The Best NR Movies to Watch on Hoopla

Who would’ve thought a wordless, black-and-white, slapstick comedy would still be hugely entertaining in this day and age? Hundreds of Beavers is created in the same spirit as the Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton comedies of yore, but it’s a tribute that manages to feel fresh, exciting, and unpredictable. The premise is simple: a man […]

It’s immediately apparent that there are more carefully made documentaries out there than Remembering Gene Wilder. The film is riddled with pixelated photos for one, and the overall tone is fawning for another. But Wilder is too great of a man to be affected by mediocre filmmaking, and so Remembering Gene Wilder still makes for […]

It’s not often you get a female perspective on the USSR, much less a female artist with little means. Signe Baumane’s autobiographical My Love Affair With Marriage is one of the few ones, and not only is her story raw and refreshing, it’s also told through lovely animation and musical numbers. The result is something […]

Sophie Compton and Reubyn Hamlyn’s British-American documentary about the harm of deepfakes won the SXSW Special Jury Award for its innovative storytelling and deservingly so. The two filmmakers use a clever and considerate way to let a young woman fictitiously named Taylor share her story of how she found deepfake pornography of herself online. With […]

Formally speaking, 20 Days in Mariupol is little more than a compilation of footage bravely collected by Mstyslav Chernov in Ukraine, excerpts of which may seem familiar from when they were broadcast by major news stations. Unsure of whether or not Chernov would survive long enough to pass on his footage, he shot as much […]

Rather than talking about what it takes to get to the other side of the border, Identifying Features instead focuses its attention back home. It’s part of the reason why the film actually highlights how difficult this actually is– Before even reaching it, people hoping to enter America go through a dangerous journey, many of […]

In 2005, Palestinian olive farmer Emad Burnat bought a camera to document the birth of his new son, Jibreel. But what was intended as an act of celebration quickly grew into something else, as Burnat inadvertently became a documentarian of the oppression his West Bank village faced when a wall was erected through it and […]

Danish writer-director Lars von Trier concludes his so-called Depression trilogy with the two parts of Nymphomaniac, an elaborate retelling of the life of a young woman (played by Stacy Martin and then, by Charlotte Gainsbourg) lived from one libidinous pleasure to another. The film’s elaborate subplots have a life of their own and flashbacks often […]

Our Children opens at the harrowing end of the true story it’s based on: with the image of a distraught mother (Émilie Dequenne) in a hospital bed, begging a police officer to ensure that her children — who have just predeceased her — are buried in Morocco. From this ominous beginning, the film rewinds into […]

Despite how the title sounds like, the horror of Bedevilled isn’t a devil, a demon, or a spirit. It isn’t even the way childhood friend Bok-nam snaps, taking up a scythe and going on a murderous rampage to kill all the people that wronged her. No, the actual horror of Bedevilled is that everyday people […]

Making a video for a concept album isn’t particularly new, but you’d be hard pressed to find a feature as whimsical as Harry Nilsson’s The Point. Framed as a fable a father tells his son, The Point takes Nilsson’s psychedelic soundtrack to score a pun-filled fairytale with a seemingly on-the-nose moral, but the combination proves […]

The Children’s Hour was one of the few sympathetic depictions of a lesbian character at a time when same-sex relationships were illegal. That being said, the film doesn’t really focus on forming a couple. It’s also about how destructive the rumor mill can be, but really, the film is  mostly an indictment of how terrible […]

What would you do if your parents were Nazis? Based on the second novella of Rachel Seiffert’s The Dark Room, Lore tells the story of a Nazi officer’s children travelling together after the Allied victory. It’s a harrowing journey, of course, given the end of the war. But writer-director Cate Shortland takes that journey even […]

Has there ever been a romance film more iconic than Love Affair? Modern moviegoers might find the plot a tad simple, the scenes too reliant on dialogue, and the pace a bit slow, but this film is a classic for a reason. Love Affair works through good ol’ fashioned chemistry. It’s easy to credit this […]

There are plenty of great Hollywood movie musicals from the 1950s that are still held in high regard today. Guys and Dolls is one such musical, though perhaps it hasn’t gotten the iconic status that other MGM musicals garnered due to its uneven casting. Nevertheless, the film version of the popular stage musical adapts it […]

Rife with controversy and released after one of the leads’ death, it’s no wonder that The Misfits was commercially panned upon release despite the big names on its cast. But make no mistake– it’s a pretty good movie. It’s not the usual movie that the leads would have made, but maybe it’s because of this […]

Anthology films aren’t for everyone, but it’s a fitting choice for 4 Moons. With each moon phase representing the stage in the couples’ respective relationships, the film gets to explore gay relationships in such a comprehensive way, creating a bird’s eye view of how lovers like the couples in the film live and love. It’s […]

War Witch is depressing to watch. Having to choose between killing your parents yourself versus having them killed in a worse fashion by someone else is a cruel selection no child deserves to make, and War Witch poses that selection literally within the first five minutes, inspired by the real life recruitment mechanisms of child […]

In response to violence, some people consider aggression as the only solution, especially in a place that cannot rely on institutions– fighting fire with fire, but fighting for the good. Tyrannosaur depicts a British town with men that only operate on a mix of this idea, but this rage becomes relentless, unceasing, and never lies […]