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      Behind ‘Oppenheimer,’ a Prizewinning Biography 25 Years in the Making

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      Martin Sherwin struck the deal and dove into the research. But it was only when Kai Bird joined as a collaborator that “American Prometheus” came to be.Martin Sherwin was hardly your classic blocked writer. Outgoing, funny, and athletic, he is described by those who knew him as the opposite of neurotic.But by the late 1990s, he had to admit he was stuck. Sherwin, a history professor and the author of one previous book, had agreed to write a full-scale biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer two decades earlier. Now he wondered if he would ever finish it. He’d done plenty of research — an extraordinary amount, actually, amassing some 50,000 pages of interviews, transcripts, letters, diaries, declassified documents and F.B.I. dossiers, stored in seemingly endless boxes in his basement, attic and office. But he’d barely written a word.Sherwin had originally tried to turn the project down, his wife remembered, telling his editor, Angus Cameron, that he didn’t think he was seasoned enough to take on such a consequential subject as Oppenheimer, the so-called father of the atomic bomb. But Cameron, who had published Sherwin’s first book at Knopf — and who, like Oppenheimer, had been a victim of McCarthyism — insisted.So on March 13, 1980, Sherwin signed a $70,000 contract with Knopf for the project. Paid half to get started, he expected to finish it in five years.In the end, the book took 25 years to write — and Sherwin didn’t do it alone.When Christopher Nolan’s film “Oppenheimer” is released on July 21, it will be the first time many younger Americans encounter the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer. But that film stands on the shoulders of the exhaustive and exhilarating 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning biography called “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” co-written by Sherwin and Kai Bird.Knopf published this masterwork in 2005. But it was only thanks to a rare collaboration between two indefatigable writers — and a deep friendship, built around a shared dedication to the art of biography as a life’s work — that “American Prometheus” got done at all.Cillian Murphy, center, as the title character in “Oppenheimer,” which was written and directed by Christopher Nolan.Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures, via Associated PressOPPENHEIMER would have been a daunting subject for any biographer.A public intellectual with a flair for the dramatic, he directed the top-secret lab at Los Alamos, New Mexico, taking the atomic bomb from theoretical possibility to terrifying reality in an impossibly short timeline. Later he emerged as a kind of philosopher king of the postwar nuclear era, publicly opposing the development of the hydrogen bomb and becoming a symbol both of America’s technological genius and of its conscience.That stance made Oppenheimer a target in the McCarthy era, spurring his enemies to paint him as a Communist sympathizer. He was stripped of his security clearance during a 1954 hearing convened by the Atomic Energy Commission. He lived the rest of his life diminished, and died at 62 in 1967, in Princeton, New Jersey.When Sherwin began interviewing people there who had known him, he was taken aback by the intensity of their feelings. Physicists, and the widows of physicists, were still angry for the casual neglect Oppenheimer had shown to his family.Yet after Sherwin moved his own family to Boston for a job at Tufts University, he and his wife Susan met Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists, who admitted with embarrassment that their years working under Oppenheimer on the bomb were some of the happiest of their lives.Among the scores of people Sherwin also interviewed were Haakon Chevalier, Oppenheimer’s onetime best friend whose Communist ties in part formed the basis of the inquisition against him, and Edward Teller, whose testimony at the 1954 hearing helped end his career.Published in 2005, the book went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for biography.Naum Kazhdan/The New York TimesOppenheimer’s son Peter refused a formal interview, so Sherwin brought his family to the Pecos Wilderness near Santa Fe, saddled up a horse and rode to the Oppenheimers’ rustic cabin, wrangling a chance to talk to the scientist’s son as the two men built a fence. “Marty never thought he was a great interviewer,” said Susan Sherwin, who accompanied him on many research trips, and survives him. But he had a knack for connecting with people.Sherwin’s deadline came and went. His editor retired, and he did his best to avoid his new one. There was always another person to interview, or another document to read.The unfinished book became a running joke in the Sherwin household.“We had this New Yorker cartoon on our refrigerator my entire childhood,” his son Alex remembered. “It’s a guy at a typewriter, and he’s surrounded by stacks of papers. His wife is in the distance, in the threshold of the door to his office. And he says, ‘Finish it? Why would I want to finish it?’”KAI BIRD, A FORMER associate editor at The Nation, needed a job. It was 1999, and while Bird had written a couple of modestly successful biographies, as a 48-year-old historian without a Ph.D. he was underqualified for a tenure-track university position and overqualified for nearly everything else. His wife, Susan Goldmark, who held a lucrative job at the World Bank, was getting tired of being the main breadwinner.Bird was unsuccessfully applying for jobs at newspapers when he heard from an old friend. Sherwin took Bird out to dinner, and suggested they join forces on Oppenheimer.They had known each other for years, and their friendship had solidified in the mid-1990s, when Bird included Sherwin’s essays in a volume about the controversy surrounding a planned Smithsonian exhibit of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb.A 1957 photo of Oppenheimer at Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Study.John Rooney/Associated PressBut there was one complication. “My first book started out as a collaboration with my best friend,” the writer Max Holland, Bird said, “and eight years later ended in divorce.” Things broke down, in part, over disagreements about how much research was enough.The episode had been painful. Never again, his wife reminded him.“I told Marty, ‘No, I can’t. I like you too much,’ ” Bird said.So began a yearlong charm campaign to convince Bird, but especially Goldmark, that this time would be different. “I was watching very carefully, looking at them interacting and finishing each other’s sentences the way couples sometimes do,” she recalled. “They were both so cute.”Finally, with everyone on board, Gail Ross, Bird’s agent, negotiated a new contract with Knopf, which agreed to pay the pair an additional $290,000 to finish the book.Sherwin cautioned Bird that there were gaps in his research. But soon “untold numbers of boxes” started showing up at Bird’s home, according to his wife. As Bird began to sift through everything, he recognized how painstakingly detailed and dizzyingly broad Sherwin’s research was. “There were no gaps,” Bird remembered.It was time to write. Bird started at the beginning.“I wrote a draft of the early childhood years,” he said, “and Marty took it and rewrote it.” Sherwin sent the revision back to Bird, who was impressed. “He knew exactly what was missing in the anecdotes,” Bird said.Kai Bird, left, and Martin J. Sherwin in 2006, showing off a copy of their long-in-the-making book “American Prometheus.”Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated PressTheir process took shape: Bird would pore over the research, synthesize it, and produce a draft which he’d send to Sherwin, who would recognize what was missing, edit and rewrite, and return the copy to Bird. Soon Sherwin was drafting as well. “We wrote furiously for four years,” Bird said.Sherwin always knew that the hearing that stripped Oppenheimer of his clearance would be the “epicenter” of the biography, Bird said. They argued about what the evidence might suggest, but never about style, process, or the shape of the book itself. “It became,” Susan Sherwin said, “almost a magical thing.”By fall 2004, nearly 25 years after Knopf committed to the project, the manuscript was almost ready. Bird and Sherwin’s editor Ann Close vetoed “Oppie,” the pair’s working title. A scramble ensued, until something came to Goldmark late at night: “Prometheus … fire … the bomb is this fire. And you could put ‘American’ there.’ ”Bird dismissed “American Prometheus” as too obscure, until Sherwin called the next morning to tell him that a friend, the biographer Ronald Steel, had suggested the same title over dinner the night before. “I’m in big trouble,” said Bird. His wife felt vindicated.Bird said that his collaborator would have been pleased by “Oppenheimer.” Michael Avedon/AugustOn April 5, 2005, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer” was published to enormous acclaim. The Boston Globe raved that it “stands as an Everest among the mountains of books on the bomb project and Oppenheimer, and is an achievement not likely to be surpassed or equaled.”Among its numerous accolades was the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Bird always thought the book had an outside shot at the prize, but Sherwin had been skeptical. “He always thought I was an incorrigible optimist. So he was genuinely astonished,” Bird would later say. “He was, in fact, sweetly elated.”BY THE TIME the collaborators learned in September 2021 that Christopher Nolan planned to turn “American Prometheus” into a film, Marty Sherwin was dying of cancer.The pair had read several unmade scripts based on their book over the years, so Sherwin was doubtful of its chances in Hollywood. He was too sick to join, but Bird and Goldmark met Nolan at a boutique hotel in Greenwich Village. Bird reported to Sherwin in person afterward that, with Nolan as writer and director, their work was in good hands.“Oppenheimer’s story is one of the most dramatic and complex that I’ve ever encountered,” Nolan said recently. “I don’t think I ever would have taken this on without Kai and Martin’s book.” (Anticipation for the movie has put the biography on the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction paperbacks.)A still from the movie shows Murphy at Los Alamos, where one of the authors got to visit the set.Universal PicturesOn Oct. 6, 2021, Bird received word that his friend had died at the age of 84.Sherwin “would have been deeply pleased,” by the film’s accuracy, Bird said after seeing the film for the first time. “I think he would have appreciated what an artistic achievement it is.”He recalled the day he and his wife spent a few hours on the film’s set in Los Alamos. The crew was filming in Oppenheimer’s original cabin, now painstakingly restored. Bird watched Cillian Murphy do take after take as Oppenheimer, astonished at the actor’s resemblance to the subject he’d spent years studying.Finally, there was a break in filming, and Murphy walked over to introduce himself. As the actor approached — dressed in Oppenheimer’s brown, baggy 1940s-era suit and wide tie — Bird couldn’t help himself.“Dr. Oppenheimer!” he shouted. “I’ve been waiting decades to meet you!”Bird said Murphy just laughed. “We’ve all been reading your book,” the actor told him. “It’s mandatory reading around here.” More

