Innholdsfortegnelse for Essential Awards Special 42A December 2019 i The Hollywood Reporter

If the history of film has taught us anything, it’s that a woman will stop at nothing to get what she wants. The figure of the lone striver worming her way into power has been the basis of popular fiction since Vanity Fair author William Makepeace Thackeray devised Becky Sharp to make an example of ambitious, manipulative women. You see this vixen throughout popular cinema: Anne Baxter in All About Eve, Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, Emma Stone in The Favourite, Jennifer Jason Leigh in Single White Female, Patty Duke in Valley of the Dolls, Demi Moore in Disclosure, Rebecca De Mornay in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. What’s the intended lesson here? Perhaps that there’s nothing as dangerous as an unchaperoned female. But I can think of something…

STUDIO Amazon RELEASE DATE Dec. 6 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $2.8M CAST Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Himesh Patel TOP AWARDS AND NOMS Critics’ Choice nom for visual effects REVIEWED BY Todd McCarthy SEPT. 1 Telluride Just one question of apparel looms large while watching this exhilarating account of a record-setting flight by two pioneer hot air balloonists in 1862: If one were planning to ascend to the unprecedented altitude of seven miles above sea level, wouldn’t one think to bring gloves? That aside, The Aeronauts achieves impressive elevation as a bracing and sympathetic account of two early and very different aviators who together reached literal new heights in a perilous field of endeavor. Briskly told in something very close to real time, this Amazon adventure offers tension, novelty and singular…

STUDIO Universal RELEASE DATE Dec. 20 BOX OFFICE TO DATE N/A CAST Idris Elba, Taylor Swift, Judi Dench, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, James Corden, Rebel Wilson, Jason Derulo, Francesca Hayward TOP AWARDS AND NOMS Golden Globe nom for original song REVIEWED BY David Rooney DEC. 18 Director Tom Hooper has said in interviews that the extreme social media response to the first images from his all-star big-screen treatment of the 1981 Andrew Lloyd Webber musical was helpful in modifying the look of the feline characters, particularly since the CG work was still incomplete at that time. But if you recoiled back then at the sight of British acting royalty with their faces stuck onto little furry bodies, or even just the jarring image of cats with human breasts, chances are…

STUDIO Netflix RELEASE DATE Oct. 25 BOX OFFICE TO DATE N/A CAST Eddie Murphy, Keegan-Michael Key, Mike Epps, Tituss Burgess, Craig Robinson, Wesley Snipes, Da’Vine Joy Randolph TOP AWARDS AND NOMS 2 Globes noms: best musical/comedy and best actor for Murphy REVIEWED BY John DeFore SEPT. 7 TIFF “I was thrilled at the idea of getting to work with Eddie Murphy, a cat who I consider one of the masters in the game.”WESLEY SNIPES A true-life underdog story that spawned a pop-culture touchstone, the birth of Rudy Ray Moore’s Dolemite character holds an obvious appeal for Eddie Murphy, having paved the way for brash, foulmouthed black comedians who controlled rooms with charisma before they even got to a punchline. The pimpin’, braggin’, karate-choppin’ hero also would seem ideal material for…

STUDIO Focus RELEASE DATE Nov. 1 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $50M CAST Cynthia Erivo, Janelle Monáe, Joe Alwyn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jennifer Nettles TOP AWARDS AND NOMS 2 Globes noms for best actress for Erivo and best original song; SAG Awards nom for female actor in a leading role for Erivo REVIEWED BY David Rooney SEPT. 10 TIFF The Obama administration’s plan to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill remains in limbo thanks to the stalling of the Trump government, but Kasi Lemmons’ lustrous epic treatment of the legendary freedom fighter’s life etches an iconic portrait for better or worse, resonating more as a symbolic figurehead than a nuanced flesh-and-blood character. Cynthia Erivo is a powerful physical presence in the title role, and Harriet recounts an important chapter in…

STUDIO Roadside Attractions RELEASE DATE Sept. 27 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $37.3M CAST Renée Zellweger, Finn Wittrock, Jessie Buckley, Michael Gambon, Rufus Sewell TOP AWARDS AND NOMS National Board of Review best actress for Zellweger; Globe, SAG and Spirit Awards noms for Zellweger REVIEWED BY Stephen Farber AUG. 30 Telluride Impersonating an icon is a dangerous business, but Renée Zellweger accomplishes the feat in this study of the final year in the life of Judy Garland. Director Rupert Goold’s movie sometimes stumbles, but it made one indispensable choice in finding the right actress to channel the diva. Tom Edge’s script focuses on the older Judy, caught in a morass of financial problems as well as a custody battle with ex-husband Sid Luft (Rufus Sewell). It is her financial desperation that…

