Flicks with The Film Snob

The trial of a Senegalese immigrant to France for killing her own child brings up many issues for a French writer of Senegalese origin.

Saint Omer is the first dramatic film by director Alice Diop, f…

The dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi blurs the line between fact and fiction in his film about a village near the country’s border with Turkey.

In 2010, the Iranian government ruled that the …

The best introduction to the comedy of Jacques Tati is this 1953 film about an eccentric vacationer, M. Hulot, and his bizarre interactions with other guests at a seaside hotel.

If I had to pick one …

Two young undocumented immigrants from Africa struggle to get by in Belgium, exploited at every turn, and with only each other for support.

The Dardenne brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc, are Belgian fil…

Josef von Sternberg’s groundbreaking 1930 film showcases the conflict between social respectability and the temptations of sensuality in Weimar Germany.

After failing to achieve much box office succ…

Elegance Bratton’s autobiographical film dramatizes what it was like to be a gay Marine during “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

A young black man is rejected by his religious mother when she finds out he’s g…

Kurosawa’s 1954 epic adventure is a profound cinematic experience.

There’s a sports metaphor I’ve heard used, in basketball mostly, when they say that a player is “in a zone.” Every shot seems to go…

Vicky Krieps shines in her latest role, as a wife and mother who abandons her family for mysterious reasons.

There’s a mystery at the heart of Hold Me Tight, the latest film from French director Math…

A 9-year-old girl is sent away from her abusive family to live with an older couple, who try to break through her fear and silence to let some love in.

The Quiet Girl, from Irish director Colm Bairé…

The life story of a donkey, and his experiences under different human owners, is depicted to expand our ideas of what subjective life is to include animal life.

Humility and innocence are difficult …

The story of the radical art photographer Nan Goldin, and how she led a movement against the Sackler family, the billionaires who pushed OxyContin.

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. That’s the title…

A mass incident of abuse by men in a religious community causes the women in that community to gather and talk, so they can decide what to do about it.

Sarah Polley is a Canadian filmmaker, an actres…

Chris Dashiell talks about his favorite films from the previous year.

Every year it’s my difficult task to list my favorite films of the past year. And I’m always late, because it takes a couple mont…

The latest magical realist epic from Alejandro G. Iñárritu portrays the inner life of a Mexican filmmaker, and the struggles he must go through for his art and his country.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu doe…

A documentary about the 1921 Tulsa race massacre not only explains the full story of the shameful attack on the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa that destroyed a prosperous Black community, but detai…

Ruben Östlund’s satire on the ruling class takes us on a luxury cruise headed for disaster.

Satire is hard to do well. But Swedish director Ruben Östlund has proven to be a deft practitioner of the s…

Brendan Fraser plays a morbidly obese teacher who is facing imminent death while trying to reconcile with his angry teenage daughter.

For those who might not appreciate nuance, The Whale could seem l…

Fritz Lang’s 1931 crime picture remains one of the greatest depictions of social rot ever put on film.

Once in awhile I get asked what are my favorite films, or my top ten greatest movies, and so for…

Martin McDonagh returns to Ireland for this tale of contagious madness between two friends falling out.

Martin McDonagh made his name as a playwright, with dramas set largely in rural west Ireland an…

Two films examine the plight of migrants, the first about seeking asylum, the second about the danger of going missing or getting killed.

Ours is an age of migrants, those martyred by the legal ficti…