Riddle of Fire is a charming, fantastical debut just begging for a cult audience to ride its uniquely silly wavelength. It’s familiar, and yet like nothing else you’ve seen.

A bizarre tale about a family of sasquatch is an emotional masterpiece of experimental cinema and fart jokes.

There are so many little details, seemingly inconsequential touches – the filmmaker’s style, if you will – that all add up bit by bit to turn this amazing movie into a masterpiece.

An extraordinary first feature and one of the best films of 2025 so far, Sorry, Baby pulls off astounding feats of storytelling.

Mason Reeves delivers one of the most stunning child performances in recent memory, while Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan lean into their familiar acting hallmarks but find uncomfortable new layers as a mother and father bound by their own upbringings. The result is visceral, gentle, and ultimately, shattering.

The exploration of political upheaval, class and gender inequalities make this an important film, but the fact that it always remains grounded in its personal story makes Roma a compelling and emotional film, shot masterfully by a veteran director who finally created his masterpiece.

At its worst, First Match is a gripping drama centered on the relationship between a teen and her estranged father. At its best, it’s an emotional ride with a soul. Its inevitable praise is a testament to the powerful performances therein.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the quintessential Star Wars movie. It embraces everything in the franchise that came before while taking big risks to push the story into new and unexpected places.

It organically expands and grows what came before. It’s a deep, rich, smart film that’s visually awesome and full of great sci-fi concepts, and one that was well worth the 35-year wait.

Certainly weird, confrontational, wildly satirical, and certainly unique, Sorry to Bother You is one of the funniest, energetic, and best films of the year.

Fun, action-packed and dramatically deep, How to Train Your Dragon 2 is a prime example of "How to Make a Sequel."

Avengers: Endgame is easily the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most ambitious, emotional, and affecting film to date, somehow managing to tie up more than a decade of storytelling in a confident (and mostly coherent) climax - a hurdle that many other blockbuster franchises have stumbled over in their final runs.

War for the Planet of the Apes is an excellent closing act to this rebooted trilogy, but also one that does enough world-building that the series can potentially continue from here – and it’s a rare case where, after three movies, we’re left wanting more.

Pixar Animation delivers another hilarious yet also deeply moving chapter in their blockbuster franchise.

Dunkirk is a monumental, unconventional, and frequently stunning war movie.

One of Wes Anderson’s best movies, an imaginative and amusing travelogue through incredible settings, populated by wonderful characters, with a lot of heart and even a little insight. You can feel the love radiating off of this movie, like a hug from your own beloved pet.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is Martin McDonagh’s most emotional and profound film to date.

The film's brilliant pacing and expertly woven narrative deliver an empowering story that will stick with you long after the credits roll.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos lures us into his dream and shackles us there, for his own fascinating reasons. The experience is exquisite agony, both revelatory and painful. This is one of the best and most disturbing movies of the year.

One of Spike Lee’s best movies. With a dynamite cast, sharp script and pointed humor that underscores real-life, disturbing horrors, it’s an entertaining crime drama that amuses and shocks and invites the audience into a complex and impassioned conversation about the power of racism - and the moving image - to influence our lives.

Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk is beaming with style and detail, but at its core, it’s a mindful meditation on human beings seeking the greatest gift we can give each other—love.

Stan & Ollie muddles up the history a bit, as all biopics do, but it’s a film without any meaningful flaws. Every character is wonderfully realized, every performance is spectacular. You’ll laugh all the way through, you’ll cry by the end, and you’ll see the brilliance of Laurel & Hardy come back to life via the very same cinematic magic that made them legends in the first place.

Few filmmakers are as playfully cynical as the Coens, and in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs they haven’t just made a funny, sentimental, exciting and blistering western, they’ve also unlocked their entire filmography for anyone who may have missed the connections before. And there’s no going back now. It’s the Coen Bros.’ world, and good luck to anyone who lives there.

It’s a heartbreaking tale of why the haves and have-nots will stay that way, crafted by a virtuoso director at the very top of his game.

1917 is an expertly crafted and emotionally exhausting thrill-ride behind enemy lines. Gloriously shot, deftly paced, and striking in its gruesome recreation of the time and place, Sam Mendes’ 1917 wisely never loses sight of the smaller, intimate elements in a fast-paced story with immense scale and action.

Kelly Reichardt’s heist movie The Mastermind is crackingly, urgently alive, an assured and magnificent addition to an already storied body of work.

Top to bottom, Frozen is a delight. The writing is witty, the voicing is excellent, the story is nuanced and the songs are some of the best since Beauty and the Beast. It's a throwback to a wondrous time in Disney animation, and just a ton of fun.

A stunning cinematic achievement that celebrates one of humanity’s biggest triumphs (and mourns the tragedies that happened leading up to it), yet it never loses sight of its personal and small-scale story about a man going to work.