24. Hail Satan?

Released: April 19
Director: Penny Lane (Our Nixon)
Why it's great: While Satan has been around for a long time, the Satanic Temple, the primary focus of this sly documentary, was founded in 2013 by Malcolm Jerry and Lucien Greaves. The spokesperson for the group, Greaves speaks with authority and humor about the organization's larger political, social, and theological goals, which center around religious freedom and the separation of church and state. (Justifiably, the Satanic Temple does not like when governments install the Ten Commandments in State Capitals.) Though they wear black and often enjoy heavy metal, these aren't the Satanists of the Satanic Panic in the '80s, which gets a CliffNotes treatment here, or the robe-wearing fanatics from horror films. Using archival material of Sunday school cartoons and news programs, Lane gives the viewer a crash course on Satanism's place in history while also emphasizing the activist nature of modern Satanists. Despite some repetitive interviews, Hail Satan works as a funny, thoughtful primer on a group that only trolls with the best intentions. 
Where to see it: In theaters now (watch the trailer)

23. Alita: Battle Angel

Released: February 14
Cast: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Keean Johnson, Mahershala Ali
Director: Robert Rodriguez (Sin City)
Why it's great: The first thing you notice are the large eyes, beckoning like portals to another dimension. Alita, a cyborg discovered in a junkyard by a possibly mad scientist consumed with grief over the death of his daughter, is played by the actress Rosa Salazar, who appeared in two of the Maze Runner YA adaptions and last year's Netflix hit Bird Box, but she's brought to uncanny life via technology Alita producer and co-writer James Cameron developed for his alien environmental opus Avatar. (Cameron was originally going to direct Alita but he got sidetracked by the world of the Na'vi.) Compared to Avatar, or other recent colorful acts of gonzo-world-building like Jupiter Ascending or Valerian: City of a Thousand Planets, Alita: Battle Angel moves in fits and starts, occasionally struggling to merge Cameron's hyper-earnest, ponderous sensibility with Rodriguez's more garrish, ironic approach. Still, when the movie connects, like in the ridiculous and kinetic "motorball" sequence which finds our hero fending off brutish attackers in a violent game of X-Games tag, it's as exhilarating as this type of reality-altering, money-burning sci-fi blockbuster gets. Perhaps fitting for a story about a character's complicated relationship to her own body, the movie takes time to feel comfortable in its own CG skin.
Where to see it: Rent on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, and YouTube (Watch the trailer)

22. The Hole in the Ground

Released: March 1
Cast: Seána Kerslake, James Quinn Markey, Simone Kirby, Steve Wall
Director: Lee Cronin
Why it's great: The Hole in the Ground, an Irish horror film of considerable ferocity, is unafraid of the obvious. As the title promises, there is a large hole in the ground, which ends up being a source of great stress for Sarah (Kerslake) and her son Chris (James Quinn Markey) who move to the countryside to escape a troubled home life. They want a new start, but their new digs have issues. In addition to the gnarly pit waiting for them in the forest, the duo must also contend with a creepy old woman with a dark past, some creepy bugs, and their own growing suspicion of each other. As a movie about motherhood and parental anxiety, The Hole in the Ground can't touch the unnerving terror of previous Sundance hits The Babadook or Hereditary, which both attacked similar material with total formal control. This is more of a meat-and-potatoes horror film, one where the music pounds away at a punishing volume and the scares arrive like clockwork. Even if it doesn't have the emotional depth of the best horror efforts, it has enough technical prowess to keep you invested. You know what's at the bottom of the hole, but you won't be able to resist digging in.
Where to see it: Rent on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, and YouTube (Watch the trailer)

21. Booksmart

Released: May 24
Cast: Beanie Feldstein, Kaitlyn Dever, Billie Lourd, Jason Sudeikis
Director: Olivia Wilde
Why it's great: The college-obsessed, socially challenged honor roll students at the center of Booksmart, Olivia Wilde's dutifully funny and disarmingly sweet high school comedy, are always looking to optimize their experiences. Having spent the last four years of their young lives focused on their education and extracurricular activities, best friends Molly (the uproarious Feldstein) and Amy (the dry-witted Dever) approach a night of partying with a sense of purpose. They don't want to just have a good time; they need this wild evening to stand in for all the hours of drinking, drug-consuming, and making out they missed. Similarly, the movie can't quite shake that overeager check-list mentality as it careens from expositional set-up and comic set-pieces to the inevitable emotional blowup and the triumphant graduation day resolution. (We even get a "wacky" animated sequence thrown in for good measure.) If there's a lack of genuine chaos or scuzzy danger to the proceedings -- the absence of cruelty can feel like a refusal to engage with the dull misery of the teenage experience -- the performers add enough emotional heft and droll irony to keep the festivities going when the story occasionally loses its buzz.
Where to see it: In theaters (Watch the trailer)

