The final (?) chapter in the Before trilogy once again takes place nine years after the previous film and allows us to become spectators for a day in the life of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy). The couple is now married with a pair of daughters but even though the chemistry between the two remains, it becomes clear that the honeymoon phase of their relationship is long gone. It’s by far the least romantic and most tense of the three films, as director Richard Linklater takes an unapologetically honest look at how difficult it is to sustain love over time. Before Midnight almost works as a Rorschach test for the viewer, as your interpretation of the ambiguous ending might reveal your perspective on relationships as a whole. But no matter whether you find the film intensely pessimistic or oddly affirming of love, there’s no question that the series remains one of the most fascinating examinations of romance to date.

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Billy Madison (Sandler) is a lazy, spoiled manchild who spends his days getting drunk by the pool and imagining fights between his shampoo and conditioner. But when his dad announces his impending retirement, Billy is forced to repeat all 12 grades of school in order to inherit the family business. It’s a delightfully dumb premise that is carried by Sandler’s charm and a fantastic supporting cast that includes Chris Farley, Norm Macdonald, and Steve Buscemi. The movie was a mild success but developed a rabid fanbase that ended up making Sandler one of the world’s biggest comedy stars for the next 20+ years.

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Five students from different cliques are forced to spend a Saturday in detention under the watchful eye of the school’s authoritarian Vice Principal. As the day drags on, they slowly start to connect over a shared sense of disillusion and disappointment and the group ends up forming an unbreakable bond of friendship. More than three decades after its release, The Breakfast Club remains the definitive coming-of-age story in American cinema, as writer and director John Hughes captured teen angst and isolation in a way that still rings true to viewers who were born long after this movie was made.

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James (Kyle Mooney) spent his entire life in a bunker, with his parents raising him to believe that they are living in a post-apocalypse where the outside world is literally a toxic wasteland. Until one day the police show up and reveal that James’ parents aren’t his parents at all; they are his captors, who kidnapped him as a baby and raised him under these circumstances so that he would never be found. James is reunited with his family but struggles to adjust to a world he’s never known. To cope, he ends up trying to finish Brigsby Bear, a sci-fi kid’s show that his fake parents created to keep him entertained. If you are familiar with Mooney’s unique sense of humor, you won’t be surprised that Brigsby Bear is filled with a lot of awkwardness, especially with James having no clue how to function as a member of society. But what may surprise you is the tenderness that is infused throughout the film, with James’ desire to finish the show that defined his childhood being seen as a triumph rather than a punchline.

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Collective follows Romanian journalists as they uncover widespread corruption by the government’s handling of healthcare. What really sets Collective apart from most modern documentaries is its confidence in not needing to use the genre’s clichés to overexplain everything to the audience. There is no voiceover or dramatic score to try to manipulate you as a viewer; instead, you just get to see what is unfolding onscreen. Collective made less than $150,000 at the global box office, but it has received universal praise from critics, winning Best Documentary at the European Film Awards and London Film Critics Circle. It even became the first-ever Romanian film to earn a nomination at the Academy Awards.

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Paige (Rowan Blanchard) is a shy, artistic high schooler who joins the track team in hopes of getting closer to her crush, Gabriella (Isabella Ferreira). But she ends up getting trained by Gabriella’s sister, AJ (Auli’i Cravalho), and starts to develop feelings for her as well. Typically, queer romances have either been aggressively ignored by high school movies or are forced to have a tragic undertone that almost always has a bummer ending. So, it’s refreshing to see that Crush looks to be your standard coming-of-age high school rom-com with all of the standard tropes you know and love from the genre, except this time it’s a lesbian character at the center. 

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Set over the course of a single day, Dazed and Confused follows a group of Texas high schoolers in the ’70s on the last day of school. While most high school movies try to heighten the stakes for the sake of drama, Dazed and Confused reflects the relatively mundane existence of most teenagers. Nobody in this movie is making life-or-death decisions; instead, they’re just driving around hoping to find something fun to do on the first day of summer. The film’s “anti-nostalgia” approach has stood the test of time, as Dazed and Confused manages to celebrate the aimless boredom that is ignored by most coming-of-age stories in a way that every new generation of viewers can resonate with.

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To prove herself to her boss in hopes of earning a promotion, bank loan officer Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) denies an elderly woman’s request to extend her mortgage. This turns out to be a bad decision, as the woman puts a curse on Christine which will result in her being banished to Hell for eternity in three days. As Christine tries to figure out how to break the curse and save herself from damnation, she is relentlessly tormented by a demon. Sam Raimi made a name for himself for his ability to blend comedy and horror with the Evil Dead franchise and he proves here that no filmmaker is better at having a blast while making people go through the most horrific experiences imaginable.