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      Robert Downey Jr.’s Post-Marvel Balancing Act

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      “This summer,” Robert Downey Jr. says, “is the battle for the soul of cinema.” Like a lot of things said by the actor, who co-stars in the thriller “Oppenheimer,” directed by Christopher Nolan and opening in theaters on July 21, that statement was delivered with a soupçon of knowing sarcasm, but there’s truth to it. […] More

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      Pom Klementieff Is Hooked on Skydiving, Thanks to Tom Cruise

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      The “Guardians of the Galaxy” actress, who plays a villain in the new “Mission: Impossible” movie, considers “Gone Girl” feel-good viewing.Pom Klementieff had just checked into her hotel room in London, and she was still relishing the butter chicken she had consumed an hour ago.“It’s summertime, but it feels like winter — because London is always like that,” she said in a call last month. “So I’m like, ‘OK, I need Indian food.’”The 37-year-old actress, known for her fan-favorite turn as the empathetic alien Mantis in Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Avengers” films, was on the second city of the world promotional tour for her next superventure, “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One,” in which she plays an assassin hunting Tom Cruise’s character.“I love playing a villain,” Klementieff, chipper and candid, said of her character, Paris, who was based on a male character from the original TV series that inspired the “Mission: Impossible” films. “There’s something cathartic and a little bit insane about it that’s really enjoyable.”The seventh “Mission: Impossible” film allowed her to exercise her stuntwork chops, like her boxing and taekwondo training, that had lain a bit dormant during her turn in the Marvel films.“Mantis isn’t the most physical fighter,” she said. “So this was fun to get to play a rebel who loves killing, fighting, chasing.”Klementieff discussed how Tom Cruise got her hooked on skydiving, why “Gone Girl” is her comfort watch and why she’s been obsessed with Jessica Chastain’s performance in “A Doll’s House” on Broadway. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1‘Gone Girl’I love watching it on Valentine’s Day when I’m single, or on Christmas when I’m a little low because of family stuff. It’s my feel-good movie.2MotorcyclesI taught myself to ride in the streets and the countryside in France. But now I’m actually doing proper training and I love it. I’m learning how to do a little skid, doing stoppies — I want to learn how to do a wheelie next!3Doing My NailsI love when nail polish has a name that makes me laugh — Natural Connection, Sexy Divide. Usually I do the same color on every nail, or sometimes I do lilac on one hand but with the ring finger green, and then the other hand I do green with a lilac ring finger.4Horseback RidingI found a ranch in Colorado that I love to go to — it’s my happy place. I have a horse there I love called Mister T. He’s amazing. He goes so fast, but he listens, too. There are dunes so it looks like Star Wars; it looks like you’re almost on the moon. It’s just stunning.5@tattooist_doyThere’s this incredible artist in Korea I love — his Instagram handle is @tattooist_doy. He makes such delicate, intricate, beautiful tattoos. Years ago when I was in Korea to promote “Avengers,” he inked a sweet violet on my forearm. It’s a little flower I used to pick with my uncle in the woods when I was little. I’m planning to get another one with him the next time I go to Asia.6Quentin TarantinoI remember falling in love with “Kill Bill” when it came out in theaters in Paris. It’s one of the movies that made me want to become an actress. It made me want to assert my confidence.7Not-Safe-for-Work SocksOne of my agents years ago had a pair of socks that said “[expletive] you, pay me,” and I was like, “I need those socks.” So I bought them, and when I wear them, they make me laugh.8BakingI enjoy baking because the steps have to be right, and the sizes have to be on point. I love making lemon meringue pie, and I’ll draw a heart on it with raspberries. I love to make chocolate fondant; it’s really easy. I used to do that for my boyfriends, when I had boyfriends, a long time ago!9SkydivingI’ve jumped 104 times since October 2021, when Tom Cruise gifted me skydiving lessons as a wrap gift. I love the rush, I love the precision, I love how sharp it makes me. When I jump off a hot-air balloon very early in the morning and the sun is rising and it smells like mist — it’s magical.10Jessica Chastain in ‘A Doll’s House’There’s something so magical and inspiring about watching live theater. When you’re onstage, it’s like you’re skydiving. You’re jumping into the void. There’s no one like, “Oh, there’s a second take or a third take” or “Oh, someone is going to edit it.” It’s right here, right now. I saw Jessica Chastain in “A Doll’s House” recently, and she was so raw and vulnerable. I can’t stop thinking about it. More

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      The 50 Best Movies on Netflix Right Now

