Overall, the electricity of the music and the novelty of seeing some of these performers absolutely shred during this period of their careers easily overshadows any of its flaws.

Clocking in at a little over an hour, Lovers Rock is naturally a little lean, limited by its one-night premise and its brief sojourn into these characters’ lives. But it’s a tone poem that feels at once a love letter to the style of reggae music which it’s named after, and to the people who danced and fell in love to that music in ’80s London.

This film frequently feels like a powder keg ready to go off...And yet, Anderson also keeps the film consistently fun and funny. Nearly everything DiCaprio is doing here is hilarious.

A Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a richly textured, highly evocative story of love, lust and longing, and thanks to exceptional direction and remarkable, talented actors it’s a work to be cherished.

The film's introspective approach works well for developing mood, and its reliance on implied events, rather than telling or otherwise revealing the history, invites the audience to fill these gaps, thereby forcing participation in the narrative construction. It's a powerful debut for Wells, and a pleasure to watch.

The dreamy, deliberate pacing of all of this never feels overlong. Instead, the film gathers you up in its hands and carries you along with it, resulting it what will surely be one of the best films of 2023.

Petite Maman is richer in its simplicity; a lovely slice-of-life tale that knows that loss is so enormous and monumental that we can only linger with it for brief moments.

It is an overall joyous experience – infectious, you could say. Even if you don’t love all of the songs – there were a few that did nothing for me, I’ll admit – you’ll get swept up in the energy radiating from Byrne and his group, all of them throwing themselves into this strange, surreal, beautiful show.

On one hand, it’s a treat to watch Sandler break out of his endless stream of bargain-basement Netflix comedies to try something like this. On the other hand, by the time the journey ends, you might want to watch one of those terrible comedies just to cleanse your palate.

While occasionally frustrating to watch the film spin its wheels into repetitive or monotonous territory, the magnetic pull of simply watching Blanchett hold court on-screen is undeniable.

Eighty years on, The Wizard of Oz still stands as an icon of craft and the power of movies. For me, the moment that still amazes the most is one of the simplest: when Dorothy walks out of her displaced house and into Oz, from sepia to Technicolor.

A mesmerizing exercise in the mundane, Days is almost completely free of dialogue — and intentionally unsubtitled for this reason — inducing a kind of calm hypnotic state that makes the viewer even more aware of the sharp stabs of loneliness felt by his longtime muse Lee Kang-sheng.

Glazer's first feature film in ten years is a sick, bleak, and absolutely vital reimagining of the Holocaust drama, one that finds a new way — and possibly a more effective way — to put an important spotlight on the face of atrocities.

Ambitious and yet quietly confident, Hamaguchi’s film feels an absolute treat. Drive My Car is a hell of a ride, the red Saab riding through the landscape like a beating heart, taking viewers along a journey that they won’t soon forget.

Saint Omer is an intelligent, absorbing drama that had me under its intoxicating spell.

It can at times feel sentimental and mawkish — an inevitability of adapting the classic story — but no other film in 2019 has conveyed as much ineffable joy, or been such a testament to the human spirit.

For all its heartbreak, for all its pain, Nickel Boys is a staggeringly beautiful film. You don't simply watch it; you experience it. This is a major work of art, and we are lucky to have it.

Miyazaki remains one of our greatest filmmakers because he utilizes the medium of animation to tell intensely personal stories that open up our eyes to grand new worlds, strange new characters, and unforgettable images. "The Boy and the Heron" is one of the year's best films, and hopefully not his last masterpiece.

Nothing short of a true-life triumph, All The Beauty and the Bloodshed is all at once the most important film about addicts, outcasts, and what makes each one—no matter their "sin" or the stigma—family. There is an understanding at the core of this documentary, one that says to the addicts and the ostracized alike, "I see you. I know you. I will not turn my back on you." The message is welcomed; In fact, it sounds like a new hymn.

I'm not saying all movies need to feel this effortless, and deliver such big emotions wrapped in such thoughtful complexity. But I am saying movies like this remind me why I like movies so much in the first place.

Watching The Brutalist has the feeling of reading a great, sprawling work of literature; as you near the final pages, you're both thrilled at having made it through the journey while also wishing there were just a few pages more.

I don't want to get too hyperbolic here, but watching "Licorice Pizza" reminded me why I love movies so much; particularly the way they can drop us into another place and another time, and embed us completely into the lives of total strangers. If Licorice Pizza had stretched on for another hour, I would've been perfectly content to go along.

By grounding her intellectual explorations in intimately observed human drama, Reichardt delivers another nuanced behavioral portrait as well as an incisive historical tome.

The film seems like it should be this deeply personal exploration of one's own struggle to connect with others because of an inability to fully accept themself, but in practice, "All of Us Strangers" plays more like a sentimental novel you'd find at an airport newsstand. It's made with far more skill and care than those typically are, but at its core, they contain about the same amount of emotional insight.

Souvenir Part II is an easy recommendation on every level, a film that stands comfortably alone and allows Hogg’s journey to filmmaking, and Honor Swinton Byrne’s capabilities as a performer, to finally shine in a light that almost every cinema lover will be drawn towards.

With Mangrove, it feels like McQueen has put the story — of Black pain, Black joy, and Black triumph — back in the hands of the London West Indian community.

In what might be his magnum opus, Nolan has meticulously crafted a biopic that feels like a thriller.

Killers of the Flower Moon is a fast, fierce, and unapologetic gut punch that centers the horrific abuse suffered by the Osage nation at the hands of those who were entitled to nothing and thought themselves worthy of everything.