Recent articles
July 15, 2026
‘The Lion at My Back’ Review: An Asylum Seeker and a Former Drug Addict Face the World in Different Ways in a Promising but Pat Redemption Tale
Juxtaposing the story of a young asylum seeker with that of a former drug addict, “The Lion at My Back” highlights the way in which perceived hierarchies of suffering feel somewhat irrelevant on an...
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July 15, 2026
‘The Odyssey’ Review: In Christopher Nolan’s Vast, Thrilling, Slightly Aloof Epic, Homer Is Where the Heart Is Not
More than 70 years have passed since Hollywood last attempted a straight-up adaptation of Homer’s “Odyssey,” which is an unfathomable eternity considering both its standing as a foundational epic n...
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July 14, 2026
Whether in ‘Jurassic Park’ or ‘The Piano,’ Sam Neill Put the Movies First
Sam Neill had been steadily working in the movies for nearly two decades before he became, at the age of 45, a star in the industry’s eyes. A sturdy, reliable everyman who radiated, depending on th...
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July 12, 2026
‘Five Years, Four Months’ Review: Moving Portrait of a Grieving Colombian Mother Demonstrates an Impressive Control of Tension
Thousands of people in Colombia have been “forcibly disappeared”, as the euphemistic expression goes, since conflicts began in the mid-1960s between the Colombian government and various paramilitar...
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July 11, 2026
‘Lover, Not a Fighter’ Review: Freewheeling Slovak Charmer Charts a Sober (but Not Solemn) GenZ Romance
“I’m a lover, not a fighter / And I’m really built for speed,” sang Kinks frontman Ray Davies in at least one of the songs that shares a title with Slovakian writer-director Martina Buchelová’s hug...
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July 11, 2026
‘Fruit Gathering’ Review: Two Working Women Chase Impossible Dreams and Desires in a Delicate Debut from Myanmar
Acts of kindness are few and far between in the punishing Myanmar textile factory where young San Kyi (Nandar Myat Aung) makes a meager living, hunched over a sewing machine. When new employee Thei...
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July 11, 2026
‘Night Nurse’ Review: Two Perverts Join Forces in a Gloriously Deviant Oddity About a Caretaker Drawn Into Her Patient’s Grifting Games
From the moment we meet luxury nursing-home patient Douglas (Bruce McKenzie), we feel something is up. The knowing sparkle in his baby-blue eyes; his slender gold chain and tufts of chest hair poki...
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July 11, 2026
‘A Happy Family’ Review: Anna Schinz’s Powerful Lead Performance Elevates a Confused Custody Drama
There is a more interesting story lurking within Jan-Eric Mack’s “A Happy Family” than the one actually being told. At times, the Swiss filmmaker teases the possibility that the conventional narra...
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July 10, 2026
‘Learning to Breathe Under Water’ Review: A Shark in the Roof Covers a Hole in the Heart in an Empathetic Crowdpleaser
A 25-foot fibreglass model of a shark — or its rear half, at least — adorning the roof of an otherwise ordinary terraced house in suburban Oxford, England, the Headington Shark is the kind of local...
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July 9, 2026
‘3 Weeks After’ Review: A Bruising, Fiercely Controlled Study of High Schoolers in Moral and Psychological Freefall
The kids have never been less all right than they are “3 Weeks After,” a nightmarishly intense depiction of high school bullying and its consequences from Serbian director Miroslav Terzić that offe...
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July 7, 2026
‘Black Money for White Nights’ Review: A Cycle of Corruption Endangers a Marriage in a Bitter, Gripping Bulgarian Tragicomedy
How much dirty cash can pass through your hands before your soul is stained? Gosha (Ivan Savov) and Marina (Tanya Shahova), the struggling sixtysomething couple at the center of “Black Money for Wh...
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July 5, 2026
‘Chica Checa’ Review: Šimon Holý’s Karlovy Vary Competition Entry Is Worthy but Clumsy
Momentous events such as the sale of the family home, a young man coming out to his family, or the staging of a drag performance in a small town would seem like perfect ingredients for an intensely...
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July 3, 2026
‘Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World’ Review: A Portrait of America’s Favorite Poet That Reckons With Her Popularity and Her Privacy
Few modern poets are as readily quotable — and indeed as widely quoted — as Mary Oliver, the late Pulitzer winner whose graceful but plainly worded reflections on the natural world have been taken ...
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July 1, 2026
‘Lucy Lost’ Review: A Winsome Family Animation With Welcome Narrative Complexity
From the blockbuster stage and screen iterations of “War Horse” to the underseen “When the Whales Came” to the recent, BAFTA-winning “Kensuke’s Kingdom,” the books of English author Michael Morpurg...
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June 28, 2026
‘Memorizu’ Review: A Tender, Artful Japanese Reflection on the Media That Keep Us Together
We all used to send postcards to show loved ones our location when we traveled away from home; some of us still do, though it’s a practice tinged with nostalgia. It’s more immediate, after all, jus...
