This year’s best films offer diversity and challenge us to see beyond our borders. These Top 10 Movies mean to reflect, if not reality, a way of looking at the world and its many possibilities.
Sweet, somber, funny and bleakly serious. Two cousins, childhood friends, reunite for a historical tour to Poland. Jesse Eisenberg wrote, produced, directed and stars opposite Kieran Culkin. One unforgettable trip.
Sean Baker’s movies often consider the sex worker who, as Donna Summer sang, works hard for her money. Comical, yes. But worldly wise with blistering Mikey Madison as an indomitable heroine pursued by a Russian oligarch’s super-rich son.
If Clint Eastwood at 94 is really done directing, this is a brilliant way to exit. A seriously entertaining courtroom drama, sparked by Nicholas Hoult’s troubled juror, Toni Collette’s steely prosecutor and Eastwood’s dazzling daughter Francesca. “Juror” flips our expectations and questions the moral implications of a system that too often rushes to judgment.
France’s Jacques Audiard’s unusual Spanish-language trans drama which he dubs an “opera” is mesmerizing with standout work from Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldana and newcomer Karla Sofia Gascon. In its pace, its vividly realized characters and its moral fury, “Emilia” invites a second look to unlock its many secrets.
True crime here is an action-packed dive into the late 1980s Pacific Northwest where the FBI warred against white supremist cults planning to overthrow the country. Jude Law, outstanding in a career peak performance, is the embattled agent. Nicholas Hoult (again!) is his seductive opponent.
F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent was called Nosferatu because he stole Bram Stoker’s Dracula story, unwilling to pay royalties. Like Count Alucard, Nosferatu lives forever as a cinematic icon. Writer-director Robert Eggers specializes in meticulously constructed horror stories. This lush, physically plush period piece is designed to seduce us as surely as Bill Skarsgard’s Count Orlok seduces Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen, his estate agent’s wife.
An enchanting adaptation of a best-selling children’s classic that manages, somehow, to give AI a heart. And it’s not a sequel!
Australia’s George Miller returns to a gender-switched Mad Max saga that reminds us what spectacle and special effects really mean.
Take a look at the early life and spiritual education of Queens real estate striver Donald Trump and follow his fateful partnership with loathsome but canny Roy Cohn.
Go for the music, never bettered. Learn about the early ‘60s tumultuous times as a 19-year-old Bob Dylan ascends in just four years to musical Valhalla.
Very honorable mentions: “Joker: Folie a Deux,” “The Brutalist,” “Blink” “Super/Man” and “Separated.”