Boston Globe

Beloved is a strong, dark, tangled powerhouse of a film that comes to grips with the scars of slavery as no previous American film has.

Posted Feb 2, 2022

Nothing But a Man (1963)

Margo Miller

Nothing But a Man is a great movie. It has a universal story. It is superbly acted. It keeps to a point of view, some thing rare in American film making.

Posted Jan 31, 2022

2/4

Jockey (2021)

Kyle Turner

A gorgeous film, but in a bizarrely empty way.

Posted Jan 27, 2022

Sidewalk Stories (1989)

[Lane is] an appealing talent, and Sidewalk Stories is a likable film. Beyond novelty value, it also finds modern ways of making contact with the very real feel for poverty that was so much a part of the early Chaplin films.

Posted Jan 24, 2022

The Watermelon Woman (1997)

A sweet, sassy mockumentary.

Posted Jan 21, 2022

3.5/4

Drive My Car (2021)

Over the course of just under three hours, Hamaguchi reworks and expands a Haruki Murakami short story (it first ran in The New Yorker) into an intimate epic.

Posted Jan 20, 2022

2.5/4

Munich: The Edge of War (2022)

Once various ducks have been gotten in a narrative row and the conference starts, the movie becomes pretty good.

Posted Jan 20, 2022

3/4

Flee (2021)

"What does the word 'home' mean to you?" the director asks Amin early on. He struggles for an answer. Those watching "Flee" may well do so, too.

Posted Jan 20, 2022

3.5/4

Future People: The Family of Donor 5114 (2021)

Peter Keough

Shot with compassion, intimate access, and with perhaps too much chirpy music on the soundtrack, Future People presents a provocative and affecting look at what the future might hold for family relationships and dynamics.

Posted Jan 18, 2022

3.5/4

Parallel Mothers (Madres paralelas) (2021)

Cruz is a marvel: forceful, passionate, casually sexy. There are lots of people who star in movies. There are very few honest-to-Hollywood movie stars. Cruz is one of them.

Posted Jan 14, 2022

The Queen of Sheba (1921)

Although [Blythe] wears about as few clothes as the censor will allow, she is lovely enough to keep the role from becoming at all gross or sensual.

Posted Jan 12, 2022

The Miracle Man (1919)

The story is of interest to believer and unbeliever alike. There is a human interest to plot that cannot fail but grip man, woman or child.

Posted Jan 11, 2022

London After Midnight (1927)

There is a lot about vampires in the picture, some scenes of hypnotism and eerie stuff which Tod Browning, the director, always does so well... It would be wrong to tell the plot, and there is a surprise ending, with an amazing climax.

Posted Jan 11, 2022

3.5/4

A Hero (2022)

Seeing both sides in a drama can be a formula for noble tedium. With Farhadi, it works to enrich his material and make it memorable.

Posted Jan 6, 2022

2/4

The 355 (2022)

What had been slick emptiness in a diverting sort of way... becomes curdled slick emptiness in a look-at-your-watch sort of way.

Posted Jan 6, 2022

3/4

Licorice Pizza (2021)

The things in Licorice Pizza that are so good, like the performances from Haim and Hoffman and Cooper and the period fidelity, make you wish that the entire movie was just as good.

Posted Dec 30, 2021

Excalibur (1981)

Michael Blowen

The absence of a central dramatic concept robs Excalibur of the artistic thrust it desperately requires... Each part works as an isolated set piece, but Boorman fails to weave them into a significant whole.

Posted Dec 28, 2021

3/4

Red Rocket (2021)

"Red Rocket" isn't like any other movie you've seen this year. Expect the taste of pink sparkle doughnuts to linger.

Posted Dec 23, 2021

2.5/4

The Tender Bar (2021)

It's pure pleasure to see Affleck having such a good time here - and giving such good acting value.

Posted Dec 23, 2021

2.5/4

A Journal for Jordan (2021)

The film is earnest, if also a bit slick, though not so much as to keep it from being affecting. Expect to shed a tear, or two, at its conclusion.

Posted Dec 23, 2021

2/4

The Matrix Resurrections (2021)

A sequel is never about either the old movie or the new one. It's about the audience. What one is "Resurrections" meant for?

Posted Dec 22, 2021

3.5/4

The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

It's Washington who dominates, of course, and not just because Macbeth dominates the play. His presence is that commanding.

Posted Dec 22, 2021

2/4

The King's Man (2021)

History is just one big playpen for "The King's Man," but some games are less fun than others.

Posted Dec 22, 2021

3/4

The Hand of God (È stata la mano di Dio) (2021)

The film has the vividness of memory, but also the structure of memory, which is to say no real structure at all. Visually, though, the movie is of a piece; it's Sorrentino's eye that holds it together.

