The Best R Movies to Watch (+Mood: Uplifting)

“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) […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The idea of representation in movies is often limited to superficial gestures of putting on screen people who look a certain way. Kokomo City is a reminder of cinema’s possibilities when one really tries to queer filmmaking itself, with genuine queer voices driving a production. This documentary is messy and incredibly playful in its style—in […]

As biopics go, Cassandro skews towards the conventional. It follows a template familiar to anyone who has seen a life-story movie about the underdog climbing up the ranks thanks to their unmatchable heart and talent. But it’s also a template that’s elevated by Bernal’s wonderful performance and Roger Ross Williams’ careful and naturalistic direction. Save […]

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 […]

In the Great Seduction, locals of a small town trick a bigshot doctor into thinking that despite the place’s insufficiencies, it’s still worth settling into. They pretend to love American football because it’s his favorite sport. They leave paper bills to make him think he’s lucky. They eavesdrop on his calls to learn what dish […]

The messy, non-linear process of grieving is always tough to capture meaningfully on screen—and there are definitely parts of Good Grief that trail off without much feeling or go on for too long without making new points. But the good still outweighs the bad in Dan Levy’s directorial debut, with the inherent impracticality of death […]

If Katrina Babies seems like a somewhat disjointed account of the myriad responses to Hurricane Katrina and the U.S. government’s horrible, anti-poor response to the disaster, director Edward Buckles Jr. uses this structure with much more intent. For once this is a documentary that feels like citizen reporting and not a sanitized report from experts […]

Primarily, Cha Cha Real Smooth follows Andrew (Cooper Raiff) as he figures out what to do with his life post-college. But peripherally, it’s also about love, friendship, coming of age, and parenthood. Sometimes the movie wobbles under the weight of all it wants to be and you start to wonder whether it would benefit from […]

A documentary told entirely through animated avatars can be a hard sell, but instead of playing into the expected jokes, director Joe Hunting takes this digital environment extremely seriously, and that makes all the difference. He doesn’t downplay how absurd it is to see what are essentially 3D characters going on dates and having bellydance […]

It sounds like a great idea to a documentary on minor league basketball players. After all, these are individuals who don’t yet have their stories written for them by public opinion, and each of them is an underdog living in close proximity to their ultimate goal, but still not good enough to get there. So […]

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 […]

Romantically pairing up AI with humans is hardly new, and I’m Your Man is aware of that. Instead of spending way too much time explaining the advanced tech that makes the perfect mate possible, the movie zeroes in on its charismatic leads Tom the robot (Dan Stevens) and Alma the indifferent academic (Maren Eggert). Tom […]

A music documentary with its star as one of its main talking heads runs the risk of coming off like cheap PR, but Tina Turner’s own articulate insights never restrict this retrospective on her life. If anything, she assists directors Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin in expanding the film’s scope to cover the origins of […]

This fun comedy-drama is about a New York playwright called Radha who never hit big. When she turns 40, she decides to reinvent herself as RadhaMUSPrime, a rapper. And it’s all a personal affair: Radha Blank plays the main character (named after herself) and is also the writer, director, and producer. The story is about […]

You’ll recognize more than a few faces in Uncle Frank. There are no mega-stars but the caliber of acting in this 70s story is truly impressive. Beth is an 18-year-old in rural South Carolina who grew up admiring the family member she could relate to the most: her uncle, a college professor living in New […]

This offbeat drama is about a Syrian refugee who gets sent to a remote island in northern Scotland. “There was a better signal in the middle of the Mediterranean,” another refugee tells him when he arrives. Omar is as the title suggests stuck: until his asylum request is processed he can’t work or continue his […]

A quiet movie about an unpredictable convict who gets enrolled in a wild mustang taming program. These initiatives, common around the country, offer fascinating parallels: both the horses and the inmates are emprisoned, both innately fight against their condition but are actively being made to comply. The central performance by Matthias Schoenaerts is nothing short […]

This uplifting Canadian sports drama is based on a true story set in the remote Nunavut town of Kugluktuk. The small community has the highest teen suicide rate in North America, as it suffers from intergenerational trauma, and the resulting alcohol and drug abuse. A new young history teacher who is sent by the government […]

Shia Laboeuf and Stellan Skarsgård star in this true story about one of the greatest tennis matches in history: the 1980 Wimbledon final. The movie dissects what drives both competitors (one played by Laboeuf and the other by Sverrir Gudnason). Their personalities, considered opposites, are studied through their paths and how they got into tennis. […]

A revelation of a movie, both in filmmaking and commercial success. While little-known abroad, it has made more than $42 million in US Box Office revenue out of a tiny $5 million budget. Kumail Nanjiani, stand-up comedian and star of the show Silicon Valley, tells his own story of romance with his now-wife Emily V. Gordon (who co-wrote the […]

Richard Linklater’s spiritual successor to Dazed and Confused invites you back to 1980 with a group of college freshmen discovering and navigating their first taste of young adulthood. Linklater is best known for balancing authentic dialogue and earnest performances, both of which shine in this movie. Notable performances are given by all in this ensemble […]

So far, chemical waste hasn’t mutated amphibious creatures enough to create giant monsters large enough to swallow people whole… yet. This sort of monster film premise is familiar, especially for fans of 1950s sci-fi movies, but in the hands of director Bong Joon-ho, The Host transforms what could have been B-movie schlock into a drama […]

Love is Strange is an even-handed drama about a Ben and George (John Lithgow and Alfred Molina), a loving couple who marry after 39 years of companionship, only to face a series of unexpected consequences of their decision. George is fired from his position as a music teacher, they’re forced to sell their home, and […]

Doris Miller is an unassuming sixty-something office worker whose life takes an unusual turn after her mother passes away. We find out over the course of the film that Doris’ life was put on hold early when she had to give up her dreams and ambitions to take care of her mother. Something is awakened […]

A popular chef loses his job and respect after a bad review. He ends up with a food truck and tries to show the world he still has his creative side, while at the same time trying to fix his broken family. Chef is a heartwarming feel-good movie, after you finish it you will want […]

Adventureland is a retro-tinged movie about teens in Pittsburgh working at a run down amusement park during the summer of 1987. It is marketed as similar to Superbad, when in fact the only thing they have in common is the Director. Adventureland is funny, but it is more sweet, tender, and intimate. Touching on themes […]

Good parents, of course, try to push their children to better outcomes, but abusive parents, under the guise of this idea, turn this into restrictive control, where failure is irredeemable, expectations become orders, and the said child is blamed for everything that goes wrong. Udaan depicts this fraught father-son relationship realistically. It’s a tough watch […]

Although it opens on Janet Frame’s first steps as a baby, this Jane Campion-directed biopic of the celebrated New Zealand writer doesn’t take an exhaustive approach to its subject’s life. We frequently only learn of milestones — the many awards she won, the death of her mother — later on and in passing. In a […]

Happy-Go-Lucky is a Mike Leigh feel-good movie tells the story of Poppy, a North London teacher, whose story we follow through a number of different situations: driving lessons, solving work issues, having fun with friends, all while trying not to lose her optimism. The acting is superb, Sally Hawkins is a gem as Poppy, and […]

Warm and nourishing as the film’s cuisine, Soul Food is a celebration of the modern African-American family, represented here by the Josephs. The Chicagoan family has a longstanding tradition of making dinner together every Sunday—a ritual, we’re told, that’s lasted for at least 40 years. However, when the matriarch Big Mama Joe gets hospitalized, the […]