Film-Forward

Top Picks

Chained for Life

A famous Hollywood actress takes on a starring role in a Dario Argento–esque, avant-garde horror film, set in a hospital where a mad surgeon seeks to cure people with physical anomalies.

Auggie

Director Matt Kane transcends clichés to deliver a sad, knowing look at male pride in a small, intimate sci-fi film.

Tigers Are Not Afraid

With its breadth of imagination and unflinching look at the ravages of gang warfare, the movie blends Stephen King’s cusp-of-innocence vibe with Charles Dickens’s exposure of social ills.

End of the Century

Debut director Lucio Castro captures the deliberate rhythms of a life lived in the moment.

The Nightingale

If Jennifer Kent’s first film, The Babadook (2014), had a sinister undercurrent, her new and more multifaceted film unleashes it in full force.

Luce

A packed, well-oiled vicious circle that speaks volumes and takes no prisoners.

La Flor

The question about watching La Flor, one of the more exceptional films in recent South American cinema, shouldn’t be if but when.

For Sama

The powerful documentary may represent a parent’s attempt to explain her actions to future grown-up progeny, but it’s also a tribute to a city that was once her family’s home, which currently exists solely on film and in memory.

Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood

Quentin Tarantino’s most exuberant and, believe it or not, minimalist film riffs on late-1960s Hollywood.