Jack Douse

From a microbudget London noir to The Odyssey, all 13 of Nolan’s feature films reveal a filmmaker continually testing how large an original idea can become.

From the restless streets of his earliest New York films to the historical reckoning of Killers of the Flower Moon, Scorsese’s narrative features trace a career consumed by faith, guilt, violence, performance, and the stories people tell to live with themselves.

From the criminal pressure cooker of Reservoir Dogs to the sunlit melancholy of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Tarantino’s ten separately released features reveal a filmmaker obsessed with language, performance, genre, revenge, and the power of movies to rewrite reality.

From intimate documentaries to enormous studio spectacles, these are the films that have defined the year through August 4.

Tom Holland's fourth outing strips away the Avengers safety net and finally asks who Peter Parker is when nobody remembers him.

Hirokazu Kore-eda brings his lifelong questions about family into the age of artificial intelligence, but the technology creates distance where his best films find intimacy.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa turns his first samurai film into a patient, intricately framed murder mystery about fear, leadership, and the performance of honor.

Gregg Araki returns with a filthy, funny power game that gives Olivia Wilde one of the sharpest roles of her career, even when its generational argument gets ahead of the movie.

The Tony-winning musical reaches the screen without disguising its theatrical roots, preserving the original principal cast and the extraordinary machinery of a show built to be witnessed together.

Christopher Nolan turns Homer's epic into an overwhelming IMAX study of war, guilt, and homecoming, anchored by Matt Damon's finest performance in years.

Disney returns to Motunui with a polished live-action remake that finds a promising new star in Catherine Lagaʻaia, but almost no reason to retell the story this soon.

Sébastien Vaniček turns a grieving widow's visit with her in-laws into a vicious family reunion, finding fresh brutality in a franchise built on bodies refusing to stay dead.

Sasha Waters' intimate documentary honors Mary Oliver's plainspoken poetry without mistaking accessibility for simplicity.

The Minions stumble into 1920s Hollywood and accidentally create a monster movie, giving the franchise its smartest setting even when the usual chaos eventually takes over.

Milly Alcock gives the DC Universe the unruly, emotionally bruised hero it needs, even when the space adventure around her feels strangely ordinary.

Olivia Wilde turns one uncomfortable dinner into a sharp, beautifully performed examination of marriage, desire, and the stories couples agree not to question.

Jessie finally takes the lead as Pixar's defining franchise confronts a threat more complicated than another villain: a childhood that may no longer need toys.

Steven Spielberg returns to the genre he helped define with a paranoid first-contact thriller that finds wonder not in the existence of aliens, but in the decision to tell everyone the truth.

The Wayans family returns with the original cast and enough reckless energy for a few real laughs, but nostalgia cannot hide how rarely the new jokes cut deeper than recognition.

Kane Parsons turns an internet nightmare into a startlingly physical maze, creating extraordinary dread even when the human story struggles to keep pace with the rooms around it.

Din Djarin and Grogu finally reach the big screen in a likable, beautifully crafted adventure that never quite proves their story needed to leave television.

Boots Riley turns shoplifting, street style, and stolen labor into a wild anti-capitalist heist comedy that is exhilarating, exhausting, and impossible to mistake for anyone else's movie.

Curry Barker turns a childish wish for unreturned love into a vicious horror comedy about entitlement, control, and the terror of getting exactly what you asked for.

Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci return to a fashion industry transformed by digital media, but the sequel's glossy nostalgia is sharper than its new story.

A junior high science teacher wakes up alone at the far edge of the solar system and has to save the species. Somehow, the math checks out emotionally too.