Silver's vision doesn't always work, sometimes feeling like a mishmash of ideas and tones that don't always go well together. But when the film focuses on this central relationship, Between the Temples finds a lovely sweet spot that makes it all sing.

A vital documentary, Teng gives an intimate look at not only the toll the genocide has had on Gaza, but on the first responders who can do nothing but give their everything, even as the hospitals they work in become military targets of bombings, and survival is far from a certainty.

We feel very much like we are in the thick of it when watching, as if we're in the room as the story develops.

A first-hand retelling of how easily racism can become deadly, The Perfect Neighbor is one of the most compelling documents of how inherently dangerous it is for Black people to exist in America today.

Sing Sing feels like a true ensemble piece, giving all of its characters a chance to shine.

There is no comfort when watching 20 Days in Mariupol, but it's the bitter pill we must all swallow to remind ourselves of what people are going through every day in Ukraine. Chernov's account is but a snippet of the war and should galvanize people into action.

While there is often a necessity to condense potentially decades of context to fit within a bounded runtime, history is much broader and more expansive than that. What makes The Territory such a stunning and standout work is that it never loses sight of this history that is inexorably intertwined with those living with its repercussions now.

In addition to just being side-splittingly funny, Young Frankenstein is an aesthetic triumph.

It’s not only counterprogramming to the same formulaic true crime series that streaming platforms continue to churn out, but it’s also in direct dialog with these shows and the audience's unrelenting obsession with them.

Morrisa Maltz’s Jazzy is a gentle, impressionistic wonder that authentically captures growing up.

Cameron’s epic can still thrill the audience with breathtaking set pieces, bring them to tears with moving moments, and amaze people willing to explore a fantasy land like no other. Every frame is developed with such care that the movie remains one of the most beautiful works of art ever created by Hollywood. [2022 re-release]

Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car worked so beautifully because of the smaller, quiet moments of life, the drives from one place to the next, and the undiscovered moments that we keep hidden. Evil Does Not Exist turns these moments into an entire feature-length film, and while it might seem slight at times, the approach is wonderful in its own right—a master filmmaker taking his time and embracing the silence.

Morgen manages to encapsulate that intimate relationship between artist and audience with Moonage Daydream, using only disparate pieces of footage and some clever illustration to nail exactly what it’s like to adore David Bowie.

The timeless style, the gorgeous animation, and the impeccable music make Wallace & Gromit's second feature film a gleeful experience from start to finish. It doesn't reinvent the wheel or do something particularly bold and unique like The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, but it also isn't really trying to. This is a straightforward family-friendly adventure that is simply effective and effectively simple.

Just as credit must be given to Baker for how she so completely captures a moment in time and place, it is Nicholson who inhabits this world so naturally that you feel like you’re just peeking in on Janet’s life.

It's a strong and highly watchable thriller that shouldn't be missed.

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.

It's a surprisingly funny movie at times, even though it deals with serious themes, deconstructing the samurai mythos while also having a solid amount of gritty sword-fighting action.

There is no simple solution. All Bad Axe offers is a portrait of an American family coming together in a time of conflict and what they can overcome when they stick together, and sometimes that's enough.

In the end, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour isn’t just a demonstration of this mammoth undertaking, it’s also an undeniable proclamation that Swift is one of the most impressive musicians of the 21st century.

Peter Hujar’s Day’s thesis seems to be that it’s these normal days that add up to a life and there’s beauty and importance to be found in living, documenting, and reflecting on them for those willing to be patient. There’s a similar sentiment to be said of the film — it’s a rewarding one for those willing to sit with something slow and experimental.

It is at first a beautiful and ultimately tragic story of teenage dreams, lost innocence, and how abusers’ grasp extends far past their victims.

Hit Man is also simply one of the most thoroughly enjoyable films of Linklater’s career, an absolute delight to watch unfold and play out. He keeps the twists of the noir narrative fairly straightforward, leaving us to revel and admire in Powell’s comedic chops, the romantic entanglements, and the anticipation for when this relationship might go too far.

