THE BEST FILMS OF 2025

Though I still haven't found a new publisher for my film writing, I persist in this expression of my deepest love of films, which continue to be my go-to source of inspiration and solace.  Of the 150 or so films I have seen this year (as I do every year), including all the Oscar-nominated feature-length films that have been available for screening, these are the ones that most impressed and stayed with me and that I think most deserve an audience.  So, to start, here is my list of the ten best films of 2025:

1.            One Battle After Another

2.           The Secret Agent

3.           Sinners

4.            It Was Just An Accident

5.            Come See Me In The Good Light

6.            East of Wall

7.            Secret Mall Apartment

8.            Deaf President Now

9.            A Nice Indian Boy

10.          Sirat

As usual, it's an eclectic mix, though with more overlap than usual between those at the top of my list and those at the top of the lists of critics generally and even of the Motion Picture Academy.  There are three documentaries on this list and three films originating from outside the U.S.  One is directed by a woman and all of them explore the experiences of those at the margins. 

I'll likely move this to another platform soon but welcome any leads or connections as to places to publish.  For now I continue in the tradition of all the artists who keep creating in the face of the odds--some of whom are reflected in this list of the best films of the year--with a commitment to keep writing and keep offering what is mine to offer, whether or not it is seen or heard. 

1.  One Battle After Another - I could make a case for any of my top three films as the best film of the year.  All reflect the world-building of directors who also wrote their screenplays. All deal with themes that feel especially urgent in these times of such upheaval.  All feature beautifully built ensemble casts offering some of the very best performances of the year.  In the end, though, "One Battle After Another" edges out the others by a nose.  For me, it resonates most deeply. 

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson adapted his screenplay from "Vineland," a novel by Thomas Pynchon.  The director has said that the film is "inspired by" the book, which I haven't read, and that he has lifted elements of the book that he found most resonant, while shifting the time period and significantly altering the story.  I'd take the class where someone mines all of those choices for meaning, as I'm curious about how much of what moved me most finds roots in the novel and how much reflects where Anderson took the elements he found there.

Here are some bits of what I saw.  Somehow--though I'm not sure how--Anderson has captured a sense of waves of revolutionary energy challenging power structures as they exist in the U.S.  It's as though he has found a way to personify and portray the energy itself.  I'm not even sure how he came to the understanding reflected in this work, which captures better than I can remember seeing a sense of the scale of corruption, how readily those with structural power can claim justification for unspeakable acts while wrapping themselves in the language of moral high ground, and also the waves of opposition often characterized by courage and heart but also calamitous hubris or weakness or tactical errors--and, of course, being vastly overmatched in fire power.  The white supremacists here with their "Christmas Adventurers Club" may seem extreme to some viewers, but their portrayal actually captures with surprising clarity the ways in which such power operates. 

Conflicts like these could be set in any time; similar dynamics resonate in "one battle after another," for sure.  But given that the Pynchon novel is set in a different, earlier time, and given the number of years that Anderson has been working to adapt it, it's remarkable how accurately this film captures some of the exact dynamics we are seeing manifest in real time.  Mistakes are made in all directions, but the characters here are specific and extraordinarily resonant, from the smallest roles (including many played by folks with little or no professional experience) to the justly celebrated work of Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Chase Infiniti, and the great Teyana Taylor. 

Best of all, this film contains perhaps my favorite character and performance of this or any year--the "Sensei" played by the great Benecio Del Toro.  In a world where one battle after another is fought, he is one of those who knows best how to fight--remembering to breathe, not taking himself too seriously but taking the scale of what deserves fighting much more seriously than most can manage.  He is cool and clear-headed, assessing quickly the reasons to help the chaotic Bob (DiCaprio), directing an extremely effective underground operation ("a little Latino Harriet Tubman situation") that manages to save scores of unseen people who otherwise can claim no rights or human dignity in the overculture.  With a practiced eye, he quickly and accurately discerns the best response to each moment, clocking the exits and when it is best for him to take a fall for "a few small beers."  Watching him navigate this world is a true inspiration.  "Ocean waves.  Ocean waves." 

[In English and Spanish; rated R for pervasive language, violence, sexual content, and  drug use; nominated for 13 Academy Awards, including Best Picture (which it deserves to win), Best Director (Paul Thomas Anderson, who deserves to win), Best Adapted Screenplay (Paul Thomas Anderson, who deserves to win), Best Actor (Leonardo DiCaprio), Best Supporting Actor (Benecio Del Toro, who deserves to win, and also Sean Penn), Best Supporting Actress (Teyana Taylor, who deserves to win), Best Casting (Cassandra Kulukundis, who deserves to win), and Best Original Score.  The best reviewed film of the year ranked by Metascore on metacritic.com; available to stream on several platforms.]

2.  The Secret Agent offers windows of profound insight into life under authoritarianism.  Set in the 1970s during Brazil's military dictatorship and drawing from writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho's own memories from his childhood in Recife, the film centers on the experiences of Armando (a brilliant Wagner Moura), a former professor caught up in political turmoil that endangers his life.  The film is rich with detail about life in that time, conveyed by a cast of characters that includes a community where Armando is offered refuge, surrounded by others in hiding, and also an array of thugs inside and outside the state apparatus where official power is wielded brutally and with impunity. 

Filho unfolds this story with consummate skill.  We gradually learn in bits and pieces the actions that placed Armando in jeopardy, and find that the punishment aimed at him makes no actual sense.  We come to realize that he is not a secret agent in the usual sense but has been robbed of any ability to exist as himself; those who wield power are free to target him and to steal and rewrite his identity so that even his own son will never know who he actually was.  Like the people in the community where Armando briefly finds solace, their offenses are never named; they have been forced to erase themselves in hopes of safety, enabling the state to write whatever story it wants about them.