20. Velvet Buzzsaw

Released: February 1
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Zawe Ashton, Toni Collette
Director: Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler)
Why it's great: A movie that's a blend of knowingly obvious artworld satire and slyly gruesome body horror isn't exactly the type of art that its protagonist, the impeccably named critic Morf Vandewalt (Gyllenhaal), would find edifying. It's more likely that Morf, a writer fond of proclamations like "critique is so limiting and emotionally draining," would accuse the movie of trafficking in slipshod, half-developed ideas explored more thoroughly elsewhere. Honestly, his loss. Writer and director Gilroy, who had similar fun taking shots at television news with the thriller Nightcrawler in 2014, mixes genres, tones, and performance styles with an occasionally garish touch, but he's smart enough to know that sometimes wicked sloganeering is more fun than subtle wit. The specialized lingo, interior decorating, and sexual appetites of the uber-rich are all on display here. Instead of skewering its targets, Velvet Buzzsaw is content with clobbering them.
Where to see it: Stream it on Netflix (Watch the trailer)

19. Fyre

Released: January 18
Director: Chris Smith (American Movie)
Why it's great: The superior of the two Fyre Festival documentaries released earlier this year, Fyre is a fiendishly paced, carefully constructed procedural about the work project from hell. Early on we meet Billy McFarlane, a goober selling a fantasy of exclusivity and proximity to celebrity, and his entrepreneurial partner Ja Rule, a rapper selling a lifestyle of wealth and non-stop partying. Together they have a vision: a music festival in the Bahamas that promises all the FOMO-inducing opulence of a well-curated Instagram feed. Compared to Hulu's more think-piece-ey take on the material, Fyre puts you on the ground, walks you through each spectacularly dumb decision, and has the more memorable interviews. (Yes, I'm talking about the highly meme-able Andy King.) Even if the Netflix version is perhaps the more ethically dubious of the two documentaries, one could argue that meta-layer of behind-the-scenes turmoil also adds to the experience: You start to feel like the scam will never end.
Where to see it: Stream it on Netflix (Watch the trailer)

18. The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Released: June 7
Cast: Jimmie H. Fails IV, Jonathan Majors, Danny Glover, Tichina Arnold
Director: Joe Talbot
Why it's great: "Are y'all paying attention?" asks a street preacher in the dazzling opening sequence of this wildly ambitious portrait of a city in an existential crisis. From its opening shot of a young girl facing off against a man in a Hazmat suit to its moving final image, the feature debut from Talbot, who began raising money for the project through Kickstarter back in 2015, demands your attention and rewards your patience. Gliding down through neighborhoods on his skateboard, Jimmie (Fails, who also shares a writing credit on the film) is a wry, curious presence in the city he calls home. In addition to hanging out with his dapper best friend Montgomery (Majors), Jimmie spends much of his time making repairs to the beautiful Victorian house that used to belong to his grandfather. Now, it's valued at $4 million and belongs to an older white couple who just want Jimmie to leave them alone. Through an odd set of circumstances, Jimmie ends up moving into the house, reclaiming a piece of his family history in the middle of a community that often feels like it's under siege. Funny and tender, The Last Black Man in San Francisco takes big swings, which means you have to put up with the occasional detour that doesn't pay off -- the last third almost grinds to a halt as more plot gets introduced -- but every inch of this oddball epic in miniature is worth exploring.
Where to see it: In theaters (Watch the trailer)  