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      Sign up for our Watching newsletter to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.The sheer volume of films on Netflix — and the site’s less than ideal interface — can make finding a genuinely great movie there a difficult task. To help, we’ve plucked out the 50 best films currently streaming on the service in the United States, updated regularly as titles come and go. And as a bonus, we link to more great movies on Netflix within many of our write-ups below. (Note: Streaming services sometimes remove titles or change starting dates without giving notice.)Here are our lists of the best TV shows on Netflix, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video and the best of everything on Hulu and Disney Plus.James Cameron’s ‘Titanic’ (1997), starring, from left, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.CBS, via Getty Images‘Titanic’ (1997)Few expected James Cameron’s dramatization (and fictionalization) of the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic to become a nearly unmatched commercial success and Academy Award winner (for best picture and best director, among others); most of its prerelease publicity concerned its over-budget and over-schedule production. But in retrospect, we should have known — it was the kind of something-for-everyone entertainment that recalled blockbusters of the past, deftly combining historical drama, wide-screen adventure and heartfelt romance. And its stars, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, became one of the great onscreen pairings of the 1990s. Our critic called it a “huge, thrilling three-and-a-quarter-hour experience.” (For more Oscar-winning drama, stream “Ray.”)Watch on NetflixBenedict Cumberbatch, center, as the World War II-era mathematician turned code-breaker Alan Turing in “The Imitation Game.” Jack English/Weinstein Company, via Associated Press‘The Imitation Game’ (2014)Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley star in this Oscar-nominated biopic about the British mathematician Alan Turing, who went to work as a German code-cracker in World War II and, in the process, created a machine that many consider the first incarnation of the modern computer. Cumberbatch adroitly conveys the tortured brilliance of Turing, who helped save his country, and was later prosecuted by it for his homosexuality. The efficient direction by Morten Tyldum captures the immediacy and intensity of its subject’s work, yet cleverly folds in his later mistreatment as tragic counterpoint. “The Imitation Game” never quite explodes the conventions of the big-screen biopic, but it’s a sleek, well-made example of the form. (For more Oscar-nominated drama, try “Dunkirk” and “Living.”)Watch on Netflix‘Jumanji’ (1995)This hit family adventure, the first film adaptation of the beloved 1981 children’s book, stars Robin Williams as a child trapped for decades in a board game, Bonnie Hunt as a friend who barely made it out and Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce as the contemporary children who help him escape — and must then finish the game. Joe Johnston (“Captain America: The First Avenger”) directs with the proper mixture of childlike enthusiasm and wide-eyed terror, and the special effects (of wild animals and swarms of insects descending on suburban enclaves) remain startlingly convincing.Watch on NetflixFrom left, Ellie Kemper, Wendi McLendon-Covey and Melissa McCarthy in “Bridesmaids,” a 2011 film.Suzanne Hanover/Universal Pictures‘Bridesmaids’ (2011)Kristen Wiig stars in and wrote (with her frequent collaborator Annie Mumolo) this “unexpectedly funny” comedy smash from the director Paul Feig. Wiig is Annie, an aimless baker whose lifelong pal, Lillian (Maya Rudolph), is getting hitched. When Lillian asks Annie to serve as maid of honor, it sets off an uproarious series of broad comic set-pieces and thoughtful introspection. The comedy and drama are played to the hilt by an ensemble that includes Rose Byrne, Jon Hamm, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ellie Kemper, Chris O’Dowd and Melissa McCarthy, who earned an Oscar nomination for her role.Watch on Netflix‘Magic Mike’ (2012)From left, Kevin Nash, Adam Rodriguez, Channing Tatum, Matt Bomer and Joe Manganiello in “Magic Mike.”Warner Brothers PicturesChanning Tatum stars in this “funny, enjoyable romp”(per the New York Times critic Manohla Dargis), based on Tatum’s own early-career exploits as a stripper — or, as the film puts it, a “male entertainer.” The director Steven Soderbergh offers a fairly traditional story about a young performer who must learn the ropes of show business, but he adds a few twists: a preoccupation with economic systems, for one, and a convincing portrayal of feminine lust — rare for a mainstream movie, particularly one directed by a man. Matthew McConaughey is hilarious as the ringleader of the bump-and-grind roadshow at the movie’s center. (The delightful sequel “Magic Mike XXL” is also on Netflix.)Watch on Netflix‘Mean Girls’ (2004)A high school comedy has rarely been told with a rapier wit or the surgical precision of this teen outing from Mark Waters, directing a script adapted by Tina Fey from the Rosalind Wiseman book “Queen Bees and Wannabes.” Fey turned Wiseman’s youth-focused self-help book into the fabulously funny story of a new girl (Lindsay Lohan) who must quickly learn how to navigate a tricky social stratum. Rachel McAdams is deliciously despicable as the most popular (and thus, the most powerful) girl in school, while the “Saturday Night Live” veterans Amy Poehler, Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer and Fey herself delight in supporting turns. (“The Breakfast Club” offers a similarly insightful look at high school angst.)Watch on Netflix‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ (1991)Arnold Schwarzenegger, left, and Edward Furlong in “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”Once upon a time, “The Terminator” was just a one-off sci-fi action flick — a pulpy, low-budget but tremendously profitable film that gave a considerable boost to its co-writer and director, James Cameron, and its star, Arnold Schwarzenegger. But it didn’t scream “sequel potential,” at least not until Cameron directed “Aliens” and figured out how to raise a sequel’s stakes by amping up the story’s scope and intensity. “T2” did that and then some, mixing state-of-the-art special effects, bruising action sequences, genuine emotional interest and a fair amount of winking (“Hasta la vista, baby”) to make that rarest of cinematic beasts: a follow-up that tops the original. (The Schwarzenegger-fronted “Conan the Barbarian” is also on Netflix.)Watch on Netflix‘Carol’ (2015)Patricia Highsmith’s second novel, “The Price of Salt,” is sensitively and intelligently adapted by the director Todd Haynes into this companion to his earlier masterpiece “Far From Heaven.” Cate Blanchett is smashing as a suburban ’50s housewife who finds herself so intoxicated by a bohemian shopgirl (an enchanting Rooney Mara) that she’s willing to risk her entire comfortable existence in order, just once, to follow her heart. Our critic said it’s “at once ardent and analytical, cerebral and swooning.” (If you like modest relationship dramas, try “To Leslie.”)Watch on NetflixDaniel Craig and Janelle Monáe in “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.”John Wilson/Netflix, via Associated Press‘Glass Onion’ (2022)The writer and director Rian Johnson follows up his Agatha Christie-style whodunit hit “Knives Out” with this delightfully clever comedy-mystery, featuring the further adventures of the world’s greatest detective, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, still outfitted with neckerchiefs and a deliciously Southern-fried accent). Johnson constructs a “classic detective story with equal measures of breeziness and rigor,” again focusing on the haves and have-nots, as a gang of rich pals (including Kate Hudson, Leslie Odom Jr., Dave Bautista and Kathryn Hahn) meet up on the isolated island of a Silicon Valley millionaire (Edward Norton). Janelle Monáe, not unlike Ana de Armas in the original, steals the show as the interloper who’s not what she seems.Watch on NetflixGeena Davis, foreground, and Megan Cavanagh in “A League of Their Own.”Columbia Pictures‘A League of Their Own’ (1992)Penny Marshall directed this wildly entertaining sports comedy based on the true story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, who barnstormed the United States while its boys were off fighting in World War II. Geena Davis is in top form as “Dottie” Hinson, the catcher and star of the Rockford Peaches, while Tom Hanks is uproariously funny as Jimmy Dugan, the team’s ostensible (and reliably drunken) manager. Rosie O’Donnell, Lori Petty, Jon Lovitz and Madonna round out the ace ensemble cast, with the latter winningly and winkingly using her real-life good-time-girl persona to earn several big laughs. Our critic called it “one of the year’s most cheerful, most relaxed, most easily enjoyable comedies.” (Hanks also shines in “Charlie Wilson’s War” and “Captain Phillips.”)Watch on NetflixJesse Eisenberg pins down Owen Kline in Noah Baumbach’s 2005 film “The Squid and the Whale.”James Hamilton‘The Squid and the Whale’ (2005)Two young men growing up in Park Slope, Brooklyn, weather their parents’ nasty divorce in this ruthlessly intelligent and mercilessly evenhanded coming-of-age story from the writer and director Noah Baumbach, who drew upon his own teenage memories and put himself, not altogether appealingly, into the character of the 16-year-old Walt (a spot-on Jesse Eisenberg). Laura Linney is passive-aggressive perfection as his mother, while Jeff Daniels, as the father, captures a specific type of sneeringly dissatisfied Brooklyn intellectual. The film is “both sharply comical and piercingly sad,” A.O. Scott wrote, as Baumbach dissects this family’s woes and drama with knowing precision. (Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” and “The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)” are also on Netflix.)Watch on Netflix‘Uncle Buck’ (1989)Two years after their celebrated collaboration on “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” the writer and director John Hughes and the comedian John Candy reunited for this rough-and-tumble comedy. Candy is the title character, the black sheep of a well-to-do nuclear family who is brought in as a last-choice babysitter when the parents leave town for a medical emergency. Candy’s Buck at first seems like a rehash of his “Planes, Trains” character, a vulgarian chatterbox hilariously out of his element. But Hughes’s savvy script slowly reveals that Buck is wiser than he seems, and Amy Madigan lends welcome support as his best girl. Hughes was so taken by the performance of little Macaulay Culkin that he wrote the kid his own vehicle — “Home Alone.” (For more wild comedy, try “This Is the End” and “Liar Liar.”)Watch on Netflix‘Heat’ (1995)Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, twin titans of their acting generation, had never shared the screen before the writer and director Michael Mann put them on opposite sides of the law in this moody, thrilling cops-and-robbers story from 1995. (Although they appeared in separate sequences of “The Godfather Part II.”) Mann gives that matchup the proper weight: By the time it arrives halfway into this expansive, three-hour movie, we’re expecting fireworks, and we get them. But the best surprise is that there’s so much more to “Heat” than The Big Scene — it features a cool-as-a-cucumber heist scene, a heart-stopping shootout on the streets of Los Angeles, multiple meditations on the nature of obsession, stylish cinematography, and a jaw-dropping deep bench of supporting players. That scene, though. It’s really something. (If you love crime epics — and Al Pacino — try “Donnie Brasco.”)Watch on NetflixA scene from “The Italian Job,” where Mini Coopers steal the show.Bruce Talamon/Paramount Pictures‘The Italian Job’ (2003)F. Gary Gray’s fleet-footed remake isn’t terribly faithful to the source: He keeps the title, the broadest of story strokes and the Mini Coopers but jettisons the rest in favor of a mustachioed Edward Norton, who double-crosses his fellow thieves, prompting them to reunite to take revenge. Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron generate some sparks, Mos Def and Seth Green get some laughs, and Jason Statham does his best slow burns, but the Coopers steal the show with a thrillingly staged climax that manages to one-up the original’s.Watch on NetflixFrom left, Brenda Blethyn, Rosamund Pike, Carey Mulligan, Talulah Riley, Keira Knightley and Jena Malone in the Joe Wright take on “Pride and Prejudice.”Focus Features, via Everett Collection‘Pride and Prejudice’ (2005)Jane Austen adaptations aren’t terribly hard to come by these days, but the filmmaker Joe Wright (making his feature directorial debut) rendered this take on Austen’s classic novel into something new and noteworthy. He takes an earthy, borderline erotic approach to the material, eschewing the starchiness and formality of many a period drama to focus on the timeless quality of its attractions and frustrations. And he gets a big boost in the endeavor from its stars, Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfayden, who tune in to the picture’s specific sensuality with gusto. Our critic called it “satisfyingly rich and robust.”Watch on Netflix‘Black Hawk Down’ (2001)The journalist Mark Bowden wrote about the 1993 United States military raid in Mogadishu, Somalia, in his 1999 nonfiction book of the same name. That book took its title from the downing of two American helicopters that raised the stakes of the mission, and this film adaptation from the director Ridley Scott dramatizes that harrowing episode and the battle that followed with horrifying immediacy and visceral terror. Scott manages, as few filmmakers have, to capture the feeling of helplessness that armed conflict can provoke and the camaraderie that becomes the foot soldier’s last hope. Marshaling a large cast of up-and-comers (including Ewan McGregor, Josh Hartnett, Eric Bana and Tom Hardy) and first-rate character actors (Sam Shepard, Tom Sizemore and Zeljko Ivanek), Scott comes up with one of the most powerful war films of recent years.Watch on NetflixBunty, Babs and Ginger confront a problem in “Chicken Run.”DreamWorks Pictures‘Chicken Run’ (2000)Aardman Animations, the British stop-motion studio behind the Oscar-winning Wallace and Gromit shorts, made its feature debut with this delightful cross between barnyard farce and prison escape caper, in which a headstrong hen enlists a cocky circus rooster to help her and her friends flee their henhouse before the evil farmer turns them into pies. The animation is, per the company’s standard, breathtakingly meticulous. But parents will enjoy this one as much as their kids do, as the directors Nick Park and Peter Lord