It’s no secret that I and many others have decried the decline of traditional hand-drawn 2D animation.  Although 3D computer animation is often visually stunning and technically accomplished, it’s hard to replicate that endearing hand-crafted feel. But, while hand-drawn animation is now more often the purview of indie and foreign films, alternative animation styles have been experiencing a much-welcome renaissance in the western world, thanks to the painstaking process known as stop motion animation. Stop motion, and its sibling, Claymation, have resulted in modern classics like Aardman’s Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Laika’s Kubo and the Two Strings.

But stop motion has also become the passion of specific American directors. Most notably, Tim Burton has adopted the painstaking process, where elaborate figurines are photographed frame by frame, for Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie. Wes Anderson, America’s indie darling, adapted a children’s book for Fantastic Mister Fox. Now, Anderson has returned to stop motion for his allegorical adventure Isle of Dogs, and the results should please both Anderson acolytes and fans of thought-provoking, visually stunning animation.

The film takes place in a futuristic Japanese town where an outbreak of disease has threatened the dog population. To prevent the disease from spreading to humans, Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura) banishes all dogs to a large, elaborate landfill, where all the other unwanted refuse of society goes to rest. Here, in this stark but oddly beautiful wasteland, a roving pack of dogs fights to survive. The pack is supposedly led by surly stray Chief (Bryan Cranston), but he frequently clashes with the strong-willed Rex (Edward Norton) and his posse of former house pets (voiced by Bob Balaban, Bill Murray and Jeff Goldblum).

Their hardscrabble existence is upended when a makeshift airplane crash-lands on the island, carrying a boy named Atari (Koyu Rankin). The boy has stolen the plane and traveled to the island in search of his lost dog, Spots, but he is soon followed by the high-tech hounds of the Kobayashi empire. You see, Atari is Mayor Kobayashi’s nephew/Ward, and the suspiciously cat-loving mayor can’t have Atari wandering about spoiling his plans. Another fly in the mayor’s ointment: American foreign exchange student Tracy (Greta Gerwig), an intrepid news reporter with an unshakable hunch that there is a deeper conspiracy going on. Is all of pet kind really at stake? If so, Chief, Rex and the gang may have bitten off more than they can chew.

Isle of Dogs is a movie filled with risky decisions, even for a filmmaker as in love with risk as Anderson. The first risk is making a good chunk of the human dialogue in Japanese, while giving the dogs English voices. What at first seems a strange disconnect soon turns into a bold and frequently entertaining creative risk. I love all the tactics Anderson comes up with to interpret for the audience: sometimes it’s on-screen text, sometimes it’s an on-screen interpreter (yes, that is Frances McDormand as Kobayashi’s official interpreter), sometimes it’s nothing at all (we never, for example, get subtitles for Atari’s frequent dialogue, and even the dogs are confused, since none of them speak Japanese). Anderson and the actors do a terrific job of mining the lack of communication for big laughs, and also leave room for a potent statement about modern communication and the ways in which we talk past one another.

The gorgeous animation and memorable characters of Isle of Dogs should make this colorful confection irresistible to just about anyone.

Similar to the dialogue, the visuals of the film also cobbled together in a way that somehow still feels impeccably crafted and deliberate. There’s just something so endearing and heartfelt about a film entirely crafted by hand, and it’s a joy as a viewer to recognize the extreme attention to the detail the filmmakers bring to the project. Is that cloud made of cotton? Is that parachute made of tinfoil? How many days of painstaking work did it take to film that very brief sumo wrestling scene? Or that miniscule cherry blossom wafting onto a dog’s cheek? Make no mistake: Isle of Dogs is a true game-changer from a visual perspective. It’s at the same level as Kubo and the Two Strings in terms of pushing stop motion animation forward, and like Kubo its filled with vibrant colors and details inspired by Japanese culture and myth. But, while Kubo was designed to look more like paper craft, this film feels more like a 3D felt board played upon by the most wild imagination in all of film-making. There are even sequences that transition to vibrant, traditional hand-drawn animation, showing that Anderson and company are aware of and grateful for the films of the past that inspired them.

