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Against the Tide
(2023)
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Poulomi Das
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The documentary’s examination of a community caught between tradition and progress is enlivened by Kaur’s commitment to spotlighting their invisibilized lives.
Posted Mar 08, 2023
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EO
(2022)
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Dan Schindel
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EO’s universe seems a godless one; there’s no philosophical reason for the pain that human and nonhuman animals endure.
Posted Feb 27, 2023
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The Stroll
(2023)
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Dan Schindel
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"The Stroll" is not just a chronicle of trans life and activism in the 1980s and ’90s, but also of urban “renewal” in the 21st century.
Posted Feb 27, 2023
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To the End
(2022)
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Dan Schindel
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Despite "To the End"’s insistence on hope, its most indelible moments are those that are honest about the understandable trepidation so many of us feel about the future.
Posted Feb 17, 2023
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Squaring the Circle
(2022)
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Dan Schindel
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As it stands, "Squaring the Circle" is a reasonably informative, if rather dry, look at a subject with much more potential for exploration.
Posted Feb 17, 2023
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The Rules of the Game
(1939)
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Eileen G'Sell
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Jean Renoir’s newly restored 1939 classic proves that lawless wealth — then as now — makes a marvelous farce of us all.
Posted Feb 17, 2023
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The Art of Making It
(2021)
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Dan Schindel
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The documentary has impressive access to contemporary art world figures, but comes up with no good solutions for the many problems it discusses.
Posted Nov 14, 2022
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It Is Night in America
(2022)
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Andrew Northrop
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"It is Night in America" gives liminal forms a limelight they are usually not afforded. The title embodies this.
Posted Nov 14, 2022
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INU-OH
(2021)
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Juan Barquin
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Masaaki Yuasa’s latest anime feature embodies a revolutionary spirit in its tale of outcasts breaking ground in medieval Japan.
Posted Nov 14, 2022
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Sharp Stick
(2022)
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Dan Schindel
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Featuring a delicate lead performance by Christine Froseth, this is a smart, sometimes purposefully discomfiting comedy about taking control of one’s sexuality.
Posted Nov 14, 2022
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The Territory
(2022)
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Dan Schindel
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As the Uru-eu-wau-wau people face continued incursion by Brazilian farmers, they take an active role in this documentary about them.
Posted Nov 14, 2022
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Funny Pages
(2022)
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Dan Schindel
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With its cast of oddballs and dilapidated urbanity, "Funny Pages" speaks not just about a past era of cartooning but an earlier of trend of films inspired by it.
Posted Nov 14, 2022
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Daisies
(1966)
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Eileen G'Sell
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With its recent 4k restoration, "Daisies" endures as a New Wave masterpiece and hyper-feminine smorgasbord of sensory pleasure.
Posted Nov 14, 2022
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Three Thousand Years of Longing
(2022)
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Mark Asch
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Alternating between charmingly and cringingly unfashionable, George Miller’s "Three Thousand Years of Longing" defies some orientalist tropes while falling prey to others.
Posted Nov 14, 2022
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Loving Highsmith
(2022)
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Dan Schindel
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"Loving Highsmith" might not bring viewers any closer to understanding Patricia Highsmith, but perhaps it’s appropriate that she remains in many ways enigmatic.
Posted Nov 14, 2022
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All That Breathes
(2022)
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Eileen G'Sell
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"All That Breathes" is profoundly empathetic toward all living kind, compelling a radical reassessment of the boundaries many imagine exist between nature and civilization, along with the boundaries we insist on building between ourselves.
Posted Nov 14, 2022
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We Met in Virtual Reality
(2022)
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Dan Schindel
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"We Met in Virtual Reality" raises the bar for VR filmmaking, and has an optimistic vision for the potential of the metaverse.
Posted Nov 10, 2022
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Nope
(2022)
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Dan Schindel
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“Nope” is another equally thrilling and smart ride from the rising director, subtly tackling intersecting ideas about “seeing” and “being seen” along the way.
Posted Nov 10, 2022
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Aftershock
(2022)
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Dan Schindel
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"Aftershock" is a confrontation, a reminder that “Black Lives Matter” isn’t just a rallying cry against overt, visible brutality like what’s performed by the police.
Posted Nov 10, 2022
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The Deer King
(2021)
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Kambole Campbell
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"The Deer King"’s delicate world-building plus its curious mix of the medical and the spiritual creates a strikingly different fantasy film.
Posted Nov 10, 2022
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Terra Femme
(2021)
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Dan Schindel
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Courtney Stephens’s documentary on women’s travels from the 1920s to ’50s presents not just personal glimpses into daily life a century ago but also documents of colonialism.
Posted Nov 10, 2022
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My Imaginary Country
(2022)
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Dan Schindel
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Patricio Guzmán combines reflection on the past, observation of the present, and hope for the future into an expansive vision of all the ideas he’s explored in his work.
Posted Nov 10, 2022
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White Noise
(2022)
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Dan Schindel
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Writer and director Noah Baumbach and his crew have managed something that decently embodies the vibe of the book. Unfortunately, turning a masterpiece of English literature into something merely decent is its own kind of failure.
Posted Nov 10, 2022
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The Computer Accent
(2022)
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Dan Schindel
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The Computer Accent helps illustrate the prospective uses of AI, along with how much, much further it has to go.
Posted Nov 10, 2022
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Stars at Noon
(2022)
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Eileen G'Sell
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While the tropical swelter and urban detritus feel authentic enough — and surely sate the most ravenous of Denisian appetites for gritty foreign tumult — the director’s choice to adapt the novel’s plot to the present day feels a bit misguided.
