12 Years a Slave is an emotional workout, but McQueen makes many remarkable choices.

It’s so many different kinds of movies crammed together; a paranoid thriller, a stoner adventure, an issues movie of the sort that used to be the Hollywood studios’ bread and butter but rarely get made today in the world of IP and risk-averse corporations. That’s one more reason to see it, and another reason to marvel at the fact that it exists at all.

Dunkirk would have been even better, though, if any of the characters seemed as fully realized as the aerial and naval warfare. Without that, it works best as pure sensory experience; incredible visuals, intense battles. In the rare quiet moments, we’re invited to observe an unusual instrument featured in Hans Zimmer’s score: The ticking of a clock, a reminder that while Nolan can change the march of time, his heroes cannot.

The Irishman doesn’t always go by that quickly. But those moments contemplating the end of everything are among the most moving of Scorsese’s career.

It is, from start to finish, one of Pixar’s best films.

However you write its title, Past Lives is a great romance, a great coming-of-age story, a great tale about the ways technology can bring people together (but only so far), a great New York City film, a great story about immigrants — and a great movie, period.

Guadagnino does a remarkable job of capturing the tension and anxiety that comes with not only first love, but first-time queer romances.

With infectious enthusiasm, charismatic leads, gorgeous songs, vibrant colors, and dazzling camerawork, La La Land restores the original movie musical to its former glory.

Every once in a while you stumble upon a near-perfect movie that is so sharp, warm, and genuine you can’t wait to watch it all over again once the credits roll.

The Safdies have crafted a complete experience here: A pointed critique of the “American Dream,” a wry portrait of Jewish assimilation in the 21st century, a cautionary tale about gambling addiction (that also doesn’t shy away from showing how seductive sports betting can be), and an unflinching character study centered around the best performance of Adam Sandler’s career.

The Florida Project immerses us in more stories that too often get excluded from movies. It finds magic in the mundane, and reminds audiences how to look at the world through fresh, untainted eyes.

If Anora does well and enables Baker to keep making quirky films about the lives of richly-detailed working-class people, that’s great news. His is one of the truly unique voices in American film today.

This is less Lanthimos’ film than it is Colman, Stone, and Weisz’s. The Favourite is mostly an excuse to watch these three attempt to one-up each other.

Of course, making food that looks effortless requires enormous effort. Menus-Plaisirs - Les Troisgros is a movie about that effort; about the hours and days and months and years of sweat, thought, choices, and practice required to produce something worthwhile — great food, certainly, but really any work of art.

Even though this is the fourth Mad Max, and it’s indebted to the style of the previous films, Fury Road stands alone. It’s better looking and more thrilling than any of the other installments. The color palette is vibrant and beautiful, and every inch of the frame is crammed with crazy, brilliant ideas.

While the film refuses to be subtle with visual metaphor, Exarchopolous and Seydoux hungrily devour their scenes; they are articulate in ways both emotional and verbal, seemingly recreating, in detail, a sumptuous feast to share with an audience that could never possibly know how it tastes. But we get very close.

Phantom Thread is classical and deliberate, with few of his former signatures like ostentatious flourishes of camera, editing, or music. That may frustrate some Anderson fans, but Phantom Thread’s luxurious but restrained aesthetic perfectly matches Reynolds Woodcock’s approach to design.

Those quibbles aside, Oppenheimer is intelligent non-IP-driven filmmaking on a scale we simply don’t see in movie theaters anymore — especially not in mid-July.

Killers of the Flower Moon earns its expansive presence. Not only is Scorsese trying to condense an epic of American history and true crime, its extravagant runtime emphasizes the staggering indifference — or, in some cases, deliberate neglect — by the Osage’s white neighbors to the acts of violence happening all around them, which allowed these crimes to continue for as long as they did.

Featuring a razor sharp performance from the incomparable Isabelle Huppert, Verhoeven’s latest effort is an expertly layered drama in which a successful woman experiences a rather unconventional midlife awakening.

You want to hate this guy for his arrogance and the way he repeatedly sabotages his own successful. But he’s played with such dynamic verve and genuine movie-star charisma by Timothée Chalamet that you can’t help but root for him anyway, especially as the stakes mount and he refuses his quest to become the world’s greatest table tennis player despite the mountain of evidence that he absolutely should.

It is a movie about how anger consumes and destroys, and how the only cure for that anger is empathy, something that’s in short supply these days but Three Billboards has in abundance.

While A Star Is Born isn’t a perfect movie, faltering in its second act and rushing far too quickly into Ally’s rise to fame, it’s an undeniably mesmerizing one.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Disney+’s Hamilton. The performers are at the top of their game and the material — music, lyrics, and book by Miranda, based on a Hamilton biography by Ron Chernow — is as powerful and catchy as its reputation. It would have been nice to see a movie version of that material that was as unique as the material itself. Perhaps someday, we’ll get one.

