David Ehrlich

Cartoons aren’t just for kids, of course. But for most kids, cartoons are where a love of movies often starts. No matter how highfalutin your taste in movies as an adult, chances are, your first cinematic obsession was an animation – whether it was a classic of Disney’s Golden Age or its ‘90s renaissance period, a Pixar heart-tugger or perhaps even a Studio Ghibli masterpiece. It’s a love most of us never never fully grow out of, either. Ask any parent about the joys of early child-rearing and they’ll undoubtedly tell you about showing their kids a cartoon they loved as a young’un. It’s a magical experience you get from few other forms of entertainment.   But the best animated movies don’t just appeal to kids, nor childhood nostalgia. They work on multiple levels, for broad audiences and age groups. In composing this list of the greatest animated movies ever made, we polled Time Out writers and experts including Fantastic Mr Fox’s Wes Anderson and Wallace and Gromit’s Nick Park, and the results run the gamut, from from those Disney, Pixar and Ghibli no-brainers to stop-motion nightmares, psychedelic headtrips, illustrated documentaries and bizarre experimental features that are decidedly for adults only. The movies on this list may make you feel like a kid again – but they may also blow your grown-up mind in ways you never expected.  Written by Trevor Johnston, David Ehrlich, Joshua Rothkoph, Tom Huddleston, Andy Kryza, Guy Lodge, Dave Calhoun, Keith Uhlich, Cath Clarke and M

Um homem sábio e violento perguntou certa vez: "Gostas de filmes assustadores?". A pergunta certa, porém, é: quem não gosta de filmes assustadores? Não existe emoção mais poderosa do que o medo. E podemos experimentá-lo de forma controlada, através do entretenimento. Claro, todos temos os nossos limites: nem todos estão preparados para ver um palhaço demoníaco a serrar uma mulher ao meio (embora os lucros de bilheteira sugiram que há um número surpreendente de pessoas que está). Mas até os mais medrosos gostam de um pequeno susto de vez em quando. O género de terror está a viver um grande momento de renascimento, tanto junto dos espectadores como da crítica. Em 2024, alguns dos maiores e mais comentados filmes do ano (I Saw the TV Glow, O Coleccionador de Almas, A Substância e o sucesso de bilheteira Terrifier 3 – Aterrorizante) pertencem ao género. Mas o terror tem uma longa história, que remonta ao início do cinema. Quer ter os nervos à flor da pele? Com estes 100 clássicos, é provável que o encontrem escondido atrás do sofá quando os créditos finais estiverem a rolar. Textos de Tom Huddleston, Cath Clarke, Dave Calhoun, Nigel Floyd, Phil de Semlyen, David Ehrlich, Joshua Rothkopf, Nigel Floyd, Andy Kryza, Alim Kheraj e Matthew Singer. Recomendado: As escolhas dos peritos

A wise, violent man once asked: ‘Do you like scary movies?’ The better question, though, is who doesn’t like scary movies? Is there any feeling more exhilarating than a jolt of fright, especially if it’s in the form of entertainment? Sure, we all have our limits: not everyone is up for watching a demonic clown saw a woman in half. (Although the box office returns suggest a surprising number of people are.) But even the most squeamish scaredy cats enjoy a light bump in the night every now and then, especially when October rolls around. Horror is the midst of a major renaissance moment, commercially and critically. In 2024, some of the biggest, buzziest movies of the year – I Saw the TV Glow, Longlegs, The Substance and the aforementioned box-office shocker Terrifier 3 – belong to the genre. But horror has a long history, dating back to the earliest days of cinema. Looking to have your nerves rattled? These 100 classics are guaranteed to have you hiding behind your couch by the time the credits roll. Written by Tom Huddleston, Cath Clarke, Dave Calhoun, Nigel Floyd, Phil de Semlyen, David Ehrlich, Joshua Rothkopf, Nigel Floyd, Andy Kryza, Alim Kheraj and Matthew Singer Recommended: 🔪 The best new horror movies of 2024 (so far)🔥 The 100 best movies of all time👹 Cinema’s creepiest anthology horror movies🩸 The 15 scariest horror movies based on true stories

Damn it feels good to be a gangster. Or at least, that’s what the movies tell us. In reality, it seems like a bum gig. Always looking over your shoulder, unsure of who you can trust. Do you even have time to enjoy all that ill-gotten money you’re making? On screen, though, the gangster life has a certain glamour, even if it depicts many of those same drawbacks. Living outside the law? Having money, power, respect? Sounds pretty fun, at least to experience vicariously for two hours at a time. And so, here is our tribute to cinema’s gangsters, in all their many forms, from hard-boiled mobsters to yakuza enforcers to street-level bosses ruling over city blocks. Gangster movies are themselves diverse: some are loud and violent, others smooth and calm. Some are horrific, others romantic or funny or just plain weird. So let’s crack open the bank vault and look around – because in these films, crime does pay. Recommended: 😬 The 100 best thriller movies of all-time💣 The 101 best action movies ever made🔪 The 31 best serial killer movies🕵️ 40 murder mysteries to test your sleuthing skills to the max

