PREAMBLE:

Welcome to the first official post on Short Cuts, a filing cabinet for my thoughts on film: from kneejerk social media postings fired off from my couch to capsule reviews I recite as cocktail conversation, this site will collect them all in one place.

THE GIST:

For the uninitiated, this list is my endeavor to chronicle my film-watching of the past year, continuing the work of my late friend, Hunter Lurie, and his annual Filmography project. It features titles from the 100+ 2019 American theatrical releases I saw this year, with ample consideration given to both the high and the low, the popcorn and the art house, and the good and the just plain bad.

In attempt to honor Hunter’s original writings while making it more of my own, I’ve expanded the length of its musings, created a new category, and in true contrarian nature, omitted one very notable film from 2019.

Agree, disagree, chew me out, or write your own list entirely. What Hunter and I would love is for discussions to continue. Enjoy!

THE UNHERALDED:

The films that never found their audience, could just use some more exposure, or deserve another look.

Wrestling outside its weight class, Fighting With My Family delivers a surprisingly powerful emotional wallop given the low-prestige trappings of WWE biopic. But in an entertainment sport known more for its acting than authenticity, Florence Pugh’s “Paige” uses her outsider status to her advantage, basing her wrestling persona on her peculiar reality, and giving voice to her oft-overlooked hometown and the family she’s been forced to leave behind.

Like that of its protagonist, A Hidden Life’s accomplishments risk being forgotten. Even if with a flippant attitude, there’s cause for celebration: Malick has returned to shaping a clear and straightforward narrative, without sacrificing any of the meditative spirituality that he has become shorthand for. Lacking violence, the film still succeeds as an intimate portrait on the horrors of war, as isolation and ostracization take their toll on conscientious objector Franz Jägerstätter and his wife. Even in a remote village nestled in an Austrian mountain valley, Malick can still intimate the triumph of the human will with glorious shots of agrarian wheat fields.

Once upon a time, author Jonathan Safran Foer left his wife because he read too much into an email pen pal relationship he had with Natalie Portman and professed unreciprocated love for her. In Lucy in the Sky, Portman plays a NASA astronaut, who after experiencing the vast expanse of outer space, feels incredibly confined in her relationship to her husband, and leaves him for Jon “a divorced action figure who likes to go fast” Hamm. Although neither story makes sense, it’s possible to understand the motivation to throw everything we’ve dedicated our lives to away and do something incredibly stupid if provided a very specific opportunity, which makes this dizzying, aspect-ratio-shifting experiment of a true story somehow work. It’s an incredibly sexy character study told in the least sexy way, supported by god-awful haircuts and the promise of a puzzlingly exotic San Diego getaway.

A sign of 2019 times, this year’s requisite rom-com deftly tackles both how much weddings suck and the flavor-of-the-month new normal of dating, all buoyed by the one-two punch of Maya Erksine and Jack Quaid. During one of the countless weddings we’re whisked through, a middle-aged small talker offers Quaid a job to work in the burgeoning field of “flavors.” And while not as inherently artificial-sounding as “plastics,” the metaphor rings just as true, updating the post-grad career ennui of The Graduate, pivoting it towards an impending 30s’ fear of commitment amongst a sea of options. There will always be another, but sometimes one is enough.

A Reservoir Dogs potboiler featuring a cast characters you’d recognize as the authors behind the most radical social media posts, the paranoia at the center of this Carhart-core mystery pairs seamlessly with the paranoia that thrives in the ranks of in America’s festering militia epidemic. Simple, compact, and featuring fun twists, this tense standoff would make for a riveting stage adaptation to be performed by every flyover-town theater troupe.

FAVORITE MOVIEGOING EXPERIENCE OF 2019:

Lee is a director from another place and time. Looking at his most acclaimed films, which ably critiqued the rigidness of white societies (Sense & Sensibility, The Ice Storm, Brokeback Mountain), it’s easy to forget his first features were based in Taiwan. Turning to his blockbuster fare, which invented new technologies to tackle “unfilmable” concepts (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hulk, Life of Pi), it’s easy to see he’s bent on shaping the future of the screen. Gemini Man is definitely a work made to pursue the latter.

