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“Anatomy of a Fall” earned five Oscar nominations, including best picture and best director. But it’s Sandra Hüller’s chilly performance at the center of the film, our critic Manohla Dargis argues, that provides the true mystery behind this whodunit. “When it’s all over,” Manohla says, “you immediately want to turn to the person you’ve seen the movie with and say, ‘Oh my god, let’s talk about this. This is amazing. What did we just watch?’”On today’s episode

Persons: Sandra Hüller’s, Manohla Dargis, ” Manohla, “

☆ ‘Mean Girls’ Review: ‘Get in, Loser,’ Regina George Is Back
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-11 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Can a movie musical based on a Broadway musical based on a film comedy that in turn was based on a parenting book be any good? Sure — if only because the writer-producer Tina Fey and the producer Lorne Michaels have made sure that little has changed in their money-printing property since the first movie hit theaters in 2004. It’s not especially tart and is undeniably over-padded, but its charms and ingratiating likability remain intact. There, she meets nerds and jocks, alphas and betas, and attracts the notice of the queen bee, the aptly named Regina (Reneé Rapp, who played the role on Broadway). Flanked by her vassals, Karen (Avantika) and Gretchen (Bebe Wood), Regina reigns supreme at school where, as the student body’s most attentively studied subject, she is feared, desired and loathed, at times simultaneously.

Persons: Tina Fey, Lorne Michaels, Elvis Mitchell, Mark Waters, Lindsay Lohan, Ben Brantley, It’s, ingratiating, Fey, Cady, Reneé Rapp, Gretchen, Bebe Wood, Regina Organizations: New York Times Locations: Kenya, Regina

I saw hundreds of new films with a variety of plots and styles made on every imaginable scale and budget. The movies have ostensibly been at death’s door at least since the shift to sync sound, which isn’t to undersell the industry’s business woes. “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” was “cursed,” read one headline; “‘Mission: Impossible 7’ falls short of expectations,” ran another. The moaning in the trades gave way to klaxon horns when much of SAG-AFTRA went on strike on July 14. This year also reminded us that a mass audience will happily get out of the house for movies without superheroes.

Persons: Manohla, Rockwell, Martin Scorsese, shutdowns, Topsy, “, bullish, Indiana Jones, ”, AFTRA, Barry Diller, “ Barbie ”, “ Oppenheimer ” Organizations: Yahoo, Sundance Film, Writers Guild, SAG, Paramount, Marvel Locations: Cannes

☆ ‘May December’ Review: She’ll Be Your Mirror
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Even the evening has an inviting velvetiness, as if all of life’s shadows have been banished. They meet when a TV actress, Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), visits Gracie (Julianne Moore), the inspiration for her next role. Gracie lives in a large waterfront house in Savannah with her husband, Joe (Charles Melton), their teenage twins and two Irish setters. Of course I was: Haynes is having fun, at least for a while, partly to play with our expectations about where the movie is headed. That partly explains why he’s drawn to the woman’s film, with its focus on ordinary life, its domestic spaces, moral quandaries, political dimensions and tears.

Persons: Todd Haynes’s, “, ”, Haynes, Elizabeth, Natalie Portman, Gracie, Julianne Moore, Joe, Charles Melton, He’s, he’s, Molly Haskell Locations: Savannah

☆ ‘Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros’ Review: A Beautiful Collaboration
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Frederick Wiseman’s transporting documentary “Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros,” centers on a dynasty of French chefs who live and work in a pastoral region in central France named Ouches, some 65 miles west of Lyon. The chef Daniel Boulud includes the Troisgros salmon recipe in several of his cookbooks. “Menus-Plaisirs” is Wiseman’s 44th documentary and the first that he’s made since “City Hall” (2020), which notionally focuses on the administration building for the city of Boston. (In between “City Hall” and “Menus-Plaisirs,” he made one of his rare forays into fiction, “A Couple,” about Sophia Tolstoy.) Wiseman directed, edited and served as one of the producers on “Menus-Plaisirs,” which runs a heroic four hours (about a half-hour shorter than “City Hall”!).

Persons: Frederick Wiseman’s, Les, Michel, who’s, Bois, Michel’s, Pierre, Jean, Daniel Boulud, he’s, notionally, ”, Sophia Tolstoy, Wiseman, Le Bois, Marie Organizations: Michelin, “, ” Locations: France, Lyon, Boston, “, Roanne

☆ ‘Maestro’ Review: Leonard Bernstein’s Life of Ecstasy and Agony
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

I co-wrote and directed ‘Maestro.’ It was very important to me, at the onset of this scene, that she be in a position of power. So, her on the windowsill, the light haloing her behind, waiting for whoever was gonna come in to be scolded. No!” “I think you’re letting your sadness get the better of you.” “This has nothing to do with me! “If you’re not careful, you’re going to die a lonely, old queen.” Mommy, daddy! Outside the window, this Snoopy sort of represents where he is in his life.

