BEST DEBUT NARRATIVE FEATURE
THE FATHER, dir. Florian Zeller
Immersive and deeply disorienting by design, using perspective in strikingly inventive ways to craft an at times terrifying, always deeply empathetic vision of living with dementia.
THE ASSISTANT, dir. Kitty Green
More than just “the Weinstein movie,” The Assistant is interested in all the toxically hierarchical systems and pernicious practices of the film and television industry, observing and critiquing them with damning accuracy.
PALM SPRINGS, dir. Max Barbakow
Breathes new life into a tired microgenre, nimbly drawing out probing complexities and nuances from its gimmicky conceit while oozing charm and actually managing to be consistently funny.
SONG WITHOUT A NAME, dir. Melina León
A tremendously soulful, gorgeously composed journalistic procedural that deftly dissects profound institutional disfunction in late 1980’s Peru, subtly detailing the myriad of ways its government failed its people, particularly indigenous communities. Unafraid to take formal risks. All The President’s Men one moment, Eraserhead the next.
THE WOLF HOUSE, dir. Joaquín Cociña, Cristóbal León
Totally arresting, Cociña and Lèon’s grotesquely beautiful, truly unsettling animation lives and breathes, constantly metamorphosing in style and form as it quite cleverly engages with questions of authoritarianism and propaganda.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: Sound of Metal, dir. Darius Marder ; House of Hummingbird, dir. Bora Kim ; The 40-Year-Old Version, dir. Radha Blank ; The Vast of Night, dir. Andrew Patterson ; Emma. dir. Autumn de Wilde