I saw Gemini Man at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, which advertised its showings in Lee’s specific desired format. For the film’s premiere there, it became the only theater outside of Asia to be specifically outfitted with a HFR 4K Cinity Cinema System, one of a handful of theaters in the United States to project the film both in 3D and at 120 fps (offering a fluidity which already polarized viewers of his previous Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk), and maybe one of the few theaters anywhere still playing the movie after it bombed opening weekend. The cherry on top? The only available screening was also in MX4D Motion EFX, which promised to augment my film experience with coordinated seat movements, lights, scents, and sprays.

Although the alphabet soup after the title resulted in a whopping $29 ticket, it was a small price to pay for what I experienced. One minute I was watching a washed-up Will Smith ride a motorcycle along the Colombian coastline with the smoothness of a daytime soap opera. The next, the accompanying salty ocean mist wafting past me was interrupted when Will Smith fired his gun and jumped out of the way of another motorcycle his digitally de-aged double threw at him. My seat suddenly dropped, a pair of lights in my periphery strobed, and I was shot in the head with an air cannon.

Borderline triggering for those with PTSD, I do not recommend seeing any film on a lazy Sunday in Cinity 120fps 4k MX4D 3D+. Lee’s blockbuster days may be numbered, but he seems to already be past movies. With the toolbox of tricks he’s assembled, he’s making rides that I guarantee will become the standard for our hollow amusement park future. The rest of us just haven’t caught up yet.

I WAS THERE WHEN IT HAPPENED:

More akin to a TV show season finale than a single film, this juggernaut of narrative bloat features close to double-digit side plots. While the tying up of supposed decade-long character arcs is worthwhile, the showboating victory lap Avengers: Endgame takes in its middle hour (revisiting scenes from past MCU films) deserves the most dumb praise for successfully adapting fan-fiction revisionism in real time. I don’t know what lessons can be gleaned from this, but as we’ve seen, some other big-name franchises cannot as easily reverse character deaths in a snap without facing a tumult of fanboy outrage. The moxie on display here is admirable, yet this film only deserves empty praise. Ultimately, this is a non-consequential final chapter for a story we know can’t end or stay dead, existing as a zombie of heroics for years to come.

HOT MESS OF THE YEAR:

From the moment the first trailer dropped and internet dog-pile (pun intended) commenced, we all knew this would be a train wreck. Conscious enjoyment of a hot mess is only healthy though when done under the right conditions. That is why I declined opportunities to see this within the rigid confines of 2019 to opt for a friendlier, communal experience: an alcohol-fueled, New Year’s Day screening hosted by a mall parody account run by LA-area TV writers. Am I bending my own rules by seeing this a day late? Sure, but it’s the only way to retain my sanity.

Déjà View:

I don’t know what to make of these common connections between otherwise uncommon films. Maybe these are the themes that inform our zeitgeist. Or maybe the same film was just made multiple times.

A new life awaits you in the new-world colonies. Even the gilded luster of Orlando, Nashville, and Asbury Park offer reprieve from Brexit anxiety.

The only thing you have to fear is you yourself, because both mirror images will think they’re your good side.

Girls just wanna have fun. Women just wanna have your damn respect. And they’ll make your life hell if you don’t give it to them.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Because making a ranked list is hard, these shortlist candidates are ordered alphabetically.

Ash is Purest White seeks to prove its mob genre bonafides early on: cigarette clouds perpetually hang over backroom gambling dens, a boss and his thugs play-act gangster by watching John Woo movies together, a loaded gun is dropped in the middle of a nightclub dance floor to the startling needle-drop of the Village People’s “YMCA,” and a turf war erupts in the middle of a crowded street.

Once this familiar dance is out of the way, we’re given much more time to deal with the consequences of this history of violence–and interestingly enough–from the perspective of the oft-ignored female character who takes center stage. (Oh, think how cool it would’ve been to see The Irishman from Anna Paquin’s character’s perspective!)

While other gangster epics trace timelines on faces, Ash is Purest White opts for topography. The most jaw-dropping scenes on display here feature neither curb-stomping nor backroom assassinations, but the insignificance and erasure of lives against the backdrop of disappearing cities, as China’s ascent plows through its once-sleepy rural villages. While blind machismo can face down the barrel of a gun, nothing can stop the rising waters of a dammed river. This is a heartbreaking love story, a spiritual travelogue in macro, and an eerie reminder that you can never go home again if it doesn’t exist anymore.

If viewed as a vivid character study of a local, misunderstood legend, The Beach Bum is a shallow failure. Seen as an insane farce of the valorization of antiheroes, it succeeds wildly. Essentially improv brought to feature length, there’s no “acting” which to follow, just pure performance, as the id of some of our favorite celebrity personalities run rampant across disconnected vignettes of moral bankruptcy and chemically induced escapades. This is a riot of reckless abandon, like letting your kids pick up and play with the trash that washes up on the beach.