One of the main reasons I’ve been so ambivalent to Wes Anderson as a filmmaker in the past is that his characters can often feel more like caricatures than flesh-and-blood creations. It has nothing to do with style: Anderson creates fantasies and fables, and “realism” is not in his cinematic language. Rather, I feel as though his characters are often reduced to catchphrases and quirks, and the more odd chaps he adds to his elaborate dollhouses, the less they make an impact. While I enjoyed Fantastic Mr. Fox, it still mostly felt like a traditional Anderson movie with a different coat of paint.

Thankfully, Isle of Dogs sidesteps many of those concerns by giving us richly drawn characters and a timeless fable about the bond between a boy and his pet. I love the film’s use of flashback scenes to flesh out its characters and, while not all of them get this treatment, the story’s most important players do. This context gives the film an emotional resonance that I feel Anderson’s work often lacks, as do the subtle-but-effective themes of death, racism, prejudice and government corruption.

Isle of Dogs is, in many ways, a movie for adults. It’s certainly sad and disturbing enough to turn away little kids. But, for older kids and teens especially, I think there is an irresistible undercurrent of melancholy behind all the colorful visuals and adorable dogs (seriously, they’re cute) that many may find irresistible. And, along the way, they might get a valuable lesson on the importance of treating “the other” with dignity and respect (and, while we’re at it, the importance of a free and independent press in holding politicians accountable). Come to think of it, these are lessons many of us adults need to learn as well.

Wes Anderson is no revolutionary when it comes to politics, and unlike recent animated efforts like Zootopia, Isle of Dogs isn’t at all didactic or heavy handed in its messaging. It’s simply a sweet, creative story, told with impeccable craftsmanship by a filmmaker at his creative peak. This is one of the more memorable animated films of recent years, and certainly one of Anderson’s best. The eccentric and beloved auteur may have finally (literally) crafted a film that anyone can enjoy.

Few people have more of a reason to be nostalgic for the 1980s and 90s than Steven Spielberg. The veteran filmmaker filled those decades to the brim with his most crowdpleasing hits (Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Jurassic Park) as well as his most critically acclaimed and well-respected work (Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List).

It seems like a match made in heaven, then, for Spielberg to bring an adaptation of Earnest Cline’s nostalgia-fueled novel Ready Player One to the big screen. And, for the most part, that assumption proves correct. Like the book itself, Spielberg’s latest sci-fi extravaganza is equal parts breathtaking, cheesy, self-indulgent and deeply geeky. Most importantly, however, it’s a ton of fun.

The fairly boilerplate story is set in a futuristic, dilapidated version of Columbus, Ohio, the hometown of the legendary gamemaker James Halliday (Mark Rylance), where acolytes have flocked to gain some wisdom from the man who redefined their existence through his creation called The Oasis. Think of it as a virtual reality version of an MMO, with people plugging in to tune out of their semi-apocalyptic existence. In The Oasis, you can be whoever you want to be, go wherever you want to go and do whatever you want to do.

Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) is one of those acolytes, and like many others he is hoping to gain access to Halliday’s ultimate easter egg. Upon his passing, Halliday left announcement claiming that he hid three keys across The Oasis. Finding the keys leads to a door, which leads to a golden egg, which represents complete control over The Oasis and access to Halliday’s vast riches. In order to improve their real-life existence, thousands of people must obsessively pore over pop culture history and spend most of their days inside The Oasis in order to crack the code and overtake the most powerful company on earth.

Wade enlists the help of a team of misfits including his best friend Aech (Lena Waithe) and a mysterious resistance fighter known in the virtual world as Art3mis (Olivia Cooke). After Wade, whose digital handle is Parzival, finds the first key, he becomes a celebrity, drawing the attention of adoring fans but also the murderous ire of Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn). Sorrento leads a powerful corporation hell-bent on solving Halliday’s puzzle and using the Oasis to sell advertising, but their ownership of the company could have nefarious real-world implications as well.

