When the film concludes, you may find yourself wanting to watch it again to fully absorb the journey Zvyagintsev took you on. And because Loveless is so accomplished, the repeat viewing promises to be deeply rewarding.

Sporting the ambition and sweep of a limited-run TV series, The Square may be overstuffed, but it never stops churning ideas and incidents.

To the end, Okja is as endearing, chaotic and awkward as its title creature. Sometimes, the movie requires the same loving embrace Mija provides for Okja—even though, unlike that portly pig, Okja often lets you down.

He’s not really reinventing or subverting a genre. Rather, Haynes is applying the same smarts and curiosity he always does, openly questioning why a kids’ film can’t be as absorbing and thoughtful as any other kind.

The characters here are so vividly drawn and performed, and the contemplative mood so remarkably sustained, that the film casts a genuinely suspenseful and mesmerizing spell over the span of its nearly four hours. Don’t be daunted by its length: at its best, Diaz’s film has the richness of a great, wide-ranging, deeply immersive novel.

Black Butterfly plays as little more than the act of snickering adolescents toying with their audience, complete with an insulting final scene that confirms the film as a total waste of time.

Not only does the film provide an exhaustive account of the band’s rise and fall, but it also clearly articulates their importance in music history, their singular character as a performing entity and even the distinctive nature of their fandom.

Dead Men Tell No Tales doesn’t rewrite the rulebook for the franchise or the genre as a whole, and is wholly predictable from start to finish, but the likable characters—Thwaites and Scodelario have more natural presence and mutual chemistry than Bloom and Knightley—creative action set pieces, and Depp finally being put in his place in the franchise creates a fun ride that’s instantly forgettable. You know, like the ride itself.

The film is a visual gem, each set piece rendered with an impeccable level of polish and attention that does justice to Nihei’s penchant skill for depicting monolithic dimensions.

It’s sobering enough to witness a dedicated artist facing the possibility of losing his/her ability to create. And yet, Restless Creature is anything but relentlessly downbeat, primarily because Whelan refuses to be cowed by the pressure.

Mister Organ is a remarkable film: A comedic horror of a documentary, a simple piece of investigative journalism descending into madness and a spotlight on the human spirit’s capacity for darkness.

The writers are so afraid that we won’t feel the right thing that they embrace a self-effacing humor that ensures we don’t feel anything.

After years of not discussing it, Liu goes on a quest to figure out why we don’t talk about this fundamental part of being human—no matter how weird it gets.

A movie completely in the addictive thrall of cinema, unhealthily enamored with the act of creation itself, Arrebato is an unnerving and enthralling fetish empowered by its hedonism: Drugs, sex, beauty, nostalgia and a disillusioned disaffection with them all.

Clocking in at barely over an hour, What We Left Unfinished feels a bit unfinished itself, and its compelling premise will leave history buffs, media scholars and those simply looking for a good yarn about lost art wanting far more.

Giamatti gives one of his surest, simplest performances in quite a while, playing a supportive husband who, we suspect, may not be quite as gung-ho about conceiving as his wife is. And while Carter is very good as a young woman trying to find herself—full of youthful enthusiasm but also provocation—Private Life is mostly a glorious showcase for Hahn.

The Unknown Girl isn’t just about guilt but also racism, the folly of pride and our collective need to be absolved for the bad things we’ve done—even if the penance doesn’t fit the infraction. All of this is done masterfully, but I confess it was masterful in just the way I expected. As a result, The Unknown Girl filled me with guilt as well—for not loving it more than I did.

It’s a meditation on how objects carry history, how they reflect our decaying bones, and how they sometimes outlive us.

In its lovingly observed, casually bold and uneasily tense coming-of-age drama exists familiar dynamics we’d rather not recognize.

In the way it revels in dry humor, in the hilarious, almost unconscionable ease with which Bong swings between mirth and the macabre, Barking Dogs Never Bite is more of a comedy than any of the director’s later movies. But the most fascinating thing about the film is the forlorn soul that emerges from beneath the comic trappings.

