It’s an aesthetically addicting experience that capitalizes on these seasonal feelings, offering an unlikely escape with the press of a button.

The careful, strategic navigation of silence and noise is the film’s greatest asset, and when it explores this tension, and the way in which it impacts both the characters and monsters, the result is vibrant, urgent, and innovative.

Even if C’mon C’mon occasionally feels like navel-gazing, it’s too open-hearted and generous of spirit to miss.

It’s a brave, uncompromising debut.

Even if Knives Out loses a micro-dose of its claustrophobia and tension in the second act, it’s in the name of undoing what we’ve come to expect of past whodunnit stories. It’s all part of what makes the film such an effective, entertaining, and contemporary spin on what’s no longer a worn-out genre.

Nuts! manages to create a fascinating, thrilling portrait of the weirdness of industrial-age America that’s as side-splitting as it is deeply haunting.

Right to the final exhilarating moments, Challengers plays a bold game — sports action so visceral you can feel the sweat dripping off the screen, along with the emotional rallying that occurs off the court.

Sarnoski’s debut is a scintillating tone poem about the inextricable links between love, creativity, and commerce, and what happens when the latter encroaches too much upon the former.

The Holdovers is the easiest possible recommendation, a perfect time capsule of a kind of movie that may not be totally extinct.

Sound of Metal is a film about loss and grief, and what we do with ourselves when our lives change irrevocably.

This is that rare film that has the power to transform, to shake one’s belief system so thoroughly that one feels like a slightly different person walking out of the theater.

There’s plenty to enjoy and admire about this one, even through its uneven moments.

The slow build of Da 5 Bloods leads to as powerful a finale as any you’ll find in Lee’s arsenal. And it’s one that should hit rather hard as it arrives in the middle of a summer where race will be discussed at volumes.

Fails is unsurprisingly exceptional given his relationship to the material, shaping the film’s overall tone as he goes along, portraying a kind of existential tour guide for a place that at once still stands, is being torn down every day, and never quite existed at all.

The characters in Isle of Dogs may fight. They may get vicious. They may get hurt. They may get sick. But they also get nostalgic. They also get bashful. Their eyes also well up with tears when they reconnect with their loved ones, or when they first realize that love even exists at all. Just like humans.

It’s an ode to this country’s oft-forgotten middle, where the struggle is, indeed, very real. As such, Certain Women is not always thrilling, but it’s certainly faithful.

In a genre often saturated with sugar-coated stories and selective memories, Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché proves to be anything but.

Like so much of Linklater’s best work, the film is profound through its being deliberately unassuming. It’s sincere without being dopey, honest without being mean, optimistic without being oblivious of how hard the future can be.

Whether or not the film fully lands will come down to how much you’re willing to give yourself over to its theatrical world. Like the immersive artform it’s examining, Madeline’s Madeline is frequently truthful and sometimes indulgent.

On its own, it’s still an incredible achievement, amplifying a blood-soaked adventure epic in the haunting specters of witchcraft and folklore that will still challenge viewers without leaving them fully out in the cold. Odin willing, it can offer a window for folks to look into Eggers’ more Bergmanesque works, and inject a little more cinematic curiosity into a palate that’s often dulled by CGI sameness.

Sicario works on every level. It’s also fairly prescient, coming at a time when America rages on about the ethics of border control and the mounting war on drugs.

Blade Runner 2049’s legacy will be estimated by both its ability to capture the spirit of the original and tell an enticing story in its own right. By virtually every measure, it succeeds — whether it’s Villeneuve’s careful, calculating directorial eye, Deakins’ sharp, distinct cinematography, or the film’s eye-popping visual design.

Step may be a touch too glossy, and unusually, a bit too short, but its power is undeniable.

13th — at times dampened by its own enormous ambitions — would be even more effective if it tried to do a little less.

[A] truly remarkable film.

It all leads to a cinematic experience that’s powerful, scary, disturbing, and often quite funny.

Amid all the razor-thin editing, constantly shifting film stocks and styles, and purposefully opaque worldbuilding lies a curiously personal, universal story about the overwhelming noise of the world, and how impossible it is to deal with it.

It’s imperfect and gorgeous, and even if it is a dark movie, it’s one I can’t wait to see again. Being confronted with one’s own mortality is a small price to pay for something this good.