The strange casting of Juliette Binoche as an American truck driver is the jump-off point of the new film “Paradise Highway,” a thriller that is done in by underwhelming writing.

First-time feature filmmaker Anna Gutto (she also wrote the screenplay) creates some interesting and potentially tense situations but the actions of her characters prevent her from being able to bring it all home. 

You’ve already seen “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Jurassic World: Dominion,” so while you wait with baited breath for “Bullet Train” and “Avatar: The Way of Water,” you should seek out these four intriguing films, which, unlike the slam-boom-bang of the big-screen summer tentpoles (not that we don’t love them because we do!), might actually give you something to contemplate after the credits roll.

Jordan Peele’s “Nope” is one of the most inventive and entertaining genre films in years. 

In a sluggish cinematic year Peele has directed a film that is clever from scene to scene. There isn’t a moment where you take your eyes off of the screen.

Set in a vast and beautiful valley, Daniel Kaluuya plays OJ, a man doing his best to keep

What an amazing human is the former congresswoman from Arizona, who was shot in the head in 2011 and not only survived but has continued to serve the public. Though Gabby Giffords retired from the House after her near-fatal shooting by an angry and mentally unstable constituent, she somehow still maintains her smile, her poise, her good humor even when it would be more than understandable for her to have lost any of these.

John Michael McDonagh’s “The Forgiven” walks the ever-fine line between artful examination and utter monotony. Adapting Lawrence Osborne’s novel, McDonagh’s film takes place over one weekend in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco and skewers the privilege of the wealthy and white.

David (Ralph Fiennes) and Jo (Jessica Chastain) are traveling to a party taking place in the Moroccan desert. Late, lost

Scott Derrickson’s “The Black Phone” continues 2022’s sad streak of being one of the most uninteresting years on record.

Based on an excellent short story from author Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son), director Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill adapted the creepy tale of a Colorado town plagued by a serial killer of children known as “The Grabber," so named

A star is born in Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis.” Austin Butler’s performance as the rock'n'roll legend is simply jaw-dropping. In an astonishing turn, the actor melts completely into Elvis, announcing the arrival of one hell of a committed actor. Unfortunately, Butler’s performance (and a couple of scenes towards the film’s end) are the only worthy piece of this near travesty of a motion picture.

The massively over-directed

The debates about the greatest pitcher of all time inevitably bring up names including Sandy Koufax, Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens. The latter two appear in “Facing Nolan” to talk about Nolan Ryan, the man who idolized Koufax–and then shattered all of his records.

Ryan, now 75 and still sporting that understated grin, sits for writer-director Bradley Jackson’s enthralling new documentary

Set in Texas during the 1992 presidential election writer/director Jennifer Waldo’s “Acid Test” is a tale about coming of age and jumping out of your mind.

Set against the backdrop of the nineties Riot Grrrl movement (the underground feminist punk movement that began in the early nineties), Waldo’s energetic and always-interesting film blends cultural revolution

June 17, 2022, marked the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, the fallout of which would eventually lead to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Nixon and his tricksters were held to account in the end, largely thanks to brave insiders such as Alexander Butterfield, who disclosed the existence of the secret White House taping system, as well as Martha Mitchell, the wife of Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell.