Michael Frank

For their 2022 edition, the Sundance Film Festival has once again adapted to the ever-shifting pandemic landscape. Having recently scrapping their in-person plans, they’ve shifted to a virtual-only lineup that will begin this Thursday and last through January 30, offering the first glimpse at the year in cinema.
We’ll have extensive coverage from the festival (which one can follow here or on Twitter). Before reviews arrive, we’re highlighting the premieres that should be on your radar. If you...

Adam Leon’s films look at New York City with a street-side view. His characters, through his first three features, wander the neighborhoods of the Lower East Side, or the Bronx, or the West Village with little cash and minor control of their situation. From the SXSW Grand Jury Winner Gimme the Loot (2012) to Netflix’s hangout romantic dramedy Tramps (2016), Leon makes films depicting different parts of the city he grew up in, the interactions that go unnoticed and overlooked, the people that ...

“A cinematographer is a visual psychiatrist–moving an audience through a movie […] making them think the way you want them to think, painting pictures in the dark,” said the late, great Gordon Willis. As we continue our year-end coverage, one aspect we must highlight is, indeed, cinematography. From talented newcomers to seasoned professionals, we’ve rounded up the examples that have most impressed us this year. Check out our rundown below.
About Endlessness (Gergely Pálos)
Working with close...

Our year-end coverage continues with a look at the best performances of 2021. Rather than divide categories into supporting or lead or by gender, we’ve written about our 35 favorites, period. (Well: a few more, if you add a grouping we couldn’t leave out.) Check our countdown below and start watching the ones you’ve missed here.
35. Katia Pascariu (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn)
Katia Pascariu’s Emi, a teacher with a circulating home sex tape, is full of defiance. She walks around her Romani...

For our most comprehensive year-end feature we’re providing a cumulative look at The Film Stage’s favorite films of 2021. We’ve asked contributors to compile ten-best lists with five honorable mentions—a selection of those personal lists will be shared in coming days—and from tallied votes has a top 50 been assembled.
So: without further ado, check out our rundown of 2021 below, our ongoing year-end coverage here (including where to stream many of the below picks), and return in the coming we...

After highlighting the most overlooked films of 2021, today we put our spotlight on those that need a home in the first place: movies we loved on the festival circuit—from Berlinale, SXSW, Sundance, TIFF, NYFF, Rotterdam, and beyond—still seeking U.S. distribution.
For acting also as a 2021 retrospective, we hope that highlighting these titles spurs some distributor interests and a release in the next twelve months. Make sure to follow us on Twitter for the latest distribution updates. As we ...

Having highlighted 30 films we guarantee are worth seeing this year and films we hope get U.S. distribution, we now venture into the unknown. One expects more pandemic-related delays, but there’s still plenty of currently under-the-radar movies that will hopefully make a mark in 2022.
Though the majority lack a set release—let alone confirmed festival premiere—most have wrapped production and will likely debut at some point in 2022. Be sure to check back for updates over the next twelve month...

Iran’s premiere director pivots away from family stories to take a look at society at large.
In Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero, moral ambiguity runs rampant through the life of imprisoned Rahim Soltani (Amir Jadidi). Locked away for a debt he could not repay, Soltani has two days of leave to get his creditor, a family friend, to drop the charges. He owes the man a large sum, given as a pseudo-loan for a failing small business. A father to a young boy with a speech impediment, Rahim is understandably...

New to Shudder, the genre mashup follows in the footsteps of many better films.
Death Valley, a new horror film from Matthew Ninaber (known best for playing PG in Psycho Goreman), wants it all. The 93-minute feature hopes to bend horror, thriller, and action—a daring attempt at a balancing act without much of a safety net. Unfortunately, in practice, Ninaber’s picture can’t put two feet into any storyline and fumbles its attempt to juggle its myriad characters, plots, and tonal shifts.
A mons...

Halle Berry’s directorial debut fails to satisfy sports movie thrills or push the subgenre anywhere new.
The best sports movies uplift and invigorate. They often take their formulaic structures to greater heights than what seems achievable. They transcend the films that they’re modeled after, pushing forward different definitions of winners and losers. The classics, Rocky, Hoosiers, A League of Their Own, offer the catharsis that sports can bring; they unite an audience in rapturous applause,...

Hannah Marks just wants to work. Acting as early as age 11, and appearing in shows like Weeds and Necessary Roughness while still a teenager, Marks started as an actor, like her mother, Nova Ball. In the last five years, though, she’s gone from relative anonymity into writing and starring in Banana Split, working her way towards her solo directorial feature, Mark, Mary & Some Other People, which premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and is now in theaters and on VOD.
When The Film Stage...

Traci Curry and Stanley Nelson’s documentary is a brutal, uncompromising take on the 1971 Attica Prison Riot and the inhumanity of the criminal justice system.
In the final hours of the 1971 Attica Prison Riot, a helicopter circled the nearly 1,300 prisoners of the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York. It blared the words, “You will not be harmed,” assuming the inmates would be spared any violence if they cooperated. While this phrase repeats, correctional officers and state troop...

The Beta Test, the newest micro-budget film from independent actor-writer-director Jim Cummings, finds the Emerson College alum teaming up with his friend, classmate, and collaborator PJ McCabe. The two worked together on 2020’s The Wolf of Snow Hollow, along with a slew of shorts over the past 15 years. Co-writing, co-director, and co-starring in The Beta Test, Cummings and McCabe craft a drama that leans into different genres more often than not—it wants to be “genre-fluid,” as the two desc...