discussions about inter-related money-minded contradictions, insanely rich and maddeningly complex. We can't wait to rewatch it.

Writer/director Liu Jian has taken familiar stylistic elements, and made them feel fresh, and exciting. Have a Nice Day may be Jian's second feature after "Piercing I," but it feels like a major breakthrough.

Labyrinth of Cinema is tremendously affecting, frequently beguiling, usually exhausting, and on, and on, and on.

Higuchi and Anno not only deliver the genre movie goods but also deftly preserve their title character’s sugary purity. Rather than gigantify what was always juvenile material, Shin Ultraman allows the iconic character to retain his original shape and proportions. You and your dad are gonna love the new Ultraman movie.

Knock at the Cabin does not disappoint. It’s a movie that reminds us why Shyamalan is one of contemporary cinema’s greatest alchemists and a prime example of a filmmaker at his best and boldest.

Dragon Inn is a romantic action film, but it still feels modern thanks to Hu's strict focus on action. I don't just mean the film's relentless series of fight scenes. Hu's film is all about movement.

To enjoy Days, you have commit to its earthy dream logic. It is an extraordinary movie; it is not an easy sit.

Long Day's Journey Into Night forces viewers to be simultaneously hyper-aware and un-self-conscious about the fact that they are watching a movie that, in several scenes, is presented in real time.

Art College 1994 is unassumingly sweet because it’s about young people and their eternal quest for freedom and self-expression, mostly inside their own navels.

At heart, Caught By the Tides is an experimental romantic drama, though that makes it sound unapproachable and a little gimmicky. It’s neither, thankfully, and that’s largely thanks to Jia’s typical focus on the material signs of time’s relentless passage.

Imagine, if you will, a dystopian nightmare set in a post-industrialized world that’s forever teetering on its last legs, but never quite falls over. This description does not, admittedly, tell you much, but the movie’s less of a narrative-driven parable than a dazzling and corrosively cynical vision of a hyper-compartmentalized society that’s struggling to both die and reset.

The makers of Evolution may dazzle viewers with an intoxicating visual style, but they never lose sight of Nicolas' humanity. Do not miss this film.

Nothing can give shape or closure to Cave—and that's OK. Watching him continue his ongoing search for existential answers is comfort enough.

This 43-year-old filmmaker is a major talent. Though he may not be the second coming of Fellini, his films all have a funny, refreshingly complex perspective, and his latest work is a perfect example of why he is the next big Italian thing.

Endless Poetry is as galvanizing as a lightning rod because it's equally accepting, and intolerant, a pro-individualist work about celebrating and cultivating yourself.

The Wandering Soap Opera also sometimes feels like it was made by a filmmaker who doesn't understand where he is anymore. That mixture of excitement, confusion, and terror defines all six of the movie's vignettes.

Warped keyhole-size images stack atop one another in a Frankenstein-ian collage that evokes the films of Terrence Malick, David Lynch, Stan Brakhage, and Bruce Conner. Seeing "the years [slip] out of [Bill's] head" in this 71-minute compendium is nothing short of revelatory.

Unassumingly powerful details make The Guardians one of the year’s most affecting love stories.

Ronit's remarkable sensitivity makes Gett a tough but essential melodrama.

Xu (The Sword Identity) may not be a household name, but The Final Master proves that he's the next big thing in martial-arts cinema.

The makers of Black Souls, a superior Italian gangster movie, deserve praise for executing with atypical sensitivity a generic times-are-changing/nostalgia-for-an-imaginary-chivalrous-yesteryear scenario.

Yang's anti-nostalgic slice of 1960s Taipei life suggests a Tolstoy-size expansion of the ballads from Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Haunted by death-obsessed men of action, Un Flic (A Cop) is a fitting final act for noir master Jean-Pierre Melville

Italian drama Mia Madre is an either/or film, a humorous and poignant character study that frequently becomes an ensemble piece.

The best thing about Welcome to Mercy is that its creators don't go for cheap thrills ... not many, anyway.

The most enchanting thing about “ChaO” isn’t necessarily its hyperpoptimism, but the many little ways in which its breezy and arresting style reflects its creators’ lightly held Utopianism.

The Mermaid will make you laugh. It doesn't matter if you don't like subtitles. It doesn't matter if you've never heard of the director. It doesn't matter if you've never seen a Chinese movie in your life. It will make you laugh. Guaranteed.

Antibirth is novel, mysterious, and sometimes even dangerous enough to suck you in if you surrender to its confrontational, avant garde style.

When it comes to broad comedies and unabashed melodramas, I’m usually not satisfied unless the moviemakers commit to exhausting whatever genre movie clichés or tropes that they’re futzing about with. The Greatest of All Time comes close enough to that ideal and on a fairly consistent basis.

No, what's most disquieting about It Follows is the way it presents sex as neither abnormal, nor beneficial.

Eventually, this outstanding reboot’s most generic elements appear subordinate to the title character’s deranged, boyish, and sometimes romantic subjective reality.

