75. Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere
Standing out as below-average in a genre that’s crowded with low lights is no easy feat, but director Scott Cooper landed on a perfectly ghastly formula: keep all the cliches and plodding dialogue, but strip out all the fun. Matching The Boss’ headspace as he wrote and recorded his 1982 masterpiece Nebraska, Nowhere is morose, inert, and seemingly written with crayons, a multi-faceted disaster that Jeremys Allen White and Strong can’t muscle through with their dire performances. Worse yet, the movie constantly juxtaposes itself against superior art, from Springsteen’s catalogue to the work of Flannery O’Conner and a pair of cinematic classics in Badlands and The Night of the Hunter. Music Biopics are often bad, but almost never this dull and lifeless.
74. Hamnet
There’s no shame in being manipulative, so long as all the coercion is above board. Writer/director Chloé Zhao prefers to conceal her arm-twisting under cover of beatific empathy, the kind that smothers her characters’ individuality until they’re unrecognizable beyond a ready-made Oscar clip. Hamnet has plenty of those, telling the story of William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) through love, loss, art, redemption, and so, so many tears. Most of them fall from the eyes of Jessie Buckley, who almost manages to salvage the regrettable, trauma-baiting affair all by herself, but Zhao is too determined to bludgeon us with gorgeous sorrow to fully recognize her star’s humanity. Dull, trite, and oh so comely, it’s the kind of movie you only like because you’re supposed to, an emotional strong-arming whose naked Oscar ambitions shouldn’t be celebrated.
73. Zootopia 2
We can’t keep letting the Mouse House get away with this! Nearly one year to the day after Disney dropped the lamentable Moana 2 and raked it in at the global box office, Zootopia 2 is here to copy the formula, weaponizing our affection for the original in the name of a quick buck. Judy the Bunny (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick the Fox (Jason Bateman) are here again to get to the bottom of a brand new mystery, though the specifics will be exiting your brain before the credits are even over. That’s just how directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard planned it, stuffing their movie with enough harried movement and expired pop culture references to mask a vanishingly thin plot. The animals are cute, and a joke lands here and there, but everything feels like a cover-up, waving its arms with enough vigor to distract from a film that’s as uninspired as it is unnecessary.
72. Thunderbolts*
Hooray, they finally did it! Our corporate overlords at Disney have manufactured another Marvel feature that resembles an actual movie, bringing a ragtag group of antiheroes together in an autopilot fashion that benefits immensely from the charms of Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, and David Harbour. Offering a domineering studio innumerable at-bats just to praise them when the product finally hangs together is cinematic Stockholm Syndrome, and it’s depressing that people would rather grade on a curve than try something new. The fact that it’s fine almost makes it worse.
71. Nouvelle Vague
It’s good to have passions, but not all are made for sharing. Adhering to the hyper-affectionate, period-specific playbook of any number of dutiful biopics, Nouvelle Vague follows French New Wave icon Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) as he directs his debut feature, Breathless. The outcome, as is always the case in the genre, is predetermined, and for as many idiosyncratic choices as director Richard Linklater has made in his illustrious career, this one stays dispiritingly glued to the tracks. The costumes are great, the vibes are strong, and David Chambille’s grainy, black-and-white cinematography is both lovely and believably contemporaneous. There’s just no juice here, making for a movie that will be catnip for interested parties, and a complete snooze for just about everyone else.
Our first return to the world of Pandora to not benefit from an extended absence, Fire and Ash shows all the signs of a franchise that’s well past its sell-by date. There’s no point in complaining about Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) doing battle against human invaders once again; these movies have always been a spectacle over story proposition, but the three years that have passed since The Way of Water haven’t allowed for any of the series’ signature technological break throughs. It’s just more of the same, a minor issue that becomes major when the runtime eagerly eclipses three hours, nearly all of which transpiring under a hail of repetitive gunfire. It’s exhausting, and with the exception of Oona Chaplin’s transfixing performance, there’s just nothing new to see here.
69. The Ballad of Wallis Island
Adapted from a 2007 short film that’s aged like fine milk, The Ballad of Wallis Island is so behind the times that it’s almost charming. Carey Mulligan and Tom Basden star as former lovers and mid-aughts folk pop heroes who descend on the titular landmass at the behest of a super fan (Tim Key), who cribs liberally from Ricky Gervais’ David Brett. From the heartfelt interactions, to the ruminative glances, and beatific montages, this one feels like a time capsule, sent from a forgotten moment when quirky indie archetypes ruled the art house scene. Its slow-bore adequacy is almost offensive.
68. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
As a short film, the climatic 45 minutes of Ethan Hunt’s alleged last mission might just be the best thing you’ll see all year, with propulsive action and jaw-dropping stunts to spare. Too bad about the two hours of stalling that precede them, a torrent of flashbacks and relentless exposition that threatens to put you to sleep before the fireworks get going. Dialogue is great when you care about what’s being said and who’s saying it, but this franchise is akin to attending the circus, wherein the value is derived purely from the spectacle. There’s no need to over-explain a plot we don’t care about in the first place, but you’ll have to plow through to get to the good stuff.
67. Wicked: For Good
Does a movie get credit for the affection that greets it the moment they dim the lights? Director Jon M. Chu is here to find out, helming one of the most purely absurd blockbusters of the decade, stripping The Wizard of Oz for mismatched parts to create a musical that behaves like a Marvel movie, as well as a plea for humanism using CGI animals. At least the grating Shiz stuff is behind us, replaced by a super-powered Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and her search for truth, justice, and a place to call home. In the opposite corner is Glinda (Ariana Grande), who… wait, what’s the point of explaining the narrative of Wicked? It doesn’t make a lick of sense, and you’ve already made your choice between love and hate for this cultural juggernaut. It’s kinda terrible, but that won’t matter if you’re already pot/plot committed.
A modest indie flick that might as well have Sundance tattooed across its forehead, director Tracie Laymon’s debut feature is low on scale and high in concept. Charting the push-pull between a troubled young woman (Barbie Ferreira) and her identically-named father figures (French Stewart and John Leguizamo), Trevino‘s familiarity doesn’t stop you from getting a little choked up now and again. Such is the power of a tactfully crafted human interest story, and if there’s some arm twisting along the way, at least Stewart’s bristling performance offsets the sweetness with a little sour.