inject copious doses of British wit and winking nods to classic adventure movies. Our critic called it “immensely satisfying, a divinely relaxed and confident film.” (For more family viewing, try “The Wiz” or “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.”Watch on Netflix‘Traffic’ (2000)Steven Soderbergh won the Academy Award for best director for this tough, wise and somewhat cynical take on the war on drugs. He tells it in three interlocking stories, all captured with the energy of a ground-level documentary. The result is a panorama of a film, its variety of styles and aesthetics masterfully matching the geopolitical complexity of its subject. The performances are stunning, with standout turns by Benicio del Toro (who won an Oscar for the role) as a good cop trying to play both sides of the fence, Catherine Zeta-Jones as a California housewife whose husband’s arrest brings out her inner kingpin, and Michael Douglas as the political expert who discovers exactly how much he doesn’t know.Watch on NetflixCasper Van Dien in “Starship Troopers.”TriStar Pictures‘Starship Troopers’ (1997)The director Paul Verhoeven pulled one of the great bait-and-switches of the modern blockbuster era with this 1997 sci-fi and action hybrid, which lured in viewers with the promise of laser-toting heroes vaporizing giant bug creatures. It delivered that action, but then surrounded it with a merciless satire, in which a futuristic authoritarian government uses propaganda and jingoism to convince its youth to die cheerfully for the flag. His young, pretty cast — including Denise Richards, Casper Van Dien, Neil Patrick Harris and Dina Meyer — plays the material absolutely straight, which somehow renders it especially disturbing.Watch on Netflix‘The Karate Kid’ (1984)This rah-rah sports drama has been so thoroughly embedded into popular culture, it’s easy to forget that it was once as much of a scrappy underdog as its hero, a New Jersey teenager who moves to California and stumbles into the cross-hairs of a gang of local bullies. The director, John G. Avildsen, was an old hand at stories like this; he directed the original “Rocky,” and as is true of that classic, the power of “The Karate Kid” lies less in the conflict at its conclusion than in the complex relationships that lead its characters there. (If you love classic coming-of-age stories, try George Lucas’s “American Graffiti.”)Watch on NetflixAubrey Plaza in “Emily the Criminal.”Roadside Attractions/Vertical Entertainment‘Emily the Criminal’ (2022)The thumbnail summary — “Aubrey Plaza becomes a thief” — conjures up a bone-dry comedy in which her deadpan persona creates ironic friction with the criminal underworld. But “Emily the Criminal” isn’t that movie at all; it’s a “chilly, assured thriller,” a Michael Mann-ish procedural with nary a wink in sight, and it absolutely (albeit surprisingly) works. The writer and director John Patton Ford creates moments of real tension while also giving what feels like an insider’s view of this world of thieves and hustlers. And if Plaza’s turn as a deep-in-debt temp worker trying her hand at life on the margins sounds like novelty casting, think again — she’s spectacular. (For more indie drama, try “Leave No Trace” or “We the Animals.”)Watch on NetflixDenzel Washington, left, and Chiwetel Ejiofor in “Inside Man.”Universal Pictures‘Inside Man’ (2006)An armed robber (Clive Owen) takes over a Wall Street bank, holding its clerks and customers hostage, but this is no mere “Dog Day Afternoon” riff. The gunman’s exact motives are a puzzle, confounding the brilliant N.Y.P.D. hostage negotiator (Denzel Washington) at its center. The director Spike Lee gives what could’ve been a bank-job retread a palpable sense of time and place, and fills his frames with New York characters: wiseguy cops, seen-it-all looky-loos, and slick power brokers (Jodie Foster and Christopher Plummer). But his most fascinating character is Owen’s master criminal. It’s a dazzling and rambunctious crime movie, with a humdinger of an ending.Watch on NetflixFrom left, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin and Woody Harrelson in “Zombieland.”Glen Wilson‘Zombieland’ (2009)In the aftermath of a raging zombie apocalypse, it’s kill or be killed. And the primary pleasure of this double-barreled action comedy is the extent to which the screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have worked through the logistics of this hellscape, as articulated by the hero (Jesse Eisenberg) and his rules for survival. An introverted college student, he joins forces with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a gunslinging cowboy type, and the sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) on a journey through the chaos. The director Ruben Fleischer keeps the laughs and gore coming at a steady clip — so thoroughly adopting the hip approach of “Ghostbusters” that Bill Murray even shows up to play along. (Action/comedy fans should also give “The Nice Guys” a spin.)Watch on NetflixBurt Reynolds in “Smokey and the Bandit.”Universal Pictures‘Smokey and the Bandit’ (1977)The collaborations of the superstar Burt Reynolds and his best buddy, the stuntman-turned-filmmaker Hal Needham, were widely derided in their time (and to be fair, the likes of “Stroker Ace” are indefensible). But this fast-paced chase comedy, their biggest hit and most duplicated effort, is a good old-fashioned hoot. Reynolds is at his charismatic best as the Bandit, a good ol’ boy with a Trans Am and a heavy foot, and Sally Field (his offscreen partner as well, for a time) is charming as a runaway bride who ends up in the passenger seat. But Jackie Gleason steals the show as Bandit’s nemesis, the sputtering Sheriff Buford T. Justice. (Field would subsequently make her way to more dramatic fare like “Steel Magnolias,” also on Netflix.)Watch on NetflixIko Uwais, left, and Cecep Arif Rahman in “The Raid 2.”Akhirwan Nurhaidir and Gumilar Triyoga/Sony Pictures Classics‘The Raid 2’ (2014)If you’re looking for breathless, relentless action, you can’t do much better than Gareth Evans’s sequel to his 2012 cops-and-crooks extravaganza “The Raid: Redemption” (also on Netflix). Evans is a master of the bone-crunching set piece — the more participants and more unlikely the location, the better. The best of them is hard to pin down, but the extended subway confrontation between our hero, a man with a baseball bat and a woman with two furiously flying hammers is certainly a highlight. As our critic noted, “Neither its undercover drama nor its two-and-a-half-hour length bog down the bracing, and numerous, fight fests.”Watch on NetflixFrom left, Meg Ryan, Ross Malinger and Tom Hanks in “Sleepless in Seattle.”TriStar Pictures‘Sleepless in Seattle’ (1993)Tom Hanks is a sensitive widower who pours out his heart in a searching monologue on a radio call-in show; Meg Ryan, listening in, is so smitten that she travels across the country to track him down. That’s the premise of this “feather-light romantic comedy” from the writer and director Nora Ephron, who infuses her tale of love lost and found with plentiful homages to the classic tear-jerker “An Affair to Remember,” including a climactic meet-up atop the Empire State Building. This was Hanks and Ryan’s second onscreen collaboration (after “Joe Versus the Volcano”), though they spend most of it apart — amusingly so, as their near-misses prove both funny and poignant. (Rom-com lovers should also check out “The Five-Year Engagement.”)Watch on NetflixMeryl Streep in “Julie & Julia.”Jonathan Wenk‘Julie & Julia’ (2009)This “breezy, busy” comedy-drama from Nora Ephron is an adaptation of two books: one by Julie Powell, a blogger who attempted to work her way through all the recipes in Julia Child’s influential “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”; the other by Child, a memoir she wrote with Alex Prud’homme that details the development of those recipes. The juxtaposition is ingenious, giving the viewer two funny — and mouthwatering — movies for the price of one, and the performances (particularly by Meryl Streep as Child, Amy Adams as Powell and Stanley Tucci as Child’s devoted husband, Paul) are first-rate.Watch on NetflixMark Ruffalo and Keira Knightley in “Begin Again.”Andrew Schwartz/Weinstein Company‘Begin Again’ (2014)Seven years after his microbudget smash “Once,” the director John Carney took a big step up in size and scope for “Begin Again,” which features slick production value and marquee stars (specifically, Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo). Still, Carney maintains the indie spirit and storytelling style of his earlier film, spinning a tale of a romance that cannot be — instead manifesting itself in its protagonists’ shared love of music and the charge they get from creating it. It’s a feel-good, pick-me-up kind of a movie, one that lifts the spirit while avoiding conventional (and simplistic) happy endings.Watch on NetflixSylvester Stallone and Talia Shire in “Rocky.”From Associated Press Archive, via Associated Press‘Rocky’ (1976)A struggling young actor named Sylvester Stallone became a worldwide superstar when he wrote himself the plum role of a C-list boxer who gets a shot at the championship. And it’s a star-making performance, with a vulnerability that the actor shed far too quickly. (This work is closer to Brando than Rambo.) John G. Avildsen directs in a modest, unaffected style that underlines the palooka’s solitude. The supporting cast is stunning, particularly Burgess Meredith’s turn as Rocky’s tough trainer, Mickey, and Talia Shire’s heartbreaking work as Adrian, the painfully shy object of Rocky’s affection. (The first and best of its sequels, “Rocky II,” is also on Netflix, as is Stallone’s “Cliffhanger.”)Watch on NetflixFrom left, Michael Madsen, Harvey Keitel and Steve Buscemi in “Reservoir Dogs.”Miramax Films‘Reservoir Dogs’ (1992)Assembling an enviable ensemble cast of hard-boiled character actor types, a movie-savvy young writer and director named Quentin Tarantino shook up the clichés of the heist movie with this blood-soaked cult hit. Telling the story of a jewelry store robbery gone sideways, Tarantino’s clever script skipped over the robbery itself entirely, focusing instead on the assembly of the crew and their frayed nerves at a meet-up afterward. He further kept viewers off-balance with a scrambled chronology that reveals new complexities of plot and character with each scene, resulting in one of the most electrifying debut features of the ’90s indie scene. Our critic praised its “dazzling cinematic pyrotechnics and over-the-top dramatic energy.”Watch on NetflixEmma Stone portrays a girl who fakes promiscuity in “Easy A.”Adam Taylor/Screen Gems‘Easy A’ (2010)This winking update to “The Scarlet Letter” has much to recommend it, including the witty and quotable screenplay, the sly indictments of bullying and rumor-mongering and the deep bench of supporting players. But “Easy A” is mostly memorable as the breakthrough of Emma Stone, an “irresistible presence” whose turn as a high-school cause célèbre quickly transformed her from a memorable supporting player to a soaring leading lady — and with good reason. She’s wise and wisecracking, quick with a quip but never less than convincing as a tortured teen.Watch on NetflixRachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams and Alessandro Nivola in “Disobedience.”Bleecker Street, via Associated Press‘Disobedience’ (2018)Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams star as members of a strict Orthodox Jewish community whose shared past forcefully returns in this powerful drama from the director Sebastián Lelio (adapting Naomi Alderman’s novel). Ronit (Weisz), estranged from the community, returns following the death of her father and resumes her romance with Esti (McAdams), who has repressed her desires and entered a loveless marriage. Lelio approaches the material matter-of-factly, refusing to either sensationalize or desexualize the relationship; it’s a rare mainstream portrayal of same-sex attraction that considers both emotional and physical attraction on equal footing. (“Call Me By Your Name” is a similarly intense romantic drama.)Watch on NetflixVeda Tunstall, one of the interview subjects in Margaret Brown’s documentary “Descendant.”Netflix‘Descendant’ (2022)When the remains of the Clotilda, the last known ship to bring enslaved Africans to the United States, were discovered off the shore of Mobile, Ala., in 2019, it was physical evidence of a long-told piece of local lore — an illegal operation, long after such ships were outlawed, five years before emancipation. So this amounted to the excavation of a crime scene, prompting a giant question for the descendants of those victims: What does justice look like? Margaret Brown’s spellbinding documentary asks that question, which opens up many more thornier conversations about history, complicity and legacy. Our critic called it “deeply attentive” and “moving.” (Documentary lovers will also enjoy “What Happened, Miss Simone?” and “Sr.”)Watch on NetflixDickie Beau, left, as Wague and Keira Knightley as Colette in “Colette,” a film directed by Wash Westmoreland.Robert Viglasky/Bleecker Street‘Colette’ (2018)It’s understandable to look upon a period literary biopic starring Keira Knightley and presume an object of arid stuffiness. But the director Wash Westmoreland gives us anything but — this is a rowdy, ribald picture, about a woman who wrote rowdy, ribald stories. She went from a shy innocent to a proud hedonist, and Westmoreland eagerly takes that journey alongside her. But he also dramatizes her intellectual awakening, and her insistence on being regarded as both a real writer and a full person. Manohla Dargis praised its “light, enjoyably fizzy approach to its subject.”Watch on NetflixRebecca Hall in “Christine,” which is based on the life of Christine Chubbuck, a reporter who killed herself on live TV.The Orchard‘Christine’ (2016)This forceful biopic from the director Antonio Campos dramatizes the life and death of Christine Chubbuck, the Florida news personality who killed herself on live television in 1974. What was, for years, a grisly footnote in television history is here rendered as a wrenching snapshot of mental illness, thanks to Craig Shilowich’s sensitive screenplay and Rebecca Hall’s stunning work as Chubbuck, a deeply felt turn in which every harsh word and casual slight lands like a body blow. (For more indie drama, try “The Swimmers” or “Happy as Lazzaro.”)Watch on Netflix“Richard Pryor: Live in Concert” captures the comic at his zenith.