This dark, socially conscious film about the intertwining of two families is an intricately plotted, adult thriller. We can go up, for sure, but Bong can also take us deeper down. There’s always an extra floor somewhere in this masterpiece.

Cuaron is content to take his time with Roma, allowing the camera to linger on his subjects and the frustrating banalities of ordinary, everyday life that sneak up on you with poetic significance as the film goes on

And though the performances are riveting — standouts include Mahalia Jackson and Mavis Staples belting out Take My Hand, Precious Lord and the Edwin Hawkins Singers’ O Happy Day — it’s the shots of the all-ages crowd that makes this film come alive, with the vibrant fashions, the incredible faces, the excitement, the boredom and the humanity of it all packed into every frame.

In Paul Thomas Anderson’s gloriously messy, madcap roller coaster ride through modern America, objects in the rear view may go out of sight, but they don’t disappear.

A film in which everything feels stunningly fresh, raw and new.

Young fathers, especially the single sort, don’t get a lot of love from the movies and “Aftersun” is partly an ode to that very specific, very sweet bond between father and pre-teen daughter that both kind of understand will change into something else soon.

Collective is not a walk in the park. But it’s admirably awake to the cause-and-effect tragedies that can follow seemingly slight or obscure governmental decisions.

Part of the fun of Amazing Grace is watching not just those in the thrall of Franklin (Mick Jagger can be seen bopping in the back of the church) but witnessing the awe Franklin evokes.

The whole film in fact is something of a knowing contradiction: A small epic with a superhero budget, using technology like the oft-discussed de-aging process not for vulgar show or gimmickry but to add real heart and grandeur to a film that is trying to grapple with the scope of a life.

Time and again, Song, who both writes and directs here, makes the unflashy, understated choice — and in so doing, darned near breaks our hearts, with a tale that feels universal yet rich in detail, urgent yet unrushed.

Marriage Story is such a perfect blend of writing, unflashy direction, spot on performances and score (by Randy Newman) that you hardly even notice all the individual ingredients making up the whole. Its triumph is that it just feels like life.

Sciamma is able to bring to life essential truths of what it is like to be that strange age and the sometimes frightening, sometimes wonderful vastness of a limitless imagination. And she even does it without a background score to manipulate our tear ducts.

The film is a reminder of the transcendent power of cinema, even, and perhaps especially, when not all that much is happening.

This hypnotic film experience is a badly needed shot in the arm for all of us — music lovers, theater lovers, dance lovers, culture lovers, life lovers. It’s also one of the best concert films in recent memory.

A slow but captivating burn that may leave you questioning your own hard-set ideas of right, wrong and family.

No Other Land is a piece of resistance but also humanization.

It’s obvious that Sandler, the actor, is capable of extraordinary range — not in the traditional, Meryl Streep sense, but a range of incredibly good (“Punch-Drunk Love”) to painfully bad (the horrendous “Jack and Jill”) and incredibly good again, as in Uncut Gems, a frenetic, compulsively watchable, exhausting and exhilarating collaboration with Josh and Benny Safdie.

The film is shot by Florian Hoffmeister with a cool, almost documentary-like perspective. It’s in these chilly, highbrow environs that Lydia operates with exquisite intellect and ruthless cunning — and Blanchett gives a colossal tour-de-force performance that may be the finest of her career, a career as decorated as Lydia’s.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always isn’t a flashy movie, but that’s part of its unnerving power. With her empathetic camera and transcendent storytelling, Hittman elevates their story — so ordinary-seeming on the page — to a great lyrical odyssey.

In his meticulous and harrowing film The Zone of Interest, writer-director Jonathan Glazer has found a way to convey evil without ever depicting the horror itself. But though it escapes our eyes, the horror assaults our senses in other, deeper ways.

Robert Redford's intricately woven and brilliant movie Quiz Show paints a witty but poignant portrait of that tainted time on television, when Eisenhower's America lost its innocence. [15 Sept 1994]

Sincerity is what anchors this film — especially Swinton Byrne’s astonishingly sincere performance.

Reiner, with McKean, Guest and Harry Shearer (who plays bassist Derek Smalls), have done a great job in creating and portraying characters that are dimwitted, cliched and yet oddly endearing. [20 March 1984]

Like the infectious and haunting needle drops, from Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby” to local hits of the time, “The Secret Agent” is the best kind of personal film, imbued with so many things that Mendonça Filho loves, both resurrection and elegy.