Everyone loves a good action movie, even if some won’t admit it. Film school snobs may pretend to turn up their noses, but no matter how cultured you’d like to think you are, there’s a part of your lizard brain that loves explosions and shootouts and badass one-liners – and it needs to be satisfied.  But action flicks needn’t be dumb, loud or graphic to succeed. Some find beauty in orchestrated violence. Others might crane-kick you right in the heart. Some even have – gasp! – character development. And so, to help put together this definitive list of the greatest action movies ever made, we reached out to some of the people who understand the action genre better than anyone, from Die Hard director John McTiernan to Machete himself, Danny Trejo. Pull the pin, light the fuse and batten down the hatches – these are the most pulse-pounding, edge-of-your-seat thrill rides ever put to film.  Written by Eddy Frankel, Eddy Frankel, Yu An Su, Joshua Rothkopf, Trevor Johnston, Ashley Clark, Grady Hendrix, Tom Huddleston, Keith Uhlich, Dave Calhoun, Phil de Semlyen, Dave Calhoun and Matthew Singer Recommended: 🔥 The 100 best movies of all-time🪖 The 18 greatest stunts in cinema (as picked by the greatest stunt people)🥋 The 25 best martial arts movies of all-time

Sex scenes are back! After a chaste period that had the internet wondering why cinema had lost its libido altogether, big-screen nookie has made a comeback. From Poor Things’ orgy of ‘furious jumping’ to Passages’ complex, elicit ménage à trois, to All of Us Strangers’ tender gay romance and Femme’s much less tender one, sex is everywhere you look – and it’s all to the good. Because while Jermaine Stewart wasn’t wrong when he sang that: ‘you don’t have to take your clothes off to have a good time’, some well-judged on-screen sex can definitely help a filmmaker tell their story – and ideally, not in a porn-y, lascivious, exploitative way. Because as a means of deepening a romance, building character, shocking and provoking an audience, there’s plenty to be said for kicking off the undies and getting down to it. But there’s a bigger story here, too, because the story of sex scenes is the story of cinema: a slow evolution from Hays Code-era censorship to a more open and honest view of human behaviour marked by sudden advances in what’s depicted – and more than a few regressive ones, too. The good, the bad and the ugly – looking at you, Last Tango in Paris – are all represented by the 101 entries below, a list that show how films’ steamier sides has shaken up the medium – and the world. Sorry Jermaine, but we’re taking cinema’s clothes off.  Written by Dave Calhoun, Joshua Rothkopf, Cath Clarke, David Ehrlich, Phil de Semlyen, Daniel Walber, Trevor Johnston, Andy Kryza, Daniel Wa

When it comes right down to it, our list of the 100 best movie sex scenes really told only half of the story. Cinema is an inherently visual medium, but so much of its power them stems from the things we don’t see. Basic Instinct may have been groundbreaking, but a quick flash of the goods isn’t especially hot. Showgirls may have earned that NC-17, but none of it is as steamy as the cut from a kiss to a train plunging into a tunnel at the end of Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. Movies, like sex, exist first and foremost in the imagination, so it’s no surprise that many of their most memorably erotic moments do away with the deed altogether. Here are 15 of the sexiest film moments that didn't need sex to go all the way. RECOMMENDED: Our list of the 100 best movie sex scenes ever made

They may be few and far between, but a handful of movie stars have shown a consistent interest in making sure that sex—actual, complicated, unashamed sex—isn’t entirely relegated to the art house. This list features women who have been dropped into an industry that institutionally exploits their sexuality, but have still managed to inhabit sex scenes on their own terms. You can also find men here who were granted the power to subvert Hollywood’s calcified gender dynamics, and did exactly that. RECOMMENDED: Our list of the 100 best movie sex scenes ever made

Horror cinema is a monster. Mistreated, misunderstood and subjected to vicious critical attacks, somehow it keeps lumbering forward, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. For some, horror films are little better than pornography, focused purely on evoking a reaction – be it terror, disquiet or disgust – with little thought for 'higher' aspirations. For others, they're just a bit of fun: a chance to shriek and snigger at someone's second-hand nightmare. But look again, and the story of horror is also the story of innovation and non-conformity in cinema, a place where dangerous ideas can be expressed, radical techniques can be explored, and filmmakers outside the mainstream can still make a big cultural splash. If cinema itself has an unconscious, a dark little corner from which new ideas emerge, blinking and malformed, it must be horror. The question is – which are the best horror films? Time Out proudly presents the 100 best horror films, as chosen by those who write in, direct, star in and celebrate the genre. For more, check out our guides to the best comedy, rom coms, family and animated movies.

