Yes, we’re not quite over with last year. But we’re getting there today, don’t worry. You’re busy; we get it. You may not have time to see everything; hell, you may not have seen our list of the Best Films of 2022 (25 films). But we assure you there are riches of cinema out there if you look.

READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2023

In the spirit of this idea, and because there are so many films released that not all of us have time to see, there’s even more to explore (and because you just might be pulling up a computer for the first time in several weeks this week, hence running this now).

Continue reading Overlooked & Underrated: The 25 Best Films Of 2022 You (Prolly) Didn’t See at The Playlist.

After being the first major film festival hit by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic—the unfortunate timing couldn’t have been worse, March 2020 as the virus first started causing lockdowns around the U.S. — and having to cancel that year, SXSW has been arguably hit the hardest of all the festivals in North America. 2021 SXSW had to go virtual as the virus issues persisted, but this year, the festival is finally triumphantly back in person.

Continue reading 2022 SXSW Film Festival: 15 Must-See Film & TV Projects at The Playlist.

“Whenever a human remembers something, it changes every time.” This is not so for Yang, the robot caretaker played by Justin H. Min in video-essayist-turned-filmmaker Kogonada’s sophomore feature, “After Yang.”

Adapting Alexander Weinstein’s short story, “Saying Goodbye to Yang” from his sci-fi anthology “Children of the New World,” the South Korean-born director tweaks a Philip K.

Continue reading Kogonada Talks His Gorgeous New Sci-Fi Film ‘After Yang’: “If We Break Human Beings Open, They Contain Galaxies” [Interview] at The Playlist.

“It’s a tough thing; making movies. And to talk to people who appreciate them means a lot.” Director Joachim Trier has an undeniably infectious energy, housing a clear love for the history of cinema and storytelling art in general. A pupil of director Stephen Frears while attending London’s National Film School, “The Worst Person in the World” filmmaker very much agrees with his former mentor’s philosophy that “90% of what you can do with actors starts with the casting.” Capturing both the frenetic spirit of youth and eventual acknowledgment of adulthood through her character, Julie, Cannes Best Actress winner Renate Reinsve was Trier’s only choice for the part, having written the script specifically with her in mind.

Continue reading Joachim Trier Talks The Inspiration For ‘The Worst Person In The World,’ His Love Of Graphic Novels & More [Interview] at The Playlist.

“If we break any human being open, they contain worlds; they contain galaxies, and we’re often not as curious or interested in the people all around us.” Video essayist turned filmmaker Kogonada’s remarkable feature debut “Columbus” was about the meeting of two worlds invisibly occupying the same space. The film almost feels out of time, or that itself time stops, every time its lead characters find meaning and solace in one another.

Continue reading ‘After Yang’: Kogonada Talks Love, Memories & The “Profound Sense Of Time” [Sundance] at The Playlist.

Bookended by a near-identical juxtaposition of sound and fury, directors Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace’s “Meet Me in the Bathroom” starts and ends like a messy, wannabe Jules Dassin cityscape film seen through a grunge filter. “Manhattan crowds with their turbulent musical chorus, Manhattan faces, and eyes, forever for me,” our narrator reads as we see riotous anger take to the streets. Following the evolution and rise of several now-legendary groups (in select circles) such as The Strokes, Interpol, TV on the Radio, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and LCD Soundsystem, ‘Bathroom,’ chronicles the journey of those in a musical movement who felt they were “slipping out of existence” and “didn’t have a place to play,” finding new direction and fame with the rise of the “anti-folk scene” in New York spots like the Mercury Lounge and Sidewalk Café.

Continue reading ‘Meet Me In The Bathroom’ Review: NYC 2000s Rock Rebirth Doc Is Too By The Numbers [Sundance] at The Playlist.

“I’d rather have one person dance in my car than have 100 people with the song on in the background” late-night radio DJ, Naz (Naz Kawakami), tells his friend. The young man hosts a show called “Night Drive,” on 90.1 FM Honolulu, “the show that makes you feel cool when you’re driving at night, the show where you actually are as you speed down the freeway going about your misdeeds.”

