The Hired Gun (1957)

The film illustrates the life of a single who struggles to provide an ideal childhood for her two daughters.

A quiet film that does not demand your tears but earns them. It explores love that lingers, timing that fails, and the silence between what was and what could have been.

Treated like a granter of wishes for those earning out of retelling the same tragedy, Marilyn looks like she's caged in different stages of trauma for us to stare at, instead of someone we’ve finally allowed to rest in peace.

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.

Netflix's Afterlife of the Party might fall into the rom-com genre, but it's much more about grief, strong female friendships, and platonic love than it is about romance.

In all honesty, “Black and Blue” is a satisfying experience, complete with solid craftsmanship. With the help of cinematographer Dante Spinotti, Deon Taylor (the director) creates a murky, lived in atmosphere.