STUDIO A24 RELEASE DATE Oct. 18 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $11.3M CAST Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe TOP AWARDS AND NOMS 5 Spirit Awards noms including male lead for Pattinson and supporting male for Dafoe; 2 Critics’ Choice noms including supporting actor for Dafoe and cinematography REVIEWED BY David Rooney MAY 19 Cannes In gripping performances thick with flavorful period dialect and jolts of ever-intensifying insanity soaked in rum, Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson play the seasoned keeper and his new junior mate in The Lighthouse, stuck in isolation on a craggy Maine island in the 1890s for a four-week posting that stretches on and on as the elements grow more hostile. After his unsettling 2015 debut, The Witch, plunged us in into the darkest corners of the minds of a…

STUDIO Sony RELEASE DATE July 26 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $372M CAST Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Margaret Qualley, Timothy Olyphant, Austin Butler, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern TOP AWARDS AND NOMS AFI motion picture of the year; National Board of Review awards for best director and best supporting actor for Pitt; 5 Globe noms; 4 SAG noms REVIEWED BY David Rooney MAY 21 Cannes Quentin Tarantino renews his vows as a devout fanboy, rifling through his formative influences in vintage American B-movies and TV, spaghetti Westerns, martial arts, popular music and an endless assortment of cultural ephemera. The central characters are faded TV cowboy Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his longtime stunt-double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). But Cliff is now more of an all-round gofer, while Rick’s planned transition…

STUDIO Amazon RELEASE DATE Nov. 15 BOX OFFICE TO DATE N/A CAST Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Corey Stoll, Jon Hamm TOP AWARDS AND NOMS Globe nom for supporting actress for Bening REVIEWED BY Leslie Felperin JAN. 27 Sundance Audaciously cerebral and unabashedly granular, writer-director Scott Z. Burns’ political thriller, a dramatization of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee’s 2014 probe into the CIA’s use of torture in the wake of 9/11, is practically pornography for policy wonks. Starring a buttoned-down, tightly focused Adam Driver as Dan Jones, the researcher who compiled the report, and Annette Bening as his boss, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, this bracingly dry, talky but ultimately fascinating work offers excellent counter-programming for anyone who felt Vice was too juvenile and lightweight, more about prosthetics then realpolitik. Although this deep…

STUDIO Netflix RELEASE DATE Nov. 27 BOX OFFICE TO DATE N/A CAST Jonathan Pryce, Anthony Hopkins TOP AWARDS AND NOMS 4 Globe noms including best picture, drama, best actor for Pryce and best supporting actor for Hopkins; 2 Critics’ Choice noms REVIEWED BY Stephen Farber SEPT. 1 Telluride There is nothing preachy about this pic written by Anthony McCarten (The Theory of Everything, Darkest Hour) and directed by Fernando Meirelles, who earned a surprising but well-deserved Oscar nomination for his electrifying Brazilian drama City of God. These filmmakers have told the story of how the startling resignation of Pope Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins) in 2013 led to the appointment of the first pope from Latin America, Pope Francis (Jonathan Pryce). The story begins in 2005, when the death of Pope…

STUDIO A24 RELEASE DATE Nov. 15 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $1.3M CAST Kelvin Harrison Jr., Taylor Russell, Lucas Hedges, Alexa Demie, Sterling K. Brown TOP AWARDS AND NOMS Gotham Awards breakthrough actor win; Critics’ Choice nom; NBR win REVIEWED BY Sheri Linden AUG. 20 Telluride It wouldn’t be wrong to call Waves a “teen drama,” but that generic label doesn’t begin to convey the emotional scope of this tender, bruising, exuberant film. With his third feature, writer-director Trey Edward Shults continues his inventive deep dive into the dynamics of family, an exploration that began with 2015’s sock-to-the-solar-plexus character study Krisha and then was distilled through a dark genre prism in It Comes at Night. Like its predecessors, Waves is a movie that takes rewarding chances. Working with a combination of…