“It’s a visual medium!” barks Jon Lithgow’s Roger Ailes. Telling, as when the doors shut, the cameras are clear, and the mics are unplugged, every face in this film has something to say. It’s all show, no tell until the dominos tip. Once they do, we’re treated to three, distinct (and surprisingly humanistic) portraits of traditional conservative villains who—despite sharing an identical hair color—respond to being labeled victims in completely different ways. And although there’s a fight to the death going on in center ring, the edge of the circus is stuffed with larger-than-life cameos, fourth-wall breaking monologues, and fifth-estate adjacent insecurity.

A fictional biopic devoid of any trappings of fact, Her Smell plays out familiar music industry truths in the form of a career-spanning, five-act play. Each act, functioning as a single scene, snakes you through labyrinthian backstage hallways and the constantly shifting relationships between Elizabeth Moss’ “Becky Something” and her work-life orbit of characters. Their faces, wardrobes, and attitudes fill in the years in between as it becomes clear that this once-bright star will indeed implode. Will only a black hole remain? This film takes a long look to show that destruction is its own form of creation as the base impulses that bring us our greatest successes and failures can be managed.

Like how Michael Clayton is a legal thriller that never shows the inside of a courtroom, High Flying Bird is a sports movie that never shows the sport being played. Fifteen is the meager number of dribbles seen on screen in this basketball movie that–at 90 minutes–clocks in under the length of the average NBA game.

Yet, even in a lockout, competitive people stay competitive. Dialogues take on familiar setups: 1-on-1 grudges, full court press negotiations, pick and roll allegiances, narrative double crossovers, and locker room pep talks. Soderbergh’s claustrophobic iPhone cinematography gets you within arm’s reach, while Tarell Alvin McCraney’s writing layers on the smack talk and keeps the entire effort still sounding like it’s referencing one of America’s majority black sports.

Outside the paint, this a look at the game behind the game, the strategy behind the NBA’s Player Empowerment Era, a playbook for Kaepernickian protest, and a convincing argument for the radical reorganization of labor to christen the cord-cutting, smartphone streaming future of basketball. By jettisoning the cliches and buzzer beaters, this modern sports movie can shoot for a bigger score.

A Degas pastel of ballerinas stand in repose, punctuated by one peeling off a bruised, bloody nail. The scene is the perfect encapsulation of this film: intense balletic choreography where violence is not the focus, just the logical conclusion of a flawless performance.

Many films use action, chase sequences, or musical numbers as plot locomotion, the connective tissue between character scenes. This film series works in reverse. An anachronistic silent film hero, Keanu Reeves’ “John Wick” shows you his character in these moments, while the cringe-worthy, world-building dialogues that continuously expand this series’ blood-soaked canvas are the real crowd-pleasing thrill.

A daunting task no one was asking for: breathe fresh life into an oft-remade, classic text. How could Gerwig ever succeed? Start with an attempt to reconcile a long-vilified character by drawing out an incredibly convincing, age-spanning performance by Florence Pugh’s “Amy.” Next, update the film language, taking advantage of distinctive color grading and digital cross-cutting to freewheelingly jump between past and present and fold the story’s two-act structure upon itself. Finally, challenge the story’s classical happy ending with a framing device of Saoirse Ronan’s “Jo,” standing in for Louisa May Alcott, standing in for Gerwig herself, fighting the attitudes of what could be expected of a woman in fiction at the time. In the moment, it reads as a brilliant meta commentary by Gerwig on her own place in the still male-dominated film industry, but what’s real, what’s the fiction falls away when we’re left with the final shot of the film: a woman holding a work of her own creation. It’s something she asked for.

No one writes self-aware, bro-speak better than Aster. It’s recognizable yet cringe-worthy peppering throughout Midsommar elicits laughs but ultimately adds fuel to the film’s final pyre, as the politics of fractured relationships seamlessly intertwine with anthropological ritual. Bright, blinding sun, bespoke sets, and colorful costumes intricately dress this comedy of manners until its arthouse take on Blumhouse terror sets in. Fantastical and fun, profound and punishing, it’s a gentle reminder to honestly communicate with your partner and to read up before you hope to play cultural colonist.