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After lying about losing her virginity, Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) finds herself at the center of gossip around school. Rather than set the record straight, Olive responds to the slut-shaming by pretending to sleep with the school’s social outcasts and earns a reputation as a modern-day Hester Prynne. Considering that Stone would go on to win an Oscar and become one of the biggest actors in Hollywood, it’s no surprise that she delivers a fantastic performance here that helped make Easy A a modern coming-of-age classic. It also features perhaps the greatest movie parents of all-time, as Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci defy genre stereotypes by playing parents who actually get along with and try to understand their teen daughter.

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After learning that his wife, Alice (Nicole Kidman), considered leaving him for another man years earlier, Bill (Tom Cruise) embarks on a strange evening that culminates in him encountering a masked orgy that appears to be related to a secret society. From there, things continue to spin out of control, as the couple struggles to keep their relationship alive while Bill finds himself getting in over his head upon discovering the orgy was connected to a secret society. Eyes Wide Shut was the final film of Stanley Kubrick’s career, and while it is far from a perfect movie, it remains a fascinating last chapter for one of the most legendary filmmakers of all time.

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As he is about to marry his husband, Amin Nawabi shares the story of how he fled his home in Afghanistan and became a refugee in Denmark. Since its debut at Sundance at the beginning of 2021, Flee has been deemed an “instant classic” by critics, and its animation style, themes, and representation of LGBTQ+ relationships have all been celebrated by viewers, including Parasite director Bong Joon-ho, who listed it as one of his favorite films from 2021. The animated docudrama was nominated for a trio of Academy Awards, including Best International Feature Film, Best Documentary Feature, and Best Animated Feature.

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Like many of us, Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) finds herself exhausted by the endless mediocrity of online dating so when she meets a seemingly great guy named Steve (Sebastian Stan) in the real world, she quickly falls for him. The two plan a romantic weekend getaway but things take a dark and unexpected turn that I won’t spoil for you here. Fresh is a hilariously upsetting glimpse into the bizarre experience of modern dating, with Stan and Edgar-Jones both delivering great performances that help make it feel like one of the most innovative films made in a long time.

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The rise and fall of a musical artist is well-trodden territory in movies, but Her Smell gives a unique perspective on the genre by really ping into the complex and self-destructive nature of its lead, Becky Something (Elisabeth Moss). As a viewer, you’ll find yourself simultaneously repulsed by Becky’s selfish behavior and sympathizing with her struggle to maintain control of her constantly spiraling existence. And all credit for this nuanced character study should go to Moss, who has quietly established herself as one of the best actors of her generation and deserved an Oscar nomination for her performance here.

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Hitch (Will Smith) is a “date doctor” who helps hapless men get the woman of their dreams with a few neat tricks and tips. But after he finds himself falling for Sara (Eva Mendez), Hitch discovers his usual moves don’t work on her and he may actually have to try forging a genuine connection to win her over. Hitch is a pretty paint-by-numbers rom-com, but none of that matters when you have the effortless charm of Will Smith at your disposal, who manages to keep Hitch from feeling like too much of a scumbag or bitter incel type. The chemistry between him and Mendez is what carries the film, as their playfully combative banter is really masking both characters’ struggles to let their guard down and give vulnerability a real shot.

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Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is a no-nonsense police officer who is so good at his job that his jealous colleagues manage to get him transferred to the small quiet town of Sandford because he is making them all look bad. While his reassignment seems to doom him to a life of chasing swans and busting underage drinkers, he and his dimwitted partner Danny (Nick Frost) uncover a massive conspiracy when they investigate a string of “accidental” deaths in the town. After his impeccable parody of zombie flicks with Shaun of the Dead, director Edgar Wright took on the buddy action movie with equal success here, as Hot Fuzz simultaneously lampoons and celebrates the genre.

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The mostly true story of a group of strippers who were able to con rich customers out of large amounts of money, Hustlers became a runaway success upon its release. The movie earned more than $150 million at the box office and received widespread critical acclaim. It even developed some serious Oscar buzz, and while it (along with Jennifer Lopez’s incredible performance) ended up getting snubbed by the Academy Awards, Hustlers‘ cultural impact is undeniable at this point. Plus, it’s just a really fun, well-made movie that you enjoy just as much the fifth time watching as you did the first time.