Ready Player One has gotten a lot of attention in recent weeks, not all of it positive. The backlash to the book has been severe, with many calling it glorified nostalgia bait, a series of references in search of a story. The same complaint could theoretically be leveled at the film version. Adapted by Cline himself along with Zak Penn, the script spends a great deal of time calling out pop culture references both visual and verbal. But, like the book, I think the film does a good job of tying said references into the main thread of the story. After all, to win Halliday’s challenge our heroes must obsessively geek out over small, minute details of pop culture past. I for one think it’s rather brilliant to essentially ask the audience to do the same thing along with the characters. Are there references for the sake of references? Sure, but they fit well into a virtual world where everything is a walking advertisement. I understand folks who despise the idea of a movie concocting a reason to show us a bunch of other stuff, but how many of these critics have stepped foot inside a comic convention, where every booth is pandering to our fondness for things we already like in order to sell us a product?

Ready Player One is a visually stunning and fun tribute to pop culture past.

That’s not to say that the film is flawlessly written. It’s definitely too long, and Spielberg struggles to make the real-world action match the intensity and thrills of the virtual set-pieces. Also lost in adaptation are some of Cline’s richly drawn characters. Parzival and Art3mis’ relationship is given enough depth, as is Art3mis’ complex reasons for desiring the egg. But Aech is less fleshed out than the character deserves, acting more as a walking set of references and phobias than an actual person. And Sorrento is a typical walking suit, obsessed with money and prestige and little else.

I love seeing some of my favorite young actors working on such a massive project, but my favorite performance and character in the film is Rylance as Halliday. He brings a subtlety and a sadness to a story that doesn’t have enough of either. On the other side of the coin, I absolutely loved T.J. Miller’s I-R0k, a powerful shaman inside the Oasis who provides the film’s best comic relief. His one-liners are golden, and I’d put money down for a spin-off film starring him (especially since we don’t ever get to see his real-world identity here).

One advantage the film adaptation has over the book is its visual design, and this is truly the movie’s selling point. This is a technological stunner, perhaps the biggest leap forward visually since Avatar or Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It’s often difficult for movies to convey the full visual weight of a universe where choice is at the center, but this is an easy exception. Every frame is bursting with color, every shot filled with something to dazzle the eye (were those Battletoads charging into battle alongside the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?). So many of the references are fun precisely because you can’t catch them all. Half-second flashes of favorite characters fit nicely alongside the more blatant references, keeping us on our toes as we scan the screens for glimpses of our favorite character.

Ready Player One is essentially half-animated, and thankfully Spielberg handily avoids the uncanny valley, with fun character designs inside The Oasis and expressive facial animations that rarely look creepy or unnatural (not anymore than intended, at least). However, it’s the action set pieces that truly knock this one out of the park. Check out the twisting car race that leads to the first key, featuring shifting courses, King Kong and a giant T-Rex. Or my favorite scene, a gripping bravura set piece set inside Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. The epic final battle feels less engrossing, but perhaps that’s because, aside from the sheer variety of characters that fill the screen, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.

Ready Player One is pretty much exactly what most people will expect going in. It’s ambitious, silly, over-the-top and a total blast. Those who scoff at the film’s very premise are not going to be swayed. Those anticipating a good time will certainly find it here. But, at its core, the film has a genuinely good heart and a sprinkling of that inexplicable Spielberg magic. Think of it as a really long roller coaster ride: fun while it lasts, not exactly life changing, but something I can’t wait to ride again. This is one easter egg worth cracking.

There was a time in not-so-distant film history when making a comic-based superhero movie would have been a major gamble. Think about movies like Tim Burton’s Batman, Dick Tracy or Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man series. But, in the span of little more than a decade, a superhero movie seems like one of the surest bets in Hollywood. Even seemingly unmarketable properties like Guardians of the Galaxy or Doctor Strange have seen incredible critical and commercial success.

The ubiquity of the superhero sub-genre is an obvious win for Hollywood studios, but a potential hazard for movie fans. After all, what quicker way is there to spoil innovation and risk then the promise that sticking to the status quo will result in mountains of money? Marvel Studios, the Disney-owned harbinger of the modern comic book film era, has found itself at this crossroads in recent years, cranking out so many sequels and mash ups that the movies start to blur together. Their projects can sometimes feel as though they were directed by committee, rather than guided by any distinct artistic vision.

