Movie recommendations from critics Justin Chang and Kenneth Turan.
American Animals
This based-on-fact story of how a quartet of bored college kids looking for kicks and meaning in their lives plan a rare book robbery is one of the summer’s freshest, most entertaining films. (Kenneth Turan) R
First Reformed
A conflicted reverend (a superb Ethan Hawke) undergoes a profound crisis of faith in Paul Schrader’s soul-searching, careerresurrecting drama, a tribute to the contemplative cinema of Robert Bresson and Yasujiro Ozu that nonetheless moves to the pulse of a thriller. (Justin Chang) R
Let the Sunshine In
Juliette Binoche gives a marvelous performance as a middle-aged divorced woman looking for love in all the wrong places, but Claire Denis’ exquisite and soulful romantic comedy defies every expectation of that premise. (Justin Chang) NR
On Chesil Beach
A beautifully made film about the fraught honeymoon of a young couple who are very much in love and very much at sea, it reunites novelist Ian McEwan (“Atonement”) and luminous star Saoirse Ronan, under the able and discreet direction of Dominic Cooke. (Kenneth Turan) R
A Quiet Place
John Krasinski’s thrillingly intelligent post-apocalyptic horror movie, in which he stars with Emily Blunt as a couple trying to protect their family from monsters that hunt by sound, is walking-on-eggshells cinema of a very high order. (Justin Chang) PG-13
The Rider
enacts a version of his own harrowing story of loss and recovery in writerdirector Chloé Zhao’s stunningly lyrical western, a seamless and deeply moving blend of narrative and documentary film techniques. (Justin Chang) R
RBG
One of the great services that this clear-eyed and admiring documentary on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg provides is to emphasize not just her work on the court but also how extraordinarily influential she was before she even got there. (Kenneth Turan) NR