NOW critics pick the best recent movies, overlooked classics and essential titles available on the streaming platform

The greatest selling point of streaming services – a near-infinite choice of entertainment, instantly available to anyone anywhere – is also its greatest drawback: if you don’t have a clear plan, you can spend an hour or more just scrolling through the various categories before giving up and going to bed. No judgment here, we’ve all done it… and, if we’re being honest, some of us can’t stop doing it. So as a public service (and to get around the algorithm), NOW’s writers have gone deep into the tiles to recommend some recent favourites, overlooked classics and essential titles available to watch right now. And we’ll update this post regularly as titles leave and join Netflix Canada. We’re not monsters.

The 40-Year-Old Version

Radha Blank wrote, directed and starred in this cringe-comedy about an artist reaching a point in life where the need to make money brushes up against a desire for creative fulfillment. Blank plays a once-buzzy playwright who starts rapping to rekindle her creative spark while selling out on Broadway. Shot in romantic and intimate black-and-white, The 40-Year-Old Version is packed with one-liners and great musical sequences. Though the lead character is highly cynical, the movie takes a refreshingly uncynical view of the generation gap.

Atlantics

Director Mati Diop’s Cannes-winning feature debut is a dystopian gothic romance full of elegant, unforgettable imagery. Mama Sané plays a young, lower-class Senegalese woman whose lover drowns at sea while attempting to migrate to Spain, and her ensuing emotional disarray manifests in a series of strange happenings. A movie about those left behind in the global humanitarian crisis, Atlantics cleverly subverts a realist aesthetic to draw viewers into a supernatural story about class, grief and belief.

Amazing Grace

The fact that it’s possible to watch Sydney Pollack’s absolutely electrifying documentary of Aretha Franklin recording her gospel album of the same name at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles is a miracle twice over: first, because the footage wasn’t properly synchronized when Pollack and his crew shot it in 1972, and it was assumed that could never be corrected. Digital editing tools finally made it possible, and Amazing Grace was completed years after Pollack’s death by his friend and collaborator Alan Elliott… and it is a wonder to behold: the energy of Franklin and the musicians and singers supporting her builds in waves, their performance reflected back to them by the audience’s response. When Franklin finally gets to her staggering, wrenching, joyous interpretation of the eponymous hymn, it’s impossible not to be moved.

The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography

Oscar-winning documentarian Errol Morris (The Fog Of War) spends some time in Boston with his old friend Elsa, who specializes in intimate, vivid large-format Polaroid portraits – and who now sees her specialization threatened by the death of traditional photography. The result is a movie about mortality and impermanence, and the impulse to leave one’s mark on the world while one still can… or, if you’re Elsa Dorfman, the refusal to take all of this so seriously, and take pictures until the film runs out.

Bad Trip

Hidden camera comedies are well-worn territory, but director Kitao Sakurai and star/writer Eric Andre give the genre a jolt of energy by transposing the clichéd narratives of Hollywood rom-coms, road trip and buddy comedies into the streets of mostly working-class southern communities. There are plenty of ridiculously raunchy digressions, but Bad Trip manages to give viewers an optimistic and heartening look at America without glossing over issues of race and class. If anything, the movie exposes how inane and out-of-touch idealized stories about “levelling up” in life can be. Also: Tiffany Haddish delivers her funniest performance since Girls Trip.

The Big Short

Adam McKay’s Oscar-winning adaptation of Michael Lewis’s 2010 book about the financial meltdown of 2008 somehow pulls laughs from outrage, laying out the corporate malfeasance and regulatory failures that led the world into disaster through the eyes of a coterie of hedge fund managers and financial analysts (Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, Brad Pitt and others) who saw the crisis coming and bet on disaster – figuring that if they couldn’t warn the world of the impending collapse, they could at least guarantee their clients wouldn’t be part of it. McKay orchestrates it all so deftly that you might not even notice how angry he is… at least, not right away.

