At first blush, Rachel Morrison landed the perfect project for her directorial debut. The cinematographer known for her work with Ryan Coogler (“Fruitvale Station” and “Black Panther”) and Dee Rees—she became the first woman nominated for Best Cinematography for her work on Rees’ “Mudbound”—landed a script written by “Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins about the real-life inspirational story of gold medal winning boxer Claressa “T-Rex” Shields. 

But since the film’s 2019 announcement, it’s hit several snags: a global pandemic suspending production, her lead Ice Cube suddenly dropping out, and an actors and writers strike that further pushed back the film’s release until its premiere at Toronto International Film Festival 2024.

Morrison’s “The Fire Inside” couldn’t be extinguished. The film upends the conventions of the sports movie by not building toward an Olympic gold medal but toward what life looks like after you accomplish your dream. Claressa (Ryan Destiny) hails from the disadvantaged surroundings of Flint, Michigan. Her mother is emotionally abusive, and her family is impoverished. But Claressa loves boxing. And despite the qualms of local boxing coach Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry) that girls shouldn’t participate in the violent sport, her dedication ultimately convinces Jason to take her on. The sensitive Jason and the undaunted Claressa become a near-unbeatable team, climbing their way to the pinnacle of the sport only to discover that there’s plenty of road ahead after the peak. 

“The Fire Inside” combines Morrison’s knack for poignant visual storytelling with Jenkins’ surprising script to tell a story that doesn’t rely on simple cliches or wallow in poverty porn. Because there are no obvious villains in this tender film. Instead, they’re flawed people navigating the difficult realities of urban divestment, systemic racism, and misogynoir. While this film grapples with real-world issues, it remains inspirational and heartwarming. It’s the kind of highly rewatchable and uplifting film that feels like a classic in a genre defined by its classical structure. 

Morrison spoke with RogerEbert.com in person at SCAD Savannah Film Festival about the resiliency of Claressa’s story, working with Brian Tyree Henry and overcoming myriad production setbacks to bring this stirring dream to theaters.      

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Have you always wanted to move toward directing, or did this opportunity come as a surprise?

RACHEL MORRISON: I love shooting. I still love shooting. I think the idea started to percolate when people like [Ryan] Coogler said, You’ve got to tell these stories. You’ve got to direct. When people you respect feel they have a clear vision for you to direct, they may be onto something. Also, even after “Black Panther,” I wasn’t reading scripts that felt like they were moving the needle forward. I didn’t want to go backward. I think some of that is because I reached the target too late. 

My whole childhood, I wanted to make big dramas. But the hundred-million-dollar dramas don’t exist anymore. And so I was like: Well, I can either get paid to make Marvel films—most are not “Black Panther”—or I can make tiny dramas and barely support my family. I love those really beautiful indies. But as a breadwinner for four, surviving on those is really hard. And often, those are with up-and-coming filmmakers. You do get to a point where you’re like: Wait a second, I don’t want to know more than the other people in the room.

That said, I was reading scripts with a job-agnostic mindset. If I read something that I thought was additive in the world, and for me as a filmmaker to shoot, I would shoot it. If I read something that I felt was additive and made sense for me as a director, I would direct it. The first thing that felt right was the script that Barry [Jenkins] and producer Elishia Holmes brought to me. And again, if they are convinced I’m the right person for it, they may be onto something.

You mentioned you were looking for a script to move the needle forward. What stuck out to you about Jenkins’ script?

The first thing that stuck out was the breaking of convention. Structurally it’s ballsy as crap. It’s scary to upend the movie in the third act, especially because the conventions of sports movies work for a reason. To not end at the top seemed daring and exciting, like real life. I do think that’s something that resonates. Like the day after the Oscars, I still had to get up and start again. I think everybody has those moments.

I also grew up playing sports, so I was definitely attracted to that. The years my team won the league championship, the next season, we had to start from zero again. To me, that is so much more interesting. Then, in the case of Claressa, there’s also her resiliency outside the ring. I mean inside, too, of course. But the resiliency outside the ring is almost more inspirational and relatable. We all get knocked back down and have to pick ourselves back up. It all just felt more like life than most scripts I read. 

I love the opening shot of this film; it’s an unbroken aerial view where we see a young Claressa running through the empty lots that dot her Flint neighborhood to watch boxing at the local gym. That view tells us everything about her socioeconomic standing and the financial constraints of the people who populate this area. Was that visual approach in the script or a shot that happened naturally?

Interestingly, I always thought I would leave space for the opening credits. But I found that it was so powerful as a shot, and there was so much information to take in that the credits detracted from it. And then we asked that our titles move to the back so that you have this space to do exactly what you said: process the environment. Flint is such a specific and special place, and most people don’t understand it. They just have a peripheral idea of Flint and the water crisis. They don’t actually know why Flint is, what Flint is. 

We did an aerial shot that started, I think, 400 feet up, and you see no other people. There are very few other cars. There is this empty vastness about it. You get this sense of the American dream versus the American reality, which is what the film is about. You also get grit and resilience at that young age. To be running that far of a distance, chasing this thing she loves, communicates so much and sets the tone for this film.

I read that you and Ryan took boxing lessons together. In what ways did that real-world experience contribute to the visual language of the film inside the ring?

I think it was so critical. I’m so happy about that. I also loved boxing so much that I stuck with it. But it helped with even more than the visual language. Understanding what it feels like to be hit or to hit informed everything, from how we shot the film to even the sound design. Because I’ve now lived it, so everything came from a much more experiential place. And then, as far as working with Ryan in the ring, we ended up choreographing a lot of it ourselves for one reason or another, let’s just put it that way. To communicate certain things emotionally, knowing how to translate that ourselves, how we’re gonna sell certain punches, we could choreograph it to the camera as it pertains to the emotional stakes of the narrative. 

So much of the film remains within the ring; you don’t cut outside to announcers as much as one would expect. Why did you want to remain within the physical world of the ring?

I think there are two reasons why I felt like that subjectivity was so important. For one thing, her points don’t matter in this film. It becomes all about the antagonist in most boxing and sports movies. Every “Rocky,” every “Creed,” you’re building up to the arch nemesis. In our case, you have that a tiny bit with her rival Savannah, but then, in real life, Savannah wasn’t the person who made it to the gold medal fight, so she loses all significance. You don’t care about the opponents in the other fights, either. It’s less about the exterior world and more about Claressa’s interior. 

Everything is more powerful when you can be subjectively tied to your main character. It helps put the audience in their shoes. And then that helps every blow feel harder. Every hit matters more. In all my work as a DP, I care about the point of view, the story we’re telling and why we should care.

You do such incredible work with both Brian Tyree Henry and Ryan Destiny. Since DPs work with actors as much as the director does, did your background as a cinematographer make the communication with actors easier to transition into?

I think it’s not even so much that I’m a DP, as I’m a DP-operator. I’ve spent 20 years in the ring, so to speak, with my actors. I’m usually the closest person to them. I feel like I’ve seen what works in terms of how other directors have communicated with them, what doesn’t work, and how DPs communicate with them and what doesn’t work. I tried to let that inform how I would work with my talent. I mean, I had such a great time. You could not have asked for a better first two-hander than Brian and Ryan. There was natural chemistry between them and then the trio of us. I trusted them, and they trusted me, and we would try things. It was beautiful.

You’re also wonderful at visually helping actors. There are so many lingering moments, especially with Henry, where the patience of your lensing just allows him to land the emotional resonance of a scene. 

The film is pretty true to the vision I always had for it. The fight scene that’s a oner I always knew would be a oner. And then, in terms of the performances, I find as an audience member that I never want to be reminded that I’m in a movie theater, whether that’s a cut or that’s being over-stylized with the camera or anything that feels self-aware. When I can stay in a performance, it allows me to feel like I’m either on the receiving end of a conversation or a fight or I’m on the giving end. It just allows me to live it a little bit more. It’s a testament to the actors that we don’t need to cut around anything. It’s a total wealth of riches in the edit. 

Also Brian has so much humanity, and his performances also feel so surprising. He’s never making the obvious choice. What conversations did you two have to build out this father figure/coaching character?

I mean, the first conversation we had was that he was really moved and excited because basically, as he said, he doesn’t get to see black men play good fathers, good coaches, and good people. The humanity Brian brought was everything. Life is imperfect. That’s what makes it beautiful. And each of these characters is flawed. It’s so important to me as a director and to Brian as a performer that there’s humanity. It’s not these aspirational, everybody’s perfect superheroes. In this movie, though, everybody is incredibly well-intentioned. 

With Brian, it was a discovery every day. And to your point, he would add these small nuances that were just everything. And the other gift he gives to actors and directors alike is elevating the room. The other performers, when you have a lot of secondary and tertiary characters who, in our case, are local Toronto casting, maybe aren’t as experienced as our leads, to have an actor who can bring the chorus up a notch is a real gift as well.

And staying on shooting, I’m sure when people see the credits, they’ll be surprised that you aren’t the cinematographer. Instead, you brought on Rina Yang, who did exceptional work on “Nanny” and is also known for lensing Taylor Swift’s music videos. Why bring on a DP, and specifically Rina?

It was a hard decision and a hard thing to give up. If I had started with something incredibly naturalistic like “Nomadland,” I would’ve shot it. If I had started with something really small, I would’ve shot it. I always thought I would start with a tiny indie with a lot of natural light. Instead, I started with a studio film that featured these Olympic scenes. I knew I wanted to be present for the performances and all of the other things that impact the direction of a film. I also thought it would be a good challenge to take off the DP hat and force myself to focus on everything else.

Why Rina? That had to do with something I learned from Coogler: to surround yourself with people who do things a little differently than you do and then let that spark a conversation and a dialogue to keep things alive and kinetic. I was torn because there was a moment when I was going to hire a DP who was effectively me as a DP. But I ultimately went with Rina because what she does in the commercial music video space is much more heightened, whereas I tend to keep a foot on the ground. So, in the context of a studio film, I thought about how we could not have it feel super indie—which is where I naturally go. How do we find the right balance between naturalism and something with a little more flair but not to the point of crossing into stylized? So, I really wanted to keep a foot on the ground but allow myself to elevate things slightly differently than I might on my own.

It must have been great to be able to turn to someone on set like Rina, who probably also speaks a kind of common filmic language.

