The Film Stage

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2026 Sundance coverage. The film opens in theaters on September 25. In dance, you have to lead with confidence. Your partner looks to you for guidance, and they require you...

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2026 Sundance coverage. The film opens in theaters on September 25. The extended opening of The Incomer, written and directed by Louis Paxton, is very funny and engaging. That the...

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2026 Sundance coverage. The film opens in theaters on September 23. Working with her sister Anna—a 38-year-old Korean adoptee with a developmental disability—director Liz Sargent’s sensitive drama Take Me Home...

After first landing on my radar with the wondrous All These Sleepless Nights, Michal Marczak returned this year with another film blending the realms of fact and fiction. Closure, a documentary that is better shot than most narrative films this...

As exciting as it can be to catch some of the most-anticipated films of the year in their festival debuts, it’s perhaps even more enticing to seek out the work that one may not have a chance to see for...

Though returning with his first original animated film in nearly two decades, Brad Bird has considered Ray Gunn a passion project for even longer. “For me, it was an unscratched itch. There was something about animation doing film noir but...

While I don’t want to watch another second of Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything before experiencing the film in theaters, A24 has now dropped the first full trailer for the film for those...

In his second decade of feature filmmaking, Andrew Haigh has stealthily become one of cinema’s most emotionally perceptive voices. His characters never anticipate what’s coming their way, and he uses that element of surprise to test their mettle. Through internal...

Coming-of-age dramas are so rife with tropes and conventions that coming across one able to subvert them is nothing short of miraculous. Jacqueline Lentzou’s A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra is one such film. In its simplest...

This is a big one. You’re also forgiven for knowing nothing of it. Nearly 50 years ago, Leonard Schrader—brother of Paul, co-writer of Blue Collar and Mishima—originated the idea for a film concerning a man who holds Tokyo hostage with...