The mind behind TV’s Hannibal and Pushing Daisies makes his feature directorial debut with Dust Bunny, a wonderfully strange mix of murder, mayhem, and childhood monsters-under-the-bed.

It’s clever and backed up by enough tech-speak to give viewers a sense of the nuts and bolts of things without wandering into the weeds.

As entertained as the audience is throughout, you don’t leave the theatre undisturbed.

Granted a rare degree of access to reporters, and later to the Minister of Health, Collective is a tribute to people who work together to uncover the truth, even if the immediate benefits are not obvious.

A good script can sometimes be held hostage by the performances. Harpoon relies heavily on the strength of its three leads to carry not only the film's suspense but also the characters’ internal hypocrisy. The leads here do not let the script down.

On the surface it’s a solid and and absorbing character study. But thanks to Marder’s script and masterful direction, and Ahmed’s beautiful performance, there are increasingly deeper layers that take this movie to a deeper place.

The Christophers is full of heady thumb-sucking questions about legacy, artistic expression and commerce, and reinvention, a subject Soderbergh knows well. This is far from blockbuster Soderbergh (Erin Brokovich, the Oceans trilogy, Magic Mike), but a return to the basics: A set, a mobile camera, a couple of terrific actors, and a story to explain what brings them there.

Joker has what may be the best lead performance of the year, but it is not for the faint of heart. Director Todd Phillips digs deep into the shadow side of society for one of the darkest movies in recent memory.

Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić succeeds where many filmmakers fail in conveying the dimensions of a mass atrocity in a film that matches clear-eyed personal experience to history in a lightly fictionalized story.

That core idea here, the pole in the middle of the merry-go-round, is that the stuffy, secretive King, as Robertson Davies suggests, is the embodiment of Canada’s locked-down colonial psychology. The Twentieth Century is a strange creation, though but there’s nothing unusual in the notion that Canadian blandness may be a form of camouflage. Anyone who has read history, or for that matter, watched a hockey game, knows that.

This is a heavy-duty topic but rather than lecture or make an angry or ideological film, Diwan works here with restrained and even slightly distant tone, focusing on the character of Anne and her determination to control her own life.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is a sci-fi/fantasy/martial arts action movie on steroids: a cuckoo-bananas story about life and love and family and humanity and a bunch of other things… all at once.

It’s a lovely, quirky tale, full of ruminations on regret, love coming from (and directed to) unexpected quarters, and a bizarre broken faucet that won’t not work.

The Reason I Jump is a remarkable documentary not because of what it includes but because of what it avoids.

Even those resistant to Gunda’s vegetarian message would be hard-pressed to describe these creatures cavalierly having witnessed these exquisitely framed, highly meditative moments. We see life within these beings, and we witness their undeniable will to live. And it’s beautiful. Gunda is truly one of a kind.

The subject may be glum but there is something consistently pleasurable about Mouthpiece, a film that is both audacious in execution and relatable, even for those of us who don't live in women's bodies.

Seagrass is a small Canadian film that delivers a huge emotional impact.

Although The Dissident is, arguably, unnecessarily juiced-up with the editing and scoring of a Hollywood thriller, the excesses are balanced by the procedural rigour worthy of a crack prosecutor.

In short, Universal Language is something of bag of mixed nuts, a Frankenfilm, a cinematic turducken, with comic non-sequiturs and sight gags linked by three narrative strands.

Despite the sterling performances of co-stars Aimee Carrero, Lil Rel Howery and Rob Riggle (who plays a thoroughly horrible and vicious ER Attending Physician), there isn’t a lot of glamour to get the first glance that this well-crafted and poignant film deserves.

What we get is quite fabulous: a wide-ranging gem of a documentary, an utter delight that ends up being, in some ways, a life and times look at both men.

Watching each new documentary by Poitras (The Oath, Citizenfour All the Beauty and the Bloodshed), is to lock into a mental track, with a balance of structure and pace, coherence and surprise, intellectual and emotional engagement.

Ultimately, the edge that Navid is pushing is less to do with a rant against the Israeli government than in creating a cinematic depiction of a tortured psychological state, in both the individual and collective meanings of that word.

Both a horror story about domestic abuse and a love-letter to the mother-daughter relationship, Shayda is an award-winning first feature about female agency from writer-director Noora Niasari.

What emerges is a portrait of a thinker forever questing, contemplative, and opinionated and engaging and funny. A writer and most importantly, a reader, and one who will likely make you want to cancel your next movie date in favour of something more literary.