CZECH REPUBLIC THE PAINTED BIRD DIRECTOR Vaclav Marhoul TOP AWARDS Camerimage Bronze Frog win, Venice Film Festival UNICEF Award win Adapted from Jerzy Kosinski’s 1965 novel of the same title, The Painted Bird receives its ideal film treatment in Vaclav Marhoul’s heart-wrenching Czech Republic-Ukraine-Slovakia co-production. Marhoul’s screenplay witnesses the horrors of the Holocaust through the dark, somber eyes of newcomer Petr Kotlar, who plays a boy wandering from village to village and from one brutality to another. The shock effect of coldly detailed incest, bestiality and sexual abuse, beatings, killings and mutilation is furiously nonstop in a film of nearly three hours. Rather than numbing the viewer, however, the parade of evil is presented in a dismaying crescendo of horror that offers no escape. — DEBORAH YOUNG ESTONIA TRUTH AND…

The Addams Family (United Artists) Directors: Greg Tiernan, Conrad Vernon The Angry Birds Movie 2 (Columbia Pictures) Thurop Van Orman Another Day of Life (Gkids) Raúl de la Fuente, Damian Nenow Away (Bilibaba) Gints Zilbalodis Children of the Sea (Gkids) Ayumu Watanabe Dilili in Paris (Samuel Goldwyn Films) Michel Ocelot Funan (Gkids) Denis Do The Last Fiction (Hoorakhsh Studios) Ashkan Rahgozar The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (Warner Bros.) Mike Mitchell Marona’s Fantastic Tale (Gkids) Anca Damian Ne Zha (Well Go USA Entertainment) Yu Yang Okko’s Inn (Gkids) Kitaro Kosaka Pachamama (SC Films International) Juan Antin Primal: Tales of Savagery (Warner Bros.) Aaron LaPlante Promare (Gkids) Hiroyuki Imaishi Rezo (Mirsand) Leo Gabriadze Spies in Disguise (20th Century Fox) Nick Bruno, Troy Quane The Swallows of Kabul (Memento Films) Zabou…

BEST PICTURE Richard Jewell Clint Eastwood’s biopic about the security guard whose life was upended by the 1996 Olympics bombing registered an A CinemaScore but, well, bombed at the box office, grossing $5 million, less than half of its projected haul, making it one of the 50 worst wide openings ever and Eastwood’s second-worst opening ever. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Quentin Tarantino’s ninth feature, one of the year’s few critical and commercial hits, continues to resonate with the guilds, landing top noms from ACE, ADG, CAS and CDG over the past week alone, on the heels of its SAG Awards ensemble nom. Jojo Rabbit Taika Waititi’s controversial Holocaust dramedy — in which he stars as a boy’s imaginary friend, Hitler — landed a huge endorsement when Mel Brooks,…

STUDIO Universal RELEASE DATE Dec. 25 BOX OFFICE TO DATE N/A CAST George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Colin Firth, Richard Madden TOP AWARDS AND NOMS National Board of Review outstanding achievement in cinematography; AFI motion picture of the year; Golden Globe noms for picture, director and score REVIEWED BY Todd McCarthy NOV. 25 Sam Mendes’ exemplary panorama of the horrors of war is designed as an inescapable immersion in the unrelieved pressure and sheer wretchedness of the battlefront. Notable technically for the real-time fluidity of its presentation of ongoing events across nearly two hours, 1917 is a protean display of virtuoso filmmaking, one that film aesthetes will wallow in but that even ordinary audiences will note and appreciate. World War I ended a century and one year ago, and there can…

STUDIO Sony RELEASE DATE Nov. 22 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $49.7M CAST Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys, Chris Cooper, Susan Kelechi Watson TOP AWARDS AND NOMS Critics’ Choice, Golden Globe and SAG Award noms for supporting actor for Hanks REVIEWED BY Todd McCarthy SEPT. 7 TIFF Fred Rogers, who died in 2003, was the subject of one of the most unlikely box office phenomena of recent times when a documentary about him, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, became a theatrical smash with a $22 million gross in 2018. Now the creator and star of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood has provided Tom Hanks with another trademark role. There’s no question that Hanks is perfect in the part, as the actor’s amiability and unquestionable sincerity make for an ideal match with the unique television…

