For a film to get its own page on the main 2023 links page, it must receive at least 5 link submissions from our members with few exceptions. Here is a list of all films that haven’t quite reached that threshold yet. When it does, it will be moved to the main page and removed from this page.
Abigail
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: the same hunted-in-a-locked-manor-house scenario as “Ready or Not,” this time with a supernatural element and the hunted the majority and while it eventually runs out of gas, its cast, especially young Alisha Weir, helps get us over the tedious bits.
- Excerpt: Aided by thorough performances, Abigail kicks our asses with style and a whole lot of spectacular action.
Dennis Schwartz @ dennis schwartz reviews
- Excerpt: A work of schlock art.
Ae Watan Mere Watan
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Agent of Happiness
- Excerpt: Agent of Happiness immerses us in a doc that’s partially invested in the day-to-day of a unique profession, partially enraptured by the beauty of Bhutan’s bright colors and vast vistas, and partially surprised to have found itself on a buddy-comedy road trip.
Alienoid: The Return to the Future
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Amar Singh Chamkila
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
The American Society of Magical Negroes
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
Harrison Martin @ Flixfrog
- Excerpt: The American Society of Magical Negroes fails to delve deep into the magical racism prevention that its title suggests and focuses more on its main character falling in love.
Dan Stalcup @ The Goods: Film Reviews
- Excerpt: I’m convinced that debut writer-director Kobi Libii actually had two half-baked ideas for movies and merged them into one.
American Star
- Excerpt: American Star is a commendable self-reflection character study, bolstered by Ian McShane’s brilliantly contained performance, a thematically rich narrative, and a truly gorgeous location.
Apolonia, Apolonia
Nadine Whitney @ Loud and Clear Reviews
- Excerpt: Lea Glob’s documentary Apolonia, Apolonia, about artist Apolonia Sokol, is a soul stirring feminist odyssey which pays homage to the women who fight to be seen and heard.
Arcadian
Kat Hughes @ THN
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: It exists safely within the vast subgenre of postcollapse afterscapes, but it does what it does well, with nicely drawn characters, a sense of cultural mythmaking, and freakishly unsettling creatures.
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Like many good horror films, Arcadian uses its otherworldly premise to examine human behavior.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: It leads to some badass moments, but very little emotion. You could pretty much say that about the entire film […] because ARCADIAN is all set-up. [And] in that regard, the film works.
As We Speak
- Excerpt: A didactic discussion of the legal war waged against a single kind of (conspicuously Black) writing.
Asleep in My Palm
Asphalt City
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …Sauvaire’s lost his plot, the film’s original title, “Black Flies,” made audibly literal when it makes no sense. It’s a shame, as there is a good movie in here somewhere and Sean Penn’s performance is a welcome return.
Badland Hunters
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
The Beast
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: [Bonello’s] is a bold idea and gives the great French actress Léa Seydoux the opportunity to really show some range as a married woman in 1910, a house sitting aspiring model/actress in 2014 L.A. and a worker facing an extreme choice in 2044.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: Seydoux is fantastic throughout, but even her performance can’t help make that incel plotline feel as real or as dangerous as the [19th century Paris and present-day 2044 threads].
Christopher Reed @ Film Festival Today
- Excerpt: Unfortunately, the sum is not quite equal to the various parts. Plus, the heavy-handed symbolism throughout proves tedious.
The Beautiful Game
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: A heartwarming journey to the Homeless World Cup that ultimately scores.
Christopher Reed @ Film Festival Today
- Excerpt: It’s a movie that displays incredible generosity towards its characters, even when they misbehave. That’s the score, and it’s hard to beat.
Between the Temples
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: You almost can’t imagine how the rest of the film will match that prologue because it feels so meticulously constructed as a self-contained gag to introduce its tone and characters, but there’s really zero drop-off afterwards.
Matt Oakes @ Silver Screen Riot
- Excerpt: Between Two Temples, written and directed by Nathan Silver, explores this unexpected relationship at the intersection of faith, expectation, and love, using humor and heart to examine how what makes sense on paper is rarely what the heart yearns for.
Bhakshak
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Black Box Diaries
- Excerpt: Because filmmaker Shiori Ito is both survivor and journalist, and recorded her own investigation into her assault in real time, the documentary becomes a thrilling testament to her exceptional, tenacious agency in the face of a hostile world.
Bleeding Love
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: BLEEDING LOVE is thus about mistakes made. [It’s] at its best in the last twenty or so minutes once truths are revealed and façades (intentionally worn and not) fall.
- Excerpt: Bleeding Love is a calling card for debut director Emma Westenberg and Clara McGregor.
Blue Imagine
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
Bolero
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
The Book of Solutions
The Breaking Ice
- Excerpt: “The Breaking Ice,” from writer/director Anthony Chen, is about three lost souls facing the frozen world outside and in.
The Bricklayer
- Excerpt: There’s a really good movie in The Bricklayer somewhere; trouble is, only half of it made it to the final cut.
Brief History of a Family
- Excerpt: Crafted with such delightful suspense that you can’t help but smile as you squirm, Brief History of a Family pulls from plenty of genre influences (its have/have-not friction and affluent apartment confines will be familiar to Parasite fans) to construct a tight dramatic metaphor encompassing Chinese parenting values and the end of a sociopolitical era.
Bushman
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: an eye-opening work about race, justice and democracy in America while also offering a profound contrast between a native black culture and one uprooted and transplanted.
Cabrini
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: It’s better than I anticipated even if it also proves to be exactly what I thought it would be from its trailer and pedigree.
