With Past Lives, director Celine Song has a fine story on her hands — and she knows it. A decade after immigrating with her…
Even within the world of American independent filmmaking, there’s something endearingly out-of-step about the films of Nicole Holofcener. Warm and chatty when angst and…
Joaquin Phoenix’s first scene in Beau Is Afraid takes place in his therapist’s office, setting the story in motion while also presenting a roadmap…
Running through a field of brightly colored flowers might seem an awfully clichéd image of childhood innocence, but there is some hope that Lukas…
Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale boasts an interest back-to-his-roots quality, but also affirms all of the director’s worst tendencies. Although The Whale is an adaptation of…
In pushing viewers past the limits of reality, The Eternal Daughter more vividly than ever paints the loss and alienation undergirding Hogg’s cinema. “No…
Causeway is a sturdy enough film with fine anchoring performances, but it doesn’t otherwise boast much in the way of substance. It’s been some time…
Aftersun evokes the rending nostalgia of Terence Davies, lensing a father-daughter story through quiet, melancholic remembrance. Memories are fragile; they weather with time, fray around…
God’s Creatures works best in its embrace of character interiority, but a tendency toward stacking the deck with symbol and portent leaves little nuance to…
Pearl doesn’t indulge the same genre thrills as X, but it does deliver an idiosyncratic, bloody little chamber piece that succeeds in a different but undeniable…
Funny Pages frequently approaches incisive commentary about youth’s quest for validation, but it ultimately ends too meekly and with too little introspection. Life comes at…
Marcel the Shell isn’t a perfect film, but in expanding a 2010 Internet gimmick to humorous and heartfelt feature length, it proves surprisingly refined, and…
Like previous Garland films, Men is a stylish but thematically bankrupt enterprise that staves off boredom while offering no real thrills or substance. You could…
Everything Everywhere All at Once, true to its title, can be a little chaotic and unruly, but it’s still a hilarious and impeccably crafted bit…
X is a gnarly throwback horror that sheds the genre’s present obsession with being about something and just slings blood and jokes for the duration of its…
There’s an appealing, lulling rhythm to Kogonada’s second feature, but few of its philosophical inquires are met with worthy responses. There is much to…
The Tragedy of Macbeth is masterful in its fusing of the artificial and elemental, a bit of Shakespearean subterfuge that justifies this umpteenth take on the…
Red Rocket is an intentionally bad vibes experience, and while the film’s messaging is resolutely simplistic, it’s all kept afloat by Simon Rex’s year’s-best performance.…