With a large, modern apartment tower overlooking London that is seemingly inhabited by only two people, this film aims to be disorienting from the beginning. When the main character visits his childhood home and seemingly meets his deceased parents, we’re not sure if all this is in his head or if there is a supernatural element. Eerie atmosphere aside, I loved how it perfectly addresses the question of what a person would say if given the opportunity to speak to their parents as a peer adult. There’s more to this with the gay aspect but the relationship with the parents is the best part and I’m sorry to say that the film is weakened by attempting to do any more than that.

Give India’s size and cultural heft, the underperformance of its modern cinematic greats is noticeable. So here is one recent film that won major plaudits at Cannes but some controversy arose in India when the country’s film federation declined to nominate it for the Academy Awards. The stated reason was that the jury felt that they were watching a European film set in India. It’s an awful reason to reject this film but watching it, I can totally understand why they felt this way. I suspect though that the real reason is that it challenges the current moral orthodoxy in ways that are uncomfortable. I think it’s too insubstantial to be truly good but it does provide an invaluable look at contemporary life in a big city in India.

This was Luis Buñuel penultimate film and also one of his most highly regarded ones so it naturally belongs on my list. I have neither liked all of Buñuel’s work that I’ve seen nor can claim to understand them all. But I’m confident that just about everyone will find this black comedy hilarious even if you don’t much care for making sense of it. Since it has an episodic structure, there’s no overall story to track and you can take in the absurdity of each situation on its own. But if you do put your mind to it, you can try to discern a deeper meaning to it and that’s why Buñuel is such a genius of cinema.

I believe this is the first DreamWorks animated film we’ve seen in a very long while as the revamped studio title card stood out for me. I added this to my list as I’ve heard about the successful children’s book series it was adapted from and it does have great reviews. Initial impressions were great due to its vibrant visuals and watercolor-based art style. But the writing is nothing special at all, being an updated version of the standard mother-child bonding story. Mind you, it’s not a bad execution at all but it doesn’t deserve its rave reviews and it’s very much a film aimed only at children.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi is probably Japan’s mostly highly regarded director of the moment and we’ve already seen a few of his works. This one was shot with non-professional actors and a visibly low budget. I only warmed to it at the scene where the representatives of the developer meet the local residents. Pegging it as a film about NIMBYism, I was instantly hooked. Yet Hamaguchi is a far more complex and subtle director than that and the ending left me stunned. I had to think about it for a bit and look up what others had to say about it online to get what it means. It does sort of make sense and explains the film’s title but I don’t think this will be among my favorite of this director’s works.

I’ve skipped a whole string of major biopics of famous musicians because they were only mediocre as films. Still, the great thing about the genre is that they’re easy to watch and you can be certain that at least the music is enjoyable. This one places the music in an even more central role than most and barely even attempts to be a biography of Bob Dylan. It covers only a tiny slice of the legendary singer’s life from 1961 to 1965 and aims to relate the mythos rather the facts. By its end, we don’t get to really know who Dylan is but we do get to understand why his rise as a folk singer was such a big deal and that’s a worthy story in of itself.

I opted not to watch this series when it popped up on Netflix but changed my mind after watching Thunderbolts of all things. Part of the creative team for what must be the best MCU entry in years also worked on Beef and the shared DNA is especially obvious in the very last episode. The series starts off with a bang as a road rage incident between two strangers escalates into a protracted feud. I loved it as a deep dive of two psychologically damaged people who allow a minor incident destroy their lives. I liked it less though when it starts spreading itself too thinly by developing the supporting characters. It’s good but maybe tone down on the crazy escalation and dramatic twists.