Movies for Music Lovers: 2025 Edition

Click here for the 

2024 edition.

This was a weird year. Not in terms of the movies I watched--well, not really--but everything else. 

I'm not normally one to tune out politics--especially since 2016--but for the entire year, I couldn't get away if I tried. Under the current regime, everything has been politicized; nothing is neutral, innocent, innocuous. 

 

Everything that promotes free thought--public media (the field in which I've worked since 2009), non-billionaire-owned newspapers--must be destroyed, everything that discourages free thought--chatbots, professor watchlists, book-banning campaigns--must be encouraged.

It's hard not to feel pessimistic, but I took hope from movies in which characters sought answers, forged connections, fought oppression, and found ways to make a difference. Not superheroes, just regular people.

Maybe they made mistakes, maybe they failed, but at least they tried, and maybe they even inspired others to do the same. Not all of these films fit that description, but I'm grateful for those that did.  

Left: Jafar Panahi at the Uptown on Nov 20.

Links lead to my reviews for Book and Film Globe (okay, just one), Letterboxd, Seattle Film Blog, and Video Librarian.

Top 10 

1. One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson) 

2. Sinners (Ryan Coogler) 

3. The Secret Agent / O Agente Secreto (Kleber Mendonça Filho) 

4. Familiar Touch (Sarah Friedland) 

5. 40 Acres (R.T. Thorne)   

6. Sirāt (Oliver Laxe)

7. Blue Sun Palace (Constance Tsang)  

8. Blue Moon (Richard Linklater)  

9. It Was Just an Accident / Un Simple Accident (Jafar Panahi )

10. The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt) 

Note: I was planning to review The Secret Agent, and prepared by catching up with Neighboring Sounds--the only Mendonça narrative I hadn't seen yet--but the new film screened for the press while I was at the New York Film Festival, and since I was only in town for five days, I missed it at NYFF, too. (I still need to catch up with Pictures of Ghosts.)

Runners-up 

11. 28 Years Later (Danny Boyle) 

12. Black Bag (Steven Soderbergh) 

13. Sentimental Value / Affeksjonsverdi (Joachim Trier) 

14. Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor)  

15. Weapons (Zach Cregger) 

16. The Ice Tower / La Tour de Glace (Lucile Hadžihalilović) 

17. Sister Midnight (Karan Kandhari) 

18. Reflection in a Dead Diamond / Reflet dans un Diamant Mort 

      (Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet) 

19. Highest 2 Lowest (Spike Lee) 

20. Misericordia (Alain Guiraudie) 

Right: Ira Sachs introduces Peter Hujar's Day at the Walter Reade Theater during this year's NYFF (I missed the premiere screening with Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall).

Note: Seattle Film Critics Society awarded Sorry, Baby with the inaugural SIFF Seattle Critics Award. In one of my last official acts as SFCS president, I announced the winner and nominees at the awards ceremony. In April, my board term will come to an end. 

21. Peter Hujar's Day (Ira Sachs) 

22. The Shrouds (David Cronenberg) 

23. Nouvelle Vague (Richard Linklater) 

24. Rebuilding (Max Walker-Silverman)

25. Hedda (Nia DaCosta) 

26. The Monkey (Osgood Perkins) 

27. If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (Mary Bronstein)  

28. Souleymane’s Story / L'Histoire de Souleymane (Boris Lojkine) 

29. Caught Stealing (Darren Aronofsky)

30. Eephus (Carson Lund) 

Note: 2025 was a comeback year of a kind for Richard Linklater, and I'm absolutely here for it. While walking back from the Hudson Theatre after catching a late-September performance of Waiting for Godot with Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, I happened to walk past Sardi's, which is also on 44th Street, and where Blue Moon takes place. Only later did I find that Linklater filmed the entire film on a soundstage in Dublin. Sure fooled me!

31. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (Rian Johnson) 

32. Dead Man's Wire (Gus Van Sant) 

33. Cloud (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

34. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni) 

35. Bruce Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (Scott Cooper) 

36. Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro) 

37. Julie Keeps Quiet / Julie Zwigt (Leonardo van Dijl) 

38. To Kill a Wolf (Kelsey Taylor)  

39. The Plague (Charlie Polinger) 

40. The Friend (David Siegel and Scott McGehee) 

Left: Scott Cooper and Jeremy Allen White talk about Bruce Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere at Alice Tully Hall during this year's NYFF.

