Culture | Movies

Our reviewer sees potential for two new holiday films, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” and “That Christmas,” to become seasonal favorites. Both stories, he says, explore the same question: What makes Christmas meaningful?

Two new animated films – both centered on water – touch on the power of connection. One is our movie critic’s favorite of the year.

Fairy tales often present characters as either good or bad. “Wicked” author Gregory Maguire asks readers to let go of binary thinking as they consider morality. 

With “All We Imagine as Light,” an Indian filmmaker draws our attention to personal stories – and the many ways a life can have meaning. 

“Emilia Pérez” is a feminist musical crime thriller about a transgender cartel boss. Part operetta, part telenovela, it shimmies between the archetypal and the intensely personal, writes Monitor film critic Peter Rainer.

“A Real Pain,” written by, directed by, and co-starring Jesse Eisenberg, is the kind of movie that creeps up on you, says film critic Peter Rainer. It has a way of seeing that, in its own modest way, owes something to the Yiddish sensibility that informed storytellers like Isaac Bashevis Singer.

After a six-year hiatus from live concerts, what would Bruce Springsteen’s return offer? The rocker is “entirely captivating” in the latest documentary capturing his craft, says the Monitor’s film critic.

People who live on society’s margins aren’t always treated with compassion and sympathy. But the director of “Anora” offers both. “I’ve rarely encountered a scene that moved me as completely and complicatedly as this film’s final moments,” says the Monitor’s critic.

As his new movie debuts, artist Titus Kaphar reflects on what it takes to arrive at forgiveness – and to share it with the world.

Women free divers in South Korea don’t view age as a limitation. The director of a new documentary discusses their determination, and how it helps them persevere in the centuries-old tradition they uphold.