On the Safdie Brothers’ last outing, Good Time, I described its unique feeling to that Northeastern idiosyncrasy of stepping indoors from the freezing cold to an extremely confined space and struggling to remove your layers of jackets before the thermostat’s heat causes you to to hyperventilate. Of what scenario I can liken Uncut Gems to, I’m still not sure, but claustrophobia is again a factor.

Nowhere is safe or sane when any passer-by on these New York streets may be a lynchpin character in the ultimate gambit of Adam Sandler’s “Howard Ratner” as we’re not accustomed to being confronted with such a large cast of real, non-professional actors. Their cracked, canyon-like faces tell us everything we need to know about sports betting and the diamond district without ever fully understanding either. That an anonymous, sunglass-wearing, tanned piece of leather pulled from the poker table at a certain tristate casino almost upstages the karaoke acts of 2012 Mike Francesa, the Weeknd, and Kevin Garnett is remarkable.

Don’t overthink this. There’s no theory that can fully explain the loose logic behind this doppelgänger slasher because the lasting impression of Us is really just fun, new horror iconography for this generation: rabbits, scissors, and jumpsuits, oh my! Double-take the red herrings and conspiracies in stride as you throw money at the screen to bet which version of Lupita Nyong’o would win in a fight.

GREAT PERFORMANCES:

The actors who defined their films, made bad material great, and occasionally made you crawl the end credits just to see who that was, listed alphabetically.

TOP 10:

Built in the context of a time when grassroots activists must reframe and rewrite the narratives of front-page tragedies, Queen & Slim is a love story with a crooked smile. A date from hell goes on the lam, encountering everyday dangers and safe havens at unexpected places along the road. Showcasing her music-video experience, Matsoukas knows every moment counts, which is why even when the film is quiet, she makes sure to make the visuals loud with a kaleidoscope of colored lights. There’s always prettiness to be found on screen, even in ugly situations. We may all die, but with a powerful image, there’s proof that we were here.

A lot of editorial fun in Marriage Story comes from cross-cutting cross-country phone calls, intentionally delaying or repeating reaction shots, and showing two versions of every parental act. But the heart of this piece is its dull (numb?) center, one defined by beige interiors and kafka-esque apartments you live in but don’t live in, the doublespeak of divorce legalese, and the catch-22 proposition of being better at arbitrating separation from someone the more you loved them.

Confusion boils over, inhibitions break, and what was better left unsaid might as well be said now, resulting in the most intense showdown seen on screen this year, between two actors better known as Black Widow and Kylo Ren. If we didn’t have to sell lunchboxes abroad to keep America’s GDP in the black, maybe these two talented actors could devote more of their time to making us feel something more frequently. But hey, you gotta love Hollywood. Who doesn’t love more space?

Johnson took what he learned weathering the franchise assembly line to formulate a recipe that would garner him the high CinemaScore marks he totally does not care about. Bringing together one of recent memory’s best ensembles of greyed A-listers, dependable character actors, fresh faces, and an unbuttoned James Bond, there’s something here for everyone.

Injected into Agatha Christie fan fiction, there’s more laughs than drama to be had in the contradictory rashomon accounts. And with a thankful lack of self-seriousness that comes with ample self-awareness, Johnson spends less time pinning yarn to cork boards so that we may be treated to “the dumbest car chase of all time” and donut conspiracies.

That the case is solved not due to sleuthing but an allegiance to simple human kindness fills the hole at the center of this story with a heart. The so-smart-it’s-dumb-but-isn’t-it-nice energy of this whodunit will indubitably allow it to retire to a long, sweater-filled lifetime of autumnal cable reruns.

Not quite fish-out-of-water, not quite homecoming, The Farewell exists simultaneously between two worlds. This lack of definition, the straddling of perspectives, stokes a heated family debate over the proper way to love. But when the bickering relents and lies become truths, all this family can agree on is indefinite shrugs and nods. That is to say, after they strip away all the parables and proverbs that give meaning to a way of living, they’re left with no clear-cut, easy answers about what’s right and what’s wrong. As a melancholic mood piece and celebration of contradictory matriarchs everywhere, Wang wants us to discover for ourselves the ultimate wisdom: no matter what, we should always concentrate on enjoying the time we have together.

