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Jason Statham wears many hats in this one, literally. He also pours syrup like he just set off a bomb. Otherwise, it’s rubbish.

Setting aside that it's a chunk of colonialist hokum, this might contain Michael Douglas' worst performance.

Watched on Thursday June 5, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday June 4, 2025.

I liked this one much more than most. Read my thoughts on Deep Focus Review.

Dan Trachtenberg's new animated Predator movie will tide fans over until something more substantial comes along. Light on character, heavy on action and gory deaths, Predator: Killer of Killers presents an animated not-quite anthology where the iconic alien hunter faces off against some of history’s fiercest warriors. Conceived by Prey (2022) helmer Trachtenberg and Micho Robert Rutare (Z Nation) and written by the latter, the movie is a showpiece for elaborate fight sequences in a visual style reminiscent of Sony’s Spider-Verse movies. The conceit is little more than the realization of a nerdy conversation: Who would win in a fight between a Predator and a Viking? What about between a Predator and a samurai—or what’s more, a Predator versus a samurai and a ninja? How about in a dogfight between a Predator ship and a US fighter plane from World War II? Well, if you’ve ever wondered about these mashups, Predator: Killer of Killers explores them in a feature that only cracks 80 minutes with the end credits. 

Continue reading on Deep Focus Review

I didn't see this as a cautionary tale against promiscuity, as some have interpreted. I saw it as a portrait of a woman living in a world filled with dangerously volatile and fragile men.

The Sexual Revolution was about rebelling against the constraints of the patriarchy and traditionalism. She's not the problem; they are, as evidenced in nearly every interaction and relationship she has with men—from her father to her lovers.

It's also a fascinating portrait of New York in the '70s.

Diane Keaton was incredible. This might be her best, most daring dramatic performance.

Watched Vinegar Syndrome's 4K edition, which looked amazing.

Ana de Armas deserves a better action movie than Ballerina. After her brief but memorable appearance in No Time to Die (2021)—playing a plucky young agent who injects some fun into an otherwise dour movie, featuring Daniel Craig’s final appearance as James Bond—the Oscar-nominated star seemed primed for her own action franchise. She made some headway in The Gray Man (2022) and Ghosted (2023), with uneven results. But this underwhelming, if entertaining shoot-’em-up (full title: From the World of John Wick: Ballerina) doesn’t showcase her talents as a performer. She conforms well enough to the monosyllabic hero template of the John Wick franchise, and her physicality in stunts and action scenes is impressive. But the writers haven’t given her much of a character to play. Worse, the screen story relies far too much on the established framework for this series. Rather than reinvent or even innovate with inspiration from the John Wick formula, Ballerina proves to be little more than a John Wick sequel by another name. And while that may be enough for some fans, I wanted something better and unique for Ana de Armas.

Continue reading on Deep Focus Review

Twists!

Watched on Sunday June 1, 2025.

If you told me Anna Biller directed this, I would have to believe you.

Watched on Saturday May 31, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 31, 2025.

Watched on Friday May 30, 2025.

It’s tempting to accuse Bring Her Back and its directors, Danny and Michael Philippou—the Australian twin-brother duo behind 2023’s Talk to Me—of falling into the trap affecting so much of modern horror. Every other horror filmmaker has tried to dramatically elevate their movie with themes of loss and trauma, adding formulaic emotional weight to their premise through some manner of profoundly emotional messaging. I’ve complained about the trend before, particularly involving cases of blatant literalism, such as last year’s The Substance, where its otherwise resonant message proves so surface-level that there’s nothing to mine afterward. Few choices are more banal than horror movie characters who engage in open dialogue about “trauma” and other such buzzwords; when a movie states its themes in such overt , it’s condescending to the viewer. It doesn’t trust that audiences are smart enough to interpret a movie or figure out what a work of art means. And there’s a little of that in Bring Her Back, but not enough to render this nasty, squirm-inducing, emotionally raw experience ineffective. When a movie is this well done, its clichés evaporate. 

