Until She Wakes Up 

A strong representation of African Americans in this film features evil spirits and horror-themed elements.

The problem isn’t that it’s bad. It's good. But it fails to stand out from a crowd of similar films.

Paul Thomas Anderson blends tragedy, comedy in 2025 epic, "One Battle After Another."

The genres of science fiction and fantasy are not exclusively masculine territory. Over the last few decades, female directors have brought to the screen some of the most visually stunning, intellectually daring, and deeply moving works of speculative fiction. From big Hollywood productions like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel to independent low-budget films, women filmmakers are making a name for themselves around the world.

Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) tells her mother (Laurie Metcalf) that she wants to live through something — something that matters.

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.