Tag Archives: Madd at the Movies

Fright Club

Fright Club: Frightful Homecomings

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They say you can’t go home again. Horror filmmakers are more apt to say that you shouldn’t. For our latest episode, we look at some of horror cinema’s most memorable homecomings.

5. Coming Home in the Dark (2021)

Making his feature debut with the road trip horror Coming Home in the Dark, James Ashcroft is carving out a very different style of Kiwi horror than the splatter comedy you may be expecting.

A family is enjoying some time alone in the countryside when approached by two armed drifters. A car passes without incident. Mandrake (Danielle Gillies, chilling) say, “Looking back on today’s events, I think this will be the moment you realized you should have done something.”

Riveting, tricky storytelling to the last shot keeps you on your toes.

4. Salem’s Lot (1979)

Novelist Ben Mears decides to focus his next book on that creepy old Marsten House from his hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine. At around the same time he arrives, townspeople start dying and disappearing. It could only be Ben, or the antique store owner Richard Straker, who bought the old Marsten hours in the first place.

Tobe Hooper’s miniseries version of the Stephen King novel is still the best retelling. So many individual images stand out: the kid at the window, the Count Orlock (original) style vampire, the always saucy James Mason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLm0iGY7CiI

3. Possum (2018)

Sean Harris is endlessly sympathetic in this tale of childhood trauma. Philip (Harris) has returned to his burned out, desolate childhood home after some unexplained professional humiliation. His profession? Puppeteer. The puppet itself seems to be a part of the overall problem.

I don’t know why the single creepiest puppet in history—a man-sized marionnette with a human face and spider’s body—could cause any trouble. Kids can be so delicate.

Writer/director Matthew Holness spins a smalltown mystery around the sad story of a grown man who is confused about what’s real and what isn’t. The melancholy story and Harris’s exceptional turn make Possum a tough one to forget.

2. The Orphanage (2007)
Laura (Belén Rueda) and her husband reopen the orphanage where she grew up, with the goal of running a house for children with special needs – children like her adopted son Simón, who is HIV positive. But Simón’s new imaginary friends worry Laura, and when he disappears it looks like she may be imagining things herself.

A scary movie can be elevated beyond measure by a masterful score and an artful camera. Because director Antonio Bayona keeps the score and all ambient noise to a minimum, allowing the quiet to fill the scenes, he develops a truly haunting atmosphere. His camera captures the eerie beauty of the stately orphanage, but does it in a way that always suggests someone is watching. The effect is never heavy handed, but effortlessly eerie.

One of the film’s great successes is its ability to take seriously both the logical, real world story line, and the supernatural one. Rueda carries the film with a restrained urgency – hysterical only when necessary, focused at all times, and absolutely committed to this character, who may or may not be seeing ghosts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7FD6tR6zOc

1. Halloween (1978)

The night he came home.

No film is more responsible for the explosion of teen slashers than John Carpenter’s babysitter butchering classic.

From the creepy opening piano notes to the disappearing body ending, this low budget surprise changed everything. Carpenter develops anxiety like nobody else, and plants it right in a wholesome Midwestern neighborhood. You don’t have to go camping or take a road trip or do anything at all – the boogeyman is right there at home.

Michael Myers – that hulking, unstoppable, blank menace – is scary. Pair that with the down-to-earth charm of lead Jamie Lee Curtis, who brought a little class and talent to the genre, and add the bellowing melodrama of horror veteran Donald Pleasance, and you’ve hit all the important notes. Just add John Carpenter’s spare score to ratchet up the anxiety. Perfect.

We also want to thank Derek Stewart for sharing his short film Possum with us! If you didn’t get to join us for Fright Club Live, give yourself the gift of his amazing animated short:

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Perspective

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Nickel Boys

by Hope Madden

You’ve never seen a film quite like RaMell Ross’s Nickel Boys. The filmmaker, with an inspired Jomo Fray behind the camera, delivers a visual poem of tragedy, resilience and American history.