Continue reading on Deep Focus Review

On the Venn diagram of rabid fan bases, Dangerous Animals targets the overlap between crime junkies and shark fanatics. This is a rare movie designed for people devoted to murder podcasts and serial killer documentaries on Netflix, along with those who fervently watch the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. While the implications of these fan subsets sometimes prove troublesome—glorifying killers, exploiting victims, stigmatizing sharks—they represent a financially viable demographic. And so, here’s a film that will massage the pleasure centers of both subcultures. Jai Courtney stars as a psycho whose modus operandi involves kidnapping women, feeding them to bloodthirsty sharks, and recording the incident on a VHS camcorder, the tape of which is then added to his library of rewatchable killings. It’s a terrific hook for a movie, recalling Tobe Hooper’s 1976 shocker Eaten Alive, about a psycho motel owner who feeds guests to his pet crocodile. Distributed by IFC Films and Shudder, Dangerous Animals shouldn’t have trouble finding an enthusiastic audience.

Continue reading on Deep Focus Review

Watched on Thursday May 29, 2025.

Intriguing concept. Schmaltzy script with dialogue that sounds like bad TV. Quite a wig on Sam Worthington.

A decade has ed since John Maclean’s superb debut film, Slow West (2015), and the writer-director’s long-awaited sophomore effort, Tornado, is an underwhelming follow-up. Both films unfold in a similarly spare, natural setting that, if not situated literally in the American West, draws from Western imagery so liberally that it may as well be. Both feature minimalist characters played by actors who can imbue their roles with presence to spare. And both owe a great deal to loaded silences and gorgeous landscapes, captured by cinematographer Robbie Ryan in luminous, painterly compositions that frame iconic-looking figures against dramatic backdrops. Maclean’s composer, Jed Kurzel, brother of director Justin (The Snowtown Murders, 2011), also returns, interrupting the quiet, intense ages with sudden bursts of strings and heavy drums. Tornado is altogether thoughtfully crafted, just as Slow West was, but it’s missing an emotional core that might’ve centered the film.

Continue reading on Deep Focus Review

Watched on Wednesday May 28, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday May 27, 2025.

The first Precog?

Watched on Monday May 26, 2025.

Watched on Monday May 26, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 25, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 25, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 25, 2025.

It’s a ZAZ-esque spoof comedy poking fun at Hitchcock, De Palma, and slasher movies. Fun as that sounds, it’s one of the weirdest comedies I’ve seen, and not always in a good way. Joe Don Baker is hilariously unhinged. Julia Duffy brings her comic chops. But far too many incest and statutory jokes to make it a timeless, undiscovered classic.

Lady of Burlesque’s opening titles describe the story as taking place “Along the Great White Way, before the lights went out.” This refers to Broadway’s Theater District during World War II, when the US Army ordered “dim-outs” in New York City in the event of air raids. Throughout the war years, theater owners shut down their marquees, and rs turned off their billboards in Times Square, both as a power conservation measure and a preemptive defense against enemy attacks. The titles signal the 1943 feature’s conversation with the recent past, dramatizing a period that moviegoers living through the war may have regarded as “simpler times.” By design, Lady of Burlesque is an entertaining programmer, even somewhat frivolous. Although it’s a backstage murder mystery involving comedians, singers, stagehands, and a string of dead performers, it’s also a comedy and a romance, offering its audience a funny and often borderline bawdy escape from wartime dread.

Continue reading on Deep Focus Review

Watched on Friday May 23, 2025.

Watched on Friday May 23, 2025.

It's the sort of movie that doesn't make much sense according to any conventional assessment. But it's made with energy and a sense of fun that was infectious, like everyone involved was having a blast making it. Reminded me of The Evil Dead in that way.

I need to explore more schlocky Mexican horror movies from the 1980s, apparently. Or at least more from Rubén Galindo Jr.

Watched on Thursday May 22, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday May 20, 2025.

After watching Fountain of Youth, I felt as though I had looked into a bottomless abyss, but nothing looked back. Nietzsche was wrong, at least regarding this lump of nada from Apple TV+—sometimes, there’s just a void. At first glance, the view is promising: Director Guy Ritchie (Snatch, 2000) helms an original screenplay by James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, 2007), starring John Krasinski, Natalie Portman, Eiza González, Domhnall Gleeson, and Stanley Tucci. The story follows an adventurer who tracks down the mythical source of eternal life, uncovering clues hidden inside iconic paintings and world landmarks located in Bangkok, London, Vienna, and Egypt. However fun its premise may sound, the movie goes beyond derivative, borrowing every idea and sequence from various Indiana Jones movies, Dan Brown novels, Tomb Raider and Uncharted video games, and other similarly themed fiction. There’s no inspiration behind it. The movie’s unfathomable emptiness creates a black hole into which all creative light disappears.