It’s like a good theatrical production. It’s often charming and more than a little chaotic.

Sure, Afire's message of the inevitability of death and the absolute need to embrace life can be a little on the nose. Still, Petzold puts his own spin on the old message, by inviting the audience to laugh and cry as four lives get intertwined in a very honest and human way.

You Won't Be Alone is overambitious, but it's always better to try to overachieve than underachieve, right?

The film does show that Gomes is capable of making an authentic period piece and a stunning documentary, but the attempt of trying to do both at the same time has led to an unusual experiment that will leave one scratching their head.

Grand Theft Hamlet shows how incredible it is to see how a new medium of storytelling can shift what we know of a beloved work and put it into an entirely new context after centuries.

It is not a movie with the intention of entertaining its audience, but rather of challenging, reminding, and warning.

Even in the moments where it can feel a little rough around the edges, the portrait being painted is a breathtaking and unrestrained one. It all comes together to ensure that, in the long cinematic history of American road movies, The Unknown Country carves out an indelible legacy of its own all the way to its final series of shattering shots.

There’s no other word than mesmerizing for what Leonie Benesch accomplishes here in The Teachers’ Lounge.

Thanks to Itō’s tenacity and focus, Black Box Diaries boldly tells her provocative and haunting story, resulting in a richly drawn portrait of one woman’s fight for justice that’s sure to inspire change in Japan and beyond.

It’s an electric, atmospheric, and deeply soulful look at what it means to be human, what it means to have empathy, and how faith should never come before people.

Challengers is a wild love triangle story, punctuated by three excellent performances and tremendous talent behind the camera.

The Holdovers is a wonderful revelation from an excellent director who proves he’s still able to take us by surprise.

From Ground Zero is important because it puts the spotlight on an issue far more important than making movies.

A magnificent showing from Titus Kaphar and his talented cast, Exhibiting Forgiveness is a complicated and beautiful film that is masterfully crafted.

If there's one Hitchcock silent films fans should see, it's this suspense-filled thriller, which provides an early indication of why and how he earned his 'Master of Suspense' title.

You’ll Never Find Me gets lost in its own madness. Its ending is less ambiguous and more thoughtless.

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.

There is a simplistic charm to the movie that captures the strange in-between times of the early 2000s.

At the end of the day, Soft & Quiet shows a shocking and unbelievable series of events that are meant to cause a reaction and leave the audience with thought-provoking questions. This is not a film for the faint of heart, and might just leave you a bit shell-shocked in the aftermath.

There are few filmmakers that can make the leap from smaller, insular stories into large-scale epics, but with The Northman, Eggers has proved that his style and substance can remain intact, regardless of the size of the story.

While the more extreme moments of the film may capture the most attention on first watch and are remarkably well-executed, Potrykus deserves praise for how precisely he captures the depths of pain that come pouring out of people like the ash out of a firework.

All Shall Be Well is a simple story overflowing with carefully crafted details that raises interesting and little-explored questions about gay rights, how we honor the dead, and how easily selfishness can seep in and poison us out of doing what we know is right.

This Much I Know to Be True might not dig as deep into the lives of Cave and Ellis as one might hope for a film billed as a documentary, but the performances captured here more than make up for that.

If The History of Concrete proves anything, it’s that Wilson can make a movie about anything and make it absolutely brilliant.

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.

Cregger shows with Weapons how perfectly he can balance horror and comedy in equal measure, always walking the line between these two in a film that is both unsettling and deeply funny. Because of this, Cregger has made what might end up becoming the best horror film of 2025.

Daniels explores the hopelessness of depression, the little miracles that truly make life worthwhile, how acts of kindness can be an extraordinary asset, and—most fitting to this film—how it’s OK to be a mess.

Godzilla Minus One more than carves out its place among the best entries of this long-running series.