41. Drink and Be Merry (Adam Volerich)

42. Train Dreams (Clint Bentley) 

43. The Testament of Ann Lee (Mona Fastvold)  

44. No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook) 

45. Twinless (James Sweeney)

46. Lurker (Alex Russell) 

47. Out (Dennis Alink)

48. Alice-Heart (Mike Macera)

49. One of Them Days (Lawrence Lamont)

50. They Call Her Death (Austin Snell)

Top documentaries 

1. Chain Reactions (Alexandre O. Philippe) 

2. Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse 

    (Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin) 

3. The Alabama Solution (Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman) 

4. Devo (Chris Smith) 

5. Mr. Scorsese (Rebecca Miller) 

6. WTO/99 (Ian Bell)  

7. SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) (Questlove)

8. Art for Everybody (Miranda Yousef) 

9. Cover-Up (Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus) 

10. Suburban Fury (Robinson Devor) 

 

Runners-up 

11. Deaf President Now! (Nyle DiMarco and Davis Guggenheim) 

12. My Mother Jayne (Mariska Hargitay) 

13. Billy Joel: And So It Goes (Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin) 

14. Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra)

15. Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story (Sinéad O'Shea)  

16. Pee-Wee As Himself (Matt Wolf)

17. Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989 (Göran Hugo Olsson) 

18. Baby Doe (Jessica Earnshaw)    

19. Jean Cocteau (Lisa Immordino Vreeland)

20. Predators (David Osit)

Right: WTO/99 director Ian Bell and producer Gavin P. Sullivan at Seattle Film Critics Society's PNW nominee screening at SIFF Film Center on Nov 23. The film went on to win our best documentary award.

Short: Shelly's Leg (Wes Hurley).

Animated feature: Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (Maïlys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han, and Jin Kuang).

2024 films (that I caught up with in 2025): A Different Man, Black Dog, The Flamingo (directed by former Northwest Film Forum head programmer Adam Sekuler, who co-edited Suburban Fury), Kneecap, and The Outrun. 

Missed or haven't seen yet: BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions, Caught by the Tides, Come See Me in the Good Light, Eddington, Father Mother Sister Brother, Is This Thing On?, Materialists, Megadoc, Mickey 17, My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow, Presence, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, Resurrection, and The Voice of Hind Rajab.

The rest (all categories): 25 Cats from Qatar, Acolyte, The Actor, American Baby, Americana, April, Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day, Before the Call, Bird in Hand, The Balconettes, Born for You / Nata per Te, Boys Go to Jupiter, Braindead, Bring Her Back, Bugonia, Cat Town USA, Charlotte, 1994, Companion, ¡Corazón!, Crusty Fouler, Debut, or, Objects of the Field of Debris as Currently Catalogued, Die My Love, The Disappearance of Miss Scott, Jacqueline du Pré: Genius and Tragedy, Duse, Eat the Night, Endless Summer Syndrome, Enigma, F1, The Fantastic 4: First Steps, A Fateful Weekend, Fidelity, Foreign Objects, Four Mothers, Freedom Renegade, Girl with Two Belly Buttons, Good Boy, Grafted, Great Absence, Hamnet, Holland, Honeyjoon, House of Dynamite, Jay Kelly, Jimmy in Saigon, Late Fame, The Life of Chuck, Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story, Marty Supreme, Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, Matt and Mara, Moonwater, More Beautiful Perversions, Mother, Couch, Naked Ambition, On a String, One to One: John & Yoko, Orwell: 2+2=5, Pavements, The Perfect Neighbor, Pescador, The Phoenician Scheme, Pooja, Sir, Predator: Badlands, A Private Life, Ready or Not, Revelations of Divine Love, Riefenstahl, Rope Tied, Roofman, Rose of Nevada, The Salamander King / The Long Shot, Samuel and the Light / Samuel e a Luz, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, Séance, The Secret of Me, Sisi & I / Sisi & Ich, Softshell, Song Sung Blue, Songs of Black Folk, Superman, Suspended Time, Style: A Seattle Basketball Story, Sylvania, There, There, Times with God, Tripolar The Movie, The True Beauty of Being Eaten by a Tick, Twelfth Night, The Ugly Stepsister, Water Lilies, Ways to Traverse a Territory / Formas de Atravesar un Territorio, Vulcanizadora, Warfare, We Want the Funk, Wolf Land, Wolf Man, The Womenists, and The Zodiac Killer Project.  

Left: Director Mark Jenkin with cowriter/actor/partner Mary Woodvine at Walter Reade Theater during NYFF.

Note: For the second year in a row, I served on the judging committee for Cucalorus, though I wasn't able to make it to this year's festival--it conflicted with the SFCS screenings--and that's how I saw 32 of the films above. A few have distribution, but most don't. I'm thrilled that American Baby and Beautiful Evening, Beautiul Day made the cut, and reserve the right to rank them at a later date if they get a proper release.

