Same Old West (2024)

Sailor Moon Crystal wisely makes the decision to adapt Season 4's Dream Arc into an epic anime movie where the Sailor Guardians shine brightest.

These confines won’t really encourage you to read the film as a metaphor for the nerve-inducing experience we’ve all been through over the last year, however — and in the interest of maintaining your dignity, you probably shouldn’t. While the sociopolitical commentary may have worked for the similarly-themed Buried (2010), in which we find Ryan Reynolds on his own buried alive in the Middle East, but this futuristic take on the premise is best left as a piece of distracting entertainment. Nevertheless, the atmosphere is no less suffocating, literally and dramatically.

That gut-wrenching feeling you have while watching it is okay but needed, and you, the viewer, will be okay.

Rip Tide is a coming-of-age film that teaches viewers about finding yourself and reconnecting with surroundings.

Prajdnik Awasthi’s film uses a mix of metaphor and more grounded details to tell the story of childhood sexual abuse that caused the narrator to close himself off from his father.

Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing is a gritty, darkly funny thrill ride through 1998 New York, with Austin Butler delivering a raw, magnetic turn as Hank Thompson—a washed-up ex-ballplayer turned bartender whose life implodes after cat-sitting for his punk neighbor drags him into a violent underworld of gangsters, crooked cops, and chaos. Brutal yet unexpectedly hilarious, the film blends noir grit with midnight-movie absurdity, proving Aronofsky can reinvent himself while Butler cements his status as a true movie star.