‘Mile End Kicks’ (2026)
Before she started directing music videos and short films, Chandler Levack was a Canadian rock music critic, and those experiences form the basis of this, her sophomore feature. Barbie Ferreira stars as Grace Pine, a music journalist who relocates to Montreal from Toronto to write a book, a singular goal that is immediately waylaid by her infatuation with a local band and, specifically, its loathsome (but sexy!) lead singer (Stanley Simons). Levack sets her story in the early 2010s, when she was living it, and the specificity of time and place is one of the picture’s best qualities; you get a sense that we’re peeking into a scene, guided by someone who knows it from the inside out. Ferreira is a delight as the writer-director’s avatar, endlessly likable and sympathetic, even when she’s making the worst possible decisions (which is often).
‘Man Finds Tape’ (2025)
Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.
There’s been no shortage of found-footage horror movies in the post- “Blair Witch” and “Paranormal Activity” era, but this low-budget shocker from the directors Peter Hall and Paul Gandersman serves as a reminder of what the subgenre does well — how the things we can’t see are often more terrifying than those we can — while folding in the stylistic conventions and narrative expectations of true-crime documentary to equally fine effect. Telling the story of a nonfiction filmmaker (Kelsey Pribilski, top-notch) pulled into her brother’s discovery of an inexplicable but terrifying videotape, Hall and Gandersman build up a slow, steady, sturdy sense of unimaginable dread, and pay it off handsomely.
‘Good One’ (2024)
Lily Collias is Sam, a 17-year-old girl on an awkward three-hander of a camping trip with her father, Chris (James Le Gros), and his old pal, Matt (Danny McCarthy), in this lyrical yet economical indie drama. Sam and her dad have a smooth enough rapport, but the dynamics with Matt are just a little off, and the character actor McCarthy creates a vivid and recognizable type, the kind of guy who deftly uses his easy manner and offhand humor to hide a disconcerting darkness. Le Gros, who seemed to appear in every third ’90s indie movie, has matured into an actor of uncommon depth, but the revelation here is Collias, who can convey a world of emotion in the tilt of her head or the blink of her eye.
‘The Kid Detective’ (2020)
Many a bookworm Gen-Xer still has a soft spot for Encyclopedia Brown, the child investigator at the center of a series of popular Y.A. books. Evan Morgan’s comedy-drama poses a simple question: What happens when a kid like that grows up? Here, his name is Abe Applebaum (Adam Brody, excellent), and the answer to that question is pretty grim; Abe is a burnout, spending his days coasting on the fumes of his childhood notoriety and his nights at the bottom of a bottle. But when teenage Caroline (the charming Sophie Nélisse) brings him a case, he sees not only a moneymaking opportunity but also a shot at redemption. This is a melancholy and mournful item, less about the specifics of its mystery than the thrill of remembering what you once thought you could be.
‘Hearts Beat Loud’ (2018)
Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.
Nick Offerman hadn’t yet turned in his heart-wrenching and Emmy-winning performance in “The Last of Us” (much less his current turn on “Margo’s Got Money Troubles”) when he starred in this sparkling indie, so audiences still really only knew him as the gruff Ron Swanson on “Parks & Recreation.” His work here couldn’t have been more of a divergence; as a Brooklyn record store owner and dad, Offerman is soft, sweet and generally delightful, particularly when he convinces his daughter, Sam (the ever-charismatic Kiersey Clemons), to spend her last summer before college starting a band with him. The stakes aren’t exactly sky-high, and the plot plays out pretty much as expected. But that barely matters; Offerman and Clemons’s familial chemistry is winning and the summer hang vibes are immaculate.
‘The Eyes of Orson Welles’ (2019)
The life and work of Orson Welles are not exactly untilled ground in the world of documentary cinema, but the director Mark Cousins — who typically applies his scholarship and soft, lilting narration to such epic docuseries as “The Story of Film” — finds a new way in, using a treasure trove of Welles’s sketches and drawings to examine how the director and actor saw the world. The insights are often invigorating, and Cousins’s personal, almost confessional voice-over makes “Eyes” feel less like a comprehensive biography than a casual, curious exploration of a singular artistic vision.
‘You’re Watching Video Music Box’ (2021)
The song told us that the revolution will not be televised, but for a time, on WNYC-TV Channel 31, it very much was — a musical revolution, at least. That city-owned UHF station aired “Video Music Box,” an hourlong showcase for hip-hop videos, live performances and artist interviews, starting at a time when Black acts were mostly shut out of MTV. The show was the brainchild of the D.J.-turned-VJ Ralph McDaniels, a.k.a. Uncle Ralph. This documentary account of the show’s rise and relevance is directed by the hip-hop artist Nasir Jones, a.k.a. Nas, himself a beneficiary of the show’s spotlight, and he rounds up a formidable lineup of prominent rappers, D.J.s and industry figures to sing McDaniels’s praises. The archival footage is astonishing, a time capsule of a long-gone era for both the music and the city, and the closing passages elegantly evolve into a larger analysis of how hip-hop changed culture — and the role this man and his work played in that shift.
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