Both of us would say it was a great shorthand. I could location scout with her in mind. Now, when I think back to prep, I realize we had so many crazy fires. She got stuck in Buffalo because she had a visa issue from a shoot she’d done in Canada. So basically, the first three weeks of prep, she wasn’t on the ground with me. For me to be able to scout with her needs in mind or the fact that she understands what I’m asking about when I ask for this shot versus that shot or how long it will take with lighting was helpful for me to shoot and direct very efficiently.

The other nice thing about working with Rina is that she’s not as committed to operating as I am. She’d rather be riding with the DIT (digital imaging technician)—which left room for me to operate. I operated on my own film without stepping on her toes. Which means I still got to be in my happy place.

You talked about fires occurring. This film has had such a long path. I remember hearing about this film back in 2019, and every few months, I would check to see what was happening with it.

I was a spring chicken when I started this film!

You’ve had to deal with a pandemic, an actor dropping out, a couple of strikes. What was that gauntlet like?

From an observational perspective, the story of making this film truly mirrors the story of the film itself. It was a massive fight to be seen and valued, very much like Claressa fought to be seen and valued herself. Her resilience inspired both Ryan and I not to waver and just to keep pushing the boulder up the mountain. With that spirit, we somehow managed to survive and flourish.

Was there a moment when you thought this might be dead?

I mean, the crazy thing is no. That’s a testament to my own stupidity. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I was like: Oh, well, I’ll just get it up somewhere else, or we’ll just pass this to another actor. To be fair, the actor we did land on, Brian, was my dream from the beginning. In some ways, he both aged into the role and his Hollywood value matured into the role. There’s a case to be made that everything happens for a reason. I’m trying to figure out how to put this in a politically correct way… Let’s just say Brian is a gift. 

Also, Ryan got to train twice, once before the pandemic and another time after. That was everything. Emotionally and physically, she was ten times more ready to make this movie two years later than she was if we had made it in 2020. We really benefited from that time. 

Even the crazy delay in this film coming out, even that now feels like maybe it was meant to be. This is the year of parity in women’s sports. My actors also got to promote the film at TIFF, which they wouldn’t have been able to do the year before. And I can’t think of a better release date for us, specifically, an inspirational sports movie, like Christmas. I think “The Boys in the Boat” had already planted a flag in that slot last year, so we somehow landed where we needed to be. I’m a little more wrinkled and worse for the wear, but I’m really happy that the film is getting the release I think it deserves.

When I published my book recently I reached out to my friend, Tamron Hall, the award winning Talk Show host of “The Tamron Hall Show.” She in her generosity agreed to write the Foreword. I was surprised that she had encountered certain obstacles when she first came to Chicago as a reporter and broadcaster. Tamron is smart, beautiful, out-going and a hard worker. I had no idea that she had not been accepted as such in the beginning. Her story let me know that even when it seems like a person has everything going for them, a compassionate word or act of kindness can make all the difference. Here, in her own words, is her story. –Chaz Ebert

FOREWORD: by TAMRON HALL

LONG BEFORE the days of my becoming the first Black woman to host the TODAY show or premiering the Tamron Hall Show, I landed on Chicago’s door-step. It was August 31, 1997, and I had just accepted a role as reporter with the Fox News station WFLD, directly on the Magnificent Mile, in the heart of city. I was twenty-seven years old and swimming in fear.

Outside of the brief in-and-out interview to secure the role, I had never been to the city and didn’t have a single personal acquaintance there. Since college, I had been happily working as a reporter in my hometown of Dallas–Fort Worth—a place where I
was assured to always be surrounded by the love of friends and family. My parents had seen me off at the Dallas airport that morning. Everything about arriving in Chicago frightened me, as I stood there carrying my single suitcase and the cage that held my
cherished cockatiel bird.

On the ride from the airport, my taxi driver asked me why I was in Chicago. I told him I had moved there to be a reporter. “Good luck! It’s a tough town,” he said begrudgingly. He then added that I should expect to gain a lot of weight and drink a lot. There I was, the wheels of the taxi moving me forward on my journey yet feeling frozen by the utter
fright that things would not work out. Then news of Princess Diana’s death rushed across the airwaves and was enough to push me straight over the edge. I felt total regret for having made the decision to move to Chicago.

In an attempt to glue my two feet firmly in place, I remembered what a dear friend and fellow member of the National Association of Black Journalists had told me when he said I should take the job there. “Chicago is going to make you a new star,” he had so confidently expressed. It was a “news town” and a place that supported Black women and journalists.
Oprah Winfrey called the city home as did Allison Payne, Diann Burns, and Robin Robinson—iconic Black female newspeople who were known around the country—were all making their mark there. Why not me?

The fear of failing in the Windy City had not left me, yet I tried to keep the faith as I dove into my first few weeks of my new role. At lunch, I would sometimes wander around the Magnificent Mile and frequent the food court at the Water Tower building on Michigan Avenue—a place that took on a whole new meaning to me one Tuesday. While grabbing a
quick bite, I could feel the stare of a Black woman behind the counter checking me out. She then propped up and said, “You’re the new Black girl on Fox 32.”

“I am,” I said.

“Oh, we’re watching!” she enthusiastically replied with a kindness and ownership that left me feeling as though a loved one had reached out to embrace me in the biggest way possible. Like the radiant North Star, this human being had gifted me the most beautiful act of kindness and hope. It gave me the confidence I needed to stay in Chicago.

Within a matter of months, I had started to build a reputation in town. When a controversial decision by the WFLD news director led to the firing of the anchor for Fox News in the Morning I was offered the role. The move from reporter to anchor should have been a cherished time in my career, but it felt tainted by the fact that someone had to be cut to make room for me to advance. Yet another joyous moment was crushed, just like the taxi driver’s stark warning about Chicago being a tough town the day I had set foot in the city. If that wasn’t enough to weigh heavily on my heart, a local reporter then referred to
me as a Halle Berry look-alike. Any acts of kindness I had experienced since landing in Chicago felt immediately erased by that one powerful moment of rejection and for not being seen for who I was. Maybe it was time for me to go back home to Texas.

It was then that an unexpected invitation arrived to join Chaz and Roger Ebert for a Fourth of July gathering at their summer house just outside New Buffalo, Michigan. Over my entire career, I had watched Roger Ebert and WGN, and Siskel & Ebert had become a hallmark of what Chicago meant to me. I was convinced that Chaz and Roger must
had made a mistake and mixed my name up with someone else’s. I had only met them once, walking into a movie screening at Lake Street Screening Room off Michigan Avenue. There was no way they knew who I was.

Regardless, like a sleuth following up on a good lead, I decided to brave the unknown and
make the hour-long drive to the wooded beauty of Harbert where I arrived at their brick Tudor home, seated squarely on the bluffs of Lake Michigan. There were parked cars for miles, an outdoor band stand with hopping Motown music enlivening those on the dance floor, and a crowd easily topping three hundred guests. Like the day I had set foot outside O’Hare Airport to mark Chicago as my new home, I felt completely overwhelmed. First stop: the wash room to collect my thoughts. What I didn’t expect was what I would find within its walls.

On the washroom counter sat two figurines: one of a Black woman and one of a white man.
“I’m their child! If they had a baby, it could be me!” I thought to myself about Chaz and Roger. Those two little porcelain creations gave me enough of the feeling of support I needed to go out and confidently be with everyone. It is difficult to fully explain that
sudden wave of assurance, though as I walked out and witnessed Chaz being the most gracious host, it all made sense. There she was, walking around, making everyone feel seen and cared for. From her, I felt an overwhelming sense of welcome and kindness. What amazed me most was that from a city known to be a hard-news town, Chaz and Roger had brought together people from the Chicago Sun-Times, the Tribune, ABC, CBS, NBC, WGN, and Fox, along with countless local writers, filmmakers, and friends. And everyone seemed to be having a grand time.

Doing my best to inconspicuously blend in, I said hello to familiar faces as Chaz made sure I was introduced to those I didn’t know. Then I saw him—the writer who had called me a Halle Berry look-alike. My heart sank yet again. Had I not felt frozen in the moment, I might just have run. Then Roger spoke directly to him. “No one wants to be compared to anyone else. That’s not fair,” he said. It was a single act of loving support so powerful that left me feeling as though my newfound “parents” were rooting for me. I felt tougher and very much at home as that defining moment made me recognize that the good things that were happening to me were meant for me to pass along good things to other people. It became a critical turning point in my decision to stay in Chicago. Up until then, the high moment of my career success of becoming an anchor had felt hollow, yet in a miraculous instant, that hole was filled with true unconditional compassion and love. Because of Chaz and Roger, I felt reinvigorated and more purposeful about moving forward spreading
what was given to me—and I went on to brush off naysayers and not allow negativity to outshine the joy that people give us.

Years after being invited to their cookout and further forging our bond, I ran into Chaz and Roger at a newsstand at O’Hare International Airport—the place where it had all begun for me. Life had changed for them in many ways, and Roger was in a wheelchair. Despite his struggle to articulate himself and few words being said, not a bit of the kind compassion they had always offered me had faded. Once again, they embraced me so warmly that made it abundantly clear that my “parents” were still rooting for me.

This story is not my journey alone. It is so important that we all embrace and expand the
conversation about the magical moments where others make the choice to extend the shining lights of forgiveness, empathy, compassion, and kindness—the FECK Principles. The tradition of joy, love, and support will never go out of style, but we all have to be active participants. That’s what Chaz is welcoming us to do in It’s Time to Give a FECK.

Because of Chaz, I have experienced first-hand why any of us should dive in and embrace the perspective on how good our world can be. From the day we met, she has reminded me of the strong women who had raised me—my mother, her friends, my aunts. Their outpouring of care and kindness has always left me feeling so at home and I can only hope
that each of us has the opportunity to encounter people like Chaz or that angelic woman from my early-Chicago days at the food court—those who have undeniably made these principles a daily practice and who are constantly reminding us that none of us has to go it alone.

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You can grab your copy on Amazon today HERE!

The film output of 2024 was full of performances so nice, we had to run this feature twice. The wonderful contributors to this site have already weighed in on sixteen of the best performances of the year—starmaking turns from unknowns, A-listers demonstrating their dominance, character actors finally getting their moment in the spotlight. But the hits keep on comin’, so we’ve got another fresh crop of sixteen wonderful roles to celebrate.

In this back half, we’ve got more welcome surprises and head-nodding favorites: little-discussed lead turns in smaller indie horror, at least two “Star Wars” alums honing their skills in knottier roles, teen heartthrobs growing into homicidal murder-dads, the list goes on. Read on, and see who else thrilled us in front of the camera in 2024.

Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina in “Megalopolis“

Great performances tend to be associated with great movies—or at least with movies that, in some commonly agreed-on sense, work. But sometimes you see a great performance in a movie that either doesn’t work or that reasonable people can disagree about. Francis Ford Coppola’s thirty-years-in-the-making, self-financed science fiction fable “Megalopolis” is that kind of movie. And if indeed you believe (as I do) that it works in any meaningful way (if only as an expression of its director’s mercurial, stubbornly personal approach to the art form), it’s because of the way that Adam Driver plays the main character and Coppola’s avatar and appears in nearly every scene.

“Megalopolis” is the story of a visionary urban planner named Cesar Catalina—imagine Robert Moses as a character in Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis“—struggling to assert his will and vision in New Rome, which is an amalgam of New York City, Rome, and a lot of other fictional spaces. Cesar is at odds with the city’s mayor, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), and its power elite over how best to use their resources in reconstructing the city after a disaster. But really, he seems to be at odds with everyone, including himself, to some extent. He’s brilliant and arrogant, but (the film seems to argue) has earned the right to a certain arrogance because of his brilliance. 

The character would probably seem like an insufferable, half-baked, self-canceling caricature if played by anyone else but Driver, who excels at playing difficult men and is one of the few modern American leading men who is equally believable playing hyper-verbal geniuses and guys who are so dumb that they take a ruler to bed to see how long they slept. He makes no apologies or special pleadings on behalf of Cesar to try to compel sympathy for him, instead playing him completely straight even when the dialogue is at its most self-conscious, verging on camp. He somehow splits the difference between naturalism and stylization, making all the movie’s other performance modes, from almost-Kabuki clowning to whispering subtlety, seem to meld rather than clash.

It’s as much of an architecture job as anything Cesar himself would get involved in. The character has the mystical ability to stop time, and when you see Driver’s wizardly effectiveness, you believe it’s a power he brought to the set. He seems to see everything that everyone is doing and thinking at any given moment, and he’s somehow figured out how to put it all together into a cohesive role. At times, it’s as if he’s subliminally directing the performances as much as Coppola was probably doing it on set. – MZS

Daisy Ridley as Fran Larsen in “Sometimes I Think About Dying”

In Rachel Lambert’s “Sometimes I Think About Dying,” Daisy Ridley plays an introverted office worker named Fran, whose routine at work often gives way to dreams of her dead body splayed in various settings. We gaze at sandy beaches and forest floors before watching as she snaps back into reality, hand over her mouth and eyes darting to ensure her coworkers haven’t noticed. Slowly, Ridley allows the coils of Fran’s inner workings to unwrap, exposing her soul bare for the audience. Almost all of this is done in silence, with Ridley only having dialogue in quick or frenzied bursts. 

Subdued while also staggeringly physical, Ridley portrays a woman who haunts her life like a ghost; each time she’s on screen, it’s painfully clear how Fran is a woman confined to a body and an experience from which she is blatantly disconnected. It’s a peculiar thing for a character as afraid of themselves as Fran to command the audience’s gaze, but it’s a performance that is impossible to not feel grasped by. At the end of the film, Fran confesses–voice wavering ashamedly–to her burgeoning love interest Robert (Dave Merheje) that she often looks outside of the office window and dreams about hanging from a crane that idles outside. With this admission, carried so severely by Ridley’s gasping whisper, it’s impossible not to think you’re watching someone’s career begin again. – Kaiya Shunyata

Natasha Lyonne as Rachel in “His Three Daughters”

As I grow older, I find myself growing weary of the breathless hyperbole of what is too commonly, and often inaccurately, described as “Method Acting.” Real acting, we’re so often told, is disappearing into the role, a chameleonic immersion requiring physical transformation, a graduate course of research, and/or dramatic refusals to break character on set. 

However, I find myself more drawn to actors who craft a recognizable persona, and then do their most compelling work subverting it. For the actors of the studio system, that persona became their bread and butter (see Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, other actors who weren’t in “The Philadelphia Story”). These days, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, and Kristen Stewart fall into these rough parameters. And so does Natasha Lyonne.

We think we know what to expect when we’re introduced to Rachel, her character in “His Three Daughters”; the pot-smoking, tough-talking, sports-betting New York woman who has become the default caretaker of the dying Vincent (Jay O. Sanders) could easily be played in the same key as her brassy broads of “Russian Doll” and “Poker Face.” Instead, Lyonne goes inward, turning what could have been a caricature of gregariousness into a keenly observed study of preemptive grief. She’s witnessed her father’s descent well before her sisters arrive, and her throwaway line readings and inverted body language (she’s often literally eyeing the nearest doorway when thrust into a conversation) tell us more about this character than any searching, multi-paged monologue could. – Jason Bailey

Raúl Briones as Pedro in “La Cocina”

Lacking the authority of a captain, Pedro, an undocumented cook from Mexico, still pulls rank in the tumultuous ship that is the Times Square restaurant where he works among immigrants from around the globe. His facetious bravado, bordering on hubris and almost unbearable in its unpleasantness, collides with a mostly concealed vulnerability in Mexican actor Raúl Briones’ visceral performance as part of this reimagining of the stage play The Kitchen by director Alonso Ruizpalacios. Accused of stealing money from his employer and dealing with his workplace romantic interest and their unplanned pregnancy, Briones’ Pedro prepares dishes with a manic intensity while philosophizing about the unattainable mirage that is the American Dream. In one scene, Pedro rants about the perils of speaking English, still feeling like his voice isn’t heard. More than some of his coworkers, who are just going through the motions of a life of exploitation, he’s painfully conscious of his powerless position.

Near the end, Pedro unravels in a physically violent manner, as if his pent-up rage can no longer be contained inside his body. He’s visibly crushed by the weight of a capitalist system that only perceives his existence based on productivity and otherwise disposable. In that final outburst, one is almost convinced that Briones himself has been consumed by the frustration that overflows in the role. Briones, an actor of great emotional potency forged in the theater, laces the part with a sorrowfulness that beams from Pedro’s tired, sad eyes in quiet moments. With his range on full display here, his presence feels incandescent. – Carlos Aguilar

Cillian Murphy as Bill Furlong in “Small Things Like These”

I recall a filmmaker saying to me, “If you can see the performance, then it’s usually not a great performance.” You’d be hard-pressed to say you saw Cillian Murphy’s performance in “Small Things Like These.” All we see is the sincere honesty of a character whose traumatic past and fatherly love for his daughters collide to reveal his wounded soul and his enduring vulnerability. What’s striking, however, is how Murphy creates space for the audience to enter the film through his physical performance and his character’s guarded and discreet nature.

Murphy articulates the spirit of the film. “Small Things Like These” is a discreet work that relies on an unspoken fear. The scene when he wakes up in the dead of night, a fearful thought set loose in his mind, is brilliantly executed. We’re not seeing Murphy sitting up in bed, terrified of what he would be expected to do should his daughter get herself in “trouble.” No, we see a worried Bill Furlong. This, along with many of the other subtle moments in Murphy’s performance, constructs a world within a world—his internal and outer worlds. The space Murphy, director Tim Mielants, and screenwriter Edna Walsh create for the audience to enter the film is Bill’s internal world. Murphy draws the audience in and asks them to look into his soul to understand him. The fine performance contextualizes the past not as flashbacks but as memories—the film and audience inside the mind of its character. – Paul Risker

Anja Plaschg as Agnes in “The Devil’s Bath”

Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s “The Devil’s Bath” is based on the historical phenomenon of “suicide by proxy” in confessional states, which saw depressed people (women) commit murder so as to receive confession and salvation. Working off a book by Kathy Stuart, which delineates “suicide by proxy” as symptomatic of patriarchal religious control, the film follows Agnes, played by Anja Plaschg. “The Devil’s Bath” is certainly a historical document, but because of Plaschg, it is also something glorious: the film is transmuted into a living, breathing thing, a portrait of a woman unraveling. 

At the film’s start, Agnes is serene as she prepares a wreath for her wedding to Wolf (David Scheid). A devout soul, she prays she will be a good wife and bear children, But her new life is hard. Her husband won’t have sex with her, and her mother-in-law (Maria Hofstätter as a stony Mother Gänglin) is controlling. Everything seems to go wrong, and Agnes, a sweet, poetic girl, can’t handle it. Setbacks are read as dire failures, and she falls into a deep depression, one mirrored by her surroundings: a heavy fog settles into the forest around her new home, and the trees, once safe, become one great craggy mire. 

Plaschg carries Agnes’s disintegration with acute understanding. At first, Agnes performs little rebellions, like quietly offering a second loaf of bread to the workers on Wolf’s family’s farm. Still, Mother Gänglin is always there to undercut her, forcing Agnes to suppress her natural kindness. In one stunning scene, after being nearly swallowed by the forest, Agnes takes a thorny branch and rubs it furiously against her tongue, a little flagellation for the severity foisted upon her by Mother Gänglin. Agnes’s depression moves slowly at first, then settles all at once; like bad weather, you can almost see it weighing her head.

Plaschg’s awareness of the cadence of psyche-shattering sadness is spellbinding. Her brows are often knit as if her eyes are straining to see through her heavy tears, and her eyes are often swollen for all the nights she spends weeping. Agnes is a woman under the influence of a soul-wracking depression, and Plaschg carries her with a grace and intricacy reminiscent of Gena Rowlands.

Near the end of the film, when Agnes becomes limp in bed, Plaschg maintains a discerning care in allowing not a helplessness to show through but rather an utter inability to think or feel or move, becoming a clarion clear embodiment of insensate melancholy, of sheer hopelessness. And after Agnes commits her crime and is finally allowed on death’s doorstep when she is forgiven after she confesses little offenses, her red face lights up in delirious ecstasy; it is the happiest she has been since her wedding day. Plaschg’s Agnes laughs and wails at once in the culmination of one of the year’s best performances. – Alisha Mughal

Naomi Scott as Skye Riley in “Smile 2”

It’s when I saw Naomi Scott chug an entire bottle of Voss water in about ten seconds with unbridled ferocity that I knew I was witnessing an all-timer horror performance. Said aqua guzzling is a coping mechanism that Scott’s character, pop star Skye Riley in Parker Finn’s “Smile 2,” employs whenever she feels the urge to use drugs due to stress, anxiety, or pain; she’ll experience all of the above and more throughout the film.