What are the greatest movie sex scenes? The ones you really don’t want to come on when you’re enjoying a quiet night in front of the telly with your parents? It can be tough to avoid. From cinema’s seemingly chaste early days through a century-and-a-bit of shadowy film noirs, swooning romances, erotically charged ’80s thrillers and just about every film with Marlon Brando in, sex is there, ready to engulf us in its sweaty embrace. Some filmmakers chose to cut tastefully around the deed itself; some have thrown caution (and clothes) to the wind to let it all hang out. Others, like Michael Winterbottom with his explicit indie bonk-athon 9 Songs, take it even further. We’ve put together 101 of the most groundbreaking sex scenes of all time to chart how the movies have chosen to put the moves on. A fair few of these films have won Academy Awards; some are classic feminist movies; controversy has stalked many of them. Let us know which ones we’re missing.RECOMMENDED: Our list of the 100 best movies of all time

Nooky. Rumpy pumpy. Slap and tickle. Fourth base. La whoopsy-daisy. Whatever you call it, sex runs through cinema like an electric charge. From its seemingly chaste early days through a century-and-a-bit of shadowy film noirs, swooning romances, erotically charged ’80s thrillers and just about every film with Marlon Brando in – up to and very much excluding Apocalypse Now – it’s there, ready to spark chemistry into actual fireworks. Some filmmakers chose to cut tastefully around the deed itself; some have thrown caution (and clothes) to the wind to show it in all its glory. Others, like Nagisa Oshima with his notoriously explicit In the Realm of the Senses, take it even further. We’ve put together 101 of the most groundbreaking sex scenes of all time to chart how the movies have chosen to put the moves on. A fair few of these films have won Academy Awards; some are classic feminist movies; controversy has stalked many of them. Let us know which ones we’re missing.RECOMMENDED: Our list of the 100 best movies of all time

They get a bad rap from snobs, but don’t mess with action movies—they’re pumped up, loaded with ammo and in your face like Arnold Schwarzenegger on a bad day. Truth be told, no one can live solely on Woody Allen movies or animation alone. We need explosions periodically. Big ones. Preferably accompanied by catchphrases and squealing electric guitars. With crucial contributions from Hong Kong and France, the genre has a global richness that sneaks up on you like a swarthy henchman with a knife clenched between his teeth. And when we arrived at action’s ’80s movies heyday, when Hollywood stars ruled the roost, our research was euphoric. We’ve polled over 50 experts in the field, from essential directors like Die Hard’s John McTiernan to the actual folks in the line of fire, such as Machete himself, Danny Trejo. Critics and experts have weighed in, too. And if we’ve missed something, drop a bomb in our comments. RECOMMENDED: Full guide to the 100 best movies of all time

Los golpes bajos que ha recibido el director Jafar Panahi por parte del gobierno iraní, sólo lo han hecho más fuerte de lo que ellos pudieran imaginar. Le prohibieron hacer películas y lo arrestaron sin fundamentos por crímenes contra la seguridad nacional; sin embargo, desde que fue condenado hace cinco años, el realizador ha exportado exitosamente tres obras maestras. Aunque Taxi Teherán no tiene la crudeza y furia de Esto no es un película (2011) y su origen no tiene una increíble historia —el material se cargó en una USB y salió de Irán en un pastel clandestinamente—, esta ágil, fuerte e incansable forma de levantar el dedo medio a la censura es el desafío más audaz que Panahi ha mostrado hasta ahora. Como reflejo de la cinematografía iraní por los autos y al ser sus únicas propiedades, que simultáneamente son un espacio público y privado, la película encuentra a Panahi detrás del volante de un taxi del centro de Teherán. Filmado para lucir como un documental (pero demasiado incisivo y con muchos diálogos del conductor como para hacerse pasar por uno), Taxi Teherán transforma lentamente el carro de Panahi en un escenario de crímenes, confesiones, declaraciones de lecho de muerte e incluso una tragedia relacionada con peces de colores. Cada pasajero que sube a la celda móvil nota rápidamente la cámara montada en el tablero, pero a ninguno le causa conflicto (no se da crédito al elenco para proteger sus identidades). De hecho, la mayoría tiene sus propias cámaras y miran al

This long-lost Leon Russell doc was shot between 1972 and 1974, but has been buried for more than 40 years – after the country-rock legend baulked at the finished product. Now it’s been lovingly remastered by director Les Blank’s son (after he connected with Russell on Facebook). The movie hasn’t just been worth the wait; it’s been transformed by it. In the ’70s, this would have been an unusually intimate tour portrait. Now, it’s a newly unearthed time capsule. It’s immediately clear that Blank was less interested in Russell than in the vibrant community that orbited around him (there’s a reason why the musician’s name is missing from the film’s title). The director is smitten with artist Jim Franklin, seen sweeping out an empty swimming pool of baby scorpions so he can paint a huge mural. Elsewhere, Blank’s attention is seduced by a controlled demolition in Tulsa and a glass-eating parachute enthusiast (rumoured to be the elusive plane hijacker DB Cooper). There’s enough concert footage here to please diehard fans, but Blank is more attuned to the sweat and musk of each performance than to the songs. One moment, his camera is perching on Russell’s shoulder as he pounds out the honky-tonk piano melody of ‘Tight Rope’; the next, it steals a close-up of the unembarrassed ecstasy of someone in the crowd. Maybe big-bearded Russell was annoyed that the film turned out to be an ode to his scene rather than a testament to his genius. Or maybe, in the years since, he’s learned to app

Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo (Turning Gate) has a reputation for repeating himself. With few exceptions, each of his droll comedies has followed a bumbling, lonely male director as he travels to a film festival, gets tanked on soju and awkwardly throws himself at a woman. Hong, however, is well aware of his formula, and his cheeky new movie pokes terrific fun at the tired criticisms. The first half of Right Now, Wrong Then fits the usual mold, but the real joke begins when the movie abruptly starts over and our hero—seemingly aware of his Groundhog Day do-over—makes subtly different (and smarter) choices the second time around in a rich and playful revision.

