Recent articles
July 16, 2026
‘Motor City’ Review: Potsy Ponciroli’s Audacious Thriller — a Scorsese Opera without Dialogue — Announces the Arrival of a Startling Voice
At times, "Motor City" is like a silent movie directed by Scorsese. It draws us in because it’s got a glittering underworld-opera surface, but also because the audience needs to use its noodle a bi...
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July 8, 2026
‘Evil Dead Burn’ Review: The Gonzo Comedy Is Gone, but the Series’ Sixth Entry Is an Effective Piece of Gross-Out Guignol
The third movie in the series since its 2013 reboot (and the sixth entry in the franchise overall), it’s a stand-alone drama of family rancor and family demons — at times, it suggests a Eugene O’Ne...
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July 4, 2026
Hollywood Movies Have Always Been About America. On the 250th July 4, Are They Still?
A few days ago, the New York Times ran a provocative listicle entitled “What Is the Definitive Movie About America?” Their writers came up with a couple of inspired choices, like “Dazed and Confuse...
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July 1, 2026
‘Young Washington’ Review: George Washington Goes to War in an Angel Studios Film That’s Like the Great-Man Biographies You Read in Grade School
"Young Washington" is like one of those great-man biographies you read in grade school. Released by Angel Studios for the Fourth of July, the movie is intended as a bit of likably square, neo-tradi...
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June 30, 2026
The Best Movies of 2026 (So Far)
You can’t evaluate a movie year — not really — when you’re only halfway through it. But you can take its temperature. And at the midway point, what we can say is that the patient looks healthier th...
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June 27, 2026
‘House of Criticism’ Review: A Pensive and Touching Portrait of Married Art Critics Jerry Saltz and Roberta Smith (It Is Only, at Moments, a True-Life Christopher Guest Movie)
The way art connects (and saves) these two on a daily basis is its own idiosyncratic story, and it speaks to a certain vanishing culture of passionate New York literary brainiacs that used to be th...
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June 24, 2026
‘Supergirl’ Review: Milly Alcock Takes Charge in a Dystopian Superhero Movie So Flat It’s Super-Horrendous
Kill Krem! Save the dog! Those are the motivations driving the entire not-even-interesting-enough-to-be-convoluted plot of "Supergirl." Maybe that’s why the movie is full of action yet numbingly flat.
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June 24, 2026
‘Lucky Strike’ Review: Scott Eastwood Fights a One-Man Battle for Survival in Rod Davis Lurie’s World War II Thriller
"Lucky Strike" isn’t a raw combat drama so much as a lone-wolf genre film, something that feels tidier and maybe safer. Lurie stages it with skill; it’s not like what happens is predictable. But it...
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June 21, 2026
‘Peter Asher: Everywhere Man’ Review: The Beatles-Era Pop Singer Turned Star Producer Gets His Own Boomer-centric Documentary
Asher has a track record of achievement, but he’s also someone who gives off major boomer vibes; he’s got an aura, a mystique, a history of associational cool. "Everywhere Man" is well worth seeing...
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June 20, 2026
‘Finnegan’s Foursome’ Review: Edward Burns’ Spiky-Quaint Sports Dramedy Is a Tale of Family Therapy Through Golf
"Finnegan’s Foursome" is his 16th feature, and he’s still doing that shaggy-likable, spiky-quaint, semi-low-budget Edward Burns dramedy thing — the script that’s talky and kind of funny, though in ...
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June 18, 2026
‘Dreams of Violets’ Review: What Does a Film Made Entirely with AI Look Like? Ash Koosha’s Iranian Protest Drama Is Dramatically Numbing, but It’s Still a Startling Portent of the Future
Does this mean that AI can "make a movie"? No. But it does mean that AI can give you scenes of roiling tumultuous Civil War set in the hurly-burly of Tehran at sunset, with soldiers roaming the str...
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June 17, 2026
‘Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story’ Review: The Mistress of Late-Night Cable Public-Access Sex-Show Kitsch Gets Her Own Bangin’ Documentary
She would still be powdering her nose during the show’s opening moments (that’s how understaffed they were), and she would repeat her catch phrases ("Lie back and get comfortable," "If you don’t ha...
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June 16, 2026
‘Toy Story 5’ Review: The Fifth Time’s the Charm in a Nimble, Moving, Irresistible Sequel That Takes on the Threat of Tech Toys
“Toy Story 5” escalates in delight (the climactic wedding ceremony must be seen to be believed), but it also has moments that hit you like a gut punch. For this is a movie that touches on a profoun...
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June 13, 2026
How Alien Conspiracy Theory Got Respectable — and Brought America Back to Magical Thinking
“Disclosure” has become a cult word. It shouldn’t be, since all it means, technically, is to reveal something. But the new wave of alien conspiracy theorists have made “disclosure” into a teasingly...
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June 11, 2026
‘The Leader’ Review: Tim Blake Nelson and Vera Farmiga Are Creepy and Powerful in a Disturbing Drama About the Heaven’s Gate Cult
"The Leader," as a dramatic experience, is creepy as hell, but as written and directed by Michael Gallagher, it’s also authentic and sharply told, and it’s inquiring about the right things — namely...
