1
|
|
Derek DelGaudio's In & of Itself (2020)
|
Elisabeth Vincentelli
|
It is not often that a magic show makes you ponder not just the how, but the why.
EDIT
Posted Jan 22, 2021
|
2
|
|
Turksib (1929)
|
Mordaunt Hall
|
Turksib is one of the most interesting films that has come out of Russia.
EDIT
Posted Jan 21, 2021
|
3
|
|
The White Tiger (2021)
|
A.O. Scott
|
The characters don't quite come to life. They aren't trapped by prescribed social roles so much as by the programmatic design of the narrative, which insists it is showing things as they really are.
EDIT
Posted Jan 21, 2021
|
4
|
|
The Human Factor (2019)
|
Ben Kenigsberg
|
Presents a cogent and involving view of the Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, mainly from 1991 until the end of Bill Clinton's first term, told through the recollections of United States negotiators charged with brokering a peace.
EDIT
Posted Jan 21, 2021
|
5
|
|
Identifying Features (2020)
|
Teo Bugbee
|
Though it is a somber story, the film is enlivened and energized by striking, purposeful images.
EDIT
Posted Jan 21, 2021
|
6
|
|
Atlantis (2019)
|
Glenn Kenny
|
Vasyanovych and his actors manage to make this parable both heartening and stupefying.
EDIT
Posted Jan 21, 2021
|
7
|
|
Spoor (2017)
|
Ben Kenigsberg
|
"Spoor" is sensationally atmospheric.
EDIT
Posted Jan 21, 2021
|
8
|
|
You Will Die at Twenty (2019)
|
Devika Girish
|
Alala deepens this simple, fable-like premise into a lyrical confrontation with the certitudes of faith and the life-giving powers of doubt.
EDIT
Posted Jan 21, 2021
|
9
|
|
Notturno (2020)
|
Nicolas Rapold
|
Eschewing interviews and captions, Rosi puts his faith in a steady tripod camera and an evident ability to build up trust.
EDIT
Posted Jan 21, 2021
|
10
|
|
Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (2021)
|
Beatrice Loayza
|
"Preparations" manifests its protagonist's uncertainty through fluttering reflections and slinky shadows, and images that conceal and obscure the full picture.
EDIT
Posted Jan 21, 2021
|
11
|
|
No Man's Land (2021)
|
Jeannette Catsoulis
|
Strangled by good intentions and teachable-moment clichés, Conor Allyn's "No Man's Land" turns the border between Texas and Mexico into a gateway to racial empathy.
EDIT
Posted Jan 21, 2021
|
12
|
|
Our Friend (2019)
|
Jeannette Catsoulis
|
How could an article that grappled openly with the horrors of terminal illness grow into a Lifetime-ready weepie like this?
EDIT
Posted Jan 21, 2021
|
13
|
|
The Salt of Tears (2020)
|
Glenn Kenny
|
Renato Berta's cinematography lends an expansiveness to its ordinary settings, both urban and semirural.
EDIT
Posted Jan 20, 2021
|
14
|
|
MLK/FBI (2020)
|
A.O. Scott
|
"MLK/FBI" is fair to all parties without being neutral or timid.
EDIT
Posted Jan 14, 2021
|
15
|
|
Acasa, My Home (2020)
|
A.O. Scott
|
It's both intimate and analytical, a sensitive portrait of real people undergoing enormous change and a meditation on what that change might mean.
EDIT
Posted Jan 14, 2021
|
16
|
|
Anna Lucasta (1958)
|
Bosley Crowther
|
[An] incredibly artless film.
EDIT
Posted Jan 14, 2021
|
17
|
|
Don't Tell a Soul (2020)
|
Glenn Kenny
|
With every pout, Whitehead seems to puff with pride, as if to say "Here I reveal yet another terrible aspect of the American Character."
EDIT
Posted Jan 14, 2021
|
18
|
|
One Night in Miami (2020)
|
A.O. Scott
|
This is one of the most exciting movies I've seen in quite some time.