Imagine ‘Clueless’ starring Susan Sarandon as an overbearing mum and you’re in the right ballpark for ‘The Meddler’, a sweet portrait of a woman coming to terms with losing the love of her life. Sarandon plays Marnie, a recent widow who uproots from New Jersey to Los Angeles to be closer to her depressed screenwriter daughter Lori (Rose Byrne). But when Lori finds her mum’s affection suffocating, Marnie has no choice but to mother somebody else. Or, in this case, everybody else, beginning with one of the Genius Bar technicians at her local Apple store (Jerrod Carmichael), whom she befriends and starts driving to night school.  With a plot that plays like a string of incidental encounters, ‘The Meddler’ could easily have felt like a glorified sitcom. But Sarandon delivers a exuberant performance with care and conviction.  Marnie’s grief, her goodness and her complicated relationship with her daughter all feel so lived-in and true – perhaps not surprisingly, given that director Lorene Scafaria (who wrote the script for ‘Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist’) based the character on her own mum.

Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s unforgettably unsettling new film, ‘Evolution’, is set on an island somewhere off the coast of France. This is a place where single women raise a generation of young boys without fathers (nowhere to be seen). During the days, the boys go swimming. At night, their mothers feed them a mush of squid ink and inject their skinny arms with a vile sleep-inducing goop they call ‘medicine’. One evening, a curious kid called Nicolas (Max Brebant) dodges his dose, slipping out of the house he shares with his mum (Julie-Marie Parmentier). He follows her to the beach, and that’s when things start to get weird. It’s been a decade since Hadžihalilović’s first film, 2005’s ‘Innocence’, and it seems as though she has been hoarding her nightmares ever since. Tense with terror and told with abstractly beautiful imagery across long stretches of wordless quiet, ‘Evolution’ watches its dark and mysterious world with the same curiosity that keeps Nicolas awake at night. The movie flirts with the outline of a proper plot, but the answers to its dramatic questions sink to the ocean floor. If ‘Evolution’ has a theme running through it, it’s the way Hadžihalilović strips male bodies of their autonomy. The women here are sirens with secret agendas and the film’s most gruesome moments work by forcing the anxieties of childbirth upon a gender that usually has the luxury of ignoring them. By the end of this ominous lullaby, it’s clear that the film isn’t a puzzle meant to be solved

Early in Miguel Gomes’s bawdy, brilliant, inadvisably epic new project, there’s a scene in which the director appears on screen in a panic, desperately trying to escape from his crew. Given the scope of the Tabu filmmaker’s latest undertaking, it’s easy to understand why. Furious at the crippling austerity measures that the Portuguese government imposed on its people in the summer of 2013, Gomes embarked on an opus expansive enough to convey how belt-tightening had metastasized to every corner and community of the country. The result is Arabian Nights, a gargantuan 383-minute trilogy that borrows the form of its ancient namesake but not its stories, replacing them instead with ones that Gomes has invented. By turns surreal, giddy, erotic, didactic, righteous, exhausting, boundlessly creative and a thousand and one other things, this shape-shifting colossus feels as diverse as the people of Portugal themselves. Gorgeously shot on 35mm and Super 16, this broadly allegorical saga includes segments that range from the angry satire of “The Men with a Hard-on,” in which government and IMF representatives encounter a genie who cures them of the impotence, to less-obvious episodes like “The Owners of Dixie,” in which an adorable stray dog is passed between the various residents of a suburban high-rise. (The pooch's Dante-like journey coheres into a lucid symbol for the country as a whole.) Even the most inscrutable passages of Arabian Nights are sparked by Gomes’s rage, the basis for

Early in Miguel Gomes’s bawdy, brilliant, inadvisably epic new project, there’s a scene in which the director appears on screen in a panic, desperately trying to escape from his crew. Given the scope of the Tabu filmmaker’s latest undertaking, it’s easy to understand why. Furious at the crippling austerity measures that the Portuguese government imposed on its people in the summer of 2013, Gomes embarked on an opus expansive enough to convey how belt-tightening had metastasized to every corner and community of the country. The result is Arabian Nights, a gargantuan 383-minute trilogy that borrows the form of its ancient namesake but not its stories, replacing them instead with ones that Gomes has invented. By turns surreal, giddy, erotic, didactic, righteous, exhausting, boundlessly creative and a thousand and one other things, this shape-shifting colossus feels as diverse as the people of Portugal themselves.Gorgeously shot on 35mm and Super 16, this broadly allegorical saga includes segments that range from the angry satire of “The Men with a Hard-on,” in which government and IMF representatives encounter a genie who cures them of the impotence, to less-obvious episodes like “The Owners of Dixie,” in which an adorable stray dog is passed between the various residents of a suburban high-rise. (The pooch's Dante-like journey coheres into a lucid symbol for the country as a whole.) Even the most inscrutable passages of Arabian Nights are sparked by Gomes’s rage, the basis for

