Bibi & Tina: Girls vs. Boys 

I didn’t love Expecting Amy, the mini-series following Amy Schumer’s pregnancy, but it brought up a lot of great unspoken side-effects of working and growing a human in America.

"Up" features one of Pixar's few Asian-American heroes and explores the institutionalized hardships elderly people face. Also, Dug is a good boy.

Adapted from a 2014 novel by Atticus Lish, Preparation for the Next Life is the feature film debut of documentary filmmaker Bing Liu. With the help of screenwriter Martyna Majok, he paints a realistic and somber portrayal of Aishe, a Uyghur immigrant, as she struggles to make a living while undocumented in the United States.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is the most human movie of the year. It is based on the 2010 short of the same name that follows a big-hearted, little shell named Marcel as he navigates through life in a human-sized world. 

The Gates, John Burr’s new thriller film, is a disturbingly realistic portrayal of three Black twenty-somethings - Derek (Mason Gooding), Kevin (Algee Smith), and Tyon (Keith Powers), as they accidentally take a wrong turn into a gated community that’s more like a modern-day sundown town. The three friends witness a variety of crimes in their new surroundings, including an attempted homicide and an attempted rape. As they attempt to alert the authorities and do the right thing, they are thwarted at every turn by the worst horror stories of American conservatism - racist white suburbanites, reckless gun violence, corrupt police, religious mania, and a megalomaniacal pastor. 

“Jumanji - a game for those who seek to find, a way to leave their world behind...” A nostalgic classic that remains unnerving, "Jumanji" draws audiences into a chilling adventure.