The biggest party of the year, Hustlers, really begins with the onscreen introduction of Jennifer Lopez’s “Ramona.” Spinning and splitting her way through a marathon acrobatic routine, her arrival commands love at first sight, not just from the audience, but Constance Wu’s “Destiny.” That this meet-cute all takes place in a strip club is circumstantial, as Scafaria’s female gaze is never interested in providing a titillating thrill, but in communicating constantly shifting power dynamics. Which is significant, because set against the backdrop of the Great Recession, this film is first and foremost a post-crash survival story.

That this bejeweled couple hatch a scheme to enact revenge against the class of businessmen responsible only strengthens their love. Here, men are the on the outside looking in, utterly objectified: montaged into a single blur, anonymized by naming them only the banks they work for. It’s a welcome change-up, a toying with audience expectations the same way Ramona offers only maternal warmth within the confines of her feminine fur.

Although publicly praised by Alejandro Iñárritu for its tactile ruggedness and Guillermo del Toro for its fairy-tale framing (a sacred cow!), it’s the third of Mexico’s “Tres Amigos” film geniuses, Alfonso Cuarón, which Monos owes the most to. Cracked, dirty, and yet effusive with life and love, this is a rich world-building measure filled with details but devoid of context, a modern yet timeless riff on Lord of the Flies and Hearts of Darkness. But paired with the queasiness of Mica Levi’s score, which flirts between playing pied piper and otherwordly synthesizers, Landes is able to distinguish this film from the ones made by those few, aforementioned Hollywood-contending Latin American visionaries, carving out his own staunchly South American fiefdom above the Colombian clouds. Maybe we can tag him “Fiesta de Uno.”

The domestic plot here is so short and simple it could be gossiped over a family meal. But its everyday, anywhere nature is what allows Shults to hone in on each element he’s working with and ring out every bit of emotional resonance possible. In craft, the bifurcated structure and diegetic music reprises call to mind Chungking Express, but it’s Wong Kar-wai’s other disciple, Barry Jenkins and his Moonlight, to which this film owes its warm, humid, Florida-drenched feel to.

In performance, the characters are close, personal, and shockingly vulnerable. First there’s rage, which comes across like an assault to your senses, Ali v. Frazier pummeling each other into submission and leaving you cracked and broken. Then, there’s redemption, like Misty Copeland bowing down to offer a hand and share in a pas de deux. It’s beautiful and awkward, but welcomingly cathartic. All you need to know that this is masterclass manipulation on full display, primed to elicit maximum empathy. I’ve never cried so hard during a film.

As a sign of the post-format, everything is just delineated “content” times, Netflix chopped and served up Tarantino’s previous film, The Hateful Eight, as four distinct, binge-able episodes. Luckily, Tarantino already had eyes on future-proofing his latest hangout with the disruptive decision to drop almost an entire episode of television in the middle of this film. Is it all just posturing? Not necessarily. While it works as a big-screen love letter to forgotten serial westerns (the original ephemeral content, as record of it wouldn’t really be remembered past airing), you can see how the morally ambiguous attitudes and flair for theatrics it broadcasts inform Brad Pitt’s high-noon showdown on a main street of long-haired hippies in the detritus of Spahn Ranch.

It’s clear that the old ways are making their way off into the sunset and that a New Hollywood is coming. Younger, shinier, and more fun, this new era may just as much draw upon westerns: winners rewriting history, heroes and villains taking credit for others’ deeds, and legends being self-made through polishing and proselytizing individual origin stories. While those possibilities and blind chance play out from an aerial, God’s-eye perspective, cozy up under the communal blanket of popular culture of 1969, when everyone drove to the same soundtrack and gathered around that night’s same primetime show.

One of Hunter’s seemingly random but always wise film-watching rules: “Never start a Andrei Tarkovsky after midnight.” Makes sense, as I’ve found it’s best not to be confronted with the director’s existential or metaphysical questions when I’m in between waking and dream states. Of course, maybe he didn’t hear of this exception (as Ryan Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse) tells it): “There’s a story about Ingmar Bergman and Sven Nykvist watching Andrei Rublev at like 1 A.M. with no subtitles just like, ‘Oh my God. This is the greatest thing we’ve ever seen.’ And I just love that image.”

If that confluence of conflicting advice, images lost in translation, and the humor of a truncated, second-hand retelling add up to anything, it’s my effort to write about Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Attempting to talk about this film in any coherent manner is like attempting to describe two sides of a coin simultaneously. One doesn’t make sense without the other, and even after you flip the whole of it a few times, you may not know which way is truly up. But that’s not to say this is all style over substance. This film’s rigid two acts sit in stark contrast between narrative and character. In the first half, I can tell you what it’s about but not what happens. In the second half, I can tell you what happens, but not what it’s about. For every confusing action there is (or was?) a corresponding emotional reaction.