Little Richard: I Am Everything has to do a lot in its relatively short runtime, from exploring the origins of the musician, explaining both sides of his personality, and also diving into Richard’s influence on the future of music. Thankfully, Cortés’ documentary handles all this beautifully, and will make the viewer want to immediately learn more about Richard, his extremely fun work, and the life that impacted so many around him.

It is a work of patient yet painful observation that exposes how a community of struggling people can easily turn hateful.

There is a wonderfully withering sense of humor in how American Fiction explores this as all of the conversations Monk begins to have around the book he wrote as a joke sees it spiraling out of his control.

Elliot’s stop-motion work feels authentic and unglamorized in ways that we don’t often see in many mainstream animated movies.

Come See Me in the Good Light is a shattering, yet lovely documentary that’s easily one of the best of the year.

Though Bruiser doesn’t provide any easy resolutions, it's a beautifully shot work that grapples with fatherhood, masculinity, and growing up that emerges as a fittingly flawed cinematic gem.

This is no romanticized look back at a past film, but a deeply honest one. In every frame, both within the production of the film and outside of it, it feels like we're witnessing something profoundly personal that may soon slip through our fingers. It's worth cherishing every moment of.

It’s so much fun to watch Johnson in this mode, especially with a cast this relentlessly fun and playful. With Glass Onion, Johnson proves himself to be a film disruptor of the highest order.

Dead Reckoning Part One is plenty of fun, and one of the best action films of the summer by far, but coming five years after Fallout, it’s hard for this seventh film to not feel like a bit of a disappointment.

Mountains is the kind of movie that reminds us why we love to sit in the dark and peek at other people’s lives. It’s a three-way character study that teaches us about life, parenthood, marriage, and expectations without ever feeling preachy, boring, or flimsy.

Skin Deep is the type of quietly ambitious film that never forgets about the personal while immersing us in vast ideas about the underpinnings of identity itself. It is a poetic and profound gem of an experience you wouldn't dare swap for anything else.

Lost Illusions may not break the mold in the way Goodfellas did, but it does provide a fun, provocative, hilarious, and at times even moving rags-to-riches tale with a protagonist and a setting we have not seen before.

It's a maddening and heart-pounding portrait of bureaucracy amid war and the mental torture of being helpless in the face of terror.

The way Huesera favors metaphor above clarity will undoubtedly push some viewers away. Still, horror fans willing to approach Huesera with open hearts will be gifted a unique experience that exposes the violence of reducing women to their role as mothers.

It is almost like a novel in how expansive it is, providing a sense of scope that can frequently leave this story feeling scattered. As the city is in a constant state of change, the lives of the characters are similarly in flux as their already pressing problems only become more and more dire.

A stunning movie that continues to solidify the franchise's legacy as one of the best zombie stories to ever hit theaters.

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.

Some moments could benefit from lessened narration, a longer cut in an individual scene, or the maintenance of a less dreamlike tone, but it's a fine film that provides one of the most unique cinematic experiences in biopic history.

It is a dynamic, deadly work of filmmaking that achieves all its lofty ambitions and then some to become an absolute masterwork.

We follow Angel and her fellow journalists as they must struggle through year after year, celebrating their wins and mourning their losses. There's no glossy sheen, no dramatic score. Bad Press brings us into the trenches of their push and pull with local politics, and it is made all the better for it.

Fleischer-Camp and Slate are able to expand Marcel’s story in a way that doesn’t stretch out this concept, but rather, expands the possibilities of Marcel’s grandiose world and shows us our world from an entirely new perspective. Marcel the Shell With Shoes On is a film with massive ambitions and an even larger heart.

The Mastermind vascillates between wanting to lean into the thrills of a heist and falling back on Reichardt's tried-and-true formula. The result is a confusing mix of tones with a fairly basic concept that rarely dips below the surface.

Perfect Days is another masterwork from Wenders, a recognition of life’s curiosities, the small details that make it all worthwhile, and finding beauty in the overlooked things in life.

