Once again transmogrifying old-school exploitation into her own feminist styling of New French Extremity, Coralie Fargeat trades in the empowered bloodletting of 2018’s Revenge for body horror. The Substance is one-note, obscene, and about as subtle as a sledgehammer — and it also happens to be one of the best movies of the year. Minor spoilers ahead…

Welcome to my dispatch from this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Like always, I won’t be writing full reviews of everything I see at the festival, but this year has plenty of notable features worth at least a quick write-up: Sean Baker’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner, Kiyoshi Kurosawa like you’ve never seen him before, and Steven Soderbergh’s haunted house flick are just some of the highlights at 2024’s TIFF. Here are the capsule reviews for Presence, Cloud, Nightbitch, Anora, The Shadow Strays, and Conclave.

M. Night Shyamalan once again elevates the B-movie with formal lunacy, an all-timer performance, and a touch of the personal. Starting as a silly powder keg of suspense, Trap slowly evolves into a sinister transfiguration of spaces and a meditation on a universal fear: being a bad father. With off-the-charts thematic tension and the best work of Josh Hartnett’s career, Trap is Shyamalan’s answer to Wes Craven’s Red Eye — and just as fun. Minor spoilers ahead…

The hype of Oz Perkins’ Longlegs being “so scary your heart will explode” is certainly misplaced. What starts as a shaky, ineffectual Kurosawa pastiche evolves into a uniquely American take on ambient terror; believe it or not, Longlegs isn’t about jump scares or even Nicolas Cage’s wacked-out satanist, it’s about the malaise of the human condition tucked away in the cracks of modern apathy. Minor spoilers ahead…

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is probably not what you’re expecting. Trading in Fury Road’s unstoppable octane for an exhilarating mode of mythmaking, George Miller deconstructs the very nature of legends in a brutal, mournful revenge epic. Fury Road was one of the best films of the previous decade. Furiosa is even better.

Live action anime tennis and the best sports movie since Creed, Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers crackles with electricity and searing chemistry among its three leads. Even without its misleading marketing’s emphasis on sex — there’s barely any in the film — Challengers synthesizes eroticism and kineticism through the art of tennis, and into one of the best films of the year so far. Minor spoilers ahead…

It’s taking longer and more out of me to make these videos each year, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop. It’s my annual love letter to the movies. The over 60 films showcased represents the best last year had to offer: from genre blockbusters to tender stories of star-crossed love to unknowable horrors. Here is A Year in Film 2023. In 4K.

Welcome to my dispatch from this year’s SXSW. Like always, I won’t be writing full reviews of everything I see at the festival, but this year is filled with big headliners and gnarly midnighters: the latest Alex Garland, an indie horror director’s frightening sophomore feature, a new Doug Liman remake of a beloved cult classic, and Hunter Schafer’s debut in a leading role. Here are the capsule reviews for Civil War, Oddity, Road House, and Cuckoo.

My 2024 SXSW coverage continues with Michael Mohan’s nun-themed horror film: Immaculate. An attempt at “nunsploitation” that never quite reaches the requisite luridness of its subgenre, Sydney Sweeney’s scream queen turn only finds tepid scares and lukewarm thrills. Minor spoilers ahead…

My 2024 SXSW coverage begins here with one of the most anticipated films of the festival. As first-time action director and action star, Dev Patel has rocket fuel in his veins. Colliding formal, kinetic grit with adrenaline-fueled passion, Monkey Man is an action movie that delivers in spite of its dim spirituality and flat politics: a whirlwind of bloodletting, throat punches, and kicks to the teeth. Minor spoilers ahead…

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two is a masterstroke of bleak, fantasy world-building that continues to translate Frank Herbert’s source material into a rousing epic. A genuine feat of adaptation and engineering that captures the very spirit of the novel’s overwhelmingly strange mythos and whetted knottiness, Dune: Part Two is sci-fi at its finest and most tragic. Minor spoilers ahead…

2023: a tumultuous, but also exciting year for cinema that saw the bottoms fall out of once unstoppable franchises and the rise of new and old masters. Characterized by surprise blockbusters, stinging excavations of the human condition, and a few bold oddities, this year was a cornucopia of great film. So much so that for the first time ever, I’m expanding the usual top 10 to a top 20.

Michael Mann Ferrari disguises the fissures of masculinity in the typical rhythms of biographical fare, but the sheer amount of texture and feeling hidden between the lines — and within Adam Driver’s craggy, steely performance — is staggering. Intimate, somber failings juxtaposed with screeching banshee metal and spitfire ambition, their non-reconciliation a feature and not a bug: a full-blooded film years in the making. Minor spoilers ahead…

David Fincher’s The Killer — a deceptively layered hitman yarn — closes out this year’s New York Film Festival. With a minimalist veneer that belies its toothy takedown of capitalism, hustle culture, and our deteriorating gig economy, Fincher’s latest mines new tensions from the disciplined loner trope. Many will mistake The Killer’s stripped-down trappings for a minor work, but it’s every bit as incisive and wrinkled as Fight Club or The Social Network.

Killers of the Flower Moon is a late style masterwork. A funereal procession of malignant conspiracy and opportunistic genocide disguised as epic western, Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half hour tragedy finds consistently surprising modes to unearth capitalist sin. Shining a megawatt spotlight on the rot underneath American exceptionalism, Killers of the Flower Moon mines the expected powerhouse performances from Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, but it’s Lily Gladstone that burns holes in your consciousness. Minor spoiler ahead…

A thorny balancing act of different tones that drills straight into sordid psychodrama and the elusive nature of performance, Todd Haynes’ May December is a masterpiece of high wire cinema. As expected, Natalie Portman and Juliane Moore are tremendous, but it’s Charles Melton — as a boy stuck in time and a discomfiting stasis — who runs away with the entire thing. May December will make your head spin. Minor spoilers ahead…

Director Kevin Greutert returns to the franchise that birthed his feature-length career with Saw X, a precise and brutal high watermark that knows exactly what its audience wants. Top-tier Tobin Bell, top-tier Shawnee Smith, top-tier traps: it’s the best Saw in years and perhaps since the original. Minor spoilers ahead…

Welcome to my dispatch from this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Like always, I won’t be writing full reviews of everything I see at the festival, but this stacked year has outpaced my pen more than ever: the latest — and perhaps final — Miyazaki, a new Bertrand Bonello, a brutal Indian actioner, and Demián Regna’s nasty followup to 2018’s Terrified are just some of films screening at 2023’s TIFF. Here are the capsule reviews The Boy and the Heron, The Royal Hotel, Knox Goes Away, Kill, and Boy Kills World.