(Photo by Jeffrey Wright in American Fiction)
2023 Toronto Film Festival Movie Scorecard: Best Movies at TIFF
See every movie playing at TIFF that’s getting enough reviews for a Tomatometer! Major movies playing at the fest include Pain Hustlers (starring Emily Blunt and Chris Evans), Seven Veils (Amanda Seyfried, back with her Chloe director Atom Egoyan), Rustin (starring Colman Domingo), Backspot (from young writer-director pairing of D.W. Waterson and Devery Jacobs), Dicks: The Musical (with Megan Thee Stallion), Dumb Money (starring Paul Dano and Seth Rogen), Fingernails (with Jessie Buckley and Riz Ahmed), Lee (starring Kate Winslet), Mother, Couch (with Ewan McGregor), Next Goal Wins (directed by Taika Waititi), and The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki’s possibly final film).
Get our thoughts on the 11 must-see films at TIFF, and check back as we add new movies to guide throughout the fest!
And now the People’s Choice winners have been announced, with American Fiction tops for narrative film, Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe receiving the Documentary award, and Midnight Madness going to Dicks: The Musical!
#1
Adjusted Score: 105195%
Critics Consensus: Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense captures the energetic, unpredictable live act of peak Talking Heads with color and visual wit.
Synopsis: Director Jonathan Demme captures the frantic energy and artsy groove of Talking Heads in this concert movie shot at the...
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#2
Adjusted Score: 100988%
Critics Consensus: Soulfully exploring thought-provoking themes through a beautifully animated lens, The Boy and the Heron is another Miyazaki masterpiece.
Synopsis: A young boy named Mahito yearning for his mother ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead....
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#3
Adjusted Score: 101368%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Fallen Leaves tells the story of two lonely people (Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen) who meet each other by chance...
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#4
Adjusted Score: 100767%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#5
Adjusted Score: 100310%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#6
Adjusted Score: 100571%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Carla Nowak, a dedicated sports and math teacher, starts her first job at a high school. She stands out among...
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#7
Adjusted Score: 85092%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A reluctant Thien must take the body of his sister-in-law, who died in a freak Motorcycle accident in Saigon, and...
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#8
Adjusted Score: 85221%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Two adolescent Navajo cousins from different worlds bond during a summer herding sheep on their grandmother's ranch in Arizona while...
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#9
Adjusted Score: 71987%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Chile, 1901. Three horsemen are hired by a rich landowner to mark out the perimeter of his expansive property. The...
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#10
Adjusted Score: 85356%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A small group of prisoners inside Sing Sing Correctional Facility, one of the world's most infamous maximum security prisons, attempt...
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#11
Adjusted Score: 72205%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Inspired by true events, when a handshake deal goes sour, funeral home owner Jeremiah O'Keefe (Academy Award® winner Tommy Lee...
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#12
Adjusted Score: 65457%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Ann, a morose New Yorker in her 30's, feels stuck in all areas of her life. To her dismay, the...
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#13
Adjusted Score: 58889%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Downtown Recife's classic movie palaces from the 20th century are mostly gone. That city area is now an archaeological site...
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Starring:
#14
Adjusted Score: 59291%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Part One: We follow Angela, an overworked production assistant who must drive around the city of Bucharest in order to...
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#15
Adjusted Score: 52696%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Jordan, nowadays. After the sudden death of her husband, Nawal, 30s, has to fight for her part of inheritance in...
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#16
Adjusted Score: 71986%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: DOG lives in Manhattan and he's tired of being alone. One day he decides to build himself a robot, a...
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Starring:
#17
Adjusted Score: 71976%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: While looking for a new home for his family, a Haitian demolition worker is faced with the realities of redevelopment...
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#18
Adjusted Score: 72163%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Suellen, a Brazilian toll booth attendant and mother, falls in with a gang of thieves in an attempt to keep...
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#19
Adjusted Score: 52297%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: After the mayor of an idyllic island village discovers a child with mysterious powers awash on their shores, the once...
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#20
Adjusted Score: 52625%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: After the death of the family patriarch, a mother and daughter's precarious existence is ripped apart. They must find strength...
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#21
Adjusted Score: 59024%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Present day, industrial North Wales. Helen, late 30's, spends her nights packing chickens and her days caring for dying mother-figure...