- Excerpt: Begin the mission and the means will come
Sebastian Zavala @ MeGustaElCine.com [Spanish]
- Excerpt: A believable and emotional story about a woman who fought against people, gender roles, discrimination and her own illnesses, to do some good in this world.
Carol Doda Topless at the Condor
Christopher Reed @ Hammer to Nail
- Excerpt: The net result nevertheless holds our interest, and the information sticks. These bare truths very much still resonate today.
Cash Out
- Excerpt: Cash Out contains a high-powered cast but squanders their talents with every passing second.
Cerrar los Ojos
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Cerrar los Ojos é, seguramente, um dos filmes deste ano. E de todos os anos. De repente, não me lembro de um filme capaz de abrir a porta do cinema de uma forma tão completa.
Chicken for Linda!
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: It’s a wonderful message told with a bottomless wealth of entertainment and gorgeous animation. Add a couple songs making it a quasi-musical and CHICKEN FOR LINDA! proves a compact, lightning-paced and resonant lark.
La Chimera
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Writer/director Alice Rohrwacher (“The Wonders,” “Le Pupille”) seems to pull her films from the very fabric of Italy – its earth, its people and its history…“La Chimera” is a dream scattered amidst the earth and the stars.
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: It is, to a large extent, a meditation on death; with tomb-raiding as a plot point, it would have to be… Arthur struggles with a death wish, which is something of an addiction for him, so perhaps it’s an ersatz cinematic take on Keats: ‘Ode on an Etruscan Urn.’
Cinequest ’24: The Island Between the Tides
Club Zero
- Excerpt: Starring Mia Wasikowska in a delightfully bizarre performance as a teacher introducing her privileged pupils to the concept of “conscious eating,” Club Zero focuses on a group of students full of youthful idealism and the desire to improve the world around them—a desire that is hijacked by Wasikowska’s character and transformed into something far more sinister.
Nadine Whitney @ InSession Film
- Excerpt: Heinrich von Kleist, the poet-philosopher from Jessica Hausner’s AMOUR FOU wrote it is “incomprehensible how a human being can live without a life plan.” Miss Novak (Mia Wasikowska) has a deadly life plan for the elite high school students who join her CLUB ZERO.
Cobweb
- Excerpt: Cobweb is a brilliant meta-fiction about the film industry and a marvellously inventive farce. It combines all the different tonal skills of Jee-woon Kim to create a work that both loves cinema but also knows how ludicrous the whole thing can be.
The Coffee Table
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: With his protagonist clearly in a state of shock, we witness the man carrying the worst burden of guilt imaginable while he continues to delay the inevitable as more and more witnesses arrive for what will be a horrific reveal.
Coup de Chance
Chris Barsanti @ Slant Magazine
- Excerpt: The film is at once among Allen’s most economical works and one of his most free-spirited.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Allen’s economical direction and puckish screenplay work in tandem and he leaves us with a great big ironic laugh of an ending.
Crew
Damaged
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Damaged is more of a trick than an actual story.
- Excerpt: Damaged is too busy trying to keep us guessing instead of laying the foundation for a real game for us to be involved with and play.
Dario Argento: Panico
Los Delinquentes
Paulo Portugal @ [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Longa comédia ácida de Rodrigo Moreno que convida à contemplação e introspeção sobre estilos de vida e até o cinema. Mas depois de ver, apetece ficar ainda mais tempo à conversa
Paulo Portugal @ www.esquerda.net [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Estreia esta quinta-feira a longa comédia ácida de Rodrigo Moreno, um dos realizadores da nova vaga do cinema argentino. É um filme precioso em que nos apetece ficar longamente à conversa depois de o ver.
Desire Lines
Bavner Donaldo @ Cinejour [Indonesian]
Jacob Oller @ Paste Magazine
- Excerpt: Jules Rosskam’s hybrid film hides a trove of charming interviews with trans men, about their experiences making contact in a queer world still stacked against them, inside a grating drama.
Dìdi
Matt Oakes @ Silver Screen Riot
- Excerpt: Writer-director Sean Wang delivers an accomplished and empathic jolt of coming-of-age anguish with Dìdi. The young ensemble cast is phenomenal and funny while the film grapples with the meaningful hardships – and total dickish tendencies – of male growing pains.
A Different Man
Matt Oakes @ Silver Screen Riot
- Excerpt: Sebastian Stan has never been better than in the unnerving and darkly comic physiological thriller ‘A Different Man’. Renate Reinstve and Adam Pearson are remarkable. Tragic, human, nightmarish, and stealthy funny, this is one to watch out for.
Dennis Schwartz @ dennisschwartzreviews.com
- Excerpt: A diverting oddball film.
Disco Boy
- Excerpt: Disco Boy doesn’t quite work, though thanks to some quality craftsmanship and the always-fantastic Franz Rogowski, it does come close.
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
- Excerpt: Radu Jude’s gonzo satire of post-Soviet Romania, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, hits a sweet spot between Luis Buñuel and Béla Tarr.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Romanian writer/director Radu Jude’s blackly comic multi-media collage of a film is a caustic commentary on our times… essential cinema for those who like their thoughts provoked. And it’s funny as hell.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: Less about providing answers to fix things or stop this never-ending cycle of profiteering, however, [the film] is simply looking to expose these truths alongside the double-speak and bribes of those in power.
DogMan
- Excerpt: Awash in a sea of superficiality barely holding it together, Dogman flounders, kept afloat by a magnetic performance by Caleb Landry Jones.
