A24

2022 · Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert · 139 min · Sci-Fi / Comedy

Everything Everywhere All at Once shouldn't work. A multiverse action comedy about a laundromat owner doing her taxes has no business being one of the most emotionally devastating films in recent memory, but the Daniels pulled it off with a tiny budget, a fearless cast, and more creative ambition than most studios pack into an entire slate. The pacing stumbles in the final stretch and the sensory overload will lose some viewers along the way. Those are real flaws. They just happen to exist inside a film that found something true about families, about the weight of unlived lives, and about choosing kindness when the universe gives you every reason not to. Seven Academy Awards later, the consensus is pretty clear on where this one landed.

2017 · Greta Gerwig · 94 min · Comedy / Drama

Lady Bird is a nearly perfect coming-of-age film that captures the chaos, cruelty, and unexpected tenderness of being seventeen with more precision than any American film in years. Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf are extraordinary as a mother and daughter locked in a battle that is really a love story, and Greta Gerwig's directorial debut is so assured it feels like she's been doing this for decades. It's funny, sharp, and ultimately devastating in the quietest possible way.

2023 · 1 Season · Netflix · Drama

Steven Yeun and Ali Wong deliver career-best performances in a darkly funny, deeply empathetic series about two strangers whose road rage incident spirals into an all-consuming war that neither can quit.

2017 · Paul Schrader · 113 min · Drama

First Reformed is a devastating meditation on faith, guilt, and environmental despair that features one of Ethan Hawke's finest performances and marks Paul Schrader's triumphant return to the kind of tortured-soul cinema he helped define.

2014 · Alex Garland · 108 min · Sci-Fi / Thriller / Drama

Ex Machina is a lean, precise piece of science fiction that asks big questions and has the nerve not to answer all of them. Alex Garland's directorial debut wrings maximum tension from a minimal setup, and the three lead performances lock into each other like gears in a machine. The small scale means it never quite reaches for grandeur, and the gender politics will land differently depending on who's watching. But as a cerebral thriller about what happens when intelligence outgrows its creator, it's as sharp and unsettling as anything the genre has produced this decade. It gets under your skin and stays there.

2020 · Lee Isaac Chung · 115 min · Drama

Minari is a deeply felt, beautifully restrained portrait of a Korean American family trying to build a life in 1980s rural Arkansas. Youn Yuh-jung's Oscar-winning performance as the unconventional grandmother is the film's crown jewel, but every member of the ensemble contributes to a story that finds universal truths in intensely specific cultural experience. Lee Isaac Chung's autobiographical script avoids both sentimentality and misery, finding instead the complicated middle ground where most family life actually happens.

2017 · Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie · 101 min · Crime, Thriller

Good Time is a relentless, neon-drenched sprint through one disastrous night that showcases Robert Pattinson's raw talent and the Safdie Brothers' ability to make anxiety feel like entertainment.

2018 · Bo Burnham · 93 min · Comedy, Drama

Eighth Grade captures the specific agony of being thirteen in the age of social media with such painful accuracy that it transforms a small coming-of-age story into something that feels universal.

2023 · 1 Season · Paramount+ with Showtime · Drama

Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie craft one of the most uncomfortable and divisive shows in recent memory, a slow-burn dissection of liberal guilt, performative goodness, and a marriage held together by mutual dishonesty.

2023 · Celine Song · 106 min · Romance

Past Lives is a quietly devastating romance about the roads not taken, anchored by three exceptional performances and a debut director with remarkable control over tone and emotion. Its restraint is its power, though that same quietness won't land for everyone.

2018 · Ari Aster · 127 min · Horror / Drama / Mystery

Hereditary is a deeply unsettling horror film that earns its scares through character and atmosphere rather than cheap tricks. Toni Collette delivers a performance that would be the centerpiece of any prestige drama, and Ari Aster's direction creates a sense of dread so thick it becomes almost physical. The final act's shift into supernatural territory loses some viewers who connected more deeply with the family drama, and the film's pacing demands patience that not all horror audiences are willing to give. But when it works, and for most of its runtime it works extraordinarily well, Hereditary feels like something new in a genre that rarely surprises anymore. It doesn't just scare you. It disturbs you on a level that's hard to shake.