It is rare to see a film that conveys so much so indirectly.  We are treated to a view of life under authoritarianism where the truth is nowhere to be found in the official news and where joy and celebration coexist with violence--indeed, where joy and celebration can provide a cover for violence.  One senses levels of awareness, where some try to exist as best they can without seeing the peril that surrounds them while others whose circumstances compel them to see more find ways to locate each other and collaborate in the underground where they are forced to live.  Among the things I was left to contemplate is how one could improve the possibility of developing that second sight rapidly and with sufficient facility to make a difference in that underground. 

[In Portuguese, German, and English; rated R for strong bloody violence, sexual content, language, and some full nudity; nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best International Feature (which it deserves to win), Best Actor (Wagner Moura), and Best Casting.  #4 on the list of the best reviewed films of the year ranked by Metascore on metacritic.com; available to stream on several platforms.]

3.  Sinners is a work of the most profound originality.  Writer-director Ryan Coogler has reimagined music and genre conventions to illuminate what pulses underneath our shallow collective understanding of Black experience and the gears that drive white supremacy. A vibrant work of historical fiction becomes an even more vibrant horror story, as Coogler expands what stories can be told.  Like his protagonists, the twins played masterfully by Michael B. Jordan, Coogler is determined to build a bigger space to house Black genius and flavor and inventiveness and brilliance.

The talent assembled here is dazzling.  I especially hope that Michael B. Jordan is honored for the work he did in embodying the twins with such specificity.  The film has broken the record for most Oscar nominations, reflecting the remarkable artistry that animates every aspect of this film.  I especially loved how Coogler managed to capture some of the dynamics of how oppressed people come to sell each other out as they attempt to find leverage inside a system that so incessantly rewards exploitation and perverts attempts at liberation. 

There is a central scene in the film in which Black artists (seers) as embodied throughout time and space all dance together for a delicious moment.   It's a scene that will live in my memory, a vision of the insistence on life and creativity that pulses through Black experience and that white supremacy can't seem to resist exploiting.  I'm not sure I'm satisfied with how Coogler resolves what he is sensing here, but as he did with the "Black Panther" movies, he has elevated our collective vision of Black power.  There is more to explore in these themes, and I'm anxious to see what Coogler's voracious vision may illuminate next. 

[In English and Chinese; rated R for strong bloody violence, sexual content, and language; nominated for 16 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay (Ryan Coogler, who deserves to win), Best Actor (Michael B. Jordan, who deserves to win), Best Supporting Actor (Delroy Lindo), Best Supporting Actress (Wunmi Mosaku), and Best Original Score (Ludwig Goransson, who deserves to win).  #28 on the list of the best reviewed films of the year ranked by Metascore on metacritic.com; available to stream on several platforms.]

4.  It Was Just An Accident serves up big questions, brings us into dialogue with those questions, and knows better than to fully resolve them.  Filmmaker Jafar Panahi knows what it is like to navigate an oppressive government; he has been imprisoned by the Iranian government for films that craftily tell the truth (deemed "propaganda against the Islamic Republic"), and has continued to make films while banned from doing so.  Drawing on conversations he engaged and overheard while in prison, Panahi builds this story around the dilemma of what a person would or should do if given the chance to kill the person who tortured them and ruined their life. 

In this film, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, a mechanic who endured torture while blindfolded in prison thinks his tormenter has come into his shop, identifiable by his distinctive walk with a squeaky artificial leg.  The mechanic follows and kidnaps the man, intending to kill him but, uncertain that he has the right person, spends the next 24 hours seeking confirmation, enlisting a series of former detainees who also endured torture from the notorious interrogator while blindfolded.  They give voice to a variety of instincts for processing the grief, trauma, and ongoing pain of oppression and abuse.

The film, amazingly, was made inside Iran, a feat of incredible daring for the director and for the cast and crew, offering a fascinating window onto city streets in Iran.  Panahi somehow manages to find the humor and absurdity in the situation, as the characters wrestle with the most vexing of questions.  When is violent retribution justified?  What price does it exact?  What does it solve?  What is the cost of leaving a terrible person free to strike again?  In what way is he a terrible person?  Which choices can you live with, and what will that life look like?

No one can hold such questions like Panahi, still fighting to illuminate truth at great cost.  When someone with this sort of skill, practice, and moral authority invites you to consider questions like these, you ought not look away. 

[In Persian and Azerbaijani; rated PG-13 for thematic elements, violence, strong language, and smoking; nominated for Academy Awards for Best International Feature and Best Original Screenplay; #5 on the list of the best reviewed films of the year ranked by Metascore on metacritic.com; available to stream on several platforms.]

5.  Come See Me In The Good Light was the best film I saw at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.  That was in April, before its subject, poet Andrea Gibson, finally passed away in July after a long battle with ovarian cancer .  I don't expect that there is a way to describe the film that will capture its pleasures; one wouldn't expect to savor a film that invites you into the final months in the life of a gravely ill person as they navigate the agony of cancer treatment with their wife and soulmate.  Director Ryan White commented at the screening I attended that he didn't know of Gibson's work and didn't see the appeal of the concept when it was first pitched to him by a posse of "celesbians" that included Tig Notaro and Brandi Carlile (credited as producers).  But once he met Gibson and their wife, poet Megan Falley, he understood why the film had to made.  You can't miss it.

Gibson writes with clarity borne of struggle and an open heart, and the love between Gibson and Falley functions from similar clarity and openheartedness.  Gibson was genderqueer and has written beautifully of their struggle to forge an identify inside an upbringing that was strictly religious and socially conservative.  They struggled with health issues and depression for much of their life and found their voice through spoken word poetry while in their 20s.  If you are not yet familiar with their written work, as I wasn't, the film will send you to experience its pleasures, which I have been savoring over the last few months.

Gibson and Falley don't sugarcoat the agonies they are experiencing, but it is profoundly moving to witness the ways the two find to savor life and love under circumstances where taking those gifts for granted is no longer possible.  As someone who lost my love after a long painful illness but with far less support than these two had, watching was a complex experience for me, as it may be for others for their own personal reasons.  Among my reactions was gratitude for the opportunity to be a witness to a love that, like my own, was founded in struggle but that, unlike mine, was celebrated as it should have been, at least some of the time.  Suffering can show us the way, if we want to follow.

