Harrowing to watch, but impossible to shake, this emotional powerhouse catches two sets of parents, brilliantly played by Martha Plimpton, Jason Isaacs, Reed Birney and an Oscar-worthy Ann Dowd, in the traumatic aftermath of a school shooting.

The Daniels and their wow of a star Michelle Yeoh turn this visionary absurdist comedy into a volcano of creative ideas in full eruption. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen

The Japanese reboot of the kaju king snagged a surprise Oscar nomination for visual effects. It deserves the win, whether you see it in color or glorious black-and-white. For once, the 70-year-old series finds a human depth to match its dazzle. A star is reborn.

Cord Jefferson’s slashingly funny satire of Black literary stereotyping is one of the best and boldest American comedies in years with a dynamite performance by Jeffrey Wright that should put him up front in the Oscar sweeps. You won't look at race on screen in the same way again.

Let’s give thanks for this wicked, whacked-out whodunit sequel. Daniel Craig is back as southern-fried detective Benoit Blanc and all is right with the world as a cast of merry pranksters (yay Janelle Monae) turns murder most foul into comic gold.

So what if the plot is the usual tangle to set up stunts. Tom Cruise does the impossible and nobody does it better.

Bill Nighy delivers a master class in acting as a stifled bureaucrat Brit who decides to seize the day before it's too late. Working in miniature to achieve major truths, this deeply human drama has the power to sneak up and knock you sideways.

This unassuming animated gem about a shell (indelibly voiced by co-writer Jenny Slate) trying to find his family shames the bloat of big-studio cartoons by proving good things really do come in small packages. The result is unique and unforgettable.

Never snap judge a Nicole Holofcener film as a sitcom. Just watch how she steers Julia Louis-Dreyfus and a pitch-perfect cast to dig out the raw feelings colliding under the laughs to reveal a generosity toward human foibles, even when comic darts draw blood.

Even when Greta Gerwig trips up on her ambition to make this pretty-in-pink fantasia more than the fun party of summer, you cheer her refusal to play it safe as she turns Margot Robbie’s doubt-plagued Barbie and Ryan Gosling’s clueless Ken into a match made in movie heaven.

Summer just saved its thrillingest thriller for last. Starring a wow Kyle Gallner and Willa Fitzgerald, this cinematic gut punch from JT Mollner brings one day in the romantic twisted love life of a serial killer to vivid life on screen. You won’t know what hit you.

Bertrand Bonello’s exhilarating cinematic challenge stars a never-better Lea Seydoux and George MacKay as lovers across space and time who fight to embrace the beast of their dangerous emotions while artificial intelligence threatens to eradicate it.

Oscars all around. Led by a life-of-the-party Gary Oldman as the boozehound screenwriter of ‘Citizen Kane’ and a sublime Amanda Seyfried as a tycoon’s mistress, this funny and fierce landmark from David Fincher peels away at Hollywood’s Golden Age. The result is a gorgeous piece of cinema that ranks with the year’s very best.

Nicole Kidman burns up the screen in Helena Reijn’s erotic spellbinder about why a married-with-children titan of industry would risk career suicide to find her true self by losing control with a hottie young intern (Harris Dickinson) who bends her to his cruel will. Not as transgressive as it wants to be, but damn close

You’ve never seen a Pinocchio like this one, a funny, touching and vital masterpiece from del Toro that uses stop-motion animation to create a world of beauty and terror to get lost in. The Oscar for best animated feature belongs right here.

The year’s first surefire blockbuster is a sequel that outdoes Denis Villeneuve’s first epic 2021 sand opera. OK, it’s long and sad-faced solemn, but Chalamet and Zendaya are destiny-kissed lovers to die for, Austin Butler makes a hissable new villain and the spectacle is off the charts.

OK, it’s no Fury Road, but visionary action poet George Miller scores a solid base hit by replacing the irreplaceable Charlize Theron with livewire Anya Taylor-Joy as the younger Furiosa in the exhilarating act of inventing herself. You’ll be dazzled, guaranteed.

Ralph Fiennes delivers a master class in acting in this juicy, jolting mystery thriller in which director Edward Berger uses the fictional election of a new pope in Rome to mirror America’s own dirty politics. What fun! And the drama of It will pin you to your seat

A peak-form Mads Mikkelsen stars in this hilarious and heartbreaking spellbinder as a Copenhagen high-school teacher who thinks day drinking might sharpen his faculties. The Oscar for Best International Feature belongs right here.

In Sofia Coppola’s bittersweet biopic, Elvis takes a backseat to Priscilla Presley—shining new star Cailee Spaeny—who met the King (a dangerously seductive Jacob Elordi) at 14, married him at 21 and finally escaped his Graceland pumpkin shell to become her own woman. Brava!

If, like me, you enjoy challenges that are emotionally rewarding to puzzle out, then I'm Thinking of Ending Things ranks with the year's best movies.

Aaron Schimberg’s head-twisting, heart-piercing psychological thriller stars a never-better Sebastian Stan as a facially disfigured actor who has an operation to remove his scars and finds he can't hide the gloomy, self-loathing introvert that lingers in his DNA.

The sequel is still unapologetically rah-rah about American imperialism, but who cares? Thirty-six years after the original, Tom Cruise is having the time of his life, the in-flight thrills are off the charts and—hot damn!—you won’t find more blazing action anywhere.

A fantastic cast led by Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton tells the sad but true story of the flame-out of the world’s first smartphone and the manchildren who created it. This raucous workplace comedy (think The Office) puts an unexpected lump in your throat.

Wick-haters find only monotony in this carnival of carnage, but the rest of us will revel in the fourth chapter’s state-of-the-art action fireworks led by a hypnotically-Zen Keanu Reeves as the hitman who treats kung fu fighting like a dance tableau. Unmissable? Hell, yeah!

A new Paul Schrader movie is always an event and this spellbinding meditation on sin and salvation—seen through the eyes of a gambler (a superb Oscar Isaac) who counts cards to both escape and confront his torturous past—is one of his best.

Starring the great Jessica Lange as a Broadway legend gobsmacked by a diagnosis of dementia, this is a snappy, stirring tribute to theater as a lifeline. Ignore the occasional drift into soap opera in favor of Lange’s transfixing master class in acting Just sit back and behold.

Demi Moore seizes the role of her lifetime as a movie star turned fitness guru who gets axed for committing the cardinal sin of aging. You’ve never seen anything like the body horrors in Coralie Fargeat’s gory and glorious takedown of youth obsession.