Driving Madeleine
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: a sentimental tale whose stars earn its sentiment.
Ennio
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: This is one of the great documentaries about movies, about music and about artistic creation in general, a loving tribute to an innate musical genius who composed over 500 movie scores.
Eternal You
- Excerpt: Eternal You observes the burgeoning industry around techno-spiritualism with wry skepticism.
Exhibiting Forgiveness
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: That’s where the difference between effective and transcendent lies—a filmmaker putting truth ahead of convenience in a way that allows the characters to accept the past without fear or denial. It happened and it mattered, but it’s no longer in control.
Exhuma
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Jang packs so much into his script that Western audiences may begin to lose patience in the film’s second half, but he has an ace up his sleeve with Choi Min-Sik, the actor’s charismatic performance keeping us rooting for him…
- Excerpt: Exhuma rises above the horror genre with heart, purpose… and some scares to fit the bill.
Farewell, Mister Haffmann
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: “Farewell, Mister Haffmann’s” filmmakers and cast will keep you guessing until the last in this unconventional WWII psychological thriller.
The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: Arnow structures the film as short vignettes stacked up. There’s an idiosyncratic rhythm as a result that augments both the dry humor and threat of tedium. I do think Arnow does a good job keeping things fun, though.
Femme
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping…impress with the complexity they bring to the issue of identity, gay bashing and the closeted individuals who engage in it… a strong, stylish and sexy debut that leaves us with a punch to the gut.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: In the end, it’s just about Jules taking his life back on his terms. Not by becoming that which he hates, but by turning the mirror of Preston’s projection onto himself.
Film Is Dead. Long Live Film!
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: made me nostalgic for the early days of Reeling when one of our crew members, a collector himself, would screen film prints in his dusty old basement, friends crammed together on old kitchen chairs amidst rusty tools and cans of paint.
Fitting In
Allen Almachar @ The MacGuffin
- Excerpt: It has the potential to help normalize topics that some may see as taboo.
Sarah Gopaul @ Digital Journal
- Excerpt: Writer-director Molly McGlynn’s sophomore feature doesn’t understate the impact or complexity such a realization carries for a young woman on the verge of broadening her sexual horizons… To this end, credit must be given to Ziegler’s outstanding performance as she navigates a rollercoaster of emotions and awkward conversations.
Founders Day
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Cowriter/coeditor (with brother Carson)/director Erik Bloomquist crosses the holiday slasher with “Scream” then wraps it in political satire in a gory horror comedy elevated not only by a well thought out premise but by its cast and crew.
Freaky Tales
Matt Oakes @ Silver Screen Riot
- Excerpt: As is the case with most anthologies, Freaky Tales struggles to justify its existence as a whole. Though each individual portion is entertaining enough in itself, one is left a bit exhausted by the final product, and unclear on its artistic intent.
Frida
Gregory Carlson @ southpawfilmworks.net
Girls State
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: To have [the inequality between girls and boys programs] swirling and still be able to focus on a few personalities is a great success for McBaine and Moss because these girls aren’t going to stay silent about what’s happening.
- Excerpt: A documentary that can struggle to tie its young politicos to the outside world, but thrives when tying them to each other.
Girls Will Be Girls
- Excerpt: In its lovingly observed, casually bold and uneasily tense coming-of-age drama exists familiar dynamics we’d rather not recognize.
The Goat Life
God & Country
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The movement is insidious and Partland’s documentary is a clarion call for American citizens to awaken to the danger of a very well funded effort to use our democratic system to impose a minority rule that is misogynistic, racist, homophobic and transphobic, a perversion of the meaning of Christianity.
Christopher Reed @ Hammer to Nail
- Excerpt: Welcome to the world of Christian nationalism, a long-simmering movement in the United States that is about as far from the teachings of the New Testament as one can be, currently worshipping a documented conman as its leader.
Godard Cinema
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: The main selling point to Kino Lorber’s ‘Godard Cinema’ release may not be the documentary itself, but the supplement: ‘Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars,’ the auteur’s incomplete sketch for a final feature… It’s hard to imagine anyone but the most dedicated Godard scholar watching this ‘trailer’ more than once, but it is an interesting artifact, a peek into a master’s creative process, and therefore worth a gander.
Golden Years
- Excerpt: Golden Years sparkles with the effervescence of uncertainty and unpredictability; it goes against our expectations and maintains its steady composure without needing hysterical drama.
Good One
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: The thing that strikes me most about India Donaldson’s GOOD ONE is just how effective the script is at building towards its final act of rebellion. It’s a subtle yet powerful transition that recolors everything in the lead-up.
Handling the Undead
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: That’s where the real unsettling nature comes in. Not just from the ways in which these corpses are reanimated as silent approximations of their former selves, but also in the sense that the audience knows what this scenario ultimately births.
History of Evil
Housekeeping for Beginners
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: With his third film, Macedonian writer/director/editor Goran Stolevski proves to be one of the most interesting new voices in cinema, his queer aesthetic an empathetic embrace of humanity with all its quirks and foibles.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: A real slice of life drama, HOUSEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS proves a steady stream of unfortunate events caused by an escalating sense of being trapped despite their “prison” being the one place that actually gives them freedom.
Humane
- Excerpt: While Humane doesn’t feel like a cinematic game-changer in the same way films like Videodrome and Possessor did—the messaging is a bit too heavy-handed and the style not nearly visceral or memorable enough—it’s still a solid contribution to the horror genre from another member of Canada’s freakiest filmmaking family.
