A Silent Voice is a film of tremendous emotional depth—an affecting portrait of adolescent abuse, reconciliation and forgiveness for the harm perpetrated by others and ourselves. Here, the intimacy is fraternal, which perhaps speaks to how Moorhead and Benson feel about each other. It was simply too frightening to deny, and that is worthy of respect. Catching her eye, Jake is a fellow charming survivor, explaining that he’s part of a group that travels cross-country selling magazines door-to-door. Just enough, perhaps, to twist the knife that much deeper. There’s no interpreter, no one to explain Baldwin but Baldwin—and this is how it should be. —Andy Crump, Year: 2017 Director: Robin Aubert Stars: Marc-André Grondin, Monia Chokri, Brigitte Poupart, Luc Proulx, Charlotte St-Martin Rating: NR Runtime: 96 minutes, Genre geeks didn’t seem to take a lot of notice of Ravenous, beyond its Best Canadian Film award at the Toronto International Film Festival—perhaps the result of an “indie zombie drama” subgenre that seems to have run its course through films such as The Battery, and perhaps because it’s performed in French rather than English. Finally, leave because of the violence. Happy as Lazzaro similarly keeps the magic in check (though a scene with whispers in a field will start to invoke Fellini) until it no longer can—and then the magic explodes, blowing up the narrative and sending what’s left in an insanely bold direction. It’s also a portrait of childhood cast in the shadow of dispassionate brutality, and what a young girl must do to find safety in a world defined by bloodshed. They have multiple intentions, and they bring those intentions together to jam. Li is always just behind, the rest of the film edited together into one, continuous shot as Áila tries to figure out what to do to help Rosie, and Rosie tries to figure out how to keep from being victimized by virtue signalling outsiders. That guys like them are keyed into something greater, working on a higher wavelength than most—that this is how they win. In one especially compelling scene, we go home with Shayla, a teen in one of the groups, and we get to know the women who are inspired by Obama’s story of becoming. Where his first films almost had the aesthetic of a videogame come to life—they’re about as close to a big screen adaptation of Streets of Rage as you’re ever going to find—Apostle might as well represent Evans’ desire to be taken seriously as a visual director and auteur. —Josh Jackson, Year: 2016 Director: Barry Jenkins Stars: Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, Trevante Rhodes, Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Janelle Monáe Genre: Drama Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98% Rating: R Runtime: 110 minutes, What’s remarkable about Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight is that it’s hardly remarkable at all. The film opens with a break-up scene between Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), a young man completely devoid of social skills, and his girlfriend Erica (Rooney Mara). Finding humor in political violence is a big ask, and yet Iannucci’s dialogue is nimble but unfailingly harsh, replete with chafing castigations. Perhaps they’re not wrong, but it is to Cuarón’s immense credit as a thoughtful technician and storyteller that he does, in fact, pull it off. —Chad Betz, Year: 2016 Director: Oliver Stone Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt Genre: Drama Rotten Tomatoes Score: 61% Rating: R Runtime: 134 minutes, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s performance is key to Snowden’s place in Stone’s oeuvre as another exceptional take on the nature of heroism. Connie escapes, determined to get his brother out of jail—either through bail money or other means. Quickly, Sacred Deer introduces us to the fly in this particular ointment. Is he making an act of supplication in his final moments? —Josh Jackson, Year: 2011 Director: Gore Verbinski Stars: Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Ned Beatty, Alfred Molina, Bill Nighy Genre: Animated, Comedy Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88% Rating: PG Runtime: 105 minutes, The most surprising thing about Rango is how much Johnny Depp disappears into the character of a nameless pet chameleon who creates his identity when his terrarium falls out of the back of a car into the desert frontier. Remi Weekes’ His House doesn’t screw around. The DIY indie grainy black-and-white cinematography boosts the film’s in-your-face realism. An adaptation of Barry Crump’s novel Wild Pork and Watercress, Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople thrives on upending preconceived notions. With this out-and-out masterpiece, del Toro cemented his position as one of this generation’s most exciting and talented visionaries. In turn, with child-services representative Paula (Rachel House) painting Ricky as an unruly wild child, one dreads the prospect of seeing the kid walk all over this possibly in-over-her-head mother. In film, silence is neither mortal nor venial sin—it’s actually a virtue. With his latest, we see what happens when his underlying ideas are not as complex as the intricacies of his execution. She looks up at a window a couple stories up. is an ode to old