[In English; nominated for, and should win, the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature; available to stream on Apple TV.]

6.  East of Wall isn't easy to categorize, not unlike the characters who are its focus.  Its first-time writer-director, Kate Beecroft, was traveling in South Dakota looking for film subjects when she was directed to a ranch east of Wall, a town known as the gateway to Badlands National Park.  There she encountered Tabatha Zimiga, a gifted horse trainer who also serves as a den mother to a group of wayward teenagers, who she also trains to work with and ride the horses.  Beecroft was so struck by their compelling, hard-scrabble community that she embedded there for the next three years, built trust with Zimiga and her family, and ultimately assembled a narrative film from the reality of their lives and experiences. 

The film feels like a mixture of documentary and fiction; much of it simply embeds you in the lives of these characters, who most of us won't encounter and might well misread if we did.  Many of the cast members are not professional actors, but tough elders weathered by years of struggle and kids cast off by society who find a haven on the backs of the feral horses they learn to ride on Zimiga's 3000-acre ranch.  Jennifer Ehle and Scoot Nairy are well-cast, respectively, as Zimiga's moonshine-brewing mother and a visiting Texas rancher posing as a benefactor.  But the film's real pleasures involve the kids swimming and riding and tousling and talking back, Zimiga's daughter Porshia (a TikTok star and rodeo queen) riding thunderbolt on a horse, and Zimiga herself, her long dyed-blond hair shaved on one side, fighting the systems that see her and her brood so much differently than they see themselves.  Zimiga's own ability to gently but firmly build connection with a feral horse is one of the more prominent clues that she is a seer.  Beecroft helps us see her, and the community, the way they deserve to be seen--and they do deserve to be seen. 

[In English; rated R for language throughout; available to stream on Netflix and Prime Video.]

7.   Secret Mall Apartment takes you between the walls of the massive Providence Place shopping mall, where a group of eight Rhode Island artists constructed a secret apartment and occupied it for four years before being discovered.  Led by a visionary artist, Michael Townsend, most were his students, and the film doesn't close down questions about the perils Townsend led them to navigate, hoisting building materials and furniture up through dangerous crevices they were not authorized to occupy.  All except Townsend's then wife, Adriana Valdez Young, are white, and they appropriately notice how that fact likely impacted their ability to pull off an extended trespass that even included an encounter with mall security.  Yet they speak with reverence of the experience, which they pulled off while also working on other ambitious projects, including tape art in a children's hospital and in public spaces all over Manhattan and Oklahoma City. 

The film locates the story in the social context of the mall's construction, which was meant to revitalize the city but which heedlessly displaced many of its residents, including an underground art community.  The mall itself isn't meant for everyone; it is mostly inaccessible to foot traffic from the streets of the city itself.  Townsend, with an iconoclast's eye for truth hidden between the lines and years of practice claiming unused spaces for artistic expression, detected unused space within the mall itself and, together, the group imagined it into a space that they could occupy.  Using their memories and footage the apartment builders captured in documenting their work, the filmmakers and the original artists also assemble for the film a replica of the apartment, which mall personnel dismantled after they discovered it.  The space was remarkably comfortable, furnished with a sofa, a TV and game system, a microwave, and a cinderblock wall.

It's a story rich with challenges to under-examined ideas of ownership and of who is entitled to claim space and for what purposes.  It's also an inspiring foray into what art practice can look like--and, indeed, what it might look like to honor other gifts as well.  Townsend is a compelling, if occasionally exasperating character; he was the only one of the eight who was publicly associated with the project until this film was released and was convicted of trespass and banned from the mall until after the documentary brought the story to light, along with identifying the other participants.  The film offers fascinating windows into the ripples Townsend leaves in his wake--but you may well find yourself inspired by the work he did here, as I most certainly was. 

[In English; available to stream on Netflix and Prime Video.]

8.  Deaf President Now! offers well-deserved attention to a 1988 student uprising at Gallaudet University after a hearing candidate was elected president by the board over deaf candidates for the job of leading the university, whose students are deaf and hard of hearing.  The students refused to accept that their university would once again be led by a hearing person.  The film wisely centers deaf voices, which adds to its resonance; one of its two directors, Nyle DiMarco, is himself a deaf activist, and the story is told largely by four of the students who led the protests, reflecting back on how they viewed the controversy and each other. 

It's a fascinating, though often aggravating, portrait of how the students' activism was misunderstood and minimized, how they persisted, and how change went from unthinkable to inevitable.  I appreciated windows into thinking errors of not only those with power but also those fighting against it; all are inevitable in such work, but this film doesn't smooth over such thinking errors so much that they aren't visible.  I also marveled at the strategic innovations the students found, born of practice at resourceful navigation of exclusion, and also glimmers of slow evolution in the thinking and experience of the deaf and hard of hearing.  The film--and these students--inspire hope that sometimes the excluded may manage to reject the messages they are meant to internalize; this account of their transformative fight rewards the attention it demands.

[In American Sign Language and English; available to stream on Apple TV.]

9.  A Nice Indian Boy is the sweetest film I saw this year, which is by no means the easiest route to my top ten list.  Adapted by Eric Randall from the play by Madhuri Shekar, and directed by Roshan Sethi, it tells the story of Naveen, a shut-down-but-secretly-romantic Indian-American doctor who falls for a white man adopted by Indian parents.  It helps that that love interest is played by the great Jonathan Groff, who could charm anyone--but he does especially subtle work in this tender romantic comedy, as does the entire cast of mostly Indian-American and Indian actors.  I read that Groff suggested Karan Soni for the role of Naveen, not realizing that Soni is married to the director.  Soni and Groff beautifully capture the delicacy of navigating compounded cultural differences, where one can be both insider and outsider in the same moment. 

While the film revels in the beats of movie romance, including that some of its resolutions are tidier than what feels achievable in real life, it will likely soften even the most resistant and cynical hearts.  That's thanks to an array of beautiful performances (including those of Sunita Mani as Naveen's sister and Zarna Garg and Harish Patel as his parents), to a screenplay (and presumably a play) that make space for nuance, and to Sethi's direction, which balances earnestness, humor, and hope.  It's all impossible to resist--and why try?