Then, something, well, marvelous happened. The juggernaut studio started to give its franchises to successful independent filmmakers, the kinds of unique voices who in most circumstances probably wouldn’t step anywhere near a superhero flick. This risk has paid off handsomely, resulting in a renaissance of sorts within the Marvel brand. Think of the hallucinatory insanity of Scott Derrickson’s Doctor Strange, or Taika Waititi’s comedically subversive Thor: Ragnarok. An easy addition to that list: Black Panther, Ryan Coogler’s riotous and engrossing new movie, one that takes the Marvel brand and pushes it to new heights, resulting in one of the finest comic book flicks ever made.

Part of what makes Black Panther stand out is the fact that it doesn’t really feel like a Marvel movie at all. Sure, there are some returning characters and references to the events of Captain America: Civil War, but they are in service to a story that reaches far deeper than most comic-based fare. This is one of the only Marvel flicks that feels like it takes place in the real world.

We catch up with the panther, aka T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) as he prepares to take the throne after the death of his father, T’Chaka in Civil War. He returns to the African kingdom of Wakanda, hidden from the outside world for centuries and filled with futuristic technology gifted to the people when a meteor containing the indestructible metal vibranium crashed to earth centuries earlier. The kingdom of Wakanda ranks with Asgard, the home of Thor, as the most fully realized and visually stunning locales in the MCU. Its deep hues of blue and purple contain a fascinating mix of high tech and African tribalism, where high-speed bullet trains and remote-controlled spaceships can exist alongside African tribal divisions, complete with colorful garb and other identifiers such as piercings, lip discs and dreadlocks.

T’Challa returns to this complex ecosystem to perform in the ceremony where he will be crowned king of Wakanda. He is joined by his grieving but proud mother (Angela Bassett), his tech wizard sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), potential love interest Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) and a royal entourage that also doubles as a who’s-who of great black actors (Danai Gurira, Daniel Kaluuya, Forest Whitaker and Florence Kasumba, to name a few).

But T’Challa’s new rule is soon thrown into chaos, as the Wakandans race to stop some of their vibranium from falling into the hands of mercenary Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis, in full un-CG’d glory) and a mysterious outsider who goes by the name Eric Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), who has his own reasons for wanting Wakandan technology to be unleashed upon the world. Such sentiment stirs up conflict among the Wakandans; with their people being oppressed around the globe, might it not be wise to share this wonderous technology with others of African descent and take up arms against anyone who would oppress or demean their people?

Black Panther transcends its genre trappings thanks to excellent acting and a profoundly social conscience.

The conflicts at the center of Black Panther are incredibly compelling, and they’re conflicts that director Coogler has taken an interest exploring throughout his body of work (his first two films were Fruitvale Station and Rocky franchise re-starter Creed). Tradition versus progress. Isolationism versus globalism. Peaceful, political protest versus violent revolt. The films touch deeply on subject matter that matters more to black communities than ever, and the result could not be timelier. It’s amazing that a superhero film with a predominately black cast would seem so revolutionary in 2018, but then again it we didn’t get a Wonder Woman movie until last year.

But the film is more than just a showcase for great black actors; it’s also a film that is boldly, unapologetically African. From the vibrant costume and makeup design to the pulsating tribal score and Rachel Morrison’s gorgeous cinematography, this is the very rare blockbuster that aesthetically embraces the black experience, and that makes it completely refreshing in a film universe that has been sadly lacking in diversity.

Thankfully, the film sails past simple eye candy. Like Marvel’s terrific Netflix series Luke Cage, it tackles head-on modern issues of black identity such as racial injustice and absentee fathers. I don’t know that a superhero flick has felt this necessary since The Dark Knight encapsulated America’s post-9/11 anxieties, and that potent realism helps the film to feel thrillingly current and alive.

Speaking of lively, it’s certainly worth mentioning that Black Panther features some of the finest acting seen in the sub-genre. You can tell the actors knew they were making more than a fun popcorn flick: they were making something important, and it shows. I love Danai Gurira’s work on The Walking Dead, but her ferocious warrior Okoye is a marvelous creation on a whole different level. Particular praise should also go to Letitia Wright, whose Shuri should an inspiration to black women everywhere. Here’s a gorgeous young woman who is also a super-genius, leagues ahead of, say, Tony Stark; the implication that the Wakandans are the holders of ultimate knowledge and power is a brilliant and liberating reversal of reality, when black people are often the ones in positions of vulnerability.

