“Whether it’s race, whether it’s gentrification, whether it’s police brutality, we’re hoping that people are willing to listen and then talk amongst themselves. We’re not pretending to have any answers.”
– Carlos López Estrada

“I haven’t worked on a project really where the message of it mattered so much to me. It felt like the message I wanted when I was in that time period. To get to do that for other people and even for myself? I loved that. Part of working on this was realizing that it’s chill to be who you are. It felt very good to say that.”
– Elsie Fisher

While my own middle school experiences aren’t ones I’d want to relive, watching Eighth Grade is a trip back to school I’d be happy to take whenever the opportunity to do so might arise.

Yet it is Phoenix, almost all on his own, who makes Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot something that borders on essential.

Newcomer Aislinn Clarke’s confident and sinister debut feature The Devil’s Doorway is a clever twist on the “found footage” subgenre of horror films, her movie more concerned with her three principal characters and their twisting moral ambiguities than it is in unleashing a bunch of nonsensical cheap scares.

Leave No Trace is a human mystery where the clue to answering complex psychological riddles squarely resides in the familial bonds of love a father shares with his only daughter, Tom’s ability to see the bigger picture while also taking charge of her life on her own accord an inspirational stunner I can’t wait to see again.

If Let the Sunshine In isn’t Denis’ most vital work, that doesn’t make it any less artistically dazzling, the hope for a better tomorrow overflowing in thoughtful companionship and unfettered love a universal longing intelligent viewers of all types should have no problem relating to.

With Hearts Beat Loud, Haley has composed a universally accessible human drama of music, romance and family that brought tears to my eyes while at the same time had me wanting to leap out of my seat in order to give it a hearty cheer.

It’s impossible to watch Morgan Neville’s Fred Rogers documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? and not come away from the experience moved.