Perhaps I’m being dramatic. But what a colossal, uninspired slog this was.

Continue reading on Deep Focus Review

Watched on Wednesday May 21, 2025.

Lilo & Stitch is Disney’s latest live-action retread of an earlier animated classic. The movie exists not because this story is particularly relevant right now or because an artistic imperative inspired its filmmakers to revisit the material. It exists because the House of Mouse had intellectual property and built-in brand recognition to exploit for millions of dollars. And while the soulless, shamelessly capitalistic quality of the studio’s recent string of remakes leaves examples such as Aladdin (2019) and Peter Pan & Wendy (2023) devoid of any creative spark, this one has a rambunctious energy that defies the stodgy, hollow formula of Disney’s recent live-action remakes. That’s partly because the 2002 original is an animated feature that avoids fairy-tale classicism in favor of a zippy, playful story about a Hawaiian girl and her dog—a blue chaos creature in the form of a cute alien, dubbed “the flawed product of a deranged mind.” The story’s inherently loose and unconventional structure (for Disney), along with the central relationship’s genuine tenderness, makes it more engaging to watch than other recent adaptations.

Continue reading on Deep Focus Review

Wes Anderson’s last few films have operated similarly to his latest, The Phoenician Scheme. They hum along in his predictably fastidious, parodiable manner, deploying both random asides and narrative-driven scenes with the same attention to detail. And oh, what detail. Anderson and his team of designers in the production, costume, and graphic departments give every corner of the frame equal attention, ornamenting everything so meticulously that almost nothing stands out—the cinematic equivalent of Jackson Pollock’s all-over painting method or panoramic compositions in photography. Anderson and cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel present tableaus that flatten the screen image, directing our attention nowhere and thus everywhere. The narrative almost feels secondary to Anderson’s consideration of the image’s totality, brimming with fascinating touches and layered meanings. This quality enriches and hinders The Phoenician Scheme, an amiable if not-quite-essential entry in Anderson’s filmography. 

Continue reading on Deep Focus Review

It's a bit hammy and the lead isn't much of a presence, but the story went places I wasn't expecting and managed to have surprising emotional turn at the end. Maybe it's the fractured father-son relationship that got to me.

Watched on Monday May 19, 2025.

Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, charming and self-aware without resorting to irony or cynicism, is an endearing romantic comedy by writer-director Laura Piani. This rather sweet movie at once comments on and deploys genre formulas in a manner worthy of the title’s British author, albeit within a clever, literate French comedy. It’s astonishing how well Piani imbues an Austenite romance with an unfussy intimacy that s as prototypically French, delivering a movie that will probably appeal most to those who relate to its main character, Agathe, terrifically played by Camille Rutherford.

Continue reading on Deep Focus Review

“Are men okay?” That’s the question asked in many think pieces and social posts lately. It’s also at the heart of Sharp Corner, a thoughtful character study starring Ben Foster, whose performance is outstanding. The film is about a family man who has lost interest in his cozy, conventional domestic life. He unconsciously yearns for disruptions and eventually creates a scenario that sabotages his life, yet it gives him a warped sense of purpose. Jason Buxton, writer-director of the award-winning Blackbird (2012), based his film on “Sharp Corner,” a short story in Russell Wangersky’s 2012 collection Whirl Away. In the press notes, Buxton says his film is about the “fragile nature of contemporary masculinity,” and the filmmaker explores this topic not only with initial touches of emotional realism but a continued sense of unraveling psychology that Foster plays to perfection.

Continue reading on Deep Focus Review

Watched on Sunday May 18, 2025.

Gary Busey skydives in Zubaz. That, Kimberly Scott‘s sandwich, and Michael Jeter are the most interesting parts of this movie.

Watched on Saturday May 17, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 17, 2025.