Older (pre-2024) films: 20,000 Species of Bees / 20.000 Especies de Abejas, All You Need Is Death, Amer, The Ax / Le Couperet, Black Moon, Blame It on Rio, Bone Tomahawk, The Burrowers, The Cat and the Canary (1927), The Cat and the Canary (1939), The Cat and the Canary (1978), Chained for Life, Choose Me, Compensation, Curse of the Undead, A Date for Mad Mary, The Day of the Locust, Dead Air, Deathdream / Dead of Night, Deep Cover, Desperate Hours, Detroit, Doctor X, Down with Love, The Elephant Man, Faces, Family Plot, The Fiend Who Walked the West, Frenzy, Giants and Toys, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, The Glass Web, The Gold Diggers, The Hills Have Eyes, His Motorbike, Her Island, Hugo, In the Heat of the Night, In the Rearview / Skad Dokad, Infinity According to Florian, Juliet, Naked, Kitten with a Whip, Bernadette Lafont - And God Created the Free Woman, The Leopard Man, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Love Letters, Louis, Madam Satan, May, Mi Iubita, Mon Amour, Mirror Images, Murder by Decree, A Murder in Abidjan / Un Crime à Abidjan, Miracle Mile, Murder, My Sweet, The Narrow Margin, The Old Dark House, Once Again (for the very first time), The Outfit, The Paperboy, Play It Cool, Poetry / Shi, A Powerful Thang, Q&A, The Quiet Earth, The Return - Family Separation, Roadgames, Roubaix, Police Department, Ordinary Business, The Sales Girl / Khudaldagch Ohin, Seisaku's Wife, Serpent's Path, The Shooting on Mole Street, The Silent Partner, Skin Gang, The Slumber Party Massacre, St. Vincent, The Stepfather, Strange Days, Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss, Streets of Fire, Sudden Fear, Tarzana, Through and Through, Tish, Toby Dammit, Truck Turner, The Warriors, Welcome to L.A., Wicked, Will, Witness, Yeast, You Are Not Alone / Du Er Ikke Alene, and Zelly & Me.

Right: Steve De Jarnatt's Miracle Mile was the Grand Illusion Cinema/Scarecrow Video member screening for December at the NWFF. De Jarnatt was in attendance, and also introduced his short flm, Tarzana.

Note: Thanks to Kanopy, the Internet Archive, Tubi, and YouTube for making many of the above films available. All four sites were helpful while preparing for my horror western panel at Crypticon.  

Television/streaming (unranked): All Creatures Great and Small S5, Anatomy of Lies, Apple Cider Vinegar, The Bear S4, Brokenwood Mysteries S1-2, Call Her Alex, Call the Midwife S14, Dept Q, Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy, Dope Thief, Dying for Sex, Finding Your Roots S11, The Gold S1, The Good Karma Hospital S1-2, Grantchester S10, Law & Order S24, Law & Order: SVU S27, The Lowdown, Mad Men S6, The Marlow Murder Club, Miss Scarlet S5, NYPD Blue S6 - 7, Patience S1, The Pitt, Professor T S4, Reacher S1-3, Severance S2, Slow Horses S5, Task, Unforgotten S6, The White Lotus S3, Wolf Hall - The Mirror and the Light, and The Yogurt Shop Murders. Also, select episodes of Atlanta, The Good Place, and Sex Education.  

Books (unranked): The Ax (Donald E. Westlake), Girl in a Band: A Memoir (Kim Gordon), King's Ransom (Ed McBain), and Without You: The Tragic Story of Badfinger (Dan Matovina). I also bought copies of memoirs from Neko Case, Tim Curry, Werner Herzog, and Lydia Yuknavitch, but haven't read any of them yet.

Top image from Screen Anarchy (One Battle After Another poster).

Movies for Music Lovers: 2024 Edition

Click here 

for the 

2023 edition. 

This year, for the first time, I served on the screening committee for Cucalorus, the independent film festival based in Wilmington, North Carolina, and caught 40 films I might not have seen otherwise, or even known about. A few of them, like the B&W Mexican film Dead Man's Switch, appear in the list below, even if they didn't play in Seattle, though most of the films I've listed did make it to area theaters. 

Anna Kendrick's Woman of the Hour and Jeremy Saulnier's Rebel Ridge, which premiered on Netflix, are notable exceptions. Despite the streamer's minimal promotion, both appear to have reached a lot of viewers, and not just those previously familiar with their work. At the very least: Rebel Ridge made a breakout star out of Aaron Pierre.

Of the films I wrote about, Ethan Coen's Drive-Away Dolls was by far the most-read review. Nearly 900 people clicked the link, though I have no idea why. To date, my 2020 Pop Con paper on Charlotte Gainsbourg remains my most popular post with nearly 17,000 impressions.  

Links lead to Letterboxd, Seattle Film Blog, Rock & Roll Globe, and Video Librarian.

Top 10 

1. Janet Planet (Annie Baker) 

2. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat) 

3. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass) 

4. Red Rooms (Pascal Plante) 

5. A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg) 

6. Between the Temples (Nathan Silver) 

7. Dead Man's Switch / Arillo de hombre muerto

    (Alejandro Gerber Bicecci) 

8. Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier) 

9. The Vourdalak (Adrien Beau) 

10. MaXXXine (Ti West) 

Runners-up 

11. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello) 

12. Anora (Sean Baker) 

13. Civil War (Alex Garland) 

14. The Girl with the Needle / Pigen med nålen (Magnus von Horn)

15. Flow (Gints Zilbalodis)

16. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross)

17. Good One (India Donaldson)

18. The Fire Inside (Rachel Morrison)

19. The Last Showgirl (Gia Coppola) 

20. Crossing / გადასვლა (Levan Akin)

21. Vermiglio (Maura Delpero)

22. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh )

