Film-Forward

The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile

The banally descriptive title aside, Kathlyn Horan has made an engrossing account of the recording of 2019’s While I’m Livin’, the first album of all-original material in 17 years by country star Tucker.

1946, Queen of the Deuce, Casa Susanna | DOC NYC 2022

Three films offer fascinating looks at recent times or, in the case of one documentary, the ancient past, with two of three winning top festival prizes.

The Fabelmans | TIFF 2022

You don’t have to be an ardent fan of Steven Spielberg to enter his semiautobiographical bildungsroman, set in 1950s/’60s suburbia, though it wouldn’t hurt.

Retrograde

Director Matthew Heineman chronicles the process, and the aftereffect, of President Biden’s decision to pull the U.S. military out of Afghanistan.

She Said

Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan are terrific as the new and equally charismatic versions of Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford in this feminine (and feminist) answer to All the President’s Men.

The Menu

A ruthless, barbed-wire black comedy and social satire with razor sharp performances.

EO

The turbulent life of a spirited equine.

Bad Axe

Do we need another documentary covering the pandemic and the George Floyd protests? Yes, and it’s one of the most surprising films of the year.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

This ambitious sequel channels the fallout of Chadwick Boseman’s death into a meaningful, almost meta, reflection of the post-Phase Three Marvel Cinematic Universe.