Posted Nov 10, 2022
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No Bears
(2022)
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Dan Schindel
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With his latest film, Jafar Panahi suggests that cinema might be a great art worth fighting for, but it may not be able to save anyone.
Posted Nov 10, 2022
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From Where They Stood
(2021)
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Dan Schindel
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"From Where They Stood" makes a game attempt to grapple with the full weight of history that bears down on the most deceptively serene vistas.
Posted Sep 16, 2022
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Murina
(2021)
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Manuela Lazic
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Croatian filmmaker Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović expertly breaks down the forced servitude and the brutal familial mechanisms of a certain kind of Balkan machismo.
Posted Sep 16, 2022
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Both Sides of the Blade
(2021)
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Sam Bodrojan
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Looking at late work from a lauded auteur, there’s a temptation to be so enamored with their artistic quirks and thematic throughlines that one can’t label a failure for what it is.
Posted Sep 16, 2022
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Losing Ground
(1982)
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Jourdain Searles
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Ignored and undistributed upon its debut in 1982, in the decades since, the film “Losing Ground” has slowly gained the recognition it deserves.
Posted Aug 22, 2022
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Flux Gourmet
(2022)
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Cole Kronman
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The movie lapses into pure meaning and/or intention, asking the characters to bear the full weight of its central culinary metaphor, and while that metaphor is imaginative, it’s significantly less complex than those of Strickland’s earlier films.
Posted Jun 28, 2022
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Beba
(2021)
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Bedatri D. Choudhury
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This documentary could have been a collective cleansing experience, but instead it is, as she asserts from the outset, only Huntt’s story.
Posted Jun 28, 2022
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Bitterbrush
(2021)
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Dan Schindel
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Set in remote Idaho, Bitterbrush is a satisfyingly different kind of Western.
Posted Jun 28, 2022
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Neptune Frost
(2021)
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Steve Macfarlane
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Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman’s new film performs a radical intervention upon the science fiction genre.
Posted Jun 28, 2022
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Fire Island
(2022)
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Dillon Heyck
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In relocating the Jane Austen classic to a contemporary vacation haven, Fire Island explores intersecting issues of race and class in the gay community.
Posted Jun 28, 2022
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Mad God
(2021)
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Dan Schindel
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Made over the course of 30 years by special effects legend Phil Tippett, this stop-motion animated epic is a feast of creatively horrifying imagery.
Posted Jun 27, 2022
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End of the Line
(2021)
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Dan Schindel
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End of the Line captures five years of failed efforts to fix the city’s disastrously bad train infrastructure.
Posted Jun 27, 2022
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Crimes of the Future
(2022)
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Sophie Monks Kaufman
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Starring Léa Seydoux, Viggo Mortensen, and Kristen Stewart, Crimes of the Future is funny, serious, and sexy all at once.
Posted Jun 27, 2022
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The Janes
(2022)
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Dan Schindel
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The Janes interviews former members of Chicago’s underground network that helped people secure abortions.
Posted Jun 27, 2022
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Showing Up
(2022)
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Sophie Monks Kaufman
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Showing Up is a rare film about the art world that presents a scene of artists who won’t be getting rich off their work.
Posted Jun 27, 2022
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Eiffel
(2021)
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Jake Cole
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Eiffel inadvertently paints its protagonist not as a great man worthy of scrutiny or praise, but as the Elon Musk of his day.
Posted Jun 27, 2022
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Triangle of Sadness
(2022)
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Sophie Monks Kaufman
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Triangle of Sadness has no politics beyond gesturing toward extreme wealth and power and saying, “That ain’t right,” and it has no counterpoint to this paradigm which it presents so sneeringly.
Posted Jun 27, 2022
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Mau
(2021)
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Sophia Stewart
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MAU is too charmed by its subject to nail down what he has achieved, or why people should even care about him in the first place.
Posted Jun 21, 2022
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Men
(2022)
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Dan Schindel
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In yet another horror movie that’s actually about trauma, writer-director Alex Garland makes his points bluntly, having one actor play many facets of misogyny.
Posted Jun 14, 2022
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The Tsugua Diaries
(2021)
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Dan Schindel
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Despite its easygoing atmosphere, this is a film that rewards your attention and your engagement, continually revealing layers the more you think about it.
Posted Jun 11, 2022
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Cane Fire
(2020)
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Aaron Hunt
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Anthony Banua-Simon’s documentary Cane Fire contrasts decades of Hollywood images of his home with its current reality.
Posted Jun 11, 2022
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Hatching
(2022)
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Eileen G'Sell
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Hanna Bergholm’s stunningly original debut film Hatching embraces the experience of female adolescence as the monster that it is, and then gives that monster literal wings.
Posted Jun 11, 2022
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Panda! Go Panda
(1973)
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Dan Schindel
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You don’t have to be an anime-head to appreciate these early-career shorts by the founders of Studio Ghibli.
Posted Jun 11, 2022
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Pleasure
(2021)
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Justine Smith
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Ninja Thyberg’s film replicates a common plot structure for classic porn as it follows a young performer entering the business, but its focus is on the labor involved.
Posted Jun 11, 2022
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Charlotte
(2021)
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Dan Schindel
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Charlotte fails to truly depict the famed artist’s work and pain. It may just be that no other artist can tell Salomon’s story better than she already did.
Posted May 05, 2022
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