[In English; #25 on the list of the best reviewed films of the year ranked by Metascore on metacritic.com; available to stream on several platforms.]

10.  Sirât doesn't spell out its aims directly.  It's a loose story built on a found community of travelers on a journey they are determined to make but that doesn't make obvious sense.  Spaniard Luis travels with his young son Esteban to a rave in Morocco in search of his adult daughter, who they haven't heard from in several months.   When the rave is shut down by military personnel, Luis and Esteban follow a found family of five ravers deeper into the Moroccan desert, skirting the authorities and ignoring signs of a possible impending world war, aiming for another rave.  It turns out they are navigating a sort of Sirât--in Islamic tradition, the bridge connecting Hell and Paradise.

The ravers haven't invited Luis and Esteban to join them, and they advise against the father and son making the journey in their minivan.  They know the terrain, at least somewhat, traveling in much more substantial vehicles with some practice at surviving the desert.  But they soften to the pair, and soon confront the perils of the journey together, combining skills and provisions.  And it turns out that none of them are prepared for the dangers that await them.

The ravers are played by nonprofessional actors whom the director, Oliver Saxe (who cowrote the screenplay with Santiago Fillol), found during time spent inside the rave culture.  They are a compelling group, and not the usual subjects around whom a film is built.  A bit like Beecroft did in "East of Wall," Saxe aims to bring us into their world; some of the film's best moments are in its opening scenes, where speakers are assembled and we watch the intoxicated movements of a field of ravers.  The film's sound design is meant to draw us into what some find so compelling about these spaces of assembled community. 

The film is a harrowing watch, and some will likely grow impatient with its meandering journey and jolted by the shocks of the film's last third.  I'll admit I found myself wishing that Saxe had infused the journey with a bit more meaning--yet that may well be his point, to spur attention to what it is we are looking for to make such a journey feel justified and why that is so.  I recommend it, in the end, because it is a powerful watch, and because the intensity intrigues and provokes.  Follow these travelers if you dare.

[In Spanish, French, English, and Arabic; rated R for language, some violent content and drug use; nominated for Academy Awards for Best International Feature and Best Sound; in limited theatrical release.]

THE BEST FILMS OF 2024

 

Though I haven't yet managed to find a new publisher for my yearly top-ten movie list, I persist in this labor of deepest love for films, which have continued to be a primary source of inspiration and solace on a life journey where I feel those needs profoundly.  Of the 150 or so films I have seen this year (as every year), including all of the Oscar nominated films that have been available for screening, these are the ones I think most deserve an audience.  So, to start, here is my list of the ten best films of 2024:

1.         1.    Sing Sing

2.         2.    Nickel Boys

3.         3.    We Grown Now

4.         4.    Good One

5.         5.    Daughters

6.        6.     His Three Daughters

7.         7.    Bird

8.         8.    Flow

9.         9.    A Real Pain

      10.  All We Imagine As Light

As always, it's an eclectic mix, some of which have received widespread recognition but many of which haven't gotten nearly the attention they deserve.  There is one documentary on this list, and three films originating from outside the U.S.; half are directed by women, and more than half probe the experiences of people at the margins (including Black people, incarcerated people and their families, and working-class women in India).  It's unusual for so many U.S. films to make it onto my list, which I find encouraging.  This mix of stories and storytellers taught me the most, touched me most deeply, and shed light in places where it is most needed.

I'm still missing a platform beyond my own blog to publish movie commentary and still hope to find one again soon—leads or connections on that are invited and welcome.  My own experience reflects how celebrity culture submerges many of the most original and vital contributions.  Artists who keep creating in the face of the odds—many of whose work is reflected in this list of the best films of the year—are my models to keep writing, and to keep offering what is mine to offer, whether or not it is seen or heard, especially important if one of your gifts is to help others be seen and heard. 

1.     Sing Sing has garnered some well-deserved critical attention, but not all that it deserves.  Most critics have focused on the in-prison theater program that inspired the film, Rehabilitation Through the Arts, and have offered an array of opinions as to how convincing a case the film makes for the humanizing power of artistic expression.  While I of course see those themes in the film, it illuminates more than we may yet be ready to see.

Even the most complimentary criticism I have read too readily accepts the implication that prisons are somehow struggling to rehabilitate people in custody and that theater programs like this one have unlocked some secret code.  I think what the film is doing is more subtle and significant than that.

Inspired by an Esquire article about the program, writer-director Greg Kwedar and his writing partner, Clint Bentley, followed the curiosity the article sparked in them.  As Kwedar explains in an excellent interview with Tonya Moseley on Fresh Air, they reached out to the author of the article and the director of the program at Sing Sing.  Those men introduced them to various formerly incarcerated men who had participated in the program, including Clarence Maclin, who has a starring role in the film, and John Divine G Whitfield, who is played in the film by the great Colman Domingo.  The four of them (Kwedar, Bentley, Maclin, and Whitfield) built the film's screenplay together out of that shared exploration.

Without engaging the subject directly, the film quietly captures essential aspects of the dehumanization of prison life—the tiny living spaces, the sudden restrictions of movement (a buzzer sounds, and one must drop to the ground, or one's tiny cell can at any time be searched and left in disarray), the entrenchment of aggression and toxic ideas of masculinity, the tenuousness of any small experience of freedom.   A particularly painful clemency hearing conveys the relentless conviction that those in custody must always be viewed with suspicion no matter the subject; a hearing officer invites Domingo's character to talk about the theater program, which he co-founded and leads, and then asks him, "Are you acting now?" The wince of pain on his face says it all.

Perhaps as a culture we are too conditioned to see these aspects of the carceral system as justified for their depiction to capture people's attention—yet the film also conveys the humanity of the men inside.  The filmmakers' decision not to say much about the crimes of conviction for the men is not merely a generous choice but a necessary one; in all but one case, the film does not question their "guilt" but rather gently serves up an opportunity to question how living under these conditions is likely to solve anything.