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images‘Richard Pryor: Live in Concert’ (1979)In December of 1978, Richard Pryor took the stage of the Terrace Theater in Long Beach, Calif., and delivered what may still be the greatest recorded stand-up comedy performance in history. It captures the comic at his zenith; his insights are razor-sharp, his physical gifts are peerless, and his powers of personification are remarkable as he gives thought and voice to household pets, woodland creatures, deflating tires and uncooperative parts of his own body. But as with the best of Pryor’s stage work, what’s most striking is his vulnerability. In sharing his own struggles with health, relationships, sex and masculinity, Pryor was forging a path to the kind of unapologetic candor that defines so much of contemporary comedy.Watch on NetflixIn “If Beale Street Could Talk,” the warmth and electricity Barry Jenkins captures and conveys between the stars KiKi Layne and Stephan James is overwhelming.Tatum Mangus/Annapurna Pictures‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ (2018)Barry Jenkins followed up the triumph of his Oscar-winning “Moonlight” with this “anguished and mournful” adaptation of James Baldwin’s 1974 novel. It is, first and foremost, a love story, and the warmth and electricity Jenkins captures and conveys between stars KiKi Layne and Stephan James is overwhelming. But it’s also a love story between two African Americans in 1960s Harlem, and the delicacy with which the filmmaker threads in the troubles of that time, and the injustice that ultimately tears his main characters apart, is heart-wrenching. Masterly performances abound — particularly from Regina King, who won an Oscar for her complex, layered portrayal of a mother on a mission. (Other Oscar winners on Netflix include “Girl, Interrupted” and “Darkest Hour.”)Watch on NetflixKatie Findlay and James Sweeney in “Straight Up.”Strand Releasing‘Straight Up’ (2020)When Todd (James Sweeney) and Rory (Katie Findlay) first meet, they bond over a shared love of “Gilmore Girls.” That show’s rat-tat-tat dialogue, pop culture savvy and unabashed sentimentality are all over this unconventional romantic comedy. Sweeney also wrote and directed, augmenting the normally drab rom-com template with a cornucopia of quirky and unexpected visual flourishes, and his screenplay is painfully astute, displaying an enviable ear for how, with the right partner, the affectations and witticisms of dating give way to confession and vulnerability.Watch on NetflixOlivia Colman in “The Lost Daughter,” based on an Elena Ferrante novel.Netflix‘The Lost Daughter’ (2021)The actor-turned-filmmaker Maggie Gyllenhaal writes and directs this adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s novel, starring Olivia Colman as a professor on vacation whose strained interactions with a large, unruly American family — particularly a young, stressed mother (Dakota Johnson) — send her down a rabbit hole of her memories, a switch-flip intermingling of past and present. There is a bit of back story to untangle, which turns the film into something like a mystery. But “The Lost Daughter” is mostly noteworthy for its willingness to explore the darkest moments of parenthood, the horrible feeling of giving up and longing for escape. Colman brings humanity and even warmth to a difficult character, while Jessie Buckley beautifully connects the dots as her younger iteration. Our critic calls it “a sophisticated, elusively plotted psychological thriller.” (The Gyllenhaal vehicle “The Kindergarten Teacher” is similarly unnerving.)Watch on NetflixBenedict Cumberbatch in “The Power of the Dog,” a film directed by Jane Campion.Kirsty Griffin/Netflix‘The Power of the Dog’ (2021)“I wonder what little lady made these?” Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) asks about the paper flowers created by Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) — the first indication of the initial theme of Jane Campion’s new film, an adaptation of the novel by Thomas Savage. Phil is a real piece of work, and when his brother and ranching partner George (Jesse Plemons) marries Peter’s mother, Rose (Kirsten Dunst), it brings all of Phil’s resentment and nastiness to the surface as he tries, in multiple, hostile ways, to exert his dominance and display his dissatisfaction. That tension and conflict would be enough for a lesser filmmaker, but Campion burrows deeper, taking a carefully executed turn to explore his complicated motives — and desires in this film of welcome complexity and unexpected tenderness; Manohla Dargis called it “a great American story and a dazzling evisceration of one of the country’s foundational myths.” (For more frontier drama, stream “Legends of the Fall.”)Watch on NetflixFrom left, Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson in “Passing.”Netflix‘Passing’ (2021)“She’s a girl from Chicago I used to know,” Irene (Tessa Thompson) says of Clare (Ruth Negga) — a statement that is accurate on the surface but that contains volumes of history, tension and secrets. Irene and Clare are both light-skinned Black women who have made different choices about how to live their lives, but when they reconnect, they are both prompted to reckon with who, exactly, they are. The screenplay and direction by Rebecca Hall (adapting Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel) delicately yet precisely plumbs their psychological depths and wounds, and the sumptuous costumes and immaculate black and white cinematography serve as dazzling counterpoints to what Manohla Dargis called “an anguished story of identity and belonging.”Watch on NetflixJason Mitchell, left, and Garrett Hedlund in “Mudbound.”Netflix‘Mudbound’ (2017)In this powerful adaptation by the director Dee Rees of the novel by Hillary Jordan, two families — one white and one Black — are connected by a plot of land in the Jim Crow South. Rees gracefully tells both stories (and the larger tale of postwar America) without veering into didacticism, and her ensemble cast brings every moment of text and subtext into sharp focus. Our critic called it a work of “disquieting, illuminating force.” (For more period drama, queue up “The Beguiled” and “Crimson Peak.”)Watch on NetflixFrom left, Chadwick Boseman, Colman Domingo, Viola Davis, Michael Potts and Glynn Turman in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”David Lee/Netflix, via Associated Press‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ (2020)The acclaimed stage director George C. Wolfe brings August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winner to the screen, quite faithfully — which is just fine, as a play this good requires little in the way of “opening up,” so rich are the characters and so loaded is the dialogue. The setting is a Chicago music studio in 1927, where the “Mother of the Blues” Ma Rainey (Viola Davis) and her band are meeting to record several of her hits, though that business is frequently disrupted by the tensions within the group over matters both personal and artistic. Davis is superb as Rainey, chewing up her lines and spitting them out with contempt at anyone who crosses her, and Chadwick Boseman, who died in 2020 and won a posthumous Golden Globe best actor award for his performance, is electrifying as the showy sideman, Levee, a boiling pot of charisma, flash and barely concealed rage. A.O. Scott calls the film “a powerful and pungent reminder of the necessity of art.” (For more character-driven drama, check out “The Two Popes” and “High Flying Bird.”)Watch on NetflixDick Johnson in his daughter Kirsten Johnson’s film “Dick Johnson Is Dead.”Netflix‘Dick Johnson Is Dead’ (2020)“I’ve always wanted to be in the movies,” Dick Johnson tells his daughter Kirsten, and he’s in luck — she makes them, documentaries mostly, dealing with the biggest questions of life and death. So they turn his struggle with Alzheimer’s and looming mortality into a movie, a “resonant and, in moments, profound” one (per Manohla Dargis), combining staged fake deaths and heavenly reunions with difficult familial interactions. He’s an affable fellow, warm and constantly chuckling, and a good sport, cheerfully playing along with these intricate, macabre (and darkly funny) scenarios. But it’s really a film about a father and daughter, and their lifelong closeness gives the picture an intimacy and openness uncommon even in the best documentaries. It’s joyful, and melancholy and moving, all at once.Watch on NetflixFrom left, Marwan Kenzari, Matthias Schoenaerts, Charlize Theron, Luca Marinelli and KiKi Layne in “The Old Guard.”Aimee Spinks/Netflix‘The Old Guard’ (2020)Gina Prince-Bythewood’s adaptation of Greg Rucka’s comic book series delivers the expected goods: The action beats are crisply executed, the mythology is clearly defined and the pieces are carefully placed for future installments. But that’s not what makes it special. Prince-Bythewood’s background is in character-driven drama (her credits include “Love and Basketball” and “Beyond the Lights”), and the film is driven by its relationships rather than its effects — and by a thoughtful attentiveness to the morality of its conflicts. A.O. Scott deemed it a “fresh take on the superhero genre,” and he’s right; though based on a comic book, it’s far from cartoonish. (Prince-Bythewood’s “The Woman King” and “Beyond the Lights” are also on Netflix.)Watch on NetflixA scene from “Da 5 Bloods,” with, from left, Johnny Tri Nguyen, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Jonathan Majors, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis and Delroy Lindo.David Lee/Netflix‘Da 5 Bloods’ (2020)Spike Lee’s latest is a genre-hopping combination of war movie, protest film, political thriller, character drama and graduate-level history course in which four African American Vietnam vets go back to the jungle to dig up the remains of a fallen compatriot — and, while they’re at it, a forgotten cache of stolen war gold. In other hands, it could’ve been a conventional back-to-Nam picture or “Rambo”-style action/adventure (and those elements, to be clear, are thrilling). But Lee goes deeper, packing the film with historical references and subtext, explicitly drawing lines from the civil rights struggle of the period to the protests of our moment. A.O. Scott called it a “long, anguished, funny, violent excursion into a hidden chamber of the nation’s heart of darkness.” (For more Vietnam-set drama, check out “Born on the Fourth of July.”)Watch on NetflixAngela Davis, scholar and activist, in “13TH.”Netflix‘13TH’ (2016)Ava DuVernay (“Selma”) directs this wide-ranging deep dive into mass incarceration, tracing the advent of America’s modern prison system — overcrowded and disproportionately populated by Black inmates — back to the 13th Amendment. It’s a giant topic to take on in 100 minutes, and DuVernay understandably has to do some skimming and slicing. But that necessity engenders its style: “13TH” tears through history with a palpable urgency that pairs nicely with its righteous fury. Our critic called it “powerful, infuriating and at times overwhelming.” (Documentary aficionados may also enjoy “Procession.”)Watch on NetflixA scene from Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar’s “American Factory.”Netflix‘American Factory’ (2019)Documentary filmmakers have long been fascinated by the logistics and complexities of manual labor, but Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert’s recent Oscar winner for best documentary feature views these issues through a decidedly 21st-century lens. Focusing on a closed GM plant in Dayton, Ohio, that’s taken over by a Chinese auto glass company, Bognar and Reichert thoughtfully, sensitively (and often humorously) explore how cultures — both corporate and general — clash. Manohla Dargis calls it “complex, stirring, timely and beautifully shaped, spanning continents as it surveys the past, present and possible future of American labor.” (Documentary fans should also seek out “The Life and Death of Marsha P. Johnson” and “F.T.A.”)Watch on NetflixJoe Pesci, left, and Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman.”Netflix‘The Irishman’ (2019)Martin Scorsese teams up with Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci for the first time since “Casino” (1995), itself a return to the organized crime territory of their earlier 1990 collaboration “Goodfellas” — and then adds Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa. A lazier filmmaker might merely have put them back together to play their greatest hits. Scorsese does something far trickier, and more poignant: He takes all the elements we expect in a Scorsese gangster movie with this cast, and then he strips it all down, turning this story of turf wars, union battles and power struggles into a chamber piece of quiet conversations and moral contemplation. A.O. Scott called it “long and dark: long like a novel by Dostoyevsky or Dreiser, dark like a painting by Rembrandt.” (For more period drama, queue up “American Hustle” and “Phantom Thread.”)Watch on NetflixA scene from the Alfonso Cuarón film “Roma.”Carlos Somonte/Netflix‘Roma’ (2018)This vivid, evocative memory play from Alfonso Cuarón is a story of two Mexican women in the early 1970s: Sofía (Marina de Tavira), a mother of four whose husband (and provider) is on his way out the door, and Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), the family’s nanny, maid and support system. The scenes are occasionally stressful, often heart-wrenching, and they unfailingly burst with life and emotion. Our critic called it “an expansive, emotional portrait of life buffeted by violent forces, and a masterpiece.” (Cuarón’s adaptation of “A Little Princess” is also streaming on Netflix.)Watch on NetflixKathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti in “Private Life.”Jojo Whilden/Netflix‘Private Life’ (2018)Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti shine as two New York creative types whose attempts to start a family — by adoption, by fertilization, by whatever it takes — test the mettle of their relationships and sanity. The wise script by the director Tamara Jenkins is not only funny and truthful but also sharply tuned to their specific world: Few films have better captured the very public nature of marital trouble in New York, when every meltdown is interrupted by passers-by and lookie-loos. “Private Life,” which our critic called “piquant and perfect,” is a marvelous balancing act of sympathy and cynicism, both caring for its subjects and knowing them and their flaws well enough to wink and chuckle.Watch on NetflixMama Sané and Ibrahima Traoré in “Atlantics,” which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.Netflix‘Atlantics’ (2019)Mati Diop’s Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix winner is set in Senegal, where a young woman named Ava (Mama Sané) loses the boy she loves to the sea, just days before her arranged marriage to another man. What begins as a story of love lost moves, with the ease and imagination of a particularly satisfying dream, into something far stranger, as Diop savvily works elements of genre cinema into the fabric of a story that wouldn’t seem to accommodate them. A.O. Scott called it “a suspenseful, sensual, exciting movie, and therefore a deeply haunting one as well.” (For similarly out-of-this-world vibes, try Bong Joon Ho’s “Okja.”)Watch on Netflix More

