Backspot is the sort of movie that makes you wish you could’ve experienced it as a teenager, when you needed it most.

It’s inevitable that the story of The Contestant will be milked for further content and hopefully, now that Nasubi has had the space to reclaim his narrative, we can dig into the why and how of it all.

It’s so very obvious that the works of Flannery are important to both Hawkes, but Wildcat feels like an example of being too close to the subject to see the larger picture. 

Wicked Little Letters is wicked, weird, and wild. The mystery at its core will keep you guessing until the very end, and the increasingly raunchy letters will have you howling with laughter.

The Beast is a centuries-jumping, Lynchian affair led by two incredible young actors. They are the baseline, the emotional soul of the film.

In the end, the only answer Fingernails has to offer is that it doesn’t know much more about love than you or I do. Just find someone good to figure it out with.

Widow Clicquot is a hidden secret of TIFF 2023, a well-done take on a biopic, and proof, yet again, that Bennett is an utter powerhouse.

The film has moments that glimmer like gold, but Daddio needed some more polishing before it could truly glow.

Poolman, above all else, is weird. It’s the eccentric adaptation of Joan Didion’s Holy Water in the form of a stoner noir oddball comedy.

The film is a blueprint for a new way of life. One that’s kinder, more community-focused, and that embraces differences. National Anthem is patriotic, and hopeful for what America can become.

American Fiction cuts to the core of the state of society and directs a much-needed microscope on the way we tell stories and whose voices get to be heard.

Silver Dollar Road is an exposition of the abuses of power that are leveled against the Reels family. Its story of injustice at the hands of a system that is supposed to provide justice for all remains, unfortunately, timely.

Nothing in reality is neat, so why should Seagrass be? Instead, the film is simply presenting a week in these people’s lives. No better, no worse, just the laughter, pain, and complications of life on full display.

Birth/Rebirth is a furious, gnarly, complicated look at motherhood and science, where they intersect, where they diverge, and where they circle back into themselves.

In the case of Landscape with Invisible Hand, he’s overwhelmed by the observations he wants to make. There was a tidiness and confidence to Thoroughbreds in Finley’s satirical critiques, but that razor-sharp wit seems to have dulled.