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Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie) was a rising star in the world of figure skating in the early ’90s, and in I, Tonya we get an up-close look at her meteoric rise and subsequent fall from grace. I, Tonya is by no means a completely accurate retelling of the rise and fall of Harding, and critics have complained that the film lets the titular skater off the hook when it comes to her role in the infamous attack on Nancy Kerrigan. But the film is not pretending to be a history lesson — it’s a character study; and in that respect, it’s a highly entertaining journey into the life of one of the most controversial figures in American sports. And the entire cast delivers Oscarworthy performances, with Allison Janney even winning a well-deserved Academy Award as Harding’s casually abusive mother.

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Alma (Maren Eggert) agrees to participate in a three-week experiment where she will evaluate a robot named Tom (Dan Stevens), who is supposedly programmed to be her ideal man. At first, Alma is mostly amused by the idea but even as she finds herself growing closer to Tom as the trial progresses, she remains skeptical about the possibility of truly connecting with a person who isn’t actually a person. I’m Your Man almost functions as a trojan horse of storytelling, as its clever premise and clever script draw you into a thoughtful and challenging story about loneliness, humanity, and whether any of us really know what we actually want in life.

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Forgetting is just a part of life but what would happen if you forgot everything about yourself with no clear explanation? That is the premise of Italian Studies, where a woman (Vanessa Kirby) walks into a store in New York City only to suddenly find herself unsure of who she is. She wanders the streets but her journey is an aimless one, as she does not even know what exactly it is she is looking for. Italian Studies has received mixed reviews from critics for its repetitive narrative and failure to execute on its intriguing premise. But the performance of Kirby has received universal praise, as she manages to convey the complex emotional journey of someone who has lost their identity.

Watch it on Hulu on May 12.

After spending most of the last decade of her life in and out of prison, 26-year-old Jacinta plans to get clean and become a better role model to her 10-year-old daughter. This harrowing documentary takes a brutally honest look at the struggles that addicts face in trying to get their lives back on track, and explores the unhealthy dynamics of the codependent relationship between Jacinta and her mom, Rosemary. Since its release, Jacinta has been unanimously praised by critics and generated lots of buzz along the film festival circuit.

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What happens when a struggling actor and a struggling jazz musician cross paths in Los Angeles? Movie magic, baby! While it didn’t actually end up winning Best Picture (to be fair, Moonlight totally deserved it), La La Land remains a remarkably entertaining movie and one of the best movie musicals of the 21st century. That’s in no small part thanks to Emma Stone (who did end up winning an Oscar) and Ryan Gosling, who manage to effortlessly carry the movie with their dynamite chemistry and surprisingly great dance moves. Even if you find yourself (justifiably) rolling your eyes when Sebastian (Gosling) is explaining jazz to Mia (Stone), you’ll find yourself tapping your toes during the outstanding musical numbers.

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Now that Kirsten Dunst is finally getting the respect she deserves as one of our finest living actors, it’s a great time to revisit one of the best performances of her career. Director Sofia Coppola reimagines the iconic queen in a modern context, focusing on her naïveté and excitement as she enters the world of royalty where every move she makes is judged by everyone around her. Dunst plays the role to perfection, finding the humanity in Antoinette at every moment, even as she struggles with her marriage and the growing civil unrest in France. And even those who were confounded by Marie Antoinette’s somewhat irreverent tone could not deny it is an absolutely gorgeous film, as it managed to snag the Oscar for Best Costume Design.

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Years after a school shooting, two sets of parents decide to meet at a church to privately sit down and talk. Jay (Jason Isaacs) and Gail (Martha Plimpton) Perry’s son died in the shooting, while Richard (Reed Birney) and Linda (Ann Dowd) are the parents of the shooter, who also died. Other than a quick couple of scenes setting up the meeting, Mass is almost entirely these four having the most painful and difficult conversation you can imagine. The movie touches on the politics and larger cultural discussions around this issue but primarily focuses on the pain, confusion, and anger each one of these parents have experienced. As you might expect, the movie is incredibly tense at times, yet writer and director Fran Kranz resists giving easy answers or pointing fingers. Instead, Mass feels like one of the more honest explorations of one of the most upsetting realities that far too many parents have had to face over the last few decades.