But the highest praise must go to the main leads. Boseman’s Panther was a highlight of Civil War, and here he’s given the depth he deserves. Boseman is an amazing actor who always seems to give his all to his work, and that shows here. T’Challa is a fascinatingly complex hero, burdened with a responsibility he doesn’t quite know how to bear, and often brought to his knees by his perceived failures. The brilliant Michael B. Jordan gives us the best villain in the MCU. Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole easily side-step Marvel’s villain problem by making Killmonger equal parts ferocious and vulnerable. His motivations are complex but understandable, and he’s the victim of an egregious past wrong that ignites the central conflict and gains the character a certain amount of sympathy. There were times when I felt I sided more with Killmonger’s perspective than T’Challa’s, and that’s a remarkable step in the right direction, especially when you have an actor as good as Jordan in front of the camera.

If there’s a complaint to level at the film, it’s a minor one, and one of preference. It’s easy to see that Coogler and company put less priority the traditional superhero antics and action scenes than they did the story, characters and social parallels. In my mind, that’s an easily acceptable trade, especially because any shmuck can blow stuff up. And yet, apart from an awesome car chase sequence, the film lacks the gorgeously choreographed action of Thor: Ragnarok or the epic scale of the Captain America series. For a film with this much on its mind and heart, I can accept a downgrade when it comes to the action, but Marvel fans looking for extremely memorable fight sequences might be a tad disappointed.

Despite being based upon a decades-old property, Black Panther is very much a movie of the moment. In all the ways that count, it’s the finest example of its sub-genre since The Dark Knight. It’s vibrant, searing, and just plain fun. But even its most superfluous moments are cut with the undercurrent of profound social commentary that binds the film together. Coogler and company have crafted something special and, in some ways, groundbreaking here. There’s a new king in town, and I say “hail, hail!”

One of the many things I love about the cinema is the way it can effectively convey human longing for meaning, for connection, for passion through primarily visual means. Film is, first and foremost, a visual medium, and the best films recognize the old adage that a picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

Prolific director Guillermo Del Toro understands this film making rule better than most, and his new strange concoction, The Shape of Water, is perhaps his most polished and profound meditation on the power of the moving image yet.

Del Toro highlights this theme in bold font by introducing us to Eliza Esposito (played by an extraordinary Sally Hawkins), a woman incapable of speech since she was a little girl. In Cold War-era Baltimore, she spends her days in rigid routine, riding the bus to her job as a custodian at the high-tech Occam Aerospace Research Center. Her only friends in the world seem to be her sarcastic co-worker Zelda (who talks as much as Eliza doesn’t) and her eccentric artist next-door neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins). But relationships generally don’t come easy for Eliza; no one wants to talk to a mute woman, and learning how to do so takes valuable time. Eliza seems to be drifting through life, taking pleasure and solace in masturbating and eating a borderline-unhealthy amount of hard boiled eggs.

But Eliza’s life changes when the mysterious Colonel Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) arrives at the facility with a pod containing a mysterious creature (played by Doug Jones). Strickland discovered this “Asset” in the rivers of South America, where it was apparently worshiped as a god, and now the American government is eager to figure out if it can be used as a weapon to turn the tide of the Cold War against Russia. Naturally, these folks don’t care much for the creature’s opinion on all of this, but Strickland is an especially cruel captor. Humans are made in God’s image, he says, and this thing doesn’t look like any human he’s ever seen. It’s an abomination, a tool to be used and discarded, nothing more.

But Eliza and head research scientist Robert Hoffstetler (the always welcome Michael Stuhlbarg), disagree. Hoffstetler sees the creature as a thing of beauty that should be protected, and, for Eliza, the creature is something more. As she sneaks into the containment facility to see the creature, she forms an undeniable bond with it (him?). Soon, she is spending her lunch breaks feeding the Asset hard boiled eggs, introducing him to music and enjoying the quiet company of someone who finally seems to understand her. But Eliza also overhears some troubling things: it seems that Strickland’s plans for the monster might be even more nefarious, and she soon decides he must be rescued from the highly guarded facility and taken to a nearby canal, where he can swim free again. Can the silent woman, going so long unnoticed, save her friend and perhaps, in the process, find a voice of her own?