BlackKklansman

In 1972, a Black police officer named Ron Stallworth infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado. Spike Lee turns that remarkable true story into the bleakest comedy imaginable, fictionalizing it into an odd-couple buddy-cop picture with John David Washington as Stallworth and Adam Driver as the Jewish co-worker who goes to Klan meetings in Stallworth’s place. But the laughs fade quickly as our heroes realize exactly how deep the KKK’s roots go – and Lee steers the narrative into genuine outrage at how entrenched racism remains decades later.

Boogie Nights

If Robert Altman and Martin Scorsese made a movie about the Valley porn scene, it might look a lot like Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 breakout. He was just 26 when he shot it, and you can feel his restless energy powering its dense, multicharacter narrative as his unparalleled ensemble – including Mark Wahlberg, John C. Reilly, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Heather Graham, Don Cheadle, William H. Macy, Luis Guzmán, Ricky Jay, Melora Walters, Philip Baker Hall, Thomas Jane, Alfred Molina and a baby-faced Philip Seymour Hoffman – takes us through the dizzying highs and devastating lows of their characters’ lives. It’s one for the ages.

Children Of Men

Set in a too-close-for-comfort 2027, Alfonso Cuarón’s grim adaptation of P.D. James’s 1981 novel is as bleak as movies come: humanity has stopped making babies and as a result the future is utterly without hope. Clive Owen is a hollowed-out Londoner enlisted by his ex (Julianne Moore) to safely escort a miraculously pregnant woman (Clare-Hope Ashitey) out of England, an odyssey that leads us through an entirely plausible hellscape of despairing crowds and cynical political appointees – and, somehow, out the other side.

Collective

Alexander Nanau’s methodical, devastating documentary begins with a team of Romanian journalists who uncover a horrific, government-toppling health-care scandal, and then expands to follow the efforts of Vlad Voiculescu, the young patient advocate tasked by the provisional administration to repair that system. Given the sheer amount of information the film has to convey, and the number of subjects whose stories Nanau must juggle, it’s remarkable that Collective feels as clean and precise as it does; the filmmaker and his team organize the complex, frequently unbelievable story into a vivid two-hour narrative, never quite disguising their own outrage at what they – and we – are seeing.

Cuties

French director Maïmouna Doucouré’s unsentimental and empathetic debut feature plugs into the fury of an 11-year-old who rebels against her polygamist father’s impending nuptials by secretly joining a hypersexual dance troupe. It’s about a young girl struggling to define her values in the face of social media platforms heavily pushing one-dimensional notions of femininity. The trust the director puts in her audience is like a rebellion in and of itself. A movie about childhood that isn’t afraid to confront the messiness of childhood.

Dick Johnson Is Dead

Cinematographer and occasional filmmaker Kirsten Johnson makes a companion piece to 2016’s Cameraperson, focusing on her relationship with her father Dick, who’s recently been diagnosed with dementia – and who enthusiastically helps Kirsten imagine his own death (and afterlife) with little movie shoots as a form of therapy. It’s both a heartening look at a father and daughter facing the end of their lifelong bond, and a cheerful experimental documentary about impending loss. And Dick’s terrible acting is its own wonderful reward. 

The Disciple

Chaitanya Tamhane’s second feature exalts a sublime art form without putting artists on a pedestal. Sharad (Aditya Modak) is a devoted student of Hindustani classical music who is skeptical of performing and recording for profit. Through a series of beautifully composed, quietly scathing scenes, Tamhane schools viewers on the particulars of Northern Indian classical music while opening philosophical questions about art and commerce. It’s a classic theme, but the understated approach allows the performance scenes to advance the story on an emotional level. The Disciple grows ever more absorbing as it progresses.

Easy A 

A high-school senior (Emma Stone) finds herself slut-shamed after a white lie about losing her virginity goes viral in Will Gluck’s chipper riff on The Scarlet Letter, which occupies the same clear-headed comic space as 10 Things I Hate About You and Mean Girls; it’s a movie you can respect in the morning. Stone is clearly having a blast in her first leading role, channelling the same confidence that Matthew Broderick brought to Ferris Bueller – even quoting him on at least two occasions – while Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci do their best to steal the picture as her proudly eccentric parents.