Hundreds of Beavers
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: . This gleefully unhinged excursion into intrigue, romance, and the call of the wild transcends, and transgresses, many genres with steely determination and a refined sense of absurdity.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: If Guy Maddin made a live action Warner Brothers Looney Tunes cartoon with the structure of a video game it would come out something like “Hundreds of Beavers,” an absolutely brilliant and hilarious example of DIY independent filmmaking.
- Excerpt: A multimedia extravaganza of frozen idiocy, Hundreds of Beavers is a slapstick tour de force—and its roster of ridiculous mascot-suited wildlife is only the tip of the iceberg.
I Saw the TV Glow
Matt Oakes @ Silver Screen Riot
- Excerpt: Jane Schoenbrun’s unsettling identity-horror unfolds itself slowly before crescendoing into something undeniably powerful and affecting. A startling film that won’t soon leave you, even when the TV stops glowing.
Igualada
- Excerpt: Igualada hints at an insider look at an amazing story, but all its access goes towards a surprisingly anonymous film.
Imaginary
Sebastian Zavala @ MeGustaElCine.com [Spanish]
- Excerpt: This horror film isn’t very scary; it manages to build some tension during its first act, but it falls incredibly flat during the second and especially the third, and it unfortunately wastes a premise with potential.
In a Violent Nature
Kat Hughes @ THN
Jacob Oller @ Paste Magazine
- Excerpt: With grim patience, vibrant realism and a genre-savvy sense of humor, Nash marches us one plodding bootstep at a time through the procedure of slashing.
In Flames
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: That’s where IN FLAMES is most potent. The blurred line between morality and self-preservation. If you’re trapped in a system that treats you like the enemy, you must resign yourself to the fact that no one else will save you.
In the land of Brothers
- Excerpt: A brutal, beautiful depiction of life persevering against bigotry, filmed with a painterly eye and a compassionate heart.
In the Land of Saints and Sinners
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: Features a performance by Liam Neeson that is considered, measured, and infinitely eloquent in a story that eschews politics as it finely observes the consequences of choices, good and bad. But Kerry Condon will haunt your nightmares.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: The result is thus much quieter than you might have been told by the marketing. Don’t therefore be surprised to find IN THE LAND OF SAINTS AND SINNERS at its best in its character-driven moments.
Infested
Christopher Reed @ Film Festival Today
- Excerpt: We emerge with the sensation of thousands of feet crawling all over us, an infestation of the cinematic soul that’s not so easy to shake.
Inshallah a Boy
- Excerpt: …the film’s real focus is on Nawal and how, despite being greeted by new obstacles at every turn, she remains determined to claim a life for herself and her daughter.
- Excerpt: The debut feature from director Amjad Al Rasheed and the first Jordanian film to ever screen at the Cannes Film Festival, Inshallah A Boy is a compelling, character-driven drama chronicling a young widow’s fight to secure what is rightfully hers in a society that bestows more rights upon an unborn boy than a living woman.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: Amjad Al Rasheed’s debut feature INSHALLAH A BOY is very good. Unfortunately, however, it also falls prey to a desire to not take its issues to their true (possibly nightmarish) ends [while] playing both sides as if nothing is actually wrong.
Rene Sanchez @ Cine Sin Fronteras [Spanish]
Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: With a run time of three hours, An Pham’s film definitely qualifies as slow cinema, but his long, deliberate takes are mesmerizing and reinforce his themes of faith, family and nature.
It’s What’s Inside
Matt Oakes @ Silver Screen Riot
- Excerpt: Greg Jardin’s ‘It’s What’s Inside’ is a hilarious, mind-bending puzzle box comedy-thriller. Crafted with incredible precision and featuring an electrifying ensemble cast, this eruptive debut is destined to be one of the buzziest movies of 2024.
Just Getting By
Bev Questad @ itsjustmovies.com
- Excerpt: “Just Getting By” aptly points out that we only weaken ourselves when we don’t take care of our own foundational needs.
Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One
- Excerpt: If you’re a fan of the Tomorrowverse, or any of the DC animated movies then Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One might be something you want to watch. This is the beginning of the end after all.
Kim’s Video
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: While the true story about the Kim’s Video collection is both weird and distressing, it could have been told a lot more effectively as a straightforward short…there is a whole lot of manufactured drama going on as the film progresses
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: The twists and turns are often jaw-dropping while the back-patting and glad-handing always proves a bit suspicious. It’s a joke gone too far mixed with an exorbitant amount of luck to correct a wrong few (if any) even remembered.
The Kitchen
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: While “The Kitchen” doesn’t break new ground, it is a well directed political thriller grounded by its father son story. Tavares and Kaluuya are a team to keep an eye on.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: The result is slow moving and perhaps a bit repetitive, but there’s a lot to like too from performances to soundtrack to production design mixing LED and neon with digital interfaces and drones.
Knox Goes Away
Allen Almachar @ The MacGuffin
- Excerpt: Contains plenty of good performances trapped in a narrative that never shifts out of first gear.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: Is [the main plot emotionally] convenient? Yes. Of course. But Keaton and Poirier do enough to render those conveniences into backdrop. What John does to outrun them is what matters.
Krazy House
Kung Fu Panda 4
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: This one is full of action, a bar brawl at the Happy Bunny Tavern a highlight as the building itself teeters atop a cliff, its owner, Granny Boar (voice of Lori Tan Chinn), an homage to “Kung Fu Hustle’s” Landlady.