Ross, along with Joslyn Barnes, adapts Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, but brings such human and humane treatment that the nonfiction roots cannot be ignored. Whitehead wrote about the Dozier School for Boys—the same American institution that fueled Tananarive Due’s horror novel, Reformatory. But Ross does not mine the institution’s 110-year history of dehumanization, abuse and murder for horror. Instead, he shows us how powerful that evil was by allowing us to see it through the eyes of two best friends.

You might find point-of-view filmmaking in bursts in other films—Michael Myers watching his sister through the eye holes of his Halloween costume, for example. But Ross never deviates, never leaves the most intimate and personal perspective of the events unfolding. His camera represents either the view from Elwood’s (Ethan Herisse) own eyes, or his best friend Turner’s (Brandon Wilson).

Elwood’s a good kid, smart, kind, and devoted to his grandmother (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) and we see what he sees in lyrical bursts: a party in his childhood, his grandmother praying for him, successes and trials at school, an opportunity to begin college while he’s still in high school, the approach of white police officers, incarceration, the first small piece of kindness offered by a fellow teenage inmate.

And then, for the first time, we truly see Elwood because the camera becomes that one friend, Turner. This is not Turner’s first run-in with the law. He’s begrudgingly protective of the innocent Elwood. 

The perspective shift, the elements of Whitehead’s novel that made it seem too difficult to adapt, becomes Nickel Boys’ greatest strength. You cannot watch this film and distance yourself from the injustices or from the small joys. This remarkable subjective intimacy is what made Ross’s documentaries so magical and moving—you come away with a personal relationship with the film and its subject because you have born witness as the subject.

Wilson, Herisse and Ellis-Taylor guarantee that the style is more than gimmick, bringing their characters so tenderly to life that their story will devastate you. The story of a school that dehumanized and murdered Black young men for over 100 years should do that.

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Greatest Show Monkey

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Better Man

by Hope Madden

A great deal about Better Man—Michael Gracey’s biopic of English pop star Robbie Williams—astonishes. Not always in a good way, but it’s tough not to admire a big swing.

Williams narrates his own story, and though that’s his voice—cracking wise, soliloquizing and dropping profanities in equal measure—that’s not his face. The musician, whose tale is told from grade school to present day, appears onscreen as a chimpanzee. He’s a biped who dresses the part; CGI built on the work of Williams, Jonno Davies, Carter J. Murphy, and Asmara Feik as well as a host of dancer stand-ins for each age range. But from the opening voice over to “the end,” the only time you see Robbie Williams is in historical snapshots over closing credits.

Why? A metaphor, that Williams is everybody’s monkey but not his own man? Or a gimmick to draw attention away from the otherwise standard biopic beats that make up the film?

A bit of both.

At issue is that Williams’s biographical information so closely resembles, well, every other famous person’s? That can’t be correct, but it certainly reminds one of (if movies are ever to be trusted) Elton John’s, Johnny Cash’s, Amy Winehouse’s, Dewey Cox’s: problematic father figure whose love is conditional, drug and alcohol abuse, a loved one taken for granted until it’s too late, undiagnosed depression, questionable romantic choices.

Gracey distracts from formula with a CGI primate, although he might have been just as successful relying on his own impressive instincts for staging a musical number. The longtime music video veteran, whose The Greatest Showman remains inexplicably popular, wows with inspired choreography/editing/CGI work in song after song.

Strong support work from Alison Steadman, Steve Pemberton, Kate Mulvaney, Damon Herriman and Raechelle Banno keep the film feeling human. Indeed, Better Man is at times deeply touching.

But it’s long. And it feels every second of that two hours and fifteen minutes. Much of the film could easily have been pruned. There’s no doubt Williams, in his depression and drugged out stupor, did betray each one of the people we spend screentime with, but we didn’t need to see all of them. It was an indulgence by way of apology, admirable but cinematically tedious.

Still, the climax is a heartbreaking, exceptionally cinematic moment: schmaltzy, earned, boisterous and moving. Does it go on one moment too far? Yes, it does. But it was great while it lasted.

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New to the Yabba?

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Birdeater

by Hope Madden

Birdeater gets off to a slow but promising start. Louie (Mackenzie Fearnley) and Irene (Shabana Azeez) have an unusual relationship. To give more details than that would be to eliminate some of the film’s surprise, so I won’t. Co-writers/co-directors Jack Clark and Jim Weir have a plan for unveiling information as it is most provocative, and I’ll leave it to them to provoke you.

