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In the first twenty minutes, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin seemed to be quite unremarkable, with the usual way a biographical documentary would go, that is, loved ones waxing poetic about how great the dead person was in life. But the documentary takes this to introduce Ibelin the same way his parents discovered the online […]

Asura is a very particular period piece about the typical, rule-following Japanese family in the 1970s, and yet it feels universal too in its tales of family, marriage, and above all else sisterhood. Based on a novel by Mukoda Kuniko, Asura captures the frustrating, odd, exhilarating, and reassuring specificity of having a sister. You could […]

There are plenty of versions of the Cinderella story, but none as brutal and nauseating as The Ugly Stepsister. For one, it’s not a lovely fairytale that rewards the perseverance of good people through a royal romance. Instead, this European folklore inspired body horror takes the perspective of its titular character, a stepsister who is […]

Beautiful in its painterly compositions and gut-wrenching in its storytelling, The Wild Robot has been dubbed one of the best animated features in a while, and rightly so. The film, which is a bit like if Tarzan were a robot, or if Stitch had to assimilate in the wild instead of the city, is a […]

To be honest, when the film starts out with all the usual Italian soundtracks and shots of Italian food, it felt like Nonnas was going to be stereotypical. To a certain extent, it is, with all the familiar story beats we’ve seen in other biopics. However, there’s a sincere understanding of what makes this real […]

“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) […]

As in his previous films, Director Andrew Haigh explores the delicate nature of loneliness, grief, and love in All of Us Strangers, except this time he does so through a supernatural lens. The result is mesmerizing: amid the tenderness the film draws from its characters, there’s a swirl of mystery too: how is it possible […]

Monster is a deceptively simple story about growing up and the many misunderstandings that come with it. It’s told through different points of view, a technique that could easily feel gimmicky in the hands of a lesser director. But with director Hirokazu Kore-eda at the helm, it feels natural and inevitable, as if there was […]

The Teacher’s Lounge is one of those movies where a simple misunderstanding is blown out of proportion, so much so that it causes the fabric of a community to unravel into chaos. Aided by a precise score, it ticks like a timebomb, with every second filled with so much dread and anxiety you have to […]

Murderbot takes time finding its pace—the first three episodes are bogged down by heavy narration, which isn’t always helped by Skarsgård’s deadpan delivery. But once it settles into its groove, the show turns into a delightful smorgasbord of different genres. It’s sci-fi, sure, but it’s also a workplace comedy, a thriller, and perhaps indirectly, a […]

It’s easy to feel like you’ll know exactly what you’ll get once you see stills from Guy Ritchie’s MobLand, which stars Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren. But while it features cliches of the mafia genre, MobLand is far from boring. Plenty of things are happening all at once, and in lesser hands, these […]

Toxic Town tells the true story of how toxic waste in the steel-making town of Corby, England led a group of affected mothers to pursue justice. Helping them out is pro-bono lawyer Des Collins (Rory Kinnear), while on the other end of the case is Corby’s local government, who (unsurprisingly) are in cahoots with the […]

The first things that grab your attention in Nickel Boys are its beauty and technicality. Director RaMell Ross, a large-format photographer, ensures every frame relays something deep, intimate, and moving. Then there’s how he takes these shots: we see things unfold through the POV of Elwood and Turner, students at an abusive reform school in […]

A Real Pain is a deceptively simple film. There’s not a lot going on on the surface, but Eisenberg’s smart script and tight direction, coupled with Culkin’s firecracker performance fuel the film with heart and infectious energy. A Real Pain shines when it focuses on the cousins’ bond​​at once pained and precious—but it also works […]

The most surprising thing about Overcompensating is that, underneath the sexual romps and irreverent humor, there exists something sweet in the form of Benny and Carmen’s friendship. Yes, the show is largely about college and exploring the boundaries of freedom. It’s also about the different performances we put on in an awkward attempt to fit […]

To plenty of countries around the globe, democracy has become so ubiquitous that we forget it’s relatively new, at least relative to the rest of human history. Bhutan is one of the last countries that became a democracy, and writer-director Pawo Choyning Dorji chose to depict a slice of how they made the shift in […]

Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag has almost everything you’d expect from a spy movie: explosions, betrayal, sexual tension, and beautiful actors. The plot, too, which involves a software program that could trigger nuclear war, is nothing new. But what makes Black Bag an enjoyable treat is less content and more delivery. Black Bag is swift and […]

Created by Peaky Blinders showrunner Steven Knight, A Thousand Blows zooms in on the London Victorian underworld and follows three outsiders trying to uplift themselves in different, often illegal ways. There’s Mary Carr (Erin Rachael Doherty), an ambitious pickpocket who heads an all-female crime syndicate; Sugar Goodson (Stephen Graham), a merchant by day and bare-knuckle […]

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 […]

There are three threads in Daughters that directors Natalie Rae and Angela Patton weave beautifully together. The first thread follows the incarcerated men who gather every week to talk about fatherhood, mostly, because of the program that they’re in, but also: masculinity, race, systemic poverty, social mobility, and the skewed prison system in America. The […]

A good biography remains fully faithful to the actual history, but a great one understands what their life story means as a whole, on a larger scale. Number 24 could have been one of many World War II biopics. It could have just celebrated Norwegian resistance fighter Gunnar Sønsteby and his numerous deeds. By simply […]

The key to what makes this apocalyptic thriller from Mr Robot and Homecoming showrunner Sam Esmail so unnerving is how resolute it is about not taking place in an alternate timeline. Making references to memorable events in recent history and namechecking real brands and cultural touchstones (like Tesla and Friends), Leave the World Behind is […]

It’s always fascinating to see how the ultra-rich live, but it’s even more fun to see them ruin themselves with greed. That’s what happens in Your Friends and Neighbors when Coop (Hamm) loses his main source of income and decides to rob his wealthy friends and neighbors. He starts slow as to remain inconspicuous: luxury […]

Telling a thoughtful story about the Northern Ireland Troubles and the IRA, including all its crimes and glories, is quite the feat. But Say Nothing proves it up to the task. The nine-part miniseries features compelling performances, a whipsmart script, taut timing, and impeccable production design (despite spanning four decades, it always looks true to […]