Hollywood—and much more—as only they can do, tracing the efforts of James Brolin’s studio scandal fixer through a parade of 1950s soundstages, back lots and actors. As Connie, Pattinson is shockingly vital and present, unabashedly throwing himself into any situation. In 2016, he resurfaced for the drama Mr. Church, his performance praised but the film critically panned. Something of a love triangle develops, some disturbing idiosyncrasies are revealed (not just about Ben) and some bad stuff happens. The Death of Stalin marks a major temporal departure for Iannucci, known for skewering contemporary political embarrassments and turmoil, by taking us back to 1953 Russia. One expects a nihilistic streak here, and you won’t be disappointed—but there’s a few glimmers of hope shining through the cracks as well. The movie music twinkles and swirls. —Chad Betz, Year: 2016 Director: Mike Mills Stars: Annette Bening, Greta Gerwig, Elle Fanning, Lucas Jade Zumann, Billy Crudup Genre: Comedy, Drama Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89% Rating: R Runtime: 118 minutes, The feeling of watching writer-director Mike Mills’ 20th Century Women is akin to that of witnessing a mind working through the twisted byways of his characters’ psyches and his themes as if digesting his thoughts right in front of us. “To sleep perchance to dream”: the closest Nolan has ever gotten to touching an afterlife. With incredible performances, a solid twist and the possibility of a franchise sequel, 1BR aims high. Simultaneously a war saga and a fairy tale, it traces the journey of a young girl and her scavenger hunt through another world to save her mother’s life, set in the midst of the Spanish civil war. But the documentary ends up being less about tracking down the film canisters than being an exploration of nostalgia, friendship and the allure of mentors. Weekes is deeply invested in Bol and Rial as people, in where they come from, what led them to leave, and most of all what they did to leave. These extreme levels of impoverishment come with about two dozen cults masquerading as sub-culture, a mortifying picture of co-dependancy, a coerced dismissal of personal rights, and loneliness. —Tim Grierson, Year: 2014 Director: Bong Joon-ho Stars: Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Song Kang-ho, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, John Hurt Genre: Science-Fiction, Action Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94% Rating: R Runtime: 126 minutes, There is a sequence midway through Snowpiercer that perfectly articulates what makes Korean writer/director Bong Joon-ho among the most dynamic filmmakers currently working. In regards to craftsmanship, it’s unforgiving. She’s a blues legend at the top of her game, finally appreciated (at least in some parts of the country) and ripe for exploitation by white men in suits. But in recent years, they’ve struggled to conceive, a process that no amount of fertility treatments has been able to remedy. It’s a sentiment that feels frighteningly timely in just about any era, as mankind has nearly always felt perched on the brink of chaos in the last century. Lazzaro’s goodness, like all earthly goodness, is simultaneously transcendent and doomed, but the wolf continues on beyond any mortal coil, against the flow of humanity. Coming upon a tree-shrouded area, the two are surprised to discover a county sheriff’s cruiser. He spares no one from insult or injury, even when they’re lying dead on the floor, soaked in their own piss. —Jim Vorel, Year: 2017 Director: Mike Flanagan Stars: Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood Rating: N/A Runtime: 103 minutes, Director Mike Flanagan’s Gerald’s Game trims fat, condenses and slims, stripping away some of the odder quirks of Stephen King’s novel to get at the heart of themes underneath. Still, My Happy Family shows a benevolent kind of restraint by ending on a note of uncertainty, sparing us the lion’s share of that work, its ultimate lingering ambiguity a thing of honorable beauty. And that’s what Bobby, the 35-year-old at the center of Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 musical Company, is doing. Mulligan makes that frustration sexy, poignant and liberating—even if we never stop seeing the character’s increasing desperation to free herself. And the film is at its best when it avoids being programmatic, lets its visuals pulse before you. “Working” means murdering some people, muscling others, even blowing up a car or a building when the occasion warrants. If Dostoevsky was re-framing the Christ narrative, Happy as Lazzaro re-frames the very idea of a Christ narrative until it is something else entirely. Nightcrawler is tense and intense, ferocious and obsessed, and crackles with energy and a dark sense of humor.