Mann’s laidback, dramatized-reality approach to the subject is to treat Carmine Street Guitars, at 42 Carmine Street, as a village general store from another era, a place for friendly gossip and home-made goods.

As a movie, it’s riveting. It also ends up being a thoughtful study in media coverage very much worth contemplating.

A poetic drama about the lives of three Maori girls from the 1950s to the 1980s, Cousins is a heart-breaker, tempered with hope.

Led by a stunning performance by first-time actor Park Ji-Min and based on a real-life adoptee’s reunion with her biological parents, Return to Seoul is a slow boil, a subtle powerhouse of a movie.

Oddly, in spite of all the pain, what sticks in Rosi’s Notturno is a feeling of resilience.

Kaurismäki does not shrink from present-day buzz-kills like updates on Russia’s attacks against Ukraine, or the afflictions of poverty on Helsinki’s working class. But here again, is the contrast; even amid conflict, things charming and funny can occur.

It’s a fantastic mix of the funny, the astute, the disturbing and the brainy in the very specific style of Östlund. It’s a pleasure to watch it play out.

Madcap, complex, and already controversial — bursting with fabulous acting from two newcomers and some of the best cameos of the year — it’s a character study, a (sort of) coming-of-age story, a platonic rom-com, and a tribute to life in the suburban San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles where Anderson grew up, among other things. In short, it’s one of the most exhilarating movies of the year.

It’s enough to know that Gerwig directs romance in a similar way that Tarantino directs violence. The romance—like Tarantino’s violence—comes in large sweeping gestures turning in on itself before pulling out again. It’s all so authentically cinematic that some of it seem surreal.

It’s impossible to overstate the immersive feel and psychological sway of 1917; Mendes inhabits those god-forsaken trenches in ways that are palpable, bringing the stink, filth, claustrophobia, and gallows humour to bear with stunning resonance.

On the surface, Parallel Mothers is an engaging melodrama centred around a fabulous performance by Penélope Cruz. But, as is typical of Pedro Almodóvar’s movies, this easygoing, entertaining film is deeply layered, dealing with issues of personal morality and family ties, mixed with a reminder of Spain’s dark and not-so-distant fascist past.

Dinklage’s performance here is crushingly sad, and he is never more persuasive than as a man convinced he is unworthy of love despite his substantial social standing and towering intellect.

Both a film and an obituary, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, is a dark, unique document of the Gaza war focusing on a 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and poet, Fatma Hassona (sometimes spelled Fatima Hassouna).

Only the River Flows — based on the novel Mistakes by the River by Yu Hua — runs a tight 102 minutes but crams a lot of atmosphere into that time, moments of high drama interspersed with bizarre humour.

Compassionate and original, Crossing is an odd couple road movie about friendship and acceptance of differences that demonstrates rather than preaches its theme.

Digressive, sure, but hot damn the film is fun, its 155-minute running time as slick as the track at Monza in a rainstorm. And just in time for summer.

Even those with no particular interest in fashion will be gripped by this story and dazzled by Galliano’s undeniably artistry. It’s impossible not to be. The film is also a profound reminder of just how complicated we all are.

The writing in The Coffee Table is almost acrobatic in its delivery, manipulating feelings and ideas by rendering deep guttural emotions in the all too familiar ways. The terror in Casas’ film is linked to the unknown. But differing from other horror films, the unknown in Casas’ film is neither ethereal nor otherworldly.

You will not see a more perfect and imperfect rock and roll biopic than Bohemian Rhapsody, which does many things extremely well, other things sort of average, and one thing flawlessly: capturing the immense charisma and panache of Queen singer Freddie Mercury. Jamie Foxx’s full-body inhabitation of Ray Charles just got some competition at the top.

The project is a unique social experiment which we can all participate in, in a way, dipping back in time to connect with old acquaintances and, inevitably, measuring our own ups and downs in the interval.

When the creepy conflux of the title occurs, it’s terrifying because its conclusion is unforeseeable. Like life you might say: impossible to predict but nevertheless captivating.

Ultimately, Grand Theft Hamlet — again, I’m referring to both the performance and the movie — is an emotional triumph. Best of all, you don’t need to be an experienced gamer to enjoy it, though I’m sure there are in-jokes for the initiated.

It’s a deceptively simple movie, a lot of fun. And it doesn’t require you to do a deep dive to really enjoy it.