17. Shadow

Released: May 3
Cast: Deng Chao, Sun Li, Zheng Kai, Wang Qianyuan
Director: Zhang Yimou (Hero)
Why it’s worth watching: In a city covered in gray clouds and besieged by constant rain, an umbrella can become your last line of defense against the elements. In Shadow, the latest visually stunning action epic from Hero and House of Flying Daggers wuxia master Zhang Yimou, parasols are more than helpful sun-blockers: They can be turned into deadly weapons, shooting boomerang-like blades of steel at oncoming attackers and transforming into protective sleds for traveling through the slick streets. These devices are one of many imaginative leaps made in telling this Shakespearean saga of palace intrigue, vengeance, and secret doppelgangers set in China's Three Kingdoms period. Commander Yu (Deng) serves at the mercy of the cruel King Peiliang (Zheng), who rules like a petty and petulant teenager, but the brave Commander is actually a "shadow," a body double recruited to serve as a potential replacement in a time of crisis. The "real" Commander Yu, also played by Deng, nurses a festering battle wound underground, training his double and scheming to overthrow the king. This is a martial arts epic where the dense plotting is as tricky as the often balletic fight scenes. The narrative does lose steam in stretches, but the brilliantly designed and impeccably edited action sequences are simply on another level. If the battle scenes in Game of Thrones left you frustrated, Shadow provides a thrilling alternative.
Where to see it: In theaters now (Watch the trailer)

16. The Standoff at Sparrow Creek

Released: January 18
Cast: James Badge Dale, Brian Geraghty, Patrick Fischler, Happy Anderson
Director: Henry Dunham
Why it's great: The Standoff at Sparrow Creek is a movie that understands the value of restraint. After a mass shooting at a police funeral, a militia group in Michigan assembles at a warehouse to double-check the status of their massive stockpile of deadly weapons, including a batch of AR-15s. Turns out one of the guns is missing -- the radio has confirmed that the shooter used an AR-15 -- and only one of the men in the group could have grabbed it. Quickly, the Reservoir Dogs-like scenario spirals out into a simultaneously chatty and gripping whodunit with James Badge Dale's gruff ex-cop Gannon interrogating his fellow conspiracy-minded associates, mostly played by brilliant character actors given room to flex here, in an effort to find the killer before the shooting can be pinned on the group as a whole. But can any of these shadowy figures be trusted? This isn't an anthropological study of right-wing paranoia under Donald Trump or a treatise on white male rage in the age of InfoWars -- the exact specifics of what all these guys believe and hope to achieve with their considerable firepower are kept vague -- but Dunham, making his feature debut here, does zero in on the personalities and attitudes of the men drawn to these fringe groups. He shows you what makes them tick. Then, he makes them squirm. 
Where to see it: Rent on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, and YouTube (Watch the trailer)

15. Gloria Bell

Released: March 8
Cast: Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Michael Cera, Brad Garrett
Director: Sebastián Lelio (Disobedience)
Why it's great: Gloria Bell (Moore) likes to sing in her car as she drives through Los Angeles on her way to work at an insurance agency. A performer who exudes empathy and generosity, Moore turns these mini karaoke detours into moments of portraiture: Whether she's belting out a song on the freeway or dancing to the beat at the nightclub she frequents, Gloria is most at home when she's swimming in music. She's fundamentally open the adventures, oddities, and occasional pains of life. Fittingly, director Sebastián Lelio's film, a reportedly faithful American-set remake of his own 2013 drama Gloria, is attentive and kind. We follow Gloria's relationship with recently divorced eccentric Arnold (Turturro), who takes her paintballing and readers her poetry, and we meet her two slightly adrift adult children, played with wit by Michael Cera and Caren Pistorius. The scope even widens to include her ex-husband, a gregarious bear of a man played by Brad Garrett of Everybody Loves Raymond fame, and an unseen neighbor in her apartment building who keeps her up at night by screaming into the void. Moore anchors the film, finding humor and joy in even the darker sections. She never misses a note.
Where to see it: Rent on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, and YouTube (Watch the trailer)

14. Toy Story 4

Released: June 21
Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts, Tony Hale
Director: Josh Cooley
Why it's great: After the emotional brinksmanship of Toy Story 3, a movie that featured the franchise's heroes facing certain death by fire in an incinerator, the creative braintrust at Pixar were smart enough to pull back on the throttle a bit for this elegiac adventure. An adrift Woody (Hanks) tries to prove his loyalty to his new child owner Bonnie by serving as a mentor and life coach for Forky (Hale), a comically suicidal arts-and-crafts project that's newly gained consciousness and wants nothing more than to return to the trash heap he came from. When Forky goes missing on a family road trip, it's again up to Woody to rescue him. The real wrinkle in the story arrives when Woody reunites with his lost love Bo Peep (Potts), who now serves as freelance toy at a carnival with her own gang of misfits, and the old Sheriff begins to question larger purpose and place in the universe. As with most Pixar movies, the film is both loaded up with squishy gestures towards larger existential ideas and piled high with genuinely funny cartoon hijinks. By tricking out Woody's personal journey with emotionally rich reversals and delightfully absurd new characters, like a Canadian daredevil voiced by Keanu Reeves, Cooley keeps the film from feeling ponderous and repetitive. Even though large sections simply remix details and settings from previous Toy Story movies, the passage of time has added another melancholy layer to what was already a nostalgia-obsessed narrative when the series began in 1995. Instead of being suffocated by its own history, Toy Story 4 wears it like an old cowboy hat. Not every franchise can pull it off, but this one does.
Where to see it: In theaters now (Watch the trailer)

