For all that the film proposes to convey about a unique industry and intimate access, we’re left with a lot of pretty surfaces made all the more frustrating by how close it brushes something greater.

Jan Komasa’s Anniversary should be in the running for least-subtle movie of the year. It should also be in the running for most terrifying. This ruthlessly effective thriller rarely beats around the bush with what it’s trying to say, nor does it ask its famous actors to rein in their performances––despite occasionally needing to––but it certainly hits its mark with unnerving accuracy.

León and Cociña, per usual, have their fingers on the pulse, and their particularly material approach to storytelling and the nation-psyche makes The Hyperboreans a poignant, experimental film-warning urging you to never forget.

Perhaps the saddest, most effective thing about Orwell: 2+2=5 is that it all seems so obvious. The evidence, the crimes, the lies––all of it. So many of these despots lack any nuance or fortitude. Raoul Peck remains a steadfast beacon of truth. In this time when fiction is fact, we need as many of him as we can get.

Hadžihalilović has formed an homage to cinema as an enchantment-casting machine.

It’s clear Verbinski hasn’t lost a step in his nearly 10-year absence from the big screen. For good or ill, this is a Gore Verbinski movie through and through. A little overlong? Perhaps. But it’s never dull, in part because it’s so hard to predict what’s coming next.

The younger Day-Lewis has crafted something haunting and exquisite, a slow-burning, two-handed meditation about grief, regret, and the kind of absence that irreparably fractures a family. Mostly, though, it supplies the elder Day-Lewis a chance to flex his dormant muscles, most prominently with a couple of monologues—one humorous and scatological in nature, the other reflective, darker, and more vulnerable—that sneak up on you in overwhelming ways.

[Anderson's] made a largely thrilling populist action movie with some of his most spectacular cinematic formalism, and disciplined, linear storytelling, but lacking the dark beauty and profundity of his best work.

The definition of an oddball, Manfred / John is a brilliant character for Mads Mikkelsen to experiment with; mostly, it’s a role that’s not physical in a way that showcases the actor’s plasticity. He’s a bespectacled middle-aged man who’s timid and quiet until he’s volatile and hysterical––a surprisingly infantile character that brings out of Mikkelsen something we’re not used to seeing.

In a satire like this, the laughs start heavy, but Early’s best trick is ending this journey in an earnest, emotionally authentic place. He’s not playing a punchline so much as a humorous, painful truth.

Taking the guise of a downbeat New Hollywood character drama you’d get from Bob Rafelson or John Cassavetes to unintentionally hilarious ends, the film at least bears enough eccentricities to be a more pleasurable sit than most bigger-budgeted studio slop.

Murphy keeps Steve on the tracks. Among his great gifts is an ability to convey feelings while internally processing information.

Greengrass doesn’t have you squirming in your seat because he’s manufacturing drama but because he knows when to cut, when to slow down, when to fire on all cylinders. This sounds like a science, but it’s actually an art.

Kogonada delightfully exploits the simple joy of beautiful people falling in love on screen. He deploys his trademark empathy as a means of encouragement: Go with it, be open, and maybe this will make you feel something lovely if you let it.

Immersing yourself in the daze of Silent Friend is like accepting a joyous gift, even if you don’t ultimately believe that plants can or want to communicate with us. With her exquisite new work, Ildikó Enyedi has achieved the improbable goal of making non-human, humanistic cinema that is inclusive and reverent without falling into idolization (of plants) or condemnation (of humans).

The film is ultimately too sentimental and not acidic enough because it can never really bear itself to bring down the world from which it’s borne. If there’s a point to which it feels more like an unfunny inside joke than anything, perhaps that’s the grim reality of the world we face: it can’t bring itself to make the actual sacrifice and solve the problem.

Seen from the vantage point of our hyper-digital 2020s, Jenkin isn’t just a stark outlier from the current media regime. He’s also among the very few working directors whose cinema feels both familiar and viscerally new.

No one can be trusted. No one is assured of their survival. We don’t even know who we should be rooting for––beyond the filmmakers themselves, in hopes they stick the landing.

Being based on Bernard-Marie Koltès’s play Black Battles with Dogs, its stagey origins serve it to both effective and detrimental ends, and also point to someone just wanting to knock out an adaptation of something they liked rather quickly.

It’s a devastating, relatable performance by Ferreira.

Rehmeier has found a way to traverse different genres while maintaining an authentic, honest mix of comedy and drama. He’s unafraid to go for the big laugh, regardless of subject matter, yet knows when to hit the emotion hard.

It runs pretty thin pretty quickly, a monotonous circle of arguing, indecision, concerned looks, and anxiety that stalls out the whimsy and momentum and all unique aesthetic possibilities of Freyne’s under-explored setting.

A true marvel of a movie, it’s equally enthralled by wind in the trees and a momentary pause in a conversation, patiently waiting for us to discover its calming power.

It’s a well-made directorial debut that shows a love for cinematic history and unique sensibility to build upon it rather than simply homage.

While Normal doesn’t deliver anything you haven’t seen before rife with convenience (a ton of kills occur by gruesomely funny happenstance despite an intent for murder setting these “accidents” in motion), it’s still a memorable ride for those who have already been lapping up Kolstad’s antics.

Nuremberg goes down easily enough for the first two acts, but you begin to question the purpose of the whole enterprise by the end, where it tries making a grander point about the pathology of evil that nothing in the rest of the film supported.

For audiences wishing to see two actors dig into juicy roles, The Christophers will get the job done. If you’re looking for a deep analysis of originality and artifice, look elsewhere.

Like the main character’s actions, Park’s film is rather undisciplined in its development. Yet it’s downright exhilarating to watch such a skilled director unleash his fury. It’s also deliriously funny.