Most of the cast members are themselves formerly incarcerated, and everyone in the cast and crew received the same pay rate, from Domingo to the production assistants; they also all share in the film's equity.  The decommissioned New York prison where the action was shot happens to have been one of the prisons in which the cast members had been housed when it was in use, and the process of filming—of donning prison garb and placing themselves back inside a place that was a kind of hell—asks a lot of them.  Maclin has spoken in various interviews about the challenges of the experience but also of the influence he and other formerly incarcerated cast members had on ensuring the production's authenticity.  He has also spoken of the commitment he felt to conveying accurately the experience of incarceration and the humanity of those who live it.

Domingo too has commented on what he gained from the experience, recognizing that his own background is very similar to most of these men.  The film reflects the reciprocity that the men describe in the process of making it; one of its pleasures is witnessing the push-pull between Domingo's character and Maclin's, their power struggles and the ways they resist and give in to practices of solidarity.

I hope others will grasp the gift these artists have offered us: an opportunity to bear witness to what transformation is possible even and especially among those we are most inclined to throw away.  Most of what we are doing  inside prisons looks nothing like the theater practice portrayed here.  This beautiful film is not only about the power of theater and art; it's a vision of the conditions under which transformation is possible at all.  Perhaps we ought to focus less on fixing those in custody and more on fixing our collective thinking errors about incarceration and rehabilitation.   This film shows the way.  

 [In English; rated R for  language throughout; nominated for, and deserves to win, Academy Awards for Best Actor (Colman Domingo), and Best Original Song ("Like a Bird"); also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin, and John Divine G Whitfield); deserved nominations and would be my pick for Best Director (Greg Kwedar) and Best Picture; on at least 108 other critics' top movie lists; available to stream on Amazon Prime.]

2.      "Nickel Boys" is in many ways the most ambitious film on this list and a bit of a challenge to access—but that challenge points to its power.  It's an adaptation of Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about two teenage boys who form a bond while doing time in a "reform school" in Florida in the 1960s.  The school in the book is based on a real facility, the Dozier School, which was ultimately revealed to be a place where  students were abused and where, years later, many unmarked graves were found on the property—among the many clues that, as with the so-called "residential schools" where Native American children were confined, worked, tortured, and abused, places like this were not so much schools as they were instruments and enforcers of white supremacy culture. 

This is the second feature film of director RaMell Ross, who received recognition, including an Academy Award nomination, for his first feature, "Hale County This Morning, This Evening."  That film is a documentary that delves deep into the experiences of folks living in a Black community in Alabama where Ross embedded for many years and where he still resides part time.  Ross is a seer; he wants us to begin to notice and question the perspective from which stories of Black experience have been told. He aims to find ways to decenter the white gaze, to strip away the opportunities for the rest of us to distract ourselves with what we need and want to believe.

Building on his work on "Hale County," Ross chooses to tell much of this story from the perspective of one of the boys—Ellwood, a idealistic, studious devotee of Martin Luther King, Jr., very beloved by the grandmother who raised him.  The first part of the film offers a view of the world from Ellwood's childhood eyes; we glimpse him only reflected in glass or in his grandmother's iron, or in a photobooth that he visits with a girlfriend.  It's from his perspective that we experience the events that land him at the benignly named Nickel Academy (predictably revealing the virtual impossibility of living a life clean enough to ensure one can avoid being criminalized).  We ride with him in the police car which takes him to Nickel, with two white boys who experience treatment much different than he receives.  We meet the more cynical Turner, who becomes his friend, from Elwood's perspective. 

From there the film switches between the perspectives of the two boys, along with some flashes forward to an adult Elwood, who we view from behind.  To say more would be too much, as there are some twists that you should experience yourself. 

Suffice it to say that I hope you will experience this film yourself, and maybe more than once.  My general practice is to see a film the first time without reading about it at all; this is one film that benefits from the sort of orientation I've just offered.  It helps to know that the boy whose perspective you are experiencing in the early part of the film ends up at Nickel Academy, and that it does not go well.  What Ellwood experiences throughout the film—punctuated at a couple of points with clips from a very different film featuring a Black character in custody, the 1958 film "The Defiant Ones"—contains elements common to Black experience, then and (heart-breakingly) now; we know this but we don't want to know it.  Ross wants us to see it and feel it in a different way. 

Though the experience of watching this film can be disorienting and I'm not sure everything about it works, once I got my bearings (especially on the second viewing), I was thunderstruck.  Among other things, Ross awakened me to how much more there is to know, and offered me a sense of how much gets in the way of necessary understanding.  What he has attempted here is so much bigger and worthier than the other Oscar-nominated films have sought to attempt.  Of those nominated, this one would easily be my pick for Best Picture. 

[In English; rated PG-13 for thematic material involving racism, some strong language including racial slurs, violent content, and smoking; nominated for and deserves to win Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay (RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes); also deserved nominations for Best Director (RaMell Ross) and Best Cinematography; on at least 138 other critics' top movie lists; available in theaters and on streaming platforms.]

3.     "We Grown Now" didn't get nearly the attention it deserves.  I caught a late-night showing of it in an empty Portland theater, where it played for no more than a week.   I distinctly recall wondering where the audience was for this beautiful film. 

Director Minhal Baig is not Black, but she is from Chicago, and this film grew out of her interest in the community of people who lived in Chicago's Cabrini-Green housing project.  Demolished over a fifteen-year period beginning in 1995, Cabrini-Green was home to many Black families who came to Chicago during the Great Migration.  Its popular image is as a symbol of the crime and neglect that characterized so many such housing projects, and of course it is the setting for the horror classic, "Candyman." 

But Baig worked from an understanding that there is more to the story of Cabrini-Green, that many good people made it their home, played there, struggled there, and loved each other well there.  Building on conversations with many folks who lived there, she set the film in the early 1990s and centers it on two boys of about ten, along with their families.  The film mostly works from their perspective—what they do for fun (which includes dragging a mattress down several floors when the elevator isn't working, to be used for a practice of jumping on it), what their families eat for dinner, their experience of the worry and stress the adults in their lives manage around them.  One of the boys, Malik, is a bit of a seer, sensing the memories of his grandmother's generation, who moved to the building after departing the Jim Crow South. 