Like Haemi’s melancholy dance in the half-light, Lee has beautifully, wrenchingly summoned an unshakeable sense of disquiet.

Watch it and it will linger in your mind. It’s a movie for Iranians, of course, but it’s valuable for any society hoping to one day mend a divided country.

Most crucially, it’s a film so original in approach that one feels only Diop could have made or even conceived of it.

The last few moments contain some of the most exhilarating and moving moments ever committed to film.

Director Peter Yates brings vitality to Steve Tesich's endearing script, avoiding any temptation for cheap shots. The cast is mostly unknown and awfully good, especially Dennis Christopher as a Hoosier turned Italian and Paul Dooley as his exasperated parent. [16 July 1979]

There is a wild urgency to Greta Gerwig’s Little Women that hardly seems possible for a film based on a 150-year-old book. But such is the magic of combining Louisa May Alcott’s enduring story of those four sisters with Gerwig’s deliciously feisty, evocative and clear-eyed storytelling that makes this Little Women a new classic.

Amin’s attempts to get to the West with his mother and brother are harrowing enough to give you an ulcer.

For a film about death, Lila Avilés’ “Tótem” is extraordinarily lived in.

The threads do come together, but it requires a bit of patience and giving yourself over to the film, which is both formally and emotionally eye-opening. Adapting great literature can sometimes send filmmakers running towards the conventional; Thank goodness Ross charted his own path instead.

It’s a grand culmination of both Miyazaki’s extraordinary body of work and of a film that gathers, like a flock, or a symphony, so many of his trademark obsessions.

Goldin might not have known it when she started photographing her LGBTQ friends, but her work has always been about looking at the so-called fringe cultures in society, about showing the problems that the masses would rather just ignore and making them so urgent that you can’t look away anymore.

While it might not be a conventional history lesson, it is a necessary and utterly urgent one.

It’s not trying to pretend that it’s not exploitative on some level; that might even be the point. And anyway, you might be surprised just how quickly you commit to this once-in-a-lifetime ride.

Much of The Favourite is caustically clever but it’s Colman who elevates it to something magnificent.

Though not for everyone, it’s a film that can justifiably be described as “epic” in ambition and design. And, wouldn’t you know, ambition and design are precisely what the movie’s about.

When we talk about “movie magic,” the first thing that comes to mind is often something like the bikes achieving liftoff in “E.T.” But it applies no less to Alice Rohrwacher’s wondrous “La Chimera,” a grubbily transcendent folk tale of a film that finds its enchantment buried in the ground.

There is a refreshing honesty in this script, penned by Trier and his longtime collaborator Eskil Vogt, that engages with nuance and the impossible complexities of life in a way that most “rom-coms” avoid like the plague.

It’s the performances of Haim and Hoffman that most lend “Licorice Pizza” its authenticity. Neither has acted in a film before and their fresh-faced presences electrify the film.

A stunning blend of characters, story, place and time, rich in detail and haunting images. [11 Apr 1999]

The joys of First Cow are many. The thoughtful, unshowy textures of its clothes and surroundings. The fabulous chemistry of its two leads. The softly stirring guitar of William Tyler’s score. All of these details add up to a wholly original western, one with its own rhythms, ideas and iconography.

Haigh dares audiences to meet “All of Us Strangers” on its own astral plane as we whiplash between past and present in a dreamy 35mm haze of nightclubs and ‘80s sweaters.

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a kinetic thing of dark, imposing beauty that quakes with the disquieting tremors of a forever rupture in the course of human history.

It’s Pawlikowski second-straight masterwork, only one with a critical if seldom-seen error. His movie is too short.

In this remarkably fully formed debut, the moments that matter are the funny and tender ones that persist amid crueler experiences.

[Scorsese] has called his work an offering to the Osage, and to other Native peoples. It also feels like an offering to those who love cinema, allowing us to watch a master of the craft continue to force himself, unlikely as it seems, to stretch and learn. May he keep stretching — himself, and us.

Minari could not be more personal. Filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung based the film on his own childhood in the 1980s, when his Korean American parents moved to Arkansas to start a farm. And it’s the specificity of this delicate tale that makes it so universal and so great.

