You Hurt My Feelings is a quirky, incisive study of ego death, of what happens when you learn you’re not the hot shit you thought you were and have to recalibrate accordingly.

It’s hard not to see the parallels between A Hidden Life‘s setting and the modern-day world in which it’s released. In an era where nationalism reigns high, and people’s loyalties are questioned when they refuse to defer to a leader they cannot support, its abstractions feel universal enough to graft onto the world stage of 2019.

Baumbach uses this twisted reunion as a brilliant funnel for all of his world-building — and it’s quite a story, broken down into multiple sections, no less. Yes, he goes nuts with the exposition, but there’s little offense here considering, well, that’s exactly how it would go down in reality.

Abrams and Kasdan’s respective humor and pathos push the characters beyond some of the more rote and redundant storytelling. So while it’s not always compelling, it’s always fun.

This is a three-hour documentary whose only problem is that it’s not even longer. Whether you’re a lifelong genre fiend or someone who just sampled Midsommar for the first time and needs another fix, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched is an absorbing academic exercise in the pedagogy of folk horror.

While Lean on Pete risks turning gratuitous in terms of narrative flourishes and excess, it’s never gratuitous in its characterizations. Each individual encounter is rendered with compassion and respect.

Barbie is a magic trick, a stellar example of a filmmaker taking a well-established bit of corporate IP and using it to deliver a message loudly and clearly. That Greta Gerwig’s third solo film as director also manages to be a giddy, silly, and hilarious time is essential to its power, and the challenge of this review is thus trying to explore how the magic trick works, while still preserving the flat-out awe I have at what it achieves.

By refusing to adhere to traditional biopic tropes, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood becomes something far more fascinating.

It’s a striking debut, and the kind of outing that will invariably leave audiences wanting to see more from Lynch behind the camera in the future. But Lucky is a showcase for Stanton above all things.

Wrona’s near-flawless execution serves up a terror that’s enlightening and paralyzing all the same.

Lowery is content to live with these characters and show them to his audiences in hopes that they, too, will fall in love with them, and he succeeds mightily.

One critic’s ‘too much’ may be another’s ‘so much to unpack’. But that’s the thing. The style, the lament, the punchy rhythm and breathless momentum of The Other Side may be hefty, but it certainly makes a dent.

The film is filled with sensitive performances that help to upend the fantasy of the nuclear family as the cure for society’s ills. It’s a sparse but stunning mood piece, and a wonderful showcase for Dano as a uniquely family-driven auteur.

Mank‘s definitely a film-tailor made for cinephiles; it’s a dense, complicated work with a screenplay as labyrinthine and mired in inside baseball as Kane‘s. But as a stylistic exercise and a work of craft, it’s one of Fincher’s most exciting in years. There’s hardly a false note in the cast, the costumes, the production design, or the score. And the Wellesian flourishes are an interesting stylistic move for a filmmaker usually known for his cold, crisp exactitude.

It’s one of the most arresting, affecting science fiction movies of the last few years, and certainly one of the best films to see release in 2018 thus far. It’s ambitious and haunting, which makes its international streaming release all the more tragic.

Whose Streets? humanizes Ferguson, but not for the benefit of skeptics. It’s a rallying cry for those who understand their pain and those driven by that same pain to affect real and lasting change.

Great performances but not enough revelations.

Perhaps the film’s most striking quality is its restraint. Thematically and stylistically, it’s a film of quiet medium shots, long takes, and clear but evasive words. Every choice is tiny, but humane and usually deliberate.

Instead of simple heroes or avatars for big ideas about equality, Loving delivers complex, imperfect human beings who are struggling to find their place in a far from perfect world.

Profound and illusory, Silence shows Martin Scorsese at the confessional, in sensationally cinematic style, delivering perhaps his most intimate work to date.

It’s easily one of the best animated films of the year, and one of the most assured, endearing works of del Toro’s filmography.

The story may never break free of its more dated tropes, but the Dune movies represent a remarkable collection of talent coming together to, if nothing else, remind us of the power of epic storytelling on a big screen.

The result is sleepy and somewhat solipsistic, but that’s part of the charm of a Linklater joint, especially the personal ones. It truly feels like a filmmaker opening his mind to us and inviting us to share in his dreams.

The uneven quality of the vignettes aside, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is still a suitably Coenesque jaunt through the merciless trails of the American West.

The plot unravels beautifully, at a pace that’s methodical but still anxiety-inducing, building up an air of psychological fear so impenetrable that the only relief from it is an occasional splattering of visceral horror or an even more rare quip along the way.

The strengths of Furiosa do not eclipse Fury Road, to be clear, nor does the latter film shine as far superior. Instead, they really are two pieces of the same puzzle, different in their scope but connected not just by characters, but by ethos and aesthetic. It’s the ultimate double-feature, and afterwards, you’re gonna want to drive fast.

We get to see Lopez command the screen as easily as Ramona does the stage, offering up a seductive awards-worthy performance that makes us remember why she became a movie star in the first place.

In this instance, the medium just doesn’t elevate the material. That said, Fences is still a gripping watch, but it’s gripping for the reasons the play has always been gripping: the language and performances.