13. Non-Fiction

Released: May 3
Cast: Guillaume Canet, Juliette Binoche, Vincent Macaigne, Christa Théret
Director: Olivier Assayas (Personal Shopper)
Why it's great: If phrases like "the blogosphere" and lines like "tweets are modern-day haiku" make your skin crawl, perhaps stay away from Olivier Assayas's publishing industry semi-farce Non-Fiction. Attempting to make an accurate and contemporary catalog of modern media woes -- it starts with a tense conversation between a vain literary fiction editor Alain (Canet) and a frustrated provocateur novelist (Macaigne), and then builds out from there -- Assayas's film is especially vulnerable to eye-rolls and accusations of frivolity for its non-stop inside-baseball chatter. The plot has the urgency of overheard office gossip: The author is having an affair with a famous TV actress (Binoche) who happens to be married to the editor, who is also having an affair with a younger co-worker (Théret), and they all speak incessantly of the ways technology has upended their work. Yes, these characters live in tasteful, book-filled bubbles, but Assayas is a curious filmmaker, testing the porous social boundaries of this wealthy milieu and making an effort to situate their discussions in a larger economic system. Compared to his last two films starring Kristen Stewart, the moving meta showbiz drama Clouds of Sils Maria or the haunting existential mystery Personal Shopper, Non-Fiction is both more broadly comedic in its content and slightly stodgier in its form. Instead of loudly proclaiming a thesis, the movie embraces the mess of "reality," leaving the appropriate quotation marks around the word the whole time.
Where to see it: In theaters now (Watch the trailer)

12. An Elephant Sitting Still

Released: March 8
Cast: Peng Yuchang, Zhang Yu, Wang Yuwen, Liu Congxi
Director: Hu Bo
Why it's great: An Elephant Sitting Still, the first and last feature from writer and director Hu Bo, is a movie that seeks to overwhelm. That becomes apparent early on in the film's gargantuan 234 minute runtime, as Bo holds his camera on the pain and stress in his characters'  faces, allowing scenes to play out in real time through lengthy takes and careful blocking. A simple act, like hiding in a bathroom from a friend or taking a small dog for a walk, takes on an almost unbearable tension under Bo's deliberate direction. The 29-year-old Chinese filmmaker and novelist took his own life before An Elephant Sitting Still was released, adding yet another layer of tragedy to this already despair-filled story, but it's not a narrative completely devoid of hope. The threading of the plotlines, which include a rambunctious teenager-on-the-run and a kind-hearted old man on the verge of being sent to a nursing home, calls to mind the day-in-a-life structure of a small scaled epic like Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. (There's even a touch of animal-related magical realism here, too.) The movie's vision of the world is often cruel and transactional, but moments of beauty can't help but sneak in.
Where to see it: In theaters now (watch the trailer)

11. Her Smell

Released: April 12
Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Amber Heard, Cara Delevingne, Dan Stevens
Director: Alex Ross Perry (Listen Up Philip)
Why it's great: Becky Something, the lead singer of fictional alt-rock mainstays Something She, is a whirlwind of emotional chaos. As played by Moss, the captivating star of Mad Men, The Handmaid's Tale, and Perry's previous psychological thriller riff Queen of Earth, she's constantly fighting a war on all fronts: against her exasperated bandmates, her watchful manager, her hopeful proteges, her wounded ex-boyfriend, and anyone else who gets in her way. Conflicts fold in on each other; enemies become allies. Divided into distinct sections that each unfold in a single location, Her Smell is a music business recovery story conceptualized and shot by cinematographer Sean Price Williams as a combat film that keeps you locked in on the faces of those involved, flipping the giddy dreams-come-true backstage energy of A Star is Born into a harrowing nightmare of machine-gun-fire put-downs and mortar-like bursts of bad behavior. The roving camera puts you right in the maelstrom, demanding you follow Becky as she slowly, painstakingly battles her way towards higher ground.
Where to see it: Rent on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, and YouTube (Watch the trailer)

