1 Elle (Opens Friday, November 18) Paul Verhoeven’s return to the big screen is an assured black comedy of power in the modern world: shocking and thrilling and oh so funny. Plus, Isabelle Huppert at the height of her monstrous power to delight.
2 Manchester By The Sea (Opens Friday, November 25) After the protracted post-production and off-screen legal drama of the ragged but mighty “Margaret,” Kenneth Lonergan returns with a wrenchingly emotional family drama.
3 Daughters of the Dust (Siskel, opens Friday, November 25) Julie Dash’s long-unseen landmark 1991 drama of Gullah life on the South Carolina coast returns in a digital restoration.
4 Raising Bertie (Siskel, opens Friday, November 18) A few years in the life of three boys in a rural North Carolina town: Margaret Byrne’s documentary is bright and piercing.
5 The Love Witch (Siskel, opens Friday November 25) Anna Biller’s blissfully strange appropriation of the trappings of sexploitation, horror and high art is a rubicund marvel. Shown in 35mm.
Film Top 5: May 2018 Cinema from Euro elders, including Philippe Garrel, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Paul Schrader, Wim Wenders and a look at the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Top 5 Film: January 2020 Chaplin, Kael, Cage, Lubitsch, Altman, Scorsese, Bertolucci, Reichardt, to banish the winter blues.
Top 5 Film: December 2019 Safdies; Sandler; Louisa May Alcott; Greta Gerwig; Saoirse Ronan; Almodóvar; Banderas; Ridley; Driver... Steve Bannon?
Film Top 5: February 2020 Siskel marks its thirtieth year of films from Iran; blasts from the past from Otto Preminger, Brian De Palma, Anthony Mann and Rudy Ray Moore.
Film Top 5: April 2020 Traversing the landscapes of high studio filmmaking; Lisboa; Kyiv; in the footsteps of adventurer Bruce Chatwin and in the mind of a troubled young nurse.