The surprise standout is Chris Pine. Maybe because he possesses unfairly good looks and outrageous charisma, Pine hasn’t received much recognition as an actor. He is outstanding in Hell or High Water.

While many Marvel films, even some of the good ones, feel like small pieces of a larger story, Black Panther is an entire cinematic universe unto itself.

If Beale Street Could Talk is a movie about racism and the incarceration of black Americans – realities as significant and relevant today as they were when Baldwin’s novel came out – but most importantly, the deep, shining love that pulses through Tish and Fonny’s story never fades.

After two decades, Fallout might be the finest film in the series. (To me, it’s a toss-up between this and Ghost Protocol.) Either way, Mission: Impossible is clearly the best ongoing action franchise in the world. And nothing else even comes close.

Hereditary is weighty horror that builds to an impossibly heavy finale, the metaphorical implications of which land on the heart like a ton of bricks.

Into the Spider-Verse really is the ultimate Spider-Man film in a lot of ways, the one that crystallizes the character’s moral philosophy, his life lessons, his arachnid athleticism, and his quirky sense of humor into one hugely appealing package. It’s pure dorky fun.

It’s a heartbreaking love story about loneliness and the transcendent power of language, and it’s simply magical.

It’s also much more about what it means to create something that rejects the notion that Peter Parker needs to be the central focus of every Spider-Man story, even in the face of intense opposition. It’s also about notion that every sequel needs to spoon-feed the audience more of the same stuff they liked the first time around.

One of the best things about The Big Sick is that the obstacles facing this relationship are real and relatable. It’s a funny movie, but it’s about really serious stuff.

First Reformed is the type of film that leaves you with more profound questions than answers. You’ll probably need to see it two, maybe three times to really soak it up, but even after a single viewing, it left me completely awestruck.

Baby Driver, Wright’s first-ever solo screenplay, is a thrilling and original cinematic joyride that pays homage to heist masterpieces while creating a legacy of its own.

It does what all great horror movies do: turn real-world anxieties into the stuff of nightmares.

Spielberg’s version improves upon the original in almost every way; the performances are stronger, the casting is better, the script is sharper, and the social commentary is more biting. He’s made a musical that feels like it was written about today, not the New York City of the 1950s — much less Renaissance Verona.

Burnham is uniquely tuned into the minds and behaviors of his young characters and their hyper-active, hormonally-charged world. For a gloriously funny and heartbreaking 94 minutes, you too will feel like you’re 13 again.

There’s a novelistic quality to Mudbound that elevates it from what could have been a traditional and singular story about struggle and oppression into a layered, multi-dimensional one.

The film’s structure — off-putting in the early going, irresistible by the end — is ingenious.

I hope Spielberg makes 20 more movies. But if this is the last one he ever directed, it would be the perfect career capper: An origin story, a thesis statement, a love letter, and a cautionary tale. Like life, it is hilarious at times, and pitifully sad at others. From the first scene to the last, it had me leaning forward in my seat like Sammy Fabelman at The Greatest Show on Earth.

Perhaps the most surprising turn in The Handmaiden is that Park has knowingly subverted his own iconography by delivering one of the most beautifully romantic films of the year.

The movie has an elegiac quality; it’s filled with passionate feeling about the fleeting nature of life and the magical permanence of cinema.

The way Coogler resolves Sinners’ central ideas within a traditional horror story framework is truly masterful. He plays the audience like a fiddle. Or a blues guitar.

In my mind, there’s no question Toy Story 4 is the weakest movie in the series. But it’s also the riskiest and the most pleasantly unpredictable.

Displaying the mastery of visuals and storytelling of a more established veteran, Laika president Travis Knight has gone beyond merely crafting a confident directorial debut; he’s made the studio’s best film to date.

You Were Never Really Here isn’t an entirely satisfying experience, and may benefit from multiple viewings, but it’s still a masterful exploration of the nasty ways repressed trauma can resurface, and how violence can become a means of excising the bruises of the past.

This film disturbed me way more than most conventional horror movies, because Lowery understands that the really frightening part of any haunted house tale isn’t the ghost or the demon or the everyday objects moving of their own accord. It’s the reminder that death is coming for us all, whether we’re ready for it or not.

Though Widows isn’t as exceptional as McQueen’s previous work, his style elevates it well beyond any generic big studio genre film. It’s a first-rate popcorn thriller that dazzles you and gives you something thoughtful and timely to chew on.