Irene is anxious about the couple’s upcoming wedding. Louis is anxious about Irene’s anxiety about the wedding. So, he invites her along on his “box party” — the Australian term for bachelor party.

What follows is an unrelentingly awkward, fairly twisted tale of sexual politics, blow up dolls, drunkenness, ketamine, big cat tranquilizers, bonfires, and the nature of consent.

It seems important to point out the Wake in Fright movie poster hanging in best man Dylan’s (Ben Hunter) apartment. Like Ted Kotcheff’s unhinged 1971 Outback classic, Birdeater seeks to upset you as it digs into Australian ideas of masculinity. On the whole, it succeeds in that aim—not to the scarring degree of Wake in Fright, but success nonetheless.

Louie’s BFFs Dylan—the boisterous, manly troublemaker—and Charlie (Jack Bannister), the Christian whose brought his also-Christian girlfriend (Clementine Anderson), have plans for the event. But Louie has his own plans and he does not want anything to mess with that.

Birdeater’s greatest success is investment in character. These people feel authentic, which is amazing given their behavior. Their relationships feel truthful and you find yourself invested more in what happens to the side characters than the bride and groom.

Louie’s plans and his mates’ come to a head, which is where Birdeater explodes into messy, fascinating, unrelated pieces. The surface story of bachelor party debauchery—of traditional masculinity run amuck—and the underlying and far more distressing story of male/female relationships sometimes reflect something insightful. Just as often, they feel slapped together nonsensically, or held together with contrived opportunities for exposition.

Recently, Halina Reijn tackled prickly ideas of female sexuality, power, and gender politics with Babygirl. It explored one woman’s seemingly misogynistic choices, but by remaining true to the protagonist’s point of view, the film itself exposes something else.

Birdeater paints itself into a corner it can’t figure out how to escape, primarily because, though the male characters throughout the film wonder at Irene’s choices, the men writing and directing the film don’t seem to understand them. Instead, we spend 90 minutes inside a male perspective as they guess at (and, indeed, create) female motivations. This leads inevitably to a climax that can’t help but be unsatisfying.

Fright Club

Best Horror Films of 2024

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We say this most years, but 2024’s horror output kicked all manner of ass. It was tough to narrow our list down to ten, so we want to give some quick love to the honorable mentions.

25. Immaculate

24. Speak No Evil

23. Woman of the Hour

22. Sleep

21. The Devil’s Bath

10. In a Violent Nature

19. Milk & Serial

18. The Vourdalak

17. Handling the Undead

16. Stopmotion

15. Cuckoo

14. Alien: Romulus

13. Late Night with the Devil

12. Smile 2

11. Infested

And now, our ranking of the ten best horror films of 2024.

10. Red Rooms

True crime culture. Serial killer groupies. The Dark Web. Does all of it seem too grim, too of-the-moment, too cliché to make for a deeply affecting thriller these days? Au contraire, mon frère. Québécois Pascal Plante makes nimble use of these elements to craft a nailbiter of a serial killer thriller with his latest effort, Red Rooms.

Plante expertly braids vulnerability and psychopathy, flesh and glass, humanity and the cyber universe for a weirdly compelling peek at how easily one could slide from one world to the other.

His real magic trick—one that remarkably few filmmakers have pulled off—is generating edge-of-your-seat anxiety primarily with keyboard clicks, computer screens and wait times. But the tension Plante builds—thanks to Juliette Gariépy’s precise acting—is excruciating. They keep you disoriented, fascinated, a little repulsed and utterly breathless.

9. Oddity

Carolyn Bracken is Darcy, twin sister of the recently slain Dani (also Bracken). Darcy is a little touched—she still runs the curiosity/antique shop her mother left her and still holds on to the giant wooden man a witch gave her parents for their wedding. Darcy is also blind, so when she arrives at her brother-in-law’s home—the very spot where Dani came to her bloody end—Ted (Gwilym Lee) and his new live-in girlfriend (Caroline Menton) don’t know how to politely ask her to leave. And to take her giant wooden friend with her.