In a way that connects to what RaMell Ross wants us to notice, I recall being struck by how seldom we see stories like this, of good people making good lives for themselves under trying conditions.  I felt anxious for these boys, sensing the vulnerability which doesn't trouble them; I worried for them like I might worry for my own grandsons.  I also was moved by a sense of how loved they are, and of the richness of their lineage.  The film awakened admiration and curiosity that I hadn't noticed I was missing.  And the sound design captures of bit of the energy of the place, both warm and, occasionally, menacing. 

The end of the film features photos of former residents of Cabrini-Green, playing, laughing, celebrating, living their lives.  When I later learned of how director Baig built this story, I could see her inspiration.  As with "Sing Sing" and "Nickel Boys," this work was borne of a practice of solidarity.  It deserves an audience.

[[In English; rated PG for thematic material and language; deserved Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director (Minhal Baig), and Best Original Screenplay (Baig); on at least one other critic' s top movie list; available in theaters and on streaming platforms.]

4.      "Good One" is, moment for moment, so carefully observed that you feel like you are privy to the inner life of its quiet main character—Sam (Lily Collias), the teenage girl who is described in the title.  The film allows us to be the witness of a backpacking trip she takes with her tightly-wound dad (James LeGros) and his sloppier friend Matt (Danny McCarthy).   Matt's teenage son was supposed to join them, but bails at the last minute, apparently out of likely justified irritation connected to his parents' recent divorce, so Sam finds herself  fielding more than she bargained for.

It's obvious that Sam can be relied upon to keep an even keel; she navigates the men's unspoken expectations and fends for herself, capable of pitching a tent, loading her own day pack, filtering water, and building a fire.  She falls into the role of cooking steaming bowls of ramen for the group, and rolls with the men's assumptions about her; her own father mistakes her for a vegetarian. 

You also sense that Sam doesn't miss much—which is an interesting contrast to these two self-centered men, who do.  To some viewers, their dynamic (which isn't the slightest bit over-played) may well feel familiar, as it did to me; there's a sense that how the men see themselves is misaligned in a way that Sam's sense of herself isn't.  And Sam ends the trip even more awake than she was at the beginning.

That the film works so well is attributable in large part to a fantastic performance by its lead; Collias is quietly riveting as a young woman who has grounded herself enough to be ready for revelation.  She makes an unusually strong first impression, much like Jennifer Lawrence did in "Winter's Bone"--alert and clear and wise beyond her years.   And writer-director India Donaldson doesn't put a single foot wrong in her directorial debut.  It's rare to find a film that understands so well how to show rather than tell about a transformative moment in a person's life.  Every shot, every sound, every moment shimmers with truth.

[In English; rated R for language; deserved Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director (India Donaldson), Best Original Screenplay (Donaldson), and Best Actress (Lily Collias); on at least three other critics' top movie lists; available to stream on Amazon Prime.]

5.     "Daughters" is the one documentary on my list.  It offers a window on the harms that radiate out from the carceral system, impacting people who are innocent by any definition—that is, the children of the incarcerated.  In doing so, it also helps us see the humanity of those inside, too.

The film sets its focus on a program that arranges father-daughter dances for the children of incarcerated men. As you might imagine, this is quite an undertaking, involving extensive preparation for both the children and the fathers; the dads are required to participate in group coaching sessions with a mentor for several weeks ahead of the event.  The state of the family relationships, including with the girls' mothers,  varies, for a whole host of reasons—including that in-person prison visits have been greatly curtailed in recent years, so the girls may well not have had physical contact with their dads in years.  And given the length of prison sentences to which we have become accustomed in the U.S., they may well not see their dads again for quite some time.

Here again, the build of the film evinces signs of good solidarity practice.  It is co-directed by Natalie Rae, who previously has directed music videos, and Angela Patton, the CEO of Girls For a Change, the program that coordinates the dance; Patton is also featured in the film. The work Patton is already engaged in to build trust with the participants, including the prison, pays off in this intimate production, which allows us to glimpse into the tender places in the lives of several participants.

The families featured include girls as young as five and some in their teens; we are offered a window into the complexity of their emotions regarding separation from their fathers, the hole it leaves in their psyches, and the various ways they attempt to fill that hole.  The film is moving, but not manipulative; it holds the complexity of the participants' experience so well that watching the dance itself feels both essential and heart-wrenching.  I hope it will make you wonder how we have acclimated to this state of affairs; like any act of true solidarity, the film wisely doesn't triumphally end with the dance or with what makes us feel the best , but continues to follow some of the girls and men.  The story, for them, doesn't end with the dance, nor should it for us.

[In English; rated PG-13 or some thematic elements and language; deserved an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature and deserved to win; on at least one other critic's top movie list; available to stream on Netflix.]

6.             "His Three Daughters" puts us in the lived-in New York apartment temporarily occupied by three siblings who have not resolved their long-simmering differences, as they await their fathers' imminent passing.  You might be tempted to think you have them pegged before you do—a temptation to which they also appear to have succumbed. 

Katie (Carrie Coon) is tightly wound, apparently the eldest sister, and sees herself as the head of the family, likely because no one dares fight her for it.  She fills the space with her acts of care for the sisters and their dad, none of which come free, and airs a host of grievances, most of which involve Rachel (Natasha Lyonne).  As it turns out, Rachel has been living in the apartment with their dad and possibly caring for him, though Katie also lives in the city, but whatever care Rachel has been offering buys her neither respect nor gratitude from her sisters.

Katie confidently enlists the youngest sister, Christina (Elizabeth Olsen), as her ally, but as the film unfolds, you wonder about Christina.  She has come in from the West Coast, and doesn't push back on Katie's views, but doesn't seem to be all the way in or even all the way there.  And though Rachel appears to be the family outcast, the obvious explanations—that she mostly stays holed up in her room watching sports and appears to make her living placing bets—don't satisfy.  Katie banishes her outside to smoke pot, a pastime that one gathers did not bother their father; Rachel's place in the power dynamics feels curious. 

