In 2013, filmmaker Anthony Chen’s first feature, Ilo Ilo, won the coveted Caméra d’Or at Cannes. Centered around the inseparable bond between a 10-year-old Singaporean boy and his Filipina nanny, Chen’s full-length debut deployed a specific lens — a family weathering the 1997 Asian financial crisis — to tell a universal story exploring the nooks and crannies of our shared humanity. Flash forward to exactly a decade later, Chen makes his triumphant return to Cannes (in the Un Certain Regard section) with The Breaking Ice, a moving, humanist snapshot of China’s lost youths told through a ships-in-the-night friendship.

Colors! Personality! Stakes! James Gunn closes out the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy with the wildly vivid Vol. 3. Crafting an intimate farewell against the fabric of Marvel cosmic, Gunn brings something that rarely finds its way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe: finality. It’s one last hurrah as the Guardians race against the clock to save a grievously injured teammate, touring through James Gunn’s warped imagination in a surprisingly personal goodbye. Like many superhero movies, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is overlong and stuffed to the brim with talented-but-shortchanged actors, but it helps that this is the best looking Marvel movie of the last ten years. Minor spoilers ahead…

John Wick has always been the action franchise of the decade, but Chad Stahelski’s Chapter 4 is next level: the type of exhilarating, metal-as-hell ballet of bullets that blows the doors off action filmmaking. There hasn’t been a take-your-breath-away feast for genre fans like this since Mad Max: Fury Road or The Raid. Minor spoilers ahead…

Welcome to my dispatch from this year’s SXSW Film Festival. As usual, I won’t be writing full reviews of everything I see at the festival, but there are plenty of notable films in this year’s slate that I still wanted to cover. Here are the capsule reviews for 2023’s SXSW: Tetris, Furies, If You Were the Last, and Late Night With the Devil. Minor Spoilers Ahead…

Every single Evil Dead movie is a bloody, gruesome delight, and now the tradition continues with Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise. A decade after a deadly-serious reboot turned the franchise on its head, this new installment finds a bond between sisters shredded by a disgusting waltz of Deadites, guts, and gore. Alyssa Sutherland brings her A-game as a twisted, cackling fiend: a physical performance for the ages. Minor spoilers ahead…

SXSW’s opening night finds its curtain-raiser in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Bucking the reputation of its much-maligned predecessor from 2000, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s take on the tabletop role-playing game finds a fleet balancing act between fantasy and comedy. A nimble adventure anchored by winsome performances and a surprising trove of practical effects, Honor Among Thieves eschews the gravity of cinematic universes and franchise-building with goofy, digestible fun. Minor spoilers ahead…

Michael B. Jordan marks his confident and kinetic directorial debut with Creed III. Carving a propulsive parallel to Adonis Creed’s journey to cement his legacy, Jordan sheds the Rocky franchise DNA by charting his own path of blistering performances, formal verve, and anime-inspired showdowns. An electrifying tempest of fists and sweat, Creed III fully transcends what could have been a journeyman effort. Jonathan Majors is astonishing. Minor spoilers ahead…

I'm late as usual, but I spent more time than ever on my annual passion project edit: A Year in Film. It took over 75 hours of work across three months, but it's finally done and — for the first time — in 4K. The film industry came roaring back in 2022: Big budget blockbusters came out to play in full force, first-time filmmakers brought their A-game, and old masters returned with a vengeance. It was an absolute delight to journey through the year’s cinema, and I hope you'll join me as I take you through 2022 one more time. With feeling.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe spins its wheels at full-tilt with the muddled, lethargic Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Jettisoning the fleet caper energy of its predecessors for more tedious teases of what’s coming next, the launch of the MCU’s Phase Five lands with an uninspired whimper. Jonathan Majors as Kang carries this lumbering sci-fi epic with suitable menace, but Quantumania forgets everything special — and charming — about its titular hero. Minor spoilers ahead…