23. Evil Does Not Exist / Aku wa sonzai shinai (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)  

24. Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood ) 

25. Bikeriders (Jeff Nichols)

26. Femme (Sam Freeman and Ng Ping)  

27. Stopmotion (Robert Morgan)

28. Universal Language (Matthew Rankin )

29. Drive-Away Dolls (Ethan Coen) 

30. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun) 

31. Dìdi (Sean Wang) 

32. 20,000 Species of Bees / 20.000 especies de abejas (Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren)   

33. In Our Day / Uriui haru (Hong Sang-soo) 

34. Conclave (Edward Berger)

35. September 5 (Tim Fehlbaum) 

36. Vulcanizadora (Joel Potrykus)  

37. The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi ) 

38. Ghostlight (Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan ) 

39. Sing Sing (Greg Kwedar)

40. Immaculate (Michael Mohan) 

41. Only the River Flows / He bian de cuo wu (Wei Shujun)

42. The Devil's Bath / Des teufels bad 

      (Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz)

43. Blitz (Steve McQueen)

44. Woman of the Hour (Anna Kendrick)  

45. Trust / Confidenza (Daniele Luchetti) 

46. Oh, Canada (Paul Schrader)

47. Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik)

48. Strange Darling (JT Mollner)

49. Gasoline Rainbow (Bill and Turner Ross)  

50. The Order (Justin Kurzel)

Top Documentaries 

1. No Other Land (Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham) 

2. Grasshopper Republic (Daniel McCabe)

3. Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat (Johan Grimonprez) 

4. In the Rearview / Skąd dokąd (Maciek Hamela)

5. Resynator (Alison Tavel)  

6. Rainier: A Beer Odyssey (Isaac Olsen) 

7. All We Carry / Lo que llevamos (Cady Vogue)  

8. Lyd (Sarah Ema Friedland and Rami Youniss)

9. Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill (Andy Brown and Brian Lindstrom)

10. Luther (Dawn Porter)

The rest (alphabetical): 7 Keys, All Happy Families, Anxious., Babygirl, Band on the Run, Banel & Adama, Bastion, Ben and Suzanne, a Reunion in 4 Parts, The Black Sea, Boca Chica, Bound, Brats, Breakup Season, The Brutalist, Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg, Challengers, Chaperone, Christmas Eve in Miller's Point, Coma, Close Your Eyes, A Complete Unknown, The Dead Don't Hurt, Emilia Pérez, Faye, Fish War, Friend Divorce, Future Date, Heretic, The Heirloom, His Three Daughters, Hit Man, I Am: Celine Dion, It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This, Lisa Frankenstein, Longlegs, Lone Wolves, Maria, Mother, Couch, My Old Ass, Nosferatu, Not If I See You First, The People's Joker, Linda Perry: Let It Die Here, Not Not Jazz, The Piano Lesson, Problemista, Queer, Sebastian, Sometimes I Think About Dying, Thelma, Tony, Shelly and the Magic Light, The Veteran, Where in the Hell, and Will & Harper.

Missed or haven’t seen yet: Alien: Romulus, All We Imagine as Light, All You Need Is Death, Close Your Eyes, A Different Man, Dune: Part 2, The End, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Green Border, I'm Still Here, In a Violent Nature, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, Kneecap, Look Into My Eyes, Memoir of a Snail, Oddity, The Outrun, The Room Next Door, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Wicked, and The Wild Robot.

2023 films: The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster, Dream Scenario, Maestro, Nyad, Pamela, a Love Story, Radical Wolfe, The Sales Girl, Sisi & I, Slide, The Stones and Brian Jones, and Youth (Spring). 

2025 films: 7 Keys, Anna Comes Home, Chaperone, Color Book, Duino, Familiar Touch, Future Date, The Heirloom, Ick, Jackie Shane: Any Other Way, Messy, Operation Taco Gary's, Rowdy Friends, Slide, and Where in the Hell.

At least six of these films would've been contenders if they had counted for this year, but I saw most of them at Cucalorus before they had distribution, or before their deals had been announced--Familiar Touch was acquired by Music Box prior to its Cucalorus premiere. I was thrilled to moderate the Q&As for three of them, and I also got to chat with Color Book filmmaker David Fortune, who impressed me on every level. Here's hoping these films make it to town. I know for sure that one of the directors has submitted their film to SIFF for the 2025 festival. FWIW, I counted Scala!!! as a 2023 film last year, but 2024 would've made more sense if I was going by Seattle distribution dates.