An Easy Girl

Rebecca Zlotowski’s charming coming-of-age drama follows a working-class teen (Mina Farid) on summer break in Cannes whose hedonistic cousin (social media influencer Zahia Dehar) sashays into town and challenges her notions around value and work. Paced with the lightness of a summer vacation, it’s also acerbic and philosophical, giving you eye candy while slyly questioning everything. An Easy Girl is as light or as deep as you need it to be.

First Man 

Damien Chazelle and Ryan Gosling followed La La Land with this intimate and expansive drama tracking eight years in the life of Neil Armstrong – the first man to set foot on the moon. The historical re-creations are exhaustively accurate, but even more impressive is how Gosling and Claire Foy match each other’s very specific energy as Neil and Janet Armstrong, two very different people who make perfect sense together. The final sequence loses some impact outside of IMAX theatres, but just focus on Gosling’s face. He’ll get you through it.

The Half Of It

Alice Wu’s charming teenage riff on Cyrano de Bergerac understands the real anguish of Edmond Rostand’s romantic tragedy: it’s not the ache of sending your dream girl into the arms of another, it’s the pain of being unseen by the one you love. That’s the problem facing Ellie Chu (Leah Lewis), who turns her crush on the alluring Aster Flores (Alexxis Lemire) into a gig ghost-writing love letters to Aster from her lovesick neighbour Paul Munsky (Daniel Diemer). Wu’s queer tweak to Rostand works beautifully, bringing out the closeted aspects of Cyrano that were always there: the outsider protagonist, yearning for a love that isn’t considered possible or proper, shepherding the woman he loves towards a more conventional life even as he knows she deserves better. And making Cyrano a withdrawn Chinese-American teenager who’s sure of her sexuality but unable to act on her feelings snaps the whole thing together beautifully.

Hail Satan?

Penny Lane’s latest wild trip through America’s culture wars profiles the Satanic Temple, a secularism-worshipping religious organization that uses the First Amendment to fight off attempts by Christian groups to erect theocratic monuments on public property. It’s a hilarious, entertaining and eye-opening film that goes deep into the politicized history of Satanism and the desire to belong to a movement – activist or religious. The theatrical ritual scenes are mind-blowing.

High Life

French auteur Claire Denis’s English-language sci-fi horror movie starring Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche inspired walkouts during its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018. It’s not hard to understand why – High Life is more future camp classic than futuristic. Set in space on a prison ship, Binoche plays an evil, sperm-stealing doctor intent on seducing Pattinson’s celibate convicted murderer as their craft hurtles toward a black hole. There’s birth, death and impeccably designed space fashions.

His House 

Writer/director Remi Weekes’s first feature – about two South Sudanese refugees (Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù, Wunmi Mosaku) trapped with one another in a crumbling townhouse in England – is a rare horror film where the supernatural threat is an almost incidental complication to the misery the protagonists are already going through. Which isn’t to say it isn’t scary; in fact, it’s a nail-shredder. It’s also infernally clever about how it uses dark rooms filled with spirits to amplify its protagonists’ very real PTSD, and in holding back a third-act twist that’s truly shocking. 

High Flying Bird 

A sports picture without any sports, Steven Soderbergh’s run-and-gun drama follows an agent (André Holland) rushing around New York City during an NBA lockout, trying to rep both a rookie (Melvin Gregg) and a white-hot pro (Justin Hurtt-Dunkley) while also possibly bringing basketball back to the people. Written by Tarell Alvin McCraney (Moonlight) and directed, shot and edited by Soderbergh with his usual crackerjack proficiency, it’s a drama about what people will do for money and respect, and – like Holland’s character – it’s really smart about what it does and how it does it.