The film is a heady, gentle and emotional journey, but Wang also packs the frame with layered conversation and funny background action. She makes the family dynamics feel universally familiar while also presenting an authentic portrait of China and Chinese families.

[A] nerve-busting adrenaline jolt of a movie starring a never-better Timothée Chalamet.

Gunda ultimately falls somewhere between banal and profound. Maybe it’s both.

The Power of the Dog may in the end be more a twisty psychological thriller than a transcendent frontier epic. But the film’s shape-shifting transformation is also part of its ruthless finesse.

You may think you know Sterling K. Brown, but trust us, you have never seen this version of Brown — a man utterly dripping with villainy, if villainy were in liquid form, and all the more chilling for the calmness with which he intones the most horrific thoughts.

I’m sure for Johnson, Dick Johnson Is Dead will one day be a heaven-sent reservoir for remembering her father. But its larger gift is in spurring us all to meet mortality with humor and honesty, and appreciate loved ones while they’re here.

Bairead’s sensitive and heartfelt film, which is debuting in many theaters Friday, is a stirring testament to what’s possible on a modest scale with a few well-chosen words.

At the end, one feels gratitude not only for Stigter’s painstaking work, but to author Kurtz and of course his grandfather, just a man with a camera whose fleeting footage is a powerful response to those who intended to eradicate the existence of these people and millions like them.

A mystical, thrilling and breathtaking coming-of-age movie. [14 June 1994]

The Little Mermaid is magic and joy for everyone, and teaches us all to never lose sight of dreams and hope. [06 Nov 1989]

The Death of Stalin may be both Iannucci’s darkest and most timely satire yet. More than anything he’s done before, Iannucci has narrowed the distance between slapstick and savagery, prompting us to contemplate — even as we’re cackling — their uncomfortable proximity.

There’s a profound, unresolvable melancholy to “About Dry Grasses” that’s hard to shake.

Hard Truths runs just 97 minutes, but it’s the kind of film and character that will stay with you long after — especially and most importantly when you find yourself having a Pansy kind of day.

Bentley’s film is haunting and patient, a dreamlike journey through a world that was disappearing in real time and an ode to the beauty that’s remained.

A Star Is Born, is simply terrific — a big-scale cinematic delight that will have the masses singing, swooning and sobbing along with it.

Kail’s camera captures actors’ intimate faces during key moments in a way impossible for theater-goers and incorporates audience reaction to create an electric filmed version.

A clever concept, not a profound film. Terrifically acted and finely crafted though it is, it’s a brilliant but hollow exercise in perspective that calls more attention to its artful orchestration than it does life or loss.

There is a precise sensation of out-of-body powerlessness and comic absurdity throughout that can only be described as dream-like. And the overall experience is a meditative and powerful one.

It’s a testament to the actors and director that it remains riveting throughout.

It’s a film that on one level plays like a melodrama, with wild twists and turns fitting of soap opera cliffhangers. But there is something deeper going on too, underneath the beautiful surface and base pleasures of plot and simply watching Penélope Cruz through Almodóvar’s loving lens.

It is sickly hilarious to make a movie in which so much consensual sex is had, often so gleefully, that is not the least bit sexy. Though Bella Baxter’s insatiable libido might be her guiding light at first in Poor Things, sexual liberation (or “furious jumping,” as she calls it) is only part of this fantastical, anarchic journey to consciousness.

In pants or skirts, Hoffman remains true to character, and his perplexity is real, especially when one girlfriend (Teri Garr) suspects he is a gay male, while the other (Jessica Lange) believes he is a lesbian female. Both actresses are excellent, and Miss Lange continues her promise to become a superstar of the 1980s. [27 Dec 1982]

Unlike many of its more hollow predecessors, Black Panther has real, honest-to-goodness stakes. As the most earnest and big-budget attempt yet of a black superhero film, Black Panther is assured of being an overdue cinematic landmark. But it's also simply ravishing, grand-scale filmmaking.

Brooklyn is a story for anyone who has ever left home. It’s a story for those who’ve waffled in indecision, for those forming their identities and forging their own paths. It’s a story awash in muted pastel nostalgia about family and love and ambition and heritage and goodbyes. And it’s one of the loveliest films to grace cinemas this year.