A combination of hardboiled noire and dream logic, there is intentional use of montage, cuts, a one-shot, a delayed introduction of the film’s title card, and even the act of putting on 3D glasses to actually serve structural and narrative purposes. This is a rule-breaking paradigm that may not be fun, but there is no other film like this (and maybe there shouldn’t be). It exists on an island. Cult on first impact, and retroactively could be one of the most influential films of the decade. Never have the stakes been so high for such a seemingly non-consequential reverie. Is it cool? Is it an experience? Is it pretentious? Is it just a glorified midnight movie? I really don’t know. Try it without subtitles. It could just be the greatest thing you ever see.

Parasite is filled with scenes and images that will comfortably live forever on “best of suspense” lists. But what really makes this film timeless is its ideas, which have the power to affect the way you view your place in society writ large. Like peeling back a layer of film over your eyes, Parasite makes everything clearer.

The film’s frames have appeared as editorial illustrations in The Economist, and its single-world title has become a quick, easy punchline in internet discourse, sporadically replacing the ironic refrain of “What stage of capitalism is this?”

While this film’s thesis holds mass appeal in its rebuke of this universal economic structure, the strength of its argument lies in its ability to hone in on individuals. In examining the extreme ways money can motivate people, the film shifts genre from “con artist” to “comedy of manners” to “home invasion.” The hilarious and horrific–but always believable–results that cap each act land extremely well, as Bong is skilled at obfuscating everyday objects so you never spend too much time considering whether they’re Chekhovian or just plain metaphorical (why not both?). But even after learning all the blind corners and twists that exist in its floor plan, there’s much more to enjoy in close reading: an architecture ratio designed to fit the film’s frame, currency in multilingual fluency, and a bonus class critique hidden in a bowl of noodles recipe.

There’s no easy way to digest everything Parasite has to offer, whether in the moment watching it or later, out in the world, when you become more cognizant of the various ways class stratifies itself. It’s work, but it’s worthwhile to take these stairs.

EVERYTHING ELSE I SAW IN 2019:

The Upside / The Kid Who Would Be King / Velvet Buzzsaw / The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part / What Men Want / Everybody Knows / High Flying Bird / Happy Death Day 2U / Alita: Battle Angel / Fighting With My Family / Greta / Climax / Furie / Transit / Captain Marvel / Gloria Bell / Triple Frontier / Ash Is Purest White / Us / Dumbo / The Beach Bum / High Life / Unicorn Store / Her Smell / Long Day’s Journey Into Night / The Man Who Killed Don Quixote / Under The Silver Lake / Someone Great / Avengers: Endgame / Long Shot / Non-Fiction / Shadow / Pokémon: Detective Pikachu / Wine Country / John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum / The Souvenir / Booksmart / The Perfection / Godzilla: King Of The Monsters / Ma / Rocketman / Always Be My Maybe / Dark Phoenix / The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil / The Last Black Man In San Francisco / Late Night / The Dead Don’t Die / Murder Mystery / Toy Story 4 / Wild Rose / Yesterday / Midsommar / Spider-Man: Far from Home / The Art of Self Defense / The Farewell / Sword Of Trust / Once Upon A Time In Hollywood / Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw / Luce / The Nightingale / After The Wedding / Blinded By The Light / Good Boys / Where’d You Go, Bernadette / Ready Or Not / Brittany Runs a Marathon / Tigers Are Not Afraid / Hustlers / Monos / Ad Astra / Joker / Lucy In The Sky / Pain And Glory / Gemini Man / Little Monsters / Parasite / El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie / Mister America/ Jojo Rabbit / The Lighthouse / The Laundromat / Dolemite Is My Name / Rattlesnake / Motherless Brooklyn / Terminator: Dark Fate / Doctor Sleep / Last Christmas / Honey Boy / Ford Vs. Ferrari / Waves / Earthquake Bird / Atlantics / The Report / A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood / Frozen 2 / Dark Waters / Knives Out / Queen & Slim / The Irishman / Portrait Of A Lady On Fire / Marriage Story / Black Christmas / Richard Jewell / A Hidden Life / Uncut Gems / 6 Underground / Bombshell / Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker / Cats / The Two Popes / Little Women / 1917