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Sports movies tend to skew more toward the inspirational aspects of competition and overcoming adversity than the actual nuts and bolts it takes for a team to win. But Moneyball firmly favors the latter, as we see Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) embrace advanced stats in order to field a competitive team despite having one of the smallest payrolls in the league. Aaron Sorkin delivers one of his best scripts, effortlessly infusing his patented rapid-fire dialogue to keep discussions about sabermetrics from ever becoming dull or confusing for someone who knows nothing about baseball. Moneyball proved to be a success both financially (earning $110 million against a $50 million budget) and critically (it was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture), firmly establishing it as this century’s best baseball movie.

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Shane Black is one of the defining voices of the buddy cop movie, and The Nice Guys is arguably his best take on the genre. Bumbling private eye Holland March (Ryan Gosling) reluctantly teams up with Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe), a brutish enforcer, to investigate the possible death of porn star Misty Mountains (Murielle Telio). But as in any good buddy cop movie, the actual plot takes a backseat to the chemistry between the lead duo, and Gosling and Crowe are sensational together. Gosling is the funniest he has ever been and delivers one of the best slapstick performances in recent memory. And Crowe has no problem keeping pace, giving his best performance since Master and Commander.

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A new prisoner arrives at La Maca, an infamous prison in the Ivory Coast that is run by inmates, and is selected to be the new “Roman,” which requires him to tell a story to the prisoners. He begins to tell the story of the death of Zama King, a leader of the gang he belonged to, but he soon learns that he must keep telling the story until dawn or he will lose his life. Night of the Kings has received widespread critical acclaim since its release, winning the African American Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Film and the NAACP Image Awards 2021 for Outstanding International Motion Picture.

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You know those movies that your cinephile friends have been telling you to watch for months? Nomadland is probably at the top of that list, and after its big showing at the Oscars back in April, you have no more excuses for putting it off. And once you finally watch it, you’ll wonder why you didn’t see it sooner. Based on the 2017 nonfiction book of the same name, the film centers on Fern (Frances McDormand), who sells most of her possessions and takes to life on the road shortly after losing her job. McDormand won her third Oscar for her intimate portrayal of a woman trying to rediscover her place in the world, but what’s really impressive is how well the rest of the cast keeps up with her despite being composed almost entirely of “nonactors.”

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It’s Nov. 9, and Nyles (Andy Samberg) is attending his cheating girlfriend’s best friend’s wedding for the thousandth (or possibly millionth) time, as he’s been forced to relive the same day over and over. Nyles seems to have accepted his fate until sister of the bride Sarah (Cristin Milioti) ends up stuck in the same time loop. In lesser hands, this movie could easily feel unoriginal or trite, but Palm Springs proves to be a clever rom-com reimagining of Groundhog Day instead of a shameless rip-off. Having two people stuck in an endless time loop together instead of one poor schmuck trapped all alone may seem like a small change, but it turns out to give the movie its own vibe entirely. Palm Springs largely ignores the self-improvement aspect of Groundhog Day in favor of addressing the complex nature of human connection. And thanks to the dynamite chemistry between Samberg and Milioti, it totally works.

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There’s not much to say about Parasite that hasn’t already been said in a million think pieces, but this is a rare film that not only justifies but somehow surpasses its own massive hype. But while much of the praise goes to Bong Joon-ho, who won Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars, the performances from the actors tend to get overlooked. The entire Kim family is outstanding, as all four actors manage to display the family’s growing sense of desperation and bitterness as they try to survive their life in squalor. Park So-dam’s performance as Kim Ki-jung is awardworthy, as she is able to bring in a layer of dark humor into the role while remaining entirely in character.

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Rob Feld (Nicolas Cage) lives a quiet life of reclusion as a truffle forager in the forests of Oregon until one day his beloved pig is kidnapped and he is forced to reenter society to retrieve his closest companion. This movie was marketed as “John Wick with a pig” but it turns out to be an entirely different journey, as Pig turns into an emotional exploration of Rob and what drove him away from the world where he was once heralded as a legend. Cage delivers one of the best performances of his legendary career, as he gives Rob a stoicism and gravitas that are really just covering up for the immense heartbreak and inner turmoil he is unable to escape.

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If you’re a sucker for once-in-a-lifetime love stories, you are going to love Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Set in France in the late 18th century, the film tells the story of Marianne (Noémie Merlant), a painter who is commissioned to paint a portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), a young aristocrat set to marry a wealthy nobleman. Romance movies have a tendency to be melodramatic, but Portrait opts for a more subtle approach, allowing the tension to grow as Marianne and Héloïse slowly gravitate toward each other. The film also makes no attempt to hide the lack of social freedom granted to women during this time period, which adds a certain level of tragedy to the love these two share.