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June 26, 2026
‘The Get Out’ Review: Russell Crowe and a Game Supporting Cast Cannot Save Derrick Borte’s Tonally Ambitious Crime Comedy
The canon of popular American movies this side of the millennium counts several crime comedies in its ranks, among them Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s” trilogy, David O. Russell’s “American Hustle” a...
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June 25, 2026
‘Jackass: Best and Last’ Review: Boys Will Still Be Boys, but Only Just, in an Amusing, Somewhat Wistful Farewell
Who ever imagined, back when we were all younger and less weary, that we’d be getting a new “Jackass” film in the year 2026? When the first big-screen spinoff of this quintessentially turn-of-the-m...
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June 22, 2026
‘Minions & Monsters’ Review: The Canary-Colored Critters’ Latest Starring Vehicle Goes Back to Early Hollywood, and Hits a Creative High
From “Sunset Boulevard” to “The Artist,” “Singin’ in the Rain” to “Babylon,” Hollywood’s transition to sound cinema has long been a fertile period for later film artists to recreate with all the mo...
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June 19, 2026
‘Ponderosa’ Review: The Great Bill Camp Gives Weight to a Slippery, Nightmarish Black Comedy
One of the great secret weapons of American film and TV in recent years, solid-gold supporting actor Bill Camp gets a rare and fascinating leading showcase in “Ponderosa” — though in committing to ...
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June 19, 2026
‘Stand Up’ Review: A Dutch Disability Drama With Complexity and Integrity
Most able-bodied people don’t know what to say to 23-year-old Vera (Lucia Zemene) in the months following a traffic collision that left her without a leg, but one empty platitude really stands out:...
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June 18, 2026
‘Voicemails for Isabelle’ Review: Zoey Deutch and Nick Robinson Give a Hard-Sell Romcom Premise the Hard Sell
Is “Voicemails” the least romantic word ever to appear in the title of a romantic comedy? It’s up there, surely. But consider it a suitable warning, since “Voicemails for Isabelle” isn’t terribly r...
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June 18, 2026
‘Colors of White Rock’ Review: Vivid Documentary Portrait of a Trucker Traveling Mongolia’s Desert of Broken Dreams
Trucks provide much of the outright color in “Colors of White Rock.” Rolling metal rectangles in pillarbox red, royal blue and bottle green, they glaringly clash with the dun khaki expanses of the ...
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June 17, 2026
‘Girls Like Girls’ Review: Hayley Kiyoko Makes a Warmly Assured Directorial Debut, Awash in Adolescent Melancholy and Yearning
The adaptation trail of “Girls Like Girls” is an unusual one. In 2015, pop singer Hayley Kiyoko released her hyper-catchy song of the same name, bringing a plainly worded statement of lesbian desir...
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June 16, 2026
‘The Accompanist’ Review: Susan Sarandon Shines as a Problematic Foster Parent in Zach Woods’ Unsteady Directorial Debut
Hollywood loves a comedy about a plucky kid and an aging eccentric. It also loves a drama about a child in danger. Starring Susan Sarandon as Sylvia, a chain-smoking, sharp-tongued, first-time fost...
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June 13, 2026
‘Act One’ Review: Acting Is Overreacting in Sophia Takal’s Intriguingly Off-Kilter Psychodrama
How far would you go for a woman who claims with a straight face to be “endeavoring to bring about a change in consciousness through our art?” Not that far, probably: Confronted with that statement...
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June 11, 2026
‘The Furious’ Review: Dopey Dialogue and Dubbing Don’t Matter in an Aptly Titled, Stunningly Choreographed Martial Arts Spectacular
A quartet of screenwriters is credited in Kenji Tanigaki’s “The Furious,” but just a single action choreographer: If you’ve ever doubted the adage that two heads (or indeed four) are better than on...
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June 10, 2026
‘Happy Hours’ Review: Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson Are Reunited in a Romcom Made for Nineties Nostalgists
The star pairing of “Happy Hours” isn’t just its selling point, but its audience filter. If the words “Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson together again” make your heart go a little soft, then congrat...
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June 9, 2026
‘The Last Day’ Review: Alicia Vikander Is Another Modern-Day Mrs. Dalloway in Rachel Rose’s Skilled, Subtle Mood Piece
It’s the Fourth of July in “The Last Day,” and the weather is playing ball: the kind of soft, slouchy summer heat made for a leafy garden party. But a chill runs through Rachel Rose’s elegantly res...
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June 8, 2026
‘Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders’ Review: Compelling Documentary Probes the Legacy of William Friedkin’s Infamous Queer Thriller
The legacy of William Friedkin’s 1980 erotic thriller “Cruising” is a complex one. A film long vehemently denounced by the queer community it purported to represent, and more recently reclaimed as ...
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June 8, 2026
‘Rain Reign’ Review: A Neurodivergent Girl Learns About Loss and Sacrifice in a Gentle, Family-Oriented Indie
Rose, the 12-year-old protagonist of “Rain Reign,” is obsessed with homonyms — words that sound alike but differ in spelling and meaning — and the title duly refers to the name she gives to her sui...
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