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: November 2018 Vigo's body of work is small, but one of the most essential in all of cinema.
Film Top 5: December 2018 Restorations rule the roost, with Siskel's smorgasboard smacking on "Detour," "Wings of Desire" and "Andrei Rublev," while the Music Box goes yo-ho-ho for thirty-five with the Christmas Singalong, "White Christmas" and "It's a Wonderful Life." And Clint Eastwood, at 88, directs himself once more as a wizened, if not wise codger daring the law.
Film Top 5: June 2019 Classics time with Cassavetes, Hartley, Jarmusch, Pasolini and Chicago Underground turning twenty-six.
Film Top 5: August 2019 Chicago in the 1930s; Houston in the 1970s; a world of water; and the streets of Sheffield as if destroyed by distant nuclear war.
