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Art (Mike Faist), Tashi (Zendaya) and Patrick (Josh O'Connor) are embroiled in a love triangle in Challengers . Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures hide caption

Watch a tense romantic triangle play out on the tennis court in 'Challengers'

April 26, 2024 • Three superb actors — Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O'Connor — star in this sweaty, sexy, entertaining drama about tennis stars with a very complicated past.

Zendaya stars as Tashi in Challengers. Niko Tavernise/Amazon MGM Studios hide caption

Pop Culture Happy Hour

The zendaya-led 'challengers' is much more than a sexy tennis movie.

April 26, 2024 • The terrific new film Challengers is about being intense about tennis, sex, and competition. Directed by Luca Guadagnino, the film stars Zendaya as Tashi, a tennis coach and object of desire to two men. She's married to Art (Mike Faist), who is facing his old friend Patrick (Josh O'Connor) at a Challengers event. This reopens all the trio's old wounds, and they excavate all of their relationships with each other.

Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon star in the 1996 film Bound . Alamy hide caption

What makes a good sex scene?

April 25, 2024 • It's easy to notice when a sex scene is bad. But what makes a sex scene good? Today, we are recommending films with good sex scenes, including Bound , Love & Basketball, Magic Mike's Last Dance, and Oppenheimer.

Gabrielle and Louis (Léa Seydoux and George MacKay) meet in 1910 Paris, 2014 Los Angeles and again in 2044 in The Beast . Carole Bethuel/Kinology hide caption

'The Beast' jumps from 1910, to 2014, to 2044, tracking fear through the ages

April 18, 2024 • This wildly original adaptation of the Henry James novella The Beast in the Jungle follows human alienation and anxiety, asking why, in every era, we disengage from life and the people around us.

From the HBO documentary Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion. HBO hide caption

Three eye-opening documentaries you can stream right now

April 14, 2024 • In the streaming era it can be hard to keep track of all the new docs and docuseries. We recommend checking out: What Jennifer Did, Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion and The Synanon Fix.

Kirsten Dunst plays a battle scarred photojournalist in Civil War. Murray Close/A24 hide caption

'Civil War' is a doomsday thought experiment — that could have used more thinking

April 12, 2024 • This ambitious thriller comes across as an empty stunt — a democracy dystopia that sidesteps the politics of the present moment. But Kirsten Dunst is excellent as a battle scarred photojournalist.

Kirsten Dunst as Lee in Civil War. A24 hide caption

'Civil War' envisions a too-near future

April 12, 2024 • The new film Civil War depicts a contemporary America torn apart by a military conflict between the federal government and an alliance of secessionist states. Directed by Alex Garland ( Ex Machina ), the film follows a small band of journalists led by Kirsten Dunst's jaded war photographer. They embark on a harrowing journey to the heart of the conflict, encountering brutality and bloodshed along the way.

Nisha Murali in the Apple TV+ documentary film Girls State . Apple TV+ hide caption

'Girls State' provides hope and disappointment for the state of our democracy

April 11, 2024 • The new Apple TV+ documentary Girls State asks: how would high school girls do things if they were in charge? The film is a follow-up to 2020's Boys State , and this time, follows an annual high school program that gives hundreds of girls a chance to create a mock government, complete with elections and a Supreme Court. It was made during the 2022 session, which ended days before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and the case is very much on the minds of the girls in the program.

Stephen King at a press conference in 2013, in Paris. Eric Feferberg/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A guide to Stephen King

April 9, 2024 • Stephen King is one of the most successful living writers. He's written more than 50 books that have sold hundreds of millions of copies. And his works have been adapted into a number of classic films, including The Shining , The Shawshank Redemption , and It . This month marks the 50th anniversary of his first novel, Carrie , so we are revisiting our guide to Stephen King.

Dev Patel in Monkey Man . Akhirwan Nurhaidi/Universal Pictures hide caption

In 'Monkey Man,' Dev Patel gets revenge through gorilla warfare

April 5, 2024 • The new action film Monkey Man is Dev Patel's film – he serves as star, director, and co-writer. He plays a young man whose village was destroyed and mother murdered by elite members of society. He sets out to infiltrate their corrupt, rarified existence and seek his bloody, bloody revenge. There's plenty of gunplay, knife-play, ax-play, bone-crunching, tuk-tuk chases, and gouts of blood.

Niels Schneider and Lou de Laâge star in Coup de Chance. GRAVIER PRODUCTIONS hide caption

'Coup de Chance' is a typical Woody Allen film — with one appalling final detail

April 4, 2024 • Set in France, Allen's latest film covers familiar territory, including an adulterous romance, a premeditated murder and a darkly cynical consideration of the role that luck plays in human affairs.

Carol Duarte and Josh O'Connor in La Chimera . Neon hide caption

'La Chimera' is marvelous — right up to its most magical ending

April 2, 2024 • An archeological tomb robber wanders Italy, haunted by the memory of lost love. La Chimera is a playful fable that builds to not one but two thrilling scenes of underground exploration.