More than a third of its runtime is frustratingly lifeless, mimicking the repressed, impassive psyche of Ryan Gosling’s astronaut, and when Chazelle finally takes us to that big rock in the sky, the sequences may be gorgeous to look at, but the film fails to capture how awe-inspiring something as epic as a trip to the moon must have been.

The Last Jedi checks off all the boxes you want from a Star Wars movie, including one of the coolest lightsaber fights in the series’ 40 years, but Johnson is also interested in exploring new territory, including a consideration of the shadings and nuances to the Light and Dark Sides of the Force.

When you have Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen, and Natasha Lyonne as your central stars, some things don’t need to be said out loud.

At times, Soul is as heavy as it sounds, and invites all sorts of contemplation from viewers about our purpose on this planet, and whatever (and wherever) comes afterwards. At other times, it is uproariously funny, particularly after Joe and 22’s story takes a very unexpected turn in its second half. In typical Pixar fashion, it’s also visually stunning.

It’s one of those special movies where during your first viewing you already know there’s going to be a 100th viewing someday.

While The Lighthouse didn’t hit me as deeply or as sharply as The Witch, the fact that such a strange feature can still be produced with so few concessions to the mainstream, and that it’s coming to theaters, feels like a breath of fresh air — albeit one cut with at least a few Willem Dafoe farts.

It’s a tender, introspective film you’ll want to pull in close, hold tight, and keep with you.

All I can tell you is The Post is the first movie that ever made me cry about an abstract concept. And when it was over, I found myself particularly happy to see Meryl Streep’s name first in the closing credits.

The film offers at least one tangible piece of advice for dealing with this impossible, seemingly endless time: Keep your sense of humor about you. Palm Springs, which is billed as a “Lonely Island Production,” is consistently funny, from Samberg’s IDGAF attitude, to Milioti’s initial fury at her entrapment, to a deep roster of comic talents who bring hilarious variations to the numerous riffs through the same day.

This movie takes big risks, and many of them pay off. War for the Planet of the Apes proves that big movies aren’t incompatible with big ideas.

A movie that explores the full spectrum of relationships with impeccable wit, delightfully dark humor and insights so sharp they verge on deadly.

What begins as a smart, effective throwback to simple post-apocalyptic survival stories evolves into a knuckle-biting, chest-tightening thriller that combines old-fashioned character work with the modern efficiency of intensity and dread.

The frame is filled with observed but uncommented-upon details . . . The film seems to exist in a real world populated by fully dimensional people.

Even as it interrogates the traditional rules of its genre, Da 5 Bloods remains an outstanding war movie about the values at the core of most great films of its kind, like honor and brotherhood. And Da 5 Bloods is also a great heist movie about the values at the core of all great heist movies, like greed and distrust. The friction between those two genres generates incredible tension as the story progresses.

Isle of Dogs is the epitome of a heart-warming adventure; a funny, fantastic and thought-provoking tale set in a world where one man’s trash is another man’s best friend.

Even at its most comprehensible, there’s a lot Sicario deliberately leaves unsaid, and it builds to a crescendo of mayhem and moral rot worthy of a great film noir.

Ford’s memorable performance is just one of the many ways Blade Runner 2049 surpasses the original film. Its clever and compelling storyline is another. And then of course there are Deakins’ incredible images.

Arrival is a smart film, but it’s not a cold or clinical one. Both the first and last scene brought me to the verge of tears.

Instead of observing its historical subject from behind a glass case, Jackie offers a piercing portrait of a woman’s psychological and emotional journey.

To say that Ducournau’s cinematic introduction is assured would be an understatement; it’s a shrewd, insightful, and surprisingly funny film that feels like the work of a more accomplished filmmaker who has refined their talents over the course of many films and years.

Just when you thought rape-revenge movies had nothing left to say (if they even had anything to say in the first place), along comes Revenge — which transcends mere cleverness with a thoughtful, challenging approach to a worn-out concept.

Even if it falls a little short as a character study, the fact that it’s both hugely weird and hugely watchable is impressive.

Despite a few fantastic deviations (including the lack of a love interest to hinder our hero’s development), Moana is still very much a paint-by-numbers narrative.

In general, Glass Onion is a much sharper comedy than Knives Out, with snappier dialogue, flashy cameos, and quirkier characters.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One starts at iabsurd and only gets more bonkers from there. (The film openly jokes about how many times Ethan Hunt has gone rogue and still managed to keep his job as the world’s greatest spy.) But Dead Reckoning also passionately believes in those themes — and, above all, in Tom Cruise doing ridiculous things on camera for the amusement of his paying customers.

Good Time is a uniquely exhilarating experience with a sharp, unflinching style and a magnetic performance from Robert Pattinson.

