Glengarry Glen Ross (James Foley, 1992)

Cast: Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Pryce, Bruce Altman, Jude Ciccolella, Paul Butler. Screenplay: David Mamet, based on his play. Cinematography: Juan Ruiz Anchía. Production design: Jane Musky. Film editing: Howard E. Smith. Music: James Newton Howard. 

David Mamet's play about a group of real estate salesmen won the Pulitzer Prize, and Mamet did a fine job of adapting it for the screen, even adding an opening scene in which Alec Baldwin's hyper sales executive presents the group with an ultimatum: close sales on the leads provided them or get fired. It's a play that demands a top notch ensemble, and it gets one on film. Unfortunately, what works for Mamet on stage doesn't work as well on screen. He has a superb ear for the way people talk, the repetitions, non sequiturs, and idiosyncrasies of common speech. On stage, Mamet's verbal rhythms, repetitions, pauses, tics, spasms, and obscenities -- the play has been called "Death of a Fuckin' Salesman" -- become hypnotic. But they lose their coherence in a film, from which we demand visual as well as verbal gratification. The cutting from set to set and from character to character chops up the flow of language and reveals that what these guys have to say to and about each other lacks substance. Even the most sympathetic of the group, Jack Lemmon's aging loser, begins to grate on us. Still, as a portrait of men caught in the rat race of capitalism and awash in toxic masculinity, it has some value. 

Port of Shadows (Marcel Carné, 1938)

Jean Gabin and Michèle Morgan in Port of Shadows

Cast: Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Michèle Morgan, Pierre Brasseur, Édouard Delmont, Raymond Aimos, Robert Le Vigan, René Génin, Marcel Pérès, Jenny Burnay, Roger Legris, Martial Rèbe. Screenplay: Jacques Prévert, based on a novel by Pierre Mac Orlan. Cinematography: Eugen Schüfftan. Production design: Alexandre Trauner. Film editing: René Le Hénaff. Music: Maurice Jaubert. 

Marcel Carné's Port of Shadows is a variation on the old trope of the stranger come to town. In this case, the stranger is an army deserter named Jean (Jean Gabin) and the town is Le Havre, where he hopes to hop a freighter and leave the country. Instead, he gets involved with a beautiful young woman named Nelly (Michèle Morgan) and finds himself depending on the kindness of strangers, one of whom is so kind as to commit suicide and leave him with a suit of clothes, an ID card, and some money. Others, including Nelly's guardian, Zabel (Michel Simon), and his gangster associates, are not so kind. It's a movie that goes a long way on the atmosphere created by Eugen Schüfftan's cinematography, Alexandre Trauner's set designs, and the slangy poetry of Jacques Prévert's dialogue. Oh, and there's a cute little dog who falls in love with Jean, too. Maybe the quintessential French film, the way Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) is the quintessential American movie, Port of Shadows has plenty of admirers, but a good many people also think its Gallic Weltschmerz takes it well past the point of self-parody.  

Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood, 2024)

Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons, Chris Messina, Gabriel Basso, Zoey Deutch, Cedric Yarbrough, Leslie Bibb, Kiefer Sutherland, Amy Aquino, Adrienne C. Moore, Chieko Fukuyama. Screenplay: Jonathan A. Abrams. Cinematography: Yves Bélanger. Production design: Ronald R. Reiss. Film editing: David S. Cox, Joel Cox. Music: Mark Mancina. 

Clint Eastwood's Juror #2 is the kind of courtroom drama that could have been made any time in the history of American movies, including when the Production Code was most sternly in effect. Which is to say that it's a throwback to an era in which audiences were not expected to question its obvious inconsistencies and falsifications but just sit back and be entertained by the predicament into which its protagonist is cast and expect it to be resolved satisfactorily. The premise is this: A man named Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) finds himself on a jury in a murder case but gradually realizes that he may be the one who killed the victim and has in his hands the fate of the man (Gabriel Basso) accused of the crime. Meanwhile, his wife, Allison (Zoey Deutch), is in the seventh month of pregnancy, having miscarried before. And the prosecuting attorney, Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette), is in the midst of a campaign for D.A., and wants to secure a conviction no matter what. Add to this the unsavory background of the accused, a group of witnesses to an altercation between the accused and the victim in a bar, and a man who claims that he witnessed the murder, things look pretty solid for the prosecutor. But Justin's conscience won't let him vote for conviction. At least not yet. It's a movie in which suspense is more important than coherence, drama more significant than actuality. Eastwood's no-nonsense filmmaking obscures the nonsense of the story, and the performances give it a specious emotional credibility. (Though I could have done without the sore-thumb obviousness of Collette's Southern accent, when no one else the cast was attempting it.)

