Joaquin Phoenix

2013 · Spike Jonze · 126 min · Sci-Fi / Romance / Drama

Her is a love story that shouldn't work on paper and works completely on screen. Joaquin Phoenix makes you believe a man can fall deeply in love with a voice, and Spike Jonze builds a near-future world that feels like it's about five years away rather than fifty. The pacing demands patience, and the premise will test anyone who can't get past its central conceit. But what it has to say about loneliness, connection, and what we actually want from the people we love is more relevant now than it was on release. Few films about technology feel this warm, and fewer still manage to be this honest about the human heart.

2019 · Todd Phillips · 122 min · Psychological Thriller / Drama

Joker lives and dies on Joaquin Phoenix's performance, and that performance is extraordinary enough to carry a film through its weaker stretches. Todd Phillips built a grimy, uncomfortable character study around one of pop culture's most famous villains and dared audiences to feel something for him. The influences are obvious, the social commentary is muddled, and the pacing drags in places. None of that erases what Phoenix does here, transforming Arthur Fleck from a pitiable figure into something deeply frightening through sheer commitment to the role. It's a film that's easier to admire than to love, but the admiration is earned.

2014 · Paul Thomas Anderson · 148 min · Comedy, Mystery

Inherent Vice is a shaggy, deliberately confusing stoner noir that rewards viewers who surrender to its haze, though its commitment to bewilderment alienates just as many as it charms.

2002 · M. Night Shyamalan · 106 min · Thriller

Signs is a masterfully tense alien invasion film told from the ground level, through the eyes of one family on a Pennsylvania farm. Shyamalan's gift for building suspense from silence and shadow is on full display, even if the film's resolution doesn't satisfy everyone who made the journey.