Alice Klieg hasn’t turned off her television in 11 years. The set’s exhausted images are constantly flickering around the walls of the musty one-bedroom apartment she shares with several hundred VHS tapes, each containing a single episode of ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’. ‘Welcome to Me’ is about an unusual person – but this dark comedy makes it perfectly clear that the ‘me’ of the title is no mere eccentric. On the contrary, this is that rarest of birds: a genuinely funny movie about mental illness. Kristen Wiig plays Alice, who was diagnosed with manic-depressive disorder when she was 16, and she still has more prescriptions than friends. On the upside, she’s just won $86 million in the lottery. Frustrated when the local news cuts away when she’s collecting her oversize novelty cheque, Alice buys her own talk show on a cash-strapped infomercial channel. Going off her meds and blazing through her fortune, she creates ‘Welcome to Me’, in which she rides onto the stage in a swan boat and delivers segments that range from practical advice (‘matching colours to emotion’) to outsider art (vivid recreations of her most traumatic adolescent moments). But a smart script coupled with Wiig’s resolutely humane performance ensures that the laughter never comes at her expense.

Imagine if Terrence Malick made an ‘X-Men’ movie on a shoestring budget and you’ve got a decent sense of what director Andrew Droz Palermo has accomplished this contemplative supernatural teen drama. Set in idyllic middle-American farm country, the film introduces us to teenage brother and sister Zac (Timothée Chalamet) and Eva (Kiernan Shipka), who tend to the family’s chickens and wear potato-sack clothing like any normal nineteenth-century kids. But the plane they spy flying overhead suggests that they may not be in the nineteenth-century, and the envy with which they watch the aircraft move through the sky suggests that they’ve never been allowed to venture beyond the massive wall that rings their land like a stiff collar. We’re never told who built the barrier – all signs point to the kids’ violently domineering father (Grant Bowler) – but it soon becomes obvious why: Eva and Zac can teleport to any place they can see. The nature of their gift remains a mystery. Director Palermo, whose only previous feature, ‘Rich Hill’, was a sobering doc about American poverty, makes a smooth transition to fiction, and his affinity for naturalism prevents ‘One and Two’ from slipping into the territory of tired YA fantasy. Unfortunately, this allegory for the process by which kids start to think for themselves only hints at the turbulence of its characters, who are kept at too far a remove for us to feel their growing pains.

Combinando la idea del emprendedor narcisista de 'Slumdog millionaire' con la locura del entre bambalinas que exploró Iñárritu en 'Birdman', esta película elabora un retrato de Steve Jobs, el fundador de Apple, a partir de tres historias vinculadas a la presentación de tres nuevos productos. Cada uno de estos actos se vive con la euforia de una noche de estreno en Broadway. Aaron Sorkin firma un guión brillante, más afilado y salvaje que el de 'La red social', y con el poder de rompernos el corazón. Y la interpretación de Michael Fassbender retrata a la perfección la evolución del personaje hacia el icono público en el que finalmente se convirtió. Desde la dirección, Danny Boyle hace lo que puede para pasar desapercibido. Y casi lo consigue.

Combinant la idea de l'emprenedor narcisista de 'Slumdog millionaire' amb la bogeria de l'entre bambolines que va explorar Iñárritu a 'Birdman', aquesta pel·lícula elabora un retrat de Steve Jobs, el fundador d'Apple, a partir de tres històries vinculades a la presentació de tres nous productes. Cadascun d'aquests actes es viu amb l'eufòria d'una nit d'estrena a Broadway. Aaron Sorkin firma un guió brillant, encara més afilat i salvatge que el de 'La xarxa social', i amb el poder de trencar-nos el cor. I la interpretació de Michael Fassbender retrata a la perfecció l'evolució del personatge cap a la icona pública en què finalment es va convertir. Des de la direcció, Danny Boyle fa el que pot per passar desapercebut. I quasi ho aconsegueix.

At a time when studios seem to have all but abandoned romcoms in favour of films with spandex and dinosaurs, ‘Bachelorette’ writer-director Leslye Headland delivers an updated riff on ‘When Harry Met Sally’ (if Harry and Sally were openly hot for each other). ‘Sleeping with Other People’ begins in the fall of 2002, as two Columbia undergrads swap virginities on the rooftop of their halls of residence. Thirteen years later, Jake (Jason Sudeikis) is a womanising entrepreneur who just cheated on his girlfriend with her sister. Lainey (Alison Brie) is a kindergarten teacher who’s two-timing her boyfriend with the creepy gynaecologist (Adam Scott) she’s been obsessed with since college. Both of them are masters of self-sabotage: Jake doesn’t want to get intimate enough for anyone to hurt him, while Lainey can’t stop being hurt by the same guy. When the old flames reunite at a sex addicts meeting, they decide to give friendship a try, agreeing to rely on a safe word (‘mousetrap’) every time one of them feels an itch of sexual tension. Headland loves romcoms too much to overly subvert them, but she spices things up at every turn, allowing for a degree of dirtiness that movies like this seldom explore. The almost pathologically charming Sudeikis was born to play a scene in which he uses an empty bottle to teach Lainey how to masturbate. So it hurts that most of the jokes fall short of their potential.