Cave's soulful performance, shot in real-time and in extreme close-up, is that much more impressive once you realize he's playing a song for Forsyth and Pollard before he's performed it in front of a live audience.

So really, what's great about "Master Z" isn't the way that its creators transcend their chosen formula, but rather how they perfect it.

Strickland frequently tests viewers’ patience, but his off-putting sensibility is powerful enough to make In Fabric as mesmerizing as its subject: salesmanship as a sinister, inescapable form of hypnosis.

A week after seeing The Wandering Earth, I'm still marveling at how good it is. I can't think of another recent computer-graphics-driven blockbuster that left me feeling this giddy because of its creators' can-do spirit and consummate attention to detail.

The premise of My Big Night is fine, but the film's execution is what really sells it.

A relentless, but emotionally well-balanced character study of Hikari (Keita Ninomiya) and his bandmates as they receive a series of transformative reality checks, and also perform post-millennial garage rock that sounds like a cross between post-shoegaze emo rock and video-game-style chiptunes.

Fessenden’s prickly sense of humanism makes a considerable difference in Depraved, his engrossing take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and maybe his best movie to date.

The Witch, a feminist narrative that focuses on an American colonial family as they undergo what seems to be an otherworldly curse, is more like a sermon.

The sprawling scope of The Traitor is a big part of its dryly funny (though never in a ha-ha kind of way) appeal, and that takes some getting used to.

The corridors of power are narrow and spider-vein-thin in Full River Red but still well-traveled and precisely navigated by Zhang and his well-synchronized collaborators.

Bonello knows exactly when he's said just enough, and that makes the experience of watching Nocturama more engaging.

My Golden Days exists simultaneously within and outside of its characters' headspace, a testament to Deplechin's powers of imaginative sensitivity.

With his rich coming-of-age drama The Hand of God, Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino not only courts, but squashes comparisons to formative maestro Federico Fellini.

So while Cheatin' does have a narrative spine, it's most entertaining when it's hardest to pin down.

Something like a trippy grindhouse homage whose familiar images are refracted through a prism of blacklight posters, Jodorowsky films, and even Rob Zombie's grungy psychotropic sensibility.

What “How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies” lacks in subtlety, it more than compensates for in its range of feeling and the surprising depth of its feel-good reassurances.

Body feels downright old-fashioned: a thriller with tension that doesn't stem from gore, jump scares, or other cheap shock tactics, but rather a creeping dread that grows with each red herring, and slow-burn plot twist.

I found myself captivated by The Devil's Candy because of how well Embry conveys his character's angst-y struggle to understand himself.

Others may find In My Room to be a small gem thanks to Köhler’s eye for small details. He’s a keen image-maker; Armin’s story also resonates thanks to Köhler’s ear for naturalistic dialogue and novelistic detail, both of which serve the movie’s episodic narrative.

It’s just over 90 minutes long, but Streetwise still feels like an epic poem, shrunken down and sparingly polished for maximum effect.

In his impressive debut feature, writer/director Jason Yu strikes a fine balance between character-driven and high-concept horror.

It's a stylish and modern action movie that also features some of the year's most satisfying fight choreography and action filmmaking.

The resulting episodic narrative is light on dialogue and heavy on ambiance; it's precise to an unsettling degree since a number of scenes start and stop whenever Lizzy can feel her way in and out of them.

A Finnish ensemble comedy about a wannabe black metal band, is probably the only film you'll see this year with a crowd-surfing corpse. Don't let the last part of that sentence dissuade you from seeing Heavy Trip: it's a real crowdpleaser.

RRR feels simultaneously personal and gargantuan in scope.

Thankfully, while “Monster” depends on dramatic irony and revelatory twists, it’s also a showcase for director Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose knack for collaboration brings out the best in his actors, especially his younger cast members.

Trying to explain how this movie works as well as it does, without using excessive jargon or some kind of audiovisual aide, is tricky since “To the Ends of the Earth” isn’t about anything less than its heroine’s uncertain relationship with her foreign environment, and what she chooses to communicate simply by being seen and heard. Which is often thrilling to behold, but not so much to explain.

This one stands out not only because it’s the fittingly agonizing climax to Wang’s trilogy but also for its sheer wealth of heartbreaking and totally convincing details.

Don't let the tacky American-friendly title of Kill Zone 2 fool you: the martial arts genre's next big thing is here, and it is way meaner, more technically accomplished, and more exciting than its disappointing marketing strategy implies.

Against the Ice delivers all the delirious period drama thrills and survival horror angst that you could want from a movie with that title.

Our Time is even funny sometimes, albeit in the same kind of wryly mordant and cosmically alienated way as Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut.”

If you are willing to suspend your disbelief for 132 minutes, you may find yourself head-over-heels for this film's brand of gross, thoughtful pulp fiction.

