I recently caught up with writer-director Derek Cianfrance in Chicago on a bright fall afternoon on the eve of the premiere of his surprisingly tender new film, Roofman — a story about an escaped convict whose humanity becomes both his undoing and his redemption.…
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Bing Liu has built a pair of terrific films around the question of how young people come of age when the odds are stacked against them. His Oscar-nominated 2018 doc Minding the Gap charted several years in the lives of three skateboarding friends in…
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In their new film She Rides Shotgun, director Nick Rowland and actor Taron Egerton deliver a tense experience fusing the grit and danger of a crime picture with the vulnerability of a fractured father-daughter relationship. Adapted from the novel by Jordan Harper, the story…
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Ari Aster’s Eddington is unlike anything else this year in its sprawling attempt to reckon with the fractured state of American life in 2020. Set in a fictional town in New Mexico, the film follows a slow-burning conflict between a conservative sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix)…
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Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza didn’t set out to make just another war film. After working together on last year’s provocative button pusher Civil War, their creative partnership evolved when a conversation about potential future collaborations turned into something far more personal. The resulting…
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In their ambitious new novel Disturbing the Bones (Penguin Random House), hit filmmaker Andrew Davis and historian-novelist Jeff Biggers have crafted a high-tech, riveting thriller that interweaves geopolitical thrills and a personal, eras-spanning mystery. This isn’t just a whodunnit; it’s a politically charged race against…
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How many actors can say they have created a character that has made its way into movie history? Sarah Douglas knows exactly what that feels like, her role as the icy, leather-clad villain Ursa in the 1981 classic Superman II a defining figure in superhero films.…
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In Nicole Riegel’s new Dandelion (IFC Films, July 21), star Kiki Layne plays a not-so-young Cincinnati musician fiercely committed to doing things her way, and to finding a home onstage that is uniquely hers across spaces that are not always welcoming to Black female…
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Jeff Nichols’ new film The Bikeriders charts the birth and rise of a fictional 1960s-era Chicago motorcycle club named the Vandals, as seen through the eyes of three compelling actors: Tom Hardy as the gang’s founder and leader, Austin Butler as his young protégé…
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Someone once observed that there is nothing in the world worse than going nowhere in life while no one seems to care. In the inspiring new picture Hard Miles (Blue Fox Entertainment, April 19), the true story of Colorado social worker turned bicycling coach…
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