Hide from your family inside a movie theater this weekend (or bring them, maybe) and check out one of these 21 noteworthy films picked by our critics. For even more movies, check out our movie times listings.
LIMITED RUNS
1. Blade Runner: The Final Cut
“We still have so much to learn from the sounds, words, and cinema of the post-humanist world. Blade Runner is also packed with amazing urban details: the sushi bar, the hotel room, the nightclub. I could live here forever.” – Charles Mudede
2. Die Hard
King’s Hardware screens free movies every Sunday on their heated patio, around sundown. This weekend, they’ve selected the beloved action flick Die Hard, and yes, it’s a Christmas movie with all the festivity of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
3. It’s a Wonderful Life
“Paralyzing joys are the very heart of George Bailey’s dilemma; they are, to borrow words from George’s father, ‘deep in the race.’ The sacrifices George makes for being ‘the richest man in town’ resonate bitterly even as they lead to the finale’s effusive payoff. Those sacrifices are what make It’s a Wonderful Life, in all its ‘Capraesque’ glory, endure.” – Sean Nelson
4. Millions
“This critically-acclaimed British film from 2004 is a story of freedom, secrets, and the gleeful wonderment of a 7-year-old who is handed the opportunity to blow through a life’s savings (many lives’ savings) in a handful of days.”
5. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
“Despite the previous questionable advancements in its field, the Finnish film Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale may be the first to feature naked old men wrinkledly galumphing through the tundra while a little boy frantically begs for his dad to save his life by giving him a spanking…While the pace does occasionally falter, even at 80 minutes, Rare Exports is ultimately a spooky, funny, weirdly heartwarming fable that—were it not for the aforementioned glimpses of non-CGIed geriatric bits—might actually be suitable for kids of all ages.” – Andrew Wright
6. The Shannara Chronicles
Head to the EMP’s JBL Theater to be one of the first to see The Shannara Chronicles, an “epic television event” based on the fantasy book series by Terry Brooks, which will premiere publicly on MTV in January 2016.
NEW RELEASES
7. Carol
“It’s kind of strange that Todd Haynes—the director of Velvet Goldmine—has become a master of cinematic restraint, but Carol is perfectly attuned to the culture of mid-century repression it documents, and equally adept at showcasing the passions and prejudices that simmer below the surface.” – Alison Hallett
8. Joy
“Joy is an antic comedy with Jennifer Lawrence as its calm center. She’s always watchable, but she’s too young for the part of a Long Island single mother who climbs the ladder to success by way of the Miracle Mop, and it prevents her triumph at the end from having the impact that it should. Diane Ladd, who narrates in her honeyed drawl, elevates the scenario as Joy’s encouraging grandmother, but as female empowerment pictures go, Joy is a bit of a dud.” – Kathy Fennessy
CONTINUING RUNS
9. Brooklyn
“It’s refreshing to see this largely internal, cerebral journey of an introverted young woman play out onscreen, and Nick Hornby’s screenplay, never afraid of sentimentality, keeps such a contained narrative from feeling too cold or distant. That’s right: Brooklyn is good because it’s so wholesome, so emotive, so free of irony, without qualifiers, and your grandma will probably like it a lot.” -Megan Burbank
10. Creed
“If you loved the original Rocky—and its heart, and the sometimes unbearable tension it provided—Creed is a fun and worthy film-going experience. And an exception to the rule that lightning never strikes in the same place twice.” -Wm. Steven Humphrey
11. The Good Dinosaur
“A boy-and-his-dog story where the boy is a talking dinosaur and the dog is a little grunting caveman, The Good Dinosaur is one of Pixar’s best.” -Erik Henriksen
12. The Martian
“I don’t know how high you’d have to be to not want to see a Ridley Scott film about Matt Damon getting stranded on Mars, based on Andy Weir’s startlingly sharp novel, and costarring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, Donald Glover, and Jeff Daniels, among others.” -Sean Nelson
13. The Night Before
“The Night Before might be the only Christmas movie that offers both a whole lot of dick pics and the sad, lonely sense of desperation that defines the holidays. But then Seth Rogen throws up all over a midnight mass, and all is right with the world.” -Erik Henriksen
14. The Princess Bride Quote-Along
Think you know all the words? Now’s your chance to prove it—although there will be subtitles for “all the best lines.” Plus, free inflatable swords and ROUS.
15. Room
“Room rewards a close viewing as well as a casual one—watch it as a sensitive and insightful character study, and notice the care Ma puts into turning the shed into a home for her son, the well-drawn family dynamics straining what should be a happy reunion with Ma’s parents, the depression Ma suffers after she escapes. Or watch it for “Daring Escape from Rape Shed!”—the action sequences are about as tense and nail-bitey as it gets. Either way, it works.” – Alison Hallett
16. Sisters
“In Sisters, Poehler and Fey play against type: Fey’s the irresponsible manicurist to Poehler’s type-A nurse. They’ve traveled different paths in life, but when they host one final party slash awkward high school reunion in their parents’ just-sold house, they find they aren’t really so different after all. Spoiler alert: That house gets wrecked. Type A Lady finds the courage she needs (in a joint) to make bad choices. Loose Cannon learns that being responsible SUCKS. And if you’re wondering, why yes, that IS basically the plot of Sam Shepard’s classic True West. Except I liked Sisters better, because it’s funny.” – Megan Burbank
17. Spectre
“Spectre has all the evidence that director Sam Mendes is trying to make a movie that is simultaneously both a good movie and a good Bond movie, despite those things being mathematically and mutually exclusive phenomena.” -Sean Nelson
18. Spotlight
“It’s one thing for a reporter to break a story few people know about. It’s another thing entirely to tear the lid off a story everyone knows something about but whose true dimensions are too horrifying to imagine. Actor-turned-filmmaker Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight, which re-creates the Boston Globe’s 2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning exposure of the Catholic Church’s sex-abuse scandal, looks at a case of the latter with riveting results.” -Kathy Fennessy
19. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
“The Force Awakens does not offer much of a new story but simply and brilliantly retells much of the old one. It’s also very faithful to the images, the technologies, the economy, and the wardrobe of the founding films in the Star Wars series. Indeed, the more you know about the first three films, the more pleasure you will get out of The Force Awakens.” – Charles Mudede
20. Trumbo
“Award season must be around the corner, because movies like Trumbo come out only when they can be considered. This kind of movie tends to be set in some yesteryear and plays jazz, smokes heavily, and wears a long silk dress as it approaches. Not to suggest that Roach doesn’t do a quality job here—as biopics go, this representation of Dalton Trumbo, a golden age screenwriter, is up there with the best.” -Jacob Lichty
21. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in Smell-O-Vision
There will be free “Wonkariffic goodie bags” at SIFF’s “smell-o-vision” screenings to make this classic actually delicious.