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June 9, 2026
‘Disclosure Day’ Review: Steven Spielberg’s Invigorating Chase Thriller Taps Into the Mania for Alien Conspiracy Theory, but It Never Becomes a Close Encounter With Wonder
Scene for scene, the movie is a vigorous and diverting ride. Yet coming after the mountains of real UAP footage we’ve seen, "Disclosure Day" never gives you the contact high of awe that "Close Enco...
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June 9, 2026
‘Jean-Michel’ Review: Jean-Michel Basquiat Finally Gets the Fantastic Documentary He Deserves
"Jean-Michel," directed by Quinn Whitney Wilson and Viridiana Lieberman (it just premiered at the Tribeca Festival and was bought by Netflix), is the first movie to penetrate the Basquiat mystique ...
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June 4, 2026
‘Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs That’s the Weight of the World)’ Review: The Tribeca Festival Kicks Off with Questlove’s Indelible Portrait of the Great but Underrated EWF
Questlove tells the band’s story, and Maurice White’s story, in a way that’s at once thrilling and haunting. He captures their rightful place in the pop cosmos.
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June 1, 2026
The Myth of Marilyn: Why We’re Still Obsessed With the Goddess of Sex
It’s been said that the movie stars of Hollywood’s golden age were our version of the Greek gods. That’s how much they towered over our imaginations (and still do). Humphrey Bogart was the god of c...
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June 1, 2026
Marilyn Monroe’s 5 Greatest Roles
Here’s a Marilyn gallery we hope is of value to everyone — to those young enough not to have seen these films before (in which case we envy you!), or to those who’ve seen every one of them, since t...
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May 30, 2026
The Shocking Success of ‘Backrooms’ and ‘Obsession’ Should Be a Memo to Hollywood: You Need What’s Outside the Box
“Thinking outside the box” is a phrase that tends to be used by those who are stuck inside the box. It means something real, but it’s also corporate-speak for having an actual imagination — the aud...
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May 29, 2026
‘Atonement’ Review: Boyd Holbrook and Hiam Abbass in a Different Kind of War Movie — an Affecting Drama of Survivor Anguish and Combat Guilt
"Atonement" comes to a place that, in a lesser film, might appear sentimental but in this one is bracingly real. You can feel the movie burning away the fog of war.
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May 27, 2026
‘Backrooms’ Review: Experimental Horror Comes Out of the Margins in Kane Parsons’ YouTube-Gone-A24 Head Trip
Parsons, in his feature directing debut (the script is by Will Soodik), proves a wizard of mood who shares the early David Lynch’s love of industrial cosmic sound design, and also Lynch’s fixation ...
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May 22, 2026
‘Maverick — The Epic Adventures of David Lean’ Review: How the Director of ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ Expressed His Turbulent Life in His Grand Visions
"Maverick," which is full of singular stories, stunning films clips, and extraordinary insights from a panoply of film directors (Francis Ford Coppola and Alfonso Cuarón to Paul Greengrass and Celi...
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May 21, 2026
‘Diamond’ Review: Andy Garcia Directs and Stars in a Charming but Slight Neo-Noir About an Old-Movie Detective…in Contemporary L.A.
A lot of tender loving care, and Hollywood obsession, has been poured into it, and it’s amusing to see how the quality that’s always made Andy Garcia such an appealing actor — his way of being dire...
variety.com
May 20, 2026
‘The Man I Love’ Review: Rami Malek Has His Best Role Since ‘Bohemian Rhapody’ in Ira Sachs’s Delicate and Touching ’80s Character Study
Malek colors him in with shades of anger, tenderness, psychosis, and the sheer pesky individuality of Jimmy. He makes him a morosely charismatic flake — the kind of flamboyant narcissist who’s got ...
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May 20, 2026
‘Her Private Hell’ Review: Nicolas Winding Refn Gets Lost in His Own Private Filmmaking Hell with This David Lynch-on-Bad-Acid Disaster
"Her Private Hell" takes up where "The Neon Demon" left off — or maybe I should say where "Twin Peaks: The Return" left off, since the new movie plays like a knockoff of David Lynch at his most baf...
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May 19, 2026
‘Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu’ Review: An Efficient Adventure That Only Pretends to Be a Real ‘Star Wars’ Movie. Maybe That’s a Good Thing
I found "The Mandalorian and Grogu" to be fun in a slightly flat way. But because the movie has so little pretense, it’s basically an invitation to wallow in the lite "Star Wars" nostalgia that’s t...
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May 18, 2026
‘Full Phil’ Review: With Woody Harrelson and Kristen Stewart Locked in a Father-Daughter Hatefest, Will Quentin Dupieux’s Latest Bizarro-World Lark Be His Crossover Movie?
"Full Phil," brash and throttling as it is, is an overly italicized screw-loose satire that some will want to see, because in its halfway funny, halfway off-putting extreme way it dares to color so...
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May 17, 2026
‘Sheep in the Box’ Review: Kore-eda’s Sweet but Limp Sci-Fi Fable About a 7-Year-Old AI Humanoid
or all the fantasy simplicity of the premise, there’s no structure to it, and though the humanoid Kakeru increases in agency and brains as the movie goes on, it still never figures out who he is.
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