65. Drop
Drop might have the staying power of a gust of wind, but you won’t regret watching it. Director Christopher Landon has made a career out helming enjoyable, forgettable thrillers for PG-13 audiences, and his latest doesn’t buck the trend. The high concept corker stars Meghann Fahy as a single mom whose search for romance results in digital messaging terror, and if that premise sounds too silly to take, you’re best sitting this one out. Designed for disposal after a single use, Drop is charmingly goofy, and over in a flash.
64. Ash
As accomplished in the fields of gore and psychedelics as it is lacking in originality and basic narrative functionality, electronic musician Flying Lotus’ second feature film is comprised of winsome elements that never even start to congeal. The dazzling visuals and sound design make it worth a look for those who like for their sci-fi grisly and their horror a tad navel-gazing, but this journey to the stars is quite rickety.
63. A Big, Bold, Beautiful Journey
If you haven’t heard a movie described as ‘twee’ in the last decade, it’s probably because they stopped making them that way, and A Big, Bold, Beautiful Journey is here to show why. Director Kogonada’s latest, which stars Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie is a pair of lovelorn singles on a magical trek through their tumultuous pasts, has all the saturated colors and heart-on-your-sleeve emotionality of a genre that was abandoned for a reason. Shutting the door on cynicism has its merits, but they’re difficult to locate under an avalanche of terrible dialogue and cookie-cutter characterizations. The appeal of seeing Farrell and Robbie on brief vacation from superhero or period piece affairs keeps the whole thing from collapsing, but Seth Reiss’ atrocious screenplay ensures that they can only fly so high.
Telling a difficult story with a light touch is no small task, but writer/director Rungano Nyoni isn’t one to let timidity stand in her way. That’s in slight contrast to Shula (Susan Chardy), On Becoming a Guinea Fowl‘s steely, soft-spoken protagonist, whose aloof reaction to her uncle’s sudden death betrays a sordid family history. Attentively observing the funeral customs and grieving expectations of its Zambian setting, Fowl is loath to overplay its hand, an approach that works for verisimilitude but keeps the movie at emotional arm’s length. That is until a pair of climactic scenes rip off the band-aid, revealing a scar, and even if what’s come before has ambled about in a fugue state, the ending breathes (squawks?) fire.
61. Caught Stealing
Darren Aronofsky wouldn’t know pleasure if it kissed him on the mouth. Despite a marketing campaign that promised hijinks and revelry, the director’s latest is most attentive to pain, both physical and emotional. The 90’s New York-set caper stars Austin Butler as burnout from the west coast whose life of boozing and canoodling with Zoë Kravitz is turned upside down when a simple misunderstanding sends him on the run from various assailants. The list of antagonists includes Russian mobsters, Colombian kingpins, Hasidic Jews, and corrupt cops, each lining up to give Butler one beat down after another. The nostalgic foundation and motley crew of ne’erdowells may signal irreverence and unpredictability, but Aronofsky’s ball only rolls downhill, negating joy while promoting misery. Butler shines despite his miscasting, but he’s fighting upstream against against a movie that doesn’t know the first thing about fun.
60. Honey Don’t!
Here’s the thing about not taking yourself too seriously; the audiences generally follows suit. The second entry in director Ethan Coen and co-writer Tricia Cooke’s planned ‘lesbian B-movie trilogy’ is certainly more straight-faced than its 2023 predecessor, Drive-Away Dolls, but a weighty appearance and noir-infused presentation can’t mask all the haphazard storytelling. Margaret Qualley once again takes center stage, this time as the titular private eye whose horndog apathy toward her fellow Bakersfield citizens is interrupted by a classic whodunit. Neither silly enough to meet Dolls‘ blissful gaze, nor intentional enough in its plotting the generate sincere investment, Honey is a classic case of the whole being less than the sum of its parts. There’s plenty to enjoy, but that nagging feeling of a missed opportunity is what ends up staying with you.
59. Highest 2 Lowest
Spike Lee bows to no one… except Denzel Washington. A reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 classic High and Low, Lee’s latest stars Washington as a record label figurehead on the cusp of regaining full control of his empire until a kidnapping threatens to derail his plans. Fully stocked with all its creator’s technical trickery and lovable eccentricities, Highest is ultimately too enamored with Denzel to bring its thorniest ideas home. There are certainly worse actors to be passionate about, but the movie refuses to bathe its central figure in anything but the most enviable of light, choosing cool and charisma over insight or confrontation. Certain sequences still sing, but the safety remains on for the entire runtime.
58. Anemone
A tale of two movies, Anemone is comprised exclusively of the best and worst materials known to cinema, with nothing in the middle. The most regrettable ingredient is writer/director Ronan Day-Lewis’ ham-fisted script, which overloads its story of estranged brothers with trauma and tragedy to the point of woebegone caricature. Those in need of a well-told tale to latch onto would be wise to pass, but they’ll miss out on Ben Fordesman’s bewitchingly beautiful cinematography, as well as The Haxan Cloak’s hair-raising score. Then there’s Daniel Day-Lewis, emerging from retirement to star in his son’s undercooked debut feature, and reminding us of his prowess through pure fire and brimstone. One half mesmerizing and the other abominable, Anemone contains too much greatness to have wound up being so mediocre.
57. Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
Let’s get one thing straight; This is Spinal Tap is a perfect movie, and no legacy sequel could ever tarnish its honor, though it’s hard to envision a continuation that could be additive either. It’s certainly not The End Continues, which lays its scene 40 years after the original, rejoining with Nigel, David, and Derek as the hair metal band launches a comeback tour of their own. The three-headed comedy monster of Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer still has some juice, but asking a trio of septuagenarians to steer a rowdy crowd pleaser has predictable limitations. Neither cash grab nor inspired creative endeavor, The End is capable of prompting both laughter and nostalgia, but only in fits and starts.
Don’t show this one to any of your death-to-the-author friends; if not for the background noise of writer/director Bradley Cooper’s ongoing public therapy session, things would be nearly silent. Those remaining decibels owe their every peep to seeing beloved supporting actors Will Arnett and Laura Dern get top billing for once, but there’s hardly anything here for them to play. Sure, the impending divorce of Alex (Arnett) and Tess (Dern) has some immediate relatability, and the former’s sudden interest in stand-up comedy has a never-say-never charm, but two hours is more than enough time to conclude that hobbies are a good thing. Cooper’s interest in the material, and all the strings he pulled to put some real-life friends in the limelight, are much more interesting than what’s happening on the screen.