Luiz Santiago @ [Portuguese]
Sebastian Zavala @ MeGustaElCine.com [Spanish]
- Excerpt: It is a digestible, entertaining sequel, with a fast pace and clear motivations. Its central theme—how one must cope with change—should resonate with both children and adults.
Ladies Coffee
Panos Kotzathanasis @ Asian Movie Pulse
- Excerpt: “Ladies Coffee” is an intriguing short that presents its comments in intricate fashion. The horror part, though, could have been handled better, in a short that would definitely benefit from some additional duration.
Land of Bad
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
Laroy, Texas
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: The film might not get as dark as it potentially should after a very effective prologue, but the bleak nature of the finale’s “justice” does what it can to provide closure for the characters and the tone.
Last Night at Terrace Lanes
- Excerpt: This throwback to cult and survival horror may not be the most polished or slick, but it has an admirable spirit that makes up for its rough-hewn nature.
Lift
- Excerpt: Lift quickly becomes a forgettable heist flick, contradicting its initial promise of intrigue, excitement, and a pretty engaging opening sequence.
Limbo
- Excerpt: Like a pickaxe chipping off sandstone, Limbo is a flinty Outback noir that revels in smashing its hard-edged characters against one another.
The Listener
Nadine Whitney @ InSession Film
Little Death
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: Too much of LITTLE DEATH feels like having your cake and eating it too, leaving all the good aspects to be canceled by the bad ones so the audience is left with nothing but a shallow promise and wasted potential.
Love and Work
- Excerpt: Filmmaker Pete Ohs’ follow-up to his horror satire Jethica is another delightfully lo-fi genre film, one that takes place in an alternative timeline—“the past of a different future,” according to the film’s narrator—where having a job is illegal and humans spend their days perfecting hobbies instead of producing goods.
Love Machina
- Excerpt: Love Machina may want to take a peek behind its own curtain every once in a while for a reality check.
Love Me
Chris Barsanti @ Slant Magazine
- Excerpt: Sam and Andy Zuchero’s film suggests a Pixar film by way of Stanley Kubrick.
Lovely, Dark, And Deep
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
Lover, Stalker, Killer
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: A must-watch for true-crime documentary fans.
Made in Ingland: The Films of Powell and Pressburger
Paulo Portugal @ Insider.pt [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Martin Scorsese senta-se na cadeira para apresentar a sua história com o cinema de Powell e Pressburger: desde a descoberta destes filmes, ainda na televisão, ao processo de restauro e redescoberta de que hoje são alvo.
Merchant Ivory
Nadine Whitney @ Loud and Clear Reviews
- Excerpt: Simon Soucy’s Merchant Ivory documentary gifts film lovers with an elegant and intimate look into one of the most important award winning partnerships in cinema.
Merry Christmas
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Miller’s Girl
Gregory Carlson @ southpawfilmworks.net
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Henry Cavill leads a charismatic cast in this thrilling blend of action and comedy.
Molli and Max in the Future
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: Mamet and Athari are as charming as the production design and fully on-board with each chapter’s new metaphor for our current social and political chaos or philosophical punch-line.
The Monk and the Gun
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: Puzzling, surprising, and delightfully incongruous, it encourages us to see things with new eyes, open hearts, and good humor.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: The result is a smart, witty, and insightful piece of international cinema that works immensely well for a western audience. There’s so much light and heart and hope that you can’t help but find yourself with a smile on your face throughout.
Christopher Reed @ Film Festival Today
- Excerpt: Graced with the gorgeous landscapes of the region’s mountains, the film is careful to use these tools for narrative complexity, rather than coasting on their visual charm.
The Moogai
- Excerpt: The Moogai is a scare-free blunt instrument, imprecise and uninterested in its own genre beyond its potential for metaphor.
Murder Is Easy
- Excerpt: Ah! Nothing like a fresh whodunit to cleanse the cinematic palette after such a wide-ranging awards season.
Murder Mubarak
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Musica
Dan Stalcup @ The Goods: Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Though shallow as a narrative and confused about its genre, it’s still a fun film to watch as a clever quasi-musical with terrific editing.
Never Look Away
- Excerpt: Directed by Lucy Lawless in her debut, Never Look Away documents the life and career of the spitfire with the same relentless energy as its adrenaline-junkie subject—and gives us a sense of what kind of person was putting themselves in danger to bring us the news.
No Way Up
- Excerpt: No Way Out has its film chills. Though low budget, it grabbed me all the way to the end. .
Sebastian Zavala @ MeGustaElCine.com [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Most performances are good, the visual effects are surprisingly decent, and the entire experience is digested in just over an hour and a half, which is increasingly rare these days.
Nowhere Special
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: it is Norton’s quiet perseverance that both propels the film and keeps it from becoming maudlin.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Beautiful and heartbreaking. A beguiling portrait of love, grief, and the pragmatism that unites them, built up via tender moments of the most ordinary sort. James Norton’s performance is revelatory.
Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Excerpt: Norton is wonderful in the role, lending it a vulnerability that shines through the stoic nature of a man doing his best to show no fear.
The Old Oak
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: a fitting capper to Loach’s career…Turner is perfectly cast as the man with empathy…a savvily crafted protagonist whose listening gift as a bartender allows the audience an understanding of the less-than-welcoming locals.
Omni Loop
Dennis Schwartz @ dennisschwartzreviews.com
- Excerpt: The pic is more about getting the emotional responses right when facing death than having its time-travel story add up.