The Shape of Water is the kind of film that swims in atmosphere. This is an intoxicating world, filled with deep shades of green and dark, warm tones. Del Toro’s films have always been visually spectacular, but this is surely his best looking film to date. The director reunites with Crimson Peak cinematographer Dan Lausten, and the results are breathtaking. That film was definitely a case of style over substance, but here, the gorgeous visuals are in service of a story worthy of them.

The Shape of Water is a love letter to cinema, as well as to the power of nonverbal communication and nontraditional community.

The Shape of Water could have easily been a fairly simple fable, told with visual flair and accomplished style. That could have been enough to make this work. But, much like Del Toro’s legendary fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth, this film is seeking something much deeper. At heart, this is a tale about people without a voice finding a way to make themselves heard in a world that isn’t interested in listening. Eliza and the Asset are both incapable of speech, sure, but Zelda, a black woman and Giles, a closeted gay man, often feel equally voiceless and lonely. These outsiders rally together around what they see as one of their own, a poignant take on what a non-traditional community can look like. Few films have more effectively conveyed the existential loneliness that threatens to drown those who feel marginalized. One of the film’s most powerful scenes takes place in a local diner over a piece of pie, where a conversation gone wrong forces Giles to confront a heart-rending revelation. It’s soul-searing, tear-inducing stuff.

What really knocks the picture into the stratosphere are the performances. This is one of the best acting ensembles in recent memory, without a weak link in sight. I love Shannon’s perfect mix of menace and humor and Jenkins’ soulfully sad performance. But, this is Hawkins’ show, and she is amazing. It’s difficult to convey the gamut of human emotions without dialogue, but Hawkins does it all with her face and body. The joy of discovering something new exists alongside the sadness and desperation of her deep longing and loneliness. But Eliza is always, at heart, an optimistic dreamer, and somehow, we get to know all of that without her ever saying anything (not vocally at least; she often uses sign language to communicate). It’s one of the best performances in recent memory, maybe ever, and it deserves a truckload of awards.

Like he did with his undisputed masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth, Del Toro has once again taken a tumultuous historical period and infused it with an intriguing and wholly original sci-fi/fantasy twist. Unlike that film, The Shape of Water is not perfect. I feel that Del Toro could have easily cut out a lot of the unnecessary nudity, and the fact that the relationship between Eliza and the Asset is not exactly platonic is…odd, to say the least. And yet, even the more overtly sexual aspects of the film result in some of it’s most beautiful scenes, (keep an eye out for a scene that involves a bathroom and a lot of water–it’s stunning), so the film does a good job overall of thematically earning its more outlandish moments.

For those willing to get lost in its bizarre and beautiful vision, The Shape of Water simply cannot be missed. I’m still not sure if it can be called a fantasy, a romance or a Cold War thriller; maybe it’s a bunch of genres mashed together. Whatever it is, it’s beyond wonderful, and one of cinema’s finest examples of the mysterious cosmic rule that love is best expressed not in word, but in deed. That’s a message we all should pay attention to.

I have a confession to make. I’ve grown a little weary of “racially sensitive” dramas. They’re often heavy-handed, obvious and rarely convey much of a meaningful message beyond “racism is bad.” But look at the headlines any given day and you’ll see that, in some way or another, we need these stories and these conversations. I’m all for that, but the art that spurs such conversations needs to be engaging and unique enough to continue to draw audiences. Jordan Peele showed how you can make a film about race relations in America while delivering something new and special with his breakout hit Get Out earlier this year. Now comes Mudbound, Dee Rees’ new Netflix drama based upon Hillary Jordan’s novel. Set in Jim Crow-era Mississippi during WWII, the film could have easily been another dry period piece. Instead, it’s a vibrant, moving, essential work of art, one that no fan of film or history should miss.

