“It’s all luck really,” says one character in On Swift Horses, a 1950s set queer drama starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi. Though this character meets Edgar-Jones’ Muriel through gambling on horse races, the luck she’s referring to encomes so much more. The lives they’re leading, meeting clandestinely in a queer bar in downtown San Diego, two husbands at home waiting for them; how they’ve been able to explore their desires in a way that other characters in the film cannot. 5839

In the near future, if a couple wants to have children, they can only do so after being given the green light following a successful seven-day assessment. In the world created by writers John Donelly and Mrs. and Mr. Thomas (Nell Garfath Fox and Dave Thomas), there’s control of just about everything. This future society is also where people take pills to remain youthful and alive for far longer than typically possible. The Assessment, directed by Fleur Fortuné, is conceptually sound and looks incredible, but while it’s psychologically involved and provoking, it doesn’t go beyond the surface of its ideas.

Acclaimed French writer-director Alain Guiraudie’s latest feature, Misericordia (2024) (Miséricorde), attempts to tackle repressed sexuality in a twisted mix of humor, secrecy, and deception. The film’s centerpiece is the mysterious Jérémie Pastor (Félix Kysyl), who returns to his rural hometown of Saint-Martial from Toulouse, to attend the funeral of his former boss, the village baker. With the family in mourning, Jérémie decides to stay with the widow, Martine (Catherine Frot), to the dismay of her son Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand) and his former childhood best friend. With the growing tension and discomfort, Jérémie leans on his impulses for relief.

In Hard Truths, Mike Leigh's beautifully humane drama, the writer-director takes us into the lives of an ordinary British Jamaican family with the easily bothered, miserable Pansy at the center. Starring a ferocious and convincing Marianne Jean-Baptiste in an Oscar-worthy performance, Pansy finds a way to quarrel with everyone. The film concentrates little on plot structure and instead slowly peels back the layers of its characters and challenges us to rethink what we know about our elders. Inherently, witnessing a woman propel insults at people is humorous, but sadness layers the script, making it deeply moving.

Rachel Morrison has been a cinematographer for years and even earned a nomination for her stunning work on Mudbound. With The Fire Inside, Morrison is in the director’s chair for the first time, and it’s safe to say that she has a solid future ahead of her in the role. Written by Barry Jenkins, The Fire Inside is based on the true story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields, a professional boxer and two-time Olympic gold medalist. The sports biopic also underscores how being from Flint, an oft-forgotten place, is a strength, and its existence can’t be erased.

Entertainers - true entertainers, the ones that command the stage with sheer force of will - have long been a dying breed, especially in Las Vegas. As the town has become a debauched Disneyland, there’s less emphasis on Show Business and more on merchandise, celebrity, and excess. Pamela Anderson’s Shelley is facing this slow death head on in The Last Showgirl when her long-running Vegas show Le Razzle Dazzle is set to close and she’s sent into an existential crisis.

Riding out the apocalypse in a bunker isn't just for rich people, though they may be the most comfortable when the end times actually come. No one's exactly comfortable in The End, a somber musical that takes place after the world has ended. Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon star as the mother and father of George Mackay's character, a boy born around the time his formerly wealthy father's dealings in the energy sector might have contributed to the collapse of society.

It’s been a minute since a sports drama has made me teary, but Unstoppable is powerful storytelling that elicits an emotional response. Directed by William Goldenberg from a screenplay by Eric Champnella, John Hindman, and Alex Harris, Unstoppable is based on the true story of Anthony Robles (Jharrel Jerome), who, with only one leg, won the national wrestling championship in 2011. The sports drama is deeply moving, not only because of Robles’ phenomenal accomplishments, but his mother Judy’s (Jennifer Lopez), as well. It’s the kind of movie that’s simultaneously a feel-good tear-jerker that’s deeply personal in the themes it tackles.

Nightbitch, based on the novel of the same name by Rachel Yoder, has had a ton of hype leading up to its premiere. How will the film adapt the cerebral novel, which is about a mother who believes she is turning into a dog? Could this be the movie that finally gets Amy Adams her long-deserved Oscar? When the Nightbitch trailer was released shortly before the film's premiere, was backlash against the tone of the preview, which many thought would be wildly different.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig begins as a chamber drama, taking place primarily in the apartment of one family. Iman (Missagh Zareh) is a faithful lawyer working for the Revolutionary Court in Tehran and, when promoted to investigator, he must compromise his concept of justice and fall in line with Iran's regime by approving death sentences without thorough oversight. His daughters, Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki), and their mother, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), exist largely in his periphery, though it's this trio that the film is most interested in.