Like the rest of the world, African countries were in turmoil for the greater part of 2020. African film was not. Read More
PEN15 always captured my own distinct subspecies of early-‘00s teenage awkwardness with horrifying and delightful accuracy, but I don’t know if it got sadder in 2020 or if I did. Read More
All of our stories are coming of age stories, no matter how old we are, and the beauty of a great coming of age story is that by the last act our hero has done that which we all desire: become their whole selves. Read More
A tremor of vulnerability renewed itself as I sat down to watch The Elephant Man again. I wasn’t sure I could handle it. Am I resilient enough for this now? Am I finally old enough to see it? Read More
Given their diverging contexts and plots, Beanpole and Swallow may not always share perspectives on issues, but the issues their stories pivot around are curiously the same. Read More
Like many superhero films, Gina Prince-Bythewood's The Old Guard is a meditation on heroism—but rather than asking what makes someone heroic, it questions how acts of heroism actually change people. Read More
It’s not important to distinguish what is truth and what is fiction in Crestone; the collapsing of these boundaries is what gives Marnie Ellen Hertzler's documentary the same sense of apocalypse we've felt this past year, perceptively real in its feeling of unreality. Read More
Dick Johnson Is Dead wisely holds the mystery of human mortality with a generous open hand, affirming our pain while reminding us of grace. Read More
Along with being a damn entertaining ride, an understanding of the vital intimacy between women makes Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman feel gorgeously, confrontationally female. Read More
In His House, the spirit haunts, inhabiting space the same way a thought takes up residence in the mind. Worry, fears—these are ghosts. There and not there. False and yet very real. Read More
First Reformed and The Good Lord Bird can best be linked by a common, disheartening truth: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Read More
Derek Jarman’s Blue is a film that pushes the limits of cinematic expression, an unwavering blue screen accompanied by a layered soundscape of voices, music, and lyrically written dialogue. Read More