55. Frankenstein
Talk about throwing money at a problem! Writer/director Guillermo del Toro’s Netflix-backed adaptation of Mary Shelley’s canonical 1818 novel is a preposterous buffet of visual abundance, packed with enough curatorial detail to render calls of over-compensation unavoidable. After all, that optical grandeur offers Frankenstein its only form of revelation, dressing up a centuries-old tale that’s already been stripped for ideological parts by any number of forbears. Fully aware of his position in the pecking order, del Toro rearranges the narrative’s events to serve his patented thematic purposes, resulting in a movie that matches its titular monster’s discomfort in its own skin. It’s more of the same from one of our most celebrated filmmakers, just twisted and jammed into a box that doesn’t suit its contours.
54. Materialists
Celine Song might want to stick with prestige. The writer/director’s decision to side step the lofty expectations of a Past Lives follow-up was certainly cagey, but strategy and accomplishment aren’t the same thing. Her detour to the abandoned land of Romantic Comedies works like a charm at first, with a trifecta of gorgeous leads (Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans) inverting the known formula through vainglorious conversations and hungry glances. Too bad that smirking, steamy energy doesn’t hold, as Materialists reverts to the genre’s basic architecture by the second act, forcing Johnson out of her naturally unnatural screen persona in the name of coddling conformity. As a short film, it works like gangbusters, but Song’s much better suited to the mess making portion than her later position in the clean up crew.
Listen, I love dinosaurs just as much as the rest of us, but can we please dream a little bigger? Rebirth is a step in the right direction after the out-and-out disaster of Dominion, but the characters are generic to the point of anonymity, hitting the marks of a screenplay that only exists to give our sharp-toothed behemoths something to snack on. Director Gareth Edwards has a knack for both scale and sizzle, but the effects undermine his gifts, pitting helpless humans against weightless digital antagonists. There has to be a better way to get our prehistoric fix.
52. Fantastic Four: First Steps
One of the more expensive proofs of concept ever committed to the big screen, the new Fantastic Four is less concerned with blowing minds than righting the ship on Marvel’s ongoing swoon, and providing the titular characters with their first cinematic outing to not end in embarrassment. The set design and special effects pop, while some narrative loose ends and occasional miscasting serve as detriments, but for the most part, director Matt Shakman’s film exists to be just fine, sprinting through its two hour runtime with a primary goal of avoiding all faceplates. Mission Accomplished; you might not remember much of First Steps even a week after watching, but fun is had, and everyone drives home safely.
51. Jay Kelly
When you’ve all but hollowed yourself out for the benefit of a sprawling, unseen public, what’s left of your intrinsic personhood? That’s the central question of Jay Kelly as a movie, but also Jay Kelly as a proposition, with director/co-writer shaving down his studied abrasiveness in the pursuit of award’s season recognition. This film’s titular movie star, played with galavanting obliviousness by George Clooney, is no stranger to the end-of-year hustle, reluctantly attending an Italian recognition ceremony as an excuse to chase his college-aged daughter (Grace Edwards) across Europe. Turns out you can’t make up for lost time, a truism that relates to both Kelly’s lost years of fatherhood as well as Baumbach’s clumsy stab at Oscar glory. The pieces are all there, with gorgeous on-location cinematography and winsome performances from Billy Crudup, Josh Hamilton, and Adam Sandler, but pessimists don’t just change their ways overnight, and for every gesture toward swooning, big-tent appeal, you only miss Baumbach’s mean-spirited incisiveness all the more.
50. Pillion
Doms and subs rejoice, prudes run for the hills, and everyone in-between gets a modest little romantic comedy with a side of bondage. Writer/director Harry Lighton’s debut effort may turn heads with its affinity for S&M, but the story of meek lil’ Colin (Harry Melling) falling for withholding adonis Ray (Alexander Skarsgård) is pretty standard stuff. Adjusting the dial from meet cute to meet crude is inspired, the performances sing, and Pillion suffuses its curious pocket of the world rich detail, but there’s just not a feature’s worth of story here, and a late-breaking pivot to desired normalcy will confuse those who’re encountering this cultural subset for the first time. Then again, it’s probably not for them anyway.
Turns out the floor can only go so low when you’ve got everyone’s favorite British bear around. Paul King, who directed both of the resplendent previous franchise entries, is replaced in the helmer’s chair by Dougal Wilson, and Sally Hawkins makes way for Emily Mortimer in the role of Mrs. Brown. Both are dearly missed, but their replacements prove surprisingly serviceable, especially when their work is buttressed by an impossibly game Olivia Colman. This one likely won’t have the staying power of its twin forebears, but we shouldn’t be grading on a curve. A tidy little adventure with a winsome hero, Paddington in Peru works best when viewed simply as a pleasant and diverting afternoon matinee.
48. Superman
Is it important to have something perceptive to say, or is simply adding your voice to the chorus enough? That’s the meta question at the heart of James Gunn’s Superman, which somehow has the gall to weigh in on Gaza, ICE raids, online bad actors, and AI creep anxiety. Clark, Lois, and Lex may be gamely played by David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, and Nicolas Hoult, respectively, but the movie’s seemingly impossible sense of timing makes the biggest mark, for both better and worse. It’s sort of a mess, further cluttered by all that CGI slop, but it’s exciting to watch a movie of this size and scale be so transparent in its interests and ethics. Just don’t let Gunn quit his day job to become a political science professor.
Keep your IP out of my reverent, schlocky sci-fi fun! There’s so much to like about Predator: Badlands, from its gaudy world building and imaginative action sequences, to sturdy pacing and tried-and-true found family narrative trappings. It’s just depressing to watch a potential cult classic contort itself into franchise entertainment, taking the story of a war mongering alien and his android sidekick amidst a treacherous, foreign terrain, and slapping a familiar brand on top for the sake of box office returns. You don’t have to be unique to be original, and Badlands gains strength from adhering to an eternally appealing blockbuster playbook of unlikely companions and violent, hard won victories. It could have stood on its own two feet, and in a less fiscally-driven marketplace, it would have. If only such a place existed.
46. The Bad Guys 2
Unfolding like a gorgeously rendered training course, The Bad Guys 2 is more of a family-friendly entree into the heist movie canon than a proper film. The gateway drug approach could hardly be applied to a better genre, with Mr. Wolf (Sam Rockwell) and his merry band of anthropomorphic thieves perfectly prepping the youngsters to later meet the likes of Danny Ocean and Doug MacRay. The colorful animation and a pitch-perfect cast paper over a pretty janky screenplay, but even that feels built in to the proposition. Bank robbers and safe crackers almost always reap the benefits of fast and loose storytelling, and while this one isn’t perfect, it sure does tee the young ones up to enjoy the works of Michael Mann at a (much) later date.