Ron Livingston in Office Space . Getty Images hide caption

Revisiting the movies of 1999

April 1, 2024 • Movies had a big year in 1999. Today, we're going back 25 years to talk about some of the most interesting movies released in 1999 — including Drop Dead Gorgeous , Office Space, and The Talented Mr. Ripley . In this encore episode, we'll talk about what holds up, what looks really different, and what we miss the most.

Godzilla in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Warner Bros. Pictures hide caption

'Godzilla x Kong' and 'Godzilla Minus One' revamp the classic monster story

March 29, 2024 • Godzilla has been around for 70 years and recently won his first Oscar. The beloved 2023 Japanese production Godzilla Minus One won an Oscar for visual effects. Now, the Hollywood MonsterVerse franchise rolls on with Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire , which pairs the two titans as they face a common enemy. Today, we talk about both movies and how they offer different takes on the decades-old monster story.

Finn Wolfhard, Celeste O'Connor, Paul Rudd, Kumail Nanjiani, Logan Kim and Carrie Coon in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. Columbia Pictures hide caption

'Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire' is a chill hang

March 25, 2024 • Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is the latest entry in the blockbuster action-comedy franchise. This time, the crew has set up shop in New York, and, with the help of the surviving original Ghostbusters, tries to stop a demon looking to freeze the world and rule over it. The film is packed with both newer and nostalgic cast members, including Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Paul Rudd, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and more.

Jake Gyllenhaal is a former UFC star who becomes a bouncer in Road House. Laura Radford/Prime Video hide caption

This recycled 'Road House' can't capture the B-movie spirit of the original

March 22, 2024 • The new remake of the 1989 Patrick Swayze film comes up short, caught between an unironic '80s homage and a more wised-up contemporary sensibility.

Jake Gyllenhaal in Road House . Laura Radford/Prime Video hide caption

Jake Gyllenhaal punches up a 'Road House' remake

March 22, 2024 • The 1989 movie Road House starred Patrick Swayze as a no-nonsense bouncer who saves a honky-tonk bar from a local toughs. Now, in the new remake, Jake Gyllenhaal plays a former UFC fighter who accepts a job to clean up a seaside bar in the Florida Keys that's being terrorized by a motorcycle gang. There's still plenty of fighting and plenty of brooding, but how does it hold up to the original cult classic?

Angela (Ilinca Manolache) is an underpaid production assistant on a film about workplace safety in Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World. Unifrance hide caption

You can expect a lot from this freewheeling film about the 'End of the World'

March 21, 2024 • A new Romanian film about an underpaid production assistant driving from gig to gig crackles with brains, obscenity, political anger and jokes that will have you laughing out loud.

Sydney Sweeney stars in Immaculate. Neon hide caption

Sydney Sweeney is a devout scream queen in the twisted 'Immaculate'

March 21, 2024 • In the new movie Immaculate, Sydney Sweeney plays Cecelia, an American woman who joins a convent in Italy. But after she arrives, she encounters strange occurrences and mysteriously winds up pregnant. Almost everyone in the convent touts it as a miracle, but Cecelia isn't so sure. Horror, of course, ensues. Immaculate was directed by Michael Mohan – who previously collaborated with Sweeney on the Hitchcock-esque thriller The Voyeurs .

Ed Speleers and Lindsay Lohan in Irish Wish . Patrick Redmond/Netflix hide caption

Romantic Comedy Guide: Irish Wish, Anyone But You, Upgraded

March 19, 2024 • If there is a spot in your heart-shaped like a rom-com, we've got some good news for you. You can stream a few playful love stories from your couch, whether you're a fan of Lindsay Lohan's red hair shining in Irish sunlight, Glen Powell's gleaming chest, or Camila Mendes navigating the glamorous art world. Today, we're rounding up three recent romantic comedies : Irish Wish, Anyone But You, and Upgraded.

Gu (Xin Baiqing) struggles with his own sense of impermanence in The Shadowless Tower. Strand Releasing hide caption

A Beijing restaurant critic arrives at a crossroads in this absorbing family drama

March 18, 2024 • A middle-aged protagonist struggles with his own sense of impermanence — and the return of his long-absent father. The Shadowless Tower is a subtle film that draws you in at every step.

Julio Torres wrote, directed and stars in Problemista. A24 hide caption

'Problemista' speaks softly but carries big laughs

March 18, 2024 • In the very funny and gently surreal new film Problemista , Julio Torres plays Alejandro, a young man from El Salvador scraping by in New York City as he pursues his dreams. But those dreams – and his immigration status – become imperiled. He must turn to a frazzled, fire-breathing art critic played by Tilda Swinton for emotional and financial support, which proves very fraught.