EDIT
Posted Jan 14, 2021
|
19
|
|
Film About a Father Who (2020)
|
Ben Kenigsberg
|
[A] brisk, prismatic and richly psychodramatic family portrait...
EDIT
Posted Jan 14, 2021
|
20
|
|
Bloody Hell (2020)
|
Teo Bugbee
|
It's a buffet of only sour dishes, a rank fete of foulness.
EDIT
Posted Jan 14, 2021
|
21
|
|
My Little Sister (2020)
|
Jeannette Catsoulis
|
"My Little Sister," a tender domestic drama from the Swiss writers and directors Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond, faces terminal illness with a refreshing emotional candor.
EDIT
Posted Jan 14, 2021
|
22
|
|
Some Kind of Heaven (2020)
|
Ben Kenigsberg
|
Oppenheim resists easy misanthropy, showing unexpected empathy for people who have cocooned themselves from the outside world, only to confront its headaches anyway.
EDIT
Posted Jan 14, 2021
|
23
|
|
Hunted (2020)
|
Jeannette Catsoulis
|
Adding a fairy-tale cast to a generic horror setup is of no benefit to "Hunted," Vincent Paronnaud's unpleasant merger of slasher movie and survival thriller.
EDIT
Posted Jan 14, 2021
|
24
|
|
The Marksman (2021)
|
Jeannette Catsoulis
|
Predictable to a fault, the movie coasts pleasurably on Neeson's seasoned, sad-sweet charisma...
EDIT
Posted Jan 14, 2021
|
25
|
|
Locked Down (2021)
|
Natalia Winkelman
|
Mostly, the film already feels like a relic.
EDIT
Posted Jan 14, 2021
|
26
|
|
American Skin (2019)
|
Nicolas Rapold
|
Instead of lending immediacy, the padded-out documentary conceit only spotlights the stiltedness, and Parker falls short of building credible drama out of urgent issues.
EDIT
Posted Jan 14, 2021
|
27
|
|
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy (2021)
|
Devika Girish
|
A narrower focus might have allowed the film to better tease out such knotty material.
EDIT
Posted Jan 13, 2021
|
28
|
|
Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets (2021)
|
Glenn Kenny
|
The movie gets so drunk on its stylistic affectations (and unfunny attempts at cerebral comedy) that by the time it sobers up to take James's mental health seriously, it's too little, too late.
EDIT
Posted Jan 12, 2021
|
29
|
|
Blizzard of Souls (2019)
|
Glenn Kenny
|
Its good-taste approach to warfare, along with its treacly music score by Lolita Ritmanis, underscores what seems its main reason for being: a relentless "Go, Latvia!" agenda...
EDIT
Posted Jan 7, 2021
|
30
|
|
The Reason I Jump (2020)
|
Ben Kenigsberg
|
The portraits are moving and informative.
EDIT
Posted Jan 7, 2021
|
31
|
|
If Not Now, When? (2021)
|
Teo Bugbee
|
Marriages fail, children rebel, recovery commences - but who cares what happens on such a flimsy foundation? The stories never reach resolution because the relationships were indistinct from the beginning.
EDIT
Posted Jan 7, 2021
|
32
|
|
Beautiful Something Left Behind (2020)
|
Glenn Kenny
|
"Beautiful Something Left Behind" is a simple, elegant documentary about children coping with... heartbreaking loss, at a facility designed especially for them.
EDIT
Posted Jan 7, 2021
|
33
|
|
Grizzly II. Revenge (2020)
|
Jeannette Catsoulis
|
Dopey dialogue and less-than-scrupulous continuity augment the ramshackle vibe of a movie that's too inept to qualify as camp or cult.
EDIT
Posted Jan 7, 2021
|
34
|
|
My Rembrandt (2019)
|
Ben Kenigsberg
|
While "My Rembrandt" poses heady questions about the difference between acquisitiveness and appreciation, it mostly plays like a straight art-world documentary that itself would have benefited from a more vertiginous, obsessive approach.
