Film-Forward

It’s as if this re-creation of 1920s Hollywood has been feverishly whipped up by a precocious 13-year-old boy with a dirty mind and a generous allowance.

The brash biopic dramatizes an eventful year in Empress Elisabeth of Austria’s life, when she turned 40.

A “message movie” that acts against expectations in how it explores the necessity of forgiveness.

Currently serving a prison sentence in his native Iran, lauded director Jafar Panahi spins two and a half tales in his latest film. None reflects well on his country’s state of mind.

Although the year ended on a subdued note after many of the high profile, highly touted fall releases failed to click with audiences, here’s to 2022’s bright spots.

An affecting and occasionally bracing documentary that plunders the complicated relationships and parallels between human and animal.

In terms of scope, graphics, and tangible worldbuilding, the sequel is a jaw-dropping achievement, to say the least.

Now streaming, three real-life stories of resistance and repression. In each, the emphasis is on hope.

Beautiful, self-critical, vulnerable, and above all impeccable in its craftmanship, Bardo is a statement of cinema as a form of therapy, exorcism, death, and resurrection.