I keep returning to this, hoping I was wrong, and that I will see what other people enjoy about it. It seems like something I should like, if only for the memories and nostalgia of seeing this in my teen years. But I find the characters insufferable, the acting laughable, the filmmaking abrasive, and the script absurd.

In the summer of 2021, during the heart of the pandemic, Netflix dropped three interconnected movies inspired by R.L. Stine’s Fear Street series of horror-centric books for teens and young adults. The movies—1994, 1978, and 1666—ranged from slasher thrillers to folk horror paranoia and arrived on a one-per-week cadence. At the time, they provided a welcome escape from the world outside and something to look forward to over three weeks. They’ve since become favorites in my household, with my wife (a devoted fan of the books) and me revisiting them about once a year. They’re far from perfect and rely on pastiche perhaps too much, but they’re high-energy, populated by a talented young cast, and thoughtfully constructed as a trilogy. Above all, they’re enduringly fun to watch. Fortunately, Netflix continues its embrace of Stine’s books for streaming fodder with Prom Queen, another entertaining, bloody, fast-paced slasher in the Scream-brand whodunit mold.

Continue reading on Deep Fovus Review

The main character in The Old Woman with the Knife is sometimes called Godmother, sometimes Nails, and sometimes Hornclaw. Played by the 62-year-old Lee Hye-young, she appears at first glance to be a gentle-looking woman with silver hair, dressed in stylish grays like a cool grandmother. But beneath her appearance, designed to avoid drawing attention, she carries a poison-tipped dagger that she uses on her targets. An adaptation of Gu Byeong-mo’s 2022 novel of the same name, the South Korean movie follows Hornclaw as she works for a mysterious agency that defends marginalized groups and victims exploited by criminals. However, given that she’s 65 and experiencing tremors, her enemies question whether she’s the same assassin who once took down some 28 bad guys in a single encounter, solidifying Hornclaw’s don’t-fuck-with-her reputation. This sets into motion an elaborate, actionized narrative involving a series of double-crosses, bloody encounters, and criminal maneuvers that prove entertaining, regardless of how familiar it all seems.

Continue reading on Deep Focus Review

I had never even heard of this before when it popped up as a recommended title. Juliette Lewis and William Hurt star alongside Tobin Bell, Shelley Duvall, and Austin Pendleton in a sort of '90s yuppie thriller. Though, it's a far cry from the others of this era, such as Pacific Heights and Single White Female. It's at once worse and crazier, and I kind of respect that.

Lewis has such a distinct presence that she doesn't quite fit the average yuppie mold of the character. The role needed someone a little less off-center (and I mean that as a compliment to Lewis). Hurt doesn't have much to do, but as always, his off-kilter and occasionally uncanny mannerisms are a pleasure to watch.

The thriller beats were at times predictable, save for a couple of out-there moments and a climactic reveal that was bafflingly weird and specific.

I can't say I liked it or that it was a good movie, but it was a fun discovery from this era of Hollywood.

What can I say? I love Star Trek.

1. Star Trek: First
2. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
3. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
4. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
5. Star Trek: Generations
6. Star Trek: Insurrection
7. Star Trek
8. Star Trek Beyond
9. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
10. Star Trek Into Darkness

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Mission: Impossible

   www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/mission-impossible/

2. Mission: Impossible – Fallout

   www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/mission-impossible-fallout/

3. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

   www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/mission-impossible-rogue-nation/

4. Mission: Impossible III

   www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/mission-impossible-iii/

5. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

   www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/mission-impossible-ghost-protocol/

6. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning

   www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-part-one/

7. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

   www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/mission-impossible-the-final-reckoning/

8. Mission: Impossible II

   www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/mission-impossible-ii/

The Definitives are my personal favorite films. I add a new essay or appreciation to the list below about once or twice a month.