—Brent McKnight, Year: 2016 Director: Naoko Yamada Stars: Miyu Irino, Saori Hayami, Megumi Han Genre: Animation, Drama Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94% Rating: NR Runtime: 129 minutes, In a medium that too often feels at times constricted by the primacy of masculine aesthetic sensibilities and saturated with hyper-sexualized portrayals of women colloquially coded as “fan service,” Naoko Yamada’s presence is a welcome breath of fresh air, to say nothing of the inimitable quality of her films themselves. Anyone genre-savvy will no doubt see where it’s going, but it’s a well-crafted ride that succeeds on the strength of chemistry between its two principal leads in a way that reminds me of the scenes between Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina. Like Oliver Stone’s 1987 film Wall Street, greed is still king and the wolves are at the door. So, too, does Burning, while also managing to give us Lee Chang-dong’s signatures: visual lucidity and artful morality. The early moments of back-and-forth between the pair crackle with a sort of awkward intensity. Second, Norman carries on a conversation with his grandmother. In her late teens and perhaps smitten with this man who showed her such attention—the documentary is cagey on the subject—Tan was intoxicated by the rush of making a film that she wrote and would be the star of. Yet it’s also, at times, his bleakest work, a chilling horror film about the surveillance state under which we all live. Top rated content for each country based on Aggregated, IMDb and Critic ratings. Though ostensibly part of the superhero stable, The Dark Knight is, at its center, a proper crime saga—just as was its source, spawning from the pages of Detective Comics. What’s refreshing about the film is that Lee always brings up the possibility that “none of the above” is a perfectly viable answer for both Nola and for single women—a game changer in 1986. Following their star’s lead, the filmmakers deliver a jet-fueled variation on their usual intricate exploration of New York’s marginalized citizens. But there’s “whimsical” and there’s “weird,” and Lu Over the Wall ventures well past the former and into the latter before director Masaaki Yuasa gets through the opening credits. Based on Richard Ford’s novel, Wildlife sets up expectations about this woman—oh, poor Jeanette, the helpless, sensitive lass—which Mulligan expertly explodes, constantly surprising us with the character’s capacity for reinvention and calculation. The pleasure of sitting with Baldwin’s words, and his words alone, is exquisite. Star can’t believe such an operation exists in the 21st century, but Jake swears there’s decent money to be made. Mixing maximalist set pieces and the high tension drama of psychosexual mind games, Casino Royale gives Bond grit, a splintered heart and a palpable sense of mortality. Her judgment lingers. The way the film’s story flows into uncharted terrain is part of its spell. Lee Jong-su (Ah-in Yoo) is an aspiring young writer who quits his menial job to tend to his incarcerated father’s farm (a storyline the film takes from William Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning,” after which Murakami—as referential as ever—named his own story). Most of the main characters/performances take blatant inspiration from Hollywood legends of yore, and the cast seems to have as much fun as the Coens. Through a series of interviews with former collaborators, friends and family, Schwarz helps paint a picture of an extraordinary boy who lived so far outside what was considered “normal,” he had no choice but to blaze his own trail. Type names like Will Smith, Cameron, Jet Li, etc. In goes the snubnose revolver, the ruthless tool of Frank’s trade. Norman can see and talk with ghosts, an ability that might make him quite popular with the dead set, but one that does little to improve his social standing with his living schoolmates… or his immediate family. Impulsively, Connie strong-arms Nick into helping him rob a bank. In the film, inventor Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) on the tiny island of Chewandswallow finally finds success with a machine that turns water to food. —Chad Betz, Year: 2018 Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen Stars: Tim Blake Nelson, Bill Heck, James Franco, Liam Neeson, Zoe Kazan, Tom Waits, Tyne Daly, Brendan Gleeson Genre: Western, Drama, Comedy Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91% Rating: R Runtime: 132 minutes, As much an anthology of post-bellum adventure stories as it is a retrospective of the many kinds of films the Coen brothers have made—not to mention a scathing bit of fantasy curbed against the stories we’ve used to water down the tragedy of our country’s growth—The Ballad of Buster Scruggs tells six tales of greed, murder, mercy and the harsh mistress of blind chance, the only through line being the bleakness of the horizon America trampled to stake its imperial claim. He’s unafraid of breaking away from the film’s major arcs for the sake of digressions that fill us in on both historical context and characters’ backstories. —Brogan Morris, Year: 1978 Director: Chang Cheh Stars: Chang Cheh, Chien Sun, Pai Wei, Sheng Chiang, Philip Kwok, Kuo Chue Genre: Action & Adventure, Martial Arts Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84% Rating: R Runtime: 102 minutes, This is what vintage kung fu—and martial arts cinema—is all about. Enola Holmes is about serious matters. But Cruise’s portrayal of a high-strung professional who transforms into a caring brother is also a treasure. The Safdies and Pattinson don’t need any of that. Bruce Lee’s most essential film draws upon the classic tournament structure to give a variety of interesting fights (even for a