Without fail, every passing year is a good year for movies filled with stories worth your time. Showcasing what’s possible on the silver screen, 2022 produced an array of dazzling images, the very same ones I assume Nicole Kidman still speaks of to this day. But like always, the quiet innovations in storytelling between the lines and on the pages were a rush to see too. Talking more about what stories stole our hearts and stuck in our minds is always a highlight of my year. So without further ado…

Most films try with all their might to convince me I am anything but a passive witness. In return, I try (with all of my might) to forget that I am not just in a darkened room. This unspoken compromise can be a beautiful thing between individuals and artists who likely will never share the same space. In one way or another, my favorite movies of 2021 seem to be chipping away at passively existing- a feeling exacerbated by yet another year of precautions. As with me, I hope that art helped you feel a bit more alive in some way this year. Before we move too far into 2022, let’s reminisce together about some films that did that for me…

The movies are back! As theaters begin to reopen and restrictions are lifted, we can begin to take our places again, seated alongside friends or strangers, and find fresh joys in the world on screen. The celebration and preservation of film and filmgoing will be ongoing, but the best reasons for returning to the theater and committing to making them as accessible as possible, with as much selection as possible, are those personal. In honor of their return, our August & September theme is all about our favorite theatrical experiences and why in the light of the big screen anything is possible.

For our April & May theme, we’re selecting films that focus on journalism, and more specifically print journalism. As much as the medium has shifted to online publication, there remains a special place in our hearts for ink and paper and the means with which it arrives in our hands every morning without fail. These films embody the age-old tradition of journalism — hitting the streets, getting the facts, writing the story, and breaking the news — and define the complicated relationship between the profession and the public and do so through the lens of printing presses and Sunday editions.

Want to read about all of Cinema As We Know’s SXSW Online 2021 coverage in one place? Check out our review feature! We’ve got capsule and full reviews for all the films we’ve seen at this year’s festival. We’ll be adding more throughout the remainder of festival and in the days after as we get caught up, so check back regularly for new additions.

For the second year in row, we’ll be experiencing SXSW from the remote isolation of our living rooms, covering as many films as we can for the next few weeks. Before the festival kicks off on March 16th, we want to highlight a smattering of films that are on our radar and that we think should be on yours too. Whether they feature familiar faces, one-of-a-kind premises, or word-of-mouth buzz, these are the films you should check out for SXSW Online 2021.

Like a good mix tape, a soundtrack cherry picks songs from disparate sources and strings them together to create an auditory experience all its own. The best films with soundtracks do this over and over again, playing track after track that cultivates a rhythmic liminal state of euphoria where sound and image become greater than the sum of their part. A Sonic Dream so to speak. For our February — March theme, we’re selecting our favorite film soundtracks that make us feel what cannot be rendered visually and add to the cinematic experience in ways only music can.

Each year, the Cinema As We Know It writing team publishes features for our personal top ten films in tandem with our favorite scenes and performances. However, no matter how much write for those features, there are always a handful of achievements that fall outside their purview. While we don’t have dedicated lists for each and every category under the sun, we still want to recognize a few items from last year that we think deserve notice. Loosely, this feature is a forum for us to write about the categorical ‘other’ in the media landscape, so for one reason or another, these are the best of rest for 2020.

Every year we watch hundreds of films that contain thousands of scenes within them, and through it all, we come away with a handful of moments that stick with us. They contain the one liners, the gut punches, the tear-inducing, pull on your heartstrings, make you want to cry and you don’t know why moments that leave lasting impressions on us for days or even weeks at a time. Whether it be a climatic revelation, a subtle moment of directorial brilliance, or a poignant punctuation to conclude a film, these scenes scenes display a creative, technical, and thematic mastery that we simply can’t stop thinking about. As selected by our writing team, these are our favorite scenes of 2020.

Taking what’s on the page and performing at the behest of the director, actors serve as the conduits for with which a film’s message is channeled. This year saw no shortage of performances that do just that. While it’s difficult to string a unifying theme between actors and their performances in a single year, what remains consistent, year over year, is that we get to see life on the screen in ways that help us better understand ourselves and others. It’s one way we become sympathetic to the world around us, and it’s the actors we have to thank for it. From rising talents to career bests, these are our favorite performances of 2020.

This last year I’ve needed movies more than ever, and I’ve also noticed a few interesting effects that 2020 has had on my film-watching habits – aside, that is, from the fact that I saw none of the movies on this list in a cinema. With most of 2020 spent locked up indoors, I started relishing the little incidental bits of audio-visual information that graced my screen. At the same time, the dismaying responses to local and global political circumstances have only intensified my desire for a cinema that is both attentive to the realities of everyday life and critical of the various systems that govern our lives, and I think the films I’ve designated as my top ten of this year reflect that.

It’s hard not to view this year in movies in the context of the year of 2020. Many of these features are what we turned to when things went the worst. They took us far away from the present or sometimes felt like reflections of our current state. This year graced us with a number of great films, and it is crushing that none of my favorite films screened in a movie theater this year. But that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t an abundance of excellent entries to talk about. So without any further ado here are my top ten films from 2020.

You only get one chance to make a first impression. For our November - December theme we’re focusing on directorial debuts, films that immediately left an impression and inscribed the director’s name on everyone’s watchlist. These films broke rules and gave us perspectives that only come from a fresh pair of eyes and the desire to prove your worth. Debuts that declared, “My name is ________ ________. And I have something to say.” If there’s only the one first impression, then these nine films showed themselves to be unforgettable, and part of their legacy would be us returning to them and their directors over and over again.