2024 · Scott Beck & Bryan Woods · 111 min · Horror / Thriller

Heretic locks two young Mormon missionaries in a house with Hugh Grant and lets him talk, and for an hour it's the most gripping conversation in modern horror. Grant weaponizes five decades of charm as Mr. Reed, a genial theology enthusiast whose lecture on belief curdles into a trap, while Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East give the missionaries real intelligence and conviction. The film's war between ideas and genre eventually tips toward genre, and most agree the final act can't match the wicked electricity of the setup. The setup alone is worth the ticket.

2015 · Robert Eggers · 92 min · Horror, Drama

The Witch is the kind of horror film that gets under your skin without ever rushing. Robert Eggers built something genuinely rare here: a debut feature with a fully realized world, a committed cast, and a willingness to let dread accumulate slowly rather than reach for cheap thrills. It won't satisfy viewers looking for scares on a schedule, but for those who let it work on them, it's haunting in ways that linger for days.

2023 · Sofia Coppola · 113 min · Drama

Priscilla tells the Elvis story from the one perspective that matters most and gets heard least. Sofia Coppola's restrained, melancholy film and Cailee Spaeny's remarkable lead performance create a portrait of isolation inside fame that trades spectacle for something more honest and more uncomfortable.

2024 · Rose Glass · 104 min · Noir / Thriller / Romance

Love Lies Bleeding is a bold, visceral neo-noir elevated by Kristen Stewart and Katy O'Brian's electric chemistry, though its wild third-act swing will split audiences down the middle.

2024 · Jane Schoenbrun · 100 min · Horror

I Saw the TV Glow is a film that works on you slowly, building an atmosphere of suburban dread through the story of two teenagers bonded by a mysterious TV show. Jane Schoenbrun's direction creates images that feel like half-remembered nightmares, and the performances from Justice Smith and Brigette Lundy-Paine carry a sadness that deepens with every scene. It's not traditionally scary, and its deliberately paced, elliptical storytelling will lose viewers who want clearer answers. But for those who connect with its wavelength, it delivers an experience that's hard to shake, a horror film about the terror of living a life that doesn't feel like yours.

2017 · David Lowery · 92 min · Drama, Fantasy

A Ghost Story uses a bedsheet ghost and near-silence to explore grief, time, and impermanence with a quiet power that rewards viewers willing to sit in its stillness.

2024 · 2 Seasons · Amazon Prime Video · Animation, Musical, Comedy

Hazbin Hotel is a show bursting with creative ambition and musical talent, brought down by a pacing problem it hasn't fully solved. The character designs are memorable, the songs range from catchy to flat-out impressive, and the premise of a rehabilitation hotel in Hell offers endless comedic and dramatic potential. But cramming major character arcs into single episodes leaves emotional beats feeling like plot checkboxes rather than earned moments. There's a great show in here fighting to get out, and when individual scenes click, the energy is undeniable. It just needs more room to breathe.

2023 · Kristoffer Borgli · 102 min · Comedy

Dream Scenario is a sharp social satire that uses an absurd premise to explore viral fame and cancel culture, powered by Nicolas Cage's best comedic performance in years. The film's second half doesn't quite match the brilliance of its setup, but the central concept is too clever and too well-executed to dismiss.

2024 · Alex Garland · 109 min · Thriller / War

Civil War is a visceral, intentionally apolitical war film that works brilliantly as a sensory experience and journalism story, even as its refusal to engage with the politics of its premise frustrates viewers looking for deeper commentary.

2019 · Ari Aster · 148 min · Folk Horror

Midsommar is one of the most visually distinctive horror films in years, built around Florence Pugh's extraordinary performance and Ari Aster's commitment to staging horror in unrelenting daylight. It's an unnerving film that works as both folk horror and grief drama, though its near-2.5-hour runtime tests patience and the pacing can be punishing. For viewers who can meet it on its own terms, it's unforgettable. For those who aren't, it's a very long afternoon.