Check out the essay links or visit: deepfocusreview.com/definitives/

• 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

  deepfocusreview.com/definitives/4-months-3-weeks-and-2-days/

• 8½

  deepfocusreview.com/definitives/8-12/

• 28 Days Later

  deepfocusreview.com/definitives/28-days-later/

• The 400 Blows

  deepfocusreview.com/definitives/the-400-blows/

• 2001: A Space Odyssey

  deepfocusreview.com/definitives/2001-a-space-odyssey/

• The Abyss

  www.deepfocusreview.com/definitives/the-abyss/

• Ace in the Hole

  deepfocusreview.com/definitives/ace-in-the-hole/

• Adaptation.

  deepfocusreview.com/definitives/adaptation/

• The Adventures of Robin Hood

  deepfocusreview.com/definitives/the-adventures-of-robin-hood/

• After Hours

  deepfocusreview.com/definitives/after-hours/

...plus 241 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. M
2. The Big Heat
3. Scarlet Street
4. Fury
5. Metropolis
6. Human Desire
7. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
8. The Woman in the Window
9. Spies
10. Die Nibelungen: Siegfried

...plus 23 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Read my list commentary on Deep Focus Review.

1. The Beast
2. Evil Does Not Exist
3. A Different Man
4. The Brutalist
5. Close Your Eyes
6. Civil War
7. Good One
8. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
9. Love Lies Bleeding
10. Challengers

    Tied for 10.

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

When I look at the Alien franchise, I see a lot of missed opportunities. Only Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986) fully realized their potential, whereas everything after those proved uneven or outright terrible.

That said, I love Alien and Aliens so much (and even Alien 3 a little) that the subsequent disappointments have never lessened my affection for the originals.

• Alien

  www.deepfocusreview.com/definitives/alien/

• Aliens

  www.deepfocusreview.com/definitives/aliens/

• Alien³

  www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/alien-3/

• Alien: Romulus

  www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/alien-romulus/

• Alien: Covenant

  www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/alien-covenant/

• Prometheus

  www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/prometheus/

• Aliens vs Predator: Requiem

  www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/alien-vs-predator-requiem/

• AVP: Alien vs. Predator

  www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/alien-vs-predator/

• Alien Resurrection

  www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/alien-resurrection/

After a recent "Filmmaker in Focus" series on my website, I have now written about all of James Cameron's directorial efforts. Here's my ranking of his work and what I wrote about each film.

• The Abyss

  www.deepfocusreview.com/definitives/the-abyss/

• Aliens

  www.deepfocusreview.com/definitives/aliens/

• The Terminator

  www.deepfocusreview.com/definitives/the-terminator/

• Titanic

  www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/titanic/

• Avatar

  www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/avatar/

• Terminator 2: Judgment Day

  www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/terminator-2-judgment-day/

• Avatar: The Way of Water

  www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/avatar-the-way-of-water/

• True Lies

  www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/true-lies/

• Piranha II: The Spawning

  www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/piranha-ii-the-spawning/

1. X
2. The House of the Devil
3. Pearl
4. The Sacrament
5. The Innkeepers
6. MaXXXine
7. In a Valley of Violence
8. The Roost
9. Trigger Man
10. Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever

I've liked every Von Trier film more on a second viewing. Some I hated the first time, loved the second time. He always provokes a strong reaction, and each of his films is unforgettable, even if I don't end up liking them. I respect him as an artist, regardless of his sometimes troublesome antics. So here's my ranking, which will probably change tomorrow.

• Melancholia
• Dogville
• Dancer in the Dark
• Breaking the Waves
• Nymphomaniac: Vol. I
• Europa
• Manderlay
• The House That Jack Built
• The Boss of It All
• Nymphomaniac: Vol. II

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Check out my commentary on this list: deepfocusreview.com/top-10-films-of-2023/

1. Poor Things

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/poor-things/

2. Showing Up

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/showing-up/

3. The Taste of Things
4. May December

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/may-december/

5. Past Lives

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/past-lives/

6. The Zone of Interest

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/the-zone-of-interest/

7. Priscilla

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/priscilla/

8. R.M.N.

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/r-m-n/

9. You Hurt My Feelings

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/you-hurt-my-feelings/

10. Killers of the Flower Moon

    deepfocusreview.com/reviews/killers-of-the-flower-moon/

1. Zodiac
2. The Social Network
3. Gone Girl
4. Se7en
5. The Game
6. The Killer
7. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
8. Fight Club
9. Panic Room
10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - Agent K in Men in Black