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Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) is a successful but lonely businessman who unexpectedly crosses paths with Vivian Ward, a kind-hearted and free-wheeling sex worker, while on business in LA. Lewis hires Ward to go to a variety of social functions with him for the week but the two end up establishing a deeper connection as they get to know each other. Thanks to the subversive take on the rom-com formula and the dynamite chemistry between Roberts and Gere, Pretty Woman became a surprise hit, making $178 million in the United States alone against a $14 million budget. But its true legacy is skyrocketing Roberts’ career, as she won a Golden Globe and received an Oscar nom for her magnetic performance. With this one role, Roberts went from an up-and-coming actor to one of the biggest stars in the entire world.

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Years after the Mystery Gang broke up due to internal conflict, the members are all recruited to a popular horror-themed tropical island resort in order to investigate a mystery. The live-action take on the classic cartoon was mostly hated by critics at the time but has developed a bit of a cult following in the years since. While the film certainly has its issues — it’s tough to ignore how weird Scooby looks — Scooby-Doo benefits from not taking itself too seriously, and the casting of the entire gang is undeniably perfect (especially Lillard’s Oscar-worthy performance as Shaggy).

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Nearly 25 years after her tragic death, Princess Diana remains a cultural fixation, as her short but memorable life is still discussed by countless admirers to this day. Spencer is hardly the first Diana biopic, but it is undoubtedly the best, as it focuses on her decision to end her marriage to Prince Charles and leave the royal family. And Kristen Stewart does a fantastic job portraying the internal struggle that the Princess of Wales is facing during this trying time, rightfully earning the first Oscar nomination of her career. Whether you are a borderline Princess Diana historian or completely clueless to her story, you’ll enjoy this intimate look into someone discovering that living a fairy tale isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

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During the summer of 1969, Harlem hosted a six-week music festival to celebrate African American music and to promote Black pride in the larger culture. Nearly 300,000 people attended to watch some of the biggest names in music, including Nina Simone, B.B. King, Sly and the Family Stone, and Stevie Wonder, perform. And yet, it is rarely mentioned in pop culture. Why? That is the question that Questlove, who directed the documentary, is looking to answer, by showing footage from the festival that was restored. The result is what documentarian Mark Kermode called “the best music documentary I’ve ever seen” and earned Summer of Soul an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature.

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Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is a former CIA agent who is forced to use his “particular set of skills” to track down his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) after she is kidnapped in Paris. Before Taken, the idea of Neeson being an action hero seemed ridiculous but his brutal intensity made this movie an unexpected hit, spawning two sequels and countless imitations, many of which have also starred Neeson. But the original remains action-hero Neeson at his best, as it is a thrill watching him mercilessly take down anyone who stands in the way of him getting his daughter back home safely.

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Matt (Ed Helms) is a successful app developer who decides he wants to become a father as he approaches middle age. He selects Anna (Patti Harrison), a twentysomething working a coffee shop, as his surrogate, and as the pregnancy progresses, their relationship grows as well. The chemistry between Helms and Harrison is fantastic, as their odd-couple dynamic has a warm and hilarious intimacy. Since its debut at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, Together Together has received universal praise from critics, with Harrison being singled out for her breakout performance. The movie also features a killer supporting cast that includes Tig Notaro, Jo Firestone, Anna Konkle, and Julio Torres.

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Every genre of film has a basic formula, but perhaps no genre is more mind-numbingly formulaic than the music biopic. And Walk Hard has a blast lampooning every single one of those tropes with the story of Dewey Cox, a fictional musician played perfectly by John C. Reilly. From his humble beginnings to his meteoric rise in the music industry to his eventual spiral into the world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, Cox experiences every up and down seen a million times in generic biopics about musicians. The movie is purposefully ridiculous and has fun infusing Cox into the well-trodden history of music, with an endless wave of stars stopping by to announce themselves as rock legends (the sequence where he meditates with the Beatles in India is especially funny). And if all of this wasn’t enough to make you want to check out Walk Hard, you should know that the totally made-up discography of Dewey Cox is far better than it has any right to be.

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Lori (Aya Cash) and Doug (William Jackson Harper) are forced to attend a wedding together just after they decide to call off their long-term relationship. It’s a simple premise that allows the film to explore the complexities of a couple who no longer want to be together yet remain drawn to each other. We Broke Up has received mixed reviews from critics so far, but Cash’s and Harper’s performances have been praised. As the two effortlessly make the jump from television to the big screen, their natural chemistry brings a depth to the fractured relationship between Lori and Doug.

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