STUDIO Neon RELEASE DATE Dec. 27 BOX OFFICE TO DATE N/A CAST Alfre Woodard, Richard Schiff, Wendell Pierce, Danielle Brooks TOP AWARDS AND NOMS Sundance Grand Jury prize; 3 Spirit Awards noms including best feature and best female lead for Woodard; 2 Gotham Awards noms REVIEWED BY David Rooney JAN. 28 Sundance Probing close-ups of Alfre Woodard open and close Clemency, the admirable restraint and extraordinary stillness of her deeply felt performance resonating even in scenes in which her character, prison warden Bernadine Williams, is offscreen. She is the burdened conscience of writer-director Chinonye Chukwu’s powerful drama, but it’s the humanity and compassion invested across all the principal characters that makes this contemplative examination of the terrible weight of taking a life so commanding. Elegantly shot in widescreen compositions loaded…

STUDIO A24 RELEASE DATE July 19 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $19.6M CAST Awkwafina, Shuzhen Zhao TOP AWARDS AND NOMS Gotham Awards best actress for Awkwafina; AFI motion picture of the year; 2 Globes noms; 2 Spirit Awards noms; 4 Critics’ Choice noms REVIEWED BY David Rooney JAN. 25 Sundance Awkwafina broke out big last year as an irresistible scene-stealer, playing back-to-back variations on the same role in Ocean’s 8 and Crazy Rich Asians. She brings that trademark insouciant attitude to early scenes of The Farewell, but the skill with which she layers in soulful feeling, sensitivity and a spiritual connection to both the people and places of her character’s roots makes her performance a quiet revelation. She’s the center of an impeccably cast ensemble all drawn with deep personal investment…

Amazon RELEASE DATE Nov. 8 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $2.7M CAST Shia LaBeouf, Lucas Hedges, Noah Jupe, FKA Twigs, Clifton Collins Jr. TOP AWARDS AND NOMS 4 Spirit Awards noms including supporting actor for LaBeouf and Jupe; Gotham Awards nom for breakthrough actor for Jupe REVIEWED BY Jon Frosch JAN. 25 Sundance When news hit that Shia LaBeouf had written a movie about his childhood in which he would play his own abusive father, it sounded like yet another oh-so-Shia meta-stunt. It therefore comes as a bit of a surprise that Honey Boy is not a self-justifying cri de coeur or a prankish exercise in narcissism, but a sensitive, sincere portrait of a child actor’s dysfunctional upbringing and its devastating fallout. Directed by Israeli-American music video and documentary maker Alma…

STUDIO Netflix RELEASE DATE Nov. 27 BOX OFFICE TO DATE N/A CAST Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci TOP AWARDS AND NOMS National Board of Review best film, best adapted screenplay; AFI motion picture of the year; 5 Globe noms; 4 SAG noms REVIEWED BY David Rooney SEPT. 27 TIFF A melancholy sense of looking back pervades the best parts of this film, in which Martin Scorsese reunites with his most totemic screen actor (Robert De Niro, playing Frank Sheeran) to tell a sprawling gangland saga by turns flinty, amusing, richly nostalgic and rueful. The movie’s self-indulgent running time of three and a half hours will pose challenges for home-screen viewing; Scorsese’s choice to make this a stand-alone feature and not a limited series seems mildly perplexing. And anyone…

STUDIO Warner Bros. RELEASE DATE Dec. 25 BOX OFFICE TO DATE N/A CAST Michael B. Jordan, Brie Larson, Jamie Foxx, Rob Morgan, Tim Blake Nelson, O’Shea Jackson Jr. TOP AWARDS AND NOMS National Board of Review Freedom of Expression award, SAG supporting actor nom for Foxx REVIEWED BY John DeFore SEPT. 6 TIFF A straightforward biopic that views one American’s long career of fighting injustice through the lens of an early victory he won in Alabama, Destin Daniel Cretton’s Just Mercy stars Michael B. Jordan as Bryan Stevenson, founder of that state’s Equal Justice Initiative. Having spent three decades overturning the convictions of the wrongly imprisoned and defending anyone on death row, Stevenson has been at the vanguard of a righteous fight. So it’s not surprising if the film’s edge…