Posted Dec 22, 2021

Wyatt Earp (1994)

Tempering its violence with tragic awareness, it's handsome, full of sweep, weight and integrity, long on character, downplaying any temptation to histrionics. Actually, it's a quite daring performance Costner unfurls.

Posted Dec 21, 2021

The Lion King (1994)

Make no mistake, the magnitude of the achievement here far outweighs any shortcomings. The Lion King is both populist blockbuster and royal treat.

Posted Dec 21, 2021

2.5/4

The Lost Daughter (2021)

[Gyllenhaal's] direction is unemphatic without ever being tentative, and she's made a film with a relaxed, easy rhythm - but not too easy.

Posted Dec 17, 2021

2.5/4

Nightmare Alley (2021)

Definitely not a folly or disaster, "Nightmare Alley" is something even more dismaying coming from talent like this: It's dull and mediocre.

Posted Dec 17, 2021

3/4

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

You don't need to have seen any of the previous Spider-Man movies to follow this one. But it's much more entertaining - more affecting, too - if you have.

Posted Dec 17, 2021

3/4

Being the Ricardos (2021)

Like the title characters and the performances that go with them, "Being the Ricardos" has real zip. It's a virtue of Sorkin's tendency to glibness.

Posted Dec 17, 2021

3.5/4

West Side Story (2021)

Don Aucoin

There have been countless iterations of this masterwork (it was revived again on Broadway as recently as last year), but Spielberg and Kushner enable us to see it with new eyes.

Posted Dec 9, 2021

2/4

Don't Look Up (2021)

In an ideal world, "Don't Look Up" would be an updated "Dr. Strangelove," making deadly serious fun of a deadly serious menace. But as Adam McKay knows all too well, this is not an ideal world.

Posted Dec 9, 2021

Nightmare Alley (1947)

To many film-goers Nightmare Alley will be too unpleasant in subject to please as entertainment. However, the acting is first rate, although the photography is too murky for a clear idea of what is going on.

Posted Dec 3, 2021

3/4

The Velvet Underground (2021)

What makes a rock band worth attending to a half century after its breakup isn't its personalities or backstory or context, interesting as those can be, and here they're all highly interesting. It's the music.

Posted Dec 3, 2021

West Side Story (1961)

It roars with the hatreds of street battle. It twinkles with joyous motion which turns into fierce agitation as the stresses of misunderstanding speed the players into an uncontrollable maelstrom.

Posted Dec 1, 2021

The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

It is only fitting and proper that The Great Ziegfeld... should be as magnificent, as picturesque and as crammed with ingenuity and talent as the combined money and talent of Hollywood could provide.

Posted Nov 30, 2021

All the King's Men (1949)

Here is a picture that took courage to make. It stands up in entertainment value, but it is primarily a vital, powerful and terrifying picture of what dirty politics can do to both individual and state.

Posted Nov 30, 2021

2.5/4

Julia (2021)

"Julia," a brisk documentary survey of Julia Child's life, is warmly admiring. This makes sense, as there's lots to admire.

Posted Nov 24, 2021

2/4

House of Gucci (2021)

Say this for "House of Gucci," it announces its basic silliness right off the bat.

Posted Nov 24, 2021

3/4

tick, tick...Boom! (2021)

Don Aucoin

With "tick, tick ... BOOM!", Miranda has done [Larson] proud.

Posted Nov 24, 2021

3/4

Encanto (2021)

It's overblown at times and a bit too busy - visually, emotionally, and as narrative - but its vibrancy and ingenuity are hard to resist.

Posted Nov 24, 2021

The Sandpiper (1965)

If anyone had suggested to me that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton could be beaten out by the background scenery of a co-starring film, I would never have believed it. But that is what has happened in The Sandpiper.

Posted Nov 23, 2021

2/4

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

It has its moments... but they don't make up for a general flat-footedness and tendency to wobble.

Posted Nov 22, 2021

2.5/4

The Power of the Dog (2021)

The movie begins and ends with Smit-McPhee. Plemons plays the most winning character. And Dunst gets the most to do expressively. But Cumberbatch dominates the film.

Posted Nov 18, 2021

3/4

King Richard (2021)

It's a showy part, and Smith gives it all he's got, which is a lot.

Posted Nov 18, 2021

3/4

Passing (2021)

Much of "Passing" could be a stage play: people talking in confined spaces, the confinement figurative as well as literal. It's a chamber drama bearing the weight of several centuries.

Posted Nov 18, 2021

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

This is a picture of so many excellencies it is difficult to enumerate them, but audiences will discover the various beauties and virtues for themselves during the two hours and 40 minutes which the story runs.

Posted Nov 17, 2021

2.5/4

The Souvenir: Part II (2021)

There's nothing actor-ish or mannered about Byrne. She doesn't even seem to be giving a performance, which underscores just how good a performance it actually is.

Posted Nov 14, 2021

3/4

Spencer (2021)