There are simply too many amazing films—thousands, really—that could occupy every slot on this list just as confidently as the ones that are here.
I hate hotshots.
The flicks below are the best things I got out to see in multiplexes and arthouses in 2009.
Film Festivals come and go. What’s important is what stays with you.
Whatever his reasons, Khrzhanovsky directs his first (mostly) live-action feature, at age 69, as if it were his own last testament.
Lebanon is a good old-fashioned Sam Fuller war picture, all capital letters and tight close-ups.
Kore-eda seems to replicate Ozu’s post-war style and philosophy, tailoring it to a slightly more acidic, ironic temperament.
Charlie Ahearn’s Wild Style has retained its cult classic status for 25 years as a time capsule of early 80s hip hop culture, but seen right now, it stands out most as a satire on urban class collision.
Watching Day of Wrath for the second time at age 35, I now see much more E.T. than Schindler’s List.
Traitor is a movie about some of the most terrifying and inescapable facts of our times, and I walked out of it whistling and chewing gum.
For a film about Native Americans depleting what’s left of their lives in skid row haunts, The Exiles is a groovy visual experience.
This film is as simple as “war is not the answer...only love can conquer hate.”
Somebody needed to do a merciless sendup of Homeland Security bullshit, but are Harold and Kumar up to the task? Not quite.
Everybody in Ho’wood wants to be a serial killer.
Hip-hop music may be dead at the hands of corporate thug rap, but the culture lives on, worldwide, says Planet B-Boy.
I’m sure Contempt was something to see in 1963.
Cristian Mungiu is the future, if your eyes will but listen.
What does Woody Allen believe in?
Here are 10 fragments from White’s writing that I’ve wanted to frame and hang on a wall.
The film is indeed a kind of secret sunshine in its first act, offering some quiet, embracing, jaunty realism.
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