Persons: I’m Bradley Cooper, ‘ Maestro, “, Felicia, She’s, Leonard Bernstein, ”, Carey Mulligan, he’s, they’re, we’ll, you’re, Matty Libatique, Snoopy

☆ ‘Napoleon’ Review: A Lumpy, Grumpy Little Man
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

More startling, though, is that the movie is also often eccentric and at times eccentrically funny. You expect refined craft and technique from Scott and the pleasures of spectacle filmmaking at its most expansive. It opens in Paris amid that convulsion of violence called the Terror, with surging, shouting crowds and the metallic hiss of the falling guillotine blade. Aristocrats are losing their heads (Scott re-creates one execution with gory verisimilitude), and Napoleon Bonaparte — a mesmerizing, off-kilter, lumpish Joaquin Phoenix — will soon profit from the chaos. Before long, the story has jumped forward and now Napoleon is in the southern French port city of Toulon, where he strategically routs the Anglo-Spanish fleet that has taken the city.

Persons: Kane, ” Orson Welles, Welles, Ridley Scott, “ Napoleon, ” Scott, Napoleon ”, Scott, Karl, Napoleon Bonaparte —, lumpish Joaquin Phoenix —, Napoleon Organizations: “ Locations: “ Kingdom, Europe, Africa, Russia, Paris, Toulon

☆ ‘Fallen Leaves’ Review: Love (and Laughs) Among the Ruins
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-16 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Modestly scaled and tonally perfect, “Fallen Leaves” opens in a fluorescent hell-on-earth and ends with a vision of something like paradise. A lot of the drinks are downed hurriedly and often furtively by a man, while elsewhere a woman listens to sad songs. A Finnish writer-director best known on the international festival circuit (“Fallen Leaves” won a major award at the 2023 Cannes), Kaurismaki makes movies — precise, austere, plaintive — that resist compartmentalization. Set in contemporary Helsinki, “Fallen Leaves” opens on the woman who listens to sad songs; it’s a habit that suggests she’s a familiar genre type — she isn’t. That’s pretty much what happens when a supermarket manager later fires Ansa for taking some expired food.

Persons: Aki, Kaurismaki, she’s, Alma Poysti, Ansa, Kaurismaki doesn’t Locations: Finnish, Cannes, Helsinki, —, Ukraine

☆ ‘Rustin’ Review: A Crucial Civil Rights Activist Gets His Due
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-16 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Every so often an actor so dominates a movie that its success largely hinges on his every word and gesture. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Pacifist, ex-con, singer, lutist, socialist — Bayard Rustin had many lives, but he remains best known as the main organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was Rustin who read the march’s demands from the podium, remaining near King’s side as he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Several activists have asked King to lead a mass protest against the forthcoming Democratic National Convention. The protest, Rustin explains, will send a message to the party and its nominee, the front-runner John F. Kennedy.

Persons: Colman, “ Rustin, Martin Luther King Jr, lutist, Bayard Rustin, Rustin, “ Rustin ”, George C, Wolfe, Julian Breece, Dustin Lance Black, King, John F, Kennedy, Roy Wilkins, Chris Rock, Adam Clayton Powell Jr, Jeffrey Wright Organizations: Jobs, Lincoln, Democratic, Convention, U.S, Representative, Harlem Locations: ”, Washington, Rustin

☆ ‘The Killer’ Review: He’s a Deadly Bore
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-09 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

In Hobbesian terms, life in a Fincher film tends to be solitary and poor, nasty and brutish, if not necessarily short. That’s the case again in his most recent movie, “The Killer,” about a nameless hit man — played by Michael Fassbender — a chatty loner first seen waiting for a victim to show up. In time, the mark appears, the Killer shoots but misses, and spends the remainder of the story trying to clean up the mess. “The Killer” is based on a French comic book with the same title written by Alexis Nolent (who goes by Matz) and illustrated by Luc Jacamon. What makes him ostensibly interesting isn’t his job or body count; what’s intriguing, at least before your eyes finally glaze over, is that he’s dull.