We saw more than 50 movies at Sundance this year, but the one that topped our list as the best of the fest was just 16 minutes long. And frankly, it wasn't even close. "World of Tomorrow" is the seventh Don Hertzfeldt short to play at Sundance (his 2000 entry, "Rejected," would eventually go on to be nominated for an Oscar), his second to win the festival's Grand Jury Prize for its category, and the first to make us feel that the rest of our year at the movies might be all downhill from there.  RECOMMENDED: Read our full coverage of Sundance Film Festival A whirlwind 16-minute adventure through space, time, memory and the limitless potential of the “outernet,” "World of Tomorrow" is the indie animator's first all-digital short (although the brilliantly deranged couch gag that he made for the most recent season premiere of The Simpsons served as something of a dry run). Hertzfeldt's most colorful film follows in its maker's proud tradition of dropping stick figures into grand existential crises, the story for this one introducing a 4-year-old British girl named Emily (Winona Mae) who’s too small and innocent to realize what’s happening when an adult clone of herself (Julia Pott) invites her for a tragicomic tour of the future. Their journey across space and time is packed with adventures both devastating and devastatingly funny—the young Emily is voiced by Hertzfeldt's niece, who's stitched her performance together from the hilarious snippets of audio he recorded while she was

The year in cinema is just about over, and it may have ended with the industry ceding control of Hollywood to a group of North Korean hackers. It's a bad blow to the creative integrity of mainstream movies—one that serves to underscore just how valuable indie filmmaking will continue to be in the future. With that in mind, it's somewhat fortuitous that trailers for two of the most exciting art-house features of 2015 debuted online during the height of the madness sparked by The Interview, each of them making a good case against our initial instinct to hole up in a bunker with a bunch of old Blu-rays and let the medium run its course. The first is Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, which premiered at Sundance in January and more than held its own against the likes of Boyhood and The Babadook. Conceived by brothers David and Nathan Zellner, and loosely based on a true-ish story, the mordantly funny dark comedy follows the intercontinental journey of a young woman (Pacific Rim star Rinko Kikuchi) who finds an old VHS copy of Fargo buried in a cave along the coast of Japan. Believing the Coen brothers' film to be a documentary—and the money that Steve Buscemi buries in the tundras of the American midwest to be real—Kumiko abandons her pet rabbit Bunzo and heads for the United States. It's clear that the film's pathologically determined heroine is a bit deranged, but she's just so damn endearing that you can't help but hope she finds a pot of gold at the end of her twisted rainbow. Dest

Since WWII (if not before), film has been recognized as a vital means of recording, shaping and disseminating images of atrocities and criminal injustices. But the explosion of digital technology has made the medium a peerlessly urgent weapon in the fight against systemic oppression. While the most primal examples of this usually take the form of amateur videos shot by civilian witnesses (perhaps best illustrated by the wealth of footage produced during the recent revolutions in Egypt and the Ukraine), professional filmmakers have begun to follow in those footsteps, abandoning their lethargic production schedules in order to reckon with the present moment. Video—or the lack thereof—has played a vitally implicit role in the shooting deaths of unarmed black men like Michael Brown and Eric Garner, and the subsequent lack of convictions for the white police officers who murdered them. And it has already begun to play an equally vital role in the collective response: From titans of black film to emerging new voices, the film community has been quick to produce a diverse array of galvanizing and cathartic work for a country in which a significant portion of the population still lives in fear of the people sworn to protect them. Below are three very different films by three very different filmmakers.  #BlackoutBlackFriday: The Time Has Come “#BlackoutBlackFriday: The Time Has Come” is a beautiful and haunted conceptual piece by An Oversimplification of Her Beauty director Terence Na

Foxcatcher director Bennett Miller has come a long way since making his feature filmmaking debut with the under-seen 1998 documentary The Cruise, but no matter how many Best Picture-nominated movies you make (and Foxcatcher is poised to be Miller's third in a row; you can read our review here), you can never really leave New York. This is where Miller was born, and his first film–which is wildly different from everything he's made since–is the kind of twisted love letter to Manhattan that you might expect from a guy who's made a career of looking under the skin of The American Dream. A loving and only partially demented portrait of a motormouthed NYC tour bus guide named Timmy "Speed" Levitch, The Cruise is a blisteringly enjoyable ride along with a personality who's as unique to his city as his city is unique to the world. Shooting in super high-contrast black and white, and keeping the camera locked on Levitch so as to see the city through his manic eyes, Miller's debut is a one-of-a-kind hyper-speed adventure through New York City as it may never be again (or, depending on how much stock you put in Levitch's stories, may never have been in the first place). Miller is currently on the campaign trail for Foxcatcher, and the IFC Center is making the most of it. Tomorrow night at 730pm, they'll be screening The Cruise on 35mm, and the film will be followed by a Q&A between Miller and Serial godfather Ira Glass. The event will be held as part of the series "Ira Glass Favorites