Apollo 11 might not tell you anything you don’t already know about the moon landing. But it will make you feel it, and see it, anew.

“Moonlight” is a hard act to follow, and while Beale Street might not quite reach the heights of Jenkins’ instant classic of a best picture-winner, it is its own kind of marvel, lovely, transcendent, heartbreaking and as smooth as its jazzy soundtrack.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? sings best — or rather, grumbles spectacularly — when McCarthy and Grant are together. They are kindred misfits and malcontents happy for each other’s company.

After the junk-food movies of spring and summer, it is a delight to encounter a full-course gourmet meal. [18 Sep 1984]

Some may find the film too loosely plotted, a series of vignettes more than a single, tight narrative. But they only need to sit back, listen to the beautiful score by Alberto Iglesias, and let Almodovar weave it all together _ from the first meditative shot of Banderas to the satisfying surprise of the ending shot _ as only Almodovar can.

Whatever your level of familiarity, Haynes’ doc — the first for this accomplished director — is so stylistically compelling, it doesn’t really matter what you knew coming in.

Much ink has been spent analyzing this enduring phenomenon called Tom Cruise, and what motivates him, onscreen and off. “I just want to entertain people,” he said recently. That’s one mission he can still nail.

It goes without saying that the performance is brilliant, and yes, electric, but it’s also heroic. If there had to be a final role, what a gift that it was this, an exclamation point to a career that seems ever more momentous.

To a remarkable degree, “Robot Dreams” has fully imbibed all the melancholy and joy of Earth, Wind & Fire’s disco classic. Just as the song asks “Do you remember?” so too does “Robot Dreams,” a sweetly wistful little movie that, like a good pop song, expresses something profound without wasting a word.

There is a searching, ruminative dialogue running throughout the film. Brown and editors Michael Bloch and Geoffrey Richman beautifully weave together disparate voices into a meditative chorus.

This film is a small miracle and a uniquely meditative experience.

The Banshees of Inisherin is a rich, soulful journey, full of agony, dry Irish wit and big, haunting questions. If it’s answers you’re looking for, however, you’re not going to find them on Inisherin.

Aster, who also wrote the film, fills his movie with foreshadowing clues that give the gruesome events to come a cruel note of inevitability. There’s a curse on this family, whether by ghost or DNA.

If you can suspend your disbelief, The Fugitive is a raucous, rampaging adventure that's certain to thrill. If your eye gets caught on details, however, you'll be annoyed by plot twists that range from unlikely to unbelievable. For the most part, director Andrew Davis ("Under Siege") knits a fabulous story. [5 Aug 1993]

Nyoni and her cinematographer David Gallego make this a transportive, stylish and unforgettable experience that powerfully transcends the specifics of its setting, while also taking audiences into an culture that’s likely unfamiliar.

Jia Zhangke’s “Caught by the Tides” is less than two hours long and yet contains nearly a quarter-century of time’s relentless march forward. Few films course with history the way it does in the Chinese master’s latest, an epic collage that spans 21 years.

Nature provides much of the soundtrack to All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, a poised and occasionally transcendent debut from writer-director Raven Jackson.

A film that’s fantastically fresh, both visually and narratively, trippy and post-modern at the same time and packed with intriguing storytelling tools, humor, empathy and action, while also true to its roots — still telling the story of a young man learning to accept the responsibility of fighting for what’s right.

Blue Jean is a perfect film to debut during Pride. It’s a reminder of the very recent past and the generational effects of institutionalized homophobia.

No matter how cursed or unlucky the so-called “Scottish play” is in theater lore, the stars seem to be aligned here.

Of all the post-apocalyptic landscapes we’ve been treated to over the years, none is as beautiful nor peaceful as that of “Flow.”

All of the acting is terrific and so naturalistic that it’s easy to forget that these are actors performing lines that they’ve memorized in front of a camera.

The film — written, directed and produced by Beyoncé — perfectly captures her dazzling performances for the big screen and somewhat unveils intimate behind-the-scenes footage from a normally private singer, who has rarely done interviews in the past decade.

Anatomy of a Fall may not be a film with many concrete answers, ultimately, but the truths it uncovers are irrefutable.