Writer/director Damian McCarthy hands this tapestry of folklore and soap opera to a nimble cast and a gifted cinematographer. Together this team casts a spell too fun to break.

8. Longlegs

Maika Monroe is Agent Lee Harker whose “hyper intuitive” nature has her assigned to a confounding case of whole families murdering one another, the only sign of an outside presence being an encoded note left at the scenes. Monroe’s green FBI agent is as stiff and awkwardly internal as Nic Cage’s psycho is theatrical. Her terror is as authentic as his lunacy.

Filmmaker Oz Perkins shines as bright as ever, too. As always, his shot selection and framing evoke dark poetry. His use of light and shadow, architecture and space is like no one else’s. Longlegs is strangely beautiful, deeply unnerving, and a fine reason to be a horror fan.

7. I Saw the TV Glow

Fulfilling the promise of 2021’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, writer/director Jane Schoenbrun’s follow-up, I Saw the TV Glow, is a hypnotically abstract and dreamily immersive nightmare of longing.

Justice Smith (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) is heartbreakingly endearing, while Bridgette Lundy-Paine (Bill & Ted Face the Music) provides a revelatory turn of alienation and mystery. It’s hard to take your eyes of either one of them, with Schoenbrun often framing their stares through close-ups that become as challenging as they are inviting. And that feels organically right. Because Schoenbrun is channelling characters who imagine life as someone else, to again emerge as a challenging and inviting filmmaker with a thrillingly original voice.

6. Heretic

There is something undeniably fun about Hugh Grant’s villain phase. Filmmakers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods craft a villain for the veteran actor that might just wipe those 90s rom-coms from our collective memory. Grant is Mr. Reed, and he’s invited two young Mormon sisters (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, both very solid) into his home to help lead him to enlightenment. 

Less terrifying is the trap that’s been laid, more frightening is the absolute authenticity of Grant’s wickedly funny performance. You know this guy—if not in person, then from online comments. He’s absolutely genius, and though the film writes itself into a bit of a corner, there’s no denying this performance.

5. Blink Twice

In her directorial debut, Zoë Kravitz—working from a script she co-wrote with E.T. Feigenbaum—delivers an intoxicating and haunting thriller about privilege.

What transpires feels influenced by the classic The Stepford Wives, as well as Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty and Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling. The ideas are less borrowed than repeatedly, historically true and Kravitz reconsiders these timeless notions with an unerringly contemporary sensibility and a mean spirit that’s earned. Still, it’s Channing Tatum who effortlessly bridges horror fantasy with “damn, this could really happen.” His morally blurry turn, charmingly evil, has such authenticity to it that the island horror feels more like a reflection of reality than it should.

4. Strange Darling

“Are you a serial killer?” A question usually asked in jest during a first date, but you still judge your date’s facial response as they answer. Was that a nervous laugh? Did that smile come too easy? We’ve all seen too many episodes of Dateline. Strange Darling kicks off with this question and that’s the top of the hill for the cat-and-mouse roller coaster thriller that follows.

The twists are fun, but Willa Fitzgerald (The Fall of the House of Usher) and Kyle Gallner’s (Smile, Dinner in America) performances are the best part of the movie. 

3. The Coffee Table

A remarkably well written script fleshed out by a stunning ensemble becomes utter torture as you want so badly for some other outcome. Co-writer/director Caye Casas ties threads, builds anxiety, plunges the depths of “what’s the worst that could happen?” and leaves you shaken.

David Pareja and Estefania de los Santos craft indelible, believable, beautifully flawed characters so convincing that their experience becomes painful for you. Casas salts the wounds with dark comedy, but the tenderness and tragedy collaborate toward something far more crushingly human.

2. The Substance

There are some films that, for better or worse, you never truly forget. With each passing minute, Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance proved it would be one of those films. And that shrimp cocktail will never look as appealing again. Holy cow, this movie! What a glorious sledgehammer Fargeat wields! 