45. The Mastermind
When most folks complain about them not makin’ ’em like they used to, it’s mostly theoretical, but Kelly Reichardt is as literal as they come. The writer/director has always valued verisimilitude above all else, in with The Mastermind, she’s outdone herself by pairing honest humanity with a movie that fully operates like a forgotten entry of its chosen era. That would be the 70’s, where part time carpenter JB Mooney’s (Josh O’Connor) worst laid plans to steal priceless paintings from the local museum result in chaos for family and friends alike. O’Connor perfectly channels the less-is-more bristle of Jack Nicholson and Gene Hackman, ideally matched by contemporaneous costumes, production design, and a jazzy score. It even emulates that bygone time’s patience and languid pacing, which proves challenging when Reichardt’s screenplay boxes itself into a corner near the halfway point. As a time machine, it’s exquisite. You might just want to bring some coffee.
44. Together
A house with immaculate bones in need of nearly wholesale renovation, writer/director Michael Shanks’ feature debut erects a brilliant idea with subpar tools. The body horror chiller, starring real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie, takes romantic codependency to a gruesomely literal conclusion, and while the revolting central metaphor lands with a bellowing bang, it’s constantly undercut by workaday craft, wonky dialogue, and paper-thing characterization. First ballot entry into the Elevator Pitch Hall of Fame is nothing to scoff at, and will likely provide the film with some cultural staying power, but investing in a couple this boring and self-involved is an impossibly tall task. Best to break up before things get too serious.
43. The Secret Agent
The Secret Agent is a flawless movie with two exceptions: it’s extremely long, and not much happens. Perhaps that’s too snarky a description of writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s epic, eccentric political thriller, but the sum of its sterling parts is ever-so-slightly lesser than the whole. Among its graces is the performance of Wagner Moura, playing a college-professor-cum-dissident-on-the-run in 1970’s Brazil, holding the screen with the smoldering, soft-spoken charisma of an old school movie star. All the surrealist touches hit, the era-appropriate costumes and colors all pop, and there’s endless philosophical meat on the bone. It’s just a little easier to appreciate than enjoy.
42. The Shrouds
Pitched somewhere between doomy allegory of our technologically obsessed present and tearful diary entry from one of cinema’s preeminent sickos, The Shrouds‘ ruminative allure will only work on a select few. Those that chose to get on the ride will see the story Karsh (Vincent Cassel), a thinly-veiled avatar for writer/director David Cronenberg, whose digitally-assisted grieving over his deceased wife (Diane Kruger) mirrors his creator’s pain over the 2017 passing of his own partner. That’s not to say this is a tissues-in-hand affair, but it’s also far from the gross-out confrontations on which Cronenberg has made his name. Intellectualism rules the day, with a screenplay that presents layers of world weary introspection onto its ghastly exploration of decay in all its forms. Titillating it is not, but for Cronenberg devotees and fans of thought-provoking dystopia, it’s as rigorous as it is hard to shake.
HUNTR/X’s battle against their underworld antagonists may still be active in the runtime of KPop Demon Hunters, but in the real world, they’ve already won. The summer sensation, concerning a trio of animated songstresses who alternate between sky-scraping ballads and sword-swinging melees, was unstoppable for a reason. The animation is spirited, the characters are winsome, and, most importantly, the songs are an absolute knock out. There’s just something unnerving about a movie that’s so hellbent on getting the kiddos started on their parasocial relationships early, turning the fate of the world into a TikTok popularity contest wherein liking and subscribing has the power to save the day. Maybe that’s overthinking it, but Demon Hunters can weather some light criticism; it already has an entire generation in a trance.
Is it really worth recommending a movie based solely on one staggering performance? Writer/director Benny Safdie is determined to find out, with The Smashing Machine doing away with such rudimentary filmmaking tenets as forward thrust and narrative intrigue. While handsomely shot and boasting of excellent production design, the story of early MMA champion Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) follows its stirring opening chapters with an inert middle section, and a conclusion that’s only rousing in the broadest of terms. Then there’s The Rock, emerging from years in the filmic wilderness to deliver one of the year’s best turns, as unrecognizable as his is pitiable and hilarious. It’s revelatory stuff, adrift in an aimless film that desperately needs his level of conviction.
39. Roofman
Great acting requires the honing of skills and the practicing of craft, and yet it’s much more common than innate star power. Channing Tatum won’t be challenging Daniel Day-Lewis for Oscars anytime soon, but his easy going charisma is magnetic, and expertly weaponized in Roofman. Far removed from the doomy melodrama of Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond the Pines, director Derek Cianfrance’s latest relays the ‘true’ story of Jeffrey Manchester (Tatum), an army veteran whose subsequent life of crime finds him hiding out in a North Carolina Toys “R” Us to avoid imprisonment. Charmingly low key if a bit clumsily written, the movie leverages both its sprawling cast and 2000’s nostalgia for all they’re worth, and benefits from Cianfrance’s ability to drive tension when appropriate. You won’t be telling your grandkids about Roofman, but if Tatum snags a few more roles like this one, his career might stand the test of time.
Doubt Kathryn Bigelow’s ability to ratchet up tension at your own peril; she’ll be busy tightening the screws. In keeping with the director’s post-Hurt Locker fascination with the American military industrial complex, Dynamite takes the subject to its logical conclusion, playing out a theoretical where the U.S. government scrambles for a cogent course of action in the face of an imminent nuclear attack. The problems here are myriad: our collective cold sweat receives an unnecessary respite in the form of writer Noah Oppenhiem’s ill-advised trifold structure, a distracting number of famous thespians crop up in nothing parts, and there’s precious little takeaway beyond some frazzled nerves. None of that obviates Dynamite‘s thrumming heat, a dialogue-driven thrill ride that weathers its many miscues though sheer force of will and kineticism.
37. Blue Moon
Find yourself a partner who looks at you the way Richard Linklater sees Ethan Hawke. It won’t be easy, as the affection between the director and his on-and-off muse derives from years of collaboration, but if Blue Moon is any evidence, the reward is worth its price in time and energy. Ostensibly the story of musical theater legend Lorenz Hart (Hawke) coming to terms with his own obsolescence, Linklater shoots and blocks the whole affair in his stars honor, a gift that’s compounded by screenwriter Robert Kaplow’s eagerness to save all his best dialogue for the film’s protagonist. Hawke makes good on their collective faith by positively going to town on the material, but there’s a ceiling on any movie that’s built to put exactly one participant up in lights. He’s genuinely great, there’s just not much behind behind him.