10. Us

Released: March 22
Cast: Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker
Director: Jordan Peele (Get Out)
Why it's great: The double, the doppelgänger with questionable intentions and mysterious origins, is a potent concept for both horror and comedy. Fittingly, writer and director Jordan Peele uses the device to elicit scares and laughs in Us, his sophomore feature about a family, led by intrepid parents Adelaide (Nyong'o) and Gabe (Duke), facing off against their jumpsuit-wearing, scissor-wielding counterparts in the middle of a leisurely vacation. What begins as an unsettling home invasion thriller with socio-political undertones in the vein of Michel Haneke's Funny Games gives way to a more frenzied, twist-filled science-fiction brain-teaser that tunnels deep into feelings of paranoia like an episode of Lost or The Twilight Zone. Peele's theme-park ride sense of pacing, particularly in a mid-movie sequence scored to the music of the Beach Boys and N.W.A., keeps you from questioning some of the leaps in narrative logic. (The ending, which goes to great lengths to explain certain aspects of the world and avoids others, might be a deal-breaker for some viewers.)  Less elegant than the conceptually air-tight Get Out, Us explodes in a million directions and raises questions that simply can't be answered. Untethering the ideas becomes half the fun.
Where to see it: Rent on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, and YouTube (Watch the trailer)

9. Amazing Grace

Released: April 5
Directors: Alan Elliott and Sydney Pollack
Why it's great: Aretha Franklin's voice has the power to transport the listener through time. In Amazing Grace, a captivating concert film made of footage shot in 1972 during the live recording sessions of her beloved album of the same name, she turns Los Angeles's New Temple Missionary Baptist Church into a musical flashback to her own childhood spent singing gospel music. As a performer and musician, she re-arranges old songs, passed down through generations of preachers and singers, into invigorating new texts. Similarly, this movie, once considered a "lost" document of her artistic prowess, now emerges in the present, reconfigured from footage shot by the filmmaker Sydney Pollack, and the act of watching it can turn your humble, local movie theater into a rollicking, sacred house of worship. While Franklin is undoubtedly the star here, commanding attention with her every move and utterance, the film itself is also an archive of other less well known faces from the past. We see the expert session musicians working to compliment her soulful vocals, the backup singers swaying in their seats as they accompany her, and the adoring fans stationed in the pews, bearing witness to her genius. There are so many layers of memory and artifice to untangle, adding poignancy and complexity to an already powerful performance. 
Where to see it: In theaters now (Watch the trailer) 

8. Transit

Released: March 1
Cast: Franz Rogowski, Paula Beer, Godehard Giese, Maryam Zaree
Director: Christian Petzold (Phoenix)
Why it's great: Everything is slippery in Petzold's meticulously strange psychological thriller. Like in his last film, the transfixing Hitchcock-ian World War II era genre riff Phoenix, there's an element of mistaken identity at play: On-the-run German refugee Georg (Rogowski) arrives in Marseille with the documents of a celebrated author and soon finds himself pretending to be the famous man in exchange for safe passage to Mexico. Meanwhile, the writer's wife (Beer) searches the city for her husband, crossing paths with his double in bars and on the streets. The thorny, complicated story is adapted from a 1942 novel by Anna Seghers, which was set during the 1940s, but Petzold strips the set-up of most period-specific signifiers and stages the intrigue-filled drama in a slightly askew, destabilizing version of the present. (For example, no one has cell phones but the fascist troops carry large assault rifles and dress in SWAT gear.) As a conceptual gambit, the question of "when" we are creates compelling moments of discomfort and asymmetry; on an emotional level, it can make the twists and turns in the plot feel slightly removed, like a mathematical proof for an unknown (potentially unsolvable) problem. Petzold's sure-handed direction, clean and economical in spite of the narrative knots, evokes the romance of the past and prods at the contradictions of the present. Being unstuck in time has rarely felt so uniquely pleasurable.
Where to see it: In theaters now (Watch the trailer)

7. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

Released: May 17
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Halle Berry, Laurence Fishburne, Mark Dacascos
Director: Chad Stahelski (John Wick: Chapter 2)
Why it’s worth checking out: Whether he's slamming an enemy in the face with a book in a library or dodging stray bullets while galloping down a Manhattan street on horseback, John Wick remains calm. The always-on-the-run assassin, returning for the third entry in this surprisingly resilient series, shows weakness, pain, and even vulnerability, but no weapon can puncture the armor of stillness Reeves brings to the role, and his performance is what makes these movies so gripping. The story is mostly silly -- Wick has been declared "excommunicado" by the order of assassins he used to belong to and must seek out old allies across the globe -- but Reeves and his collaborators, including series director Stahelski and the top-notch stunt team, never lose sight of the core elements that make Wick tick. Even as the mythology grows more complicated, the cast expands to introduce comically named characters like The Adjudicator (Billions break-out Asia Kate Dillon) or The Director (Angelica Huston), and the fights become even more elaborate, Reeves floats through the film. Even if some of the original's underworld grit has been shined away, replaced with scuff-free comic-book opulence and whiskey commercial ambiance, the series stays committed to simple pleasures. Alongside Tom Cruise's more outwardly stressed Ethan Hunt, Wick remains the best action hero Hollywood has to offer.
Where to see it: In theaters now (Watch the trailer)

6. Birds of Passage

Released: February 13
Cast: Carmiña Martínez, Natalia Reyes, José Acosta, Jhon Narváez
Directors: Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra (Embrace of the Serpent)
Why it's great: The sprawling gangster epic, complete with harrowing gun battles and bracing double-crosses, gets a thoughtful reimagining in this chronicle of an indigenous Wayúu family in northern Colombia who get swept up in the marijuana trade of the late 60s and 70s. (It all starts with some long-haired American Peace Corps volunteers looking to get high.) As is often the case in these stories, the influx of cash and uptick in violence within the community has destabilizing effects: historic traditions, codes of honor, and familial ties get abandoned in pursuit of empire building. We follow Rafayet (Acosta) as he attempts to hold onto his soul in the midst of unchecked, unflinching free-market chaos. What sets this tale of greed and betrayal apart from every Goodfellas knock-off you've ever seen? The filmmakers have an expert control of pacing and style, letting the story unfold through long chapters and nail-biting sequences of suspense. By the end, you're fully immersed in the world.
Where to see it: Rent on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, and YouTube (Watch the trailer)

5. High Flying Bird

Released: February 8
Cast: André Holland, Zazie Beetz, Bill Duke, Jeryl Prescott
Director: Steven Soderbergh (Traffic)
Why it's great: The "game on top of the game" is the true subject of this dazzling, head-scratching inversion of the sports movie from the stylistically restless director Soderbergh and Moonlight writer Tarell Alvin McCraney. Instead of locker-room huddles and buzzer-beater shots, this is a story of modern athletics stripped of all the highlight footage: Ray Burke (Holland) is a sports agent representing a young basketball client in the midst of a league lockdown. A weary maverick with an eye for the bigger picture, Burke needs to save his job, serve his client, and possibly "disrupt" an organization with a history of mistreating its clients. A hybrid of Jerry MaGuire-like behind the scenes drama and Moneyball-esque wonkery, High Flying Bird will be an odd hang for some -- characters trade lengthy monologues, real-life NBA players show up for documentary interludes, and, like Soderbergh's recent health care thriller Unsane, the whole movie was shot on an iPhone -- but it's worth putting the time in and thinking your way through. Few filmmakers are playing the game at this level.
Where to see it: Streaming on Netflix (Watch the trailer) 

4. Peterloo

Released: April 5
Cast: Maxine Peake, Pearce Quigley, Rory Kinnear, David Moorst
Director: Mike Leigh (Mr. Turner)
Why it's great: Peterloo, Mike Leigh's politically daring and immensely moving historical drama about the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, is a film that takes the nitty-gritty process of coalition-building seriously. The amount of time Leigh devotes to lengthy speeches made in cramped kitchens, crowded taverns, and bucolic open fields might strike some as superfluous or just plain dull, but the fiery rhetoric, mostly delivered by working-class English men and women seeking reforms to Parliament and an extension of voting rights, is more varied than it might appear. Some characters call for bloody revolution, others for careful adjustments to the system, and a few are simply tired of all the talk, skeptical it can accomplish anything. (The powerful bureaucrats in charge of the oppressive system are also tied up with their own legalistic, darkly funny babble.) The effectiveness of language in the face of brutal state violence is put on display in the film's tragic final section, which dramatizes a harrowing attack on peaceful protesters by saber-wielding soldiers in St Peter’s Fields. Equally concerned with tactics and rhetoric, Leigh's movie is the rare cinematic portrayal of the past that refuses to focus on a single "great" individual; instead, it shows how radical change can be pursued by groups coming together in pursuit of common goals. Climbing on a soapbox, potentially exposing yourself as a blabbering fool or as a galvanizing leader, requires its own type of bravery. Peterloo's brilliance lies in its ability to examine that courage and the quieter moments in between. 
Where to see it: Rent on Amazon, iTunes, and YouTube (Watch the trailer)