Beginning production in November 2020 as a sort of documentary/fiction hybrid, native Hawaiian filmmaker Alika Tengan’s “Every Day In Kaimukī,” is an admirable and well-intended debut, though it’s far more successful in its vibe than it is in establishing an artistic voice with command over narrative.

Continue reading ‘Every Day In Kaimukī’ Review: Moody Shoegaze Vibes Still Feel A Little Undercooked [Sundance] at The Playlist.

Opening on a slide show in an empty classroom, a storm thundering away outside, black and white frontier images flicker. They feature carriages, trains, and indigenous persons communicating with settlers; miners, hunters, and cavalry troops: a romantic portrait of Manifest Destiny. Cut to a Black woman sitting in silence at a crematorium, soon watching her mother’s ashes go up in flames. She buries them in the snow up high on a mountainside, the compositional slant of Montana’s landscape recalling the sensitivity of a Western melodrama filmmaker like Delmer Daves.

Continue reading ‘God’s Country’ Review: A Terse, Tense & Tenderly Realist Neo-Western Led By A Magnificent Thandiwe Newton [Sundance] at The Playlist.

“You can write about it, but Americans don’t read.” A firm non-believer in spoon-feeding, Academy Award-nominated documentary pioneer Christine Choy (“Who Killed Vincent Chin?”) may very well never set foot in her home country of China again. “How the f*ck can I explain to anyone where I’m from?” maintains Choy, born to a Korean father who abandoned the family shortly following her birth. “F*ck you! You describe me!”

Identity, as it pertains to nationalism, is an issue that plagues many former Chinese citizens — specifically those who were in the country during the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989, which left a number of political activists, many of them students, exiled from the country for actions deemed radical by a totalitarian government.

Continue reading ‘The Exiles’ Review: Tiananmen Square Doc is a Flawed but Essential Testament to the Power of Image-Based Reporting [Sundance] at The Playlist.

Somehow, Sundance 2020 — the last in-person iteration of the fest, pre-pandemic — feels like it was both a million years ago and just the other day. If COVID has taught us anything outside revealing the darkest side of humanity, it’s that time is definitely a construct. Many are still trying to catch up on various titles they might have missed over the last twelve months — most, no doubt, out of enjoyment, but, always some out of perceived awards’ season obligation, let’s be real.

Continue reading Sundance 2022 Preview: 20 Must-See Movies From The Festival at The Playlist.

Yes, we should be entirely way done with 2021, but permit us to close the books on this difficult year with one last belated feature whose title is not meant to be a backhanded compliment to the films, nor scolding and yes, generally relative as many people did see them, but not most (and yes, there will be some overlap with our Best of 2021 coverage, though it’s minor)

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2021

While most of us remain inside with far too many streaming options dangled in front of our eyes,  it doesn’t appear general audiences will be returning to theaters for movies that contain anything less than three Peter Parkers uniting on screen anytime soon.

Continue reading The 25 Best Films Of 2021 You Didn’t See at The Playlist.

The new year has come, which means awards season speculation and Best-Of lists run rampant before the cycle begins all over again, albeit a little belatedly this year (we needed a break!) Sundance starts next week, the Festival moving online/virtual again this year with the surge in post-holiday Omicron cases. In some ways, the Oscar game often kicks off in Park City, unofficially, critically acclaimed titles like “Coda,” often first making their mark on a potential awards run.

Continue reading The 20 Best Films Of 2022 We’ve Already Seen at The Playlist.

“The movies are back, baby!” went the refrain this summer, up to, during, and continuously after the heavenly 10-day stretch around June where everything looked like it might really go back to normal, actual normal and not “new” normal; “new” normal is in no way preferable to “normal” normal, just like “new recipe” Butterfingers are trash compared to the genuine article. Be that as it may, enough folks insisted on the pandemic’s subsiding that the movies did indeed come back, and they brought with them another detail missing and longed-for in the sacred big-screen experience: Soundtracks.

Continue reading The Best Scores & Soundtracks of 2021 at The Playlist.

