Dao, named for the Taoist belief in an unceasing motion that flows through and unites all things, is a film of anthropological self-reflection, but it is also a surprising exploration of cinematic process.

Markus Schleinzer’s Rose, an exceptional historical fiction, doesn’t so much transport you to the past as it brings you to the edge of the translucent curtain that often obfuscates history from view.

I Want Your Sex may not ultimately have much to say, but its livewire comic scenarios yield the kind of raucous, sexually charged entertainment seldom seen in Hollywood of late.

The latest entry in the overcrowded genre is a sobering, well-made drama that is well worth seeing, titled Truth & Treason, about the youngest person ever executed by the Third Reich for his dedication to criticizing Adolf Hitler.

The first and final scenes of any film are vital, and contained within these bookends you can find the entire story of Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. Unfortunately, nearly everything in between is standard biopic filler and reinforces filmmaker Scott Cooper’s unique position in the Hollywood landscape: he’s a tremendous director of actors and quite unremarkable at most other parts of the job.

Panahi has crafted a moral quandary fit for Plato; yet unlike his past works—including 2022’s No Bears and 2018’s 3 Faces (both of which, like this film, were filmed without permission in Iran)—there’s nothing theoretical or metaphoric on display here.

Although simple in appearance, Father Mother Sister Brother beats with the wisdom of an artist in his early twilight.

Cooper’s latest is clearly the output of someone who has been through personal anguish, and like Alex Novak, he attempts to use his pain as the basis for not just something healing but something hilarious, albeit something deeply imperfect, too.

It’s filled with powerful ideas about the many ways that violence—of the body, of the state and of the soul—manifests in men, and the generational ripple effects therein, even if it doesn’t cohere enough to be consistently engaging.

It’s a film that seldom comes out and tells you exactly what’s happening, but its drama is so lucid that before any real tragedy unfolds (or is even hinted at), you feel it in your bones.

It’s a preposterous story to follow, but thanks to the expertise of Emma Thompson, it keeps you interested.

From its gentle introduction to its jarring final scene—a lifelike anticlimax that makes sense spiritually more than logistically—My Father’s Shadow acts as both a retrospective and a soulful reconstruction, breathing life into the past while distinguishing the personal and pragmatic details that inform the complexity of a person—even one who exists entirely in memory.

Few films this year have been as soulful or as quietly defiant.

It’s ultimately a very strange movie, and a far cry from what anyone expects from even the most idiosyncratic biopics. But it’s hard not to wonder if Franz is ahead of its time, much like Kafka was—which Holland depicts by tethering his consciousness to our fragile present, and constructing, in the process, a bridge to the past.

Based on Henrik Ibsen’s classic stage play Hedda Gabler, Nia DaCosta’s Hedda seeks to reinterpret and modernize the late 19th-century material. However, in the process, it loosens the nuts and bolts of Ibsen’s dramaturgical machine, causing it to ricket until it falls apart.

The unfolding action is never farcical enough to make the film satirical or outright funny, but it’s also never imbued with enough historical gravity to truly matter.

Megadoc is a mood piece and a process piece, shot up close with lo-fi video equipment, but it’s never allowed to probe deeply enough.

Will Tracy’s screenplay adapts the basic premise and parameters of Jang’s original, but director Yorgos Lanthimos puts his unique tonal spin on the material, turning in one of the most sardonic Hollywood comedy-dramas in recent memory.

The star-studded After the Hunt has a lot on its mind about human complexities, but largely expresses these notions in didactic form and through dramatic conflict that all but resolves itself halfway through the movie’s languid 2 hours and 18 minutes.

Remakes are odious, even when they’re nothing more than harmless television takeoffs on successful feature films, but The Roses is an especially egregious waste of time and talent because it takes itself so seriously.

Like Steven Spielberg, [Howard]'s films are usually polished, coherent, and suitable for all ages. His obsession with Eden delivers none of those things, and it’s so vile, pretentious and confusing in style over substance that a lot of it is downright unwatchable.

Considering the rest of the summer’s flotsam, My Mother’s Wedding is hardly a waste of time. In an otherwise grim summer, it goes well with air-conditioning.

The actors are fine, but the roles they are forced to play are so deadly they might as well have stayed home reading screenplays for better films.

Sovereign is an ambitious, above-average action thriller with the extra bonus of being a thought-provoking civics lesson.

In their seventh slog around the forbidden tropical island that author Michael Crichton originally created, the prehistoric monsters are noisier, the people they terrorize are prettier, and the screams are louder than ever. Otherwise, it’s business as usual.

To miss it would be to overlook a rare and compassionate work of art, not to mention one of the most honest, heartfelt performances of this or any other year in motion picture history.

Even without its numerous rug-pulls, which occur early enough that the movie soon takes on an entirely different tone, Twinless is a masterful example of shifting cinematic POV.

Although it eventually loses staying power, Lynne Ramsay’s ferocious relationship drama Die, My Love quickly seeps beneath your skin, practically holding you hostage in its initial half.