Katy O'Brian and Kristen Stewart in Love Lies Bleeding . A24 hide caption

'Love Lies Bleeding' is the queer erotic thriller Kristen Stewart fans have wanted

March 15, 2024 • The movie Love Lies Bleeding is a fun and weird erotic thriller. It's set in the late 1980s and stars Kristen Stewart as a brooding gym manager who falls in love with a hitchhiking bodybuilder, played by Katy O'Brian. Directed by Rose Glass ( Saint Maud ), the film's got a killer electronic soundtrack, and cinematic references of everything from John Waters to Showgirls .

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8 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This Week

Whether you’re a casual moviegoer or an avid buff, our reviewers think these films are worth knowing about.

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By The New York Times

CRITIC’S PICK

For this tennis-pro triad, it’s love, set, match.

‘Challengers’

The highly-anticipated latest from the director Luca Guadagnino (“Call Me by Your Name”) follows three tennis pros as they shift between lovers, friends and foes. It stars Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist.

From our review:

All three leads in “Challengers” are very appealing, and each brings emotional and psychological nuance to the story, whatever the characters’ current configuration. They’re also just fun to look at, and part of the pleasure of this movie is watching pretty people in states of undress restlessly circling one another, muscles tensed and desiring gazes ricocheting. Guadagnino knows this; he’s in his wheelhouse here, and you can feel his delight in his actors.

In theaters. Read the full review .

Critic’s Pick

A series of powerful vignettes.

‘terrestrial verses’.

Tehranians interact with various cultural officials in their everyday life — finding the right uniform for a daughter’s school ceremony, applying for a job or a drivers license, registering a son’s name — and must navigate the restraints of authoritarian bureaucracy.

Because each vignette is no more than a few minutes long and consists of Kafkaesque conversations that border on the absurd, “Terrestrial Verses” operates with a cumulative effect. It’s death by a thousand pinpricks, a succession of small indignities. Each seemingly simple task is not just saddled with procedural irritations — forms to fill out, appointments to attend, banal questions to answer — but with fear. Suppose your answer to a routine query could incriminate you or there’s no way to prove to an official that you aren’t lying. How would you live your life?

B(oredom). D(etachment). S(tagnation). M(alaise).

‘the feeling that the time for doing something has passed’.

This deadpan sex comedy directed, written by and starring Joanna Arnow in her debut feature follows a woman as she’s dominated both at work and in various B.D.S.M. relationships, none of which seem to bring her fulfillment.

Arnow films her own nude body with the kind of frankness that is called brave because she wants to be more confrontational than arousing. She’s so visible that it takes a beat to remember that someone can be physically exposed and emotionally opaque.

A tear-jerker that’s unusually understated.

‘nowhere special’.

A terminally-ill single father (James Norton) searches for the right adoptive parents to care for his son (Daniel Lamont) after he dies.

After being admonished by a snotty rich client because of slow work, John, taking the adage “you only live once” to heart, eggs the fellow’s house. It’s one of the few moments when the movie deigns to deliver a conventional satisfaction. But the mostly low-key mode of “Nowhere Special” is the right one. Norton is spectacular, but little Lamont delivers one of those uncanny performances that doesn’t seem like acting, and makes you feel for the kid almost as much as his onscreen parent does.

Another Cronenberg progeny with unsettling in her DNA.

In Caitlin Cronenberg’s feature debut, ecological collapse leads Canada to reduce its population by calling on citizens to volunteer for euthanasia. One well-off family discovers that the choice might not be so voluntary.

“Humane” is a thought experiment sprung to bloody life, a cross between the trolley problem and dystopian extinction nightmares. Set in the very near future, it tries to tackle a cascade of ethical questions. Who counts as valuable? What does it mean to be good? If humans wreck the earth, what will we do to survive? Do we even deserve it?

Perfect for arachnophobia exposure therapy.

After a venomous spider escapes from its owner’s care and begins rapidly reproducing, the residents of a low-income housing block must face off against these eight-legged menaces.

There are no fresh ideas in the French creepy-crawler “Infested,” yet this first feature from Sébastien Vanicek scurries forward with such pep and purpose that its shortcomings are easily forgivable. Add a handful of eager young actors, a sociopolitical slam and a claustrophobic location swarming with venomous spiders and you’ll be hunting for the DEET long before the credits roll.

Watch on Shudder . Read the full review .

Your standard musician biopic, but make it spiritual.

‘unsung hero’.

Based on a real family of musicians who have five Grammy Awards between them, this faith-based drama follows a tight-knit clan as they move from Australia to Nashville, and find success in recording Christian music.

Viewer beware: Between the uplift and the cringe, this movie may cause whiplash. Joel Smallbone plays his own father, David, who faces financial and reputational ruin after booking a big concert and failing to pack the house. He resettles the family in the United States, but no job materializes. His pep-talking spouse, Helen (Daisy Betts), and their beatific children pull up bootstraps and practically whistle while they work, but it’s not enough.

A boyish action flick starring a boy named Boy.

‘boy kills world’.