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      Patrick Wilson on ‘Insidious: The Red Door’ and ‘The Conjuring’

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      When Patrick Wilson was first approached about reprising the role of Josh Lambert — the patriarch of a family terrorized by ghouls in James Wan’s haunted-house chiller, “Insidious” (2010) — he was unenthusiastic.“Another sequel? I thought, ‘Oh boy, what new ground is there to even cover?’ I’m good. I’ve got my other horror franchise,” Wilson said.The “other” franchise refers to “The Conjuring,” also conceived by Wan, which began as a 2013 paranormal horror tale that led to a separate universe of sequels and prequels in which Wilson plays one half of a team of married demonologists. Between “The Conjuring” and the first two “Insidious” movies, Wilson has established himself as a bona fide scream king. Still, he’s a classically trained actor who has starred in big-budget superhero movies (“Watchmen,” “Aquaman”), indie dramas (“Little Children”) and musical theater productions (“Oklahoma!”). The prospect of a new “Insidious” didn’t seem all that exciting.Then, Wilson was asked if he’d consider directing it, too. That got his attention.Wilson on set with Ty Simpkins, who plays his son in “Insidious: The Red Door.” The two also worked together on “Little Children.”Boris Martin/Screen Gems and SonyWilson starring in the latest “Insidious.” He initially wasn’t interested in the sequel, especially because he also has the “Conjuring” franchise.Nicole Rivelli/Screen Gems/Sony“I’d been trying to direct a movie since 2015,” Wilson told me over coffee at a West Village bistro. “TV didn’t appeal to me. And I’m not the kind of guy who wants to make a tiny indie that nobody sees just to prove that I can do it. I want my movie to play well in theaters, so to have this half-a-billion-dollar franchise supported by a studio come my way — that’s rare for a first-time director.”“Insidious: The Red Door,” the fifth movie to fly under the “Insidious” banner, wisely skips over the lackluster third and fourth installments and returns to the events of “Insidious: Chapter 2” (2013). After nearly ax-murdering his entire family, Jack Torrance-style, Josh retakes control of his body from a psycho-biddy demon, and — with the help of a mind-scrubbing hypnotist — completely represses all memory of his possession. The Lamberts are free and the credits roll.“No offense, but that’s not how you deal with a problem,” Wilson chuckled.“The Red Door” confronts the trauma of that earlier film from the perspective of a father-son relationship. Ten years later, Josh has separated from his wife, Renai (Rose Byrne), and is the quintessential absent dad, haunted by a past he can’t articulate. In “Insidious,” it’s revealed that the couple’s eldest child, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), has inherited his father’s ability to astral project, which renders him vulnerable to the ghosts hanging out in a netherworld called the Further. Dalton, too, had his memory erased. Now, the prickly teenager rejects his father, though he’s stuck with him on the drive to his first year of art school.I asked Wilson if his sons — one is heading to college soon — send him curt one-word texts. “Nah, we have a great relationship,” said Wilson, who since 2005 has been married to the actress Dagmara Dominczyk (Karolina in “Succession”).“I’m not the kind of guy who wants to make a tiny indie that nobody sees just to prove that I can do it,” Wilson said of directing. “I want my movie to play well in theaters.”Victor Llorente for The New York TimesWilson accepted the offer to direct “The Red Door” under the condition that it would “make sense with my life.” In practical terms, this meant shooting near his home in Montclair, N.J. (“It was almost like a regular job, coming back to the family after work,” he said.) But he was also keen for his debut to reflect him as a person.Before shooting the Roland Emmerich disaster flick “Moonfall” (2022) and the forthcoming “Aquaman” sequel, Wilson sat down with the screenwriter Scott Teems (“Halloween Kills”) and, essentially, bared his soul. Teems took these raw materials and shaped them into a story about inherited trauma and artistic vulnerability — with jump scares and creepy-crawlies, of course.The film marks a return to form for the “Insidious” franchise, recapturing the original’s pretentiousless thrills and fun-house charms, approaching the Lamberts’ grim history with the silliness and sincerity of throwback horror from the ’80s or ’90s.“The best kind of horror movie makes you feel unsafe,” Michael Koresky, the co-founder of the Museum of Moving Image’s house publication, Reverse Shot, wrote in an email. Koresky is a fan of the “Insidious” movies, explaining that watching the original was like “a breath of fresh air amid the fetid field of reactionary early-21st-century horror, which had become reliant on gruesome torture. Every time a face appeared after a shock cut, I remember feeling played like a piano — thrillingly so.”Wilson wasn’t an especially big fan of the genre when he first signed on to “Insidious.” He considers himself a generalist. “I grew up with Indiana Jones and ‘Star Wars,’” said Wilson, who just turned 50, adding that his taste in film was shaped by outings to the multiplexes around Tampa Bay, Fla., where he was raised with his two older brothers.“I was into horror movies that transcended genre — ‘Salem’s Lot,’ ‘Jaws.’” His eyes widened: “‘Poltergeist.’ I remember when I was a kid, our house was robbed. Absolutely no connection to the ‘Poltergeist,’ but the way my brain processed that event, the terror I felt when we got home and realized our house had been invaded, my memory embedded the two things together.”For “The Red Door,” Wilson knew he wanted Dalton to be an artist, invoking the horror archetype of the gloomy kid drawing morbid images in crayon — only Dalton, at 18, has decided to make a career out of it. “Going to any kind of arts school is spiritually taxing,” Wilson said, recalling his years in Carnegie Mellon University’s acting conservatory. Under the tutelage of a demanding professor (Hiam Abbass from “Succession”), Dalton is encouraged to dig into his inner life to fuel his work, which teases the Further’s fiends out of hiding.Wilson routinely travels to Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh to lead acting workshops. “I’ve always been comfortable with instructing others,” he said, explaining that he may not be a “film school guy” but he does know a thing or two about how the camera creates images.Wilson is a classically trained performer who leads acting workshops at his alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University. Victor Llorente for The New York Times“I’m always conscious of my relationship to the camera when I act — what is the lens size? How is it moving? I made my actors watch themselves because what you feel and what the audience sees can be different things.”Josh, terrified that he’s perpetuating the mistakes of his own father, tries desperately to find the cause for his instability. In one eerie sequence, he gets an M.R.I. When he’s in the machine, the lights cut off, and the camera approximates the patient’s woozy point of view — total vulnerability, meaning something’s just around the corner.Set primarily on a college campus, the film also pokes fun at the fragility of men who try incredibly hard to seem, well, masculine — like the toxic fraternity brothers floating in Dalton’s orbit. Wilson’s own statuesque appearance — I told him I still think of him as the “prom king,” the name given to him by the lusty neighborhood mothers in “Little Children” — might seem to group him with this lot. With “The Red Door,” Wilson made a point to engage with the cultural conversation about masculinity. Being a father to two sons means he’s constantly thinking about what it means to promote a healthy identity for young men.“Men have a hard time sharing how they feel, me included,” Ty Simpkins wrote in an email. He and Wilson have something of a longstanding father-son bond: Simpkins’s first role was as the prom king’s jester-hat-wearing toddler in “Little Children,” and Wilson “even shared a beer with me on my 21st birthday,” Simpkins added.Wilson perked up when I asked him about his love of rock music, another personal touch he weaves into his directing debut. Listen closely and you’ll hear him singing over the end credits to the heavy-metal stylings of the Swedish band Ghost. Wilson seemed giddy to join the small ranks of directors who sing songs in their own movies. He cited John Carpenter and “Big Trouble in Little China” as an inspiration.When Mike Nichols cast him in “Angels in America,” Wilson said the director talked to him about Paul Newman’s career. “Being a movie star is hard, he told me. You go where it takes you. To enjoy doing one of the opportunities given to you — that’s a privilege.” More