Shockproof (Douglas Sirk, 1949)

Patricia Knight and Cornel Wilde in Shockproof

Cast: Cornel Wilde, Patricia Knight, John Baragrey, Esther Minciotti, Howard St. John, Russell Collins, Charles Bates. Screenplay: Helen Deutsch, Samuel Fuller. Cinematography: Charles Lawton Jr. Art direction: Carl Anderson. Film editing: Gene Havlick. Music: George Duning. 

Two great stylists of film, Douglas Sirk and Samuel Fuller, met on Shockproof and collided with the Hollywood studio system. The movie, about a by-the-book parole officer who falls for a sexy parolee, was supposed to end with the officer (Cornel Wilde) going rogue for love of the parolee (Patricia Knight), which he does for a while until the movie fizzles into a wholly unconvincing upbeat ending. It's a "curate's egg" of a movie: Some of it is very good -- the noirish parts written by Fuller, and the touches of Sirkian melodrama -- but on the whole it stinks.  

Monkey Man (Dev Patel, 2024)

Cast: Dev Patel, Pitobash, Jatin Malik, Sikandar Kher, Sobhita Dhulipala, Makrand Deshpande, Ashwini Kalsekar, Vipin Sharma, Adithi Kalkunte, Jomon Thomas, Pehan Abdul, Sharlto Copley, Zakir Hussain. Screenplay: Dev Patel, Paul Angunwela, John Collee. Cinematography: Sharone Meir. Production design: Pawas Sawatchaiyamet. Film editing: Joe Galdo, Dávid Jancsó, Tim Murrell. Music: Jed Kurzel. 

Producer-writer-director-star Dev Patel's Monkey Man is so obviously modeled on Chad Stahelski's John Wick (2014) and its sequels, that it's no surprise when a character  in the movie name-checks it. Monkey Man has the same energy, the same world-building ambiance, and in Patel a hero with much the same kind of low-key charisma that Keanu Reeves's Wick possesses. There's even a dog that befriends the hero. Which is not to say that Patel's hyperviolent knock-off isn't a worthy successor to its predecessor. If action movies with a lot of clear-cut villains that get their bloody comeuppance after making the hero's life hell are your thing, Monkey Man will do the job better than most. 

Ali (Michael Mann, 2001)

Will Smith in Ali

Cast: Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Jon Voight, Mario Van Peebles, Ron Silver, Jeffrey Wright, Mykelti Williamson, Jada Pinkett Smith, Nona Gaye, Michael Michele, Joe Morton, Paul Rodriguez, Barry Shabaka Henley, Giancarlo Esposito, Lawrence Mason, LeVar Burton, Albert Hall. Screenplay: Gregory Allen Howard, Stephen J. Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson, Eric Roth, Michael Mann. Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki. Production design: John Myhre. Film editing: William Goldenberg, Lynzee Klingman, Stephen E. Rivkin, Music: Pieter Bourke, Lisa Gerrard.    

What's the point of a biopic when the subject is as vivid, widely known, and frequently profiled as Muhammad Ali, especially when he was still alive when the movie about him was made? Michael Mann's Ali certainly doesn't answer that question. It might have explored his very early years, since the film hints at tension between Ali (Will Smith) and his father (Giancarlo Esposito) and since those years were the crucible in which the Civil Rights movement, in which Ali took a central role, was being formed. There are glimpses of this -- Ali's recollection of the lynching of Emmett Till, which took place when he was 13, only a year younger than Till. But the film begins in 1964, when Ali was 22. There's a lot of telling rather than showing when it comes to Ali's experiences outside of the boxing ring. This is not to say that there's no substance to Ali, but rather that much of what's in the film is already familiar to us. The film also shies away from confronting the issue of corruption in the boxing world, just hinting at the shady history of figures like promoter Don King (Mykelti Williamson).  Still, it's a very watchable if somewhat overlong movie, with Smith evoking a good deal of Ali's charisma and backed up by a solid, immensely talented supporting cast. It flopped at the box office, but earned Oscar nominations for Smith and Jon Voight, who deftly plays broadcaster Howard Cosell, just hinting at Cosell's oft-caricatured mannerisms. 

Venom: The Last Dance (Kelly Marcel, 2024)

Tom Hardy in Venom: The Last Dance

Cast: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Stephen Graham, Peggy Lu, Clark Backo, Alanna Ubach, Carlos Fernández, Jared Abrahamson, Hala Finley, Dash McCloud, Andy Serkis. Screenplay: Kelly Marcel, Tom Hardy. Cinematography: Fabian Wagner. Production design: Chris Lowe. Film editing: Mark Sanger. Music: Dan Deacon. 