Indeed, it’s hard to think of a movie character who went through the wringer more than Skye. When we first meet her, it’s evident that she’s battling demons of her own long before the film’s titular supernatural entity seeks to quite literally feast on her torment and angst. It’s a role that could have been one-note, but Scott imbues her take on the tortured artist with a resolve that makes for an inspired performance. It’s her fluctuation between caving into despair and committed fortitude that makes her instantly relatable and compelling.

One of the clever strengths of Finn’s film is in the way it draws an equivalency between the monstrous entity’s soul-sucking appetite and the nature of the invasive, parasocial relationships that have been normalized as a result of social media’s ubiquity and stan culture. In Skye, we see how the glory, money, and fame of the spotlight don’t take away one’s issues; it only gives them a bigger platform. Scott proves she’s more than up for the challenge of playing a character caught between crumbling and courage. She boasts music chops to make her a believable pop star that would make her the object of affection, your “favorite artist’s favorite artist” whom the tabloids would obsess over and to whom eager fans would say things like “You’re my spirit animal.” The in-universe songs are certified earworms in their own right but are even more gripping and enlivening thanks to Scott’s self-aware delivery of the lyrics’ double meaning. It’s a marvel to hear her belt lines like “You can have me a la carte, no condition to it,” knowing as seemingly as it may seem, it’s horrifying given the context of that which haunts her.

The revelation, though, is also in how Scott embodies interior agony so palpably. It is on her visage that a whole host of emotions reside alongside smeared lipstick and dried tears, a canvas where Finn paints the consequences of the crushing weight of fame, the fear that we’ll be defined by our worst mistakes, and the ways we quickly spiral and try to seize control when things slip further from our grasp. Yet, to Scott’s credit, she doesn’t play Skye as helpless; instead, she reveals that same fear with steely confidence and discipline. Amidst the film’s many plot twists, we remain anchored by Scott’s spellbinding resolve and spirit. It’s this mix of open-heart vulnerability and dogged resilience that cements Scott as a major talent; “Smile 2” is merely a combustible calling card for an artist who knows how to slay with a smile. – Zachary Lee

Josh Hartnett as Cooper in “Trap”

Perhaps one of the greatest twists of M. Night Shyamalan’s career was casting perennial nice guy Josh Hartnett as a ruthless serial killer in his latest film, “Trap.” Nothing makes you feel your own mortality more than seeing your teen crush playing the parent of a teenager. Shyamalan’s thriller largely takes place inside a giant stadium, where Cooper (Hartnett) has taken his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to see her favorite pop girlie, Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan). A firefighter by day and killer by night, Cooper quickly learns the entire concert is a trap to catch him. The film’s tension relies on Hartnett as he balances charismatic girl-dad energy with the panic of a criminal trying to outsmart cops who have him surrounded. 

Hartnett pulls this feat off with aplomb, playing out Cooper’s conflicting emotional state largely through shifts in his facial expression. Shyamalan often films Hartnett in close-up shots, his sly smile and shining eyes filling each frame with a plethora of discordant emotions. In Hartnett’s hands, goofy dad humor is laced with menace; each harmless wink at a hapless PTA mom has the potential to bludgeon. Hartnett seamlessly blends the killer’s frantic need for escape with the same try-hard eagerness of a dad who desperately wants to still be cool in the eyes of his beloved daughter. Once the action moves to the Cooper home, the duality at the heart of Hartnett’s performance merges into a singular psychosis, his vulnerability melting away completely as his villainous nature is irrevocably unmasked. – Marya E. Gates

Brian Tyree Henry as Jason Crutchfield in “The Fire Inside”

Whenever social media launches a prompt like “who should be cast in X,” my mind almost always goes to Brian Tyree Henry. He should be in Marvel movies, indie dramas, and everything in between. Why? Because he continues to be one of those rare performers that elevates every single part they take. Whether it’s going understated in broad genre work like “Bullet Train” or finding the human core of his character in “Causeway,” he has never phoned it in. His latest, next week’s “The Fire Inside,” is another reminder of his talent. I’m pretty sure I could pick him every year for a feature like this.

What makes BTH different? It’s the moments between the lines. He’s one of those excellent performers that deftly hides the strings of filmmaking, disappearing into character instead of looking like an actor on a set. He does that by convincing us he’s listening, thinking, responding, reacting instead of just enacting rehearsed dialogue and blocking.

Jason Crutchfield, and “The Fire Inside” as a whole, could have just been another by-the-numbers inspirational sports movie, but Henry (and his wonderful co-star, Ryan Destiny) make it feel real. We don’t mind cliches as much when we believe the characters living through them are genuine. And Brian Tyree Henry is incapable of giving a disingenuous performance. – Brian Tallerico

Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn in “The Apprentice”

Before seeing Ali Abbasi’s American horror story, “The Apprentice,” Roy Cohn was nobody to me. Without the standout performance from Jeremy Strong, Cohn would still be a nobody to me. While many may have avoided the film due to the 2024 political climate, there’s a bit of lore unveiled here that the “true crime” and “historical fiction” crowds would find entertaining. Furthermore, there’s a particular itch to scratch when it comes to understanding who is at the origin of the madness or the masterpiece, depending on how one frames it.

Sebastian Stan, who serves the titular role (a young Donald Trump), is pushed to succeed on a greater level due to Strong’s substantial support; it’s as if their characters’ symbiosis stemmed directly from reality. In one of his first major roles since the finale of HBO’s “Succession,” Strong taps into an unnerving, specific type of hyper-capitalistic, misogynistic evil. Trump’s Tropicana-colored spray tan was first modeled as a good idea by his mentor, Roy Cohn; this superficial detail symbolizes myriad poor choices to follow. Strong is unrelenting in his role as the blueprint for Trump’s behavior and business practices. Their co-dependency quickly slips into Stan sucking the life out of Strong, and as his health and status decline, Strong seamlessly steps from a nasty, nefarious attorney into a dying, dissociative man who possibly regrets the monster he’s made.

While it’s likely safe to assume that the real-life Roy Cohn died with no regrets, this fictionalized take on the becoming of Donald Trump is strengthened by Strong’s ability to embody ambivalent feelings, which in turn personalizes the role and the story as a whole. I’ll be waiting for the day when Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune crafts a clue that connects two of Strong’s best performances: what is Kendall Roy Cohn? – Cortlyn Kelly

Justice Smith as Owen in “I Saw the TV Glow”

It’s difficult to overstate the melancholic power of Justice Smith’s performance in “I Saw the TV Glow,” Jane Schoenbrun’s rich and haunting exploration of teenage dysphoria. In the film, two high school students bond over a late-night television series called “The Pink Opaque,” only for one of them, Maddy, to vanish following its finale; the other, Owen, is left at a loss to navigate parts of themselves they’d understood best (though even then only partially) through the series, as years pass and fantasy blurs into reality.

Played first by Ian Foreman, before Smith assumes the role, Owen is a painfully awkward and lonely adolescent, uncertain how to express the profound feelings of unease that, as he’s aged, have gradually served to hollow out his sense of self, rather than propelling forward his search for an inner truth. Schoenbrun is a trans filmmaker and has discussed their film as a metaphor for the “egg crack” moment at which a person realizes they’re trans, but Owen lacks the vocabulary and the self-knowledge to articulate his identity in this manner, growing more isolated and dissociated as he gets older.

In a visceral performance of unbearable distress and discomfort, Smith captures this subconsciously suppressed dysphoria as a slow death, a living tragedy. As Owen becomes less of himself, afraid to face the constructed nature of his reality and uncertain how to reclaim a more authentic sense of self, Smith portrays his existence as a purgatorial state of self-detachment—each movement a repression, every word swallowed up as soon as it’s spoken—before the film’s shattering, revelatory climax finds Owen finally confronting, with wonder and terror, what lies inside. – Isaac Feldberg

Riley Keough as the female in “Sasquatch Sunset”

At the Sundance premiere of the Zellner brothers’ latest exercise in deadpan absurdity, Jesse Eisenberg mentioned inviting his personal mime coach to the set to train the cast. That’s emblematic of the seriousness everyone brings to their wordless (thus the mime coach) turns as wild Sasquatches roaming the shrinking wilderness of Northern California in “Sasquatch Sunset.” But as the lone female of the group, co-star Riley Keough has the most difficult acting challenges in the film, and takes the biggest risks. 

Keough throws herself 100% into her roles, even the ridiculous ones (see: her career-making turn in “Zola”). But managing to convey fear, panic, grief, and all-around pathos while wearing a Bigfoot suit and full facial prosthetics is a lot, even for her. In the first half, she’s just goofing around with her co-stars, hooting and throwing things and making noises in the Sasquatch sex scene. (You read that correctly.) 

As the story goes on, however, Keough’s mama Sasquatch becomes the emotional center of the story, guiding it through a risky (but successful!) tonal shift from silly lark to sorrowful elegy. Her physical performance in the scene where she “gives birth” alone, in the woods, grunting and howling and pulling a baby Sasquatch doll out of her furry bodysuit with her hands, represents a level of commitment that all actors should aspire to, and few ever achieve. – Katie Rife

Zendaya as Tashi Duncan in “Challengers”

Former Disney Channel superstar and golden child Zendaya has taken on numerous roles since her time at the House of Mouse came to an end. From her Emmy-winning portrayal of Rue in “Euphoria” to playing the love interest of the world’s favorite web-slinger in Jon Watts’s “Spider-Man” trilogy, and now starring in Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune,” it seems there is no limit to the starlet’s staying power.  

While Zendaya’s fame is undeniable, her acting prowess has faced some skepticism in recent years. Despite winning a Primetime Emmy Award for her performance in “Euphoria,” some critics argue that she has yet to deliver a truly standout role that matches the level of her widespread acclaim. However, it appears Zendaya has taken this feedback to heart, as she has begun tackling more challenging and unconventional characters. 

Her portrayal of Tashi Duncan, a former tennis prodigy turned coach after a devastating injury, is the latest example of her evolution as an actress. Tashi is seductive, calculating, and emotionally complex—most importantly, she is a fully realized adult. While Zendaya has played mean-girl archetypes before, these characters often carried an air of immaturity, as they were typically younger and less developed. 

This performance, however, marks a significant shift. For the first time, audiences see Zendaya embodying a mature character, signaling her growth as both an actress and an artist. From her movements to her expressions, she demonstrates a depth and broader approach that feels like a departure from her Disney Channel roots and a step above her performance in “Malcolm & Marie.”