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      ‘Insidious: The Red Door’ Review: The Ghost of Jump Scares Past

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      Patrick Wilson makes his directorial debut with this fifth installment of the horror franchise haunted by a red-faced demon.“Insidious,” whose fifth installment opened Friday, is a second-tier horror franchise — it’s not even the best James Wan franchise starring Patrick Wilson, which would be “The Conjuring” — with a few elite jump scares, including one of the best in the genre. In the original in 2010, Lorraine Lambert (Barbara Hershey) is telling her son, Josh (Wilson), about a horrible dream when a red-faced demon suddenly appears behind his head. It’s a magnificent shock because of the askew blocking, the patient misdirection of the editing and Hershey’s committed performance.In “Insidious: The Red Door,” a grim, workmanlike effort that collapses into woo-woo nonsense, Wilson makes his directorial debut, and demonstrates he grasps the importance of that jump scare, which is sketched in charcoal on paper next to his name in the opening credits. But that reference is also a reminder of what’s missing.The movie begins nine years after the second “Insidious” at the funeral of Lorraine, and its first scare, a nicely oblique if relatively simple one, once again takes place above her son’s head. Josh’s memory has been scrubbed in the previous film but nags at him, and Wilson doesn’t move the camera from his own face inside a car as he goes through an array of emotions while texting his son Dalton (Ty Simpkins). This prickly relationship is at the center of the movie, as dad drives his son to college. They share the family curse, a habit of being visited by evil figures from another realm called the Further (think the Upside Down from “Stranger Things”).As has become cliché, trauma takes center stage, with characters mouthing lines like, “We need to remember even the things that hurt” — which is at least better than pretentious small talk like “Death floods the mind with memory.”The leaden screenplay would be easier to overlook if there were more spooky sequences. Wilson stages one nicely claustrophobic scene inside an M.R.I. machine, but his peekaboo shocks can be a little telegraphed. And while his placid, android handsomeness can hint at the uncanny, making him a magnetic horror actor, there are fewer standout performances than in previous installments of the series, which has been notable for turns by Rose Byrne and Lin Shaye (both of whom show up again, too briefly). “The Red Door” loses energy when it focuses on Simpkins’s Dalton, a blandly brooding artist type who cries while painting, and the grim doings in the Further, whose aesthetic evokes a homemade haunted house in the family garage.“Insidious” is essentially a ghost story, so ending it presents a typical challenge. Unlike with vampires and serial killers, it’s not clear how the apparition threatens to end the chase. The abrupt resolution of this chapter is a letdown, but not as much of one as the return of the red-faced demon, who pops up, unobscured, center frame. The result is not a jump scare so much as a bunny hop.Insidious: The Red DoorRated PG-13 for explicit violins and implicit violence. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. In theaters. More