• Fury
• Black Legion
• The Ox-Bow Incident
• Le Corbeau
• High Noon
• Conspiración de silencio
• Devi
• Lord of the Flies
• Night of the Living Dead
• The Devils

...plus 12 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Scream

   deepfocusreview.com/definitives/scream/

2. Scream 2

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/scream-2/

3. Scream 4

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/scream-4/

4. Scream 3

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/scream-3/

5. Scream VI

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/scream-vi/

6. Scream

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/scream-5/

Top 10, plus a few extra. Read the full list here: deepfocusreview.com/top-10-films-of-2022/

1. Crimes of the Future
2. The Fabelmans
3. Everything Everywhere All at Once
4. Bones and All
5. Happening
6. Nope
7. One Fine Morning
8. TÁR
9. The Banshees of Inisherin
10. Return to Seoul

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My ranking of the DCEU

• The Suicide Squad
• Wonder Woman
• Shazam!
• Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
• Zack Snyder's Justice League
• Man of Steel
• Wonder Woman 1984
• Justice League
• Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
• Black Adam

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My overly ambitious watchlist for TCFF 2022.

For the full lineup, visit: twincitiesfilmfest.org/

• Aftersun
• Armageddon Time
• Black Daddy: The Movie
• Close
• Disfluency
• Eternal Spring
• Gabi, Between Ages 8 and 13
• Hair-Trigger
• Jimmy in Saigon
• Liquor Store Dreams

...plus 8 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My Top 10, plus two more.

Read the full list: deepfocusreview.com/top-10-films-of-2021/

1. Titane

   My review: deepfocusreview.com/reviews/titane/

   If there’s a common thread among several films in my 2021 list, it’s that they’re each a sensation machine—films with an undeniable force behind them, driving their emotions, formal choices, and moment-to-moment experience. Licorice Pizza, for instance, sweeps us up in a propulsive romance. Titane’s sensations are far more unpleasant on the surface. No other film challenged my empathy with such visceral filmmaking than Julia Ducournau’s provocative masterpiece—a film often reductively described as “about a woman fucking a car.” But that’s just the launchpad for this wildly unconventional and inspired story about a murderess who becomes a surrogate son. Not only have I never seen anything quite like the film, which is praise enough, but I also have never seen a filmmaker embrace deviation with such sublime beauty.

   Ducournau explores slasher killings, self-mutilation, parenthood, bodily changes, and above all non-binary gender in ways that will challenge most. As I wrote in my review, “Titane employs these potent tools—the stuff of fire, metal, sex, death, and birth—to get at something thematically elemental about how labels like ‘male’ and ‘female,’ often perpetuated by patriarchally established modes of understanding the world, are woefully inadequate.” But by the incredible final sequence, all the pain and abjection leads to a tender moment that defies expectation. It’s a one-of-a-kind film, and a Palme d’Or winner, that might leave you speechless, repelled, weeping, or exhilarated—and if you’re lucky, all of the above.

2. Licorice Pizza

   My review: deepfocusreview.com/reviews/licorice-pizza/

   Licorice Pizza is the kind of film I’ll want to revisit again and again. Paul Thomas Anderson’s nostalgic and episodic story of an unlikely romance follows two people who belong together, even if they probably shouldn’t be together. Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman give two of the year’s most transfixing performances in a film that looks and sounds like it was made in the 1970s. It’s a wandering experience of ups and downs, seemingly random detours, and memorable cameos (Bradley Cooper, Sean Penn, Tom Waits) that ultimately build a heartening love story. Every moment of Anderson’s superb direction and eye for immersive period design completely submerges the viewer in the setting. Best of all, the film feels like something deeply personal for the director, who assembled friends and family to make a sprawling, nonjudgmental, and unselfconscious look at a bygone era and its free-wheeling sense of danger and romance.

