You have to laugh to keep from crying, the saying goes, but black comedies give us the luxury of doing both. Gallows humor isn’t solely a coping mechanism. Laughter can be empowering. Moreover, by nudging the comic possibilities of the tragic and the taboo, purveyors of dark comedy don’t conceal uncomfortable truths––they expose them. Below…

Cinema has been terrifically successful at depicting dysfunctional marriages, but much less so at portraying the other kind. Make of that what you will. Of course, the warts-and-all approach might be preferable to the days back when the Production Code governed onscreen social norms. According to the Hollywood of yesteryear, happily married couples slept in…

Friendship is, as Cole Porter succinctly put it, the perfect blendship. Maybe so, although margaritas and Reese’s peanut butter cups are definitely in the race. At minimum, the buddy film has long been a mainstay of cinema. Here are my picks for the all-time best male buddy pictures (my take on the best female buddy…

With 2025 almost in the rearview mirror, it’s as good a time as any to assess the year in film, particularly since it has been a considerable improvement over the comparatively listless 2024. Not that one would necessarily know it’s been a positive year from box-office receipts. It’s no secret that moviegoing has been on…

10. Zombieland (2009) 9. Casino Royale (2006) 8. Do the Right Thing (1989) Spike Lee discovered Rosie Perez on a New York dance floor when he was casting for Do the Right Thing. Her moves here, coupled with Public Enemy’s anthemic “Fight the Power,” is electric. 7. Deadpool (2016) Irony Man. 6. Se7en (1995) Creep…

Giving credits where credits are due (see what I did there?) has changed dramatically in cinema over the years. While 20th century offerings generally ran their main titles at a picture’s start, most modern-day blockbusters these days save credits for the end. Moreover, astounding advances in CGI have upped the creative ante beyond simply boasting…

Hollywood has long found the innate drama of baseball to be irresistible. It’s that rare team sport to have the additional draw of being a showdown of individuals: pitcher and hitter. Baseball fans love to argue over which movie best captures the glory of the game, and I’m no exception. With apologies to 1942’s much-beloved The…