Persons: David Fincher can’t, Fincher, ”, Edmund Kemper, “ Mindhunter ”, “, —, Michael Fassbender —, Alexis Nolent, Matz, Luc Jacamon, Christ Organizations: Netflix

☆ ‘Orlando, My Political Biography’ Review: A Collective Approach to Joy
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-09 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Along the way, Preciado draws attention to the construction of identity and that of the movie itself, fusing form and subject. Preciado’s most provocative conceit is that he shares the role of Orlando with 20 other trans and nonbinary individuals of different ages, hues and shapes. Like her Orlando, his travels widely (if on a shoestring budget), undergoes metamorphoses and weaves through the centuries. By sharing the role of Orlando, Preciado shifts the story from the individual to the collective, taking it out of the private realm and into the public sphere. “I wouldn’t exactly say that either,” Orlando says with a Mona Lisa smile.

Persons: Woolf, ”, Christine Jorgensen, Orlando, Amir Baylly, Liz Christin, Dr, “, she’s, ” Orlando, Mona Lisa Organizations: Orlando Locations: Orlando

☆ ‘The Marvels’ Review: You’ve Seen This Movie 32 Times Before
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-09 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

This is the 33rd movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which continues to expand even as its cultural interest and resonance diminish. “The Marvels” will dominate the box office, of course, at least during its opening weekend, just because it will flood theaters. It’s almost as if the suits at Marvel Studios know it doesn’t matter if their movies are any good. Carol Danvers, a former Air Force pilot who inadvertently picked up her superpowers once upon a time. When she first appears here, she is hanging out with her scene-stealing orange tabby, Goose (played by Tango and Nemo), on her spaceship and doing something important-looking.

Persons: they’ve, Nia DaCosta, Brie Larson, Marvel a.k.a, Carol Danvers, Goose, overextended escapade Organizations: Marvel, Marvel Studios, Air Force, Tango

☆ ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Review: An Unsettling Masterpiece
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-19 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

There’s a scene in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” when the screen fills with men toiling in what looks like a lake of fire. Inky silhouettes in a red-orange void, they look like Boschian imps, but these are ordinary men in a hell of human making. This may seem like strange territory for Scorsese, with his New York wiseguys and street corners. Throughout, Scorsese has also reminded you that there are many ways to tell stories, including about evil. Some were shot, others were blown up, while still others died from an enigmatic wasting illness, though were likely poisoned.

Persons: Martin Scorsese’s, It’s, Scorsese, —, Christ ”, ”, Eric Roth, Ernest Burkhart, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ernest Locations: York, Roman, Tibet, “, Hollywood, Oklahoma, United States, Fairfax, Okla

☆ ‘The Equalizer 3’ Review: Brood, Kill, Sip a Cup of Tea, Repeat
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-31 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

As one does in Italy, Robert McCall likes to sit in a little cafe, watching the world pass by. McCall — an enigmatic avenger played by Denzel Washington — likes tea, but he’s fine with the coffee that a beautiful server brings him with a smile. This is the third and apparently last “Equalizer” movie that Washington will make. Maybe he’s grown tired of the franchise’s same-old ultraviolence or perhaps he’s bored with the predictable predictability of it all, even if this installment is as reliably watchable if ethically challenged as the previous ones. Whatever the case, little has changed since the first “Equalizer” (2014).

Persons: Robert McCall, McCall, Denzel Washington, Nero d’Avola Organizations: Denzel Locations: Italy, Washington, Amalfi, Sicily

☆ ‘Haunted Mansion’ Review: A Disney Ride to Nowhere Fun
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-27 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

That’s pretty much all there is to say about “Haunted Mansion,” a live-action branding opportunity from Disney “inspired by” its theme-park attraction of the same name. “Haunted Mansion” is unlikely to do the same. (A 2021 Halloween special, “Muppet Haunted Mansion,” is streaming on Disney+.) The first film, “The Haunted Mansion” (2003), starring Eddie Murphy, was widely panned but made millions. I hope that Disney paid Simien truckloads of money to direct “Haunted Mansion,” and that he had more fun making it than I had watching it.

Persons: ”, Eddie Murphy, Elvis Mitchell, Mario, “ Barbie ”, Justin Simien, “, Simien, it’s Organizations: Disney, Pirates, New York Times, ‘, Mario Bros, Netflix Locations: Disneyland, Anaheim , Calif, ’, Orleans, ”

☆ ‘Oppenheimer’ Review: A Man for Our Time
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-19 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s staggering film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man known as “the father of the atomic bomb,” condenses a titanic shift in consciousness into three haunted hours. The movie is based on “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” the authoritative 2005 biography by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. The atomic bomb and what it wrought define Oppenheimer’s legacy and also shape this film. “Oppenheimer” is a great achievement in formal and conceptual terms, and fully absorbing, but Nolan’s filmmaking is, crucially, in service to the history that it relates. The story tracks Oppenheimer — played with feverish intensity by Cillian Murphy — across decades, starting in the 1920s with him as a young adult and continuing until his hair grays.