Writer-director Azazel Jacobs approaches his subjects with compassion, and his film might strike a note of familiarity for anyone who has brought the right amount of curiosity to prickly family dynamics.  Moments of crisis tend to find us digging in on patterns that don't serve and, as Anton Chekhov also knew, such moments don't bring out the best in people.  But attending to what emerges sometimes reveals truths that you didn't know were reachable, and Jacobs finds ways to surprise us here.

Which of the sisters irritates you the most, and which are you most inclined to judge?  Which is most awake?  Why does Rachel withdraw, and is Catherine really there?  Was their father aware of these conflicts? 

This film ends up rewarding attention to such questions.  There is more to each of the sisters than first appears, and their conflicts are exactly the kind that feel unsolvable but that may just benefit from the sort of release of old hurts that is hardest to find.  Director Jacobs offers an assist in the film's later moments that some critics didn't know what to do with but that I adored.  Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that a late interaction with the dying father felt real and truthful to me, even if not in the literal sense; Jacobs captures something powerful about how a loved one can influence things as they transition that I believe to be possible even while most people would miss it or discount the possibility.  The payoffs in this film's resolution feel rich and deserved to me.

They wouldn't be possible without such sensitive work from the film's three leads and from Jay O. Sanders as their father.  Each woman has hidden depths, and their father helps you see what they, and you, might have missed in each.  This film knows things that may only be knowable if you've lost someone dear to you and found a way to attend; it holds truths that I've rarely seen attempted and that you're only ready for when you're ready.

[In English; rated R for language and drug use; deserved Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director (Azazel Jacobs), and Best Original Screenplay (Jacobs); on at least four other critics' lists of the years' best films; available to stream on Netflix.)

7.      "Bird" is another film that dares a little beyond what most films attempt.  It's the work of the great British director Andrea Arnold, whose films always trouble me in the best ways; her film, "Red Road," was on my list of the best films of 2007.  Arnold is interested in the gritty stories of people making poor choices that may make sense only when you understand just how limited their options actually are. 

This film fits that pattern, and then swerves in directions Arnold's prior work wouldn't lead you to expect.  It centers on Bailey (played by astounding newcomer Nykiya Adams), a 12-year-old who, with her 14-year-old brother Hunter, lives in a squat with their dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan doing his very best work to date).   Bug doesn't appear to have matured much past his own adolescence—he had both kids before he was 16—and though he cares for them, his attention span and resources don't elevate his parenting instincts.  Bailey spends a lot of time alone, capturing footage of what she sees on her battered cellphone and occasionally projecting the footage she has captured on the graffiti-filled room she shares with Hunter.

One morning an odd, slight man (the always fantastic Franz Rogowski, whose genius work here deserves an Oscar) seems to float into the field where Bailey has slept through the night after leaving the squat in a fit of irritation with her dad.  The man calls himself Bird; he asks Bailey an add question and is untroubled by her hostile reaction to him.  Bailey's hard edges are no doubt reasonably acquired, but Bird intrigues her, and she finds herself following him.  One senses he knows that.  Soon, they have struck up a wary friendship.

Bird tells Bailey he has come to town to find his family, suggesting mysteriously that he was separated from them in childhood.  Bailey thinks her mother, Peyton, might have some information; it turns out that Peyton lives with Bailey's three much younger siblings under conditions worse than Bailey's life with Bug.  The perils that ensue as Bailey attempts to protect her siblings from her mother's abusive boyfriend convey a lot about what her life has taught her.  And her uneasy relationship with Bird offers hope and help she wouldn't have imagined or looked for.

Arnold has managed something remarkable with this film that is hard to describe.  Bailey's life is full of danger of the kind that many children experience; the adults around her mean well but live in over their heads, and that's the life she is already living.  As in all of Arnold's films, there are scenes that will make you squirm and flinch with worry.  But in Bird, Bailey, building on a connection with animals that she has instinctively cultivated, finds protection and a kindred soul.  Their connection is what I would call extra-real; Arnold has resisted explaining it and has resisted the term magical realism, which people seem to reach for.  Though I don't have words for it that satisfy, I think the story of Bailey and Bird contains something true.

Much of what makes this film work so beautifully is attributable to Rogowski and Keoghan.  Rogowski is an other-worldly actor in every film; his Bird is a wonderful combination of innocent and knowing, vulnerable and powerful.  He seems to know that his powers are limited, that he can't fix everything.  But he also will instinctively step in where he can.  He helps Bailey find her power.

As for Keoghan, he, like Arnold herself, understands that messy people are often good and wonderful and intriguing.  His Bug is both aggravating and lovable, often in the same moment.  Like many people whose lives don't offer much, he is grabbing all of it with joy and optimism.  Arnold loves this universe and the people in it; the clips in the closing credits of folks in this gritty part of Kent, England, where Arnold herself grew up reveal more of her great affection, and show you it is founded.

[In English; rated R for language throughout, some violent content, and drug material; deserved Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director (Andrea Arnold), Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor (Franz Rogowski and Barry Keoghan, though I'd give the award to Rogowski); on at least two other critics' lists of the year's best films; available on streaming platforms.]

8.     "Flow" is an absolutely gorgeous animated film made on a fraction of the budget most Hollywood films command, something you wouldn't imagine if (like me) you don't know how to read those signs.  It's the first Latvian film to be nominated for an Academy Award (it's nominated for two) and tells its beautiful animal adventure story without any human dialogue.  You won't miss the celebrity voices.

The film is set in a post-human world, and we experience the story from the point of view of a gray cat.  Faithful to that point of view, we don't get any explanation of where the humans have gone, though there are signs they were here.  The cat appears to have been enjoying a comfortable solitary existence in a house surrounded by cat sculptures, until an epic flood (also unexplained, naturally) changes its world.  The cat scrambles for survival, and ultimately finds itself collaborating in that struggle with a capybara, a ring-tailed lemur, a Labrador Retriever, and a secretarybird.  At various points, the small band navigates the flood's aftermath in a sailboat, jockeying for space and squabbling about where to go and who and what should be allowed on board.

