Sinners (Ryan Coogler, 2025)

Michael B. Jordan in Sinners

Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O'Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller, Delroy Lindo, Peter Dreimanis, Lola Kirke, Li Jun Li, Saul Williams, Yao, David Maldonado, Helena Hu, Adrene Ward-Hammond, Nathaniel Arcand, Emonie Ellison. Screenplay: Ryan Coogler. Cinematography: Autumn Durald Arkapaw. Production design: Hanna Beachler. Film editing: Michael P. Shawver. Music: Ludwig Göransson. 

I admit that I felt a little let down when, after one of the most exhilarating scenes I've seen in a movie for years, Ryan Coogler's Sinners turned into a vampire movie. But by the end of the film, and the mid-credits coda that HBO Max stupidly will make some viewers miss, I was back with it again. It's a movie so alive in texture and significance that it reminds me of the old days when people would sit around and talk about what they had just seen. I'm not surprised that in the online world there are people asking if the version now available for streaming is the same one they saw in theaters: It's easy to miss some of the nuances when you're having your expectations challenged -- not in the gimmicky plot twist way but in changing insights into characters and themes -- at every turn. I can only hope that Coogler's hit sets an example for directors to make movies that succeed by provoking comment and thought rather than just gratifying expectations.

Millennium Mambo (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2001)

Shu Qi in Millennium Mambo

Cast: Shu Qi, Jack Kao, Duan Chun-hao, Chen Yi-Hsuan, Jun Takeuchi, Doze Niu, Jenny Tsen Yan Lei, Pauline Chan, Huang Xiao Chu. Screenplay: Chu T'ien-wen. Cinematography: Mark Lee Ping-bing. Production design: Huang Wen-Yin, Wang Chih-cheng. Film editing: Yoshihiro Hanno, DJ Fish, Giong Lim. 

In Millennium Mambo, Hou Hsiao-hsien presents Vicky (Shu Qi) to us as an object of contemplation, as lacking in agency and volition as an apple in a Cézanne still life. She is being contemplated not only by us but also by herself, ten years later, so Vicky sometimes narrates events before we even see them. She is existentially passive, allowing herself to be propelled through life by others, especially men and particularly her boyfriend Hao-Hao (Duan Chun-hao) and the gangster Jack (Jack Kao). Naturally, as a woman and not an apple, she responds to stimuli, pleasure and pain, but we're no more expected to pass judgment on her than we are the apple. It's a film that replaces plot and narrative with incident and images, handsomely provided by cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-bing, in a cinema moving away from novels and plays toward paintings and sculpture, yet retaining a connection with actuality inherent in the medium. Millennial indeed.

In Celebration (Lindsay Anderson, 1974)

James Bolam, Alan Bates, and Brian Cox in In Celebration

Cast: Alan Bates, Brian Cox, James Bolam, Constance Chapman, Bill Owen, Gabrielle Daye. Screenplay: David Storey, based on his play. Cinematography: Dick Bush. Art direction: Alan Withy. Film editing: Russell Lloyd. Music: Christopher Gunning. 

Upward mobility is not all it's cracked up to be in the Shaw family, the focus of David Storey's play and Lindsay Anderson's film In Celebration. The middle-aged sons of a coal miner have come home to the cramped house where they grew up to celebrate the 40th wedding anniversary of their parents. The oldest, Andrew (Alan Bates), studied the law but has given it up to become an artist. The middle son, Colin (James Bolam), works for an automobile manufacturer as a labor negotiator. And the youngest, Stephen (Brian Cox), is a schoolteacher who has been writing a book but has hit a block. The father (Bill Owen) still works the mines at 64, and the mother (Constance Chapman) keeps a tidy house. You can see where this is going, and it doesn't take long for family secrets and half-buried resentments to surface. D.H. Lawrence and Eugene O'Neill, among others, did this kind of cultural and generational clash with more color and meaning. But this is mostly a vehicle for actors, and we get to watch several very good ones do their thing. Bates, Cox, and Chapman get the roles with more nuance and ambiguity built into them, and  
they serve them up well. It's barely a movie rather than a play opened up around the edges, partly because it was part of an experiment called The American Film Theatre, which for a couple of years in the mid 1970s produced adaptations of stage plays shown in selected movie theaters on an advanced sale and subscription basis. The results satisfied neither theatergoers nor movie lovers, but they provide an interesting portrait of the theatrical life of the era and preserve some performances that would otherwise be lost. In this case, it's interesting to see the young Brian Cox after becoming familiar with him as the patriarch on Succession.  

Miami Vice (Michael Mann, 2006)

Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell in Miami Vice

Cast: Jamie Foxx, Colin Farrell, Gong Li, Naomie Harris, Ciaràn Hinds, Justin Theroux, Barry Shabaka Henley, Luis Tosar, John Ortiz, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Dominick Lombardozzi, Eddie Marsan, Isaach De Bankolé, John Hawkes. Screenplay: Michael Mann. Cinematography: Dion Beebe. Production design: Victor Kempster. Film editing: William Goldenberg, Paul Rubell. Music: John Murphy. 