Blades of the Guardians is a boisterous, but unhurried action-adventure that never feels sloppy despite its digressive bent. Even the perfunctory confrontations seem consequential thanks to Yuen’s knack for character-driven action.

People are not good or bad in The Cut — they are subject to violent whims, and rarely given fair opportunities to defend themselves. The Cut can therefore be seen as a historical corrective.

Several of To's recent films concern economic upheaval and its effect on personal relationships, but Office is one of his recent best because it makes something as dire as a financial crisis seem like a natural subject for a modern musical.

An irrepressibly charming B-movie that never over-stays its welcome, and is both conceptually clever and admirably well-executed.

You shouldn't watch Shin Godzilla for Godzilla alone. He's not really the star of the film—Yaguchi and the rest of his human adversaries are. They credibly resist the end of the world with ingenuity and teamwork, making Shin Godzilla just as winningly optimistic as it is pleasurably eccentric.

Imagine a cross between "Annie" and "Jesus Christ Superstar," only with more speed metal. Now imagine a lot of long takes of sometimes merely adequate, sometimes sneakily brilliant performers doing simple dance steps or sing-talking reams of theatrical dialogue (adapted from Charles Peguy's religious mystery play).

It’s not a hard movie to follow or fall for, as fans of Guiraudie’s earlier movies already know. He commands our attention even when his characters are either too ridiculous or too petty to be taken seriously.

Unlike most costume dramas, Sunset — a moving Hungarian character study set in Budapest during 1913 — isn't a movie you can easily get lost in. The movie's disorienting and visually austere style takes some getting used to.

Relaxer is a light, but moody comedy about an irredeemable loser who is too unwell to save himself. Imagine a deceptively optimistic comedy concerning a neurotic fish who's slowly circling his unwashed, slow-draining aquarium.

The film's flintiness and initially subdued nastiness set it apart from most other action films about the thin line separating cops from crooks.

The horrors of Demon are disturbing because you can see how ordinary they might seem to anyone who isn't paying enough attention.

One of those rare animated movies that transports you to a different setting without demanding that you focus on narrative or character development.

Stevens slowly and subtly unpacks that heady, provocative conceit with care and in a way that makes his directorial debut feel like the arrival of a major new talent.

Best of all: you don't have to wait until a concluding set piece for To to prove his prowess as a storyteller.

The Lords of Salem is a product of Zombie’s better creative impulses, so it’s ok that it also features several of his worse indulgences, too.

The resulting drama might have been exasperating for its surface passivity if Pálmason’s faith in his actors and other regular collaborators, as well as his knack for composition (he’s also the movie’s cinematographer), didn’t pay off so regularly and so viscerally.

Quintana's emphasis on Jungian dream logic gives his otherwise spartan parable a compelling mythic dimension. The Vessel may bring Malick to mind, but it also feels like a major work by an exciting new talent.

Veiel’s refreshingly open-ended approach invites you to find your own answers.

Like a great amusement park ride, Shaun the Sheep Movie is consistently enjoyable.

The exhilarating Japanese animated coming-of-age fantasy Mind Game plays out like a hallucinogen-fueled shaggy-dog joke that only ends after twenty-year-old horndog Nishi (Kôji Imada) discovers that the world does not revolve around him.

Legends of the Mountain’s narrative fuse may be long, but Hu knows exactly when to light it and when to snuff it out.

Call Me Lucky is a loving but fair portrait of the artist as a heroic hothead.

The film’s fast-slow-fast pacing not only gives psychological weight to Benson’s unabashedly pulpy scenario but also constantly keeps viewers on their toes.

The unexpectedly impressive nature documentary Pandas is so visually dynamic that even the most pedantic (think Neil deGrasse Tyson level) skeptics will probably not mind listening to narrator Kristen Bell — speaking for writer–co-director Drew Fellman — rattle off 43 minutes’ worth of cutesy panda trivia.

You may not leave Sunshine Superman wanting to emulate Carl and Jean, but you will feel like you've vicariously bonded with them.

Doomsdays is winsome because it embraces its narcissistic subjects without asking viewers to forget that they've just befriended a couple of selfish dillholes.

Bitterly funny gambling comedy Mississippi Grind transcends its generic lovable-losers-on-a-bender plot by foregrounding exceptionally well-developed skid-row protagonists and weirdly charming dive-bar ambiance.

Viewers must ultimately draw their own conclusions about Chan's identity, making Chan Is Missing a classic, albeit unsolvable, brainteaser.

Come for the gory swordplay, stay for the half-serious melodrama.

The most impressive thing about “Barbarian” is that Cregger keeps developing his twisty plot well after he sets everything up. Messing with viewers seems to be his guiding dramatic principal, from playful camerawork to unpredictable plot twists. Bless ‘im.

Yeon's patient direction and clever plot twists make Seok-woo's transformation from selfish antihero into brave caregiver consistently compelling.

Sunada's critical distance makes Kingdom of Dreams and Madness the clear-eyed celebration that Ghibli's artists deserve.