Looking for what to see in theaters? Our feature, updated weekly, highlights our top recommendations for films currently in theaters, from new releases to restorations receiving a proper theatrical run.

While we already provide extensive monthly new-release recommendations and weekly streaming recommendations, as distributors’ roll-outs can vary, this is a one-stop list to share the essential films that may be on a screen near you.

All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia)

Following up her enigmatic, beautiful debut A Night of Knowing Nothing, Payal Kapadia shows an entirely different register with her dazzling Cannes Film Festival Grand Prize winner All We Imagine as Light. While India foolishly didn’t select it to compete in the international feature category at this year’s Academy Awards, hopefully it’ll take an Anatomy of a Fall-esque path this season. Luke Hicks said in his review, “Writer-director Payal Kapadia isn’t interested in the flashy world of Mumbai that gets so much global attention. Per its opening soundscape, All We Imagine as Light means to bask in the luminescence of life found among India’s lower classes, which means acknowledging the inequality and socio-economic injustice that defines their everyday as much as it means showcasing their intrinsic glow and dogged refusal to let the inalienable love, beauty, and camaraderie of existence be taken from them.”

Anora (Sean Baker)

Sean Baker’s radiant rom-com / rollicking thriller Anora is one of the most acclaimed films of the year for good reason. The Palme d’Or winner is finally now in theaters, giving audiences a chance to witness Mikey Madison’s captivating performance. Luke Hicks said in his review, “Anora is a devastating, gut-busting beauty––regular cinematographer Drew Daniels lending his brilliance to yet another Baker triumph––the kind that hurts your heart and holds you tight to recover at the same time, tears of laughter streaming down your face.”

Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (Tyler Taormina)

The best holiday movie of the season, Ham on Rye director Tyler Taormina expanded his star power with Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, which brings together Michael Cera, Elsie Fisher, Maria Dizzia, Sawyer Spielberg, Francesca Scorsese, and many more. Rory O’Connor said in his Cannes review, “The setting and production design are so rich with authenticity and detail that fans of The Bear might be tempted to draw comparisons with a famous episode in season two, but Miller’s Point‘s motley crew can boast their own joyful mess of idiosyncrasies. All of the holiday staples are served up here: the tough guy brothers-in-law, the wily matriarch, the mildly problematic uncle, the stroppy teens itching to escape, and the younger kids who have yet to rebel against their sparkly dresses and dickie bows. There’s a gift-giving ceremony, a screening of VHS home movies, a family walk, and a slightly inebriated after-dinner speech. Taormina collects these moments less like plot points in a conventional narrative than flashes of his own memory, micro-recollections jumbled with all the unruly charm of a photo album.”

Dahomey (Mati Diop)

Following her stellar feature debut Atlantics, Mati Diop has finally returned with the Golden Bear-winning documentary Dahomey. As Leonardo Goi said in his Berlinale review, “Toward the discussion’s end, a young woman says it’s insulting that one should think 90 percent of Benin’s cultural heritage is still abroad. ‘Our immaterial heritage’––the traditions, stories, and customs that keep the country together––’are still here.’ It’s a lesson powering the whole film. As reimagined by Dahomey and the passionate voices echoing throughout, a nation’s heritage can’t be reduced to material riches. It’s a breathing, malleable realm, far harder to describe but no less concrete for that. ‘An object dies when the living glance trained upon it disappears.’ Dahomey begins where Statues Also Die ended, wondering what remains of our identities when the things those cling onto suddenly disappear––then resurface from oblivion. To this, Diop offers no clear answers. But in the heart-shaking passion of that university debate, in those students’ resolute commitment to reappropriate their own narratives, she finds something rarer still: a snapshot of a generation for whom this isn’t just the story of a restitution. It’s a resurrection.”

The End (Joshua Oppenheimer)

A decade after his staggering documentaries The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence, Joshua Oppenheimer has now returned, but this time with a narrative feature. In a rave from the premiere, Caleb Hammond said in his review, “From the jump, The End embodies a more classical filmmaking mode. Following an establishing shot of an unspeakably beautiful underground salt mine, a lush orchestral score plays over close-ups of oil paintings while opening credits roll. A remarkable level of craft is visible at once and maintained throughout the extended 148-minute runtime. This cohesiveness of vision across all departments with no visible lapses at any moment would be remarkable for a seasoned fiction filmmaker, let alone one making his first foray into narrative-feature storytelling.”