What Tokyo Pop never allows is overcooked drama where the couple has to decide if they’re really in love, or if they’re just trying to hit it big. The film is genuine. It devoutly avoids putting on airs.

The few insecurities in the filmmaking, which stick out in contrast to his Russian works, are easily overlooked by how masterful other scenes are and the impressiveness of the imagery.

Son of the White Mare must be seen to be believed, but mostly it just needs to be seen.

Between Lansbury’s dry run as Jessica Fletcher, the riotous juxtaposition of movie legends and a quaint village in England, and Hudson and Taylor’s long love story reaching its poignant conclusion, The Mirror Crack’d is essential viewing for those with even a passing interest in Hollywood history.

House suggests that the nitrous-oxide hyperdrive of Japanese pop culture—as vivid now as ever in entertainments like Takashi Miike’s Yatterman, for instance—is a brilliantly imagined, if not in fact transcendental brand of therapy.

There are few comedies in Hollywood history more universally beloved than the likes of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, but perhaps the most impressive thing about that adoration is the fact that for many viewers it was earned without anything more than the barest conception of how effective a parody the film truly is.

Theatre of Blood is a classic revenge story in the Grand Guignol tradition, following a single mastermind as he hunts down and messily dispatches all who have wronged him in ironic fashion.

An understated masterpiece

Buck and the Preacher is a classic and iconic Western—brightly colored, beautifully assembled and channeling social issues through its plot rather than tacking them on in an obvious or distracting manner.

The result is a ’70s vampire flick that has distinctly gothic imagery—the immortal temptress leering out from a century-old portrait, creeping up on the unwary in the form of a waterlogged corpse, surrounded by her leering thralls—even as it uses psychological horror techniques and roots its terror in the gaslighting of a vulnerable woman.

It’s a commentary on unresolvable conflicts between races, cultures, generations, sexes; a vision that is at once primal and sophisticated. When the film circles back at the coda, we realize we’ve just traversed a brutal—yet flawless—cinematic landscape.

They Might Be Giants is intimate and rough around the edges. It’s a film that was made by people who’ve been around a bit, and come out tarnished but more interesting. It’s a cinematic version of the oldest sweater you own: It’s stained and there’s hole in the elbow, but damn it if it isn’t the comfiest item in your wardrobe.

With Downhill Racer Michael Ritchie did for sports films what Two-Lane Blacktop did for road films. He created an existentialist sports film that is as tense as it is harrowing, and brought the genre into the realm of the bleak.

Frankenstein Created Woman is an entertaining aberration in a series of films that have a tendency to run together somewhat, combining beloved tropes of the format–the laboratory sets and sci-fi rigmarole have never looked better than here–with a fresh take on this particular brand of mad science, which sees the title character looking inward, toward the primordial origins of what makes us human.

The most tension-filled ransom exchange sequence ever filmed works perfectly as the midpoint break between the two halves, which eventually begin to converge as a potent study on the psychological effects of income inequality disguised as a straight genre piece.

It’s an endlessly fun romp with spectacular widescreen black and white cinematography. The fact that it contains the greatest—and perhaps bloodiest—samurai duel in film history is certainly a big plus.

Gardner’s a timeless actress, and it’s through her that Pandora and the Flying Dutchman gains its own timelessness. She’s so cool and controlled that any time the film starts tipping over the edge from fantasy to absurdity, her mere presence grounds it.

Seventy-five years after its original release, Key Largo proves that there’s a timelessness to great acting, a visceral thrill to watching legends go toe-to-toe that doesn’t dull with age.

Grand Hotel is not just a film, it’s an event to be witnessed.

Telling the story of a sexy-but-dangerous lodger, whom our heroine suspects may be Jack the Ripper, Hitchcock builds upon clues and doubts, while making Ivor Novello’s character increasingly intriguing.