Pre-2023 films: Another Country, The Blackcoat's Daughter, Blood Relatives, Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets, Broken Mirrors, Candy, Carlito's Way, Caveat, Cemetery Man, Cockfighter, The Comfort of Strangers, Condo Painting, Creepshow, D-Day: The Finished Film, The Day of the Locust, The Dead Mother, Demon Pond, Demon Seed, Demons, Despair, The Desperate Hours, The Devil's Rain, The Devil's Sisters, Divine Intervention, Dragon Superman / Dragon Ghost Flying Knight, The Entity, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, Eve's Bayou, Fanny: The Right to Rock, Frankenhooker, Frankenstein: The True Story, Glen and Randa, Green Fish, Gretel & Hansel, The Guest, Hawk Jones, Hester Street, The Hidden, High Crime, Hollywood 90028, Hugo, Human Desire, Hustle, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, Impulse, In the Radiant City, July Rhapsody, Le Combat dans L'ile, The Last Island, The Last Picture Show, Little Richard: King and Queen of Rock 'n' Roll, Looker, Lourdes, Loving, Messiah of Evil, Mortal Thoughts, Mud, Nam June Paik: The Moon Is the Oldest TV, A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge, Nightmares Come at Night, Oasis, Paris, 13th District, La Piscine, Please Baby Please, Poetry, The Primevals, Querelle, Re-Animator, Red Sun, Saint Maud, Screamplay, Stage Fright, Stella Maris, Strange M. Victor, Stranger by the Lake, The Strangler, Sunday, The Swiss Conspiracy, Tchoupitoulas, Vampire Circus, The Velvet Vampire, Victims of Sin, The Wedding Party, Willy/Milly, You Are Not Alone, and Young Soul Rebels. 

Short films: And I Will Rise, If Only To Hold You Down, Saint Frankenstein, and all 14 shorts on the Scala!!! Blu-ray set.

TV: Babylon Berlin S4, The Bear S3, Brokenwood Mysteries S1-2, Call the Midwife S13, Cobra S3, The Crown S6, D.I. Ray S2, Feud: Capote and the Swans (mostly for Gus Van Sant), Funny Woman S1, George & Tammy, Grantchester S9, Guilt S3, The Good Place S3, Hotel Portofino S3, Law & Order S22, Law & Order: SVU S24, Miss Scarlet (and the Duke) S3-5, MaryLand, Moonflower Murders, Mr. Bates vs the Post Office, The New Look, Nolly, NYPD Blue S1-5, Professor T S3, Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, Ridley Road, Sex Education S4, Slow Horses S4, Tokyo Vice S2, True Detective (S4): Night Country, Twin Peaks: The Return, Unforgotten S5, Us, and Van der Walk S4.

Books: Gillian Gaar's Queen & A Night at the Opera: 50 Years, Kathleen Hanna's Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk, David Milch's Life's Work, Keith Richards' Life (research for Anita Pallenberg documentary review), Julie Salamon's The Devil's Candy: The Anatomy of A Hollywood Fiasco, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (research for a Crypticon panel on Frankenstein adaptations), and Colson Whitehead's Nickel Boys (preparation for the new film).

Images from Variety (Demi Moore in The Substance), Indiewire (Julianne Nicholson in Janet Planet), Lab111 (The Beast poster), The Hollywood Reporter (Luther Vandross / Sony Music Archives / Photographer Guzman), Rotten Tomatoes (Barbara Hershey in The Entity), and NPR (Gary Oldman in Slow Horses).

Movies for Music Lovers: 2022 Edition

Click here for the 2021 edition. 

This list represents my favorite films of the year. I missed a lot, I always do, so there are omissions that might have made the cut if I had gotten to them in time. There are also widely-acclaimed films I just didn't like. If you're curious, you can find a few of the former in the "Missed" section (and maybe I won't enjoy them as much as I hope; only time will tell). 

These days I've been writing more about old movies than new ones, so that influenced my list. I watch every new film I would like to see, in addition to those I feel I should see, but I don't have enough time and money to see it all, and non-local film fests aren't an option at present. 

Plus, some runs are so short that I don't find out about them until after the fact--like Please Baby Please at the Grand Illusion or Peter von Kant at the Uptown--because I didn't check the movie listings that week or because no publicists reached out to me (and I'm on a lot of mailing lists). It happens. Okay! Enough excuses, here's my list.   

Links lead to my reviews for Seattle Film Blog, Rock & Roll Globe, and Video Librarian. 

Top 10 

1. EO (Jerzy Skolimowski)

2. Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook) 

3. Benediction (Terence Davies) 

4. Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg) 

5. Lost Illusions (Xavier Giannoli) 

6. Happening (Audrey Diwal) 

7. Aftersun (Charlotte Wells) 

8. X (Ti West) 

9. Great Freedom (Sebastian Meise)  

10. Compartment Number 6 (Juho Kuosmanen) 

Note: I'm salty that Decision to Leave missed out on an Oscar nomination. I'm not sure Park Chan-wook will get the chance again, but you never know. He's hardly predictable.    

Runners-up 

11. White Noise (Noah Baumbach) 

12. The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg) 

13. TÁR (Todd Field) 

14. The Unknown Man of Shandigor (Jean-Louis Roy) 

15. Armageddon Time (James Gray) 

16. Kimi (Steven Soderbergh) 

17. The Wonder (Sebastian Lelio) 

18. The Inspection (Elegance Bratton) 

19. She Said (Maria Schrader) 

20. Watcher (Chloe Okuno) 

Note: I loved White Noise. I didn't write about it, because I didn't have time to re-read the novel (I re-read the first chapter before time got away from me). It isn't 100% faithful, and nor should it be, but it feels personal, even as Noah Baumbach veers into action-adventure territory, i.e. the parallels with his own life aren't hard to find, and he's addressed it vis-a-vis his professorial father, who has a lot in common with Adam Driver's Jack Gladney.   