The day that Star Wars fans have been waiting for is…still more than a year away. But director J.J. Abrams will poke a big hole in his mystery box on Friday 28 when the 88-second teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens debuts in theaters. While the trailers for most movies these days pop up on the Internet without much advance notice, Star Wars isn't most movies, and every dribble from its marketing campaign is likely to be seen as an event on par with the release of a blockbuster feature. So, in an admittedly nice throwback to a time when movie theaters were still allowed to be communal places of discovery, people will experience their first glimpse at The Force Awakens the same way they did The Phantom Menace back in 1998: by going to the multiplex, buying a ticket to whatever is playing, and leaving en masse after the previews. However, only 30 theaters in the country will be playing the trailer, so don't buy tickets to that 10am screening of Horrible Bosses 2 before double-checking that you're going to the right place. In fact, since the trailer will play before every movie at the chosen theaters, don't buy tickets to that 10am screening of Horrible Bosses 2 at all (our review explains why)—find the indiest indie you can and make a generous donation (and, if you're feeling really crazy, why not stick around and watch the movie? Here's a handy list of the best films now playing). In NYC, the trailer will screen before all features at Regal Union Square

There's no end to the variety of things you can do in Central Park during the summer, and the Central Park Conservancy Film Festival is back to make sure that cinephiles don't have to miss out on the fun. Once the sun sets and all the rollerbladers have disappeared to wherever rollerbladers go after dark, this annual August screening series—part of a broader campaign to reverse the decline of Manhattan's largest playground—transforms the park into the city's most inclusive film fest. This year's slate is all about celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Central Park Conservancy, and so all five of the movies on the docket are beloved classics from the magical time known as 1980. Check out the full lineup: Tuesday, Aug 25: Fame  Wednesday, Aug 26: The Blues Brothers Thursday, Aug 27: Airplane!  Friday, Aug 28: Raging Bull  Saturday, Aug 29: Superman II  All screenings are open captioned and completely free. Click here to RSVP. The fest will take place on the landscape between Sheep Meadow and the 72nd Street Cross Drive (Terrace Drive). The gates will open at 6:30pm and the movies will begin at 8pm, rain or shine. Click over to the Conservancy's site for more information.  

With every passing year, the Tribeca Film Festival becomes an increasingly unmissable fixture on the city's cinema calendar. The sprawling event brings hundreds of exciting (and sometimes not so exciting) new movies to the heart of downtown Manhattan. Founded by Robert De Niro and friends in the hopes of rejuvenating the area after 9/11, the festival has always been defined by its connection to the city, and its marquee events tend to reflect that. (Last year's opening night film, Nas: Time Is Illmatic, was a euphoric explosion of Queens pride.) The 2015 edition, which runs April 15–26, is clearly committed to continuing that tradition. Today, the fest announces that this year's opening-night film is Bao Nguyen's Live from New York!, a documentary that looks back at how Saturday Night Live filtered and shaped more than 40 years of American culture, pop or otherwise. Nguyen's film won't be the first feature to turn its cameras on Lorne Michaels's late-night institution (James Franco's Saturday Night, a fly-on-the-wall look at the making of a single episode, played at Tribeca in 2010), but its focus on the program's formative early years promises to make for a unique look at a beloved NYC export. Be sure to come back for the announcement of the festival's full slate in early March, and follow us (@TimeOutUSFilm) for a comprehensive guide to the fest as it takes shape. RECOMMENDED: Full coverage of the Tribeca Film Festival

Over the last few years, the Tribeca Talks series has become one of the most reliably exciting parts of the Tribeca Film Festival, as the programmers have an unusual flair for sparking memorable conversations between unexpected pairs. Yesterday, Star Wars obsessive Stephen Colbert got to live out a childhood dream by interviewing series mastermind George Lucas, and we were on hand to see the hour-long chat between the pithy TV host and the much less pithy architect of a galaxy far, far away. For those of you who couldn’t make it, here are ten highlights from the event. RECOMMENDED: Full coverage of the Tribeca Film Festival 1. It’s “okay” to be George Lucas Many of Colbert’s questions were geared towards investigating who George Lucas is, even if Lucas was more interested in talking more about the things that he’s done. Still, Colbert was able to wring a few telling moments out of his interviewee, such as when he asked the man across from him to describe what it’s like to be George Lucas. “It’s okay,” Lucas replied, without a hint of irony or sarcasm. And that was that. 2. George Lucas may not smell so great One of the few things that Lucas shared about himself is that he’s not really much for the idea of celebrity. When asked if he enjoys the Hollywood party scene, Lucas responded that he only owns one pair of Levi’s and one pair of sneakers. Lucas stopped short of saying that he was a recluse, and Colbert got him to confirm that he does not, in fact, keep his house lined wi