EDIT
Posted Jan 6, 2021
|
35
|
|
Elizabeth is Missing (2019)
|
Mike Hale
|
It's a great setup for a straightforward mystery, but "Elizabeth Is Missing" is more complicated than that, and while you can't hold that ambition against it, you might wish that you were watching something simpler.
EDIT
Posted Jan 5, 2021
|
36
|
|
White Lie (2019)
|
Jeannette Catsoulis
|
A movie that's too vague to capitalize on its jittery tone and too timid to fully wrestle with the monster at its core.
EDIT
Posted Jan 5, 2021
|
37
|
|
Shadow in the Cloud (2020)
|
Devika Girish
|
[T]he implausibility of it all is a perk: There's never a moment in this rollicking film when you can tell what's coming next.
EDIT
Posted Dec 31, 2020
|
38
|
|
Herself (2020)
|
Glenn Kenny
|
This is a feminist movie with a Sisyphean dimension that's disquietingly universal.
EDIT
Posted Dec 30, 2020
|
39
|
|
Night of the Kings (2020)
|
Nicolas Rapold
|
Philippe Lacôte's restless film - a rare United States release from Ivory Coast - braids together its struggles for survival to suggest an entire country fighting to emerge.
EDIT
Posted Dec 30, 2020
|
40
|
|
ariana grande: excuse me, i love you (2020)
|
Chris Azzopardi
|
Only 2020 could make a straightforward, paint-by-numbers concert doc like this one, which is clearly intended for superfans, seem this nourishing (even for non-Arianators like myself).
EDIT
Posted Dec 28, 2020
|
41
|
|
DNA (2020)
|
Jeannette Catsoulis
|
Telling us virtually nothing about Neige beyond her fixation, "DNA" struggles to engage.
EDIT
Posted Dec 25, 2020
|
42
|
|
Pinocchio (2019)
|
Glenn Kenny
|
This new cinematic imagining of Carlo Collodi's classic fantasy tale is alternately enchanting and befuddling.
EDIT
Posted Dec 25, 2020
|
43
|
|
Your Name Engraved Herein (2020)
|
Teo Bugbee
|
Though the movie could coast on the appeal of handsome faces and stolen trips to Taipei, Liu gives texture to their pretty pining.
EDIT
Posted Dec 25, 2020
|
44
|
|
Promising Young Woman (2020)
|
Jeannette Catsoulis
|
A muddled mélange of black comedy, revenge thriller and feminist lecture, "Promising Young Woman" too often backs away from its potentially searing setup.
EDIT
Posted Dec 25, 2020
|
45
|
|
The Dissident (2020)
|
Devika Girish
|
All of this material is so chilling and effective on its own that the movie's emphatic music and computer-generated graphics... can feel like overkill. But these flourishes serve the film's ultimate objective...
EDIT
Posted Dec 25, 2020
|
46
|
|
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
|
Manohla Dargis
|
In the end, this movie never makes the case for why Wonder Woman is back in action beyond the obvious commercial imperatives.
EDIT
Posted Dec 25, 2020
|
47
|
|
Soul (2020)
|
A.O. Scott
|
Like other great New York movies, it invites you to identify particular intersections and storefronts, to compare its imagined geography with the city of your own experience.
EDIT
Posted Dec 25, 2020
|
48
|
|
If Things Were Different (1980)
|
John J. O'Connor
|
This is an old formula, and television knows how to handle it slickly. The thing simply trots by easily, helped immeasurably by a collection of engaging performances.
EDIT
Posted Dec 22, 2020
|
49
|
|
Sylvie's Love (2020)
|
Manohla Dargis
|
Desire and dreams meet beautifully in "Sylvie's Love," an old-fashioned romance for 21st-century hearts.
EDIT
Posted Dec 22, 2020
|
50
|
|
Monster Hunter (2020)
|
Jeannette Catsoulis
|
We're left to process a Post-it-sized plot, numbing fight sequences and dialogue along the lines of "My God!" and "Aargh!"
EDIT
Posted Dec 19, 2020
|