3. Ash Is Purest White

Released: March 15
Cast: Zhao Tao, Liao Fan, Feng Xiaogang, Xu Zheng
Director: Jia Zhangke (Mountains May Depart)
Why it's great: It's not uncommon for a grand romance to unfold over the years against a fraught, ever-evolving historical backdrop. At first glance, Ash Is Purest White, the new film from Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke, looks like a familiar epic, a sweeping tale of sex and violence between a gangster and his lover, grafted onto the tricky dynamics of 21st century China. When we first meet Qiao (Tao) and Bin (Fan), they are fellow travelers in a seedy, small-time criminal underworld, one where "YMCA" dances can break out at crowded clubs and thrilling fist-fights can erupt in city streets, like in a Hong Kong action movie from the '90s. But as the two grow apart, both geographically and emotionally, Ash Is Purest White more fully becomes Qiao's story and the movie takes on its own haunted, discursive tone. While examining matters of loyalty, sacrifice, and disillusionment, Zhangke arrives at emotional truths that aren't always spoken by the characters. Instead, he allows his actors, particularly the incredible Tao, to embody these ideas with the smallest movements and the subtlest gestures. The tensions and complications of history weigh them down, but that never prevents the film from taking flight.
Where to see it: Rent on Amazon, iTunes, and YouTube (watch the trailer)

2. The Souvenir

Cast: Honor Swinton Byrne, Tom Burke, Tilda Swinton, Jack McMullen
Director: Joanna Hogg (Exhibition)
Why it's great: What do we owe to the people we love? That's one of the many unanswerable questions driving this achingly beautiful, tenderly observed portrait of a toxic relationship between young film student Julie (Byrne) and cagey heroin addict Anthony (Burke). Against the backdrop of a specific slice of wealthy early '80s London, the movie -- which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival -- follows the couple's early awkward courtship, defined by brittle exchanges of ideas and emotions, while also keeping a watchful eye on Julie's tentative development as an artist. She wants to make movies and has a curiosity about the larger world around her; Anthony, with his cynicism and his anger, cannot help but put himself on a path to destruction. Like in many stories of young love, ruin is inevitable. On a premise level, the movie sounds almost comically bleak, like a parody of an art film from an episode of Seinfeld, but Hogg's scene-by-scene execution, finding moments and images that vibrate with specificity and life, is stunning. It's a movie that breaks your heart with studied precision.
Where to see it: In theaters now (Watch the trailer)

1. High Life

Released: April 5
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin, Mia Goth
Director: Claire Denis (Let the Sunshine In)
Why it's great: French filmmaker Claire Denis makes movies that claw at the brain and activate the senses. For her latest project, the ambitious and lyrical space drama High Life starring Robert Pattinson, she's crafted a story that's equal parts heady prison thriller, psycho-sexual medical mystery, and bong-rip journey through the cosmos. Bouncing backwards and forwards in chronology, the story tracks quiet inmate Monte (Pattinson) as he raises a baby in a cavernous, dorm-like shuttle in one timeline and attempts to thwart the secretive plans of an oddball scientist (Binoche) in another thread. Exactly how Monte ends up alone with the baby, playing the role of single parent in the stars, would be the central question of a more conventional sci-fi narrative, and there are surprising plot twists and shocking violent acts committed here. But Denis fills the movie with curious images and wild ideas that complicate the dystopian set-up. The ship has both a Eden-like garden, where Outkast's Benjamin waxes philosophical about his work, and a Cronenbergian machine Denis has called "the fuckbox," where Binoche unfurls her long hair and experiences moments of erotic ecstasy. They aren't set up as polarities or opposing ideas; instead Denis weaves all these elements together using the elliptical methods she's developed over a long career. Like Jonathan Glazer's equally haunting genre experiment Under The Skin, High Life resists the solutions of puzzle-box filmmaking, choosing instead to explore its own perilous terrain of desire.
Where to see it: In theaters now (Watch the trailer)

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