Chung’s well-crafted film is amply aided by a uniformly superb, note-perfect cast, who bring colour, nuance and heart to the film.

It’s high minded stuff, but Iñárritu, has a knack for wrapping these ideas in movies that are well crafted and exciting to watch.

The movie bridges the traditional Restoration comedy to the political satires of Armando Iannnucci (Veep, The Death of Stalin). Comedy also entwines with tragedy here, and bold touches of absurdism and iconoclastic revisionism.

The Loneliest Whale is gripping and highly persuasive, blending hard science with real-life action/adventure sequences, talking-head interviews, and — sorry, sorry — a whale of a true story that has been headline news for years.

Lost Angel — with its engaging mix of animation, talking-head interviews, voiceovers, still photographs, and archival footage — ensures viewers understand the depth of her achievement over two albums released in her lifetime and a third issued posthumously.

Apollo 11 is ultimately the finest look back to the anniversary of this historic event you’ll see this year.

Sentimental Value, one of the year’s best films, is an absorbing, beautifully drawn family drama that walks lightly, but goes deep.

Rocketman is as fabulously mercurial and debauched as its subject; anything less would have been futile and disappointing.

Watching this film is a lesson in history. It’s detailed, accurate and meticulous in its presentation of a human drama that realistically could have happened. When you hear about Viggo’s attention to history, this is a western story that becomes and grittier and accurate look into the past and a lesson in history.

Without being explicit, and by leaving the details up to us to intuit, Wells has given us a film that has a tonal delicacy yet a deep emotional core. It’s a beautiful debut film.

Wistful, funny and complicated in interesting ways, Quentin Tarantino’s new movie, Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood, may be his warmest film since Jackie Brown - which may not be what you expected to hear about a movie set against the background of the 1969 Manson murders.

It’s impossible to overstate the range of emotions, from heartbreak to delight to humility, conjured by the new documentary Blink, which is also visually dazzling thanks to its pedigree as a National Geographic Documentary.

It is also astonishingly tender and very human despite its fantastical premise, which rivals any superhero film for boldness of imagination yet summons uncommon emotional heft.

It’s not accurate to say the film stars Saoirse Ronan. Saoirse Ronan is the movie, the luminous north star of every scene.

For a film where not a lot happens, and what does happen happens very slowly, Islands is strangely gripping. That could be the hypnotic effect of its endlessly sun-drenched Canary Island setting, as writer-director Jan-Ole Gerster dips his audience in the languorous pace of a holiday destination in this low-boil psychological drama.

Feig has done a superb job of building a compelling story from angular bits that shouldn’t fit together but do while making pointed commentary on everything from gender roles to social media.

Beautifully shot and terribly sad, with a wildly twitchy score ratcheting up the tension, the Mexican drama Identifying Features is a profound statement about maternal love, brutal inequality, and institutional corruption.

Food, Inc. 2 is a gobsmacking compendium of scary information about food systems and monopolies, what we eat, what it does to us and what will happen next.

Koefoed’s stylishly made film takes its time, gives everyone their due, and leaves us with some profoundly interesting questions.

The film, which is an economical 90 minutes, is a drama which, at times plays like a mystery, with incredible tension. Çatak gives us a satisfying film, but an unsettling one with unanswered questions.

It speaks to the legacy of things that are impossible to record: love, experience, encouragement, a sense of family and belonging that Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller gave to their children, and which continues through them into the next generation.

Tick, Tick…Boom! packs a great deal of joy into a story that pushes a more modern and darker take on the make-it-or-break-it mantra of classic ‘40s musicals. The songs are engaging and staged with a feel-good choreography that consists less of formalized dance (for the most part) than it does gleeful bursts of movement.

McCarthy’s talent is towering and yet so few roles (excluding SNL appearances which feature dozens) really leverage her versatility. Can You Ever Forgive Me? gives platform to it all — funny but nihilistic, bleak, sardonic, knowing — with McCarthy disappearing and something else rising in her place.

Running a digressive two hours and 43 minutes, this idea-filled absurdist comedy, presented in the fragmented visual language of social media, ties together economic inequities of the European Union, political corruption and the exploitative labour practices of foreign film productions. Also, it’s seriously funny.

It’s one of the year’s best. Built around a moral question, the film is complex, intelligent, and relatable.

Expect deep conversations to follow your screening.