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#22
Adjusted Score: 45887%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In 1975, French Oscar-winning director Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau travels to Panama to film the Kuna community, where women are sacred. Gaisseau,...
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Starring:
#23
Adjusted Score: 45949%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: An American travels to Bhutan in search of treasure and crosses paths with a young monk wandering the serene mountains...
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#24
Adjusted Score: 52415%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Emma, a talented conductor and rising star on the Montreal stage, has a complicated relationship with her father and agent,...
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#25
Adjusted Score: 65623%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: The film tells the story of Simon, rising star of Montreal drag queen scene. It's love at first sight when...
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#26
Adjusted Score: 39348%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Ze is a timid 17-year-old shaman. He studies hard at school to succeed in the cold, callous society of modern...
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#27
Adjusted Score: 46167%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#28
Adjusted Score: 32778%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: After the Umbrella Men's successful heist, Jerome, Morty, Mila, Keisha and Auntie Val are moving up in the world. Life...
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#29
Adjusted Score: 32739%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: When investigative journalist Luyanda Masinda narrowly survives the assassination of her whistleblower lover, she joins forces with his inside man...
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#30
Adjusted Score: 65540%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#31
Adjusted Score: 100797%
Critics Consensus: A smart, solidly crafted procedural that's anchored in family drama, Anatomy of a Fall finds star Sandra Hüller and director/co-writer Justine Triet operating at peak power.
Synopsis: For the past year, Sandra, her husband Samuel, and their eleven-year-old son Daniel have lived a secluded life in a...
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#32
Adjusted Score: 98418%
Critics Consensus: A deceptively dark thriller that's also loaded with laughs, Hit Man is an outstanding showcase for leading man Glen Powell -- and one of the most purely entertaining films of Richard Linklater's career.
Synopsis: Professional killer Gary Johnson breaks protocol to help a desperate woman trying to flee an abusive husband and finds himself...
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#33
Adjusted Score: 98476%
Critics Consensus: Gently devastating in its compassion, Monster is a masterpiece of shifting perspectives that surprises to the end.
Synopsis: When her young son Minato starts to behave strangely, his mother feels that there is something wrong. Discovering that a...
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#34
Adjusted Score: 97898%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Travis Hurley (Simon Baker), a detective, arrives in the remote outback town of Limbo to investigate the cold case murder...
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#35
Adjusted Score: 98158%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. Like generations before them, they live a modest...
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#36
Adjusted Score: 95092%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: AMERICAN FICTION is Cord Jefferson's hilarious directorial debut, which confronts our culture's obsession with reducing people to outrageous stereotypes. Jeffrey...
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#37
Adjusted Score: 98160%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Americans Hanna and Liv are best friends backpacking in Australia. After they run out of money, Liv, looking for an...
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#38
Adjusted Score: 98433%
Critics Consensus: Dispassionately examining the ordinary existence of people complicit in horrific crimes, The Zone of Interest forces us to take a cold look at the mundanity behind an unforgivable brutality.
Synopsis: The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in...
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#39
Adjusted Score: 96617%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Hirayama seems utterly content with his simple life as a cleaner of toilets in Tokyo. Outside of his very structured...
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#40
Adjusted Score: 98531%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: From acclaimed director Alexander Payne, THE HOLDOVERS follows a curmudgeonly instructor (Paul Giamatti) at a New England prep school who...
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#41
Adjusted Score: 95442%
Critics Consensus: Breaking through the genre wall, The Delinquents is an astute existential heist movie that will reward patient viewers with a humorous fable about freedom.
Synopsis: Buenos Aires bank employee Morán dreams up a scheme to liberate himself from corporate monotony: he'll steal enough money to...
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#42
Adjusted Score: 95224%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday – drinking, clubbing and hooking up, in what should be the...
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#43
Adjusted Score: 95228%
Critics Consensus: If La Chimera is a wild, improbable pursuit, this marvelous and magical tale by Alice Rochrwacher is the pie in the sky to behold.
Synopsis: The film is set in the 1980s in the clandestine world of the tombaroli, or tomb robbers and tells the...
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#44
Adjusted Score: 92571%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A remarkable true story of tenacity, friendship and the triumph of the human spirit, NYAD recounts a riveting chapter in...
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#45
Adjusted Score: 94181%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Between light and darkness stands Olfa, a Tunisian woman and the mother of four daughters. One day, her two older...