36. Die My Love
Beauty and brutality don’t often share the same screen, but Lynne Ramsey is here, once again, to mix oil with water. The writer/director’s first feature in eight years follows Grace (Jennifer Lawrence), a new mother struggling with postpartum depression under a gorgeous Montana skyline, falling further into the abyss while her checked-out partner (Robert Pattinson) stands idly by. If that doesn’t sound like much of a synopsis, it’s because Die My Love hardly offers one, honing in on Grace’s mental deterioration until all else fades out of sight. With cinematography as sumptuous as its events are abrasive, Ramsey’s latest locks into a rare frequency, one in which sexuality, identity and personhood are all up for grabs in the aftermath of life’s most familiar yet unexplored experience. You won’t have a good time, and that’s the point.
35. Elio
Enjoy the originals, because it doesn’t look like they’ll be here for long. Elio doesn’t rank anywhere near the top of Pixar’s illustrious canon, but the story of a young boy (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) on an intergalactic adventure in search of companionship is playful, heartwarming, and visually inviting. Benefitting from both basic relatability and a grub-shaped sidekick for the ages (long live Glordon!), the movie’s underwhelming box office performance probably lines us up for years of Cars 4, Ratatouille Takes Italy, and Finding Marlon, which is a damn shame. The Mouse House offshoot is no longer on the all-time heater they enjoyed during the aughts, but Elio is still a treat worth savoring.
34. Mountainhead
Rather than trying to top his era-defining HBO show, Succession, writer/director Jesse Armstrong attacks the same material from a different angle. Set almost exclusively in the titular gaudy estate, his feature debut stars Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef, and an incredible Cory Michael Smith as hyper-wealthy tech moguls struggling to decide on their next move as AI-indebted misinformation starts spreading global chaos. It’s made for TV and looks the part, but the humor and intrigue defy the flick’s tidy boarders, and no one writes a corporate demon quite like Armstrong.
Less a case of so-bad-it’s-good than so wrong-headed-yet-dazzlingly-made-it’s-mesmerizing, you can’t really call Trey Edward Shults’ long-awaited follow-up to Waves a good movie, but that binary is boring anyway. The Weeknd stars as The Weeknd in a movie that’s about how hard it is to be The Weeknd, which goes about as well as you’d expect, but Chayse Irvin’s camera work is hypnotic, and Barry Keoghan is ever the live wire performer. Those without the patience for egomania will find it unpalatable. If you revel in the stuff, it’s appointment viewing.
32. Friendship
You can’t really edit the Tim Robinson experience to only show the good bits; the search is baked into the proportion. He makes his headlining debut in Friendship, starring as Craig, an awkward corporate grunt who develops a kinship with his charming neighbor (Paul Rudd) before destroying it with his own overeagerness. There’s a lot going on here thematically, from distrust of authority to the white knuckled grip of consumer capitalism, but it mostly just flits around the margins, refusing to come into focus. We’re really here for the jokes anyway, and while a ton of them fall flat, the ones that work have you howling.
The schmaltz might be what stays with you, but it’s not all that The Life of Chuck has to offer. Once again pairing the spooky with the sentimental, writer/director Mike Flanagan’s latest Stephen King adaptation is split into three parts, though revealing too much about their individual contents risks spoiling the unpredictable ways in which they interact. The first is the best, a slow drip apocalypse that benefits from the open emotionality of an always-great Chiwetel Ejiofor, though the coming-of-age story on the either side has its own treacly charms. No one will accuse Flanagan of laying it on thin, but there’s a familiar comfort in being so brazenly manipulated, and for as many scoffs as Chuck is sure to coax, it prompts just as many sniffles.
30. Father Mother Sister Brother
It’s tempting to chalk the languid pace and sparse dramaturgy of Father Mother Sister Brother up to the age of its creator, but Jim Jarmusch has always loved a slow burn. Unfolding with the same glacial cadence of his canonized early work, the iconoclastic director’s latest is a bloodline-focused triptych, exploring the unspoken tension inside the broods of a rapscallion father (Tom Waits), a withholding mother (Charolette Rampling), and bereaved twins Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luka Sabbat). Stagey and schematic to a fault, Jarmusch’s singular rhythm seems to be getting the better of him until the tonal consistency subsumes the viewer in its slow-motion stew. Exciting it is not, but those with some patience will find something to savor in the movie’s layered plotting, enviable cast, and unapologetic earnestness.
29. No Other Choice
Park Chan-wook, bless his heart, doesn’t know the first thing about composing a boring image. The South Korean director is perhaps the world’s premiere pulp artisan, and while his filmmaking is completely beyond reproach, it takes a better screenplay than the one driving No Other Choice to meet his efforts at eye-level. It’s not that the tale of Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun), a terminated company man on a violent quest to regain employment, is ever less than engaging, but the ultimate conclusions about wealth disparity and global capitalism are somewhat pat, and visible from a mile away. Being easily and unfavorably compared to Parasite doesn’t make matters any better, but if you’re just here to bathe in a film’s optical accomplishments, it’s a top shelf offering.
Everyone knows that good is supposed to be the enemy of great, but Joachim Trier is here to test if the idiom cuts both ways. Determined to make the most of his global exposure in the wake of The Worst Person in the World, the writer/director’s latest is so immaculate that it risks sterilizing itself. Set in modern Oslo but touching on generations of family trauma, Sentimental Value stars Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsve as an artistically-inclined and perpetually self-defeating father-daughter combo in the eye of an interpersonal storm. The screenplay is layered and acute in its observations, the performances are uniformly outstanding, and Trier is masterful at gliding through the events and ideas of his yarn. It just more impressive than it is moving, which is a bit damning for a movie that’s allegedly all about big feelings. It gets your wheels spinning, but the tissues can be left at home.
27. Black Bag
Judged on economy alone, Black Bag might be the film of the year. Director Steven Soderbergh’s latest follows George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender), a British spy on a mission to track down the mole within his operation, a task complicated by the fact that his wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) is a primary suspect. Contained to a tight 93 minute frame, Black Bag boasts of sterling performances, immaculate styling, and an intriguing treatise on the power of mystery to maintain romantic relationships. There’s so much to admire that it ends up spilling over the top, the rare instance wherein a movie could have benefitted from a more extensive runtime. Everything on hand is pristine, you just wish there was more on offer.