What follows is a journey so perilous that I felt real fear, especially watching it on the big screen.  The film faithfully captures the varied and delightful ways these animals actually move, and their sounds are all actual animal sounds (except for the capybara, whose actual sounds were deemed too unpleasant so the film's sound designer used the sounds of a baby camel instead).  One of the pleasures of the film is admiring the particular skills of each animal, and how they communicate verbally and otherwise.  I did not at all miss human dialogue, savoring instead a depiction of solidarity borne of necessity (though requiring intention and effort that was not inevitable) which is genuinely instructive and inspiring.  I don't know or even care how likely it is that animals would respond this way; the film beautifully makes the case that these animals do, and watching their movement through a world in crisis left me inspired.  This film deserves all the recognition and notice it is receiving, and offers much to savor on repeat viewings.

[All in animal sounds; rated PG for peril and thematic elements; nominated for, and should win, the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature; also received an Academy Award nomination for Best International Feature Film, and should win among those nominated; on at least 57 other critics' lists of the years' best films; available (and well worth seeing) in theaters and also on streaming platforms.]

9.      "A Real Pain" genuinely surprised me.  I'll acknowledge that, up to now,  I haven’t been a big fan of Jesse Eisenberg, who wrote and directed the film, but he has not put a foot wrong here.  He has assembled a story that serves up, and resists neatly answering, important questions about how trauma lives in us and the complications of finding responses that are appropriate, healthy, and that honor our own and others' suffering.

The story involves two cousins, David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin), once close but now slightly estranged and wary, who embark on a legacy trip to Poland, where their recently deceased and much beloved grandmother survived the Holocaust.  It's hard to imagine anyone other than Culkin as Benji; he understands how to embody someone who is a mass of the most exasperating contradictions—hyper-sensitive and thoughtless, insightful and boorish, charismatic and irritating, compassionate and deeply unkind.  Perhaps Culkin himself embodies those qualities, as some have suggested, but conveying them this insightfully is actually a different matter.

In one sense, the title is apparently meant to describe Benji.  David has done all the work to plan the trip, and Benji evinces slight gratitude but also is the worst travel companion ever.  He grabs for the better seat on the plane, the first shower, and the attention of their travel companions.  He mails marijuana to their hotel.  He rudely critiques the well-meaning non-Jewish guide of the legacy tour.  But David, too, is a bit of a mess, the kind of a mess who fits in better but navigates his own sense of loneliness.  He has a stable job and a wife and a son, but envies ways of connecting which Benji can access that he can't.

The members of their group all have connections to the Holocaust, mostly as descendants of survivors, but don't quite know how to exist in relation to that legacy.  The person in the group who appears to be most clear-headed is a man who survived the Rwandan genocide and later converted to Judaism.  The groups' efforts to make sense of their connections to trauma and monumental suffering reveal some unease.  Are we proud of this?  When might playfulness or humor be okay?  Will facts and information help us access the meaning of what happened?  How do we think about the lives of relative privilege that we now live?  How can we honor our ancestors?

Eisenberg serves up these questions, and wisely doesn't try to solve them.  My own instinct is that such trauma lives in our bodies in ways that are hard to access and understand.  We haven't evolved to a place where people have found the best ways to hold and honor real pain.  And sometimes we wound each other in the attempt.

[In English; rated R for language throughout and some drug use; nominated for Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor (Kieran Culkin, who deserves to win among those nominated) and Best Original Screenplay (Jesse Eisenberg, who also deserves to win among those nominated); on at least 98 other critics' lists of the year's best films; available on streaming platforms.]

10.    "All We Imagine As Light" is the ineffably beautiful work of Payal Kapadia, who collaborated on the screenplay (which features dialogue in Hindi and Malayalam) with three other writers.  It would be my pick for an Academy Award for Best International Feature, but India didn't put it forward for that honor, deeming it not Indian enough, though the film is set in India and features an all-Indian cast and an Indian story.  From what I understand, it's hard to get independent films like this made in India, so Kapadia turned to European backers to get it made.  Her film went on to achieve international recognition, including the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.  There's a lot to notice about all that and I remain curious about how to unpack it.

It catches my attention that this is a story of working women in India, people who are not glamorous and who don't have access to social advantage.  Prabha is a head nurse at a Mumbai hospital, having lived only briefly with a husband who has lived for many years in Europe and is less and less in contact.  Prabha is kind and keeps to herself, though she allows small attentions from a gentle doctor who waits for her at the end of her shift.  She shares a small apartment with her much younger colleague Anu, who enjoys a secret romance with a young Muslim man, Shiaz, that the two must hide from their respective families.  Prabha is friends with Parvaty, a widow who is being cruelly displaced from her home by greedy property developers.

The film captures small moments in the lives of these three—the bustle of commuting, small meals cooked at home, little pleasures shared by the community of nurses whose edges Prabha and Anu navigate, the limited options each woman faces for love and work and housing and social approval.  We are offered glimpses of the resilience and will that are required for these women to survive, the little moments of solidarity that they reach for, and the stolen moments of rebellion and assertions of agency. 

A final segment of the film takes the three to the coastal home village to which Parvaty decides to return.  There Anu and Shiaz steal secret moments of happiness and Prabha experiences what may be a mystical encounter that brings her to clarity about the marriage that has left her abandoned.  Kapadia 's interests as a filmmaker –perhaps like those of so many U.S. filmmakers whose interests don't fit Hollywood's investment criteria—take us to places that we (in the U.S., at least) aren't usually invited to go.  I'm grateful for the vision she found a way to share, and hope the well-deserved attention her beautiful film has received will open the way for us to see more such stories.

[In Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi, English, and German; not rated; deserved an Academy Award for Best International Feature; on at least 91 other critics' lists of the year's best films; available to stream on Amazon Prime.]