Incredibles 2 is kind of like Jack-Jack; relatively small, extremely smart, bursting with potential, and capable of mutating into a new form in a matter of seconds.

While Gray may have told basically this same story before, Ad Astra’s cosmic setting makes it even more poignant, because it puts into such sharp relief how small each of us is against the vastness of space, and how our time in that space is the most finite blip possible when compared with the totality of cosmic history.

Though it may come off as Malick for hip-hop-loving millennials, Arnold’s film is a surprisingly poignant experience, a sprawling yet intimate odyssey through Middle America, and a bracingly honest portrait of emerging adulthood.

Dysfunctional relationships and bickering families are nothing new, but the raw emotion here elevates The Meyerowitz Stories above Baumbach’s previous work. It may slight some of its more compelling character relationships, but it’s still a bittersweet delight.

As this legitimately clever story begins to unfold it initially seems like director Steven Soderbergh made a talkier, smaller-scale spiritual sequel to his Ocean’s 11 heist films. And if The Christophers was just a straight-forward thriller, and it would have been a nifty little entertainment. But screenwriter Ed Solomon repeatedly surprises us with one plot twist after another. He and Soderbergh really invest in Sklar and Lori’s twinned biographies of artistic passion and pain, until the film becomes far richer than a simple crime story.

Although Star Wars has always been about the past, The Force Awakens is ironically at its best when it looks the future.

When I think about Haigh’s work, the word tenderness comes to mind. Both Weekend and 45 Years examined the rise and fall of relationships with profound sensitivity. While Lean On Pete isn’t quite as indelible as those two films, it’s another impressive piece of understated storytelling.

All told, Barbie is a fascinating movie, even if it is occasionally a little frustrating and often more fun to look at than it is laugh-out-loud funny. I think my daughters will probably enjoy it quite a bit — when they watch it when they’re a few years older.

Whatever Demon’s autobiographical elements, this film feels incredibly personal; like a howl of pain ripped straight out of someone’s soul.

If Redford really is done for good, this is a perfect way for him to say goodbye.

The edges are certainly rough; the sound quality changes from line to line and occasionally from word to word. But a lot of that works into the film’s mixed-media approach, and to its overall mood of a life that is rapidly falling apart, held together by a thread that is unraveling before our very eyes.

It is a beautiful film, as all Fincher films are, and it contains several compelling performances. But if all that artifice and powerhouse acting add up to something particularly profound, I did not find it during my initial viewings of the movie.

It is tough, bleak, brutally intense, and genuinely scary - not in the cutesy cathartic way of most horror films, but in a way that makes you ponder the nature of existence and leaves you with a pit in your stomach.

In an earlier era, Babygirl might feel less novel, and its unwillingness to push its story into truly uncomfortable territory might be a bigger issue. These days, when Hollywood has pretty much abandoned sexuality as a topic of serious discussion, the film can easily lay claim to the title of top dog.

It’s a film that slowly sneaks up on you, imbued with such quiet emotions that you don’t feel its full weight and beauty until it ends.

With his mastery of composition, editing, and music, Scorsese has made some of the most engaging movies in history, experiences that express fascinating ideas through gripping stories, compelling characters, and unparalleled craft. Here, all of those elements seem sublimated to the larger points Scorsese wants to make.

Zendaya gives an incredibly rich performance as Chani . . . Her mostly silent performance in the movie’s final scenes is really remarkable — all the more so because it grounds this epic story in the emotions of this one person. Watching Paul through her eyes shifts Dune from a hero’s journey to a cautionary tale.

Despite the lack of conflict, Apollo 10 1/2 is a charming and engrossing 95 minutes, mostly because of the way Linklater blends his memories and dreams of that period, and filters both of them through the medium of Rotoscoped animation, which produces images that are somehow both surreal and hyper-real all at once.

The brilliance is all in the execution, which is just about perfect, from the score of hard-rocking music (and ear-piercing feedback) to the gritty cinematography by Sean Porter.

In another franchise, it would stand as a significant achievement. In this franchise, it almost qualifies as a disappointment.

The best way I can think of to describe the experience of actually watching I’m Thinking of Ending Things is to imagine you’ve been asked to assemble a complicated piece of furniture without the instruction manual. All of the pieces are there; and you see how some of those individual parts connect and work together. You can admire the obvious intelligence and care that went into crafting those pieces. But the path to a coherent whole is not entirely clear — and often deeply frustrating.

Top Gun: Maverick has so much fun flexing the might of its practical effects that issues like logic go right out the window. That’s the magic of the movies for you.

It may unfortunately ring hollow for some, but for those who acutely empathize with the ravages of grief, Shults has delivered a film more horrific than any boogeyman or ghoul in recent memory.