26. One of Them Days
For a movie about a pair of scrappy underdogs, One of Them Days sure has its ducks in a row. The tale of longtime besties Dreux and Alyssa (Keke Palmer and SZA, respectively) trying to come up with missing rent money over the course of a lone Los Angeles day is pure 90’s nostalgia, goofy and winning in its every move. The stars have true chemistry, director Lawrence Lamont has the vibes on lock, and Syreeta Singleton’s screenplay stays finding laudably silly ways to keep the audience giggling. She even sneaks in some food for thought, pertaining to group economics, community solidarity, and housing inequality, though delivering them through the likes of Katt Williams and Lil Rel Howery keeps things light as a feather. This one’s ambitions are modest, and it meets each and every one of them with style to spare.
25. F1
If it ain’t broke, take it out of the air, and put it on the racetrack. That was certainly director Joseph Kosinski’s plan of attack when mounting F1, a shadow remake of his own Top Gun: Maverick that matches its antecedent blow for blow in terms of sheer kinetic bombast. Brad Pitt stars as Sonny Hayes, a once-promising driver who follows the Pete Mitchell career renaissance playbook note for note as he takes the wheel for one last job. Getting an F for originality hardly matters when you’ve got an A+ for sound, fury, and pure, uncluttered momentum. The high speed spectacle leaves narrative concerns in the rearview mirror, and honestly, good riddance. Let’s rev some engines!
24. Dog Man
It’s Miles Morales’ Spider-Verse, and we’re all just living in it. Dog Man may owe a considerable aesthetic debt to the recent animated Spider-Man saga, but that doesn’t mean it’s resting on its borrowed laurels. Pitting its wordless, hybrid protagonist against a villainous feline voiced by Pete Davidson, director Peter Hastings’ feature is ecstatic and inexhaustible, throwing sight gags and action montages up on screen with a speed that risks breaking the sound barrier. The jokes hit at a shocking rate, and when the time comes to pull some familial heartstrings, Dog Man hits its marks without overplaying its hand. It may be drafting in a cultural wake, but it sure is excited to exist.
23. The Running Man
Time to find out exactly how full your glass is. Writer/director Edgar Wright’s latest isn’t a remake of the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle of the same name, but rather a faithful adaptation of the Stephen King’s 1982 source text, set in dystopian America where the titular game show rules prime time. The 30 day challenge sees contestants fight for survival while being hunted down by armed assailants working for the all-powerful, all-seeing Network. The premise is entirely too dark for a movie star of Glen Powell’s wattage, his miscasting matched by Wright, who aims for righteous indignation but can only locate churlishness. They don’t suit the material, but proper pairing hardly matters when you’ve got michelin-level ingredients. The cast list is stacked, the world building sings, and no one does fleet-footed mayhem quite like Wright. He breaks some eggs along the way, but the final dish is awfully tasty.
22. Mickey 17
It may not have been what the masses wanted from a follow-up to Bong Joon Ho’s Best Picture-winning Parasite, but the real ones know you can’t keep this guy in a box. Abandoning the claustrophobic confines of his class war dramedy, Mickey 17 employs a vast, lavish canvas to spin a sci-fi yarn about a grunt worker whose regenerative abilities make him the perfect canary in capitalism’s space-bound coal mine. As a kinetic treatise on colonialism, consumption habits, ecological strife, and political fanaticism, the first hour is unassailable, and any hiccups witnessed in the back half can be chalked up to narrative overzealousness. Is doing too much really a crime? If so, Bong, as well as stars Robert Pattison and Mark Ruffalo, will have a tough time beating the case, but ambition shouldn’t be contingent on perfectionism.
21. The Surfer
We love Nic Cage when they let him loose, but The Surfer benefits from hemming him in. Ensnared in a trap of his own making, the titular wave rider’s determination to crest the salty sea finds him at war with the local Australian beach community, as well as his own sanity. Director Lorcan Finnegan likes his cruelty with a side of psychedelica, and he has a perfect match in writer Thomas Martin, whose script uses thematic layering, expertly deployed humor, and an unreliable narrator to keep the audience guessing. It may prove too labyrinthine for some, but those looking for a darkly comic, head spinning time at the flicks will get more than their money’s worth.
20. Warfare
Despite an ending that tilts toward one side of the ideological divide, Warfare is a pretty even-handed depiction of the 2006 war in Iraq. That’s probably because co-writer/director Alex Garland needs a firm grip to steady himself amidst his sea of gunfire and explosives, a cacophony of serrated sounds and blistering sights that set your hair on fire. A plea for across-the-aisle empathy that feels no need to put its plight into words, Warfare positions you right in the center of the action, correctly assuming that exposure is more effective than exposition. The sparsity of dialogue and intensity of action call Dunkirk to mind, but Garland goes smaller and less merciful. This one’s brutal, just like its subject.
19. Companion
Stop me if you’re heard this one before: A group of beautiful 20-somethings arrive at an isolated, lavish location, slowly revealing strains in their social fabric before unforeseen circumstances throw their weekend getaway into chaos. On the surface, Companion is almost comically similar to recent entries like Bodies Bodies Bodies and It’s What’s Inside, but the high concept twist, and its metaphorical fallout, are distinctive and engaging. Part biting satire, part down-and-dirty thriller, and wholly worthy keeping those pesky spoilers at bay, writer/director Drew Hancock’s debut feature is a tricky little delight whose food for thought balances nicely with the sugar rush of tumult.
18. Presence
We often think about the power something has over us as we watch it, but Presence suggests that the inverse is equally worthy of exploration. Set exclusively in a dimly-lit home in suburban New Jersey, director Steven Soderbergh’s latest experiment-cum-feature film is a POV experience from a ghostly prospective. The phantom haunts the Paynes family, but their transparent guest is the least of their worries, with David Koepp’s screenplay splitting the difference between Poltergeist and Ordinary People. Chris Sullivan works wonders as the patriarch, but the real draw here is the concept, one that will have you second guessing the inherent voyeurism at play in any form of filmed entertainment.