Hotel Artemis 

So there’s this movie where Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Dave Bautista, Sofia Boutella, Charlie Day, Zachary Quinto, Jenny Slate and Jeff Goldblum run around a secret hospital for rich criminals in a near-future Los Angeles. How have you never heard of it? Well, thanks to a less-than-optimal distribution deal in Canada, screenwriter Drew Pearce’s gritty, inventive directorial debut was hard to find for a while. Now it’s on Netflix, which means you can enjoy watching “Reservoir Dogs meets John Wick during The Purge” with the tap of a tile.

If Beale Street Could Talk

Barry Jenkins’s If Beale Street Could Talk doesn’t have the intimate grandeur that made Moonlight land like a supernova two years earlier; its style is more realistic, its dramatic sensibility more reserved. But with a couple years’ distance, Jenkins’s 2018 adaptation of James Baldwin’s 1974 novel feels more and more like a classic on its own terms: a complex portrait of Harlem lovers torn apart by racism and indifference, and the shock waves that reverberate through their families. Stephan James and KiKi Layne are the lovers, with Colman Domingo, Aunjanue Ellis, Brian Tyree Henry, Michael Beach and an Oscar-winning Regina King as their people, every last character worthy of his or her own movie.

The Irishman

No, the digital de-aging doesn’t work, but that’s only an issue in the first hour or so of Martin Scorsese’s epic American crime story, which stretches over 60 years in the life of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), the mob hit man who claimed to have killed Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). It’s another of Scorsese’s insider epics, per GoodFellas and Casino, but with one crucial difference: there’s no pleasure to be had in any of it. Sheeran does his thing and ends up decrepit and alone, and neither Scorsese nor De Niro let us off the hook about that. He wasn’t a good guy. He has it coming.

Logan Lucky 

Logan Lucky broke Steven Soderbergh’s self-imposed directing exile in 2017 and plays like a celebration of his strengths. You’ve got charming actors playing well-drawn characters (Channing Tatum and Adam Driver as squabbling brothers plotting to rob a North Carolina speedway, and Daniel Craig as a hayseed explosives expert), exquisitely orchestrated storytelling and the willingness to give the audience credit for being able to follow the plot while appreciating weird little jokes and observations peppered throughout. By the time Hilary Swank turns up as a federal agent who thinks she’s Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive, you’re either on board or you walked away an hour ago. Either way, Soderbergh wins.

Marriage Story

Noah Baumbach’s devastating study of a dissolving couple may not be as powerful when you’re able to pause it and go for a walk to shake off the emotional weight; if you’re trapped in a theatre with it, it’s utterly shattering. But Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson’s fully committed performances will pull you along just the same; and the streaming format allows us to immediately revisit key scenes and marvel at the incredible work Julie Hagerty, Merritt Wever, Ray Liotta, Alan Alda and a never-better, Oscar-winning Laura Dern are doing in the margins.

The Matrix

Released in the spring of 1999, Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s breakthrough sci-fi action epic felt like the future: an ambitious, expansive mashup of martial-arts movies and post-apocalyptic thrillers that found new purpose in Keanu Reeves’s blankness and Laurence Fishburne’s gravitas, and turned Carrie-Anne Moss and Hugo Weaving into household names. And hindsight lets us see it clearly as an allegory for trans emergence, as its hero frees himself of an imposed identity to embrace his authentic self – and start bringing down the system that enabled his lifelong oppression. Agent Smith sneeringly deadnaming Neo at every opportunity is just the most obvious indicator.

The Mitchells Vs. The Machines

Can a bickering nuclear family (and their weird pug) put their conflicts aside and save the world from a machine apocalypse? What if their conflicts are the thing that gives them a fighting chance? That’s the ingenious engine that powers The Mitchells Vs. The Machines, about a family on a cross-country road trip during a machine uprising. Director Michael Rianda and co-director/co-writer Jeff Rowe have delivered a delirious entertainment where the comedy and the dramatic stakes escalate in perfect harmony, each joke setting up an emotional payoff, and vice-versa.

