As of writing this review, it is the end of January. 2026 is still fresh, and we have a whole year of new and exciting movies still to come out. However, I firmly believe that there will not be a more important movie in 2026 than Poh Si Teng’s American Doctor. This shocking, masterfully made documentary drops us right in the middle of the Palestinian-Israeli war and shows us the horrors of what is going…
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Petra Biondian Volpe’s Frank & Louis is one of the most disappointing movies I’ve seen at the Sundance Film Festival because of its unoriginality. The film takes place in a prison and follows Frank (Kingsley Ben-Adir), a man in jail for life for a murder her committed when he was younger. He gets a job caring for aging inmates with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Frank is tasked with looking after Louis (Rob Morgan), who used…
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The Huntress is a brutal and surprisingly inspirational tale about standing up to injustice when all hope seems lost. Writer/director Suzanne Andrews Correa takes us deep into the darkness of Juarez, Mexico to show us how one woman took a stand against violence in her community. Set over the course of a stressful day, The Huntress opens with a woman shooting a bus driver in cold blood in front of several people. This woman…
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Fair warning before diving into this review: as long as it was competently made, I was going to like The Disciple, Joana Natasegara’s documentary about the rap group Wu-Tang Clan and their mysterious and infamous 2015 album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. I love the Wu-Tang Clan. Their debut album, Enter the 36 Chambers, is one of my favorite albums ever, and any time I get to learn more about the group that…
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The 2026 Sundance Film Festival is here! I have been attending the festival since 2011, and it is my favorite festival in the world. I love the atmosphere, the focus and love of cinema throughout the festival, and of course, the movies. I love the diversity of films at the festival and being able to see a wide array of films from across the globe. I love discovering new, talented filmmakers, actors, and creatives throughout…
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I was not as over-the-moon for Danny Boyle’s 2025 28 Years Later as other critics, but there were elements that I did like. I liked Ralph Fiennes as a quietly deranged doctor who has built a shrine of bones to those who have perished in this apocalyptic zombie hellscape. I liked the idea of a seemingly indestructible zombie named Samson who terrified zombies as much as humans. I like the film’s grim tone, bold…
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2025 is officially over, and now it is time for my picks for the best movies of 2025. I thought 2025 was a great year for movies. Easily one of the best of the 2020s. I think I will remember 2025 as an epic year. It felt like there was a real effort to make movies on the biggest scale possible to bring people back to the theater. While we saw tentpole films like A…
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In my continued analysis of the best movies of 2025, here are my picks for the best performances of 2025. Every year, this is the toughest list to make, and every year, I feel bad about leaving some performances off. While I loved performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, Joel Edgerton, Jessie Buckley, Wagner Moura, Sophie Thatcher, Eva Victor, Ryan Bader, Vincent Cassel, Jennifer Lawrence, Adam Sandler, and many others, I believe the performances I chose are…
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Continuing my look at the best movies of 2025, I am now going to make my pick for the best director of 2025. 2025 saw great efforts from established directors like Paul Thomas Anderson, Ryan Coogler, Wes Anderson, Jafar Panahi, Rian Johnson, and Park Chan-wook. We even got two films each from cinematic icons in Steven Soderbergh (Black Bag and Presence) and Richard Linklater (Blue Moon and Nouvelle Vague), respectively. We also saw impressive features…
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Continuing to look back at the best movies of 2025, I will now be looking at the best movies from each genre. I will be looking at my favorite foreign-language films, comedies, action movies, and a few other genres and categories. And like every year, each category will have five “nominees” (my personal top five) with my “winner” (my favorite) in bold, followed by short reasoning as to why I picked it as the best….
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