Onde fica Esta Rua? ou Sem Antes nem Depois
Paulo Portugal @ Insider [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Rever Os Verdes Anos para perguntar Onde Fica Esta Rua? Sim, o tempo fez o seu feitiço, com Isabel Ruth a cantar num maravilhoso showcase no Cinema Ideal.
Orion and the Dark
- Excerpt: Orion and the Dark preserves the essence and messages of the original tale about understanding and accepting our fears as something that characterizes us as human beings.
Out of Darkness
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: Gets to something primal lurking in all of us, and from which none of us has quite evolved.
Herman Dhaliwal @ Cinema Sanctum
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: Yes, it’s another “we were the monsters all along” narrative, but it arrives in a unique package that embraces the nihilism of the concept instead of the hope that might remain despite it.
Ozma
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Ozma is musical, original and inventive: it’s not just the same old tired story about an insomniac toting a telepathic jellyfish around London.
Patna Shuklla
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
The People’s Joker
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: “The People’s Joker’s” relentless assault begins to wear a bit in its last act, but Vera Drew’s feature debut is a surefire restorative for Superhero fatigue. All hail irreverent originality.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: It’s impossible not to get swept up in the creativity and sheer chutzpah necessary to get a film like this off the ground, let alone in theaters. No matter your opinion on the final result, it’s undeniably impressive.
- Excerpt: A feat of parody so outrageous that its legend (and strongly worded letter from corporate) precedes it, The People’s Joker is an endlessly amusing, deeply personal, wildly inventive collision of genres all bent to the will of filmmaker Vera Drew.
Perfect Days
Aren Bergstrom @ 3 Brothers FIlm
- Excerpt: This isn’t to say that, with Perfect Days, Wenders is treating slow cinema as therapy, but there is a therapeutic effect to watching this lovely film. The story of Hirayama demonstrates a possible way forward for people overwhelmed by the lack of meaning in the busy routines of their lives.
Pictures of Ghosts
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: We can see the ghosts of Filho’s own past pervading his prior films, including this revelatory look into the mother and city which helped shape him.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: It’s an essay film about his life and career as much as a document of a city. It’s an ode to art, ephemera, and metamorphosis.
Players
Jeremy Kibler @ GuyAtTheMovies.com
- Excerpt: When taken as a lightly entertaining heist movie, it actually gets away with us not hating these players, even if their games are borderline-sociopathic.
Porcelain War
- Excerpt: A battlefield art documentary that faces its violent dissonance head-on until resonance emerges.
The Prank
Gregory Carlson @ southpawfilmworks.net
Problemista
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: With his first feature film, Torres proves to have a visual sensibility akin to French director Michel Gondry combined with the intellectual puckishness of Charlie Kaufman.
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Writer, director, and star Julio Torres’ off-kilter take makes for an intriguing cinematic experience.
Matt Oakes @ Silver Screen Riot
- Excerpt: Despite a fiery supporting performance from Tilda Swinton, Julio Torres’ first feature film, Problemista, feels like it hasn’t worked out all its kinks yet. Unique and personal but mired by amateur execution, this immigrant comedy-drama just can’t quite get off the ground.
The Promised Land
Kat Hughes @ THN
Rene Sanchez @ Cine Sin Fronteras [Spanish]
Pure O
Andrea Chase @ KillerMovieReviews.com
- Excerpt: Told with a cinema-verité style that juxtaposes the naturalism of la vie quotidian with the all-consuming inner conflict at work, it follows Cooper’s struggles with a steady, unsentimental eye. It makes his breakthrough moments exhilarating, while the vulnerability of absolute honesty with those he loves most takes on an emotional intimacy that is almost too much to bear.
Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island
- Excerpt: Hutner’s film offers an alternative history of the meltdown at Three Mile Island, with a focus not on the cause of the accident or the official reports on what happened (although they are quoted from time to time) but the effects on the people who lived nearby.
Razing Liberty Square
- Excerpt: …thanks to global warming, rising sea levels and increasingly violent tropical storms pose a threat to beachfront properties, making Liberty Square (elevation: 12 feet above sea level) attractive to commercial developers. Calling their plans “neighborhood revitalization” is not sufficient to allay the fears of residents, who suspect the real plan is to force them to move elsewhere so richer people can move in.
A Real Pain
Chris Barsanti @ Slant Magazine
- Excerpt: Eisenberg’s film doesn’t embraces easy answers or platitudes.
Matt Oakes @ Silver Screen Riot
- Excerpt: Jesse Eisenberg’s sophomore feature ‘A Real Pain’ is an effective character study about two polar opposite cousins that’s warm, funny, and thoughtful. Kieran Culkin and his smug, offhanded charm is the film’s defining high point.
Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver
Allen Almachar @ The MacGuffin
- Excerpt: There is no joy here. Everyone we’re meant to empathize with comes with a bag of dreariness.
Rest in Peace
Dennis Schwartz @ dennis schwartz reviews
- Excerpt: Its anti-climactic and incoherent conclusion failed to enthrall me, as things seemed real until they didn’t.
Riddle of Fire
Allen Almachar @ The MacGuffin
- Excerpt: This is an acquired taste and will only adhere to those willing to go along with its quirkiness.
- Excerpt: Shot through with the warm amber hue of nostalgia—and not just because it was captured on Kodak 16mm film, with all of the rich color and texture that entails—Riddle of Fire is a giddy romp through the woods of rural Wyoming that harkens back to the best kid-focused fantasy flicks of yesteryear, the kinds of original movies that modern Hollywood has largely abandoned in favor of bloated blockbusters based on established intellectual property.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: I personally would have liked it to go even further [stylistically], but I can’t deny its cult-status appeal or its brilliant use of young performers who are rarely afforded the opportunity to shine quite like this.
