The titillating nun-on-nun action in ‘Benedetta’ takes us back to a time when sex scenes were a selling point in films — The most batshit film of the past few years is Benedetta (2021), Paul Verhoeven’s deliciously depraved biopic about a 17th-century nun who claims to have mystical visions of Jesus and develops a cult following until the Church discovers her affair with another nun and arrests her for sapphism. …

I can still feel the dread. While watching the first few seconds of Azor (2021), I was treading lightly on unfamiliar ground. By the end, it dawned on me that I was trapped in a sinister nightmare with no way out. The power of Azor, directed by Andreas Fontana, is…

“I want to make movies out of blood, sperm and tears. This is like the essence of life. I think movies should contain that, perhaps should be made of that.” ~ ‘Love’, Written and Directed by Gaspar Noé When Gaspar Noé’s Love premiered at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, many…

Out of all the directors to emerge from the 1990s American independent film scene, Nicole Holofcener is the least appreciated. Since the release of her debut feature Walking and Talking (1996), Holofcener has contributed a steady output of insightful character-driven gems to cinema, but with the exception of a few…

If you missed ‘Time’ when it came out during the pandemic, now is your chance to watch the best documentary of the decade so far — In 1997, Rob and Fox Rich robbed a credit union in Los Angeles. Rob and his younger cousin held up the joint while Fox, the getaway driver, waited outside. Garrett Bradley’s documentary Time, which dropped on Amazon Prime in 2020 during the pandemic, chronicles the aftermath of that fateful crime.

The film presents a world in which people risk confrontation and chaos to fight injustice, and it’s exhilarating to watch — Damián Szifron’s Wild Tales (2014) is a collection of six shorts about people who are pushed to the breaking point. Each short stands alone, but when combined, they form Szifron’s savage take on the state of society. …

Rodrigo is in control throughout ‘driving home 2 u,’ which is wonderful for her predominantly female fan base to witness — Part road movie, part behind-the-music portrait, and part concert, Olivia Rodrigo: driving home 2 u is one the smartest pop star documentaries I’ve seen. …

To understand just how powerful Warren Beatty was in the 1970s, consider this historical tidbit: After the success of his directorial debut Heaven Can Wait (1978), Beatty convinced Charles Bludhorn, head of the Gulf+Western conglomerate (then Paramount’s parent company), to finance his follow up Reds (1981), a sympathetic three-and-a-half-hour account…