Now that she’s stepping into more layered roles, one can only hope this is a trend Zendaya continues to embrace as she explores richer, more dynamic characters in the future. – Brandon Towns

Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Thomas Lawrence in “Conclave”

Doubt and certainty wage war within the soul of Cardinal Lawrence as he presides over the seething group of Cardinals, gathered to elect a new Pope. In such a cutthroat atmosphere, wearing your heart on your sleeve isn’t at all wise, and the diplomatic Lawrence is accustomed to presenting an unflappable and mild personality. But Lawrence’s internal war can’t be hidden this time, and his carefully practiced mask of gentle authority starts to break apart. Fiennes, at times, seems to be truly under siege. Alone in his room, he breaks down into heaving sobs, and the release seems purely physical.

Lawrence is in a whirlwind, and he only lets us see a little bit of it at a time. After a lifetime of service in the Church, he has doubts about everything, including his faith, an almost unsayable admission in the Vatican.

But Cardinal Lawrence is a complicated man. Doubt is not usually associated with steely strength and leadership, but Lawrence isn’t the Dean for nothing. He confronts the big issues. He maneuvers back-channels. He holds his cards close. He breaks rules. Underestimate this self-effacing bureaucrat at your peril.

This is not a “showy” performance, or even conventionally expressive. What Fiennes is doing is harder than it looks; it takes great control, a control mastered over a decades-long career. The whole film in a way is a tribute to what long-standing character actors bring to any table. Eccentricity and absurdity come easily to Fiennes, but this is the most interior performance he has ever given and it’s one of his best. – Sheila O’Malley

Naomi Ackie as Frida in “Blink Twice”

In “Blink Twice,” Naomi Ackie is the queen of reversals in her portrayal of Frida. This character digs her whimsically painted fingernails into us by reaching beyond delineated emotions into the shades between them. Initially, Frida ignores the instinct that something is wrong with her island vacation and the man (Channing Tatum) who brought her there. She has dreamed of being swept into luxury by a billionaire “prince.” If she can’t find happiness with him, and her life at home is unhappy, she has no dreams left.

The pinnacle of this internal tug-of-war is in the dance scene with her tainted beau. Each rotation away from him is a moment of terror, and with every turn back her feigned mask of revelry returns. It’s a chillingly effective play for survival, made more so because—in varying degrees—many of us recognize this dance. When Frida says she’s having a good time, we know she’s not, but she believes she is.

Those dueling states of mind form the kaleidoscopic colors of Ackie’s performance. In every plot twist, she reveals new shapes to her island hell. Every returned memory is rendered in micro-expressions—clenched fingers, sudden tremors, out-of-control breaths, and upward-turned lips that are neither a smile nor a grimace. These are signs of someone whose psyche is in upheaval. Frida is a woman who is unsure of how deep the torrent goes, and because of Naomi Ackie, we believe her. That is what makes her last look of vengeance-laced smugness so deeply satisfying. – Sherin Nicole

John David Washington as Boy Willie in “The Piano Lesson”

John David Washington displays a fearlessness surpassing his other big screen roles to date in his brother’s film adaptation of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson. Directed by his brother Malcolm (in his directorial debut) and reprising his role from the 2022 Broadway production as Boy Willie, Washington’s performance feels personal on a visceral level.

This formal football player brings Wilson’s masterpiece to life with an emotional depth and poetic justice, making each word ring like a song composition in cinematic form. His ferocity for the language is boldly embodied with each movement, glance and interaction with every cast member. With an undeniable screen presence, his performance is only enhanced by his scene partner and older sister Berniece (the equally excellent Danielle Deadwyler) on screen. 

John David Washington may be the son of Black Hollywood Royalty (Pauletta and Denzel Washington), but it is abundantly clear that he has forged a cinematic path uniquely of his own volition, encompassed by multiple genres, characters and directors across an already notable career. The best is yet to surface for this young thespian whose future is so bright it literally burns my eyes. – Carla Renata

It’s our favorite time of year, the one in which the many writers of this site pick their favorite performances to write about. There were so many contributions this year that we’ve split the results in two—the second half will run tomorrow. Now, a few notes. These pieces are not comprehensive. There are performances we love that won’t be in either feature, including standouts like Kieran Culkin, Adrien Brody, and Mikey Madison. Perhaps it’s because they’ve already received so much attention, or that we stick to one performer per film, but we don’t love them any less. All we know is that these are 32 great performances of 2024.

Clarence Maclin as Himself in “Sing Sing”

There was no actor on this planet capable of playing Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin more than the man himself. Having stumbled upon Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) during his seventeen years in prison, Maclin returned to “Sing Sing” to bring authenticity to the role based on his own life. From his first appearance, Maclin’s character makes his interest in acting known but can’t leave his troublesome tendencies behind. He’s difficult and doesn’t take direction from his fellow performers. Colman Domingo’s character becomes almost like a mentor to Maclin, but there’s a pivotal moment when that dynamic changes.

It’s easy to imagine his performance being overshadowed by his accomplished co-star, but Maclin holds his own. He is able to translate his experiences on the stage to being in front of a camera for the first time. It must’ve taken a lot for Maclin to revisit Sing Sing, but the most telling aspect of his amazing performance is that I fully expected his IMDB profile to be filled with past work. I thought, “Maybe this was a performer I wasn’t familiar with who has been putting out quality work for the past few years.” That’s not the case! It’s simply unfathomable that Maclin was able to step into this movie and completely knock it out of the park. Hopefully, this is only the beginning of an illustrious career. – Max Covill

Zoe Saldaña as Rita in “Emilia Pérez”

Zoe Saldaña has had a somewhat paradoxical career. She’s starred in several of the highest-grossing franchises, but she’s not credited with their successes. Which perhaps makes sense, because she’s been obscured, hidden by green body paint in “Guardians of the Galaxy” and blue CGI in “Avatar.”

So it’s refreshing to see her clearly in “Emilia Pérez.” I mean, she’s not even always beautiful in this French fever dream. At the start, she looks tired, made down, and the camera lingers across her face. Stuck in a demanding job without glory or moral grounding, Saldaña’s Rita dominates the first half of the film, transforming into a confident, beautiful, and (figuratively and literally) rich woman.

That’s a lot to handle and Saldaña does so with ease, making the downtrodden Rita feel as real as the carefree one. But then the film goes further, with perhaps her greatest moment being “El Mal.” Here, we see Saldaña firing on all cylinders. She’s filled with rage at the cronies around her, frustrated at the titular Emilia for sticking her in this second-fiddle role, and indulging in an inner monologue that she’d never let burst out. Saldaña dances, sings, and emotes mostly alone, giving emotional resonance to a melodramatic operetta that perhaps doesn’t deserve her. It’s a naked and powerful performance that makes the most out of Saldaña’s considerable talents. – Cristina Escobar

David Jonsson as Andy in “Alien: Romulus”

There is an entire world in David Jonsson’s performance as the synthetic Andy in Fede Álvarez’s otherwise largely quotidian and fan-serving “Alien: Romulus.” By himself, he is reason to not just watch the film but revisit it. He embodies an essential wistfulness, a sense of decency, and he carries it in his posture and the way he holds his head.

His first moment five minutes into “Alien: Romulus” is just his voice, telling a joke about a claustrophobic astronaut who “needed space.” His adoptive sister, Rain (Cailee Spaeny), begs him to stop. He tells another and when she doesn’t laugh, he furrows his brow sadly and says, “You always laughed at that one.” We don’t know he’s synthetic yet, but he does have an unusual affect that suggests something like autism. He is immediately likeable because of his winsomeness and his desire to make Rain laugh. He has communicated an entire and complete character in less than one minute and I don’t know if there are a lot of actors who can do so much, so quickly, and so quietly.

He’s in it for more than a minute, though, thank God, and the story of the early days of synthetics in this universe is written in his oppression and on his skin. The film is about him, the only character who is true. He is Daniel Keyes’ Charlie, and he is destroyed by knowledge: the theme of the entire franchise embodied in his sad eyes. – Walter Chaw

Jodie Comer as Kathy in “The Bikeriders”

“I’ve had nothin’ but trouble since I met Benny…” chirps Kathy as her beau, a streak of denim and lightning defined by growling menace and the parts of him that emerge from shadow, gets the hell beaten out of him. What’s a girl like her doing with a guy like this? Of course, anyone with a functioning set of eyes would fall for Benny (a never-better Austin Butler in the role he was born to embody) but what did this dark-hearted menace see in her, with her charmingly nattering midwestern lilt, each word in a sentence a chorus of drunken hummingbirds, and her perennial distaste for his antiestablishment malingering?

Kathy sees the world through binoculars, unable to judge the threats a few feet in front of her as they, like all of life, seem a few miles away, peering down at the behavior of Benny’s biker club like a dissatisfied goddess. She imbues this mousy girl, destined for a life on the wrong side of the tracks, with the most peculiar and beautiful confidence, as if she were the last model on the assembly line of creation. She sees the worst of human behavior and she’s drawn towards it even as she knows it isn’t “real”. Nothing is if she doesn’t let it. That’s why Benny can’t get her out of his head, any more than he could silence the roar of an engine in his heart. She’s not like anyone else in his life, and this performance, caught between Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle, is not like anything else in contemporary cinema. – Scout Tafoya

Keith Kupferer as Dan in “Ghostlight”

If I have to choose one movie performance to get the extra boost for the current Oscar season, that will be Keith Kupferer in “Ghostlight”. Although he has been relatively unknown despite starting his movie acting career around 20 years ago, this little but undeniably powerful film gives a precious spotlight for Kupferer at last, and he is utterly poignant as Dan Mueller, an ordinary family man dealing with his immense personal loss via an unexpected chance to act on the stage.   

Reluctantly trying to play the lead role in the little local stage production of Romeo and Juliet, Dan gradually comes out of his shell to face his complicated emotional issues on a recent personal tragedy, and Kupferer subtly illustrates his rather inarticulate character’s difficult emotional journey. When Dan struggles to hold himself for what is supposed to be a very important moment for himself and his family later in the story, Kupferer deftly handles his character’s dramatic emotional shifts during this crucial scene, and the result is devastating to say the least.

Around the end of the story, the movie simply observes Dan and his family members right after his fairly successful stage performance, and Kupferer and his two fellow cast members, who are incidentally his real-life wife and daughter, deliver a wordless but sublime human moment to be appreciated. After observing a little glimmer of hope and healing from the screen, you will never forget Kupferer’s performance, and you may also hope that the movie will lead to more good things to come into his solid acting career. – Seongyong Cho  

Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba in “Wicked”

“Wicked” is a movie with massive musical numbers, including one with dancers in what are basically hamster wheels, enormous sets and fabulous costumes all but exploding with eye-popping details, plus lots of characters with tons of star power. There are huge, intense emotions. There are soul-stirring, once-to-a-planet voices, and one of them belongs to Broadway star Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba.

