The Best Uplifting Movies to Watch

When two young brides are mistakenly swapped on a train, it’s a difficult situation, much more so when the brides in question are both veiled and wearing the same red bridal attire. This seemingly simple swap is the entire plot of Laapataa Ladies, but director Kiran Rao transforms this mishap into a hilarious, yet realistic, […]

When the world gets dark– when something bad happens that makes you lose your faith in the world around you– it can be hard to think that art would be of any help. After all, a piece of paper with scribbles on it can’t undo the wrong that’s happened, or help out directly with the […]

“The healing power of art” sounds cheesy, but it’s a statement made beautiful and true in Ghostlight. It’s the sensitively told and wonderfully performed story of an ordinary man who, up until this point, doesn’t even know how Romeo and Juliet ends. That’s how detached he is from art. But when Rita (Dolly de Leon) […]

Though wordless and human-less, Flow might be one of the most charming films about humanity you’ll ever see. It follows a group of different-species animals who’ve formed an unlikely bond as they try to survive a massive flood. There’s a quirky lemur, a friendly dog, a majestic bird, a wise capybara, and connecting them all […]

Art is a hobby for most people, but for musician Jon Batiste and writer Suleika Jaouad, art is part and parcel of this thing called life. Of course, it’s part of their work, and it’s how they make a livelihood, but it’s more than that– it’s almost a spiritual ritual they cling to, especially when […]

For the longest time, television seemed to be the antithesis to reading– part of that belief still lingers to this day. However, just before the turn of the millennium, there was a show that didn’t find itself opposite to it, instead, it wanted to be its ally. That show was Reading Rainbow. Butterfly in the […]

Of all the Christmas-set films to have come out over the last couple of months that were, inexplicably, about grief and regret (you’d be surprised by how many there are), The Holdovers easily outdoes its contemporaries by being confident enough to just sit with its characters. Like the best of director Alexander Payne’s other films, […]

Mountain Queen isn’t just a movie about a professional mountain climber, although Lhakpa Sherpa is certainly impressive as she trudges through the deathly terrain of Everest (and at 50 years old at that!). It’s also the heartbreaking story of a broken family in repair. Sherpa reveals shocking details about her abusive husband, fellow climber Gheorghe […]

A 100-minute highlight reel of the audacious 24-hour performance staged by artist Taylor Mac in 2016, this concert film succeeds not only in capturing the show’s eclectic mix of songs, drag costumes, and interactive audience segments, but in capturing the emotional atmosphere conjured up in that Brooklyn warehouse. The very premise of the performance is […]

Simple but lovely movies like Fallen Leaves are hard to come by these days. While others rely on complicated dialogue or overly ambitious premises to be deemed deep or important, Director Aki Kaurismäki trusts that his material is strong enough. After all, its silence speaks volumes; the characters don’t say much but when they do, […]

We’re familiar with dick jokes from stand-up comedians, especially male stand-up, but Jacqueline Novak’s 90-minute show about the blow job feels completely new. Get on Your Knees feels like casual storytelling from someone experienced yet distant enough to be a cool authority on it (say, your best friend’s older sister’s best friend), but funnier. It’s […]

It’s hard not to be enchanted by Henson’s furtively creative world, which here is charmingly sectioned into nostalgic archival footage, stop motion art, and clips of Henson’s own experimental films early in his career. Those unfamiliar with Henson might think his story is simply the history of the Muppets and Sesame Street (though even then […]

At the peak of his fame in the 80s, Christopher Reeve was constantly seen as his onscreen character, Superman. Like him, Reeve could fly (planes). He was full of charm and stood for what was right. But in this revealing documentary, we learn the whole truth about Reeve; his troubled childhood, his initial struggles with […]

Going to sleep is something we do every day, though, when we were kids, it certainly wasn’t easy. With family-friendly source material and a new (and adorable!) sleepytime ensemble, Orion and the Dark plays with this fact of childhood, but screenwriter Charlie Kaufman transforms it into something more as the title characters journey into literal […]

Before she captivated the film world with her performance in Scorcese’s crime drama Killers of the Flower Moon, Lily Gladstone starred in Erica Tremblay’s feature film debut Fancy Dance, earlier in 2023. It’s a tragic drama, wherein Gladstone portrays Jax, a lesbian woman dealing with the government that failed to find her sister, and that […]

You don’t have to be a theater kid to enjoy this feel-good mockumentary set in a summer camp for junior thespians. While there are plenty of in-jokes here for those who might have spent a summer or two somewhere like AdirondACTS, Theater Camp also good-naturedly lampoons every instantly recognizable stereotype of theater kids and the […]

After winning Oscars for their documentary work, filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin make their narrative feature debut with Nyad. The move to narrative fiction isn’t a monumental jump for the director duo, whose cinematic documentaries (among them Free Solo and The Rescue) play like nerve-shredding action thrillers and intense human dramas. Nor does […]

