Best Movies

We are at the halfway point of 2024, which means it is time to look back at the best movies of 2024 so far. I have seen 64 new release movies so far in 2024 (92 total including film festival movies and movies that will be released later this year. Overall, 2024 has been an interesting year for movies. Due to the writers’ and actors’ strikes last fall, a lot of movies in production were…

The Chicago Critics Film Festival returns to the historic Music Box Theater in Chicago for the 11th time to highlight some of the most exciting films making their rounds on the film festival circuit. Once again the festival showcases an eclectic group of films, from indie sensations to midnight hits to anniversary screenings of beloved favorites. Here are some of the titles I am most excited about at this year’s festival. Bringing Out the Dead…

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival is here! The Sundance Film Festival is my favorite film festival in the world. I have been attending the festival since 2011 and love it every single year I go. 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. I love discovering new, talented filmmakers, actors, and creatives throughout the festival and…

2023 is officially over and now it is time for my picks for the best movies of 2023. 2023 was a truly great year for cinema. Theaters were packed, we got great movies from great directors, saw new filmmakers emerge, and for me personally, I had an absolute blast. As I mentioned in my Best Director of 2023 piece, this year was loaded with films from some of my all-time favorite filmmakers; Martin Scorsese, Christopher…

In my continued analysis of the best movies of 2023, here are my picks for the best performances of 2023. 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, Robert De Niro, Taraji P. Henson, Natalie Portman, Abby Rider Fortson, Alma Pöysti, Adam Driver, and Aaron Pierre, among many others, I think the performances I chose are…

Continuing my look at the best movies of 2023, I am now going to make my pick for the best director of 2023. 2023 was a great year for movies and one of my favorite aspects of it was how many of my favorite directors made movies. We got great films from legendary veterans like Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Alexander Payne, Todd Haynes, David Fincher, M. Night Shyamalan, Kelly Reichardt, Ben Affleck, Wes Anderson, and…

Continuing my look back at the best movies of 2023, I will now look at some of my favorite movie moments and scenes from the movies of 2023. Whether it was a masterclass scene of acting, a great line-reading, or a thrilling piece of action, these were all scenes and moments from 2023 movies that I loved. There were a ton of options to choose from, but this group of movie moments and scenes are…

Continuing to look back at the best movies of 2023, we 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. Each category will have five “nominees” (a.k.a my personal top five) with my “winner” (my favorite) in bold, followed by short reasoning as to why I picked it the best. Here are my picks…