Movie Reviews

Priya Kansara as Ria Khan in Polite Society.

Arts

Get these Sundance 2023 movies on your radar now

3:08pm January 27, 2023

by Aisha Harris

The Sundance Film Festival returned in-person to Park City, Utah, this year, and with more submissions than ever. NPR's Aisha Harris screened nearly 20 films — these are her favorites.

Gustav De Waele and Eden Dambrine star in Close, which Belgium has submitted for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.

An adolescent friendship fractures in the Belgian Oscar hopeful, 'Close'

7:51pm January 26, 2023

by Bob Mondello

The social forces are pervasive but subtle in Lukas Dhont's Close — no overt bullying or homophobia, just internalized pressures on still-developing psyches.

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Ben Whishaw, Rooney Mara and Claire Foy star in Women Talking, which tells the story of a religious colony devastated by sexual violence.

Arts

'Women Talking' explores survival, solidarity and spirituality after sexual assault

5:00am January 20, 2023

by Justin Chang

Eight women come together in a hayloft to decide what's next after their religious colony is devastated by sexual violence. Sarah Polley adapted Miriam Toews' novel, which was drawn from true events.

Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda) confesses to causing the death of her baby daughter Elise in Saint Omer.

Arts

'Saint Omer' is a complex courtroom drama about much more than the murder at hand

1:37pm January 19, 2023

by John Powers

Based on an actual criminal case in France in which a Senegalese woman killed her baby daughter, Alice Diop's film is rigorous, powerful and crackling with ideas about isolation and colonialism.

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June (Storm Reid) is on the case when her mother disappears during a vacation with her boyfriend.

Arts

When her mother goes 'Missing,' a Gen-Z teen takes up a tense search on screens

11:20am January 19, 2023

by Linda Holmes

The new thriller Missing unfolds on the screens of a teenager searching for her vanished mother. But the growth of what should be a simple format turns out to be ... complicated.

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi plays a version of himself in No Bears.

Arts

In 'No Bears', a banned filmmaker takes bold aim at Iranian society

1:50pm January 13, 2023

by Justin Chang

In 2010, Iranian the authorities charged Jafar Panahi with making anti-government propaganda. No Bears, which was filmed in secret, is a brilliant, layered drama — and an idiosyncratic self portrait.

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Greta Gerwig, May Nivola, Adam Driver, Samuel Nivola and Raffey Cassidy appear in Noah Baumbach's White Noise.

Arts

Noah Baumbach's 'White Noise' adaptation is brave, even if not entirely successful

1:24pm January 06, 2023

by John Powers

The 1985 novel has been described as "unfilmable." Baumbach wasn't deterred — and though the movie brims with terrific moments, his White Noise doesn't hold together as well as Don DeLillo's.

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Bill Nighy plays a bottled-up bureaucrat who embarks on a quest for meaning in Living.

Arts

Sleekly sentimental, 'Living' plays like an 'Afterschool Special' for grownups

2:09pm January 03, 2023

by John Powers

Bill Nighy plays a bottled-up bureaucrat on a quest for meaning in Kazuo Ishiguro's adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's 1952 film Ikiru. The first film felt inventive and urgent — Living doesn't live up.

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All appears idyllic in 'Women Talking,' except for what none of the women has said — until now

5:28pm December 25, 2022

by Bob Mondello

Director Sarah Polley's adaptation of the novel by Miriam Toews is about women in an isolated religious colony who break the silence about abuse at the hands of the colony's men.

Movie Review: 'Living' and 'A Man Called Otto'

4:10pm December 23, 2022

by Bob Mondello

Two new films about men who find flexibility late in life, "Living" and "A Man Called Otto," are remakes of acclaimed foreign films: Director Akira Kurosawa's "Ikuru" and Sweden's "A Man Called Ove."