No Country For Old Men 

Cormac McCarthy’s novel about three men in 80s Texas whose destinies are tied to a large bag of money feels almost tailor-made for the Coen Brothers, whose filmography – regardless of genre – constitutes a decades-long meditation on the futility of looking for meaning in a chaotic universe. But the Coens’ love of character detail and cinematic texture led to an adaptation even better than its source, with a frantic Josh Brolin, a weary Tommy Lee Jones and a blank Javier Bardem moving through this dusty, sad world on a collision course with one another. It won four Oscars – including picture and director – which doesn’t feel like enough.

Noah

After making The Wrestler and Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky was in a position to make anything he wanted. So he swung for the fences with a biblical epic that tells the story of Noah and the ark from the perspective of its hero, a family man tormented by the demands god has placed upon him. Russell Crowe is Noah, with his Beautiful Mind co-star Jennifer Connelly as his wife; Emma Watson turns up as a young woman taken in by their family. And though it’s crammed with elaborate visual effects – including a rock monster voiced by Liam Neeson – the movie’s real power is contained in Crowe’s compelling performance as a man living with the knowledge that his world is coming to an end.

Okja

Some people had never heard of Bong Joon-ho before Parasite broke out in 2019. But that film was just the latest in a long line of remarkable genre hybrids, one of which was briefly the jewel in Netflix’s crown: Okja, the 2016 sci-fi satire about a Korean farm girl (Ahn Seo Hyun) and her eponymous best friend, a super-pig created by a shady global corporation. That summary doesn’t even come close to capturing either the complexity of the movie’s narrative – written by Bong and Jon Ronson – or the dexterity with which that narrative is realized, from its remarkably expressive CG super-pig to the range of emotions contained within Okja’s human co-stars, among them Jake Gyllenhaal and Tilda Swinton. As with all of Bong’s features, the tone switches from idyllic to madcap at the drop of a hat – or the twitch of a giant super-pig’s ear. If you’ve been meaning to catch up to it but find the premise too weird… well, it is weird. Really weird. But it’s also remarkable.

Paddington

Everybody needs a little joy in their lives, and that’s where the Paddington movies come in. In two movies – only one of which is currently available on Netflix – director Paul King spun Michael Bond’s beloved children’s books into thoughtful, charming fantasies that play just as well for grown-ups as they do for kids. The first movie works as a surprisingly powerful metaphor for the immigrant experience, and also gives Nicole Kidman the chance to be very, very silly as the villain… though she’s not having nearly as much fun as Hugh Grant will in Paddington 2.

Pitch Black

David Twohy’s low-budget sci-fi/horror hybrid about a crashed spaceship is arguably more important to Vin Diesel’s movie-star trajectory than the cars-and-robbers picture Diesel made around the same time. It’s much smarter, for one thing, and Twohy imbues Diesel’s natural surliness with some complexity, casting him as a spacefaring anti-hero named Riddick, whose ability to see in the dark makes him just the right person to help the survivors of that crashed ship survive a planetful of hungry aliens. Turn off the lights, turn up the sound and enjoy the ride.

The Platform 

Overshadowed by Parasite on the festival circuit at the time – even though it won the Midnight Madness People’s Choice award at TIFF – Galder Gaztelu-Urritia’s amazing high-concept horror movie, which moves the premise of Cube into a merciless vertical structure, still packs one hell of a punch especially now that we’re all spending so much time in isolation. Watch it knowing as little as possible. And brace yourself.

Princess Mononoke

Japanese writer/director Hayao Miyazaki’s animated fantasy about environmental stewardship was a global hit in the late 90s and remains a classic to this day thanks to its iconic forest creatures and morally ambiguous characters whose motivations don’t fall into a rote hero-villain dichotomy. It’s the perfect movie for younger viewers ready for more complex subject matter, but this film transcends age and genre to rightfully claim its masterpiece mantle.