Persons: “ Oppenheimer, ” Christopher Nolan’s, Robert Oppenheimer, J, Kai Bird, Martin J, Sherwin ., Nolan, Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer —, Cillian Murphy —, Jean Tatlock, Florence Pugh, boozer, Kitty Harrison, Emily Blunt Organizations: Manhattan Engineer District, Manhattan Locations: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Los Alamos, New Mexico, Pacific

☆ ‘Barbie’ Review: Out of the Box and On the Road
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

That’s a question that swirls through Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” a live-action, you-go-girl fantasia about the world’s most famous doll. The movie opens with a prelude that parodies the “dawn of man” sequence in “2001: A Space Odyssey” (with girls, not ape-men), and then shifts to Barbie Land, a kaleidoscopic wonderland. There, Gerwig sets the scene and tone with Barbie (Margot Robbie) — who calls herself stereotypical Barbie — soon floating out of her Dreamhouse, as if she were being lifted by a giant invisible hand. Written by Gerwig and her partner, Noah Baumbach, the movie introduces Barbie on yet another perfect day in Barbie Land, in which dolls played by humans exist in what resembles a toyland gated community. There, framed by a painted mountain range, Barbie and a diverse group of other Barbies rule, living in homes with few exterior walls.

Persons: Greta Gerwig’s “ Barbie, ”, fantasia, Barbie, George Bernard Shaw’s, Lerner, Loewe, “ Barbie, Gerwig, Margot Robbie, —, Barbie —, Noah Baumbach, Eero Saarinen Organizations: Mattel Locations: Barbie

☆ ‘Earth Mama’ Review: A Mother Dreams Inside a Brutal System
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Leaf eases you into the movie, which centers on Gia (a lovely Tia Nomore), a pregnant single mother in recovery with two kids in foster care. In tight, precise scenes, Leaf sketches in Gia’s life, its uncertain horizons and crushing limitations. Mostly, Gia struggles to get her kids back, a time-consuming process that involves a reunification program in which she’s constantly monitored. The program’s demands mean that she can’t work more hours, but because she can’t work more, she’s behind in child-support payments, which in turn earns her a scolding from her case worker. If the system seems rigged for Gia to fail, it’s because, Leaf suggests, it is.

Persons: ”, I’ve, Tia Nomore, Gia, she’s, Jody Lee Lipes, Miss Carmen, Erika Alexander, Bokeem Woodbine, Kamaya Jones, Sharon Duncan, Brewster, Keta Price Locations: Gia, Bay

☆ ‘Afire’ Review: His Flaws Are Petty, Pathetic and Funny
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The German filmmaker Christian Petzold’s spiky and at times mordantly funny “Afire” is a tonic for moviegoers tired of nice, squishable, likable, relatable dull and dull characters. Yet while the writer is boorish, he’s never insipid; he’s pleasurably bad company. One of the most reliably interesting and surprising filmmakers working today, Petzold makes sharp, visually intelligent, psychologically sophisticated movies. There, the men will be alone while Leon waits for his publisher and Felix readies an art-school portfolio. When they arrive, though, they find that the mother has invited a third, a stranger to the men named Nadja (Paula Beer).

Persons: Christian, —, he’s, He’s, Barbara ”, Petzold, Éric Rohmer, Leon, Thomas Schubert, Felix, Langston Uibel, Felix readies, Nadja, Paula Beer Locations: Sandwich, Hollywood, United States, East Germany, Baltic

☆ ‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One’ Review: Still Running
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( Manohla Dargis | More About Manohla Dargis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

I don’t know if anyone has ever clocked whether Tom Cruise is faster than a speeding bullet. He racks up more miles in “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One,” the seventh entry in a 27-year-old franchise that repeatedly affirms a movie truism. That is, there are few sights more cinematic than a human being outracing danger and even death onscreen — it’s the ultimate wish fulfillment! Once again, he plays Ethan Hunt, the leader of a hush-hush American spy agency, the Impossible Mission Force. The whole thing is complicated, as these stories tend to be, with stakes as catastrophic as recent news headlines have trumpeted.

Persons: Tom Cruise, —, Ethan Hunt, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, handymen, Simon Pegg, Ving, Ethan, ”, that’s, Hunt, Harley Quinn, Rome —, Wade Eastwood, Grace, Hayley Atwell Organizations: Mission Force Locations: “, Paris, Rome

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