Blood begets more blood when a victim of an attack that left him deaf and mute seeks revenge on the perpetrators.

At least give it up for the stunt crew on “Boy Kills World,” a boneheaded action movie that gives some exceedingly fit performers — its hard-body star Bill Skarsgard very much included — a chance to flaunt their physical skills. To judge from all the grunting, the straining muscles and cascading sweat, Skarsgard, along with a few of his nimble co-stars and an army of stunt performers, puts in serious work to try to make the relentless bashing and smashing, flailing and dying look good. Too bad the filmmakers were incapable of doing the same.

Explore More in TV and Movies

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Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell speak about how “Anyone but You” beat the rom-com odds. Here are their takeaways after the film , debuting on Netflix, went from box office miss to runaway hit.

The vampire ballerina in the new movie “Abigail” has a long pop culture lineage . She and her sisters are obsessed, tormented and likely to cause harm.

In a joint interview, the actors Lily Gladstone and Riley Keough discuss “Under the Bridge,” their new true-crime series  based on a teenager’s brutal killing in British Columbia.

The movie “Civil War” has tapped into a dark set of national angst . In polls and in interviews, a segment of voters say they fear the country’s divides may lead to actual, not just rhetorical, battles.

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings   on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime  and Hulu  to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter  to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

The best movies of 2024 so far, according to critics

‘perfect days,’ ‘sasquatch sunset,’ ‘love lies bleeding’ and ‘civil war’ all make our evolving list of 2024’s best films.

When it comes to movies, why wait for the end-of-year best-of lists? A number of movies have already garnered three stars or more from The Washington Post’s critics and contributors (Ann Hornaday, Ty Burr, Amy Nicholson, Jen Yamato, Jessica Kiang, Michael O’Sullivan, Mark Jenkins and Michael Brodeur — identified by their initials below).

Throughout the year, we’ll update this list — bookmark it! — with the films that we loved and where to watch them. (Note that all movies reviewed by The Post in 2024 are eligible for inclusion.)

Writer-director Alex Garland doesn’t investigate how this war started or how long it’s been going on or whether it’s worth fighting. His lean, cruel film is about the ethics of photographing violence, and those blinders make it charge forward with gusto. The film feels poetically, deeply true, even when it’s suggesting that humans are more apt to tear one another apart for petty grievances than over a sincere defense of some kind of principles. Starring Kristen Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny. (R, 109 minutes) — Amy Nicholson

Where to watch: In theaters

Challengers

A slick, sexy, hugely entertaining, tennis-themed romantic triangle that offers three young performers at the top of their games under the guidance of Luca Guadagnino, a director who gives them room to swing in all senses of the word. The movie’s a paean to hard work and hedonism, and if its pleasures are mostly surface — grass, clay, emotional — it’s still been too long since we’ve had an intelligent frolic like this. Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor play rising tennis stars; Zendaya is their coach, holding down the center with her furiously knitted brow. (R, 131 minutes) — Ty Burr

Wicked Little Letters

An art-house audience pleaser , based on an actual historical incident, that slaps a veneer of tea-cozy classiness over cartoonish characters and changing social values. In a dingy English seaside town in 1920, someone has been sending anonymous poison-pen letters to church lady Edith (Olivia Colman) — written in language so obscene that it’s practically an art form — and suspicion quickly falls on the foul-mouthed Rose (Jessie Buckley), a single mother freshly arrived from Ireland. The movie is good fun and surprisingly obvious — a slapstick comedy of manners that only hints at darker human urges. (R, 100 minutes) — T.B.

Sasquatch Sunset

Either the silliest movie you’ll see in 2024 or one of the most unexpectedly affecting, but, like the meme says, why not both ? A year in the life of a family of Bigfoots — Bigfeet? — it functions simultaneously as slow-motion slapstick, a very hairy nature documentary and a melancholy portrait of creatures not unlike us as they confront their own disappearance from the Earth. With no narration and no dialogue beside grunts, hoots and warbles, the movie effectively puts an audience on the same (big) footing as the characters. Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Riley Keough and Nathan Zellner. (R, 89 minutes) — T.B.

Two-time Oscar winner Ennio Morricone , who died in 202o at the age of 91, was a composer and arranger of music that helped define what it sounds like to go to the movies. Now, director Giuseppe Tornatore — who worked with Morricone for nearly all his films, including 1988’s “Cinema Paradiso” — turns an overdue spotlight on the composer behind the legendary scores of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” “The Thing” and more than 500 others. At nearly three hours, “Ennio” is a long haul, exhaustive without ever becoming exhausting. Though it could definitely survive edits, its length feels like the product of genuine ardor and care. (Unrated, 156 minutes) — Michael Brodeur