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: …plays out like one of those kid-centered live-action Disney movies of the 70s, if the tykes were foul-mouthed (but still endearing) thieves, and the director was a drugged-out hippie… full of stylistic and cultural references, but somehow still feels largely sui generis.
Road House
Allen Almachar @ The MacGuffin
- Excerpt: This is a glossy B-level movie that is over the top, bloody, and a bit of a mess. Sometimes, that’s all we want.
Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: In this remake of the 1980s cult classic, Jake Gyllenhaal packs a punch, but the plot falls flat.
- Excerpt: There’s not much to say about Road House (2024), but I can say that it’s a fun action movie and Jake Gyllenhaal is a star!
Role Play
Manuel São Bento @ Firstshowing
- Excerpt: As a few other issues emerge, these are somewhat compensated by the filmmaker’s commitment to providing a light-hearted, fun, entertaining movie that aims to offer families a good time without much seriousness.
Ru
Sarah Gopaul @ Digital Journal
- Excerpt: Director Charles-Olivier Michaud’s adaptation of Kim Thúy’s award-winning novel takes liberties in portraying the narrative, but maintains the emotions expressed on the page. And even though it focuses on one family several decades earlier, it’s a universal immigrant story that will resonate with audiences.
The Settlers
Samuel Castro @ El Colombiano [Spanish]
- Excerpt: El chileno Felipe Gálvez firma con “Los colonos”, ganadora del premio de la crítica de la sección “Una cierta mirada” en el Festival de Cannes del año pasado y recién estrenada en MUBI, una película bellísima en lo formal y muy inteligente en su contenido, que usa muchas de las herramientas del western (los encuadres amplios, las conversaciones íntimas y francas entre hombres, la música con sonoridades de guerra y orquestaciones brillantes) para contarnos con los recursos de la ficción, la desgraciada forma en que José Menéndez despojó al pueblo selknam de sus terrenos en la isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, utilizando la crueldad y la matanza, que ejercía a través de las acciones ejecutadas por Alexander MacLennan, su administrador.
Rene Sanchez @ Cine Sin Fronteras [Spanish]
Sew Torn
Matt Oakes @ Silver Screen Riot
- Excerpt: A crafty midnight movie about the choices we make inevitably leading to doom, ‘Sew Torn’ is a ripping calling card for director Freddy Macdonald and his future storytelling prowess.
Shayda
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: “Holy Spider’s” Zar Amir Ebrahimi gives a performance that is alternately anxiety-ridden and joyful while also giving us the Iranian woman’s point of view missing from 1991’s “Not Without My Daughter”
- Excerpt: Inspired by Niasari’s childhood, complete with a dedication “for my mother and the brave women of Iran” and home movie footage over the end credits, Shayda is a remarkable portrait of feminine resilience and a fitting tribute to the fight for basic freedoms that Iranian women continue to wage today.
Shirley
Candice Fre @ HuffPost
Betty Jo Tucker @ AuthorsDen
- Excerpt: Regina King transformed herself into Shirley Chisholm in this compelling docudrama.
Silence 2: The Night Owl Bar Shootout
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
The Sin
Panos Kotzathanasis @ Asian Movie Pulse
- Excerpt: The truth is that in terms of story, Ha loses his sense of measure somewhat, as too many elements are included in the script which make the whole thing convoluted and far-fetched by its finale. The narrative approach, however, particularly the combination of horror, drama and arthouse, as much as the way the movie was shot are definitely enough to move beyond any shortcomings, with the whole thing working quite well throughout, additionally boasting a very appealing originality.
Snack Shack
Kat Hughes @ THN
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: While SNACK SHACK has its moments of sentimentality and familiarity, it never falls prey to bringing its conventions to life conventionally.
Sometimes I Think About Dying
Allen Almachar @ The MacGuffin
- Excerpt: Although the narrative goes in some fanciful directions, there was never a moment where it didn’t touch on some elemental truth. This is just a lovely movie.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The film’s final minutes celebrate human connection in the most touching way… like a Pacific Northwest Sundance take on an Aki Kaurismaki film with Dabney Morris’ music adding a dab of nostalgic Americana.
Spaceman
Allen Almachar @ The MacGuffin
- Excerpt: The oddity of the premise combined with the strength of the performances make this worth exploring, even if some consider it too restrained for its own good.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: a character study of a man who must psychoanalyze his rationale for continually leaving that which he loves the most. And if he does so with the aid of a giant spider…rest assured that Sandler and Dano make this a singular cinematic relationship
Spacked Out
- Excerpt: Among the sea of coming-of-age films out there, Spacked Out is refreshing in its focus on rough-and-tumble working-class girls and all of the real issues they face; the film doesn’t judge them for their indiscretions, but treats them with empathy and understanding.
Spermworld
Gregory Carlson @ southpawfilmworks.net
Josh Thayer @ The Forgetful Film Critic
- Excerpt: Inspired by a New York Times article by Nellie Bowles – for which Oppenheim contributed reporting – titled “The Sperm Kings Have a Problem: Too Much Demand,” Spermworld is a perplexing, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes uplifting look at a subculture thriving on the margins of society.
Spy x Family Code: White
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: SPY X FAMILY excels both in the familial comedy and thrilling suspense. It definitely feels episodic in nature with a desire to make more installments, so don’t expect anything crazy in terms of narrative besides a nice mix of exposition and adventure.
