Genre: Drama, Romance
Actor: Ann Wedgeworth, Benjamin Mouton, Harve Presnell, Helen Cates, Libby Villari, Marion Eaton, Michael Corbett, Renée Zellweger, Vincent D'Onofrio
Director: Dan Ireland
Chasing the feel of watching Barbie ? Here are the movies we recommend you watch right after.
Genre: Drama, Romance
Actor: Ann Wedgeworth, Benjamin Mouton, Harve Presnell, Helen Cates, Libby Villari, Marion Eaton, Michael Corbett, Renée Zellweger, Vincent D'Onofrio
Director: Dan Ireland
Genre: Drama
Actor: Liu Baisha, Liu Haoran, Qu Chuxiao, Ruguang Wei, Zhao Wenhao, Zhou Dongyu
Director: Anthony Chen
19-year-old Dominican pitcher Miguel Santos, a.k.a. Sugar, dreams of making it into an American baseball team and pulling himself and his family out of poverty. He gets a chance to train for a team in Kansas, but on arrival struggles to be accepted in his new community.
Poignant and beautifully performed, Sugar is not the usual film about chasing the American dream, and it’s far from a typical baseball movie. It’s an honest portrayal, one that avoids sports-movie clichés in favor of an exploration of identity and the immigrant experience.
Genre: Drama
Actor: Algenis Perez Soto, Alina Vargas, Andre Holland, Ann Whitney, Braulio Castillo, Eddie Martinez, Ellary Porterfield, Jaime Tirelli, Jamie Tirelli, Joendy Pena Brown, Jose Rijo, Karl Bury, Karolina Wydra, Marla Frumkin, Michael Gaston, Rayniel Rufino, Richard Bull, Sándor Técsy, Santo Silvestre, Walki Cuevas, Wilson Daniel
Director: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
After directing George Harrison: Living in the Material World and No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese brings to the fore yet another singular musician, this time New York Dolls frontman David Johansen (aka Buster Poindexter). More of a concert film than anything, this feature takes place during a live performance Johansen gives during his birthday; his raspy voice and poetic punk songs already tell a story in themselves, but Scorsese intercuts them with the occasional archival footage and interview, careful not to disrupt a glorious musical moment with cheesy throwback scenes.
A Dolls or punk fan will be moved by the resulting film, a fittingly jagged but meaningful oeuvre of a tenacious artist. But if you're coming to this documentary without much prior knowledge about Johansen, his band, and the era from which he came, you might find it somewhat niche, but overall impressive, informative, and musically thrilling.
Genre: Documentary, Music
Actor: David Johansen, Debbie Harry, Hal Willner, Morrissey, Sylvain Sylvain
Director: David Tedeschi, Martin Scorsese
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Actor: Babetida Sadjo, Franck Saurel, Jennifer Tchiakpe, Martine Amisse, Souleymane Sy Savane
Director: Ellie Foumbi
It’s easy to classify Destroy All Neighbors as B-movie schlock; it unabashedly pays tribute to the low-budget comedy horror movies that pervaded the ‘80s. But it also feels too good for that. Elevated by funny bits, easy chemistry, solid production design, and a lightweight but easygoing script, Destroy All Neighbors never really wastes your time. It may confuse and drag at times, but there’s always an element that delights. As the straight man anchoring all the absurdity and gore surrounding him, Ray is also surprisingly likable. He connects easily to the colorful ensemble of characters in the film.
Destroy All Neighbors is stylish, trippy, nonsensical, and quite commendable in its creativity (the practical effects and prosthetics are the highlight). In all, it’s harmless good fun, just beware of the overflowing blood and guts!
Genre: Comedy, Horror, Music
Actor: Alex Winter, Chase Kim, Christian Calloway, Deanna Rooney, DeMorge Brown, Franco Vega, Jon Daly, Jonah Ray, Kiran Deol, Kumail Nanjiani, Madara Jayasena, Pete Ploszek, Phil Hendrie, Randee Heller, Ryan Kattner, Thomas Lennon
Director: Josh Forbes
From early footage of country-folk threshing their crops to blissed-out clubbers at a rave, there is a mesmerizing, insistent sense of rhythm and motion to Arcadia. Director Paul Wright has curated an astonishing array of archive material for this feature-length video montage examining the British and their sometimes uneasy relationship with the land.
Cut together in loosely chronological order, the footage is enigmatic, seductive, and disturbing, set to a haunting soundtrack from Adrian Utley of Portishead and Will Gregory of Goldfrapp. Watching Arcadia is hypnotic, like wading into the uncertain waters of time with a head full of shrooms. And that’s definitely a good thing.
Genre: Documentary
Actor: Ian Sexon
Director: Paul Wright
Richard Wershe, Jr. was arrested for carrying eight kilos of cocaine in 1988, when he was just 17. He went on to become one of Michigan’s longest-serving non-violent juvenile drug offenders, dubbed by the press as White Boy Rick. His fate was sealed by Michigan law that had just been passed, which stated that anyone found with more than 650 grams of drugs had to be sentenced to mandatory life.
Featuring interviews with drug lords, journalists, as well as Rick’s mother and attorney, this documentary — along with the follow-up Hollywood biopic, White Boy Rick, starring Matthew McConaughey— provides an insightful account into his tragic story.