Flow (Gints Zilbalodis)

Any cat owner who saw this year’s A Quiet Place: Day One may recall the stress induced by the image of a cat bobbing underwater and often think of that as our feline hero escapes one sticky situation after another. They’re not alone, though, interacting with an adorable band of animals that include a capybara, golden retriever, lemur, and limp-winged tall bird. The cute buddies all “speak” through meows, barks, squeaks, and grunts, making Flow essentially enough of an “art film” to get festival play, even if it’s pretty simple at heart––while ostensibly a cutesy animated movie for children, I never felt my intelligence insulted. I don’t know if a limited release provided by North American distributors Janus and Sideshow means Flow finds a young audience beyond cultured adults taking their kids, but the film, at heart, recalls some of classic Disney. – Ethan V. (full review)

The Girl with the Needle (Magnus von Horn)

After making a splash with his influencer satire Sweat, Swedish director Magnus von Horn returned to Cannes with the black-and-white drama The Girl with the Needle. Savina Petkova said of Denmark’s Oscar entry in her Cannes review, “Teaming with co-writer Line Langebek, van Horn takes a true story and weaves many obstacles, encounters, and disappointments to make sure we see Karoline as a multifaceted character, even if she barely speaks. It’s not that she’s deliberately quiet or scheming in any way; her reticence to talk instead confirms a lack of faith in life as it is. Girl‘s period setting––1919 in a post-WWI Copenhagen––may be a century removed from our times, but its atmosphere weighs on you just as today’s world might. With old wars supposedly ending and new ones brewing, home evictions, poverty, and lack of abortion rights, Scandinavia in the 1920s can terrifyingly mirror many parts of Europe in the 2020s. The Anthropocene looms over The Girl with the Needle, which is the best thing a period piece can hope for: a knowing, truthful look at the past from the vantage of our present.”

Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood)

In Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2, Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) finds himself in an unenviable position: not only was he selected for jury duty, but something odd occurs during the murder trial’s opening statements. Details surrounding the night of the murder begin to trigger memories for him. First, he realizes he was in the same bar as the defendant James Sythe and his girlfriend Kendall, that same evening one year ago, an odd coincidence, but not too bizarre. There are only so many bars in a small town. But then he recalls an accident he had on the way home that night, right where the murder occurred. He hit a deer, or so he thought, with his Toyota 4Runner. He eventually surmises it must have been he who unknowingly struck and killed Kendall walking alone in the dark. And now he’s on a jury who must decide the fate of a man accused of murdering her. – Caleb H. (full review)

Memoir of a Snail (Adam Elliot)

Memoir of a Snail marks the long-awaited return to feature filmmaking from Adam Elliot, director of 2009’s Mary & Max and Oscar winner for the short Harvie Krumpet. Featuring the voices of Sarah Snook, Eric Bana, Jacki Weaver, and Kodi Smit-McPhee, the film won the top prizes at Annecy and BFI London. David Katz said in his review, “Memoir of a Snail’s director Adam Elliot (following-up his enduringly popular 2009 feature Mary and Max) prefers the term ‘clayography’––his own portmanteau of claymation and biography––which does someway capture the uniqueness of what he’s doing. He specializes in exhaustive stop-motion character studies. Which isn’t to say they lack storytelling escalation, but underlines how little we grasped about the likes of Wallace, Gromit, and Jack Skellington’s psychology or motivations. Elliot strongly favors voiceover as a primary tool for exposition––of course, a sin for various theorists of film storytelling––and Memoir of a Snail displays the limitations of combining this approach with his various still tableaux of clay, paint, and paper.”

Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross)

There are only a few films this year that truly feel like they are radically advancing the language of cinema; RaMell Ross’ narrative debut Nickel Boys certainly stands among them. After crafting one of the most remarkable documentaries of the last few years with the Apichatpong Weerasethakul-backed, Sundance-winning, Oscar-nominated Hale County This Morning, This Evening, Ross has now adapted Colson Whitehead’s acclaimed, Pulitzer-winning 2019 novel. With cinematography from Jomo Fray, who shot last year’s stunning All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, Nickel Boys sees Ross exude stunning formal power once again, telling this story with a unique, empathetic conceit that makes for a radical adaptation and one of the year’s best films. Jourdain Searles said in her review, “Nickel Boys is a difficult film to define or boil down to constituent pieces. It feels alive like an open, bleeding heart. It’s a tragic story told with hope that doesn’t ring saccharine or overwrought. Sometimes it moves like water, flowing from ugliness to beauty. There are few American films that come close to what it accomplishes, as either film or adaptation. Nickel Boys suggests a miracle, with the makings of a classic.”

Oh, Canada (Paul Schrader)

After his trio of “Man in a Room” films, Paul Schrader has switched gears with the poignant drama Oh, Canada. Reteaming with his American Gigolo star Richard Gere, the film follows a famed Canadian documentary filmmaker who gives a final interview to one of his former students to tell the whole truth about his life. Rory O’Connor said in his review, “It’s the first time the director has worked with Richard Gere since the mutually beneficial success of American Gigolo 44 years––a moving and poignant choice given the wildly diverging paths they have been over that time. The actor was 31 when Gigolo came out, about to be thrust to the top of the A-list. Never comfortable in the sunnier parts of Hollywood, Schrader would use the film’s success to plug away for as long as he could with his own idiosyncratic brand of filmmaking. That their paths have convened again here, with Schrader rejuvenated (loving life as the elder statesman of the New York scene) and Gere without a solid role in years, is itself a poignant narrative. That they’ve done so on a story about a filmmaker reassessing his own legacy is even more compelling.”