STUDIO Sony RELEASE DATE Dec. 25 BOX OFFICE TO DATE N/A CAST Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson, Timothée Chalamet, Laura Dern, Meryl Streep, Eliza Scanlen, Louis Garrel TOP AWARDS AND NOMS AFI motion picture of the year; 2 Globe noms including best actress for Ronan; 9 Critics’ Choice noms including best picture REVIEWED BY David Rooney NOV. 25 Graduating from an intimate portrait of the rocky rites of passage of contemporary female adolescence to a considerably larger-scale ensemble piece depicting the path to maturity of four sisters in 19th century Massachusetts, Greta Gerwig shows that her own assured transition to writer-director with 2017’s Lady Bird was no fluke. Her gratifying take on Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women brings freshness, vitality and emotional nuance to source material that has been…

STUDIO Neon RELEASE DATE Oct. 11 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $121.4M CAST Song Kang-ho, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Cho Yeo-jeong, Lee Sun-kyun TOP AWARDS AND NOMS Cannes Palme d’Or winner; NBR best foreign language film; AFI special award; 3 Globe noms; 7 Critics’ Choice noms; SAG cast nom REVIEWED BY Stephen Dalton MAY 21 Cannes “I know that with his energy and his delicacy, even the film’s boldest parts will be convincing.”BONG JOON HO (RIGHT) ON SONG KANG-HO Korean auteur Bong Joon Ho launches a sustained attack on the lifestyles of the rich and shameless with his latest. Whatever the horror-movie connotations of its double-edged title, the morally flawed monsters in Parasite are entirely human. Bong calls the film “a comedy without clowns, a tragedy without villains.” Disheveled patriarch Ki-taek…

STUDIO Warner Bros. RELEASE DATE Dec. 13 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $5M CAST Paul Walter Hauser, Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm, Olivia Wilde TOP AWARDS AND NOMS National Board of Review supporting actress award for Bates and breakthrough performance for Hauser; Globe nom for Bates REVIEWED BY Todd McCarthy NOV. 20 AFI Clint Eastwood is quite partial to accidental real-life heroes these days, and he’s found a good, if unprepossessing, one in Richard Jewell, a lively and none-too-flattering look at the “media lynching” of a sad-sack security guard who the press decided was responsible for a deadly bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympic Games. Most Hollywood films about journalism since All the President’s Men 43 years ago have taken the free press’ side, portraying it as a scruffy…

STUDIO A24 RELEASE DATE Dec. 13 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $537K CAST Adam Sandler, Idina Menzel, LaKeith Stanfield, Julia Fox, Eric Bogosian, Kevin Garnett TOP AWARDS AND NOMS National Board of Review screenplay and actor wins; 5 Spirit Award noms; 4 Gotham noms; 4 Critics’ Choice noms REVIEWED BY Todd McCarthy AUG. 31 Telluride “I think you are the most annoying person on the planet,” someone remarks to Howard Ratner, a madly obnoxious wheeler-dealer in New York’s diamond district. The question immediately becomes whether this frantic, sweaty, manic, disorganized, unreliable and frequently desperate middle-aged man will emerge as a figure of revulsion or fascination to the audience. It’s thus a tribute to writer-directors Josh and Benny Safdie and Adam Sandler, who plays the part, that Uncut Gems emerges as a…

ADVOCATE (Close Up Films) DIRECTORS Philippe Bellaïche, Rachel Leah Jones TOP AWARDS PGA Award nom, Hong Kong International Film Festival jury prize winner, 2 IDA Awards noms When we first see Israeli lawyer Lea Tsemel, she’s in motion, striding through the hallways of a Jerusalem court. The frame is bisected, live-action footage on the left, rotoscoped animated imagery on the right. This stylistic tic is directors Jones and Bellaïche’s way of protecting the identities of Tsemel’s clients, almost all of whom are Palestinians accused of extremist crimes. Advocate isn’t interested in litigating the apparently limitless divisions between Israel and Palestine so much as it is in portraying Tsemel’s tireless routine, in the process demonstrating how one person lives morally and ethically within a morass. — KEITH UHLICH AMERICAN FACTORY (Netflix)…

A fter the French film I Lost My Body in May became the first animated feature to win the Critics Week prize at Cannes, Netflix swooped in to acquire the project. Since then, and with the backing of the flush streaming company, it’s been racking up kudos, beginning with the top honor and audience award at Annecy a month later and, more recently, the year’s best animated feature prizes from the Los Angeles Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle. When the Annie Awards nominations were announced Dec. 2, it scooped up six of those. The film, director Jérémy Clapin’s debut feature, is based on the book Happy Hand by Guillaume Laurant, who wrote 2001’s Amélie with director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and adapted his book here. I Lost My…