Given the title, it isn’t surprising that Falling in Love Like in Movies would be a metanarrative with the main romance mirroring the filmmaking and the filmmaking reflecting the main romance. It’s a familiar approach, and at first, Falling seems to follow the inevitable ending where the couple falls in love, but right on time, […]

In 1984, Michael Jordan was a rising star and Nike had yet to make its mark in the basketball industry. With nothing to lose, Nike had to make a choice: settle behind the far more successful Adidas and Converse or shoot its shot and bet everything they have to win Jordan? You don’t have to […]

I love when a misunderstood woman reclaims her narrative with her own words, and that’s exactly what Pamela: A Love Story is too, a tell-all documentary told by Pamela Anderson herself. The documentary bares it all—the scandalous sex tape, Anderson’s troubled past, the disgusting misogyny that continues to tarnish her career. She even touches on […]

Young Woman and the Sea is a neatly told, inspiring story about a woman who went against the tide to cement her legacy as one of the most fearless athletes to exist. The movie is polished and nicely detailed, anchored by winning performances and a triumphantly dramatic script—basically everything you’d expect from a Disney movie. […]

2023 was a great year for animation with films like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Nimona, and The Boy and the Heron, but there was another animated gem that flew under the radar and that’s jazz drama Blue Giant. It’s a pleasure to both the eyes and the ears as Dai Miyamoto blows on his saxophone, […]

The Beatles ‘64 zeroes in on a precise moment in The Beatles timeline: their American debut, which propelled them from English boyband to Global sensation. Since their appearance in The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, they’ve been on a nonstop upward trajectory to success. The documentary, co-produced by Martin Scorsese, explores why that is by […]

As host Hannah Gadsby explains at the beginning of this stand-up showcase, Netflix only really gave her and these other queer comedians this special after Gadsby sent a strongly worded message to the streaming service first. So as expected from a move that feels more like a business decision than a sincere gesture, Hannah Gadsby’s […]

You don’t need to know a lot about baseball to appreciate The Saint of Second Chances. It has enough going on to keep you hooked from start to end, beginning with Jeff Daniels’ inimitable voice as the narrator and Charlie Day’s inspired casting as the younger Veeck, all the way down to the Veecks’ fascinating […]

Friday Night Plan resembles many a classic teen film (most notably, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Booksmart), but it also doubles as a thoughtful inquiry into the delicate bond between siblings who could not be more different from one another. Sid and his younger brother Adi (Amrith Jayan) have different ideas of what matters most […]

Many people lament the decline of the mid-budget drama with Hollywood A-listers in the lead roles, and for good reason: when the charms of an inspirational, feel-good true story work, they really work. The Burial seems to have been made with this same, unabashedly sentimental attitude, and it makes for an endlessly watchable courtroom underdog […]

Difficult but essential viewing, Procession tracks the progress of six men undergoing art therapy—specifically, by creating short filmed scenes to process their trauma from being sexually abused by Catholic priests. The resulting films we get to see are wildly varied in the emotions they express, forming a rich and powerful tapestry of the effects abuse […]

Elton John’s latest concert film follows the same structure as most current music documentaries: it splices present-day footage of the musician doing his latest (and final tour) with flashbacks of his past. In either rare archival footage or lovely animation, we see snippets of his troubled childhood, his serendipitous meet-up with writing partner Bernie Taupin, […]

Judy Blume, the author behind enduring classics like Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Superfudge, and Forever, gifts us with her comforting presence and precise insight in Judy Blume Forever, a delightful documentary about a delightful woman. Here, Blume looks back and lets us in on the eventful private life that inspired her prolific […]

Silver Dollar Road isn’t a new story– it’s one of many that comes as a consequence of systematic Black land loss that continues to happen to this day. Director Raoul Peck tells it in a new way, completely focusing on the Reels family and hearing their story entirely, from the initial confusion to two of […]

Bank of Dave is a simple but well-told film that feels utterly satisfying from start to end. Dave is the little guy who only wants to give back to his community, but stopping him from achieving his noble goals are the big guys in suits with vested interests and too narrow a focus to appreciate […]

The mythology surrounding Sylvester Stallone: the action hero is so big and successful that many people, including myself, often forget about Sylvester Stallone: the prolific writer. He failed to bag roles as a young actor in the 1970s, so he whipped out a script (in a span of three days!) that became the iconic film […]

You’d think a Disney movie about a sweet kid overcoming the difficulties of cerebral palsy would be overly sweet or forcefully positive (Disney-fied, if you will), but Out of My Mind is surprisingly tempered. A smart and sensitive script and great performances across the board work to make the film a balanced and heart-warming portrait […]

The Harry Potter movies undoubtedly changed the lives of its young stars forever — but a stuntman whose future the films had more tragic consequences for is the deserved focus of this moving documentary. David Holmes was just 17 when he was hired as Daniel Radcliffe’s stunt double, a role he held throughout the series. […]

Although Descendant is built around the finding of the Clotilda—the last ship to bring African slaves to the United States—this documentary knows that there’s so much more potent drama in the stories of the ordinary people of Africatown, Alabama. As this painful reminder of the roots of their community is salvaged from the water, their […]