Mirror 

Hope has great characters, inventive ideas, an incredible imagination, a palpable intensity, and numerous other aspects that make it one of the best of the year. 

“Eleanor The Great” is a feel-good story that explores how we cope with grief and loss while educating us about the horrors of the Holocaust.

Him is visually stunning—all concrete cathedrals and bone-rattling impact shots that look like a nightmare highlight reel. Marlon Wayans is magnetic as this legendary quarterback who's basically selling salvation with a smile that never quite reaches his eyes. But the story keeps running in circles: more tests, more cryptic pep talks, more ritualistic drills. The sports-as-religion metaphor beats you over the head when subtlety would've been more effective. The middle drags, and that finale chooses spectacle over substance. It's undeniably stylish, but left me cold. Also worth noting: despite the Monkeypaw connection, this isn't actually a Jordan Peele film—he didn't write or direct.

Disguised as a cosmic highway horror, Alexander Ullom’s It Ends is a beautiful, albeit terrifying, metaphor for learning that if you want to survive adulthood and become your own person, you have to learn to let people go.

The film does not add anything to its own conversation or genre, and falls flat once it’s about to end and must declare some sort of conclusion.

Based on a true story, when his beloved dog goes missing, the owner embarks on an incredible search with his parents to find him.