5,000 Dollar Elopement (1916)

The film exhibits a respect for the craft and an empathy for human tribulations that have historically been ignored.

The more we learned with each passing minute the bigger the reveal. This film ends with a serious bang and it was truly a joy to watch.

Its predictability shouldn’t distract from the enjoyment that the pure cinematic imagination behind the camera elicits. It is a movie of crises both moral and mortal, oozing with CGI, and thoroughly enjoyable.

Perhaps the most amazing and groundbreaking quality about The Birdcage is how removed it is from both illness and insensitivity. Whereas films preceding it were often somber stories about the tribulations of being gay in a conservatively straight world, Nichols and screenwriter Elaine May expose the fallacies of conservatism as traditional values are thrown into a more open-minded space. They don’t care how far the community has fallen so much as how high they can rebuild themselves.

Cord Jefferson's hilarious and thought-provoking film continues a long-standing cinematic tradition, expanding the conversation around the impact of systemic racism in today's media.

I first saw Dear Evan Hansen on the Broadway stage. Apparently, I was so blown away by the magic of theater that I didn’t pick up on the questionable dynamics. The story's clumsy handling in the movie brought those issues to light.