Protagonist Mirabel is able to help heal her family because she doesn’t have to live through the trauma of displacement like her grandmother did.
(YouTube/DisneyMusicVEVO)
Critics who are irritated by a lack of an apparent villain in ‘Encanto’ need to take a closer look at the effects of colonial displacement.
Pixar/Disney+
Mei’s family run a temple to their ancestors in Toronto, depicting a rich and important tradition in Chinese culture.
Pixar/Disney+
Representations of girls on screen have become much better over the years but there is still a vocal audience who would rather they be tame and demure.
Hugo Covarrubias
A provocative short film about a woman and her dog, Bestia highlights the impunity enjoyed by Chile’s military and politicians
The older Alana is smitten by Gary in ‘Licorice Pizza.’
Universal
Teen boys who date adult women tend to experience their relationships differently than girls who date older men.
‘Stories Are In Our Bones’ sees filmmaker Janine Windolph take her young sons fishing with their kokum, a residential school survivor who retains a deep knowledge and memory of the land.
(Stories Are In Our Bones/National Film Board)
Indigenous filmmakers are changing the world by telling their own stories in their own ways.
Keith Corrigan / Alamy
Many of Count Orlok’s characteristics have gone on to be canon in the lore of vampires.
Benedict Cumberbatch stars in ‘The Power of the Dog,’ a film that challenges moralizing assumptions about toxic masculinity.
(Shutterstock)
Narrative gaps and atmospheric touches in Jane Campion’s masterful neo-western draw viewers in to piece together connections.
Jonathan Olley/DC Comics
The caped crusader is back in another dark outing that speaks to this cultural moment.
Anna May Wong appears alongside Akim Tamiroff in a promotional poster for the 1939 film ‘King of Chinatown.’
LMPC/Getty Images
The Asian American actress rose to fame in an era when white actors in yellowface were more likely to play Asian characters than Asian ones.
MGM/AP
Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the most critically acclaimed directors of the 21st century with films like There Will Be Blood, Phantom Thread, and the new Oscar nominated Licorice Pizza.
FinalCutforReal
Animation allowed the makers of Flee to tell a story that challenges the pervasive narrative of it means to be a refugee
Disney
Branagh’s adaptations are more concerned with Poirot himself than any of the suspects – the murder in this film only happens 70 minutes in.
Lifestyle pictures/Alamy
A book that defies the usual mystery formula, Death on the Nile is more than just a clever tale about murder.
Luma in a still from Andrea Arnold’s Cow (2021).
Kate Kirkwood
Andrea Arnold’s new film chronicles the daily strife of Luma – a dairy cow and mother.
Tania Lambert/Here Out West
Here Out West aims to shift the perception about what it means to tell contemporary Australian tales to a broad audience while staying true to the suburbs and communities of Western Sydney.
Helen Winter is one of the German women created to retell the story of the Munich Crisis.
Netflix
Women were not really present during the signing of the Four Powers Agreement but they were at home in parliament. Film often demand sexy more sympathetic female characters
2021 Focus Features
Archives are working had to document stories from Protestants, Catholics, Nationalists, Unionists and even the British Forces.
Peter Dinklage’s Cyrano de Bergerac is missing the famous nose.
Universal Pictures
There was a real man behind the swashbuckling hero who was as deft at sparring with his pen and sword as Rostand’s hero.
Jean-Marc Vallée attends a press conference to promote the film ‘Demolition’ at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2015. His unfinished work was an ode to human complexity.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
If Vallée’s films are so moving, it is because for him, cinema and television are an act of communication. He said he hoped his stories would “give back a little.”