3. Parallel Mothers

   My review: deepfocusreview.com/reviews/parallel-mothers/

   Pedro Almodóvar once again demonstrates that, as he gets older, his willingness to confront the past head-on deepens. Penélope Cruz, the director’s late-career muse, gives the year’s finest female performance as a photographer who hopes to unearth family secrets buried since the Spanish Civil War. In her personal life, her willingness to confront the parentage of her newborn child marks a similar conflict, representing the national need to acknowledge trauma to overcome it. Although Almodóvar resists many of the more flamboyant touches that define his aesthetic (it’s a gorgeous and elaborately designed film, regardless), he confronts political factors directly after years of addressing them only through analogy and symbolism. In some ways, it’s his most straightforward film on formal , but it’s also achingly emotional, raw, and sophisticated filmmaking.

4. Nightmare Alley

   My review: deepfocusreview.com/reviews/nightmare-alley/

   Films like Nightmare Alley don’t get made all that often anymore. Then again, they were never made quite like this. Guillermo del Toro adapts the grimy, relentless book into a cinematic fantasy that could only exist onscreen in such alternatively grotesque and shimmering delight. It’s part film noir, part elaborately staged period piece, yet it might be the film that best exemplifies del Toro’s obsession with monsters. Bradley Cooper’s smart but doomed huckster arrives on a sublimely constructed carney scene only to find his way into the mentalist circuit, where his inner monster is tempted out of its hole by a seductive Cate Blanchett, embodying a femme fatale. Del Toro assembled the year’s best ensemble (in addition to Cooper and Blanchett: Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, David Strathairn, Holt McCallany, Clifton Collins Jr., and Tim Blake Nelson) for a faithful literary adaptation and, ultimately, a boldly cynical story of one man’s downward spiral.

5. Petite Maman

   My review: deepfocusreview.com/reviews/petite-maman/

   Céline Sciamma explores an entire lifetime of parent-child bonding in the 72-minute span of Petite Maman, her follow-up to 2019’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire. The performances by real-life twins Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz, playing daughter and mother respectively, capture how every child becomes their parent in some way or another. Whether you categorize it as a time-travel yarn or a coming-of-age story, the film’s subtle way of unraveling doesn’t call attention to the mechanics of its plot—only the emotional core. Sciamma’s story is tender and endearing, but never overly sentimental. I spent much of my review comparing the film to Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro (1988), which is the highest praise I can think of for a fantasy about imagination and family.

6. Quo Vadis, Aida?

   My review: deepfocusreview.com/reviews/quo-vadis-aida/

   Bureaucracy leads to atrocity in Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić’s disquieting film about the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. A United Nations translator (Jasna Đuričić, in an astounding performance) races to save her family as the Bosnian Serb Army, headed by Ratko Mladi, rounds up Muslims from the area. Tragically, red tape prevents her from intervening, and slow communication between UN officials, who have bigger fish to fry, mean thousands will die. Shot with documentary realism, the film brings to light a story that, even at the time, remained underrepresented by the news media. The same is true of this movie, which demands to be sought out and confronted, even if the subject matter proves challenging. Žbanić’s film acknowledges that some have chosen to forget, which is the only way they know how to heal, while others live with the reality every day. This is urgent, humanist, and political filmmaking that’s also somehow beautiful in its execution.

7. Annette

   My review: deepfocusreview.com/reviews/annette/

   French auteur Leos Carax teamed with Ron and Russell Mael, better known as the band Sparks, for one of the strangest films of 2021. The term musical doesn’t begin to classify this dazzling and eventually sobering story about a volatile stand-up comedian (Adam Driver), an opera singer (Marion Cotillard), and their marionette child Annette. Employing classical imagery to post-modern effect, the film immerses you in each moment, even if the entire picture can sometimes feel erratic and tonally imbalanced. But its unpredictability, along with its curious way of feeling both within and outside of every moment, is part of its charm. By the final scene, featuring the year’s best child performance by Devyn McDowell, Annette reveals the sneaky way it has worked its way under your skin. And weeks later, after you can’t get it out of your mind, you realize just how special it is.

8. The Last Duel

   My review: deepfocusreview.com/reviews/the-last-duel/

   Ridley Scott’s latest Medieval epic is among his most thoughtful and well-constructed films, thanks in large part to the expert screenplay by Nicole Holofcener, Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon. Dissecting the events that led to the final duel-to-the-death in ’s history from three perspectives (represented by Damon, Adam Driver, and Jodie Comer), the film reminds us that the majority of Western history has been written by white men, leaving women secondary or altogether robbed of their agency. Without resorting to overt messages, the film’s subtle shifts between perspectives immerse the viewer in the characters’ subjectivity, underscoring how privilege is unshakably entrenched. Scott’s production is massive and gorgeous, ending with a breathless duel that uses intense action to underscore its themes.