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#46
Adjusted Score: 94048%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Banel and Adama are fiercely in love. Longing for a home of their own, they have decided to live apart...
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#47
Adjusted Score: 91447%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: CLOSE YOUR EYES turns on a famous Spanish actor, Julio Arenas, who disappears while filming a movie. Although his body...
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#48
Adjusted Score: 100327%
Critics Consensus: Another music-fueled crowd-pleaser from writer-director John Carney, Flora and Son proves almost impossible to resist.
Synopsis: Single mom Flora (Eve Hewson) is at a loss about what to do with her rebellious teenage son, Max (Orén...
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#49
Adjusted Score: 94050%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Dylan, a 21 year-old construction worker in New Mexico, joins a community of queer rodeo performers in search of their...
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#50
Adjusted Score: 95243%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Told by the pioneering women who participated in it and built from archive unseen for fifty years, this is the...
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#51
Adjusted Score: 88113%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#52
Adjusted Score: 78795%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A coming-of-age "traumedy" that follows 16-year-old Lindy (Maddie Ziegler) who is unexpectedly diagnosed with a reproductive condition, MRKH syndrome. The...
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#53
Adjusted Score: 72226%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#54
Adjusted Score: 82112%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#55
Adjusted Score: 94141%
Critics Consensus: With assured style that's at times reminiscent of the best '90s nail-biting thrillers, Fair Play juxtaposes premarital disharmony with greed and gender politics in the cutthroat finance world.
Synopsis: When a coveted promotion at a cutthroat financial firm arises, once supportive exchanges between lovers Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke...
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#57
Adjusted Score: 91077%
Critics Consensus: Deftly directed by star Anna Kendrick, Woman of the Hour uses an incredible true story as the foundation for a powerful examination of the intersection between systemic misogyny and violence.
#58
Adjusted Score: 92099%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: The architect of 1963's momentous March on Washington, Bayard Rustin was one of the greatest activists and organizers the world...
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#59
Adjusted Score: 90378%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#60
Adjusted Score: 73345%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In Quiz Lady, a brilliant but tightly wound, gameshow-obsessed young woman, Anne (Awkwafina), and her estranged, train-wreck of a sister...
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#61
Adjusted Score: 88702%
Critics Consensus: About Dry Grasses keeps us warm with dark humor through its unhurried and verbose wintry meditation on the human condition.
#62
Adjusted Score: 88114%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In cold wintry Yanji, a city on China's northern border, young urbanite Haofeng, visiting from Shanghai, feels lost and adrift....
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#63
Adjusted Score: 90387%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Silvia works at a public home in New York City for adults struggling with mental health conditions. She leads a...
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#64
Adjusted Score: 52358%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In 1928, Virginia Woolf wrote Orlando, the first novel in which the main character changes sex in the middle of...
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Starring:
#65
Adjusted Score: 52347%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A driven cheerleader (Devery Jacobs) struggles to handle the pressure when she and her girlfriend are both selected for an...
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#66
Adjusted Score: 85635%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Abandoned at birth in the Greek mountains on a stormy night, Jon is taken in and adopted, without having known...
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#67
Adjusted Score: 88112%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#68
Adjusted Score: 79833%
Critics Consensus: From its eyebrow-raising title to its gleefully provocative humor, talented cast, and catchy songs, Dicks: The Musical is a cult movie in the making.
Synopsis: Two self-obsessed businessmen discover they’re long-lost identical twins and come together to plot the reunion of their eccentric divorced parents....
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#69
Adjusted Score: 83178%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In 1755, the impoverished Captain Ludvig Kahlen sets out to conquer the harsh, uninhabitable Danish heath with a seemingly impossible...
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#70
Adjusted Score: 58933%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#71
Adjusted Score: 52525%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In 1992 Chicago, as Michael Jordan solidifies himself as a champion, a story of two young legends in their own...
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#72
Adjusted Score: 95028%
Critics Consensus: Dumb Money's crowd-pleasing dramatization of real-life stock hijinks may not tell the complete story, but it's rousingly entertaining nonetheless.
Synopsis: Dumb Money is the ultimate David vs. Goliath tale, based on the insane true story of everyday people who flipped...