STUDIO Fox/Disney RELEASE DATE Sept. 20 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $127.2M CAST Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler TOP AWARDS AND NOMS 2 Critics’ Choice noms REVIEWED BY Sheri Linden AUG. 29 Venice There’s no shortage of striking imagery in the space odyssey Ad Astra: a desolate lunar landscape, a man’s plummeting to Earth like a Tarot card figure tumbling from a burning tower, the lonely gleam of a spacecraft against a fathomless field of stars. Yet of all the film’s eloquent visuals, cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema lights nothing with more care than Brad Pitt’s eyes. Zero-gravity fistfights notwithstanding, those baby blues are where the action is. They’re the movie’s highest-impact special effect. Over the slowly unfolding story of astronaut Roy McBride, the actor reveals, with each…

STUDIO Focus RELEASE DATE Nov. 22 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $9.2M CAST Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, Bill Pullman, William Jackson Harper TOP AWARDS AND NOMS 2 Satellite Awards nominations REVIEWED BY Todd McCarthy NOV. 13 The spirit of social activist dramas such as Norma Rae, Matewan, Silkwood and The Insider is alive and well in Dark Waters, a compelling account of a drawn-out legal case in which a tenacious whistleblowing lawyer spent years pursuing DuPont for secretly poisoning customers through the use of toxic chemicals, including Teflon. In a notable change of pace, Todd Haynes temporarily abandons his more often arty and stylized approach in favor of a naturalistic realism that perfectly suits the material, while Mark Ruffalo admirably tackles the leading role of an attorney who won’t…

STUDIO STX RELEASE DATE Sept. 13 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $150.5M CAST Constance Wu, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Stiles, Keke Palmer, Lili Reinhart, Lizzo, Cardi B TOP AWARDS AND NOMS Globe and SAG noms for Lopez; 3 Spirit Awards noms REVIEWED BY Beandrea July SEPT. 7 TIFF Lorene Scafaria’s film about a group of New York City strippers who con their wealthy clients out of thousands of dollars a night delivers on its hype while consistently doing the unexpected. Scafaria excels at immersing the audience in the world of sex work in clubs, quietly disabusing us scene by scene of any stereotypes about who these women are. Part workplace dramedy, part revenge fantasy, the surprisingly incisive film weaves together a series of satisfying, organic-feeling turns. When the 2008 financial crash hits,…

STUDIO Warner Bros. RELEASE DATE Oct. 4 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $1.06B CAST Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy TOP AWARDS AND NOMS Venice Golden Lion; AFI motion picture of the year; 4 Globe noms including best picture, drama and best actor for Phoenix; 2 SAG noms including best actor for Phoenix REVIEWED BY David Rooney AUG. 31 Venice The clown prince of crime is alive and mentally unwell in Gotham City in Todd Phillips’ grippingly atmospheric supervillain origin story. While a never-better Joaquin Phoenix paints on the famed maniacal smile with his own blood at one memorable climactic moment of messianic rebirth, what’s most noteworthy about this gritty entry in the DC canon and the lead actor’s sensational performance is the pathos he brings to a…

STUDIO Lionsgate RELEASE DATE Nov. 27 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $162.2M CAST Ana de Armas, Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon TOP AWARDS AND NOMS AFI motion picture of the year; 3 Globe noms; 3 Critics’ Choice noms REVIEWED BY David Rooney SEPT. 7 TIFF In the typically mischievous opening shot of Knives Out, the camera frames a creepy Gothic Revival mansion skirted in morning mist as black guard dogs run across the leafy grounds in unsettling slow motion. The scene could be from a century or more ago, until it cuts to an interior kitchen shot and closes in on a novelty mug bearing the words: “My house. My rules. My coffee.” That mug, like everything else in Rian Johnson’s ingeniously plotted, entertaining and deviously irreverent…