9. The Power of the Dog

   My review: deepfocusreview.com/reviews/the-power-of-the-dog/

   When I think of Jane Campion’s revisionist Western, I think of clockwork. It’s such a perfectly calibrated system of intricate characters and intentionally placed details, ticking away moment after moment toward an inevitable conclusion. Campion’s mastery as writer-director, and also a director who guides her actors—Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemmons, and Kodi Smit-Mhee are all terrific—is something to behold. Watching the film is like appreciating a Swiss clock for all its efficient inner workings and the beauty of its construction. Campion elegantly establishes her characters and watches them topple over in fascinating ways that have proven ripe for analysis. You might think such precision would put the audience at a distance, but the surprising reality is that it’s all the more engrossing for it.

10. Drive My Car

    My review: deepfocusreview.com/reviews/drive-my-car/

    One of the year’s most awarded films, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s patient, inward drama places the viewer into an uncertain headspace and mode of inner searching. Hidetoshi Nishijima stars as a widower who reflects on his marriage to his deceased, unfaithful wife—all while overseeing a production of Uncle Vanya, managing relationships with his actors, and embracing the quiet he shares with his new driver (Tōko Miura). Hamaguchi’s long, immersive, and ponderous storytelling occupies an imposing three-hour runtime, but it races by thanks to curiously precision-like editing and intentionally structured narrative. Along with Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, Hamaguchi demonstrated in 2021 that he’s a major contemporary filmmaker whose entire filmography demands to be explored.

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

deepfocusreview.com/top-10-films-of-2020/

1. Da 5 Bloods

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/da-5-bloods/

2. First Cow

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/first-cow/

3. I'm Thinking of Ending Things

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/im-thinking-of-ending-things/

4. Wolfwalkers

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/wolfwalkers/

5. The Nest

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/the-nest/

6. The Personal History of David Copperfield

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/the-personal-history-of-david-copperfield/

7. Ema

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/ema/

8. David Byrne's American Utopia

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/american-utopia/

9. Soul

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/soul/

10. The Invisible Man

    deepfocusreview.com/reviews/the-invisible-man/

1. Parasite

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/parasite/

2. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood/

3. Peterloo

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/peterloo/

4. Marriage Story

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/marriage-story/

5. The Irishman

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/the-irishman/

6. Non-Fiction

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/non-fiction/

7. The Nightingale

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/the-nightingale/

8. Transit

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/transit/

9. Little Women

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/little-women/

10. A Hidden Life

    deepfocusreview.com/reviews/a-hidden-life/

• Zama

  deepfocusreview.com/definitives/zama/

• BlacKkKlansman

  deepfocusreview.com/reviews/blackkklansman/

• First Reformed

  deepfocusreview.com/reviews/first-reformed/

• The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

  deepfocusreview.com/reviews/the-ballad-of-buster-scruggs/

• The Death of Stalin

  deepfocusreview.com/reviews/the-death-of-stalin/

• The Sisters Brothers

  deepfocusreview.com/reviews/the-sisters-brothers/

• You Were Never Really Here

  deepfocusreview.com/reviews/you-were-never-really-here/

• Let the Sunshine In

  deepfocusreview.com/reviews/let-the-sunshine-in/

• Shoplifters

  deepfocusreview.com/reviews/shoplifters/

• Annihilation

  deepfocusreview.com/reviews/annihilation/

1. Phantom Thread

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/phantom-thread/

2. Personal Shopper

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/personal-shopper/

3. The Shape of Water

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/the-shape-of-water/

4. Call Me by Your Name

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/call-me-by-your-name/

5. Blade Runner 2049

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/blade-runner-2049/

6. Lady Bird

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/lady-bird/

7. Okja

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/okja/

8. The Square

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/the-square-2017/

9. The Post

   deepfocusreview.com/reviews/the-post/

10. The Lost City of Z

    deepfocusreview.com/top-10-films-of-2017/