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The first things that grab your attention in Nickel Boys are its beauty and technicality. Director RaMell Ross, a large-format photographer, ensures every frame relays something deep, intimate, and moving. Then there’s how he takes these shots: we see things unfold through the POV of Elwood and Turner, students at an abusive reform school in […]

Everything about Sugarcane is arresting, whether it’s the epic shots of the sweeping reservation (“Canada is our land,” one native announces), the emotional moments shared by survivors of the abusive residential schools, or the damning discoveries they find in an investigation into the Catholic priests. Every second of it is sure to shock and infuriate. […]

Written, directed, and scored by Viggo Mortensen, The Dead Don’t Hurt is a visually stunning, emotionally potent, but still impressively restrained period drama that flips the script on typical Westerns. On the surface, it looks like it could be one—there’s even a bad guy clad in black who slings guns outside a saloon—but the film […]

There’s a pervasive myth in movies that struggle (financial, physical, or otherwise) makes you stronger, but the truth is that struggle makes you weaker. Adversity makes you more resilient and resourceful, sure, but it takes a lot more to be stronger. The Fire Inside, a biopic about American Olympic athlete Ressa Shields, understands that truth, […]

Poignant, delightful, and simply gorgeous, Licorice Pizza just might be Paul Thomas Anderson’s best work to date. The period dramedy follows two young people, one in her 20s and one in his teens, as they strike an unlikely but lovely friendship and try to find their place in the world. They may be 10 years […]

Jules’ wacky premise — an extra-terrestrial crash-lands in eccentric widower Milton’s (Ben Kingsley) flowerbeds — is a bit of a misdirection. While the movie is technically a sci-fi (featuring, as it does, some very out-there alien engineering), it’s really a charming, mostly-human drama about the isolation and surreality of aging.  Though the mute presence of […]

Adapted from the Japanese film Ikiru, which in turn was adapted from the Russian story The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Living is a parable about, well, living. Specifically, it’s about the importance of wonder and the magic of the mundane. It’s also about legacy and the stories we leave in our wake, which live on […]

Based on the documentary short she helmed with actor Taylor Russell, Savannah Leaf’s Earth Mama is an intimate, unabashedly political, and decisively non-judgmental look at one mother’s determined attempts to regain custody of her two children. Gia (Tia Nomore) is struggling to work enough hours at her part-time photo studio job to pay for the […]

In the first few minutes of Mass, hushed tones, solemn movements, and awkwardly averted eyes hint at an unspoken tragedy that haunts everyone in the film. The four main characters discuss it during a sit-down, but even then it remains unspeakable; such is the dedication of first-time full-length director Fran Kranz in depicting the reality […]

Leo and Remi are close. They play, eat, and sleep together, and in between those moments, they share every thought they have with each other, no matter how big or small. Theirs is a precious friendship, as pure and as intimate as can be, but all that changes when they begin middle school. Subject to […]

Big George Foreman ticks all the boxes of what a biopic should be. It shows us his troubled childhood, his bumpy rise to the top, and his eventual reconciliation with fame and boxing. It’s also nicely shot and polished, an accurately dressed period piece that looks and feels the part. But nothing about the film […]

Belfast stars Outlander’s Caitríona Balfe as the mother of a working-class Northern Irish family during The Troubles. Religious tension and the lack of opportunities put the family in a difficult position: they’re the first in many generations to think about leaving the city of Belfast. They all have to navigate so many difficult questions on […]

The Last Duel propped high expectations as the Closing Film at the 2021 Venice Film Festival, but its theatrical release later that year proved to be a flop. Ridley Scott blamed it on millennials, but both critics and streaming audiences have been much more favorable than moviegoers. As a film, it’s a rather monumental project: […]

In 1961, Francisco de Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington was stolen from London’s National Gallery, but the theft was no slick heist pulled off by international art thieves. No, the improbable culprit was (the improbably named) Kempton Bunton, a retired bus driver and aspiring playwright who pinched the painting — which the gallery […]

Journalist LLoyd Vogel (Matthey Rhys) scoffs at the prospect of a profile commission, or a “puff piece”, as he calls it. His self-respect and professional ruthlessness has driven people away and this assignment may well be a test from his editor. But it is serendipity that brings Lloyd to American TV host Mister Roger (Tom […]

Us and Them follows two former lovers who reminisce and reassess their decade-long relationship over one night. They both seem to be in better places, certainly financially if anything else, but their shared wistfulness for the past threatens to prove otherwise.  The film was an immediate hit when it was first released in China, and […]