The dark-on-dark credits roll for Michael Mann's film version of his hit 1980s TV series Miami Vice is the most illegible I've ever tried to read. It's as if no one connected with the movie was especially eager to be associated with it. Not that it's a bad movie, but that it never comes to life, never stirs the kind of enthusiasm that the original did. It has all the elements: attractive performers, hip music, fast cars, boats, and planes, the requisite sex and violence. But it doesn't seem to be going anywhere new or interesting. The characters don't generate much empathy or commitment to their fates. It ends on the most perfunctory note I think I've seen in a big American movie, not even trying to make you want a sequel.

Breakfast of Champions (Alan Rudolph, 1999)

Bruce Willis in Breakfast of Champions

Cast: Bruce Willis, Albert Finney, Nick Nolte, Barbara Hershey, Glenne Headly, Lukas Haas, Omar Epps, Vicki Lewis, Buck Henry, Ken Hudson Campbell, Jake Johanssen, Will Patton, Chip Zien, Owen Wilson. Screenplay: Alan Rudolph, based on a novel by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Cinematography: Elliot Davis. Production design: Nina Ruscio. Film editing: Suzy Ruscio. Music: Mark Isham. 

When a film starts with a man with a gun in his mouth, you expect it to explain why he's doing that. Alan Rudolph's Breakfast of Champions never really does. You can only accept as explanation a desire to escape the hurly-burly of events that follows. There are those who love this movie and those who would need to be strapped to a chair with their eyes taped open to watch it again. I found it exhausting and pointless, with gags that went on too long and characters who serve no function in whatever plot it possesses.  

Mapplethorpe (Ondi Timoner, 2018)

Matt Smith in Mapplethorpe

Cast: Matt Smith, Marianne Rendón, John Benjamin Hickey, Brandon Sklenar, Tina Benko, Mark Moses, Carolyn McCormick, Thomas Philip O'Neill, Mickey O'Hagan, Anthony Michael Lopez, McKinley Belcher III, Brian Stokes Mitchell. Screenplay: Ondi Timoner, Mikko Alanne, based on a screenplay by Bruce Goodrich. Cinematography: Nancy Schreiber. Production design: Jonah Markowitz. Film editing: John David Allen, Lee Percy, Ondi Timoner. Music: Marcelo Zarvas. 

An unconventional artist like Robert Mapplethorpe deserves an unconventional biopic. Ondi Timoner's Mapplethorpe isn't. It's full of clichés like the meet-cute: Mapplethorpe (Matt Smith) meets Patti Smith (Marianne Rendón) on a park bench when she latches on to him as a pretend boyfriend to evade a pursuing creep. There are the usual clashes with the parents, a bullying father (Mark Moses) and an ineffectual mother (Carolyn McCormick). There's the chance meeting that launches him to success: The wealthy art collector Sam Wagstaff (John Benjamin Hickey) becomes both mentor and lover. And the faint funk of disapproval hangs over the film, as if Mapplethorpe's life were something of a warning to aspiring artists, especially queer ones. I think it wants to celebrate Mapplethorpe as an artist, but is afraid to do so, stepping gingerly around gay sexuality as if afraid of rousing the "ick factor" in a straight audience. The lives of artists are notoriously hard to dramatize, and everyone connected with Mapplethorpe deserves respect for trying, but they didn't succeed.

Richard III (Laurence Olivier, 1955)

Laurence Olivier in Richard III

Cast: Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Cedric Hardwicke, Claire Bloom, Alec Clunes, Mary Kerridge, Andrew Cruikshank, Clive Morton, Norman Wooland, Helen Haye, George Woodbridge, Pamela Brown, Stanley Baker. Screenplay: Laurence Olivier, based on a play by William Shakespeare. Cinematography: Otto Heller. Production design: Roger K. Furse. Film editing: Helga Cranston. Music: William Walton. 

Laurence Olivier clearly relished Shakespeare's cunning Machiavel Richard III, and with good reason: It's a role that put him front and center at all times. Of the roles he filmed, even Hamlet has to share the stage with others as colorful as Polonius, Claudius, and Ophelia, and Othello stands on equal footing with Iago in getting attention. But Richard is buzzed around by characters he can swat off like flies, which lets Olivier cast his two rivals for greatest English actor of the 20th century, John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson, alongside him. For good measure, he even adds that hammy knight Cedric Hardwicke, who chews the scenery in his big moment. I happen to think that Gielgud gives the best performance in the film, but Clarence leaves the play early. Richardson for some reason underplays the role of Buckingham, and Olivier said that he wished he had been able to cast Orson Welles instead. Outfitted with a prosthetic nose and a page-boy wig of stygian blackness, Olivier lurks and limps around the stage, scowling and plotting. In adapting the play, he cuts and rearranges: The scene in which Richard woos the Lady Anne (Claire Bloom) is cut into two pieces, but it helps increase the credibility of a widow succumbing to the man who killed her husband. The ranting of Queen Margaret is one of the play's more entertaining moments, but it interrupts the flow, so Olivier cuts the role entirely. He brings Mistress Shore onto the stage and casts her generously with Pamela Brown, even though she has only one interpolated line. He borrows bits from 18th century adaptations of the play by David Garrick and Colley Cibber. The result is a reasonably swift and tight account of the play, less confusing to audiences that have trouble with the tangled genealogy of the Yorks and Lancasters. Unfortunately, Roger Furse's design is a little drab, and in some scenes Olivier's blocking and camera direction are cluttered. Still, on the whole, Richard III deserves its current reputation as Olivier's best adaptation of Shakespeare to the screen.