The Order (Justin Kurzel)

At quite a steady clip, Justin Kurzel followed True History of the Kelly Gang and Nitram with The Order, a gritty crime drama that’s certainly his best film since the debut Snowtown. Starring Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Jurnee Smollett, Alison Oliver, and Marc Maron, the film tells the true story of FBI agents tracking down robberies carried out by white supremacists. Luke Hicks said in his review, “Australian native Kurzel has finally––as was inevitable at his climbing rate––begun telling stories stateside, but the move to the American West simply amounts to a setting shift. The film doesn’t feel foreign to his other work––a compliment or a dig, depending on how you read it. For one, The Order bears its fair share of clichés. You can guess how it’ll end. The boilerplate crime-thriller framework follows that of his past films, which don’t stray from the formula either.”

Porcelain War (Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev)

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Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev’s documentary Porcelain War starts with a text card: “Nearly all the footage you are about to watch was shot by the subjects in this film.” It’s the kind of thing that makes one expect material that’s quite unbelievable. In this case, consider that promise kept. Most of what we see comes from Ukraine in 2022. A fraught time, which continues as I type. – Dan M. (full review)

A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg)

There’s something humble about Jesse Eisenberg writing, directing, and co-starring in a film, only to give its plum role to Kieran Culkin. Eisenberg, still, writes himself arguably the best scene in this picture; maybe the jury’s still out on the humble thing. David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Culkin) meet at the airport ahead of a trip to Poland. Their grandmother has recently passed and set some money aside for the two young men to take a tour of the motherland––captured, courtesy DP Michal Dymek, in visually and emotionally arresting images. – Dan M. (full review)

The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)

Here’s a film that asks, in the vein of another’s title: did you wonder who fired the gun? Yet in Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which is set concurrently against Iran’s Jina (Women, Life, Freedom) protests, the question’s sarcastic rather than interrogative. This gun is not literal and corporeal, but metaphorical and deadly, its firer the collective will of hundreds of women who cannot abide the country’s theocratic regime and morality police. There’s no doubting the film’s own cogently didactic thrust, either. – David K. (full review)

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez)

One of the best documentaries to premiere at Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat a radically and rhythmically edited look at global politics. John Fink said in his review, “It was Mark Twain who said, “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes,” which is one way of approaching Belgian filmmaker and multimedia artist Johan Grimonprez’s sprawling, jazz-infused Soundtrack to a Coup d’État. The political essay revisits 1960, a turbulent year in global affairs: Patrice Lumumba rises to power in Congo just as the United States, through the CIA-backed Voice of America radio network, aims to soften America’s image aboard, sending jazz musicians Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Nina Simone, Dizzy Gillespie, Abbey Lincoln, and Max Roach to tour the world. The film positions the jazz musicians as a kind of political cabinet while Gillespie envisions his own run for the White House on TV talk shows back home. It proceeds with a rather kinetic, defiant tone in which the jazz, breaking news, citations, and quotes interrupt the historical footage a more standard documentary may have primarily focused on.”

A Traveler’s Needs (Hong Sangsoo)

Two things can be true at once. The old debate over whether Hong Sangsoo’s cinema is overly earnest or self-aware was always a bit reductive––when the most light-hearted of the director’s films transcend, it is usually a result of both. Regardless, those arguments fade further into the rearview mirror with A Traveler’s Needs, his first collaboration with Isabelle Huppert since Claire’s Camera (2017) and Hong’s funniest film in years. In one gloriously stilted scene at around the halfway point, a lawyer played by Hong regular Kwon Hae-hyo attempts to flirt with Huppert’s character, Iris, who responds with a kind of unhinged wink-and-giggle movement––she then, insanely, repeats the trick. Wise to the cringing discomfort of the moment, Hong quickly cuts to a zoom reminiscent of the fan-favorite in The Woman Who Ran. Don’t say he isn’t in on the joke. – Rory O. (full review)

The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders)

The best studio animation of the year by quite a wide margin, The Wild Robot is an adventure as wondrous as it is heartfelt. Exploring the trials, tribulations, and joys of parenting through the story of a stray robot in the wilderness, Sanders nails the emotional throughline to create a stirring, human-free experience. While the script could have used perhaps a bit more specificity, what it lacks in originality, it makes up for in earnestness and craft, chock full of detailed environments and wonderful character design. – Jordan R.

More Films Now Playing in Theaters

The Best New Restorations Now Playing in Theaters

The below list features newly restored films receiving a theatrical release run. For NYC-specific repertory round-ups, bookmark NYC Weekend Watch.

  • Carrie
  • The Sacrifice
  • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
  • The Wages of Fear

Read all reviews here.

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