Top Films by Year
Top Films of 2025
Top Films of 2020
Top Films of 2017
Top Films of 2015
I’m Still Here – 7.5
Somehow there is no tension and little emotion in the story of a former Congressman in Rio being “disappeared” by the Brazilian military dictatorship in 1975. 25- and 40-year-later codas add nothing to the drama but appear inserted to honor the true-life events the film is based on. Fernanda Torres is rightly receiving award nominations […]
Mistura – 7.5
A crowd pleaser from Peru with handsome leads and beautiful cuisine. We know where the story is going pretty much every step of the way, but that makes it no less enjoyable. Ditto for the fact that the tale is a total fantasy: who is ever rescued from poverty by starting a restaurant?
A Different Man – 6.5
It was worth spending time with Renate Reinsve, but the film itself was no more than an O.Henry short story. Curiously, Sebastian Stan was nominated for a Golden Globe for this performance, which I found inauthentic, as opposed to his Oscar-nominated role in The Apprentice, which I considered brilliant. This passed the time on a […]
Sing Sing – 8
A feel-good story of prison inmates putting on a play, with an Oscar-worthy performance by Colman Domingo anchoring an amateur cast of real-life prisoners playing themselves. The play’s not the thing. What we get to see and feel is inmates experiencing their own humanity through performing in prison and by extension in this movie. There’s […]
The Room Next Door – 6.5
A meditation on dying and friendship with lots of close-ups of Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore. They are obviously both fine actresses, but the formal, slightly stilted dialogue sounded as though it were written in a foreign language (Spanish?) then translated. I felt I was at a dramatic reading with attractive settings. Still, a must-see […]