A spooky kind of magic descends over parks this time of year (even the parks that are already spooky), as the shadows become that much darker and all of the trees suddenly seem to be hiding something. So while it's true that outdoor screenings might be more of a summer thing, what better place could there be to watch a scary movie than under a full moon, surrounded by rustling leaves and dozens of strangers you can't really see? Adding to the small list of October's outdoor movie screenings (shout out to Habana Outpost!), the Department of Parks & Rec is getting into the Halloween spirit with the Monster Mash-ups Movie Series, which—over the course of the month—will turn just about every park in Brooklyn into a haven for outdoor horror. The lineup skews more towards morbid comedy than outright terror (the scariest thing about seeing some of these movies might be the temperature), but each of these films is a great time, particularly if you snag a good spot, bring a whole mess of blankets, and maybe sneak in something you're not supposed to. All of the screenings are free and begin shortly after 6pm. Check out the series schedule below, and be sure to visit the Department of Parks & Rec's site for more information. - Shaun of the Dead at West Lawn in Sunset Park, Brooklyn (October 9th) - Buffy the Vampire Slayer at South Lawn in Dyker Beach Park, Brooklyn (October 10th) - Young Frankenstein at Brooklyn War Memorial in Cadman Plaza Park, Brooklyn (October 16th) - The Addams Fam

Want to feel old? Home Alone, Christopher Columbus's classic (and surprisingly violent) 1990 comedy about a pre-teen kid whose family accidentally leaves him home alone (!!!) during Christmas vacation, is about to turn twenty-five. Kevin McCallister, once a cherubic Rube Goldberg wannabe with the imagination required to transform his parents' house into a giant torture chamber for the "Wet Bandits" who were trying to rob it, would now be thirty-three years old and living in a booby-trapped loft somewhere in Bushwick. But we've got some good news for anyone who thinks that Macaulay Culkin is still the greatest thing that someone named Christopher Columbus ever discovered. In honor to commemorate this milestone in American culture, Fathom Events is bringing Home Alone back to theaters for two nights only. On November 8 and November 11, the AMC Empire 25 and the Union Square Regal 14 will be your go-to destinations to watch Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci get hilariously outwitted by a small child with an appetite for destruction. Screenings at both theaters will be at 4:30 and 7:30pm, and tickets will cost $12.50. Be sure to hit up Fathom Events for more information.  

The Internet is a wild and unpredictable place, but throughout all of its shifts and evolutions, one thing has remained perfectly clear: Every social network on Earth is going to lose its mind when we reach the date on which Marty McFly traveled to the future in Back to the Future II. After a mind-numbing series of Photoshopped false starts, the actual date (October 21, 2015) is finally upon us, and the Museum of Modern Art literally can't wait to celebrate: Taking advantage of the fact that series mastermind Robert Zemeckis is in town to premiere The Walk at this year's New York Film Festival (check out all of our NYFF coverage here), MoMA has programmed a comprehensive retrospective of the director's work beginning Tuesday 29, screening everything he's made since 1972's The Lift. The series' main event, however, will undoubtedly be on Saturday October 3, when all three Back to the Future films will play back-to-back-to-back. Starting at 2pm and wrapping up just before 10pm, audiences will get to enjoy the complete quantum misadventures of McFly and Doc Brown—from Marty's 1955 mishaps at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance to Doc Brown getting it on with schoolteacher Clara Clayton in 1895 (and everything in between). Where we're going, we don't need to move for eight hours. A special presale ticket package for the trilogy is available online through October 3. The ticket package ($25 general public, free for members) includes one ticket to the October 3 screenings of Back t

The summer might be almost over (sorry to remind you), but there's no rule that you can't watch movies outside after Labor Day. The last few years have seen NYC transform into one of the best cities on Earth for outdoor cinema, and a bunch of awesome new events—like Rooftop Film Club, which finally brought London's snazziest sunset screening series to the States—helped take things to a new level in 2015. And the fun is going to rage on until the calendar tells us it isn't summer anymore. (The folks at Habana Outpost aren't even going to stop then.) The Central Park Conservancy Film Festival kicks off today, while Rooftop Film Club has saved some of the best for last, including a late September screening of Man on Wire hosted by Time Out and timed to the New York Film Festival premiere of The Walk, the new Robert Zemeckis movie based on James Marsh's brilliant doc. Check out our full schedule of outdoor movie screenings, and be sure to head over to our Rooftop Film Club tickets page when you know what you want to see (since those screenings aren't free).  FameSheep Meadow and the 72nd Street Cross Drive (Terrace Drive), Central Park, August 25 6:30pm Pan's LabyrinthRooftop Film Club, August 26, 8pm Die HardSyFy Movies with a View, Brooklyn Bridge Park, 6pm Airplane!Sheep Meadow and the 72nd Street Cross Drive (Terrace Drive), Central Park, August 27, 6:30pm AmyRooftop Film Club, September 6, 8pm The GooniesHabana Outpost, September 6, 8pm ManhattanRooftop Film Club, September