Steppenwolf
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: I laughed out loud a few times during STEPPENWOLF and I’m certain Yerzhanov intended for me to do so [despite its brutality]. That’s how unhinged Aitzhanov’s character and performance are.
Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: The whole is still entertaining and informative, though. It delivers enough to be worthwhile even if—like many of Apple’s documentaries—it’s really just a glorified puff piece trying to be as inoffensive and congratulatory as possible.
Stopmotion
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Morgan uses his experience with stop motion to great effect here, his puppets’ eeriness amplified by sound design and a score by Lola de la Mata that sounds like a squeaky playground swing combined with someone banging slack piano strings.
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Unusually psychologically astute and utterly unnerving as it digs into the enigmas and anxieties of artistic creation. Style is substance in this challenge to the very concept of an “animated movie.”
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: “…as a psychological horror, ‘Stopmotion’ delivers on horror, while coming up a bit short on the psychology… It’s admittedly style over substance, but the surplus of style makes up for a shortfall in substance.”
A Storm Foretold
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Even more disturbing is how entertaining all this can be, Stone often appearing humorously genial…The film is unsettling in more ways than one.
Sugarcane
- Excerpt: From subject/director Julian Brave NoiseCat and director/journalist Emily Kassie, the documentary gives faces, names and histories to those affected by the residential schools—and looks, bracingly, towards a future where healing is possible.
Suncoast
Allen Almachar @ The MacGuffin
- Excerpt: I’m sure Laura Chinn’s heart was in the right place, and I have no doubt that much of what we witness came from real life. But the final product does not gel cohesively – the pieces work separately rather than as one.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: These are people trying their best to navigate an impossible ordeal while falling prey to the momentary satisfaction of transferring their pain onto each other. And it unfolds beautifully thanks to Chinn’s words and Linney and Parker’s performances.
Suze
Sarah Gopaul @ Digital Journal
- Excerpt: The performances of Watkins and Gillespie are what make this picture sweet rather than an awkward May-December drama.
Swede Caroline
- Excerpt: Swede Caroline is one of the most low-key hilarious films in recent history, where the mundane is gloriously elevated into high comedy.
Sweet Dreams
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: Although it breaks no new ground, Sweet Dreams is an amiable movie that celebrates the power of recovery to turn a person’s life around.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: The cause and effect at play on-screen is never quite what the characters anticipate or hope for when they willingly allow themselves to be put into exploitative situations that they believe they can turn the tables on.
The Taste of Things
Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Thelma
- Excerpt: When writer/director Josh Margolin’s debut Thelma keeps its sights trained on its rogue granny on a mission (June Squibb), its hilarious geriatric reframe of action-movie tropes has a game champion.
This Is Me…Now
Allen Almachar @ The MacGuffin
- Excerpt: If J-Lo wants to dance in the rain like Gene Kelly, who are we to stop her?
The Tiger’s Apprentice
Manuel São Bento @ Talking Films
- Excerpt: The Tiger’s Apprentice certainly holds the potential for a genuinely engaging, memorable animated flick. The narrative formulas, though prevalent, could have been transcended with better execution and a slightly longer runtime, which would have led to the possibility of characters and themes being more fleshed out.
- Excerpt: “People are inherently good”
Trunk: Locked In
Allen Almachar @ The MacGuffin
- Excerpt: Works better as a visceral experience rather than a logical one.
The Underdoggs
- Excerpt: The chemistry between the kids is definitely fun and charming to witness, but the non-stop profanity, a crazy alcohol-stimulated sequence, and so many other terrible messages for young audiences make this movie one to avoid.
Upgraded
- Excerpt: Upgraded could have been an inoffensively formulaic, forgettable rom-com that borrows from hundreds of other similar movies, but the frustratingly simplistic conclusion with terrible messaging – basically conveying the idea that lying has no negative consequences, quite the opposite – ruins the hopes of a recommendation for fans of the genre.
Uproar
Allen Almachar @ The MacGuffin
- Excerpt: The ambition to tackle heavy themes make this an engaging and heartfelt viewing experience.
Veni Vidi Vici
Chris Barsanti @ Slant Magazine
- Excerpt: The film’s humor is a clenched-fist assault on runaway greed and systemic corruption.
Via Norte
Paulo Portugal @ [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Paulo Carneiro abandona Trás-os-Montes, onde filmou Bostofrio, em 2019, para captar a opinião de emigrantes portugueses fãs do tuning, na Suíça, em Via Norte. O filme, finalmente, estreia em Portugal.
We Grown Now
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: an elegy for a lost community while celebrating the people who carry it with them.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: As [two friends] arrive at an age where they can no longer ignore the injustices done to them while the city escalates the reach of its systemic racism, they must choose to either let the nihilism take hold or continue to dream.
While You Were Sleeping
Panos Kotzathanasis @ Asian Movie Pulse
- Excerpt: “While You Were Sleeping” had the potential of becoming an excellent drama/thriller but some issues with the direction and the script prevented the project from reaching its true potential. It still deserves a watch though, particularly for the twist and Choo Ja-hyun’s presence.
With Love and a Major Organ
Woh Bhi Din The
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
You’ll Never Find Me
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: With dueling unreliable narrators cycling through brief periods of camaraderie alternating with distrust, the film creates great tension, allowing it to slacken then clenching us in its grip again.
Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: So, even if the first instance of closure satisfies, it’s not the last. And the more ends we receive, the less impactful the whole becomes.