It has become increasingly rare to find films made in Afghanistan, so when a movie like Osama comes along, it becomes nothing short of essential viewing. This is a profoundly depressing but beautifully crafted story of a young girl made to look like a boy so as to go unnoticed by Taliban forces while trying […]

You’ve probably watched and heard about enough Holocaust films to expect a formula, but you might want to put all that aside going into The Boy in Striped Pajamas. Bruno, the son of a WWII Nazi commandant forms an unlikely friendship with a Jewish kid his age in his father’s concentration camp. The film is World War […]

Here’s a based-on-a-true-story courtroom drama that transcends the limits of its genre by virtue of an incisive and unexpectedly prescient script. Twenty years before 2016 sent us hurtling through the looking glass and into a post-truth era, the idea that you could deny the facts as you pleased teetered terrifyingly on the brink of legitimacy […]

Not to be confused with the American cop thriller with the same name, Shōhei Imamura’s Black Rain is about the atomic bomb, but it’s not really concerned about nuclear warfare. Sure, the film opens with gruesome shots of the day the bomb dropped, not sparing the viewers from the gore and the titular nuclear fallout, […]

To Hollywood’s shame, it wasn’t until 1998 that a major feature made by Native American filmmakers was released. It was this charming indie gem that belatedly broke that new ground: based on author Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Smoke Signals retains the irreverent humor hinted at in its source material’s […]

No one likes to be replaced. Even when it gets difficult, hardwork and years put in effort to take and keep these roles makes it feel precious, and that’s exactly how househelp Raquel feels in The Maid. It’s a funny domestic comedy, with a scowling Catalina Saavedra ready to protect the role she’s held onto […]

A mother and her two children move from Colombia to Queens, New York to join the father. Once there, he abandons them and moves to Miami. With no family to fall back on, barely speaking English, an inexistent social welfare system and two little kids who require care; the mother quickly runs out of options. […]

While not containing the most famous cartoon mouse, The Secret of NIMH nonetheless is a childhood classic about mice for kids from the 80s, launching the animation studio Don Bluth Productions to rival Disney. As such, the film takes a departure from the usual kid’s cartoon standards, taking less time in musical spectacle, and more […]

Food can warm you, can nourish you, and can make you feel so much better. Food is also the way people can keep their culture, with techniques and knowledge passed down by generations to better make use of the ingredients in the country. However, in Like Water for Chocolate, food is the means for rebellion, […]

While surpassed by the masterpiece Tár, Todd Field already garnered critical acclaim by his first feature debut In The Bedroom all the way back in 2001. The story is a familiar revenge drama that we might have heard from stories from small towns, but the way Field captures it is fascinating, with its challenging, layered […]

The entirety of Pieces of April takes place on Thanksgiving Day, a busy holiday meant to bring loved ones together. Sure enough, April, the eldest Burns daughter, takes great pains to prepare a nice dinner for her visiting family. But we soon learn that she is motivated less by excitement than by dread: she’s long […]

Based on a true story, Freedom Writers follows Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank), a new teacher tasked to educate a class of at-risk students in a racially divided community. By encouraging expression, empathy, and ambition, Erin helps them navigate and even go beyond the prejudice and violence that have long defined their experience. Though it sounds […]

Family movies were made to teach a lesson or two – whether it be loving dear parents, being a tad empathetic about others, or simply cherishing the moment. Like a true family dramedy, August: Osage County is all that, and more. The Westons is a family seemingly (actually, more like) falling apart at the seams […]

A group of male friends become obsessed with a group of mysterious sisters who are sheltered by their strict, religious parents after one of them commits suicide. Sofia Coppola does a great job taking the novel and turning it into a full featured movie. The movie is admittedly a bit slow, but it paints such […]

A comedy (!) that follows James (Benedict Cumberbatch) a man terminal cancer who knows that he doesn’t have long to live, so he goes on a journey with his closest friends, Bill (Adam Robertson), Davy (Tom Burke) and Miles (JJ Field), to Barafundle Bay in Wales. The journey itself is funny and the characters have many issues to sort […]

Generally, a mentorship is a great way to find guidance and direction, but rarely do we discuss the importance of finding the right mentor– or the right mentors– and that it sometimes takes a while to find a great fit. Searching for Bobby Fischer is about real-life child chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin, but rather than […]

Things We Lost in the Fire is a touching drama about Audrey (Hall Berry), a married mother-of-two, whose husband Brian (David Duchovny) is killed tragically in a random act of violence. Amidst her grief she comes to connect with Jerry (Benicio Del Toro), Brian’s childhood friend who is living an isolated life as a junkie, […]