Cover-Up
Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus deliver a relentless portrait of journalist Seymour Hersh, whose investigations—from My Lai to Abu Ghraib—have exposed systemic war crimes and institutional betrayal. Archival riches, unguarded interviews, and Hersh’s own notebooks render not myth, but the painstaking machinery of truth. A sharp reminder that power fears exposure.
Jay Kelly
George Clooney and Adam Sandler anchor Noah Baumbach’s ensemble piece, playing an aging star and his longtime manager on a European reckoning tour. Wry, bittersweet, and unexpectedly tender, it’s a road movie of misgivings and grace notes, with Laura Dern and Riley Keough adding ballast as the past keeps interrupting the present.
Blue Moon
Ethan Hawke gives a raw and eloquent turn as Lorenz Hart in Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon, set on the opening night of “Oklahoma!” in 1943. Hart, battling alcoholism, regret, and eroding fame, spends the evening at Sardi’s, grief and longing at his elbow, as the star of his former collaborator Richard Rodgers rises without him.
Bugonia
Yorgos Lanthimos remakes Save the Green Planet! with Emma Stone as Michelle Fuller, a powerful pharmaceutical CEO held hostage by Jesse Plemons’s Teddy—a grief-torn conspiracist convinced she’s an alien out to destroy Earth. Dark, absurd, occasionally brutal, it blends satire, sci-fi, and horror with Lanthimos’s sharp eye for delusion.
Hamnet
Chloé Zhao adapts Maggie O’Farrell’s novel into a poetic family drama—following Agnes Shakespeare (Jessie Buckley) and her husband William (Paul Mescal) amid grief when their young son, Hamnet, dies. Quiet storms rage beneath pastoral beauty. Zhao’s frames linger on domestic loss, nature, and memory, turning intimate tragedy into universal ache.
Ask E. Jean
Ivy Meeropol’s Ask E. Jean resurrects E. Jean Carroll’s fight for accountability—her defamation suit against Donald Trump—through archival recordings and Carroll’s own voice. It’s part legal drama, part psychological profile, with Carroll striding from victim to symbol. Watching, you don’t just witness history—you feel its weight.
Franz
Agnieszka Holland’s Franz charts Franz Kafka’s life—from adolescent Prague to final days—with Idan Weiss embodying the writer’s tender contradictions, and key figures like Max Brod, Felice Bauer, and Milena Jesenska orbiting his genius and self-doubt. Surreal vignettes, documentary-style testimony, and family fractures make this more mosaic than memorial.
Is This Thing On?
Bradley Cooper directs and acts in this tender, comedic-drama starring Will Arnett as Alex, whose marriage to Laura Dern’s Tess dissolves amicably. He turns to stand-up, she to reconciling past ambitions, both juggling two boys and preserving friendships. Change isn’t dramatic—it’s quiet, messy, deeply felt.
The Keeper
For 23 years, John Lipscomb has patrolled the Hudson River aboard the Ian R. Fletcher, bearing witness—and bearing burden—as its “eyes and ears,” defending it from pollution, industry, and neglect. Bowermaster’s documentary is a tribute to one man’s stubborn love for a river, and a call: Who’ll follow in his footsteps?
Everywhere Man: The Lives and Times of Peter Asher
This documentary celebrates musician Peter Asher (of vocal duo Peter and Gordon fame)—not as a superstar, but as the behind-the-scenes force who shaped rock’s golden age. From producing James Taylor to introducing Lennon to Ono, he’s everywhere and nowhere in the spotlight. Archival gems, wistful interviews, and a portrait of musical alchemy.
This article appears in October 2025.
