In myriad ways, coming as it does in January, Sundance sets the stage for US cinema through the rest of the year.

Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) is a reasonably informative, if rather dry, look at a subject with much more potential for exploration.

Rachel Lears’s new film To the End is optimistic, perhaps to a fault.

The director sat with Hyperallergic for a conversation about the making of his new film The Velvet Underground.

EO’s universe seems a godless one; there’s no philosophical reason for the pain that human and nonhuman animals endure.

The subject matter of The Super 8 Years could not be more mundane, but the Nobel Prize-winning memoirist’s musings elevate it to something far more compelling.

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed forcefully posits multiple parallels between the world Nan Goldin grew up in and the one she fights in today.

Tsai’s style is the opposite of boring; in demanding the viewer’s attention, he allows for incredible moments of human connection and discovery.

Though not well known outside of Japan, Tsuchimoto honed an observational style of filmmaking similar to the cinema verité movement in the US and Europe, but years earlier.

With his latest film, Jafar Panahi suggests that cinema might be a great art worth fighting for, but it may not be able to save anyone.

The Computer Accent follows the pop-dance band YACHT as they use AI to help compose their 2019 album Chain Tripping.

Chinatown's venerated Downtown Community Television Center is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a state-of-the-art cinema and community hub.

Turning an “unfilmable” book into a film is one thing; making it good is another.

Patricio Guzmán combines reflection on the past, observation of the present, and hope for the future into an expansive vision of all the ideas he’s explored in his work.

With Moonage Daydream, director Brett Morgen sought to let Bowie’s music and philosophy hit in a whole new way, immersing audiences in an IMAX experience.

Courtney Stephens's documentary on women's travels from the 1920s to '50s presents not just personal glimpses into daily life a century ago but also documents of colonialism.

From her personal writings, along with fragments of her work and recollections of friends and family, Loving Highsmith constructs a view of the author that is more intimate than most.

The exhibition Porno Chic to Sex Positivity at the Museum of Sex traces how once-verboten depictions of sex became gradually acceptable in pop culture.

Owen Kline’s directorial debut follows a privileged teenage artist who decides to impose some grittiness on his life to improve his work.

William Klein: YES, a career retrospective at the International Center of Photography, is good for aficionados and neophytes alike.

Despite faithfully recreating the story of the beloved comic book series, the TV show lacks the verve of the original.

As the Uru-eu-wau-wau face continued incursion by Brazilian farmers, they take an active role in this documentary about them.

Arriving amid increased anti-Asian racism and continuing discourse about the inhumanity of its prison system, this documentary is a strong historical gut punch.

Metrograph’s series The Process features films that were either directed by Robert M. Young or made with the help of Irving Young’s postproduction facility.

Featuring a delicate lead performance by Christine Froseth, this is a smart, sometimes purposefully discomfiting comedy about taking control of one’s sexuality.

At first, simply watching people read In Search of Lost Time might seem dull; by the end, you'll be itching to read or reread it yourself.

Isabel Castro’s Mija follows two daughters of immigrants breaking into the music business.

The documentary has impressive access to contemporary art world figures, but comes up with no good solutions for the many problems it discusses.

Directed by virtuous animator Genndy Tartakovsky, Primal is a continuously inventive and exciting adventure through a prehistoric fantasy world.

We Met in Virtual Reality raises the bar for VR filmmaking, and has an optimistic vision for the potential of the metaverse.

It's another equally thrilling and smart ride from the rising director, subtly tackling intersecting ideas about “seeing” and “being seen” along the way.

Hyperallergic talks to historian Isaac Butler and curator Livia Bloom Ingram about how performance technique evolves and what is and isn’t method acting.

Aftershock, directed by Tonya Lewis Lee and Paula Eiselt, explains the disproportionate rate of Black maternal mortality in the US.

From Where They Stood examines the rare phenomenon of prisoners who were able to provide direct victim documentation of the Holocaust.

Hyperallergic talks to programmers Róisín Tapponi and Jed Rapfogel about their Anthology Film Archives retrospective and formative erotic film experiences.

Stuffed with references to historical and contemporary film, Olivier Assayas’s miniseries version of his own 1996 film Irma Vep is sometimes too clever for its own good.

Set in remote Idaho, Bitterbrush is a satisfyingly different kind of Western.

Portuguese filmmaker Filipa César, whose work is the subject of an online retrospective hosted by Metrograph, seeks to help Bissau-Guineans preserve the memory of their revolution.

Made over the course of 30 years by special effects legend Phil Tippett, this stop-motion animated epic is a feast of creatively horrifying imagery.

End of the Line captures five years of failed efforts to fix the city’s disastrously bad train infrastructure.

This year’s iteration includes titles about AOC, the making of movie sex scenes, and what’s happened to the “stars” of older documentaries.

The Janes interviews former members of Chicago’s underground network that helped people secure abortions.

In yet another horror movie that’s actually about trauma, writer-director Alex Garland makes his points bluntly, having one actor play many facets of misogyny.

Prehistoric Planet is visually ambitious, but the docuseries often fails to contextualize those visuals for the curious viewer.

From 1968 to 1973, the Nihon Documentarist Union did radical documentary work in Japan. They made two films in Okinawa before, during, and after its reversion.

The plot of Maureen Fazendeiro and Miguel Gomes’s film moves backward in time, continually recontextualizing what at first looks like a simple situation.

You don't have to be an anime-head to appreciate these early-career shorts by the founders of Studio Ghibli.

BAM’s retrospective In the Images, Behind the Camera features rare and restored works by female filmmakers of the Global South.

Film programmer Inney Prakash talks to Hyperallergic about what it takes to start a new film festival solo during a pandemic.

Charlotte fails to truly depict the famed artist's work and pain. It may just be that no other artist can tell Salomon's story better than she already did.