Where to watch: In theaters and on demand

The People’s Joker

Hollywood’s superhero blockbuster business has grown creatively stale, but Vera Drew’s irreverent renegade opus is just the antidote the genre desperately needs. Both a tough-love letter to the commodified IP it satirizes and a scathing takedown of mainstream comedy institutions, this defiantly personal low-budget marvel is also a genuinely affecting queer coming-of-age tale in which Drew stars as Joker, a closeted trans woman and aspiring comedian who leaves her Smallville hometown for a dystopian Gotham City. Her film is the cinematic coup of the year, finally delivering the boundary-obliterating antiheroine Hollywood deserves. (Unrated, 92 minutes) — Jen Yamato

The Iranian French actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi has the eyes of a silent film heroine and the face of a Modigliani. In repose, she can convey a sense of sorrow that feels both elegant and timeless, but in “ Shayda ,” that stillness is fraught with specific threat: the anguish of a woman fleeing an abusive husband. Made with a striking sensitivity to mood and moment, the film marks a strong debut for Iranian Australian writer-director Noora Niasari, who mines her own experience and that of her mother for a gripping yet tender suspense drama. (PG-13, 117 minutes) — T.B.

Antiquity and the modern day sit side by side in the films of Italy’s Alice Rohrwacher, permeating each other with the timelessness of a folk tale passed around a campfire. The writer-director’s latest concerns a raffish band of working-class tombaroli — grave robbers — who dig up ancient Etruscan artifacts and sell them on the black market, but the movie’s also a meditation on the tension between romanticizing the past and profiting from it. Wise, funny and mysterious, it’s a one-of-a-kind charmer. (Unrated, 132 minutes) — T.B.

Where to watch: Not yet streaming

Love Lies Bleeding

Rose Glass’s gorgeously pulpy film is a grisly delirium of female rage and romance in which queerness is neither a liability nor a simple fact of life that deserves respect: It’s a goddamn superpower. Kristen Stewart, in a skeevy mullet and a sleeveless tee, plays a gym manager who falls in crazy, scuzzy love with a bodybuilding drifter (Katy O’Brian). There are pyrotechnics and sucked toes and a jaw beaten clean off a skull. In terms of graphic gore, the head-stomping scene in “American History X” and the corpse-splitting moment in “Bone Tomahawk” need to scooch over on the podium. (R, 104 minutes) — Jessica Kiang

Where to watch: In theaters, available for streaming later this year on Max

They Shot the Piano Player

Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba (“Belle Époque”) and artist/co-director Javier Mariscal celebrate the spirit of Brazilian bossa nova and the ghosts of artists who live on only in recordings and archival interviews. But this animated documentary ’s central ghost remains touchingly and frustratingly unknowable: Francisco Tenório Júnior, a gifted pianist, considered by his peers as one of the best of their generation, who disappeared in 1976 while on tour in Argentina. “They Shot the Piano Player” doesn’t unravel a mystery so much as confirm a tragedy. (PG-13, 103 minutes) — T.B.

Four Daughters

Film as family therapy and family therapy as film. This gripping and format-stretching documentary by writer-director Kaouther Ben Hania brings actors into the household of a Tunisian mother named Olfa and her two youngest daughters, both teenagers. The three women play themselves alongside two professional actors filling in for the girls’ two missing siblings — what happened to them will unfurl, one twist at a time. (Unrated, 110 minutes) — A.N.

Where to watch: Netflix

Perfect Days

The premise is perfectly simple: Hirayama (Kôji Yakusho) lives in Tokyo, where he cleans bathrooms, approaching his job with the same care and detail he gives to the tree seedlings he’s nurturing in his modest, sparsely furnished apartment. The fact that writer-director Wim Wenders has called a movie about cleaning toilets “Perfect Days” might strike some viewers as the height of absurdity, even perverse humor (the film bears more than a whiff of Jim Jarmusch at his most wryly absurdist). But once they get a glimpse of Hirayama in action, the dreams behind the drudgery reveal themselves. (PG, 123 minutes) — Ann Hornaday

Where to watch: On demand

Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville (“Twenty Feet from Stardom”), this documentary take on comic Steve Martin is broken into two feature-length installments, titled “Then” (94 minutes) and “Now” (97 minutes). The first and lesser half is pretty standard stuff, covering in enjoyable but repetitive detail the period of Martin’s gradual stand-up ascendancy to selling out stadiums. The much more engaging “Now” dips in and out of Martin’s movie career, includes interviews (Jerry Seinfeld, Tina Fey, Lorne Michaels) and delivers candid moments with Martin’s bestie, Martin Short. (TV-MA, 191 minutes in two parts) — J.K.

Where to watch: Apple TV Plus

The Zone of Interest

Jonathan Glazer’s quietly shattering, Oscar-winning portrait of a family living next door to Auschwitz is really two movies in one: the film that audiences see on-screen — a bucolic domestic drama, filled with children, gardens and daily rituals — and the movie we conjure in our minds, with images of emaciated bodies, shaved heads and screams barely audible above the clinking teacups and cooing babies. Adapted from Martin Amis’s novel, the film is about denial and Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil. But the mental contortions Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) go through to justify their own monstrosity go beyond obliviousness into something far more insidious and timeless. (PG-13, 106 minutes) — A.H.