21. RRR (S. S. Ramouli)

22. Nanny (Nikyatu Jusu)

23. Flux Gourmet (Peter Strickland)

24. Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)

25. Emily the Criminal (John Patton Ford) 

26. Prey (Dan Trachtenberg)

27. Confess, Fletch (Greg Mottola)

28. Till (Chinonye Chukwu)

29. Saint Omer (Anna Diop)

30. Pearl (Ti West)

31. Brighton 4th (Levan Koguashvili)

32. You Won’t Be Alone (Goran Stolevski)

33. Thirteen Lives (Ron Howard)

34. Corsage (Marie Kreutzer)

35. Pleasure (Ninja Thyberg)

36. The Northman (Robert Eggers)

37. Both Sides of the Blade (Claire Denis)

38. Mad God (Phil Tippett)

39. Stars at Noon (Claire Denis)

40. Lingui, the Sacred Bonds (Mahamat Saleh Haroun)

41. After Yang (Kogonada)

42. A New Old Play (Qiu Jiongjiong)

43. Barbarian (Zach Cregger)

44. Nope (Jordan Peele)

45. The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)

46. Bodies Bodies Bodies (Halina Reijn) 

47. Neptune Frost (Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman)

48. The Silent Twins (Agnieszka Smoczynska)

49. Hatching (Hanna Bergholm)

50. Hit the Road (Paha Panahi)

Note: Pachinko, on Apple TV+, was created by Kogonada. I really need to catch up with it. Also, in April, Saul Williams is coming to the Northwest Film Forum with Neptune Frost.

Top Documentaries 

1. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)

2. Nothing Compares (Kathryn Ferguson)

3. Fire of Love (Sarah Dosa)

4. Sweetheart Deal (Elisa Levine and Gabriel Miller)

5. Is This Black Enough for You?!? (Elvis Mitchell)

6. Ron Carter: Finding the Right Notes (Peter Schnall)

7. Navalny (Daniel Rohrer)

8. Cane Fire (Anthony Banua-Simon)

9. Bad Axe (David Siev)

10. All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen)

Note: I've been off the documentary beat at Video Librarian, so I didn't see as many as I normally do. I'll try harder in 2023. It was easier when titles were assigned to me.

The rest (in alphabetical order): After Blue, Ahed’s Knee, All Quiet on the Western Front, AmbuLAnce, Amsterdam, Apollo 10 ½, Apples, Argentina 1985, The Batman, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Blonde, Bones and All, Breaking, Broker, Cat Daddies, Causeway, Cha Cha Real Smooth, Close, Deep Water, Earwig, Elvis, Empire of Light, Fresh, Funny Pages, Descendant, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, God’s Creatures, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, Holy Spider, Hellraiser, I Didn't See You There, Jane by Charlotte, The Jangling Man: The Story of Martin Newell, Living, A Love Song, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Meet Me in the Bathroom, Men, The Menu, Montana Story, Moonage Daydream, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, Murina, My Best Part, No Fucks Given, Official Competition, The Outfit, Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché, Quant, The Quiet Girl, Resurrection, Sr., There There, Top Gun: Maverick, Triangle of Sadness, Turning Red, Vortex, Wendell & Wild, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, The Whale, The Woman King, and Women Talking.

Note: I enjoyed many of these films, like Michael Bay's AmbuLAnce. Better yet, I got to see Yayha Abdul-Mateen II in person in Topdog/Underdog on Broadway--he was great! 

2021 Holdovers: Being the Ricardos, Don’t Look Up, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Raging Fire, Val, and West Side Story.

Missed (or Haven't Seen Yet): Avatar: The Way of Water, Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, The Cathedral, Don't Worry, Darling, The Eternal Daughter, No Bears, Peter von Kant, Please Baby Please, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Smile, Three Minutes: A Lengthening, and Utama. I plan to catch up with a few before the Oscar ceremony; I may be reviewing others for Video Librarian.  

