‘Drop Dead City’: When New York Was on the Financial Brink
Movies, Yesterday
This surprisingly entertaining film examines the 1975 fiscal crisis that nearly led the city to bankruptcy. The movie’s conclusions remain relevant today.
‘Havoc’ Review: A Fighting Spirit
Weekend, April 24
Tom Hardy is a crooked cop looking to make amends in Gareth Evans’s action-packed film.
‘The Trouble With Jessica’ Review: Dinner Party or Crime Scene?
Weekend, April 24
This British black comedy, starring Indira Varma, centers on a group of wealthy middle-aged friends with fraught histories.
‘Until Dawn’ Review: They Keep Dying, You’ll Keep Shrugging
Weekend, April 24
Based on a video game, this movie is done in by mediocre monsters and muddled time loops.
‘Magic Farm’ Review: A Droll Delight
Weekend, April 24
Amalia Ulman’s playful second feature follows an American television crew that lands in rural Argentina.
‘Cheech and Chong’s Last Movie’ Review: Rolling Another One for the Road
Weekend, April 24
The comedy duo celebrates a partnership that they just can’t quit in this celebratory documentary.
‘On Swift Horses’ Review: Putting It All on the Line
Weekend, April 24
Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi lead a melancholic drama about love and longing in the 1950s.
‘Blue Sun Palace’ Review: A Whole World Inside
Weekend, April 24
A gorgeously intimate debut feature explores the lives of Chinese immigrants in a massage parlor in Queens.
‘April’ Review: A Doctor’s Dilemma
Weekend, April 24
In this, her second feature, the Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili takes on the risks faced by an obstetrician who performs kitchen-table abortions.
‘The Accountant 2’ Review: Ben Affleck’s Revenge of the Killer Nerd
Weekend, April 24
Affleck returns as a brilliant C.P.A. who moonlights as a mysterious, gun-toting fixer and gets help from his little bro, played by Jon Bernthal.
‘Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey’ Review: Emotional Rescue
Culture, April 21
In this heartfelt wildlife documentary, a volunteer conservationist and an endangered critter develop a parent-child connection.
Ani DiFranco Tried to Collaborate. Then the Pandemic Hit.
Culture, April 18
The film “1-800-ON-HER-OWN” follows the fiercely independent artist as she tries a career first: writing a song with another artist.
‘The Ugly Stepsister’ Review: Nipped, Tucked and Royally Fussed Over
Weekend, April 17
This deliciously nasty reworking of the Cinderella fairy tale imagines how far one of the stepsisters would go to marry her prince.
‘The Wedding Banquet’ Review: The Family You Find
Weekend, April 17
A retelling of Ang Lee’s classic of queer cinema comes at the same farcical situation in a new way.
‘Sinners’ Review: Ryan Coogler’s Southern Horror Fantasia
Weekend, April 17
The director goes boldly out there in his fifth feature, a genre-defying, mind-bending shoot-em-up that stars Michael B. Jordan as twins.
‘The Shrouds’ Review: For Cronenberg, Grief Is an Obsession
Weekend, April 17
The director’s latest stars Vincent Cassel as an entrepreneur who mourns the death of his wife by inventing technology that surveils her entombed body.
‘Queens of Drama’ Review: A Half-Century Feud
Weekend, April 17
Alexis Langlois’s musical romance is an unruly story of a love-hate relationship between two ambitious musicians.
‘The President’s Wife’ Review: Would Madame Get Your Vote?
Weekend, April 17
Catherine Deneuve plays the former French first lady Bernadette Chirac in this puckish, highly fictionalized biopic with a pop-feminist edge.
‘The Legend of Ochi’ Review: The Great, Familiar Adventure
Weekend, April 17
A 1980s throwback movie about a teenager who sets out on a journey with a mysterious being.
‘Invention’ Review: Patent Pensive
Weekend, April 17
In this strange experimental feature from Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez, a grieving daughter investigates the mysterious gadget her father left behind.
‘Pets’ Is the Rare Documentary for Children, About Children
Culture, April 11
The movie, directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, celebrates animals while planting a seed of interest in rescue operations.
‘G20’ Review: Viola Davis Plays an Action-Hero President
Weekend, April 10
Davis raises the bar on sheer brawniness in this action film where an American president has to fight Australian crypto-terrorists.
‘Warfare’ Review: A Combat Movie That Refuses to Entertain
Weekend, April 10
In Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza’s film about an American platoon in Iraq, there is no admirably staged bloodshed or witty repartee. That’s the point.
‘The Uninvited’ Review: A Surprise Guest at the Garden Party
Weekend, April 10
Hollywood types get skewered in this comedy of manners, starring Walton Goggins, Pedro Pascal and Elizabeth Reaser.
‘The Teacher’ Review: Harsh Lessons in the West Bank
Weekend, April 10
A legal procedural, a family tragedy, a romance and a kidnapping plot are a lot to hang on one character in this debut film by Farah Nabulsi.
‘Sacramento’ Review: Best Frenemies
Weekend, April 10
In this warmly funny indie comedy, two friends with a complicated past confront their grief and anxieties on a California road trip.
‘One to One: John & Yoko’ Review: A Year in the Life
Weekend, April 10
Kevin Macdonald’s immersive documentary follows the couple from their heady first days in New York to their galvanizing concert at Madison Square Garden in 1972.
‘The King of Kings’ Review: A Remaking of the Christ
Weekend, April 10
The story of Jesus, told through the eyes of Charles Dickens, that nobody asked for.
‘Drop’ Review: The Ultimate Doomscroll
Weekend, April 10
A first date turns hellish when a terrified woman’s phone is cloned by an anonymous psycho in this stylishly silly thriller.
‘The Amateur’ Review: An Unsafe World
Weekend, April 10
Rami Malek stars in a spy movie that struggles with its conspiratorial angle.