Crackling with confident, formal prowess and visual electricity, M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin is the director’s best film since 2004’s The Village. A family’s impossible choice framed by ratcheting tension and blistering performances, Shyamalan’s latest nerve-jangler is a chamber piece artfully designed to quicken pulses and break hearts. There isn’t a single wasted shot in Knock at the Cabin’s firecracker, 100-minute runtime: it’s astonishing to watch. Minor spoilers ahead…

Brandon Cronenberg follows up his 2020 sci-fi stunner Possessor with another carnival of grotesque delights in Infinity Pool. Conducting a brand new phantasmagoria of bloody satire and goopy violence, the younger Cronenberg pushes stars Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth to uproarious new extremes. It’s a sick blast. Minor spoilers ahead…

Kyle Edward Ball delivers one of the scariest movies of the decade with a lo-fi stunner that reaches into the crevices of vestigial instinct. Uncanny in its ability to bottle the ineffable childhood dread of past-your-bedtime nightmares, Skinamarink mines a whole new mode of horror from its swirling grain, sinister corners, and dark spaces. Minor spoilers ahead…

After two-plus years floundering in the pandemic, it seems that the film industry is finally regaining its legs. This year, Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water blasted off, the Daniels’ multiverse-hopping stunner Everything Everywhere All at Once was the sleeper hit of the year, and old masters in their late eras such as Steven Spielberg and David Cronenberg returned in top form. It might have been harder than ever to whittle down a top ten in 2022, but it was an absolute delight to journey through the year’s cinema. Here are my 10 favorite movies of 2022, along with some honorable mentions:

Netflix and its sagging subscriptions, Warner Bros. Discovery with anti-art tyrant David Zaslav at the helm, Disney’s Bob-for-Bob change in leadership. With cancellations, guttings, and a sprinkling of corporate tumult, 2022 seemed to find the streaming apparatus in dire straits. But even amidst the chaos and fumbles, this year’s television was an embarrassment of riches: from a Game of Thrones revival and Better Call Saul’s final bow to new stunners such as Severance and Pachinko, it seemed like great TV was around every corner. I didn’t get to review as much television as I would have liked in 2022, but here were some of my favorites of the year:

Avatar: The Way of Water is the most compassionate blockbuster of our time. A dazzling gallery frame around cinematic technology in the hands of one James Cameron, its wild spectacle, unbelievable detail, and technical wizardry will blast the eyeballs out of your sockets, but its honest and sincere undercurrents just might be its secret weapon. Like its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water is an essential theatrical experience. This film was viewed in IMAX 3D with variable frame rates and reviewed accordingly. Minor spoilers ahead…

The superstar team of Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner, and Janusz Kaminski ripping another one out of the park is the least surprising development at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The entirety of Spielberg’s being splashed upon the big screen, The Fabelmans sidesteps the treacly sentimentality of your typical autobiography to deliver a moving form of self-therapy: the legendary director’s heart and soul, delivered through his masterful craft. The Fabelmans is Spielberg’s most personal film, and one of the year’s best. Minor spoilers ahead…

Ryan Coogler pulls it out of the fire with the overstuffed, gorgeously wrenching Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. A powerful tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman combined with Marvel myth-making at its most thoughtful, the film admirably attempts to fill an irreparable void left by its star’s untimely passing. Wakanda Forever strikes sometimes delicate, sometimes clumsy balance between an all-caps comic book movie and an intimate tour through the stages of grief. Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, and Tenoch Huerta are the most formidable trifecta Marvel has seen in years. Minor spoilers ahead…

Happy Halloween! There’s nothing quite like the words “Guillermo del Toro curates an anthology” to stoke a horror fan’s anticipation. Cabinet of Curiosities, del Toro’s attempt to assemble an all-star roster of genre voices, is as consistently wonderful and gruesome as anthologies get. With creeping eldritch terror, nasty alien infestations, and gothic creature features, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities has remarkably few duds and more than its fair share of bangers. It’s the perfect way to spend your All Hallow’s Eve. Minor spoilers ahead…