For fifty-eight years, the New York Film Festival has been a bellwether for cinema. Despite the coronavirus preventing the traditional in-person event, the resilient team at Lincoln Center still managed to put on this year’s iteration with stunning success. A well-executed virtual cinema made this year’s incarnation more accessible than ever before, including for us. From the safety of our homes and on the other side of the country, we were able to watch selections from the 58th New York Film Festival and provide coverage for a handful of films.

Ten years ago on October 1st, 2010, The Social Network was released, and anyone who’s seen it knows just how great it is. From the Aaron Sorkin script to the meticulous direction by David Fincher, it continues to stand as an ever evolving piece of art that continues to change with current events and our political climate. To celebrate the film’s 10th Anniversary, Greg Arietta, Kevin Conner, and Jamie Housen convened to create an audio commentary where they talk about final clubs, marlins & trouts, Armie Hammer, fuck you flip flops, and how drunk blogging led to the fall of democracy.

Did you hear that? There was… a noise… a murmur emerging from across the house. Probably nothing you tell yourself. But you can never be sure of a BUMP IN THE NIGHT. For our September & October theme, we’re picking a selection of some of our favorite horror films. Slashers, creature features, home invasions, 80s camp, Cronenberg body horror, final girls, and the like find their way on this list, and while we could make this list a hundred times over, we managed to select just eight for your consideration.

For the 24th installment of the Fantasia Film Festival, the entire event is moving online. The annual gathering in Montreal, Canada known for assembling the best in genre filmmaking continues its legacy in 2020 by showcasing some of the strangest, weirdest, most rule-breaking, out-there films created in the last year. For the next ten days, we’ll be covering as many films as we can from our quarantine bunkers and sharing our thoughts on what we’ve seen. Come back daily to see what we’ve been watching from this year’s virtual Fantasia film festival.

In an extended essay, Kevin Conner writes about Michael Jordan’s lasting legacy as presented in The Last Dance and what it means for aspirational athletes documented in Hoop Dreams. If the dream is to become the greatest of all time, what’s the cost of achieving it?

This month’s theme is dedicated to the films that feel like summer more than anything else. On the surface, they bear the hallmarks of the summer time — endless sunshine, coastal beaches, seasonal vacations — but underneath they distill the essence of the season and capture the memories made therein. These films can take us back to simpler times when all we had to worry about were the plans for the next day and who it would be with, because even though summer comes around every year, it’ll never be the same as those Hot Summer Nights.

Right about now we could all use a little pick me up. Staring down at the problems in front of us and looking out into the future ahead, it’s hard to stay optimistic, but if there’s anything we’ve come to know about cinema is that it has the unique ability to transplant us elsewhere. Our May and June theme is focused on films that can change the mood for the better, films that to their core inspire unrelenting joy, happiness, and elation like no other.

As we close out our SXSW 2020 coverage, the time has come to take stock on what we saw and highlight the best films from this year’s festival. Though the festival was unfortunately canceled and we couldn’t see some of the most anticipated films of the Spring, there were still plenty of great films from talented filmmakers, artists, and visionaries that deserve recognition.

South by South West was unfortunately canceled this year. It was bummer not only for us, but more so for the filmmakers who were ready to show their work to audiences, launch their careers, and be discovered. Over the next ten days, we too will be proceeding with coverage and writing about as many films as we can. It’s a small gesture, but the least we can do in light of this situation.

There are hundreds of feature films and shorts out there waiting to be seen at this year's SXSW festival. We passed through the schedule, narrowed down a handful that peaked our interest, and wrote about them for you to keep on your radar. Whether it’s a film from talent we know, or maybe it just has a good premise, these are the prospects that we find most promising.

For this month’s theme, we’re selecting films that put particular emphasis on concrete jungles, films where the city itself becomes not just a location, but also a character. We may be following the lives of protagonists on screen, but it’s place they inhabit that plays just as much an important role as they do. We hate the traffic, the loud noises, and the lingering pollution, but we’ll be damned if we ever trade the metropolitan madness for suburban life. Because it’s the city, and there’s nothing like it.

In the days leading up to Seattle’s Noir City at SIFF, we sat down with the Czar of Noir himself, Eddie Muller, to discuss the festival’s history, the contemporary social underpinnings in this year’s lineup, audience’s undying fixation on the genre, and the borderless unification noir has on us all.

Over the next nine weeks, we’re selecting films that depict younger generation rejecting conformity and igniting rambunctious rebellions at the hands of being misunderstood. Acting on your own accord, disobeying authority, and maybe busting out a hardy cry or two at the alienation felt inside, these films aren’t afraid to reject the authoritative hypocrisy felt by younger generations, because sometimes being seen means being who you are. Acting out never felt so right when you’re a Youth in Revolt.

The face of films has always been the actors. Through them, we are exposed to a world of different characters, perspectives, and ideas where we can empathize with situations completely unlike our own. They breathe life into the written word, taking an ordinary role and transforming it into something all their own. From masters of the trade and new entrants alike, these actors deliver performances that are truly exceptional. As chosen by our writing team, these are our favorite performances of 2019.

Every year we watch hundreds of films that contain thousands of scenes within them, and through it all, we come away with a handful of stand out moments. Whether it be a climatic revelation, a subtle moment of directorial brilliance, or a poignant punctuation to conclude a film, these scenes display a creative, technical, and thematic mastery that we simply can’t stop thinking about. As selected by our writing team, these are our favorite scenes of 2019.

Right before the decade came to a close, 2019 went out with a particularly strong bevy of films. So much so that there are still many I have yet to watch, but from what I have seen, this year has been nothing short of remarkable. Compassion, joy, wonder, laughter, heartbreak. I believe you can find all these and more in the films from this year, and while there are so many I admire, here are the ones that stick out in my mind, providing a range of feelings that are particularly delightful to bask in for 2019.