‘A Little Prayer’ (2025)
Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.
David Strathairn led the all-star cast of “Good Night and Good Luck” in 2005, got an Oscar nomination for his trouble, and then … kept right on being David Strathairn, making small movies with lesser-known directors (rather than cashing in as, say, a Marvel villain). He’s particularly good, in all of his specific ways, in this modest drama of a quietly messy family from the writer-director Angus MacLachlan (“Junebug”). As the patriarch Bill Brass, Strathairn is solid as a rock; he knows this guy to the marrow of his bones, and the anguish and indecision of MacLachlan’s script offer him much to play, but (as ever) he underplays beautifully.
The surrounding performers are excellent, but this is Strathairn’s show; near the end, there’s a tight close-up of his face, that great, gray, weathered face, with miles in its lines and pain in its eyes, that makes you realize what a treasure we have in this actor.
‘Splitsville’ (2025)
The filmmaking team of Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin (with both as writers and stars and Covino directing) fulfills the promise of their 2020 debut feature “The Climb” with this ferociously funny and unexpectedly poignant examination of two faltering marriages further confused by the illusion of sexual freedom. Joining the two are Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona as the women in their lives, baffled by these men and their pettiness and indecision; such roles are often thinly drawn barnacles or empty eye candy when viewed through the gaze of male filmmakers, but to their credit, Covino and Marvin write them most of the best lines, and all of the keenest insights.
‘21 Bridges’ (2019)
When contemplating the tragically early death of Chadwick Boseman, it’s easy to focus either on his powerful presence in prestige pictures (like “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”) or his injection of charisma and personality into tentpole movies (such as “Black Panther”). But Boseman was the kind of movie star who could do anything, and this police procedural proves that point. It’s the kind of corrupt-cop drama that old-school directors like Sidney Lumet made their bread and butter, and Boseman anchors it with the kind of gravity and gravitas that recalls Al Pacino in his heyday. The ace supporting cast includes Stephan James, Taylor Kitsch, Sienna Miller and J.K. Simmons.
‘News of the World’ (2020)
Of all the movies relegated to home consumption and quickly forgotten during the Covid lockdown, few have lost more of their impact, or been as unjustly memory-holed as this modest Western drama, which reunited Tom Hanks with his “Captain Phillips” director Paul Greengrass. Set in Texas in the 1870s, it features Hanks as a Civil War vet who makes his living traveling from place to place with a stack of newspapers, sharing the events of the outside world. It’s a meager but easy living, complicated when he takes it upon himself to deliver an orphaned girl (Helena Zengel, excellent) to faraway relatives. Greengrass’s frontier photography is gorgeous, but the real journey here is an emotional one, and at its best, “News” recalls the psychological prickliness of classic Westerns by Anthony Mann and Budd Boetticher.
‘Decision to Leave’ (2022)
Stream it on Hulu and Mubi.
This year’s Oscar snub of “No Other Choice” was somewhat shocking — but unsurprising to fans of its director Park Chan-wook, who has somehow never been recognized by the Academy. The dismissal of this, his previous effort, was even more egregious; it’s the kind of virtuosic, spellbinding filmmaking that’s hard to ignore, a “Vertigo” riff that folds in contemporary elements of erotic thrillers and cop dramas with the kind of dazzling stylistic flourishes that have defined this South Korean master since his breakthrough film, “Oldboy.” Staggeringly erotic and quietly heart-wrenching, it’s one of his finest works to date.
‘The D Train’ (2015)
This good-natured comedy starts off like many a post-Apatow bromance, with Jack Black as Dan, a once-and-forever square who, as a planner for his 20th high school reunion, reconnects with the handsome jock Oliver (James Marsden), whom he still sees as a golden god among men. But the writer-directors Jarrad Paul and Andrew Mogel take Dan’s admiration a step further than your typical mainstream comedy, as the two men’s bond quickly progresses from emotional to physical, and perhaps the most admirable quality of “The D Train” is how cheerfully it takes that turn, studiously avoiding the casual “gay panic” homophobia present in far too many films of its ilk. Marsden finds just the right note as the man of Dan’s dreams, and Kathryn Hahn is (as usual) terrific as Dan’s confused spouse, but this is one of Black’s most splendid performances, turning what could have been a one-joke character into a complicated, knotty, nuanced portrayal of late-30s ennui.
‘Clerk’ (2021)
Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.
This biographical documentary, covering the life and career thus far of the filmmaker, podcaster and all-around raconteur Kevin Smith isn’t exactly a hard-hitting, deeply probing exposé — Smith is a longtime friend and occasional producer for the director Malcolm Ingram. But that proximity ultimately works in the film’s favor, allowing Ingram access not only to rare archival materials but also to moments of genuine candor and emotion that peek out from behind Smith’s carefully cultivated public persona.
The title comes from Smith’s debut feature, “Clerks,” the 1994 low-budget marvel that put him on the map, and while that and his subsequent pictures are covered, this is less of a director profile than a study of the strange evolution of his singular career, as he’s become known less as filmmaker than as a pop-culture mascot and enthusiast. “Clerk” shambles and rambles a bit, but so does its subject — and like Smith, it’s charming, kindhearted and frequently funny.
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