Mudbound is the cinematic equivalent of a great American novel—epic and sweeping in scope, yet acutely aware of how a single choice can have effects that ripple across generations. The film opens on rural farmer Henry McAllan (Jason Clarke) digging a grave for his deceased father alongside his younger brother Jamie (Garrett Hedlund). Tagging along for the simple wake is Henry’s wife Laura (Carey Mulligan) and their children. Through the rain-drenched mist comes a black family riding a carriage, including Hap Jackson (Rob Morgan) and his wife Florence (an excellent, almost unrecognizable Mary J. Blige). Henry asks Hap to help get the coffin into the grave, and the look he responds with is ice cold. He begrudgingly assists, but Florence doesn’t move a muscle, refusing to even acknowledge the white folks’ existence.

We soon find out this intense scene is a flash forward, but thematically it echoes of things to come. This is a film of people talking past each other, often ignoring each other because to acknowledge someone else, especially someone different, often means digging up something in our own souls that we’d rather not unearth.

The remainder of the film focuses on the relationship between these two families. The Jacksons, it turns out, are (paid) servants for the McAllans, but Henry’s father Pappy (Jonathan Banks, excellent as always) isn’t too thrilled about having black people anywhere near him. In his world, black folks have to use the back door, should never ride in the front seat, and sure as hell should never copulate with or even befriend a white person. Tensions continue to rise as Laura enlists Florence’s midwifing skills to help take care of her children’s’ whooping cough.

Then, of course, there’s the boys. Jamie McAllan and Hap’s son Ronsel (Jason Mitchell) both return from the war disillusioned and ill-at-ease in the America they thought they knew. Jamie soon turns to the bottle and Ronsel attempts to push down his anger over returning to a country he served faithfully whose citizens still see him as something sub-human. These boys seem to be the only two who understand each other anymore, and a friendship quickly blossoms. Such a relationship would all be well and good if they were in a different time and place than 1940s Mississippi.

Mudbound is an urgent, essential, skillfully told tale that ranks among the year’s best films.

Mudbound tells its story through layered voiceovers, creating a kaleidoscopic tapestry of voices and perspectives. It’s a technique very reminiscent of Terrence Malick, and indeed this feels like the type of film Malick used to make. Rees, who co-wrote the script with Virgil Williams, seems painstakingly committed to ensuring every voice is heard. This is one of the major effects that make the film extraordinary. This isn’t a simple story of poor mistreated blacks and white villains. It’s as much about the plight of the white rural farmer as it is the black man who can’t even look at a white man sideways for fear of physical harm or death.

This is a historically important film, because it does such an incredible job at pulling us into a palpable sense of time and space. It’s hard to imagine an America like this existed, and yet it was not so long ago. Rachel Morrison’s moody cinematography along with the soulful performances draw the audience in and don’t let go. Every scene is filled with tension, because one look, one word, even one moment of silence can change everything.

Particular praise should go to Mulligan, who acts as somewhat of a neutral audience surrogate, and Hedlund and Mitchell, whose characters’ relationship anchors the film’s emotions. Their scenes together are among the most moving I’ve seen this year. A simple conversation between two men who have much in common if you can look past the color of their skin. A scandalous act of kindness, camaraderie and affection in an environment where such virtues are in short supply.

In less delicate hands, the film’s climactic eruption into violence could topple the emotional high-wire act the rest of the story so expertly balanced. But Rees’ hand is so deft, her characters so richly drawn, that I was more than willing to go with it.

Mudbound is a tough, gritty, tragic film, but its ending is unexpectedly hopeful and moving. It says that we don’t have to continue to talk past each other, that people can change. Actions are ultimately more important than words, but we tend to have an abundance of the latter and precious little of the former. In an America that is still quite far from “post racial,” it’s far past time for that to change.

It’s hard to make a good World War II movie, and even harder to make a great one. It’s easy to see what would draw a filmmaker to this storied sub-genre: ready-made dramatic conflict, easily defined heroes and villains and inspiring stories of courage and valor are often the name of the game. But everyone seems to make one at some point, and such ventures are often lacking in originality or new ideas.

With Dunkirk, however, the veteran filmmaker Christopher Nolan manages to make a war picture feel fresh again. He pulls this off with a combination of pure craftsmanship and creative storytelling and sound design, resulting in the best war film since, at least, Letters from Iwo Jima, and one that may go down as one of the best ever made.