Even though he has himself to blame, having co-produced and -written Venom: The Last Dance, Tom Hardy deserves better than this noisy, messy farrago of special effects and wisecracks. So do we, though it's pretty clear from the ending and from the mid- and post-credits sequences that we've not seen the last of Eddie Brock and his symbiotic sidekick. Try better next time, Tom. 

Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, 2000)

Cast: Björk, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Peter Stormare, Joel Grey, Cara Seymour, Vladica Kostic, Jean-Marc Barr, Vincent Paterson, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Zeljko Ivanek, Udo Kier, Stellan Skarsgard. Screenplay: Lars von Trier. Cinematography: Robby Müller. Production design: Karl Júliusson. Film editing: François Gédigier, Molly Malene Stensgaard. Music: Björk. 

Say what you will about Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard, 2024), but both its musical numbers and the melodramatic narrative that encompasses them are better than those in Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark. So why, other than that it was made first, does von Trier's film seem like the more substantial achievement? Both are formally audacious and, as far as audiences and critics are concerned, radically divisive. Dancer in the Dark goes over the top in both absurdity (people dancing on death row) and performance (Björk's raw emotion), but are either of those enough to earn the kind of ridicule and acclamation the film engendered? I was lukewarm about Emilia Pérez and I'm baffled by Dancer in the Dark, but is that enough for me to call the latter a masterpiece? Or is it just an astonishing cinematic dead end? 

The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki, 2023)

Cast (voices): Soma Santoki/Luca Padovan, Masaki Suda/Robert Pattinson, Aimyon/Karen Fukuhara, Yoshino Kimura/Gemma Chan, Takuya Kimura/Christian Bale, Shohei Hino/Mark Hamill, Ko Shibasaki/Florence Pugh, Kaoru Kobayashi/Willem Dafoe, Jun Kinamura/Dave Bautista. Screenplay: Hayao Miyazaki. Cinematography: Atsushi Okui. Art direction: Yoji Takeshige. Film editing: Rie Matsubara, Takeshi Seyama, Akane Shiraishi. Music: Joe Hisaishi. 

As usual, Hayao Miyashi plunges us from the real world, in this case Japan in the midst of World War II, into other realms with mysterious towers, wizards and pyrokinetic maidens, malevolent pelicans and parakeets, and all manner of perils from which his young protagonist must escape with the help and sometimes the hindrance of a strange heron who somehow has fused with a grotesque humanoid creature. Does it make sense? No. Does that matter in the least? Not at all.  

The Apple of My Eye (Axelle Ropert, 2016)

Bastien Bouillon and Mélanie Bernier in The Apple of My Eye

Cast: Mélanie Bernier, Bastien Bouillon, Antonin Fresson, Chloé Astor, Swann Arlaud, Lauren Mothe, Thierry Gibault, Camille Cayol, Serge Bozon, Jean-Charles Clichet. Screenplay: Axelle Ropert. Cinematography: Sébastien Buchmann. Production design: Sophie Reynaud. Film editing: François Quiqueré. Music: Benjamin Esdraffo. 

Featherweight French romantic comedy in which a Greek musician (Bastien Bouillon) falls for a pretty blind woman (Mélanie Bernier) after first insulting her. Captivated, he pretends to be blind himself to win her over. The usual rom-com reversal and resolution follows. A subplot about the attempt of the musician and his brother (Antonin Fresson) to find work in Paris and a parallel storyline about the brother's romance with the blind woman's cocaine-addicted sister (Chloé Astor) feel like padding to get the film to feature length.

Nightbitch (Marielle Heller, 2024)

Amy Adams in Nightbitch

Cast: Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Arleigh Snowden, Emmett Snowden, Jessica Harper, Zoë Chao, Mary Holland, Archana Rajan. Screenplay: Marielle Heller, based on a novel by Rachel Yoder. Cinematography: Brandon Trost. Production design: Karen Murphy. Film editing: Ann McCabe. Music: Nate Heller. 

Once upon a time, there was a woman so exhausted by the demands of motherhood that she turned into a dog. That's pretty much the premise of Nightbitch, a somewhat muddled movie that gets what coherence it has from Amy Adams's performance as the unnamed character called Mother in the credits. (Similarly, Scoot McNairy's character is known only as Husband and their 2-year-old child -- played by the precocious twins Arleigh and Emmett Snowden -- as Son.) Sometimes the transformation is literal, as in a body horror moment in which Mother discovers she is growing a tail, but mostly, as they say, it's all in her head. This fable breaks no new ground for treatments of the very real difficulties in maintaining one's sanity while raising a child, and it slops into a lame resolution at the end, satire slumping into movie convention.   