Sing Sing (Greg Kwedar, 2023)

Cast: Colman Domingo, Clarence Maclin, Sean San Jose, Paul Raci, David Giraudy, Mosi Eagle, James "Big E" Williams, Sean Dino Johnson. Screenplay: Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin, John Divine G Whitfield. Cinematography: Pat Scola. Production design: Ruta Kiskyte. Film editing: Parker Laramie. Music: Bryce Dessner. 

Greg Kwedar's docudrama Sing Sing is an object lesson on how solid characterization combined with skillful acting can carry a film beyond the limitations of genre and plot. Not much really happens in the movie: A group of convicts put on a play. There is one death, but it happens non-violently off-screen and the film is concerned with how it affects the characters and their relationships to one another. There is an explosion of temper but it's resolved peacefully. There are revelations of backstory, but the chief concern is immediacy. There is a bit of advocacy for more humane treatment of prisoners, but it's not preached at us. There is some tension about whether the play will actually take place and whether some of the prisoners will receive clemency or parole, but it's more in service of character than of plot. In short, it's a movie that lets you do the thinking and feeling without undue manipulation, which is rare these days. 

Past Lives (Celine Song, 2023)

Teo Yoo, Greta Lee, and John Magaro in Past Lives

Cast: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro, Moon Seung-ah, Leem Seung-min, Jun Ji-hye, Choi Won-young, Ahn Min-yeung, Seo Yeon-Woo. Screenplay: Celine Song. Cinematography: Shabier Kirchner. Production design: Grace Yun. Film editing: Keith Fraase. Music: Christopher Bear, Daniel Rossen. 

Celine Song's Past Lives is full of silences, some of them lasting for 12 years, some merely the moments in which communication between the characters is suspended out of embarrassment or awkwardness or uncertainty. But the silences are productive: They allow both the characters and the viewer to reflect on the meaning of the moment. When we first meet Nora (aka Na Young) and Hae Sung, they are 12-year-old schoolmates and close friends in Korea. We sense something blossoming between them, but it's nipped in the bud by the immigration of Nora and her family to Canada. Then the first silence begins: They lose contact as Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) finishes school, does his military service, and begins his studies to become an engineer, and Nora (Greta Lee) moves from Toronto to New York where she begins a career as a playwright. Then, after 12 years, Hae Sung searches out Nora on the internet, and they begin to catch up with each other in cyberspace. But Nora abruptly breaks off the connection, for reasons that she never fully articulates. She meets a fellow writer, Arthur (John Magaro), and they get married. Hae Sung finds a girlfriend but it's not a solid relationship. Finally, after another 12-year-silence, Hae Sung lets Nora know that he's coming to New York on a vacation. And thus begins a fable about the limits of human connection, the burdens of ethnic difference, and the barriers to desire. Hae Sung is plainly in love with Nora, and Arthur senses it with some trepidation about how she will respond. This dance to the music of the past would be nothing without actors as skilled at manifesting the interior as Lee, Yoo, and Magaro are, or without a director like Song, who keeps the pace as stately as a pavane.   

Gypsy 83 (Todd Stephens, 2001)

Birkett Turton and Sara Rue in Gypsy 83

Cast: Sara Rue, Birkett Turton, Karen Black, John Doe, Anson Scoville, Paulo Costanzo, Carolyn Baeumler, Stephanie McVay, Amanda Talbot, Vera Beren, Eileen Letchworth. Screenplay: Todd Stephens, Tim Kaltenecker. Cinematography: Gina Degirolamo, Mai Iskander. Production design: Nancy Arons. Film editing: Annette Davey. Music: Marty Beller.

Misfits searching for a way to escape, Gypsy (Sara Rue) and Clive (Birkett Turton) hit the road from Sandusky, Ohio, to New York City, where misfits always think they can find a way to fit. Todd Stephens's Gypsy 83 is filled with more misfits than those two, a 25-year-old woman and a gay teenager. They also include a hitchhiking young Amish man (Anson Scoville), a disaffected fraternity boy (Paulo Costanzo), and a middle-aged has-been singer (Karen Black). Stephens follows these characters through an entertainingly scruffy road movie that ends, as many road movies do, where it probably should just be beginning.