1 High Life (Music Box Theatre) Claire Denis in space. (Yes!) With Juliette Binoche, Robert Pattinson, André Benjamin, Mia Goth. (Yes!) Photographed by Yorick Le Saux. (Yes!) Music by Stuart A. Staples of Tindersticks. (Oui!) Opens April 12
2 The Brink “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” director Alison Klayman follows the sticky trail of self-proclaimed Leninist self-promoting political nihilist Steve Bannon (beating Errol Morris’ self-distributed feature-length interview to the marketplace). April 5
3 Hotel by the River (Gene Siskel Film Center) Hong Sang-soo’s midlife renaissance continues apace, with his seventh released feature since 2015, a melancholy black-and-white dive into all things small and large of life in confined time and space. April 19-25
4 A Bread Factory (Gene Siskel Film Center) Mammoth modest epic of community and commerce and gentrification and globalization and celebrity and performance art by renegade filmmaker Patrick Wang. April 12-17
5 The Beach Bum (Music Box Theatre) Rooting for you, Harmony Korine. March 29
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.
Film Top 5: September 2019 Monte Hellman's road movie masterpiece; a vast survey of the work of Iran's Abbas Kiarostami; an awards push for "Joker"; "Noir City Chicago"; and a portrait of Trump's wicked mentor, Roy Cohn.
Film Top 5: October 2019 One of Bresson's greatest; two versions of Hemingway's "The Killers"; Nina Menke's essential "Queen of Diamonds"; Almodóvar and Antonio Banderas; and an early 70s horror gem.
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.