Where to watch: Max

Ava DuVernay’s audacious, ambitious adaptation of the equally audacious and ambitious book “Caste,” operates on so many levels at once that the effect is often dizzyingly disorienting. But hang in there: Viewers who allow themselves to be taken on this wide-ranging, occasionally digressive journey will emerge not just edified but emotionally wrung out and, somehow, cleansed. (PG-13, 135 minutes) — A.H.

The Taste of Things

A radiant Juliette Binoche plays Eugénie, a gifted cook who for the past 20 years has been running the kitchen of a 19th-century epicurean named Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel). No one breaks a sweat in “ The Taste of Things ” — they glow. No one swears or yells “Corner!” or “Yes, chef!” — they whisper, or simply deliver an approving glance of gustatory satisfaction. This is the anti-“Bear,” a sensuous fantasia of gastronomical pleasure less redolent of the Beef than “Babette’s Feast.” (PG-13, 134 minutes) — A.H.

Born two months before the Nazis surrendered, celebrated German artist Anselm Kiefer grew up amid his homeland’s rubble. Destruction still compels and even delights him, as Wim Wenders demonstrates in his epic 3D documentary. The colossal spaces Kiefer inhabits and transforms are ideal for Wenders’s approach, which conveys the physicality of the artist’s work and places the viewer virtually within the maelstrom of creation. It’s a fascinating, if somewhat unnerving, place to be. (Unrated, 93 minutes) — Mark Jenkins

How to Have Sex

The title of this promising writing-directing debut from Molly Manning Walker is something of a misdirect. Her startlingly intimate portrait of teenage girls in search of the endless party while on summer holiday in Greece is more accurately described as a tutorial in how not to have sex, i.e., when you’re young, inebriated, feeling pressured or vulnerable to manipulation. In its frankness and often frightening candor, it’s of a piece with coming-of-age dramas like “Thirteen” and “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” with a dash of “Spring Breakers.” (Unrated, 90 minutes) — A.H.

Io Capitano

Matteo Garrone’s Oscar-nominated, migrant-themed drama fashions a hero’s journey that feels utterly of the moment: inspired by the true stories of African immigrants , but told in a way that features episodes of both harrowing verisimilitude and hallucinatory magic realism. It’s a film that is gorgeous at times yet also tough to watch. (Unrated, 121 minutes) — Michael O’Sullivan

The Teachers’ Lounge

Despite the title of Germany’s Oscar submission , the primary setting is a sixth-grade classroom, where things have gone missing lately. As school officials attempt to get to the bottom of the thefts, that classroom becomes a mirror of the outside world, with all its diversity, divisions and discontents. The film is far more than a conventional whodunit, though it does build a nice head of suspense as it grapples with themes of justice, doubt and bias. Its larger message is also one worth hearing, if not exactly news: In an age of cancel culture, the classroom is a battlefield. (PG-13, 98 minutes) — M.O.

Sometimes I Think About Dying

As subdued in tone and emotion as the neutral beige and brown ensembles favored by its mousy, office-worker protagonist (Daisy Ridley), this film offers an unconventional love story : one less about the thrill of romance than about the terror — and ultimate release — of connection. Director Rachel Lambert delivers its story with a reserve that is made up for by a genuinely affecting tenderness for its flawed yet searching characters. It’s kind of a downer, yes, but also stimulating as hell. (PG-13, 91 minutes) — M.O.

The Monk and the Gun

This sweet, off-kilter comedy offers a sly satire of today’s polarized world. Written and directed by Pawo Choyning Dorji, and focusing on Bhutan’s preparations for the democratic elections first held in 2008, it shares the same wry spirit and gentle tension between tradition and modernity that characterized the Bhutanese-born, American-trained filmmaker’s heartwarming Oscar-nominated 2019 film, “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom,” but with some added bite. (PG-13, 112 minutes) — M.O.

This rebooted hybrid of the hit 2004 movie “ Mean Girls ” and the Broadway stage musical it spawned wisely doesn’t try to simply adapt for the screen something that worked onstage and wouldn’t translate to film. Yes, it’s got songs (by Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin), but they feel abridged and ever so slightly diminished, delivered more in the context of the original narrative of viral shaming, which has been tweaked for our TikTok times. The remake is sharp, well-acted and funny, and there are a few surprises for “Mean Girls” cultists. (PG-13, 105 minutes) — M.O.

Where to watch: Paramount Plus

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, mr. malcolm's list.