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Actor: Chris Hansen, Herm Groman, Johnny Curry, Richard Wershe Jr., Scott M. Burnstein, Seth Ferranti, Shawn Rech
Director: Christopher S. Rech, Shawn Rech
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is a parody of a parody, a multilayered confection of silliness that befits the musician it celebrates. It's the origin story of Weird Al Yankovic (Daniel Radcliffe) but with the surreal and satirical levels cranked up to a hundred. It's easy to get lost then, in the movie's freewheeling giddiness, but Radcliffe has a way of grounding the ultra-heightened comedy with his conviction and charm. The movie also doubles as a who's who in the 1980s music and comedy scene, and the unlikely pairings it brings together keep you entertained and nostalgic for a simpler, weirder time.
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Music
Actor: 'Weird Al' Yankovic, Akiva Schaffer, Andrew Steven Hernandez, Anthony N., Anthony Nanakornpanom, Arturo Castro, Chad Guerrero, Conan O'Brien, Constantine Rousouli, Daniel Radcliffe, David Bloom, David Dastmalchian, Dean Sharpe, Demetri Martin, Diedrich Bader, Dot-Marie Jones, Emo Philips, Eric Appel, Evan Rachel Wood, Gordon Tarpley, Jack Black, Jack Lancaster, James Brown III, James Preston Rogers, Jimmy Walker Jr., Johnny Pemberton, Jonah Ray, Jonah Ray Rodrigues, Jorma Taccone, Josh Groban, Julianne Nicholson, Julie Chang, Keanush Tafreshi, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Michael McKean, Mike Escamilla, Nina West, Paloma Esparza Rabinov, Panuvat Anthony Nanakornpanom, Patton Oswalt, Paul F. Tompkins, Paul Riley Fox, Quinta Brunson, Rainn Wilson, Richard Aaron Anderson, Rocky Abou-Sakher, Scott Aukerman, Seth Green, Spencer Treat Clark, Thomas Lennon, Toby Huss, Tommy O'Brien, Trenyce, Will Forte, William Guirola
Director: Eric Appel
Genre: Documentary
Director: Anne Bogart, Holly Morris
Miranda’s Victim often feels like two different movies smushed into one. On the one hand, it tells the story of how Trish finds the courage to speak up against her abuser, who happens to be a person of color. On the other hand, it shows us the legal intricacies that led to the founding of what we now know as Miranda Rights. In better hands, these two stories (one emotional and one technical) could’ve worked well together, and they would’ve spoken to the intersectionality at the heart of this complicated case. But instead of going for nuance, instead of exploring the complex racial and gender politics that inform this case, Director Michelle Danner goes in all sorts of odd directions as if herself confused about what the focus should be.
Breslin is heartbreaking and powerful as Trish, but she’s only given so much to act with. Despite being based on a real person, her character is reduced to trauma and tears—a caricature of abuse—and nothing more. The movie is at its strongest when it converts into pure courtroom drama by the third act. Suddenly, it’s brisk and intelligent, bolstered by the compelling one-two punches of the judge (a commanding Donald Sutherland) and the two lawyers (Ryan Philippe, a revelation, and Luke Wilson, only slightly better here than in his earlier turn in Legally Blonde). As a story about violation and abuse, there’s surprisingly little compassion to be found, despite the title. But as a legal drama, it’s as informative as it can be.
Genre: Drama, History
Actor: Abigail Breslin, Andy Garcia, Brent Sexton, Brian Colin Foley, Dan Lauria, Donald Sutherland, Emily VanCamp, Enrique Murciano, James Healy Jr., Jann Ellis, Josephine Hies, Joshua Bowman, Kyle MacLachlan, Luke Wilson, Michael Mulheren, Mireille Enos, Najah Bradley, Nolan Gould, Ryan Phillippe, Sheilagh Weymouth, Taryn Manning
Director: Michelle Danner
Genre: Documentary, War
Actor: Henry Kissinger, Juan Valdez, Richard Nixon, Stuart Herrington
Director: Rory Kennedy
Hotel Salvation is a touching movie about a father asking his son for a last wish : let him die in the Holy city of Varanasi. This Indian drama will let you discover a modern Hindu philosophy, the power of the scenic Varanasi and the bonds of family. It faces the question of death in the light, gentle and humorous way that perfectly illustrates the contradiction in question: celebrating life while surrounded by death.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Adil Hussain, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Lalit Behl, Navnindra Behl, Palomi Ghosh
Director: Shubhashish Bhutiani
Genre: Documentary
Actor: Andrea Dovizioso, Ben Spies, Casey Stoner, Colin Edwards, Dani Pedrosa, Ewan McGregor, Jorge Lorenzo, Marco Simoncelli, Nicky Hayden, Valentino Rossi
Director: Mark Neale
This documentary about the 2015 massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church explores key questions around faith, justice, and forgiveness. It situates the massacre – which left nine African American churchgoers dead – within a bigger picture, with Emanuel being the first-ever freestanding black church in Charleston, a city in South Carolina with a highly charged racial history.
The film’s strengths lie in the stories of those who lost loved ones in the massacre, and the miraculous forgiveness some of the survivors offered the 21-year-old white supremacist responsible for the attack. Above all, it is a story about the power of faith.
Genre: Crime, Documentary, Drama
Actor: Dylann Storm Roof
Director: Brian Ivie