The Protégé is sometimes tonally ungainly, but its no-frills, old-school action filmmaking are a breath of fresh air in an increasingly CGI-saturated genre. When she’s…
The Night House might only be the latest horror film to supplant subtext with text and dread with loud sounds, but notable for being among…
The Meaning of Hitler is a bold, risk-taking work from a confident directorial duo. Adapted from Sebastian Haffner’s The Meaning of Hitler, a book that…
Wildland suffers for its underdeveloped characters and themes, but its sense of intimacy stands out in a genre often tilted only toward style. Watching Wildland,…
Luzifer A former student of Michael Haneke’s, now operating under the Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion banner, Peter Brunner seems primed (and positioned) to be Austria’s…
Habit sounds like fun, should be fun, wants to be fun; it’s more like Hell. Bella Thorne plays a Los Angeles party girl who masquerades…
Cryptozoo is both technically and thematically potent, but it’s the film’s third act which cements it as an exceptional and surprising animated work. In…
There’s a perverse gothic sex comedy located somewhere in Jakob’s Wife, but it’s buried under reams of flat, deadening horror comedy. The work that made Barbara…
Limbo Photography is the first sign that Soi Cheang’s Limbo is different from the director’s past work. Though his return to Hong Kong was…
Demonic suggests a few novel, fascinating twists to the horror template, and then runs away from them as fast as it can. In the six…
Ma Belle, My Beauty is a lovingly realized and mature look at polyamory, but it fails to probe its emotional core sufficiently. Polyamory is a…
Back to the Wharf Li Xiaofeng’s Back to the Wharf begins with a tragic accident that escalates, shockingly, to murder. After high school student…
The Last Matinee is a modern Giallo effort that fails to reimagine, evolve, or even properly understand the form. The use of movie theaters as…
Free Guy is the rare tentpole based on an original idea rather than existing IP, and supplements that present-day novelty with a game cast and…
Beckett On paper, Beckett would seem to hold plenty of promise. Directed by Ferdinando Cito Filomarino and produced by his ex, Luca Guadagnino, the…
Respect is a generic, overlong, unconvincing slog that’s disrespectful to the Queen of Soul’s legacy. When it comes to portraying pop culture icons known by…
Beckett rides the talents of its stacked crew to the most generic possible destination. On paper, Beckett would seem to hold plenty of promise. Directed…
Thrice Upon a Time is yet another bold, challenging, pathos-filled apocalyptic plunge into the human psyche. Hideaki Anno is doing it all over again.…