Demi Moore -in her best performance in decades if not her career – plays Elisabeth, an actress and fitness guru turning 50. Fargeat takes this concept, pulls in inspiration from Cronenberg as well as Brian Yuzna’s Society, strangles subtlety with some legwarmers, and crafts an unforgettable cautionary tale about the way the male gaze corrupts and disfigures women inside and out.

1. Nosferatu

In collaboration with longtime cinematographer Jarin Blaschke and The Northman composer Robin Carolan, filmmaker Robert Eggers conjures an elegant, somber, moody Germany breathlessly awaiting death.

Eggers keeps the Count (Bill Skarsgård) shrouded in darkness long enough to build excitement. What the two deliver is unlike anything in the canon. It’s horrifying and perfectly in keeping with the blunt instrument they’ve made of this remorseless monster. His monstrousness makes the seductive nature of the tale all the more unseemly. This beast, the rats, the stench of contagion infesting the elegant image of Germany and her beautiful bride—it is the stuff of nightmares.  

It makes you grateful that Eggers was not intrigued by Stoker’s elegant aristocrat and his tortured love story, but drawn instead to the repulsive carnality of Nosferatu.

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Wait and Hope

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The Count of Monte Cristo

by Hope Madden

Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo has been made into 23 different films, plus a dozen or so mini-series. It’s popular, and with good reason. The 19th Century tale of vengeance, political intrigue, fated romance buckles more swash than you might imagine.

The epic Dumas tale hits big screens again with Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthiew Delaporte’s opulent adaptation.

At a full three hours, the duo’s film does justice to more crisscrossing details than most previous efforts, but their instinct for epic filmmaking ensures engrossed viewing. From the moments of intimacy that nurture vengeance of this scale to the brutal beauty of the adventure-scape to the lavish excesses of the wealthy, every image packs a purposeful wallop. Celia Lafitedupont’s editing emphasizes glamour without distracting from intrigue. The film’s pace allows for scenes to breathe but never drag.

At the center of the treachery and bloody righteousness is Pierre Niney (Franz), whose evolution from humble innocence to hardened vengeance never fails to convince. But who is the Count without his foes? De La Patelliére and Delaporte surround Niney with collaborators able to find something authentic in their characters while supplying just enough moustache twirling to do the job right. Laurent Lafitte and Patrick Mille are a particular delight as the dastardly Villefort and Danglars.

All of which must be balanced by innocence corrupted, and again, the ensemble soars. Julien De Saint Jean introduces uncommonly human layers to the Count’s godson, the “Prince”, and Vassili Schneider (The Vourdalak) as young Albert, innocent pawn in a grand scheme, injects his scenes with touching tenderness.

And of course, the love story—how could you accept all the Count is willing to put into place if you can’t get behind the love he has lost? Anaïs Demoustier’s (Smoking Causes Coughing) Mercedes is no fool, no innocent waif nor tragic beauty. Demoustier offers something genuine that allows the entire saga a note of authenticity.

The result is a rousing, gorgeously cinematic adventure and a reminder of what a movie can be.

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Sea Shanty

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The Damned

by Hope Madden

“It’s no ghost. It’s worse than that.”

Eva (Odessa Young) carries the weight of the 19th century Icelandic fishing outpost’s success since the death of her husband Magnus last season. When she and her crew see a foreign ship sinking not far off the coast, the decision to try to save them—and risk her own men’s lives in the immediate as well as the near future, given the sparsity of rations—falls to her.

She and this tiny, desperate community—isolated and unlikely to endure the winter—make a series of choices. With each they weigh their own survival against the needs of others, but each successive decision is less and less noble. While none is unrealistic, perhaps not even unreasonable, the result leaves the group dangerously torn apart from the inside.

The Damned director Thordur Palsson’s nightmare bears a resemblance to John Carpenter’s masterpiece, The Thing. Desperate, wintery isolation fosters paranoia, and soon it’s hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t, but everything seems supernaturally sinister.

Young’s conflicted turn, balancing stoic strength and resignation sometimes in the same moment, becomes the film’s the gravitational pull. The rest of the ensemble delivers memorable characters in what could easily have been one-dimensional archetypes. Joe Cole’s work is particularly subtle and moving.

Powerful as the performances are, every scene is stolen by the formidable Icelandic seascape—beautiful, terrible and haunting every moment.