Elphaba is hurt by her father’s icy resentment and preference for her sister. She is an outcast at school. But that does not make her try to be anything but who she is. Her vulnerability does not keep her from being unhesitatingly protective of others who are vulnerable.

There are a hundred different ways an actress could convey Elphaba’s responses to other character’s comments about her: “You’re green!” and “Why is it that every time I see you, you’re causing some sort of commotion?” Erivo’s quiet “I am” and “I don’t cause commotions. I am the commotion” convey confidence, self-awareness, even pride at the differences that are the source of Elphaba’s power. What keeps “Wicked”’s, well, tornado of stimulation from being overwhelming is Erivo’s astounding control of the smallest gestures, the subtle expressions of her face in close-up, amid all the visual splendor, action, music, and energy. Her ability to create a stillness is the heart of the movie. – Nell Minow

Chris Hemsworth as Dementus in “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”

Central to George Miller’s decade-on prequel to “Mad Max: Fury Road” is one fundamental question: How was Furiosa made? From the opening minutes of “Furiosa,” we see each step on her journey from innocent recipient of paradise to one-armed warrior of the desert. Fundamental to that path, as we see, is the Lord Dementus, the maniacal biker-gang leader who kidnaps her, takes her in, sells her, then spends the rest of the movie battling her right under his pronounced prosthetic nose. It’s a role that commands a great deal of bluster and swaggering, big-dick machismo; leave it to Chris Hemsworth, then, to fulfill that brief and build even more staggering layers of pain and anguish underneath.

It’s a hard thing for megastars to transition out of works that remind audiences of their most famous roles. So it’s a funny thing to see the deliberate plays on Thor that Dementus engages in: the leather-bound costume, the long, flowing locks, the crimson-red parachute cape he wears during one of his many subtle reinventions (“The Red Dementus”). But hiding underneath all the Aussie-accented barking and relentless superhero physicality is a wounded man who turns to nihilism at the loss of his family. Hemsworth plays all of these notes with remarkable grace; he’s Mad Max if tragedy turned him hateful instead of heroic. And suddenly, we see what kind of fire forged Furiosa into the hardened diamond she became. Without that keen supporting performance, all blood and rage and sadness, “Furiosa” wouldn’t be the Dickensian war epic it turned out to be. -Clint Worthington

Nell Tiger Free as Margaret in “The First Omen”

The horror of “The First Omen” emerges through the horror of original sin. It’s a horror steeped in shame, where the body’s inscribed with possibility and nightmare. Nell Tiger Free, as Sister Margaret, captures the full physical demands of the role. When we first meet her, she’s uncomfortable in her body, unsure what to do with her hands; she stands unusually straight with her head almost constantly bobbing in agreement. Margaret seems unduly aware of how she moves and is perceived, as if loosening her gestures or abandoning herself to sensation will reflect the hidden darkness of her soul. Her body doesn’t belong to herself but to the social and religious pressures that surround her.

As Margaret is swayed into going to the club at night, her body takes over. Music and sensuality pull her towards her baser instincts, which liberate her into something pulsing and organic. The newly discovered sensuality leads to a different kind of powerlessness. Pleasure turns to pain, and an orgasm transforms into an undulating violence. With evocations of Adjani’s primal performance in Zulawski’s Possession, one form of feminine subservience turns to another, and through Free’s performance the body telegraphs pain and grace within a series of oppressive systems. Yet, it’s in her gaze that the role comes together; one that feels astute, self-aware and tender. She doesn’t just feel, she looks; feeling for beauty within a world that seems increasingly beset by ugliness. – Justine Smith

Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Pansy in “Hard Truths”

Mike Leigh first met the actor Marianne Jean-Baptiste when he was formulating his 1993 picture “Naked.” I say “formulate” because it’s relatively accurate in describing how Leigh works. He gathers actors and certain crew months before filming begins and they improvise their way into a narrative. It’s a form of collective action. “It immediately became clear she was as sharp as we know her to be,” he says in the book Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh. He didn’t cast her in that picture for a reason that now embarrasses him: that is, the fact that she is Black would have placed an undue stress on the character interaction.

Of course, he did cast Jean-Baptiste in “Secrets and Lies,” in a searching role that instantly made her cinematically immortal. In a mild irony, Pansy, the constantly complaining character that Jean-Baptiste brings to scarily vivid life in Leigh’s “Hard Truths,” is very much an angry monologuist in the tradition of Johnny, the boisterous lead character played by David Thewlis in “Naked.” She’s a hectorer, she is, bearing down on her affable husband and berating her gloomy, unmotivated adult son to go out and walk somewhere, anywhere.

When her pragmatic, cheerful sister Chantelle (Michele Austin, also marvelous) wants to arrange a visit to their mother’s grave, Pansy has to make a three-act out of her decision to go or not. One standout scene demonstrates that you absolutely don’t want to get on a grocery line with her. But when someone asks her just what she’s so angry about, she nearly breaks down before admitting “I don’t know.” Some have said this film lacks the dimension of social consciousness that animates much of Mike Leigh’s work, but I disagree. The answer to where it lays is something I find in the title of a recent book about the politically radical rock group Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem. – Glenn Kenny

Yura Borisov as Igor in “Anora”

After being predictably transfixed by Mikey Madison’s powerhouse lead performance the first time I saw “Anora,” a funny thing happened the second time I saw the film—I couldn’t take my eyes off Yura Borisov. Knowing how the film ends becomes a cheat code for unlocking a second viewing of the film, where all of the subtle mannerisms and facial expressions Borisov brings to his performance suddenly take hold of the screen, and almost wrench the film away from Madison.

Playing Igor, a Russian enforcer with a heart of gold, Borisov mostly sticks to the background in a role with little dialogue. But he’s there in every scene, and it’s only on that second viewing that you truly see how much Sean Baker’s expert blocking and editing of the film chronicles Igor’s emotional journey just as deftly as it does Anora’s. There are so many shots where the main action in the foreground features Anora talking to someone, but the frame is telling a second story in the background with Yura Borisov’s face. He’s watching Anora just as much as we are, and the emotional journey taking place on his face is nearly as compelling as the one Anora goes through.

I hope we eventually get a YouTube supercut of just Borisov’s facial expressions in the “Anora.” It would provide fascinating illumination into Baker’s filmmaking, and Yura Borisov’s acting deserves that spotlight. – Daniel Joyaux

Léa Seydoux as Gabrielle Monnier in “The Beast”

At this point, the notion of actress Lea Seydoux delivering superlative work should not come as too much of a surprise—in films such as “Blue is the Warmest Color,” “The French Dispatch,” “France,” “Crimes of the Future” and “One Fine Morning,” she has been consistently turning in one outstanding performance after another. As good as she has proven herself to be so far, though, she manages to outdo even herself with her astonishing turn in this film from Bertrand Bonello inspired by a Henry James short story.

As a woman in the year 2044 undergoing a procedure to divest her of all emotions that triggers memories of past lives in Belle Epoque Paris and 2014 L.A. in which romantic entanglements ended badly, she adroitly negotiates the film’s audacious shifts in time and tone—ranging from the romantic to the satiric to the terrifying—and conjures up three distinct characters while at the same time subtly suggesting the ways in which they are all linked together. Her performance serves as an effective emotional counterbalance to the more head-spinning metaphysical concepts on display throughout and it is due in large part to her efforts that the result was the single best performance in the single best film that I saw in 2024. – Peter Sobczynski

Carol Kane as Carla Kessler in “Between the Temples”

The third act of Carol Kane as an actor is almost enough to restore one’s faith in a benevolent universe. She has had a part tailor made for her by comedy giant Tina Fey, recently became a part of the “Star Trek” universe, and this year became the leading lady of Nathan Silver’s “Between the Temples”.

It is almost impossible to think of anyone else in Kane’s role of Carol Kessler. The script mercifully does not try to make her into a septuagenarian manic pixie dream girl. The filmmakers know we have seen that film before. Instead, Kane gets to create a full human being, not just a stand-in for the life force sorely missing in the life of the grieving Cantor Ben Gottlieb (played by Jason Schwartzman). Kane’s Kessler, is a retired music teacher and a self-described “red diaper baby” raised in a socialist household. She decides after a chance meeting with Cantor Ben (a former student of hers she hasn’t seen in 30 years) to become a Bat Mitzvah student.

Silver’s film is essentially improvisational, and Kane is equal to the challenge. Even with the restless editing she manages to be the eye of the film’s hurricane. She manages to do one of the most important things in the craft of film acting: she listens with her eyes. She makes us feel a lifetime of lived experience as she meets Ben where he is and tries to grapple with the intense feelings she has for this wounded younger man. Kane so embodies Carla and with so much of her unique elan that you become frustrated with Ben for taking so long to realize he’s in love with her.

After her Oscar nomination for “Hester Street,” Kane did not work for a year. This is a testament to the paucity of roles for someone with her gifts. Let’s hope the accolades for playing Carla are just as plentiful and perhaps we won’t have to wait until 2026 to see her in a part worthy of her again. – Brandon Wilson

Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha in “Dune: Part Two”

Denis Villeneuve gathered together a murderer’s row of acting talent for the Dune duology, giving Frank Herbert’s genre redefining novel the vast cast of scene stealers it deserved. Nobody was half-assing it in “Dune: Part Two,” wherein Paul Atreides’ ascent to messianic ruler of the universe unfolded to the backdrop of warring dynasties and bloodshed. But if anyone were to make themselves a repulsive yet alluring alternative to the golden boy malice of Timothee Chalamet, it was always going to be Austin Butler.

As Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, the proudly murderous heir to the Baron’s throne, Butler is instantly magnetic. With not a hair on his entire body, skin the pallor of dusty milk, and inky black eyes, he’s both hard to look at and away from (and sounds so much like Stellan Skarsgard that Alexander and his brothers should be worried.) All of the swaggering charm and country boy guilelessness he brought to Elvis is replaced with something more calculated and still. Butler’s Feyd-Rautha is the mirror-verse Kwisatz Haderach, one who takes too much joy in death yet possesses a twisted sense of nobility. When he squares off with Paul, Butler retains a strain of dignity, respecting his cousin while wanting him to kneel at his feet. All of the uneasy incestuous qualities of the novel that the first movie carefully sidestepped are shoved right to the forefront by Butler. He makes Feyd-Rautha a lascivious libertine, one who licks his knives with pure sexual zeal and kisses his own uncle as though his sexuality is the ultimate weapon. This is an actor who knows the material. If only Villeneuve could find a way to bring him back for Dune Messiah. – Kayleigh Donaldson

Maika Monroe as Lee Harker in “Longlegs”

Maika Monroe may be in familiar genre territory with “Longlegs,” but she gives it new form in this film, delivering a career-best performance as its lead. Her embodiment of the psychically inclined rookie FBI agent Lee Harker is a cornerstone of the success of the film’s immersive, suspenseful atmosphere.