Pulp Fiction

With Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino showed the world a new approach to crime dramas; Pulp Fiction demonstrated that he was more than a one-trick pony, reshuffling the B-movies on which he grew up into a complex, overlapping narrative about chatty gangsters, vengeful crime bosses, punch-drunk prizefighters and a couple of genuine miracles. You can enjoy the way it all fits together, or you can just bliss out on the exquisite back-and-forths in the dialogue: John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson talking about hamburgers, Travolta and Uma Thurman flirting at a theme restaurant, Bruce Willis and Maria de Medeiros’s pillow talk, Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer’s lovely-dovey booth chat. Pretty much anything Ving Rhames says is gold, too.

The Queen

Restored a few years ago just as mainstream media started embracing and recognizing drag and ball culture in a big way, Frank Simon’s 1968 documentary takes viewers behind the scenes at the Miss All-America Camp Beauty Contest in New York City. It’s a fascinating time capsule, capturing queer subculture that was the genesis for so much that feels ubiquitous today. It’s also a cult favourite thanks to the screen presence of Crystal LaBeija – founder of the House of LaBeija – who delivers a mic-drop moment at the end.

Raiders Of The Lost Ark

One of the most purely entertaining adventure movies ever made, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’s 1981 salute to the serials they grew up watching as children is a masterwork of cinematic craft: although the pacing, energy and visual effects hold up beautifully 40 years later, the performances, production design and John Williams’s rousing score feel so satisfyingly old-school. (The one thing that’s dated badly – very badly – is the implication that Karen Allen’s Marion Ravenwood was underage when she first fell for Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones, which, ick.)

Residue

Merawi Gerima’s haunting and lyrical debut is about a filmmaker (Obinna Nwachukwu) returning to his old home in a gentrifying Washington DC neighbourhood. He searches desperately for old friends in a Black community whose scars, history and kinship are spackled over by the new resident yuppies. Emotional memories from the community come at you like a flood – as do the influences of Spike Lee, Charles Burnett and the young filmmaker’s own father, Sankofa director Haile Gerima.

Rocks

Sarah Gavron’s coming-of-age drama about an abandoned teen caring for her little brother escapes the trauma-porn trap by focusing on the hopes, strength and sisterhood among her diverse characters. Bukky Bakray and Kosar Ali are unbelievably charming and infectious in the lead roles. In a just world, these rockstars would become household names.

Roma

Alfonso Cuarón’s autobiographically tinged study of a young woman (Yalitza Aparicio) working as a maid for an affluent Mexico City family in the early 70s might be his best movie, which is really saying something about the director of Children Of Men (also on Netflix Canada). Photographed in large-format 65mm and mixed in multichannel Dolby Atmos for an immersive experience that deploys emotional intensity in waves, Roma is like a sea tide slowly overtaking sand on a beach. Sure, you can watch it on your phone. But please don’t.

Saving Private Ryan

The first 20 minutes of Steven Spielberg’s 1998 war movie is some of the finest filmmaking of the director’s career, re-creating the storming of Omaha Beach on D-Day with a sustained, visceral intensity he’s rarely attempted. The rest of the film, while not as intense, is just as well-made, taking characters straight from central casting – Tom Hanks’s world-weary captain, Jeremy Davies’s nervous intellectual, Barry Pepper’s sniper with nerves of steel, Vin Diesel’s New York loudmouth, Adam Goldberg’s angry Jewish enlistee – and taking the time to flesh them out. Yes, the denouement is a little much. You can work through it.

Scarface

Brian DePalma’s neon-soaked, Giorgio Moroder-soundtracked remake of the 30s crime drama culminates in one of the most ridiculously over-the-top death scenes in movie history. Hated by critics (and Hollywood) upon its release in 1983, Scarface became a cult classic thanks to its iconic one-liners, monologues, art direction and its cutting (with a chainsaw) view of the American dream. Then there’s the notoriously accented Al Pacino going hard as Tony Montana, a Cuban refugee who lands in Miami as part of the Mariel boatlift and claws his way up to drug kingpin status – until he gets an attack of morality, and things start going south. The movie’s portrait of government corruption, racism and capitalist excess still resonates today.

