Real Men 

"King Richard" paints a nuanced portrait of a Black father trying to ensure his daughters’ success in a racist, misogynistic world. Yet, Richard and his kids overcome that fear and adversity to succeed.

There’s been a longstanding criticism of sci-fi films about its lack of Black characters. For the past few years, Anthony Mackie has been successfully representing Black masculinity in the otherwise homogenous genre and I am here for it.

Overall, Cruella stands above the other Disney retellings. Its dark and bold, and that is exactly what these retellings should be. Emma Stone continues to prove she's one of the finest young actresses working today, and Emma Thompson gives one of the best villain performances in the last decade. The fashion is stunning, the dogs are adorable, and the story is wildly vibrant and original. It's classic movie fun, and it shouldn't be overlooked.

Netflix’s Shadow and Bone has a complicated relationship with race. It has a diverse cast, but not without its problems. Based on Leigh Bardugo’s two book series, the show features characters from the Shadow and Bone trilogy, which is very straight and white, and the Six of Crows duology, which is much more diverse. When bringing together a cast and writing about these characters, the team behind the show expanded upon some of the representation missing from the first trilogy, then seemed to take away representation from the duology. Shadow and Bone seems to play a bit of a push and pull game when it comes to portraying diversity onscreen.

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.

This animated kids' movie shows viewers two different species--jungle animals and aliens--and how both species coexist.