Now streaming on:

“Mr. Malcolm’s List” is a light, frothy movie that concerns a gentleman who has the wrong idea about dating. Or as it’s known in this 19th-century period piece, courtship. Mr. Malcolm is played by Sope Dirisu , with a poise that would make Sidney Poitier proud, and he carries that confidence to his misguided search for the perfect wife in Regency-era England. He has an actual list of ten qualities that he wants from a perfect match, including: “Candid, truthful and guileless,” “amiable and even-tempered,” having musical talent, and also being able to talk about politics. The wealthy Mr. Malcolm is a hot commodity in the dating pool that he is anxious to get a bride from, but he’s clearly not making it easier.  

One woman, Ms. Julia Thistlewaite, experiences the burn from this list—she didn’t meet the politics requirement during an otherwise disastrous date at the opera. And she does not take it well, especially when the local newspaper makes a meme of her disastrous date for all the public to laugh about. To heal her bruised ego, this character played by Zawe Ashton  enlists her somewhat naive childhood friend from the country, Ms. Selina Dalton ( Freida Pinto ) in a classic scheme—Ms. Dalton will pretend to be the different things that Mr. Malcolm is looking for. She'll read large books, pretend to play Chopin on piano (with the help of Ms. Thistlewaite's cousin, Lord Cassidy [ Oliver Jackson-Cohen ]), and charm Mr. Malcolm with a hoax. And right when he declares his love for this fake version of Ms. Dalton, he’ll learn a lesson about being so picky.  Things do not go according to plan. 

Many directors talk about casting as being one of the most important parts of the filmmaking process, and director Emma Holly Jones certainly celebrates that here. There is no weak link or uninteresting person in this ensemble; it’s full of compelling, contrasting energies that own the era's dialogue and polite physicality.   Pinto is mighty charming in the role that has Ms. Dalton going along for the ride, but maintaining her gut instinct about love; Dirisu is equal parts charming and imperfect as his character reveals his more sensitive side; Ashton is just the right amount of frustrating as the jilted mastermind who threatens to trash everything, including her friendship, with her vanity; Theo James , as Captain Henry Ossory, looks great with a top hat and mustache while adding another gentle complication to this movie’s strolling, PG-rated romance.  

"Mr. Malcolm's List" throws in other side characters who add little flourishes, and will likely make viewers wish this character here or there had more screen-time. I enjoyed the off-hand banter between footman John ( Divian Ladwa ) and maid Molly ( Sianad Gregory ), who get to watch the proceedings and make comments while sparking their connection. Jackson-Cohen has an amusing part as ditzy cousin Lord Cassidy, which includes his serious fear of horses and mispronunciation of Greek philosophers. Naoko Mori oversees much of this as Mrs. Thistlewaite, giving the camera a juicy side-eye or two. And Ashley Park has a good deal of fun with the colorful part as socialite Ms. Gertie Covington, in which she barrels into a few scenes and giggles at 100 mph, owning her character’s placement as being twice married and looking for round three.  

Did you notice that many of these actors are people of color, playing roles one would not typically see in previous recreations of the Regency era? The film wants you to notice, but in its quietly subversive nature, it lets that all speak for itself. "Mr. Malcolm's List" is, through and through, about dignity. Always dignity.  

As period piece entertainment, the movie shoots pheasants in a barrel. It’s got all the genre trappings that can fill trailers and sell tickets: horseback riding captured in a wide shot, seductive dances to Schubert, lavish gowns, carriage rides, characters sipping tea, a night at the opera, a tour of a rose garden, a masquerade. And you would be plenty replenished if you drank water every time someone was politely addressed as “Mr.” “Mrs.” or “Ms.” “Mr. Malcolm’s List” loves the purity that comes with a wholesome period piece ("namby-pamby" is the most offensive thing said throughout) and often flourishes with it.  

Based on the book by Suzanne Allain, who also wrote the script, “Mr. Malcolm’s List” feels as choreographed as a dance, and that becomes a large part of its welcoming ease across two hours. There’s no great, believable reason that Ms. Dalton and Lord Covington go along with Ms. Thistlewaite’s plan, but it’s much more fun to see it unfold than it is to poke holes into. And while the conflicts come right on time and resolve with mighty tidiness, "Mr. Malcolm's List" is not really about surprise. For centuries, across many hellscapes of dating, people have found the dance itself to be good fun. And for a perfectly fine reason.  

Now playing in theaters.

Nick Allen is the former Senior Editor at RogerEbert.com and a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Mr. Malcolm's List (2022)

Rated PG for some smoking and mild language.

117 minutes

Freida Pinto as Selina Dalton

Zawe Ashton as Julia Thistlewaite

Sope Dirisu as Jeremy Malcolm

Oliver Jackson-Cohen as Lord Cassidy

Ashley Park as Gertie Covington

Theo James as Captain Henry Ossory

Sianad Gregory as Molly

Divian Ladwa as John

Naoko Mori as Mrs. Thistlewaite

• Emma Holly Jones

Writer (based on the novel "Mr. Malcolm's List" by)

• Suzanne Allaine

Cinematographer

• Tony Miller
• Kate Hickey
• Amelia Warner

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Challengers

Tashi, a former tennis prodigy turned coach, turned her husband into a champion. But to overcome a losing streak, he needs to face his ex-best friend and Tashi's ex-boyfriend. Tashi, a former tennis prodigy turned coach, turned her husband into a champion. But to overcome a losing streak, he needs to face his ex-best friend and Tashi's ex-boyfriend. Tashi, a former tennis prodigy turned coach, turned her husband into a champion. But to overcome a losing streak, he needs to face his ex-best friend and Tashi's ex-boyfriend.