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#73
Adjusted Score: 79272%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#74
Adjusted Score: 39674%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Alex Gibney directs the definitive documentary about Paul Simon's legendary Grammy Award-winning career. In the film, Gibney and Simon journey...
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#75
Adjusted Score: 83505%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Sasha is a young vampire with a serious problem: she’s too sensitive to kill! When her exasperated parents cut off...
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#76
Adjusted Score: 82442%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Zhili, 150 km from Shanghai. In this city dedicated to textile manufacturing, young people come from all the rural regions...
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Starring:
#77
Adjusted Score: 80309%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In 1858, in the Jewish quarter of Bologna, the Pope's soldiers burst into the home of the Mortara family. By...
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#78
Adjusted Score: 26435%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: New Zealand in the 1830s is a largely Māori world, dominated by tribal wars. Seeking redemption from a dark past,...
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#79
Adjusted Score: 78656%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: From Academy-Award Nominee Raoul Peck, Silver Dollar Road follows the story of the Reels family as told by the matriarch...
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Starring:
#80
Adjusted Score: 59026%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Khédidja works for a wealthy Parisian family who offered her to mind their children for a summer in Corsica. Bringing...
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#81
Adjusted Score: 65168%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: This neo-fairytale set in Wyoming, USA follows three mischievous children as they embark on an odyssey when their mother asks...
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#82
Adjusted Score: 59055%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Earnest theatre director Jeanine (Amanda Seyfried) has been given the task of remounting her former mentor's most famous work, the...
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#83
Adjusted Score: 75313%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Anne, a brilliant lawyer, lives in perfect harmony with her husband Pierre and their six and eight-year-old daughters, in a...
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#84
Adjusted Score: 52783%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A dystopian fever dream action film that follows Boy, a deaf mute with a vibrant imagination. When his family is...
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#85
Adjusted Score: 45773%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Ezra follows Max Bernal, a once-successful late-night comedy writer turned not-so-successful stand-up comic, who moves in with his father, having...
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#86
Adjusted Score: 69902%
Critics Consensus: The New Boy bites off more than it can comfortably chew, but this heady exploration of faith and cultural tensions has an ethereal allure.
#87
Adjusted Score: 67374%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: The story of photographer Elizabeth ‘Lee’ Miller, an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II. ...
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#88
Adjusted Score: 45738%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#89
Adjusted Score: 69048%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#90
Adjusted Score: 39273%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A feature documentary that follows Lil Nas X as he embarks on his first ever global tour. The diaristic film...
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#91
Adjusted Score: 62375%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#92
Adjusted Score: 54570%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#93
Adjusted Score: 61181%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Fiery Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley) has little in common with the pious Edith Swan (Olivia Colman) aside from them being...
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#94
Adjusted Score: 52966%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#95
Adjusted Score: 39137%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Sam (Elliot Page) has a chance encounter with an old friend (Hillary Baack) on his way home to a dreaded...
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#96
Adjusted Score: 61507%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Anna (Jessie Buckley) and Ryan (Jeremy Allen White) have found true love. It's been proven by a controversial new technology....
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#97
Adjusted Score: 50047%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: The reimagining of Anthony Quinn's novel 'Curtain Call' centers on Jimmy Erskine (Ian McKellen), the Daily Chronicle's most famous and...
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#98
Adjusted Score: 48225%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Directed by Academy Award Winner Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit, Thor: Ragnarok), NEXT GOAL WINS follows the American Samoa soccer team,...
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#99
Adjusted Score: 41439%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#100
Adjusted Score: 33038%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Starring:
#101
Adjusted Score: 19732%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#102
Adjusted Score: 45468%
Critics Consensus: Strong work from Benicio del Toro and Alicia Silverstone isn't enough to make up for Reptile's convoluted and ultimately underwhelming story.
Synopsis: Following the brutal murder of a young real estate agent, a hardened detective attempts to uncover the truth in a...
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#103
Adjusted Score: 25920%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In a remote furniture store, Mother stations herself on a green couch, refusing to get up, leaving her three estranged...
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#104
Adjusted Score: 19632%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Finestkind tells the story of two brothers (Ben Foster & Toby Wallace), raised in different worlds, who are reunited as...
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#105
Adjusted Score: 29112%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#106
Adjusted Score: 20317%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#107
Adjusted Score: 25571%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Liza Drake (Emily Blunt) is a blue-collar single mom who has just lost her job and is at the end...
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