17. Sorry, Baby
Don’t let all those Sundance, slice-of-life signifiers fool you; Sorry, Baby might enter a crowded field of play, but it stands well above most of its supposed competition. The feature debut of writer/director/star Eva Victor is an expertly calibrated piece of familiar cinema, charting grad student Agnes over the course of a tumultuous five year period, jumping back and forth in time as she emotionally processes a traumatic event. Nothing in that synopsis will prove revelatory, but Victor’s attentive writing, clear-eyed empathy, and charmingly coy performance make for quite the incisive stew. It’s well-trodden ground, tilled with care that’s as delicate as it is direct.
You’d almost want to tell Wes Anderson not to listen to the haters, but the words are clearly falling on deaf ears anyway. The Phoenician Scheme may stick out from the director’s last few entries by virtue of its mercifully left-to-right structure, but the roving yarn of an unkillable industrialist (Benicio del Toro) and his estranged daughter (Mia Threapleton) is covered in its maker’s familiar finger prints. The doll house staging, fussy needle drops, and dead pan performances might be old hat at this point, but Anderson is a singular voice, creating visual and auditory magic in his own house style. Threapleton is a revelation, but even she won’t be enough to convert the naysayers. Perhaps Wes will eventually step outside of his highly manufactured paradigm, but let’s enjoy this ongoing iteration while we can. There’s nothing else like it.
15. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
History and lore have a way of clogging the creative pipeline when it comes to sequels, but not all continuations need to show such fealty to the past. With charming sleuth Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) as the only through-line within his Knives Out trilogy, writer/director Rian Johnson is free to train his murder mystery saga on any subgenre of his liking, an opportunity left frustratingly on the table by 2022’s Glass Onion. He makes up for lost time with Wake Up Dead Man, laying his scene in a New York Catholic Church, wherein an open case of manslaughter tests the faith of Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), the parish’s newest priest. Blanc eventually joins the proceedings, but not before O’Connor’s graceful performance and a gothic, ruminative tonal shake-up have changed the whole franchise apparatus. Involving, joyous, and surprisingly meaty, Johnson’s latest lights a candle in the darkness of serialized fare, fully functioning on its own terms while whetting the appetite for further adventures in the series.
14. Bugonia
It’s about time Yorgos Lanthimos made a conspiracy thriller. While the oddball pessimism gets the headlines, the true through line across the Greek writer/director’s works is the withholding of information and agency, a two-pronged disadvantage that Teddy (Jesse Plemmons) is prepared to flip on its head. The alien truther is ready to take matters into his own hands, kidnapping a high profile CEO named Michelle (Emma Stone) who he believes to be an extraterrestrial invader. What follows is two-hander of the highest order, Plemmons and Stone volleying back and forth in a movie that keeps you guessing about everything except its inevitable fatalism. Committing to the glass-half-empty bit robs the movie of some unpredictability, but the performances are captivating, every production element sings, and Will Tracy’s screenplay is a corker. Just make sure you’ve prepared the real estate that Bugonia‘s climactic montage is about to occupy in your brain.
Movies of great rigor and importance are usually absolved of the need for propulsion, but someone must have forgotten to send Jafar Panahi the memo. The Iranian writer/director’s latest is as taught and kinetic as they come, a crowd pleasing thriller disguised as overseas awards season homework. There’s nothing stuffy in the story of Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), a former political prisoner who chances upon his erstwhile torturer only to balk on the doorstep of revenge. There’s unexpected comedy in his hesitancy, bolstered by a true rogue’s gallery of fellow prior inmates, and the fleeting laughter only gives the pulse-pounding moments more sting. The movie’s secret production, when paired with Panahi’s ongoing fight against his native government, make for quite the inspiring behind-the-scenes tale, but Accident doesn’t need the undergirding. It stands on its own, or better yet, it sprints.
12. Bring Her Back
Yes, every story has already been told, just not by the Philippou brothers. The plot of Bring Her Back is certainly nothing new, concerning a pair of recently orphaned teens (Billy Barratt and Sora Wong) who find themselves in the custody of a big bad wolf in motherly clothing (Sally Hawkins), but the Australian directing duo have never been at the narrative vanguard. Their rudimentary plots are merely an excuse to get your blood pumping and your skin crawling, and their latest is almost too visceral and imposing to take. A collision of lurid visuals and threatening sounds, Bring Her Back proves that there are still scares left to be mined from familiar architecture; you just have to plumb the depths of hell to find them.
11. Eddington
More fully realized as a time capsule than an in-the-moment entertainment, Ari Aster’s western-infused Covid satire is extremely good now, and destined for greatness in the future. The summer of 2020 is still so fresh in our minds, making Eddington‘s central battle between a small town’s left-leaning mayor (Pedro Pascal) and the neurotic sheriff who throws his hat in the political ring (Joaquin Phoenix) too familiar to be revelatory. The black comedy that pits anti-maskers against overzealous social justice warriors lands plenty of blows, but all the intricacies of Aster’s screenplay can’t help but be blurred by the ripped-from-the-headlines scaffolding… at least for now. Like all of its director’s filmography, this one seems primed to age well, when its innumerable themes and provocations don’t feel like the doom scrolling we’re all doing anyway.
10. Sirāt
The most scarring movie of last year twice over, those who accuse Sirāt of being little more than a wound-up punch to the gut aren’t so far off the mark. The story of a middle-aged father (Sergi López) searching through the moroccan desert’s rave scene for his missing daughter is actively trying to maim its audience, and while misery for misery’s sake is mostly a bankrupt pursuit, co-writer/director Oliver Laxe wields pain as a form of transcendence. His movie shatters you with scalding incident, then dances on the pieces to the mesmeric sounds of Kangding Ray’s pulsating electronic score. The world looks different when you emerge, having undergone a procedure that’s invasive enough to shift paradigms, beauty and ugliness inextricably entangled.
If a Robert Eggers-directed reimagining of The Passion of Joan of Arc as a full-fledged musical doesn’t sound like you’re cup of tea, then leave it all for the rest of us. Director Mona Fastvold isn’t here to play nice and invite everyone in; like the Shaker movement itself, this is an esoteric proposition, as destined to agitate as it is to inspire with the clarity and purpose of its vision. A cross-continental epic set in the late 1700’s, the movie stars Amanda Seyfried as the titular Lee, leader of the Shaking Quakers who sail from Britain to the U.S. on a mission to spread the gospel that’s met with just about every form of pushback imaginable. Seyfried is a revelation, singing, dancing, and shrieking until you’ve bought into her cause, but don’t let the headliner blur out her surroundings. Synthesizing resplendent production design, musical composition, camera work, and choreography into a singular madcap offering, Fastvold is clearly hearing voices from beyond. They’ve compelled her to create one of the most original, fearless, and oddly beautiful movies of 2025.