Shirkers

Sandy Tan takes the influences from her formative years as a movie- and- pop-culture-obsessed teen growing up in late 80s/early 90s Singapore and distills them into a wildly entertaining mystery-memoir. Ostensibly the story of unearthing a lost classic of Singaporean cinema (a stunning document of a long-gone cityscape), Shirkers gradually evolves into a nuanced examination of teen friendship and how artistic endeavours often hinge on very specific chemistry between collaborators.

The Sisters Brothers 

Jacques Audiard’s English-language debut is a gorgeous, strange Western starring Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly as sibling assassins tracking two friends (Riz Ahmed, Jake Gyllenhaal) from Oregon to California, all of them on a rendezvous with an unexpected destiny. Really, it’s best if you don’t know anything more, since so much of the film is about strange discoveries and unlikely friendships. Just know that all four actors are working at their best, and Phoenix and Reilly were born to play people who’ve spent far too much time in one another’s company.

Sorry To Bother You

Boots Riley’s late-capitalist comedy about a telemarketer from Oakland (Lakeith Stanfield) who exploits white privilege to succeed at life is a sharp satire of the interconnectedness of class, race and labour. The comedy grows increasingly bizarre (and low-brow), but the politics wouldn’t fly if the jokes didn’t land. Standouts in the memorable supporting cast include Tessa Thompson, Danny Glover, Steven Yeun and Kate Berlant.

Strong Island

Yance Ford’s feature debut mixes together a variety of documentary storytelling techniques to explore a familiar subject – institutionalized racism in the U.S. justice system – in a new way. Ford recounts the story of how his middle-class Long Island family was devastated by the 1992 murder of his brother, and then how a grand jury failed to indict the killer. Using only minimal archival footage, Strong Island weaves together a complex narrative, often from still imagery, to show the deep and long-lasting emotional impact of the events. It’s personal and stylistically risk-taking filmmaking.

Uncut Gems

Adam Sandler plays a desperate man running around New York City making one terrible decision after another in Uncut Gems. Josh and Benny Safdie made a version of this movie two years ago, as Good Time – also on Netflix Canada – but with Uncut Gems they level up the queasy anxiety and their casting: it’s genuinely shocking to see Sandler scurrying around Manhattan’s diamond district in a state of sweaty, adrenalized panic. It’s as if the Safdies found a new gear for him, and jammed the throttle.

Yes, God, Yes

Karen Maine’s first feature is a deadpan comedy about a Catholic teenager named Alice (Natalia Dyer) whose developing curiosity about the pleasures of the flesh leads her panicked parents to ship her off to a woodland retreat where she’ll be taught to repress her sexuality like a good girl. At least that’s the theory. In practice, it’s a little more complicated, as Alice discovers her urges are pretty vanilla compared to the things everyone else is into. If you’ve only seen Dyer running away from monsters on Stranger Things, you have no idea how good an actor she really is; Yes, God, Yes reveals her as an amazing comic talent, getting big laughs with tiny squints, frowns and hesitations, and Maine makes sure we have every opportunity to appreciate her.

Zodiac

Zodiac may not be David Fincher’s best movie – Fight Club, The Social Network and Gone Girl would all like a word – but it’s the one that best sums up his intentions as a filmmaker. An expansive study of obsession and mortality centered on the hunt for the mysterious serial killer who terrorized San Francisco and its environs in the 70s, Zodiac collapses years of research into a riveting two-and-a-half-hour narrative, with Robert Downey Jr. and Jake Gyllenhaal as newspapermen whose lives are overtaken by the hunt for the Zodiac and Mark Ruffalo as the cop who’s just as determined to crack the case – and just as frustrated by his inability to grasp the truth. James Vanderbilt’s script teases out every thread to build a pretty convincing theory of the killer’s identity, but Fincher’s directorial choices keep suggesting alternatives, ultimately leaving us in the same uncertain place as the movie’s heroes, seeing the shape of a truth but not quite able to grasp it. It’s a hell of a thing.

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