• Luca Guadagnino
• Justin Kuritzkes
• Josh O'Connor
• 98 User reviews
• 144 Critic reviews
• 83 Metascore
• 1 nomination

• Tashi Donaldson

• Art Donaldson

• Patrick Zweig
• Umpire (New Rochelle Final)

• Art's Physiotherapist

• Art's Security Guard
• (as a different name)
• Tashi's Mother
• Line Judge (New Rochelle Final)
• TV Sports Commentator (Atlanta 2019)

• Leo Du Marier

• Woman With Headset (Atlanta 2019)

• Motel Front Desk Clerk
• Motel Husband

• New Rochelle Parking Lot Guard
• USTA Official …
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Taking On "Challengers"

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• Trivia To prepare for her role, Zendaya spent three months with pro tennis player-turned-coach, Brad Gilbert .

Tashi Donaldson : I'm taking such good care of my little white boys.

• Connections Featured in The Project: Episode dated 26 March 2024 (2024)
• Soundtracks Time Will Crawl Written and performed by David Bowie

User reviews 98

• Gamergurl69
• Apr 22, 2024
• When was Challengers released? Powered by Alexa
• April 26, 2024 (United States)
• United States
• Official Site
• Những Kẻ Thách Đấu
• Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Frenesy Film Company
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
• Pascal Pictures
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 11 minutes
• Dolby Digital
• Dolby Atmos

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Challengers Reviews

There's a lot of stuff in the film that isn't being given to the audience. You have to read into the characters yourself.

Full Review | Apr 28, 2024

The movie would be much better if it was trimmed down from 131 minutes to 90 minutes. It screams of a tighter edit as many scenes are repetitive and we start to care less about the characters.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Apr 28, 2024

I have experienced a bit of this in a different time/place, so I was been-there-done-that, and the slow story doesn't help, but like a passed car wreck I knew it was giving me negative feelings but I couldn't help but to look. Great ending & performances!

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 27, 2024

With a pounding score by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, brilliantly mixed by Boys Noize, this modern version of “Jules and Jim” with a “Carnal Knowledge” twist features terrific performances, unyielding tension, and chronic energy.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 27, 2024

Zendaya has been extraordinary playing teens and young adults, but she simply doesn’t have the physical or emotional gravitas to pull off the portrayal of a fierce world class tennis player turned ruthless world class coach.

Full Review | Apr 27, 2024

Challengers is not without heart, but it’s not the point. Some movies require tissues to wipe away the tears, but this one will make you want to take a shower after viewing—possibly a cold one.

Challengers is one of the most outstanding films of the decade, achieving an uproariously off-the-wall standard that we might not see for a while.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Apr 27, 2024

Anyone looking for the real winner here easily will call it Game, Set and Match for Zendaya.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 27, 2024

If tennis is a relationship, then Challengers is the lustful honeymoon period. When the credits roll, you just want more of it.

While not every serve lands in bounds, the game it plays with the heart proves worth the watch.

In what is easily his lightest and most accessible film yet, [Luca] Guadagnino takes primal human emotions—attraction, jealousy, failure, betrayal, despair, and sacrifice—and turns them into something endlessly fascinating. Game, set, match. Applause.

What’s explored is a complex love triangle full of desire, ambition, and betrayal, delivering pulse-pounding action on the court and palpable tension off the court.

Challengers will challenge your dedication to verocity, challenge your need for personal and professional desires, yet leave you wanting more on every visceral level.

Zendaya, Faist, and O’Connor are superb. It’s clear that the three main performers have trained hard for their roles. Yes, there are tricks that can be used in making sports movies, but what matters is that the visuals are believable. They are.

Although the story by no means shies away from the hot-and-heavy stuff, it also finds real emotional complexity in it.

At 131 minutes, Challengers is certainly inflated, but it moves swiftly thanks to the ace editing by Marco Costa. The cutting has to be clever in order to complement the screenplay’s structure...

Sweat-drenched and emotionally bruising.

What we do see is lurid and exciting. You get two charismatic, still-rising actors and one giant movie star sweating and screwing and elsewhere being just as frustrated and defeated by life’s absurd and comedic unfairness as the rest of us.

Whether it was the script or the talent or the director, this movie is a lot more interested in pretty pictures and close-ups of moist lips than it is in telling a story that actually feels emotionally and intellectually real.

Challengers is not a classic, and might not even be one of Guadagnino's best three movies, but it's bright, sexy, witty and fun...