Non-2022 Movies: Abby, The Accused (1949), Alice, Sweet Alice, Bad Manners, The Beach, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Black Caesar, Blood Beat, Bloodthirsty Butchers, Bone, Broken Lullaby, Buck and the Preacher, Burnt Offerings, Candyman (2021), The Chase (1946), Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, Chircales, Clouds of Sils Maria, Coming Apart, Conrad Veidt--My Life, The Corruption of Chris Miller, Crimes of the Future (1970), Crimes of Passion, Cruising, Dark (2017), Deep Red, Detour, A Double Life, The Double Life of Paul Henreid, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, Electra Glide in Blue, Ema, Empire Records, Expresso Bongo, Eyes of Laura Mars, Farewell (Abschied), Fast Company, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Freeway, Getting to Know the Big, Wide World, Girls in Prison, God Told Me To, The Go-Go’s, Going Places, Grace Jones: A One Man Show, The Grand Illusion, Grand Slam, The Great Moment, Happy Birthday to Me, Hardcore, Hell Up in Harlem, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Horror Express, Images, In Bruges, In the Realm of the Senses, Ingrid Caven: Music and Voice, It’s Alive, Jane B. par Agnès V, Katalin Varga, Kill List, King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen, KRON, Kummatty, La Strada, Last House on the Left, Léon, the Professional, Lonelyhearts, Losing Ground, Love Bites, Lured, Lust, Caution, Mad Dog and Glory, Mademoiselle, Martin und Hans, Metropolitan, Mission Impossible: Fallout, Monsieur Hire, Moonrise, Mother’s Day (Muttertag), Moulin Rouge (1952), The Mystery of Picasso, Naked Alibi, Nathalie…, The Nice Guys, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Night Moves, Night of the Werewolf, Nightbirds, Nitram, Nobody’s Watching, Normal Life, Of Time and the City, One-Eyed Jacks, Only the Animals, Out of Sight, Patty Hearst, Phenomena, The Ploughman’s Lunch, Pontypool, Prevenge, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, Pump Up the Volume, Pushing Hands, The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here!, Red Angel, Reflections in a Golden Eye, Rock Hudson’s Home Movies, The Rubber Gun, Sambizanga, Secondhand Hearts, The Seduction of Joe Tynan, Shivers, The Shout, The Sightseers, The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender, Sparrows, Special Effects, The Stuff, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Suture, Targets, Thirst, Times Square, To Find a Man, Top of the Heap, The Trials of Oscar Wilde, Vamp, The Vanity Tables of Douglas Sirk, Walker, Walking and Talking, The Wanderers, Wild Things, and World’s Greatest Dad.

TV (in alphabetical order): All Creatures Great and Small S2; American Masters: Ailey, Marian Anderson - The Whole World in Her Hands, Althea Gibson - She Always Wanted To Be Somebody, Raúl Juliá - The World's a Stage, Bombshell - The Hedy Lamarr Story, Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, Terrence McNally - Every Act of Life, Rita Moreno - Just A Girl Who Decided to Go for It, Rothko - Pictures Must Be Miraculous, Oliver Sacks - His Own Life, and Laura Ingalls Wilder - Prairie to Page; America Outside with Baratunde Thurston; Andor; Annika S1; Around the World in 80 Days; Atlanta S3; Barry S3; The Bear S1; Before We Die (UK), Benjamin Franklin; Bosch Legacy; Call My Agent! S1-4; Call the Midwife S11; Classic Albums: The Band, Black Sabbath, Phil Collins, Cream, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, John Lennon, Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, Elvis Presley, Queen, Lou Reed, Rush, Sex Pistols, Carly Simon, and The Who; The Crown S2-3; Devs; The End of the F***ing World S2; Endeavor S8; Finding Your Roots S8; Friend of the Family; The Good Lord Bird; Great Performances: Uncle Vanya; Guilt S2; Hacks S2; Harlem Godfather S1; Hotel Portofino S1, Independent Lens: Storm Lake and Try Harder!; The Indian Doctor S1-3; Irma Vep; Jamaica Inn; Kidnap & Ransom S1-3; The Kids in the Hall S6; The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks; The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey; The Last Movie Stars; Law & Order S21; Law & Order: SVU S23; Light & Magic; Lovejoy; The Making of a Lady; Masterpiece: Magpie Murders, Ridley Road, and Sanditon S2; Minx S1; Miss Scarlet and the Duke S2-3; Moon Knight; Mossback’s Northwest S1-2; Ms. Marvel S1; Now Hear This S1-3; Reilly, Ace of Spies; Reservation Dogs S1-3; Severance S1; Sex Education S1-3; Show Me a Hero; Slow Horses S1-2; Station Eleven; Suspects S1-5; The Trick; Tokyo Vice S1; Under the Banner of Heaven; and The U.S. and the Holocaust.

Movie (and Music) Podcasts: I listened to every episode of The Rialto Report, Supporting Characters, Video Archives, and You Must Remember This, in addition to several from The Projection Booth. I also enjoyed the limited series on Siskel and Ebert and Sylvester.   

Thanks: To the Pop Conference for letting me talk about Tim Curry (on video) and to Crypticon for letting me talk about Alex Garland, Peter Strickland, and Ben Wheatley (in-person) with Jason Weiss and Matt Oakes. Since the pandemic, these sorts of opportunities have been few and far between. I participated in more live events prior to 2020, and I miss them. To KUOW, Rock & Roll Globe, and Video Librarian for letting me write/talk about any film or soundtrack that caught my fancy (and for paying on time). And to Aaron Hillis (Playtime) and Martin Scorsese (The Film Foundation) for introducing--and re-introducing--me to many fine films, all for the low cost of no dollars.      