Harker is the epicenter of the film’s lore yet believes herself to be a fly on the wall, and Monroe plays the duplexity of this role with a pianist’s precision. Her flat affect, monotone voice, and corporeal stiffness are consistent idiosyncrasies amidst moments of curiosity, determination, devastation, and terror. Monroe latches onto an austere and distant disposition. Her performance, powerfully paradoxical, cuts through the screen on account of her unassuming approach.

As the film unravels, dragging us further underground, Monroe keeps us centered, but not unafraid: curious, but not quite brave. Harker is quiet, nervous, and sometimes timid, but there’s also power in her competence. When asked by her boss’s daughter “Is it scary being a lady FBI agent?,” her thousand-yard stare is interrupted by a flicker in her eye and softly uttered “Yep.”

Here, Monroe conveys a sense of mysterious contentment while igniting our voyeuristic wonder if some scab, deep in the soulful viscera of Harker, has been ever so slightly picked by the question. It’s this constant duality and enigma, expertly manipulated by Monroe’s nuanced stronghold on her craft, that makes Agent Lee Harker one of the most compelling portrayals of the year. – Peyton Robinson

Juliette Gariépy as Kelly-Anne in “Red Rooms”

Juliette Gariépy’s performance in “Red Rooms” is one of controlled, hypnotic blankness. She has relatively few lines of dialogue, and instead we have scene after scene of only her face and body in poised silence; we are watching her watching, reading into flicks of her eyelids or the curl of her lips for clues and meanings of intent. We watch her as she emanates an unnerving aura inside the courtroom as she obsessively gazes at the killer. We watch her at home, her face aglow, as she scans her computer screen as she studies footage related to her killer’s crimes. It is a deceptively tricky performance, the kind where it is especially important to appear as though you are doing nothing at all, naturalistically void, and Gariépy inhabits this uncanny persona with ease.

But as the film nears its climax, we realize her face wasn’t truly blank at all, but as much a mask as those she wore in her modeling photoshoots, a failing disguise that reveals, slowly, who she really is and what she really wants, and who she wants it from. The answers are terrifying, and Gariépy gives her Kelly-Anne an undeniable, familiar credibility, a performance that slowly summarizes the corrosive compulsivity of online life. Through her we see the numbed gaze of endless scrolling, and the evil ecstasy of the internet provoking our worst impulses made reality. Not all of us are as far gone as she is, but there’s something of Gariépy’s performance in all of us –– and that’s what should scare us. – Brendan Hodges

Lily Collias as Sam in “Good One”

In most of India Donaldson’s thoughtful “Good One,” teenage Sam (Lily Collias) maintains a sturdy facade. While she suffers the tepid, near-mundane humiliations of hanging out with her father and his oldest friend while hiking, she handles it all good-naturedly, like the responsible, wise-beyond-her-years figure she’s painted to be. Collias handles these details as Sam beautifully, offering inquisitive facial expressions and sly rebukes to some of the adults’ more ridiculous declarations. She’s responsible without seeming precocious, carrying with her the air of someone relied upon too often, though her burden is quiet.

It’s what makes the crack in the armor so devastating later in the film. After her comfort and safety is breached, she reaches out to her dad. His response breaks her trust and reads all over Collias’s face. It’s a stunning, heartbreaking moment as we see every ounce of hope, every bit of childhood belief in our parents, drain away. Collias plays the moment close to her chest, her walls back up just as quickly as they were torn down, but her crumpled expression lingers. For such an internal, reactionary performance, this blatant, rightful vulnerability is startling. Honest and achingly human, Collias is expressive and vibrant in her debut performance, hopefully promising many more to come. – Ally Johnson

The French call the orgasm la petite mort, but for Stephanie Hsu’s frenzied, thirtysomething serial dater Ruby in Peacock’s latest series “Laid,” the deaths around her are far from little. She’s the typical rom-com protagonist, or at least she’d like to think so: She’s obsessed with them, right down to coveting Billy Crystal’s abs in “When Harry Met Sally…” She’s chronically single, unlucky in love, and never seems to be able to find the right guy. But that flightiness comes back to haunt her when, out of nowhere, she starts learning that her exes are dying mysterious, violent deaths one by one… in the order she slept with them.

It’s a premise that sits somewhere between “Sex and the City” and, I guess, “It Follows,” but Nanatchka Khan and Sally Bradford McKenna’s revamp of the Australian series of the same name have spun it into a wry, effervescent series that’s laser-focused on the flightiness of modern millennial dating life. Like so many of us, Ruby is preternaturally insecure, cripplingly anxious, and ever so fixated on finding “the one” that the media we grew up on told us to have. But when her exes start dropping like flies, she’s left to wonder the age-old question: “Is it me?”

Unfortunately for her and those around her, this carousel ride through her romantic foibles comes with a death sentence for those in her proximity, and the rate at which her old flames crash out starts to creep up apace. All she has to work with is her (metaphorical) little black book and the unceasing aid of her best friend, AJ (Zosia Mamet), a frazzled true-crime obsessive who quickly whips up a conspiracy wall of her sexual Rolodex, red yarn and all.

If “Laid”‘s premise sounds a little tough to stretch out into an eight-episode series, you’d be partially right; after the initial shock and mystery of what’s happening to Ruby’s stable of men (and occasional women) wears off, the show falls into some pretty predictable rhythms. The back half is far weaker than the front, as Khan and McKenna struggle to throw in new wrinkles to complicate whatever curse she’s dealing with (from sexual loopholes to “Cyrano sex” that allows Ruby to loophole her way into sleeping with folks she doesn’t want to kill). The central mystery isn’t that enticing once it’s a bit more fully unraveled, and a last-minute tease for a second season doesn’t exactly grab you.

That said, what does win you over are the performances, especially from Hsu and Mamet. Hsu, fresh off her Oscar nom for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” sketches in Ruby’s messier edges without tilting her fully into unlikability. Sure, she’s a bit Bridget Jones in her flibbertygibbitude, all goofy voices and corny accents, but Hsu allows those quirks to act in service of a grander insecurity that fuels her on-again, off-off-off-again romantic pursuits. Even her budding romance with a client named Isaac (Tommy Martinez) opens up new flavors of insecurity and possessiveness, as she not only works to steal him from her fiancee, but stresses about whether winning him over would actually kill her. It’s smart, endearing work, and she keeps “Laid” afloat in its boggiest minutes.

But Mamet’s AJ levels out Ruby’s narcissism in much-needed ways, the pair’s rapid-fire banter serving up some of the series’ better jokes. AJ’s unnatural glee at being given such an enticing crime to solve (she’s the kind of girl who idolizes Amanda Knox and bandies about wordplay about clunky Ryan Murphy series titles) is a balm and keeps things from getting too heavy, even as Ruby’s metaphorical body count becomes quite literal. But more importantly, she offers a clear-eyed view of Ruby’s deep personal flaws, the one that has made Death’s kill list so long—as all besties must.

All in all, “Laid” is lightweight almost to a fault; the life-or-death stakes of Ruby’s inadvertent sexual killing spree don’t quite land in a show with the same kind of lightness as “Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23” (which Khan and McKenna collaborated on before this). This goes double when the show actually tries to land on some answers for Ruby’s predicament, when the more interesting angle is what caused Ruby to have such a long kill list in the first place. As a reflection on the ways our baggage keeps us from truly building new relationships, “Laid” is far more interesting. Here’s hoping season two leans on that (and its understated, deadpan laughs) more than what’s making Ruby such a literally toxic ex.

All episodes screened for review. “Laid” streams in its entirety December 19th on Peacock.

James Mangold is no stranger to locking in on the finer rhythms of some of American music’s most indelible figures: His 2005 Johnny Cash biopic, “Walk the Line,” was a soup-to-nuts recounting of the Man in Black’s life in music, and in the same breath offering up a snapshot of the state of the American folk and country scenes in the 20th century.

Since then, he’s taken a nice long stretch in the Blockbuster firmament, offering both well-hewn spins on classic dad-movie genres like the Western (“3:10 to Yuma”) and the racing film (“Ford v. Ferrari“), as well as taking high-profile turns in popular franchises with “Logan” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” It’s the kind of flexibility A-list directors don’t often get to demonstrate, and a challenge that Mangold takes with remarkable elan.

But with his latest, “A Complete Unknown,” Mangold shines a light on one of Cash’s most famous contemporaries, Bob Dylan, but takes a distinctly different tack to understanding the man. Rather than making him think about his whole life before he plays, Mangold hones in on a six-year period in Dylan’s early career—from the moment he rides into New York City with nothing to his name, hoping to impress a dying Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), through his ascendancy to folk superstar, to the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where he shocked his contemporaries and audiences by going electric and radically changing his image forever.

As with “Walk the Line,” “A Complete Unknown” feels like a singular collaboration between director and star—this time, Timothée Chalamet as a young Dylan, all shrugged shoulders and unassuming cool. Shuffling through the early ’60s on a wave of unexpected fame, Chalamet’s Dylan bristles against all the new attention he receives, both from throngs of screaming fans and the folk elder statemen (including Edward Norton‘s gentle, paternalistic Pete Seeger) who see him both as savior and threat to the sanctity of folk. And throughout, Mangold captures Dylan’s performing, both on massive stages and in intimate moments, with assured sequences that demonstrate Chalamet’s impressive evocation of Dylan’s inimitable voice, both spoken and sung.

Mangold spoke to RogerEbert.com about the long, winding road back to the form of the music biopic, wrestling with both Dylan and Chalamet’s rising stardom, and whether he thinks “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” killed the music biopic.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

This is you returning to the realm of music biopics for the first time in about twenty years—since then, you’ve made the rounds in a wide range of Blockbuster filmmaking modes and genres. What brought you back to the music biopic, and Dylan in particular?