Palsson, who co-writes with Jamie Hannigan, develops a parable—a cautionary tale, really—about shame, guilt and grief. Something evil seems to be afoot. Food goes missing, a body disappears, and little by little, members of the community see horrible things. Is this horror the manifestation of a guilty conscience shared by an isolated community, or is it the supernatural?  

A subtle but palpable dread wonders whether it’s Eva’s decision making that’s brought this on; whether Magnus would have chosen differently when faced with the unholy decision; whether it was, in fact, her desire to protect and nurture that brought their doom.

Or perhaps it was Magnus, who’d brought them out seeking the opportunity that awaited anyone who could bear the cold and hunger, who’d damned them all?

“The living are always more dangerous than the dead.”

Outtakes

Best Films of 2024

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It’s that time again! Our lists were checked at least twice and we came up with what we believe are the best films of 2024. It was a good year.

1. Nosferatu

In collaboration with longtime cinematographer Jarin Blaschke and The Northman composer Robin Carolan, filmmaker Robert Eggers conjures an elegant, somber, moody Germany breathlessly awaiting death.

Eggers keeps the Count (Bill Skarsgård) shrouded in darkness long enough to build excitement. What the two deliver is unlike anything in the canon. It’s horrifying and perfectly in keeping with the blunt instrument they’ve made of this remorseless monster. His monstrousness makes the seductive nature of the tale all the more unseemly. This beast, the rats, the stench of contagion infesting the elegant image of Germany and her beautiful bride—it is the stuff of nightmares.  

It makes you grateful that Eggers was not intrigued by Stoker’s elegant aristocrat and his tortured love story, but drawn instead to the repulsive carnality of Nosferatu.

2. Anora

Sean Baker doesn’t shy away from seamy subcultures, and the worthiness of people trying to get by outside of conformity. Yet it hasn’t been until his Palme d’Or winner Anora that he has found one group without any redeeming qualities. This shocking and depraved group of people is, in this case, the jet-setting global elite.

The relationship between the spoiled son of Russian oligarchs living in Brighton Beach and exotic dancer Ani (Mikey Madison) quickly escalates, from sex work outside the club to becoming an exclusive escort to an impromptu Vegas marriage. This being a Baker fairytale, Ani’s whirlwind rags-to-riches marriage is only the beginning of her Cinderella story. 

Baker pulls off a risky balance between outright comedy and what is, essentially, the kidnapping of a sex worker by three large, powerfully connected men. None of this would work without Baker’s characteristic empathy for everyone. And it certainly wouldn’t feel so easy-going were it not for the relationship between Ani and the silent strongman Igor, played by Yura Borisov with a standout turn that nearly rivals Madison’s.

3. Sing Sing

To see the film is to witness a filmmaking vision brought to transcendent life by director/co-writer Greg Kwedar, and a tremendous ensemble cast that features many formerly incarcerated members of the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program at Sing Sing maximum security prison. Another endlessly sympathetic and award-worthy performance from Colman Domingo, personifies the soul-stirring effects of the RTA.

The film’s surface-level message of healing through the arts is well-played and well-earned, but a more universal subtext is never far from the spotlight. Sing Sing soars from the way it invests in the need for expression and inspiration, and in the very souls who found a path to redemption by stepping on stage.

4. Challengers

The relationship triangle at work in Challengers could probably work outside of a tennis court, but director Luca Guadagnino does wonders with the sports angle for a completely engrossing drama of intimate competition. Anchored around a three-set challenge match between Art Donaldson (West Side Story‘s Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor from The Crown), the film drifts back and forth in time as it immerses us in their series of entanglements with tennis phenom Tashi Duncan (Zendaya).

Zendaya, Faist and O’Connor deftly handle the growth of their characters from fresh-faced teens to hardened adults. All three deliver terrific, well-defined performances, and Challengers quickly becomes a film to get lost in, where you’re happy to be hanging on every break point.

5. Love Lies Bleeding

Awash in the stink and the glory of new passion, Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding treads some familiar roadways but leaves an impression solely its own. Glass blends and smears cinematic gender identifiers, particularly those of noir and thriller, concocting an intoxicating new image of sexual awakening and empowerment. She routinely upends images of power and masculinity, subverting expectations and associations and fetishizing the human body anew.

