Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood—a gorgeous evocation of 1969 Los Angeles and bittersweet elegy for falling Hollywood stars and the passing of a definitive American era—is the work of an artist at the peak of his powers, which, if you believe him,…

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Maiden

Maiden, the inspiring new documentary about the first all-female crew to sail an around the world yacht race in 1989, is a rousing epic that tells both personal and macro stories about the dual currents, nautical and cultural, faced by a talented team of…

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Midsommar

Midsommar, Ari Aster’s magnum opus follow-up to his deeply unsettling Hereditary, is a sophomore picture of command and precision, well-directed and frequently diverting in its tale of unsuspecting American collegiates venturing into a once-a-century celebration of pagan depravity. Yet as movie freak outs go,…

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The Last Black Man in San Francisco

The Last Black Man in San Francisco, an elegy for the idea of home and a lament for a vanishing culture in San Francisco, took this year’s Sundance directing prize for first-time filmmaker Joe Talbot and is a richly profound film and very nearly…

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MA

You wouldn’t know it from the ad campaign, but Blumhouse’s new thriller MA, starring an unlikely Octavia Spencer as an sociopathic, small-town stalker, is a (slightly) more nuanced film than it needed to be, largely due to its star’s determination to layer its shlock…

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Rocketman

There’s a scene late in Rocketman where superstar Elton John (Taron Egerton) phones his estranged mother before a sold-out, about to be televised London show, which, tellingly, she’s preparing to watch from her living room. He’s calling to make a confession of sorts, or…

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Booksmart

Booksmart, Olivia Wilde’s raucous new comedy, is one of the funniest movies in ages, a high school buddy picture for right now, a showcase for two terrific young actresses and a laugh machine that takes off like a shot and hurtles ahead, three jokes…

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Teen Spirit

It is, to put it charitably, a formula. There’s this Small-Town Kid from a working-class background who, despite a lack of know-how or means has Very Big Dreams, and while no one Believes In Her, just maybe, with the help of a Unlikely Mentor,…

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