Cleopatra (Cecil B. DeMille, 1934)

Cast: Claudette Colbert, Warren William, Henry Wilcoxon, Joseph Schildkraut, Ian Keith, Gertrude Michael, C. Aubrey Smith, Irving Pichel, Arthur Hohl, Edwin Maxwell, Ian Maclaren. Screenplay: Waldemar Young, Vincent Lawrence, Bartlett Cormack. Cinematography: Victor Milner. Art direction: Roland Anderson, Hans Dreier. Costume design: Travis Banton. Film editing: Anne Bauchens. Music: Rudolph G. Kopp.

Claudette Colbert's Cleopatra arrives rolled up in a rug and meets her end by clasping a rather limp garden snake to her bosom, and in between there's a lot of posing and tin-eared dialogue superimposed on the story told by Plutarch and Shakespeare. It won't do, of course, except for the camp extravagance of Hollywood awash in Cecil B. DeMille's usual sin, sex, and sadism. If the 1963 version of the story had been this entertainingly vulgar, it might have made money. 

Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011)

Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alexander Skarsgard, Kiefer Sutherland, Cameron Spurr, Charlotte Rampling, John Hurt, Stellan Skarsgard, Brady Corbet, Udo Kier. Screenplay: Lars von Trier. Cinematography: Manuel Alberto Claro. Production design: Jette Lehmann. Film editing: Molly Malene Stensgaard. 

This is the way the world ends in Lars von Trier's Melancholia: with a bang, as a rogue planet collides with Earth, and a whimper from the terrified Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) as she and her small son, Leo (Cameron Spurr), and more resigned sister, Justine (Kirsten Dunst), await the cataclysm. What this eschatological moment has to do with the dysfunctional wedding reception that constitutes the first half of the film is something for us to ponder. Or not, because there are many who dismiss the film as yet another of von Trier's perverse and enigmatic fables that have something to do with human passion and cruelty but defy explication. Is von Trier just playing around with the science fiction genre, the way he played around with the horror movie genre in Antichrist (2009) and the skin flick in Nymphomaniac (2013), the other two films that constitute his trilogy about depression? Or is it art for expiation's sake, a work that by existing defies its own nihilism? The debate continues. 

Chilly Scenes of Winter (Joan Micklin Silver, 1979)

Cast: John Heard, Mary Beth Hurt, Peter Riegert, Kenneth McMillan, Gloria Grahame, Nora Heflin, Jerry Hardin, Tarah Nutter, Mark Metcalf, Allen Joseph, Frances Bay, Griffin Dunne. Screenplay: Joan Micklin Silver, based on a novel by Ann Beattie. Cinematography: Bobby Byrne. Production design: Peter Jamison. Film editing: Cynthia Scheider. Music: Ken Lauber. 

Chilly Scenes of Winter is a kind of deconstructed screwball romantic comedy, meaning that it turns on the often comic efforts of a couple to overcome the dysfunction in their relationship. But the romance is soured and the comedy is darkened by circumstances they can't control, as well as their own egos. Initially released under the title Head Over Heels, it had a "happy ending" that felt unearned and it failed at the box office. Then writer-director Joan Micklin Silver revised the film a few years later, with a freeze-frame ending that left the protagonist in a kind of emotional limbo, and under the title of the Ann Beattie novel it was based on, it was better received. It's still full of cringe moments and skewed relationships, but in its own itchy way it makes dramatic sense. 

Nosferatu (Robert Eggers, 2024)

Cast: Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgard, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Willem Dafoe, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney. Screenplay: Robert Eggers, based on a screenplay by Henrik Galeen and a novel by Bram Stoker. Cinematography: Jarin Blaschke. Production design: Craig Lathrop. Film editing: Louise Ford. Music: Robin Carolan. 

Having been impressed by the originality, energy, and visceral imagination of The Witch (2015), The Lighthouse (2019), and The Northman (2022), I felt a little let down by Robert Eggers's Nosferatu. It's not just that it's a retread of too-familiar material, an hommage to F.W. Murnau's great 1922 ripoff of Bram Stoker's Dracula (as well as its 1979 remake by Werner Herzog). It's that Eggers has turned his abundant talent once again to the past without illuminating much about the often terrifying world we now live in. There's a case to be made that the movie is a vampire tale for the age of Covid, but you have to peel away the layers of costuming and setting to perceive it. I'd like to see Eggers explore the horrors of 21st-century life without distancing them with a historical setting. That said, this Nosferatu is so well-mounted and -acted that perhaps I should just be grateful for what he has given us.