A Film Tries to Make Sense of Andy Kaufman’s Comedy of Discomfort
Culture, April 4
“Thank You Very Much,” directed by Alex Braverman, uses archival footage and interviews to explore the appeal of a stand-up who didn’t tell jokes.
‘When Fall Is Coming’ Review: Cooking Up a Mystery
Weekend, April 3
With her kind eyes and guileless smile, Hélène Vincent plays a sweet old French lady. But looks can be deceiving in this François Ozon film.
‘The Luckiest Man in America’ Review: Taking a Game Show for a Spin
Weekend, April 3
Paul Walter Hauser stars as a real-life contestant on “Press Your Luck” who pulled off an improbable trick.
‘Hell of a Summer’ Review: Shallow Cuts
Weekend, April 3
Summer camp counselors run afoul of a masked killer in this limp, uninspired slasher throwback from Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk.
‘Henry Fonda for President’ Review: A Legend and His Contradictions
Weekend, April 3
Fonda was the embodiment of America, the director Alexander Horwath posits in this documentary.
‘Freaky Tales’ Review: Totally Oakland
Weekend, April 3
Misogyny and racism get their butts spanked in this bold, messy celebration of the Bay Area in the 1980s.
‘A Nice Indian Boy’ Review: Meet-Cute at a Hindu Temple
Weekend, April 3
Thanks to the instant chemistry between Karan Soni and Jonathan Groff, the film pulls off their whirlwind romance.
‘The Martial Artist’ Review: Tap Out
Weekend, April 3
In this overwrought action film by Shaz Khan, a mixed martial artist’s career is upended when his brother is killed.
‘Love Hotel’ Review: Finding Space for Beauty in the Bleakness
Weekend, April 3
A Shinji Somai contribution to a narrow soft-core subgenre crushes together the anonymity and violence, desire and trauma, that bind lives of alienation.
‘Gazer’ Review: Peering Out From a Lonely Place
Weekend, April 3
Ryan J. Sloan’s brooding thriller is a murky tale about an isolated woman, with many shades of Schrader, Nolan and Cronenberg.
‘Eric LaRue’ Review: When Pain Won’t Stay Quiet
Weekend, April 3
Judy Greer stars in a searing drama about the mother of a school shooter and all the things we try not to say.
‘A Minecraft Movie’ Review: Block by Bizarre Block
Weekend, April 2
Jack Black and Jason Momoa star in this adaptation of the megahit video game that leans into the mindless silliness of mid-aughts comedy.
‘Secret Mall Apartment’ and the Blurred Line Between Life and Art
Culture, March 28
Jeremy Workman’s documentary looks back at a project that may sound like a joke but had serious underpinnings.
‘A Working Man’ Review: Blue Collar, Bloody Hands
Weekend, March 27
Jason Statham plays a construction worker who’s as deft at breaking bones as he is at building high-rises.
‘Julie Keeps Quiet’ Review: Coping at Her Own Speed
Weekend, March 27
A teenage regional tennis star moves on at her own pace after her ex-coach is dismissed under a cloud of suspicion.
‘The Penguin Lessons’ Review: A Unique Approach to Teaching
Weekend, March 27
Steve Coogan plays Tom Michell, an English teacher in 1970s Argentina, whose small new friend makes his class a hit.
‘Grand Tour’ Review: A Quiet Knockout
Weekend, March 27
The Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomes’s black-and-white film follows a colonial official on a 20th-century odyssey across Asia, with his fiancée in pursuit.
‘Holland’ Review: Nicole Kidman Goes Dutch
Weekend, March 27
Set in a Michigan town designed to evoke the Netherlands, this thriller has red herring on the menu.
‘Viet and Nam’ Review: A Soft Kiss Underground
Weekend, March 27
Truong Minh Quy’s haunting romance between two Vietnamese coal miners contemplates war and loss with pained elegance.
‘Holy Cow’ Review: How to Become a Big Cheese
Weekend, March 27
Louise Courvoisier’s debut feature follows a teenager in the French Alps who, when thrust into caring for his sister, forges a path in cheese making.
‘The Friend’ Review: The Writer vs. the Great Dane
Weekend, March 27
Naomi Watts plays a writer in mourning who is given a formidable gift from a friend in this adaptation of the Sigrid Nunez novel.
‘Death of a Unicorn’ Review: Into the Woods (Chomp, Chomp)
Weekend, March 27
Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega play a father and daughter who run down a mystical beast and end up running amok with a monstrous brood.
‘The Ballad of Wallis Island’ Review: A Sour Note
Weekend, March 27
Carey Mulligan briefly warms this damp, downbeat comedy about two lonely men and their musical obsession.
‘Art for Everybody’ Review: The Hidden Life of the ‘Painter of Light’
Weekend, March 27
Thomas Kinkade turned himself into a ubiquitous brand — but there was more to him than that, a new documentary shows.
‘Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net’ Review: How the Magic Happens
Weekend, July 25
This documentary chronicles the reboot and reopening in Las Vegas of the acrobatic show “O,” which shutdown during the pandemic.
‘Fire Through Dry Grass’ Review: Unsafe Space
Weekend, September 28
This enlightening, troubling documentary chronicles life (and death) among residents in a long-term care facility during the heights of the pandemic.
‘Broadway Rising’ Review: Surviving the Pandemic
Weekend, December 27
Stakeholders including Patti LuPone and Lynn Nottage share their real-time reactions to New York theater’s shutdown and reopening in Amy Rice’s documentary.
‘Bad Axe’ Review: A Pandemic Family Portrait
Weekend, November 17
The filmmaker David Siev chronicles his family’s struggle to keep their Michigan restaurant afloat through the pandemic in this hermetic documentary.