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Den of Thieves: Pantera, Better Man, The Last Showgirl
Better Man ***1/2
Count me all-in on the trend—after the “Pharrell-as-LEGO” documentary Piece by Piece and this oddball endeavor—of bypassing the Walk Hard musical biopic clichés through imaginative representation of the central figure.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Porcelain War
Porcelain War **1/2
It’s not surprising that being caught in a war zone should yield a tangle of thoughts and ideas, but that tangle manifests itself in a documentary by directors Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev that never finds a specific focus. At the outset, we meet Leontyev and his personal/artistic partner Anya Stasenko, as well as their friend and fellow artist Andrey Stefanov as they navigate living through the Russian assault on Ukraine, specifically their home city of Kharkiv.
A Complete Unknown, Nosferatu, The Fire Inside, Babygirl
Babygirl ***
Writer/director Halina Reijn is hardly the first filmmaker to address characters exploring a submissive kink—Secretary and Phantom Thread, among others, beat her to that punch—but she’s still able to find a couple of unique angles in the psychology of desire. Her protagonist is Romy Mathis (Nicole Kidman), a corporate CEO with a husband (Antonio Banderas) and two daughters who finds herself drawn to new intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson) when he provides her with the chance to release her inner bottom.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Mufasa: The Lion King, Homestead, The Six Triple Eight
Homestead **
Perhaps it's on me that I didn't realize the full story behind this faith-based apocalyptic drama, but it’s hard to overstate the bitterness one can feel when you’re watching what you think is a movie, but instead is the pilot for series. Ben Kasica and Jason Ross created this tale set in the aftermath of a terrorist attack on the United States, as various characters—including military veteran Jeff Eriksson (Bailey Chase) and his family—converge on the Rocky Mountain compound owned by Ian Ross (Neal McDonough), one of the few places in the region with a secure food supply.
Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, Kraven the Hunter, Queer, Carry-On, The End
Carry-On ***1/2
It’s pretty nervy for anyone to try to horn in on Die Hard’s territory as “kick-ass action thriller that’s also a Christmas movie,” but director Jaume Collet-Serra and screenwriters T. J. Fixman & Michael Green craft a ripping good yarn. Set at LAX on Christmas Eve, it follows a TSA agent named Ethan (Taron Egerton) blackmailed by a mercenary (Jason Bateman) to allow a bag through security that decidedly should not be allowed through security.
On Wednesday, The Sundance Film Festival announced its slate of features and episodic selections for the 2025 edition of the festival, scheduled to begin Jan. 23, 2025 and run through Feb. 2 in Park City and Salt Lake City, with online "virtual festival" access for select titles during the second half of the festival. Here are the titles.
Y2K, Nightbitch, Flow, The Return, The Order, Werewolves, Get Away
Flow ***1/2
We live in an age of ever-advancing filmmaking technology, but I’ll gladly sacrifice state-of-the-art for something that feels dedicated to basic, engaging storytelling principles. This minimalist, wordless animated feature from Latvian director Gints Zibalodis is set in a post-human world, where a solitary cat attempts to survive in the midst of an apocalyptic flood, eventually requiring the assistance of other animals like a capybara, a lemur and a previously-antagonistic dog.
Gladiator II, Wicked, The Piano Lesson, Blitz, Bonhoeffer, Black Box Diaries and more
Black Box Diaries ***1/2
"Issue documentaries” sometimes feel like they can only take you so far emotionally; this one packs a real wallop because it’s also such a powerful character study. That character is Shiori Itô, a Japanese journalist who here chronicles her long battle for justice after accusing Noriyuki Yamaguchi—a high-powered journalist with connections to then-prime-minister Shinzo Abe—of drugging and raping her in 2015.
Ghost Cat Anzu ***
The predictability of so much American feature animation certainly gets a bracing counterpoint in this anime adventure that feels both vaguely familiar and somehow also its own weird thing. Based on the manga by Takashi Imashiro, it’s the story of an adolescent girl named Karin (Noa Gotō) who’s left by her widowed, gambling-debt-ridden father Tetsuya (Munetaka Aoki) at the temple run by her grandfather.
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Heretic, Small Things Like These, Memoir of a Snail and more
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever ***
Barbara Robinson’s 1972 novel The Best Christmas Pageant Ever remains one of sweetest, most earnest examples of faith-based family entertainment this side of A Charlie Brown Christmas, and Dallas Jenkins’ adaptation retains nearly everything that makes the source material work. Narrated in flashback by Lauren Graham, it’s set in a picturesque 1970s small town where well-meaning mom Grace (Judy Greer) agrees to take over directing the town’s beloved Nativity pageant, only to find that the Herdmans—a sextet of near-feral siblings with absentee parents—are dead set on taking it over.