JAMES MANGOLD: Throughout my career, I’ve had this oscillating pattern of doing bigger and smaller movies with bigger and smaller budgets. I mean, even the first two movies I made—one was a slice of life rural picture called “Heavy” about an overweight chef and his blossoming. And the next year, I made “Cop Land,” which was more packed with stars and action, a kind of cop film meets Western with a cast like Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, etc. So it was a pattern of changing things up that came about naturally.

I kinda feel like it’s never stopped, in the sense that the only thing that stays the same is I write on all the movies and I direct them, and I bring whatever sensibility I bring. I don’t really shoot the big or the small any different, from my own point of view. It’s still moving actors around in a space and trying to make moments happen truthfully.

Beyond all that, the freedom I’ve had to make all these kinds of movies is such a joy, and another way that Bob Dylan inspired me. He’s never allowed there to be a box he won’t escape from. Whether it’s making folk music and then going electric, or whether it’s reversing direction and going back to a folk album, or releasing Christmas albums or touring. Even the great records he’s made in the last ten years, he keeps redefining himself. As he himself said on his last record, “I contain multitudes.” In my own modest way, I feel exactly the same.

That’s a central conflict with “A Complete Unknown,” too, Bob’s desire to reinvent himself, to evolve his sound, and the conflicts that come into play among his personal and professional lives. As you said, he’s had many eras; what made you want to hone in on this specific era of reinvention?

I thought it was a period of time in which a lot of it went unexplored. Once you hit 1965, that’s when the Pennebaker documentaries, the Maysles, and all that started to come in. But prior to that, he obviously wasn’t much of a star yet, and there wasn’t that kind of focus on him. There weren’t many interviews with him. That’s one of the openings I felt the movie offered us, a chance to depict and enrich the picture of a young artist at this formative, almost fairytale moment of arriving in New York with a guitar case and a moleskine notebook filled with lyrics and notes and twenty bucks.

He’s very much a blank slate when we first see him—well, not quite, but he comes in not quite fully formed.

Well, he certainly is to the world of New York. He’s a complete mystery, but he invents a name and starts singing songs. When I first met with Bob Dylan, he asked me, “What is your movie about,” I said to him, in my mind, it’s about a young man suffocating in his hometown in Minnesota, leaving behind his family and friends and ventures 2,000 miles away to the biggest city in the country, penniless, with a guitar. Before long, he’s blossomed, invents a new identity for himself, a new name, makes new friends, finds a new family, and meets with tremendous success. Then he starts to suffocate again, and moves on.

In a sense, the movie, almost like a ballad, has a repeated refrain. It’s no coincidence that the film opens on Bob riding into down in the back of a car and ends on him riding [into] town on a motorcycle.

Speaking of the Pennebaker documentaries, I have to imagine a consideration was made between you and Timothée about the fact that we’ve seen so much of Dylan on screen already. Whether it’s himself or other people playing him. Was that anywhere in the static of what the two of you were doing?

The way you deal with that stuff is just moving through it. Sometimes, being a sports fan helps you make movies. Because in the end, you just have to get the ball down the field or put the bat on the ball. And if you think too much about what someone else did or is doing, you’re never going to meet the ball with the bat, because your mind isn’t on your task. You have to have faith that what you’re going to do will naturally be different because you’re doing it, whether it’s Timmy or myself or us in partnership, we’re doing something different you haven’t seen before.

In a way, when people see the movie, it’s not quite what they expect in the sense that it’s not this kind of impenetrably cool movie about an enigmatic, hard-to-know guy. There’s aspects of that, but I also feel like there’s a lot of commonality and approachability. You do actually understand more about him and his challenges in some ways. How hard it is when you’re blessed with a kind of volcanic talent that has you writing ten, fifteen of the most important songs of the 20th century between the ages of 19 and 23. That’s pretty incredible, and can also make you feel a little alone and under siege, with the celebrity and the kind of power that it creates around you. And how quickly many relationships become more transactional than pure.

Which I’m sure played in during production too. Much like Dylan at this point in his career, Timothée’s star is rising in a very meteoric sense, which might invite some parallels. What were your observations of that and how he’s handling it? Was that a consideration while you were filming?

The funny thing is, as a director and Timmy’s friend, there’s things you know about him pretty well. All the things you’re saying are true, but I didn’t discuss it much. It’s so obvious, you’re absolutely right, but the fact is that sometimes, those things are better left not being labeled. Clearly he understands what it’s like to be mobbed and have people feeling intense emotion about you and for you when you don’t even know them. Everyone who makes movies has this unique perspective, though obviously not on the scale of Dylan. We make these movies, we love what we do, and we present them to audiences. Very often, the reaction is adoring, and you don’t actually know what to do with it. Same is true when the reaction isn’t adoring.

It’s very challenging—not like a pain, but it takes adjustment, because it’s so asymmetrical. You have one side that has absorbed everything about your film or your performance, and they have so much feeling. But you don’t know anything about the person on the other side. It’s alien to normal human existence, of course. I’m sure the other actors in the film—Monica [Barbaro] playing Joan and Edward [Norton] playing Pete, all drew from their own trajectories and experiences as well.

Speaking of the supporting cast, I did want to talk about Norton as Seeger, because it’s such an interesting performance. Obviously, you have to affect a kind of mannerism and capture Seeger’s voice, but he also plays such a fascinating role as both mentor and nemesis to Dylan. Given how gregarious and gentle Seeger is, I’m curious how you and Edward worked together to find those moments where kindness and generosity bumped into the natural conflicts that happen between these two professionals.

The real story took care of that, you know? It’s such a kind of Shakespearean tale in a sense; you have this ailing folk hero in Woody Guthrie, this first lieutenant who’s shepherded the folk movement into a point of total ascendancy [in Seeger], but he’s missing the star that could put them over the top. Then out of the mist comes this young man with a name you’ve never heard and a little songbook. There’s so much talent in him, and Pete reaches for him and supports him and pushes him to the stage, where he takes off like fire.

But of course, that’s only the beginning. Because what happens to this young man after so much power and spotlight is shifted so singularly upon him, is that his dedication to folk music wasn’t ever as dogmatic and polarizing as Pete’s religious devotion to the concept of folk music. Bob would readily admit that he didn’t. He loves all kinds of music, and never had that kind of partitioned point of view that Pete’s had in so many ways. In the first ten minutes of the movie, you have the first major scene between Pete and Bob just talking about music; already, you can see the dividing lines of their philosophies, albeit in the friendliest, most innocuous way. You understand there that they don’t see things exactly the same way.

Then there’s Boyd Holbrook’s Johnny Cash as the devil on the shoulder, giving Dylan this permission structure to shake things up. What was it like revisiting that character for the first time since “Walk the Line”?

I love the idea of Johnny Cash [in the film], and it came about because he was pivotal. He carried on this long letter-writing relationship with Bob for years. In previous drafts of the script, Johnny just kind of cameoed at Newport but didn’t play much of a role. It made sense why Jay [Cocks, co-screenwriter] handled it that way, because they weren’t in the same space very often. But I was aware, partly from my research making “Walk the Line,” that they had this correspondence. So one day, while I was writing, I called up Jeff Rosen, Bob’s manager, and said, “Bob wouldn’t have those letters from Johnny, would he?” and he was like, “We absolutely do have them.” He sent them over to me. So the words that Boyd speaks as Johnny Cash in the movie are Cash’s words. They’re the literal letters that Johnny Cash wrote to Bob at those pivotal moments in his life.

What was it like revisiting the character? Freeing and also really gratifying because I really love Boyd. He’s a fearless actor. We never once discussed that I had made a Johnny Cash movie before. And he just dove in and became him.

While we’re on Cash, I’m curious about your thoughts about “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox story,” which kind of poked and prodded at the typical rhythms of the music biopic largely through your prior film. How did you receive that film? How much have you thought about it? And did you think about any genre traps you wanted to avoid falling into with “A Complete Unknown”?

I have two thoughts about it. One is that I enjoyed the movie, and was flattered that someone would make the Mad Magazine version of our film, and I found it hilarious. But it also strikes me as particularly modern Internet thinking that, because someone satirizes a movie form, it goes extinct. That would mean that “Blazing Saddles” makes it impossible to make a Western, or that Guillermo should not make a Frankenstein because “Young Frankenstein” exists. There are hundreds of satirical films made about the slightly shopworn turns of plot in different genres. But that doesn’t mean the genre is dead; it just means you should try to reinvigorate the form.

One of the ways we did that with this movie was by not trying to be too much about dispensing information, not that I feel we overdid that with “Walk the Line.” No cameo roles of stars coming in and out. Making it a character piece, as if it was just a fiction film, in the sense you’re following a character through a few years of his life and a series of momentous events. There aren’t a lot of dates and places and times on the screen. There aren’t a lot of scenes where people say, “Music will never be the same,” or whatever the cliches would be.

But at the same time, I don’t think that making a humorous observation about things makes the original form extinct. Otherwise, about nine or ten genres would be completely dead by now.

“A Complete Unknown” enters wide release on Christmas Day, courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

Ten years ago, in 2014, I was invited as a guest on Anna Sale’s Podcast, “Death, Sex & Money.” Still raw from my recent widowhood after the death of my husband, Roger Ebert, I nevertheless embarked on a heartfelt conversation with her. Anna reached out to me again recently to catch up on changes over the last few years. The new podcast is being broadcast today, and parts of the original are also included. I will listen to them along with you. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you, Anna for your gracious invitations.

Happy Holidays to All and Peace and Joy in the New Year. Chaz Ebert

Here are the official episode notes from Slate:

Ten years ago, Chaz Ebert talked to us about grief and loss as she was mourning the 2013 death of her husband, movie critic Roger Ebert. Her deep sense of connection to Roger continued after he was gone, including, she described, hearing his voice and feeling like they were still in conversation. When Chaz talked about this a decade ago, though, she was skittish about sharing too much about their ongoing communication, nervous that it would sound too out there.

No longer.

When we talked just a few weeks ago, Chaz described a lifetime of intuitive sensing, a skill she inherited from her mother. While her conversations with Roger have stopped, her intuition still powers much of what she does, including writing her new book, which she describes as “a download from the universe.” It’s called It’s Time to Give a FECK: Elevating Humanity through Forgiveness, Empathy, Compassion and Kindness.

Anna Sale is the creator and host of Death, Sex & Money, the podcast about “the things we think about a lot and need to talk about more.” After debuting at the top of the iTunes chart in 2014, Death, Sex & Money was named the #1 podcast of the year by New York Magazine in 2015. Anna won a Gracie for best podcast host in 2016 and the show won the 2018 Webby and 2021 Ambie for best interview show.