STUDIO Netflix RELEASE DATE Dec. 6 BOX OFFICE TO DATE N/A CAST Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Laura Dern, Ray Liotta, Alan Alda TOP AWARDS AND NOMS Gotham Awards best feature, screenplay, actor for Driver and audience award; AFI motion picture of the year; 6 Globe noms; 3 SAG noms; 2 Spirit Award noms REVIEWED BY Jon Frosch AUG. 29 Venice Marriage Story begins with a fake-out. Via voiceover, spouses Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) enumerate the things, big and small, that they adore about each other: She’s an unparalleled listener, an expert gift giver, an “infectious” dancer; he’s a natural with their young son, a surprisingly great dresser, cries at movies. Glimpses of their shabby-chic domestic contentment are shown as a bittersweet Randy Newman score swells. It’s all…

STUDIO Universal RELEASE DATE Nov. 27 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $33.2M CAST Daniel Kaluuya, Jodie Turner-Smith, Bokeem Woodbine, Indya Moore TOP AWARDS AND NOMS National Board of Review award for best directorial debut REVIEWED BY Sheri Linden NOV. 15 AFI As first dates go, the one that opens Queen & Slim is a serious nonstarter — and an intriguing jumping-off point for a story. In the green-tinged light of a Cleveland diner, the two Tinder-linked strangers can’t connect. She’s an uptight lawyer and an atheist; he’s a retail employee and a believer, flashing a go-with-the-flow grin. Before digging into his plate of eggs, he prays with gratitude to the God he trusts (as his license plate proclaims), while she points out that the waitress screwed up his order. Their date…

STUDIO Paramount RELEASE DATE May 31 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $195.2M CAST Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden, Bryce Dallas Howard TOP AWARDS AND NOMS 3 Globe noms including best musical/comedy, best actor and best original song; SAG nom for Egerton; 3 Critics’ Choice noms including best costume design and best hair and makeup REVIEWED BY David Rooney MAY 16 Cannes The title of Rocketman is appropriate in that this boldly unconventional portrait of Elton John — charting the parallel tracks of his meteoric rise to superstardom and his simultaneous descent into an abyss of loneliness and addiction — has a spectacular launch, all engines blazing. It’s mid-flight that narrative shortcomings start to kick in, with a succession of surreally stylized musical fantasy sequences that are fabulously entertaining, but too…

STUDIO Universal RELEASE DATE June 18 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $175M CAST Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker TOP AWARDS AND NOMS SAG and Critics’ Choice noms for best actress for Nyong’o REVIEWED BY John DeFore MARCH 8 SXSW Jordan Peele’s fans might seek sociopolitical meaning in Us, an often terrifying thriller whose fantastical premise isn’t nearly as easy to read allegorically as that of Get Out. Clearly the work of an ambitious writer-director, it offers twists and ironies and false endings galore — along with more laughs than the comedian turned auteur dared to include in his debut. Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong’o) is a mother of two, heading out with husband Gabe (Winston Duke) for a vacation at her childhood home. Though she recoils at Gabe’s suggestion…

After Maria (Netflix) A group of women flee Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and attempt to rebuild their lives in New York City. Fire in Paradise (Netflix) The small town of Paradise became the site of the deadliest fire in California’s history, leaving 85 people dead. Ghosts of Sugar Land (Netflix) A group of Muslims in suburban Texas reckon with the disappearance of a member of their community. In the Absence (Field of Vision) More than 300 people perished when a passenger ferry sank off the coast of South Korea. Years later, their families seek answers. Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl) (A+E Networks) Young girls learn to read, write and, yes, skateboard in war-torn Kabul. Life Overtakes Me (Netflix) Hundreds of child refugees, facing deportation…

ABOMINABLE (Universal) RELEASE DATE Sept. 27 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $176.6M DIRECTOR Jill Culton CAST Chloe Bennet, Sarah Paulson, Tenzing Norgay Trainor, Albert Tsai TOP AWARDS AND NOMS 4 Annie noms As big and fluffy and playfully unsophisticated as the monster at its core, DreamWorks Animation’s latest romp no doubt will amuse kids ages 10 and under who like their movies simple, sweet and filled with giant blueberries. It’s a little too treacly and childish in places, with a storyline that goes exactly where you expect. — JORDAN MINTZER BUÑUEL IN THE LABYRINTH OF THE TURTLES (GKids) RELEASE DATE Aug. 16 BOX OFFICE TO DATE $158K DIRECTORS Salvador Simó Busom CAST Jorge Usón, Pepa Gracia, Rachel Lascar, Gabriel Latorre TOP AWARDS AND NOMS 2 Annecy wins; Annie nom for indie…