The result is a bold and sensational documentary that seamlessly blends reality and adaptation, successfully crafting a story of grief and trauma that is as profound as it is heartbreaking.

Sachs’ story comes to life thanks to these three excellent performances that aren't afraid to explore the selfishness and desires of passion, in a story that finds the power of shared pain and love.

You Hurt My Feelings is the type of film that reminds us why Holofcener is one of the best writers of comedies today, and that her ability to write films with such small consequences can often feel like a massive achievement, as these are situations that feel honest and human and wholly earnest.

The film manages to capture the specific way queer communities communicate with one another and the unique chemistry between them in a way few others have.

An intriguing formal experiment from Steven Soderbergh, focused on two solid performances by Sir Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel.

Gerwig has created a film that takes Barbie, praises its contribution as an idea to our world, but also criticizes its faults, while also making a film that celebrates being a woman and all the difficulties and beauty that includes.

Strange Darling is a magic trick, showing you its cards up front and leaving your mind to fill in the blanks while it subtly performs a sleight of hand.

In a career full of great performances, Swinton continues to do some of her finest work with Hogg, and Hogg once more proves that she’s one of the most remarkable personal storytellers in cinema today.

The Settlers' is a beautiful yet brutal look at historical violence and the lasting impact it has on all who come into contact with it.

Across each twist in time and place that can rush together without warning, the grounding force to it all is Seydoux.

Measures for a Funeral is brimming with style and painstakingly researched, but the fact Bohdanowicz seems to insist on showcasing every tiny detail she discovered at the sacrifice of making a leaner, more focused, and riveting story causes a dissonance that makes it feel dead on arrival.

It's both biting and prescient in its satirical message that details the contrast of the desires of selfish individual player taking precedence over the team mentality that the coaches encourage in the locker room.

The ultimate ambiguity might be enough for some to praise Lin's work, but there's simply not enough to chew on by the end of the story for it to be a resounding success.

Gasoline Rainbow blurs the line between documentary and narrative filmmaking to create a road trip movie unlike you’ve ever seen before.

If you've already tested yourself with other beautiful, albeit lengthy, works of art, don't miss the opportunity of witnessing Hadzihalilovic's imperfect masterpiece. Allow yourself to be mesmerized by its beauty and consumed by the paranoia that surrounds it, much like Jeanne in the realm of the Snow Queen.

West has made an extraordinary tale of the personal universes we all inhabit, the strange messiness of life, and the beauty of how everything all shakes out in the end.

Not all of Arnold’s usual tricks work effectively in Cow, but for a first documentary, Cow is an engrossing and surprisingly emotional look at the farming industry through the eyes of a single bovine.

It’s rare to feel the tension built inside a theater to the point where everyone is holding their breath, but Red Room is a unique movie that defies expectations and keeps pulling the audience deeper into the dark abysm of human nature.

While the plight of Ukraine is undeniably horrific, Mr. Nobody Against Putin shows a very real cost and the damaging ripple effect this invasion will have on Russian civilians.

At a different time, I might have been more inclined to entertain Reijn's proposition seriously. But it's just her luck that the great Catherine Breillat, who has devoted her illustrious career to investigating these taboos, dropped a far superior film on the same subject matter, Last Summer, just a few months prior, beating Reijn to the finish line.

It would have benefitted from a greater inclusion of Pep's good times, allowing a more well-rounded exploration and understanding of the storied athlete, but thanks to a well-scripted narrative and excellent performances, it remains an excellent biographical look into the decline and fall of a featherweight empire.

Io Capitano fails its stirring lead performance with generic filmmaking and storytelling impulses.

With a powerhouse ensemble leading viewers through their raw, tender story, it’s more than a necessary watch that should aid in opening minds and prompting conversation.

While Copa 71 can feel a little surface-level at times, it’s still an enjoyable watch and a solid introduction to an event very few remember.