At the risk of repeating ourselves, though we do encourage you to read our intro and list of the Best TV Shows & Mini-Series of 2021, there is a lot of television out there and it’s only growing. And growing immensely. With the advent of the streaming age and then the super-charged streaming age of the last two/three years. In trying to catch up to Netflix, Disney+ launched November 2019, AppleTV+ and HBO Max weren’t far behind and now pretty much every company in movies and television has its own streaming network.

Continue reading The 70 Most Anticipated TV Shows & Mini-Series Of 2022 at The Playlist.

Putting together the 100 Most Anticipated Films list is a beast in any year. Still, in the new accelerated age of streaming with HBO Max, Apple TV+, Amazon, Netflix, and all the new players popping up every single day, it seems, the task becomes more and more daunting and nearly impossible (we could have easily gone to 200 this year).

So we’re post-COVID, but oops, not-yet post-COVID, but somehow movies have survived, even if the theatrical market becomes a more challenging and riskier gambit.

Continue reading The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2022 at The Playlist.

Even since big-name actors such as Robert Redford or Clint Eastwood took their shot at sitting in the director’s chair, numerous others have followed suit with varying degrees of success. For every film a la Ryan Gosling’s “Lost River” that most people would sooner or rather forget about (if they haven’t done so already), there’s a breakout smash such as Olivia Wilde’s “Booksmart.” The prospects seem rather exciting when you hear that a talented actor like Halle Berry will be making their debut with a “female-heavy” mixed martial arts film.

Continue reading ‘Bruised’ Review: Halle Berry’s MMA Directorial Debut Is A Grueling Mix Of Sundance Misery & Lifetime Sports Clichés [AFI Fest] at The Playlist.

“Hey, boy genius,” Vanessa Hudgen’s character, Karessa, says, strutting up to her friend. Jon, the artistic prodigy in question responds that he’s about to turn 30, thus her term of endearment will soon wear out. Revered playwright and composer Jonathan Larson died of an aortic aneurysm; on the day his now legendary breakout play “Rent” was scheduled to have its first preview performance. “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda saw “Rent” on stage almost one year, to the day, after Larson passed away.

Continue reading ‘tick, tick… BOOM!’ Review: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tribute To Jonathan Larson Is Strictly For Musical Theatre Geeks [AFI Fest] at The Playlist.

There’s a specificity of intention to David Prior’s “The Empty Man” that eludes most studio horror projects. Inspired by the Boom Studios! comic (created by writer Cullen Bunn and artist Vanessa del Rey), Prior’s debut could have been a success story were the movie released under different circumstances. Inherited by Disney following the Fox merger, and dumped into theaters mid-pandemic, “The Empty Man” certainly wasn’t given the A24 Ari Aster treatment, which is a shame, as Prior’s film would make an outstanding, grief-tinged double feature with “Midsommar” or “Hereditary,” though its shape is far more chimerically hypnotic. 

Continue reading Director David Prior Talks ‘The Empty Man,’ ‘Voir’ & Netflix Becoming “Custodians To The Cinematic Experience” [Interview] at The Playlist.

Much like author Haruki Murakami—whose short story “Drive My Car” provided the basis for the filmmaker’s other (outstanding) movie being released this year—Japanese director Ryūsuke Hamaguchi is clearly a hopeless romantic at heart, making films about people afraid of falling in love, or too ashamed to face its consequences. Both artists’ works also frequently feature doubles and doppelgangers as symbolic motifs—Hamaguchi’s film “Asako I & II,” broken up into two parts, wherein a woman falls instantly in love with two men who look identical but have radically disparate personalities and demeanors.

Continue reading ‘Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy’: Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s Latest Is A Poignant Look At Love’s Consequences [Review] at The Playlist.

“There’s a truth in art established over time,” Isabelle Huppert’s philosophy professor tells her students in French director Mia Hansen-Løve’s 2016 film, “Things to Come.” “Why can’t time get it wrong?” one of her young academics questions.  