8. Eephus
When the sun finally sets on a long decrepit empire, it usually does so in silence, an injustice that co-writer/director Carson Lund has taken to correcting. Set on a single day in 1990’s New Hampshire, Lund’s debut feature concerns a recreational baseball game played between local men aged anywhere from 25 to 75, each here to enjoy one last catch before their beloved ballpark is knocked down in favor of a new public school. As shaggy and earnest as an afternoon tilt going into extra innings, Eephus has enough laidback, lived-in appeal to have succeeded as a simple snap shot of a moment in time, but Lund isn’t satisfied up there on the surface. He’s suffused the whole thing with themes of intergenerational masculinity, shifting American attitudes and priorities, and the boomer-centric aversion to the passing of time. Not that it says any of these things out loud; Eephus is too funny, graceful and surreal to give its motifs voice, focusing instead on shooting the breeze and securing that last out, while all of us eggheads parse its many treasures.
7. Train Dreams
Going straight for the soul has its dangers, as does the open, resolute pursuit of greatness, but director Clint Bentley isn’t about to let fear dampen his ambition. A pocket-sized wonder that packs eight decades of American progress and industrialism into 102 minutes, Train Dreams stars Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier, a logger working in the Pacific Northwest at the turn of the 19th century. His modest, soft-spoken family life isn’t the stuff of legend, but that’s the point. Bentley’s movie is so flush with both beauty and emotional duress that anything more grand would tip the whole thing over. As is, it’s a stirring, meditative drama that locates the macro in the micro, reducing you to tears in the process. Train Dreams accomplishes that rarest of modern cinematic feats; it completely pulverizes cynicism, and your heart along with it.
6. Weapons
You’re supposed to pick between stately intellectualism and seedy excess, but Zach Cregger isn’t particularly fond of the rules. The writer/director’s debut feature, Barbarian, made waves by crashing credible character work and elusive plotting against black comedy and gory sensationalism, a tactic that appears to be evergreen if Weapons is to be believed. Charting the fallout from the sudden disappearance of 17 third graders in small-town Pennsylvania, the movie’s panoramic architecture and sensational cast ensure that every turned corner is stocked with a new surprise. Complain if you must about structure outweighing empathy, or an ecstatic climax that refuses to make good on the overwhelming darkness of the premise; films this ambitious rarely land every plane they put in the air, but the imagery and unpredictability here are in rare form.
Lost in all of the rapturous praise for One Battle After Another is the sincere plight of Paul Thomas Anderson fans, and the mixed feelings of watching your favorite weirdo go mainstream. PTA’s latest stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a lapsed revolutionary on a quest to protect his daughter from the villainous colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn), and if that sounds surprisingly cogent from the guy who made The Master and There Will Be Blood, you must be paying attention. His flights of comedic and sexualized fancy are still present, but Anderson’s first foray into big budget filmmaking is primarily concerned with propulsion and indignation, two colors largely absent in his previous pallet. Blitzing through nearly three hours that seem to pass by in twenty minutes, Battle is a breathtaking response to America’s current state of unrest, and Boogie Nights stans will have to get with the program. You miss the murky undertow, but when a movie has no bad scenes, no bad performances, and holds you tightly in its grip from start to finish, the best response is to say thank you.
Most movies driven by pure chaos feel like falling down a rabbit hole; Marty Supreme sneaks you onto a rocket ship just before blast off. Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) sure knows a thing or two about taking flight, fleeing his rundown apartment in 1950’s New York to travel the world in pursuit of Table Tennis greatness, everyone and everything else be damned. A technical marvel that lays claim to some of the best cinematography, editing, production and sound design encountered in all of 2025, Supreme packs its 150 runtime with wall-to-wall excitement, the rare film of epic length where the closing credits come all too soon. You don’t want time to run out on Marty, and while his relentless myopia is in concert with the rest of writer/director Josh Safdie’s bad men on a mission, that youthful hunger strikes a new chord. Mauser will have plenty of time to grow up later. Witnessing him stop at nothing to reach his vision of greatness is as inspiring as it is hilarious, preposterous, and electric.
Danny Boyle is a lot of things, but a conformist isn’t one of them. Returning to the rage virus-infested lands he once conquered over two decades ago, the director’s first feature in six years has no use for agreeable, familiar styles of filmmaking. Shot almost exclusively on iPhones and edited with feverish propulsion, the story of a young boy (Alfie Williams) coming of age in the afterglow of a since-contained zombie apocalypse uses Alex Garland’s modestly-scaled screenplay as a spring board to technical discovery. Nothing has ever looked or sounded quite like it, but all that innovation somehow never takes away from the thrills, chills, and deep emotionality. 28 Years Later is surely one of the best legacy sequels ever made, but don’t let Boyle hear you describe it that way. It may be a retread, but its eyes are locked in on our cinematic future.
2. Sinners
An assemblage of familiar parts that somehow morphs into something completely unique and wholly original, writer/director Ryan Coogler’s first non-IP feature since Fruitvale Station is a blast of fresh, garlic-scented air. Musical history and vampires collide in the 1932 Mississippi Delta as identical twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) go to war against the undead, but their fight extends to notions of cultural assimilation, solidarity, and appropriation. The heady stuff is there if you want it, but there’s no ignoring the sheer beauty of its packaging, from sterling cinematography, immaculate production design, sumptuous sound mixing, and mesmerizing performances from all involved. Not everything goes off without a hitch, but what do you expect from a movie named after wrongdoing? What matters is the towering ambition and immaculate craft, forming a blockbuster of rare scope and intrigue.
Being a mother can look heavenly from the outside, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a living hell. At least that’s the case for Linda (Rose Byrne), a burnt-out therapist caring for a young daughter whose eating disorder prompts fear, frustration, and exhaustion in equal measure. Rather than leaning into prestige film stereotypes of misery and inertia, writer/director Mary Bronstein turns one woman’s waking life and tempestuous headspace into a hilarious, unnerving hell hole, charging mercilessly from first frame to last. Byrne matches her feral fury every step of the way, buoyed by wonderful, unexpected turns from A$AP Rocky and Conan O’Brian. An extraordinary work of empathy that doubles as middle finger, If I Had Legs is ruthlessly intense, deeply funny, and genuinely psychedelic, cross-pollinating its seemingly incongruous tones and ideas to arrive at something truly all its own. Be afraid, then watch it anyway.
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