Anyone who’s seen Glass’s magnificent 2021 horror Saint Maud may be better prepared for the third act than newcomers to the filmmaker’s vision, but it’s a wild and unexpected turn regardless.  It’s quite something—bold, original, and wryly funny in the most unexpected moments. There’s heartbreak and horror, sex and revenge, a little magic and a lot of steroids. Glass’s juice has the goods.

6. A Complete Unknown

Instead of attempting a complete life arc, director James Mangold and co-writers Jay Cocks and Elijah Wald wisely choose a four-year whirlwind that changed the course of music and culture.

It’s hard to imagine a mainstream treatment working better than this one. And it’s one propelled by an absolutely transformative performance from Timothée Chalamet. His success at emulating both Dylan’s voice and guitar style is beyond impressive, as is his ease at moving the iconic persona from an ambitious Greenwich Village newbie to the cynical voice of a generation feeling “pulverized by fame.”

7. The Substance

There are some films that, for better or worse, you never truly forget. With each passing minute, Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance proved it would be one of those films. And that shrimp cocktail will never look as appealing again. Holy cow, this movie! What a glorious sledgehammer Fargeat wields! 

Demi Moore -in her best performance in decades if not her career – plays Elisabeth, an actress and fitness guru turning 50. Fargeat takes this concept, pulls in inspiration from Cronenberg as well as Brian Yuzna’s Society, strangles subtlety with some legwarmers, and crafts an unforgettable cautionary tale about the way the male gaze corrupts and disfigures women inside and out.

8. Will & Harper

Harper Steele loved traveling America and spent years upon years hitchhiking and driving from town to town, dive bar to dive bar, stock car race to pool hall to backwater, savoring every minute of it.  But since she transitioned a couple of years ago, she’s afraid to do it anymore. Her friend Will Ferrell  thinks maybe she can re-explore the country she loves as her true self if she has a man with her. Preferably a big, lumbering, lovable, friendly, famous friend willing to shift attention away from her whenever she might want him to. 

There are so many reasons to watch Will & Harper, not the least of which is to see two of the smartest comedic minds (the two met on SNL when Steele was head writer for the show) riff. Another great reason to watch Will & Harper is that this film fits so beautifully into that American cinematic tradition of emotional, thrilling, deeply human road picture: one relationship changes and deepens with the landscape as America itself is more clearly revealed. Will & Harper just makes you wonder how it can be possible for anyone to be upset by another person’s transition. It also makes you hope those who feel too stigmatized to do it realize that there is a better life.

9. The Piano Lesson

You can often find ghosts lurking in the plays of August Wilson. His characters work to forge a better future for their families, haunted by the trauma and systemic racism that has beaten them down for generations. Those themes also define Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, while a vengeful spirit from the past adds a layer of the supernatural to director and co-writer Malcolm Washington’s debut feature.

As a strong-but-cautious woman fighting for both her past and her future, Danielle Deadwyler is an award-worthy revelation. John David Washington has never been better, managing an impressive balance between manic ambition and his sobering reality. 

10. Wicked

Grande gives Glinda’s vanity a charm that is somehow inviting and often quite funny, while Erivo brings a level of tortured longing to Elphaba that makes her journey all the more resonate. The two leads – who often sang live during production – have the pipes to bring their own brand of magic, and they share a wonderful on screen chemistry that anchors the film. But themes of a gaslighting scheister wresting power through deception and greed by turning the populace’s attention toward “others” to fear hits a nerve now that gives the film a depth and power than the stage production or book ever had.

Honorable Mentions

  • 11. Civil War
  • 12. The Bikeriders
  • 13. Nickel Boys
  • 14. The Brutalist
  • 15. September 5
  • 16. The Wild Robot
  • 17. Inside Out 2
  • 18. Furiosa
  • 19. Saturday Night
  • 20. Blitz
  • 21. A Real Pain
  • 22. Kneecap
  • 23. The Fire Inside
  • 24. Dune: Part Two
  • 25. Snack Shack