confused-looking John Saxon), but it also shines in any of the other moments where it’s following Lee as he snoops around Han’s fortress, uncovering his drug manufacturing schemes. Type Country names like Canada, UK, USA, UAE, etc. One day when Shoya goes too far, forcing Shoko to transfer again for fear of her own safety, he is branded a pariah by his peers and retreats into a state of self-imposed isolation and self-hatred. We see Jesse Plemons looking down out of a window. Lead Animator Travis Knight and his sprawling team of animators, designers, and fabricators execute the vision with great flair. Something is not right. The director’s first gangster film to be set in Boston won him his first Best Picture Award at the Oscars. Through the gritty, blustery opening images shot as artful document of the Dakar shore (outstanding work by cinematographer Claire Mathon) and the hypnotic electronic score by Fatima Al Qadiri, Diop is able to evoke an incomparable mood and sense of place. Type Movie and TV Show names like Batman, Breaking Bad, etc. Netflix has picked up international rights to “The Yin Yang Master” a film that is one of the big seven tentpole titles that will open in mainland Chinese cinemas on Friday and compete for Lunar New Year holiday audiences.. Netflix acquired distribution rights in the rest of the world ex-mainland China from Huayi Brothers Media (“The Eight Hundred”). Inspired by the likes of Yasujiro Ozu, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Sergei Parajanov, Sofia Coppola, and Lucile Hadžihalilovic, Yamada is a director par excellence, capable of arresting attention and evoking melancholy and bittersweet catharsis through delicate compositions of deft sound, swift editing, ephemeral color palettes, and characters with rich inner lives rife with knotty, relatable struggles. Pocket”; a cocky outlaw (James Franco) swings between the two sides of fate, his whole life leading to a semi-decent punchline; a disparate collection of travelers argue about the vicissitudes of faith while a bounty hunted corpse sits atop their carriage, all five heading towards some ambiguous symbolism; and the titular mellifluous gunslinger finally meets his match, making for one of the strangest sights the Coens have ever conjured. The film would join the pantheon of mid-2000s comedies—most notably Anchorman and Step Brothers—that created a white-adolescent-boy language made up entirely of lewd, absurd references. His former partners on the shoot, Peter Bogdanovich and Frank Marshall, make good on their old oath to their master to complete the film for him, and in finding the spirit of the thing, deliver us a masterpiece we barely deserve. Alongside Hugo’s tale is the true story of Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley), one of the world’s first filmmakers. Mad Max pessimistically illustrates what that might look like, when all of our worst instincts are left to run roughshod over the ineffective handful of people who would defend us, but can’t even defend their own families. It’s exceptionally painful and it goes on forever. To say that “love conquers all,” even moreso. Despite a storyline that’s basically just an excuse for emotional involvement (Taslim’s character is trying to protect a cute little girl from the Triad and has a lost-brotherhood bit with Uwais’s character) and, more than that, an easy way to set up action scenes on top of action scenes, there’s something about the conclusion of The Night Comes For Us that still strikes some sort of nerve of pathos, despite being mostly unearned in any traditional dramatic sense. The camera sits back, black-and-white, focused not on the bourgeois children that represent the cinematographer-writer-director and his siblings growing up in Mexico City several decades ago, but moreso on the indigenous woman (Yalitza Aparicio) that cares for them and the household. Verhoeven, in fact, uses Arnold as much as he uses anything else in the budget to tell this darkly exuberant story, from the contorted confusion of the set-up right on through to the eye-popping finale. But unlike The Muppets, Muppets Most Wanted doesn’t overtly pay homage to its subjects, and instead quite contently filters its bounty of heist caper tropes through a felt-tinted lens. You’ve also got to feel for that poor mook who sees Bruce Lee wielding nunchucks and says to himself, “No problem, I can take him.” —J.V. And while what makes the character and the series interesting is this need to be reactive to the culture, Casino Royale insists that the audience, in addition to Bond himself, can feel every gut punch, kick, gunshot, wave of nausea, wave of paranoia and, perhaps most importantly, every heartbreak. Becoming is about the “liberation” of Michelle Obama, and it takes care to remind us of all that she endured on the road to the White House. To further that ambition, they collaborated with another friend, Sophia, on a surreal road movie called Shirkers, which would be directed by Tan’s mentor, an older teacher named Georges who carried himself as someone who knew his way around a movie camera. But curious viewers will be rewarded with one of the year’s most economical bits of closed-circuit storytelling, anchored by Holland’s towering lead performance—so long as they can keep up.