"Ultimately, Moonlight is cinema that's vital and profound. If there is any way humanly possible to put this film in front of your eyeballs, you owe it to yourself to do so. This movie is why movies exist." - Tim Brennan, About Boulder
2. Parasite (2019)
"What's to be said about this film that hasn't already been said? ... because there is so much to take in, like a Da Vinci painting, the film reveals secrets and hidden meanings until you're left breathless..." - Sucharita Tyagi, Film Companion
"David Fincher's film has the rare quality of being not only as smart as its brilliant hero, but in the same way. It is cocksure, impatient, cold, exciting and instinctively perceptive." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
4. Her (2013)
"Johansson's vocal tour de force is award-worthy. So is the movie. Ignore the soft ending. Jonze is a visionary whose lyrical, soulful meditation on relationships of the future cuts to the heart of the way we live now." - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"The Handmaiden is just pure cinema, a dizzying, disturbing fable of love and betrayal that piles on luxurious imagery, while never losing track of its story's human core." - David Sims, The Atlantic
6. Under the Skin (2014)
"Glazer is nothing if not ambitious; the rough edge of naturalism, on the streets, slices into the more controlled and stylized look of science fiction, and the result seems both to drift and to gather to a point of almost painful intensity." - Anthony Lane, New Yorker
""Inside Out" movingly but casually plays with our emotions, like a baby walking her fingers across a parent's face; it leaves you changed, entertained, nostalgic, dazzled." - Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times
8. Inception (2010)
"The ambition on display is so huge, and the filmmaking so intelligent, you'll emerge feeling as if you've just watched an entire season of the greatest sci-fi series never made." - Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News
9. A Separation (2011)
""A Separation" is a great movie, a look inside a world so foreign that it might as well be another planet, yet so universal that its observations are painfully familiar to anyone, anywhere." - Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic
10. Tabu (2012)
"If you have the patience to watch this film develop and unfold, like some bizarre night-blooming orchid, what you'll see is not just the last movie released in 2012, but possibly the most original of them all." - Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com
11. I, Daniel Blake (2016)
"The emotional impact of the film lies in its raw, documentary feel and the natural performances of Johns and Squires; the dialogue is akin to eavesdropping on real conversations." - Julie Crawford, North Shore News (Vancouver, B.C.)
12. Marriage Story (2019)
"How does a small tale of a broken marriage emerge as a major triumph and one of the very best movies of the year? When it's the best film yet from Baumbach with career highs from Driver and Johansson. It'll take a piece out of you." - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
13. The Florida Project (2017)
"All childhoods must come to an end, few of them as piercingly as the one in "The Florida Project," Sean Baker's raw, exuberant and utterly captivating new movie." - Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
14. Gone Girl (2014)
"David Fincher's Gone Girl takes a big beach read about a troubled marriage and turns it into a suspenseful screen indictment of modern times." - Peter Howell, Toronto Star
15. Spotlight (2015)
"Like the story being reported within the film, Spotlight is simultaneously emotional and clear-eyed. It's an explosive yet necessary piece of journalism in and of itself. And it's easily one of the year's best." - Christy Lemire, ChristyLemire.com
16. Frances Ha (2013)
"It's a tribute to Gerwig's performance, somehow both clumsy and elegant, that she wins us over despite ourselves, that we come to appreciate her aimlessness in a goal-oriented society..." - Rick Groen, Globe and Mail
17. Midnight in Paris (2011)
"It makes us happily remember the movies we thought Allen wasn't able to make anymore, even while the filmmaker reaches into the past to add one more great one to the list." - Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times
18. Shoplifters (2018)
"At once charming and heart-wrenching, this exquisitely performed film will steal the hearts of both art-house and mainstream audiences." - Maggie Lee, Variety
19. The Big Sick (2017)
"The movie treats the people on screen generously, and it's a romantic comedy with surprising depth of feeling, glancing on all sorts of things: race, religion, tolerance, understanding, the competitive peculiarity of stand-up comedy..." - Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
20. Call Me By Your Name (2017)
"First love is as much about hesitancy as it is about exuberance, and Ivory and Guadagnino perfectly capture that sweet turmoil. This isn't just an instant LGBT classic; this is one of the great movie love stories, for audiences of all stripes." - Alonso Duralde, TheWrap
21. Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
"Kathryn Bigelow proves herself once again to be a master of heightened realism and narrative drive in this retelling of the decade-long search for Osama bin Laden." - Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
22. Whiplash (2014)
"At times, it evidences the qualities of a can't-turn-away car wreck: brutal and horrific yet compelling. At other times, it has the rhythms of a sports drama with all the ups and downs inherent in that genre." - James Berardinelli, ReelViews
23. Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)
"Forget the controversy and see Blue is the Warmest Color for what it truly is: a warm and compassionate ode to the vagaries of the heart." - Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
24. Bullhead (2011)
"The one excellent aspect of the film is Matthias Schoenaerts' performance. We often follow him walking in a controlled lurch from side to side, as if merely walking is not enough of a challenge for him." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
25. Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
"Phonies may complain that Anderson's island of misfit toys is a retreat from the real world, but for pure-hearted adventurers who share the secret map, "Moonrise Kingdom" is a joy that cannot be eclipsed." - Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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