Shirley paints the author with an insightfully lush and vibrant brush, her relationship with Rose allowing for a level of empathetic understanding that makes enduring all those ethereal metaphorical ghouls, ghosts and demons magnetically worthwhile.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always is a magnificent piece of culturally observational storytelling that is purposefully raw in its depictions of female friendships in the face of extreme physical and emotional crisis.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is more than a historical romance. It is more than a feminist drama drawing a metaphorical line from the distant past to the here and now.

Pain and Glory is one of Almodóvar’s most personal storytelling endeavors. It is also one of his best.

Hustlers is a movie that goes for broke right from the jump, it’s feminine gaze directed oftentimes within as it celebrates these friendships, cherishing the familial bonds the women end up creating even as society turns a blind eye towards their collective travails.

The Farewell is one of the best films of 2019. Heck, it might even be one of the best of the entire decade.

I do hope Toy Story 4 is the last of the series, if only because the bow it puts on Woody’s four-film expedition is tied with such loving perfection I have trouble imagining the filmmakers could ever do better than what they miraculously accomplish here.

Booksmart is one of the best movies of 2019.

Sunset is a daring, thought-provoking motion picture that overflows in disturbing resonance, Nemes drawing parallels between the personal saga of a woman looking for answers to questions she didn’t even initially know, the birth of WWI and the groundwork for the fascist resurgence we’re seeing in the United States and several European countries right this very second here in the 21st century over a hundred years after this story is set.