Sosa, who shared cinematography duties with two other women, Judy Phu and Monica Wise, depicts a world of humble beauty, of sunrises and dogs and chickens and weed-strewn lots. With a measured pacing (the film was edited by co-writer Isidore Bethel), she has created a film that is more like an elegy than a simple chronicle of events.

Porter and Souza together, in this film, are using his images as a reminder that a true leader can bring more than just relief from a chaotic time, and that the best leaders have always had a deep and measured well of compassion.

The Stones and Brian Jones is an intriguing and surprisingly moving documentary that offers new insight into the man, the band, and the era.

I thoroughly enjoyed Kid Detective. It’s not the kind of picture that wins awards, which is too bad because nestled within a traditional tale of a detective in need of redemption, is a story surprisingly unique and humane.

Thanks to performances by this formidable cast, this is a riveting film.

On an obvious level, it’s a character study of the artist as an insufferable young prig, a type that, as Petzold no doubt knows, is familiar to the point of cliché. But as the film unfolds, and boldly shifts tone, the character suggests the larger theme of struggling to stay humane in a broken world.

There is magic in French writer/director Céline Sciamma’s beautiful new film Petite Maman. Running just 72 minutes, this spare and gentle little film has an emotional core that feels true and authentic.

Jensen is a master at finding that sweet spot between oddness and pathos. Mikkelsen makes you believe it’s all possible.

Is Glass Onion fun? Yes, it is. It's a lot of fun. More fun and more comedic than its predecessor. The twists resonate stronger than the original and are not as easy to see coming. Plus, the reveals (of which there are a few) resonate with the satisfaction of a game well played.

American drama Jockey is superb, the perfect confluence of a great story expertly directed, with outstanding performances, stunning cinematography, and a dazzling score.

The good news is that director James Mangold has made a rich, vibrant movie chronicling four key years in Dylan’s life and career without demystifying either the man or his creative process. Together with a uniformly brilliant cast, he’s made one of the best films of 2024.

There are some very funny lines in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, much of it predicated on the outwardly ludicrous meeting of profound cynicism and hope. Lloyd’s character arc is well handled by Rhys (The Americans), and the denouement is one only a Scrooge could call humbug.

Mendonça, a former film critic, has crafted a film steeped in seventies’ cinematic references, especially Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, David Cronenberg’s body horrors, and the paranoid American political thrillers of the era, stuffed with affectionate care for depicting the fashion, cars, décor and music of the era.

Fuze’s denouement is terrific, completely unpredictable and surprisingly funny. It’s as if summer blockbuster season came early. Fuze is… wait for it… a must-see blast.

The title is titillating enough to grab young ears. Yet the story at its core — about three college-age British women looking for thrills on holiday in Crete but instead finding some hard truths — would surely prompt discussion about consent, optics, and forethought that should be happening everywhere all the time and not just among women.

What makes Marriage Story so profound and affecting is its tenderness. Although there are points where one character’s choices puts the other into serious difficulty, Baumbach doesn’t demonize Charlie or Nicole, and never ever asks us to judge either of them.

The Rescue will take your breath away. It’s an incredible chronicle of a true impossible mission, of how the world can come together to save life.

The focus of [Germina's] story is rebellion and liberation and treating his story as a sombre fable of a soul’s journey through time, he turns the luridly familiar to something poetic and tragic.

Deadpool & Wolverine is enjoyable on its merits: R-rated, horribly violent juvenile fantasy loaded with nostalgic references from the glory days of comic reading that fans, new and old, will thoroughly enjoy as it drags you down to its irreverently funny level.

Behind the shell game of motives between the three main characters, there are subtle perceptions about class, youth alienation, and disposable people in contemporary Korea.

Helped along by a fantastic cast, the storytelling is so rich and vibrant and the characters so well drawn that the film never flags.

The film is kinetic and elliptical, with clips from different eras juxtaposed in panels, moving back to a single frame of dancers’ feet, or artfully posed in instants of euphoria. This is a film that makes you want to absorb the language of dance or, at least, immerse yourself in more Merce, which makes this an exemplary introduction to a major twentieth century artist.

It’s a powerfully emotional story built on a foundation of surprising historical accuracy. This film treats us to a cross-section of the civilian experience of World War II that isn’t typically thought about.

Like sequels of beloved movies, puberty can either be terrific, passable or really suck. So, while Riley, the lead character in Pixar’s Inside Out, has a rough-ish start to adolescence, the sequel Inside Out 2 — I’m relieved to say — is terrific.