Titled “L’Avenir” (“The Future”) in the filmmaker’s native language, “Things to Come,” features a scene wherein Huppert’s character attends a screening of Abbas Kiarostami’s playful and profoundly meta, “Certified Copy,” a film which shares many aspects with Hansen-Løve’s latest picture “Bergman Island.” Following a filmmaking couple (played by Vicky Krieps & Tim Roth, both perfectly cast) on an artistic retreat to the island of Fårö, a location Swedish director Ingmar Bergman shot many of his films, beginning with “Through a Glass Darkly.” Exploring the requisite creative tension between loneliness and camaraderie, Hansen-Løve’s movie is made of two parallel narratives “reflecting the same film endlessly,” finding Krieps’ filmmaker character, Chris, conceiving her next project, one that echoes her past and present in a number of ways.

Continue reading Director Mia Hansen-Løve Talks ‘Bergman Island,’ Recasting Midshoot & Shooting The Film In 2 Parts [Interview] at The Playlist.

One of the few positive things the pandemic has done for movie buffs is left us with an onslaught of leftover 2020 titles held for this year’s fall festival circuit. Case in point: the 59th Annual New York Film Festival. 

READ MORE: NYFF 2021 Exclusive Trailer: Take A Peek At The Acclaimed Films Coming To The Upcoming Event

Most all of the major works by revered world cinema directors—many of which have premiered at other fests already— have some kind of presence at NYFF.

Continue reading New York Film Festival 2021: The 17 Most Anticipated Films at The Playlist.

If you’re a world cinema lover who does not yet know the name Ryûsuke Hamaguchi—winner of the Best Screenplay prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for his adaption of Haruki Murakami’s short story, “Drive My Car” (read our rave review)—that is very likely about to change.

READ MORE: Best Of Cannes 2021: 15 Must-See Movies From The Festival

Hamaguchi has been a busy fellow recently, also co-writing Kiyoshi Kurasawa’s “Wife of a Spy,” (another great Japanese film you should check out) as well as taking home Berlin’s Grand Jury prize for his anthology project, “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy,” the trailer for which has just been released.

Continue reading ‘Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy’ Trailer: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Award-Winning Anthology Film Arrives In October at The Playlist.

Imagine being told one day that you can no longer, legally, live in the one place you’ve long called home; if you fight to stay and lose, you’ll never be able to return again. Such a scenario is the dramatic crux for Korean-American writer/director Justin Chon’s latest film, the beautiful, emotional drama “Blue Bayou,” which premiered earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival.

READ MORE: Fall 2021 Movie Preview: 60+ Must-See Films

The story of Antonio LeBlanc (Chon, in a bruising performance), a dedicated family man and soon-to-be father of two, brought to the U.S.

Continue reading Justin Chon Talks ‘Blue Bayou,’ Spotlighting The Asian Adoptee Experience, Wong Kar-Wai Comparisons & More [Interview] at The Playlist.

As you might have read, Paul Thomas Anderson has finally unveiled a first look at his new film—though only in select theaters—now officially titled “Licorice Pizza.” Luckily, by attending a 35mmm double feature at American Cinematheque’s Los Feliz 3 location, yours truly was accidentally privy to the honor of seeing the trailer for PTA’s majestic-looking new movie. Twice.

Reportedly first shown in front of “American Graffiti,” in London, the film previously known as “Soggy Bottom” is clearly the auteur’s foray into the rebel teen genre.

Continue reading ‘Licorice Pizza’ Trailer Breakdown: An Intimate Mash-Up Of ‘Inherent Vice’ & ‘Boogie Nights’ at The Playlist.

“In the summer of 2002, a plague of unknown origin destroyed every last sperm, fetus, and fully developed mammal with a Y chromosome—with the apparent exception of one young man and his pet, a male Capuchin monkey.” So reads the epitaph at the end of “Y: The Last Man’s” first issue.

READ MORE: 10 TV Shows To Watch In September: ‘Scenes From A Marriage,’ ‘The Morning Show,’ ‘Foundation’ & More

Walk through your local comic book store in a post-Avengers world and point to an acclaimed series on the shelves; odds are it’s already been optioned for the IP frontlines of our streaming wars.

Continue reading ‘Y: The Last Man’ Updates A Beloved Comic Book’s Gender Politics With Mixed But Mainly Positive Results [Review] at The Playlist.