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      How ‘Barbie’ and Blackpink Entered South China Sea Map Spat

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      Vietnam banned the film over its apparent use of a Chinese map showing disputed territory. Blackpink concerts may be next. Here’s what the fuss is about.Of all the things that could inflame tensions in a region that could someday be a theater of war between superpowers, the movie “Barbie” was not an obvious catalyst. Yet here we are.The authorities in Vietnam this week banned the upcoming Greta Gerwig film over a map in “Barbie” that they said shows a Chinese map of territory in the South China Sea, where the two neighbors have competing claims.The Philippines, another Southeast Asian country that disputes China’s territorial claims in the sea, is now deciding whether to ban the star-studded film as well. And Vietnam said on Thursday that it was investigating a South China Sea map on the website of a company promoting Blackpink, a K-pop band scheduled to perform in Hanoi this month.Taking such stands against seemingly innocuous cultural exports may look to some like an overreaction. But Vietnam’s responses make more sense if they are viewed within historical and political contexts. Here’s a primer.What is Vietnam’s beef with ‘Barbie’?The head of the Vietnam Cinema Department, an agency in the one-party state, said on Monday that the Warner Bros. film would not be released domestically because of a scene that includes the so-called nine-dash line — a map that appears on official Chinese documents and encircles most of the South China Sea.The official, Vi Kien Thanh, did not say which scene Vietnam hadn’t liked. Several commentators wondered if he meant the one showing Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, standing in front of a crudely drawn world map. Some also noted that the nine-dash line in that scene appears to lie very far from Asia.A scene in “Barbie” with a map depicting contested territory in the South China Sea. The image may have prompted the Vietnamese government to ban the upcoming film.Warner Bros. PicturesIf that is, indeed, the offending map, “I really can’t see what the fuss is about,” said Bill Hayton, the author of books on Vietnam and the South China Sea.“The map in the film appears to bear no relation to a real map of the world,” Mr. Hayton added. “This looks like Vietnam’s censors trying to demonstrate their patriotism and usefulness to the regime.”Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did Warner Bros. The American movie studio told the Reuters news agency on Thursday that the “Barbie” map of the South China Sea was a “childlike” drawing with no intended significance.Why is the South China Sea important to Vietnam?Vietnam and China are neighbors with an extraordinarily complex relationship. On one hand, both are ruled by a Communist Party, making them ideological allies. They’re also busy trading partners that share an 800-mile border.Yet China occupied Vietnam for a millennium and invaded it as recently as 1979. And under Xi Jinping, China’s powerful leader, Beijing has built military outposts on contested islands in the South China Sea. It also rejected an international tribunal’s landmark 2016 ruling that sided with the Philippines by saying that China’s expansive claim to sovereignty over the sea had no legal basis. More

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      Review: ‘The YouTube Effect’ Is a Discursive Documentary

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      Alex Winter offers an overview of the world’s second most popular website in this unfocused tech documentary.The numbing experience of web video surfing is recreated — intentionally, I think — in “The YouTube Effect,” a discursive documentary that assembles a fair amount of information about the impact of YouTube on society, but struggles to find something new to say with it. Directed by Alex Winter, the film charts the rise of the video sharing platform and then attempts to trace its Sasquatch-size footprint on the culture.YouTube, the world’s second most popular site (after Google), is a stimulus machine. The film emulates this quality, finding a formal rhythm by layering a hodgepodge of YouTube clips with voice-over analysis from tech experts. It also spotlights several popular YouTube creators, including the social commentator Natalie Wynn, who is best known for her channel ContraPoints. A cogent speaker, Wynn says that she has declined offers to partner with streamers or cable because she values the “creative control” YouTube offers.Interrupting these success stories are tangents into a number of troubling chapters in the site’s history. We hear from the video game developer Brianna Wu, a target of death threats during Gamergate, as well as Caleb Cain, who describes his tumble into a matrix of far-right videos. These events have already been heavily reported on — “Rabbit Hole,” a New York Times podcast, relays Cain’s experience — and the sections often feel like retreads.The internet moves quickly, perhaps too quickly for an overview this unfocused. Even Winter seems overwhelmed by the task of curating this deluge of white-noise news and memes: His rundown of YouTube’s connection to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot lasts about as long as the viral video “Charlie Bit My Finger.”The YouTube EffectNot Rated. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. In theaters. More