Nolan takes no time dropping us into the heart of the conflict (at a surprisingly brief 106 minutes, it’s his shortest movie besides Following, his very first film). Hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers are stranded on the beach and Dunkirk, awaiting rescue. The British troops can see their homeland across the waters, so close and yet so far away. But the conflict is not over yet: German airplanes are bombing the beaches and making it difficult for any large military vessels to get close. Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh) is leading the effort to evacuate the troops, but time is running out, and he resigns himself to the possibility that only a handful of troops will ever leave Dunkirk.

We also spend some time with a group of young soldiers trying desperately to survive. These lads are played by some very strong unknowns, including Fionn Whitehead, Aneurin Barnard, Tom Glynn-Carney and a surprisingly good Harry Styles (yes, THAT Harry Styles).

For a while, it seems as though Nolan is going to have the audience view the conflict mostly from the perspective of Whitehead’s Tommy. This type of painfully intimate style has been used to great effect in foreign classics like Come and See and the recent holocaust film Son of Saul. But it’s soon clear that Nolan is reaching for a much grander scope, something more along the lines of The Longest Day or The Thin Red Line.

Nolan utilizes three intersecting perspectives and timelines to give us a full scope of the conflict. In addition to the soldiers on the beach, we also spend some time inside the cockpit of pilot Farrier (Tom Hardy) and in a schooner manned by Dawson (Mark Rylance). While Farrier tries desperately to take down the German planes bombing the beach, Dawson is one of dozens called by the military to man their personal vessels to get as many soldiers off the beach as possible.

Dunkirk is a gripping experience, and another masterpiece from director Christopher Nolan.

This twisting structure gives us bits and pieces of the full picture at a time, and allows us to see the same events, such as a plane crash and a sinking ship, from multiple perspectives. This is a risky way to structure a film, and an easy way to confuse your audience, but Nolan is a master at pulling multiple threads without letting any of them go, and his script is air tight and perfectly paced.

Speaking of masters, Hans Zimmer provides one of the film’s most memorable characters. His musical score is an active instigator in the action, providing ominous heavy bass and tight strings that slowly rise in speed and intensity until the effect is almost unbearable. It’s a brilliant piece of work, and one that contributes a great deal of the film’s emotional heft.

Along with the gripping score, the overall sound design is some of the best ever put to screen. I watched the film in IMAX, and I jumped in my seat every time a bullet was shot. Every sound element is designed to drop us directly into the conflict, and, in one unbearably tense scene in particular, I felt like an actual soldier whose escape vessel was slowly being riddled with gunfire.

This immersion extends to the cinematography, which is breathtaking. Nolan and Hoyte Van Hoytema shot the film with IMAX cameras, and the result is a sense of realism and scope that is unparalleled in modern cinema. The camera may have us inside the cockpit of a fighter plane one moment, and then in the air, taking in the beauty of the landscape the next. The claustrophobia underneath the decks of a sinking battleship, as water slowly rises and soldiers gasp for their final breaths, is quickly juxtaposed with sweeping shots of the beach and the vast ocean that laps its shores.

All of these elements combine to make for one relentlessly intense viewing experience. Theaters should post a warning outside conveying the risk of heart failure. The cumulative effect is almost unbearable, and I’ve never seen a war film that has done a more effective job at immersing me in its time and space.

Thankfully, Dunkirk isn’t the type of experience you endure and then forget. Like most of Nolan’s work, it reaches much farther into the guts of what it means to sacrifice. Seeing dozens of civilian boats come to the aid of desperate soldiers is inspiring, but the scenes that most grabbed me were the ones of quiet redemption. Without giving much away, a scene where Dawson decides to avoid telling a rescued soldier the most heartbreaking news imaginable reminded me of the grace and beauty of everyday acts of kindness. There is just as much honor and heroism in forgiving your enemy as there is in saving yourself from them.

Don’t let the July release fool you: Dunkirk is a powerful work of art, and Nolan’s least commercially palatable film since Memento. His contemplative, poetic approach will not be for everyone. In both scale and theme, it very much recalls Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, which is my all-time favorite war film. The fact that any movie could begin to approach the brilliance of Malick’s masterpiece shows just what a rare and wonderful experience Dunkirk really is, and what a true visionary we have in Christopher Nolan.