  

Images: EO (Sideshow / Janus Films / The New Yorker), Decision to Leave (Mubi / The New York Times), White Noise (Netflix / Everyeye Cinema), After Yang (A24 / The Atlantic), AmbuLAnce (Universal / Cinema Blend), and The Last Movie Stars (HBO / TV Insider).

September 2022 Reviews

These are the reviews and other
projects I'm working on this month. 

Seattle Film Blog: The Gourds and All The Labor: A Film, a Song, and a Few Thoughts, Spencer Wolff Interrogates the NYPD's "Stop and Frisk" Program in 2014 Documentary Stop, A.K.A. Doc Pomus: A Documentary About a Writer, a Raconteur, and a Humanitarian, On Paul Verhoeven's Deviously Twisted Elle, Shirley Clarke's The Connection: "Men Held Captive by the Power of Drugs," Photographer Jamel Shabazz Captured (and Continues to Capture) New York Cool, Carnival of Souls: Dissolving the Line Between the Grind House and the Art House, and Things to Come: A Work of Empathy from French Filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve.

Video Librarian: Coming Apart [Blu-ray], Electra Glide in Blue [Blu-ray], and The Trials of Oscar Wilde [Blu-ray].

Endnote: Image from Rotten Tomatoes.

August 2022 Reviews

These are the reviews and other projects I'm working on this month.

Rock & Roll Globe: Giving the Kids a Voice: Fast Times at Ridgemont High at 40. 

Seattle Film Blog: Frederic Goode Celebrates the British Invasion in 1965's Go Go Mania AKA Pop Gear, Years Before His Shift to Horror: Tod Browning's Proto-Noir Outside the Law, Shanghai Triad: Zhang Yimou's 1995 Literary Adaptation as Not-So-Veiled Autobiography, and Jobriath A.D.: Remembering the Out and Proud Glam-Rock Star Who "Out-Queened Queen."

Video Librarian: Nathalie... [Blu-ray], The Silver Screen - Color Me Lavender, Cow, The Innocents, Lost Illusions, and Nitram.

Fast Times (Jennifer Jason Leigh) image from the IMDb.

July 2022 Reviews

These are the reviews and other projects I'm working on this month.

Rock & Roll Globe: Redd Kross’s Neurotica at 35: Still Playing Their Songs.

Seattle Film Blog: On the Sonic Catering and Epicurean Toxicity of Peter Strickland’s Flux Gourmet, a revamped version of Putting Out Fire with Gasoline in Carlos, Jordan Peele's Nope and the Buck and the Preacher Poster on the Ranch House Wall, and Running and Gunning with Writer-Director Larry Cohen in the ‘70s NYC of God Told Me To.  

Video Librarian: 9 Bullets, Ingrid Caven - Words and Voice,
Cane Fire, and Out of Sight [Blu-ray].  

Jennifer Lopez (Karen Sisco) image from the IMDb.  

June 2022 Reviews

These are the reviews and other projects I'm working on this month. 

KUOW: All Things Considered film recommendation segment. 

Rock & Roll Globe: In Praise of the Topical Dance Music of Belgian Duo Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul and The Sounds of Times Square: The First and Best Film in Allan Moyle’s Pop Rebellion Trilogy.

Seattle Film Blog: Crimes of the Future: David Cronenberg's Look at the Lives and Loves of Two Supersadomasochistic Performance Artists, Terence Davies’ Benediction: The Poetry, Passion, and Pacifism of Siegfried Sassoon, and Now on Blu-ray: John McNaughton’s 1998 Sunshine Noir-Meets-Erotic Thriller Wild Things.

Video Librarian: Ang Lee's Pushing Hands.

Endnote: Crimes of the Future image from The Verge.

May 2022 Reviews

These are the reviews and other projects I'm working on this month. 

Seattle Film Blog: On the Tender Precision of Kim Bora's Directorial Debut House of Hummingbird, Old Boyfriends: In Which Talia Shire Revisits Her Romantic Past to Forge Her Future, Alex Garland’s Men: The Culmination of His Concerns (for Better and for Worse), and Drifting and White Tiger: Director Todd Browning in the Years before Freaks (and Other Chilling Entertainments).

Video Librarian: Brighton 4th, Farewell (Abschied) [Blu-ray], Grand Slam [Blu-ray], and Rock Hudson's Home Movies. 

"Rock Hudson" image from The New Yorker.

April 2022 Reviews

These are the reviews and other projects I'm working on this month. 

KUOW: Guest appearance on "All Things Considered" to provide suggestions for SIFF 2022. Listen here. 

Seattle Film Blog: The Ape with Boris Karloff. 

Pop Conference: A pre-recorded paper on "I Do the Rock": A Stimulating Study of the Song That Defined the Pop Career of Musical Theater-Turned-Movie Star Tim Curry. More information here.

Rock & Roll Globe: Alex Cox’s Walker at 35: A Punk-Rock Western That Stands the Test of Time. 

Photo: Tim Curry / Evening Standard / Getty Images.