There’s talent in every corner of the film, and it elevates Black Panther beyond so many of its superhero contemporaries even as it exhibits some formulaic tendencies. It’s a sterling example of formula done exceedingly well, however, particularly in the ways it uses the familiarity of that formula to tell a new kind of story.

Director John Crowley has fashioned a film that feels like a natural evolution from the Victorian novel, one in which the circumstances are deceptively modern even if everything else feels somewhat old-fashioned.

Apollo 11 is a great documentary, and its greatness can largely be attributed to the stunning archival scenes compiled within it. It’s impossible for anybody who wasn’t there to truly understand what it felt like to see Apollo 11 complete its travels, but for at least 93 endlessly arresting minutes, Apollo 11 does its very best to put you right there.

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.

Its moments of creativity and daring, while effective and elevating, never even approach the audacity of the subject on which they center, and it’s easy to wish that Heller had pressed down a bit more firmly on the gas. But the overall effect is so simply pleasing, the performances so honest and engaging, and the story, frankly, so worthy of an earnest what the fuck? that it’s hard to work up the steam for any kind of complaint. It all works, and works well.

Todd Haynes obviously loves rock and roll, which makes it all the more impressive that he’s spent his career making movies about key figures in its history while avoiding the usual lionizing cliches.

Mission: Impossible knows exactly what it needs to be: a fun and chummy thrill ride that’s always self-aware. Fallout follows that agenda, while also revisiting its more severe roots. It’s a sequel in every sense of the word, reintroducing not only familiar faces, but styles, themes, and motifs of past films.

As the world continues to mourn the loss of Chadwick Boseman, his last performance will serve as a magnificent reminder of the actor’s talent, and an exclamation point on a life that inspired a generation.

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

Both Dylan and Scorsese cast a spell in Rolling Thunder Revue, one that Dylan fans will gratefully fall under.

Education is a tinier, more intimate button on McQueen’s set of stories, but it’s one of its most potent: the simple act of learning is powerful actualization, so proven in the white establishment’s efforts to make it so inaccessible to Black people.

Nomadland is a gorgeous, lyrical film featuring another standout lead performance by Frances McDormand. Chloé Zhao’s latest is a testament to the beauty of the American Midwest and the value of living an unorthodox life.

As an allegory to civil war, it’s well-worked and deeply thoughtful. But overall, the film leaves a slightly bitter taste, and — perhaps purposely — lacks some of the final third conviction that McDonagh has achieved so often in his stage and film work.

Love & Friendship is easily the funniest movie Whit Stillman has ever made. His bristling screenplay — which shows shades of Noël Coward and Evelyn Waugh — has so many impeccable one-liners that it would take three or four viewings to catch them all.

Hereditary‘s horror functions on multiple levels. What we see is undoubtedly terrifying, but it’s how we see it that truly distinguishes the film.

There’s a breathless sense of discovery and play that makes the film seem new, even as it’s tap-dancing through the imprints of so many sci-fi stories throughout the years. Simply put, superhero movies don’t often carry this sense of possibility anymore.

Coen’s version of Macbeth is a canny, fascinating hybrid of a theatrical sensibility and a cinematic translation, shot in ghostly monochrome.

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.

There’s a lot of depth to Rushmore, but lingering in those depths for too long does a disservice to how consistently funny it also is.

Arnaud Desplechin delivers a thrilling reminiscence that romanticizes and believes in youth’s ungraceful but intense splendors.

Donaldson has a tremendous command of pace and silence, laying the desperation of middle age (and how it looks to those whose lives are still ahead of them) bare with little more than a gesture or a closeup. It’s a killer debut for both her and Collias, and it will be exciting to see what both can do with the momentum a picture like this can provide.

Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé is a true odyssey, a maximalist explosion of sparkles and beats and visuals and insight.

There are choices here that prove reminiscent of the iconic Looney Tunes cartoon “Duck Amuck” — if “Duck Amuck” was over two hours long, and Chuck Jones had chugged four dozen Four Lokos while directing it.

Krisha, directed by first-timer Trey Edward Shults, is a masterful opera of discomfort and hurt feelings.

Little Men is a summer breeze, with rich melodrama and an easygoing mood, built up around two great kids and their troubled families that says more than any after-school special. It’s an episode of actual experience, presented in lovingly natural, minimalist strokes.

It’s a harrowing moral fable, a political fable, and above all, a deft lament.

The real horrors presented by the film are all internal, about what can happen to a person if they repress too much of themselves over time. There are ghosts, but they’re the ghosts of potential happiness and fulfillment. And those ghosts haunt us like none other.

It’s a master class in discomfort.