Cinema News: Movies Update: ‘Crimes of the Future’ and More

June 3, 2022

By Mekado Murphy

Movies Editor

Hey, movie fans!

After a Memorial Day weekend that saw "Top Gun: Maverick" reaching some box-office heights, we head into a weekend focused more on indies.

Two films from international auteurs are opening, one from the Canadian writer-director David Cronenberg, the other from the British writer-director Terence Davies.

"Crimes of the Future" is Cronenberg back in his body-horror groove. The critic Manohla Dargis called it "very tough and creepy, yet improbably relaxed; it's a low-key dispatch from the end of the world."

And "Benediction" has Davies doing another poet biopic, this one about Siegfried Sassoon. In his review, A.O. Scott wrote that "the portrait of an anguished artist becomes a somewhat familiar tableau of Britain between the wars."

It's Pride Month, and a new gay romantic comedy has landed on Hulu: "Fire Island." In her review, Elisabeth Vincentelli wrote that it's "impossible to resist a movie that uses 'Legally Blonde' as a verb and in which two men adorably bond over Alice Munro short stories."

Enjoy the movies.

Nikos Nikolopoulos/Neon

Critic's Pick

'Crimes of the Future' Review: The Horror, the Horror

In his latest shocker, David Cronenberg prophetically reads the signs while Léa Seydoux performs surgeries on a beatific Viggo Mortensen.

By Manohla Dargis

Laurence Cendrowicz/Roadside Attractions

'Benediction' Review: A Poet's Life, in Love and War

Terence Davies's latest film is a biography of Siegfried Sassoon, whose writing about World War I changed British literature.

By A.O. Scott

Jeong Park/Searchlight Pictures/20th Century Studios/Hulu

'Fire Island' Review: Oh, the Summer Nights

The quips are almost as hot as the sexual tension in Andrew Ahn and Joel Kim Booster's loosely paced but endearing romantic comedy.

By Elisabeth Vincentelli

Matt Chinworth

Critic's Notebook

Are the Movies Liberal?

Everyone knows Hollywood is progressive. But look at the films it churns out. They tell another story.

By A.O. Scott

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CRITICS' PICKS

IFC Midnight

Critic's Pick

'Watcher' Review: Terror, at a Glance

In Chloe Okuno's taut first feature, a woman is convinced a man is watching and possibly even following her.

By Lena Wilson

Kino Lorber

Critic's Pick

'Neptune Frost' Review: Unanimous Gold Mine

An Afrofuturist fantasia about the state of the world and how to resist it.

By A.O. Scott

ANATOMY OF A SCENE

Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures

Anatomy of a Scene

Watch Tom Cruise Go Hypersonic in 'Top Gun: Maverick'

The director Joseph Kosinski narrates a sequence from the film.

By Mekado Murphy

MOVIE REVIEWS

Nick Wall/Sony Pictures Classics

'The Phantom of the Open' Review: 'The World's Worst Golfer' Wins Laughs

Inspired by Maurice Flitcroft's stunningly bad results at the 1976 British Open, this comedy plays with a genre in which underdogs so often triumph.

By Lisa Kennedy

Altered Innocence

'After Blue (Dirty Paradise)' Review: A Fever Dream Adventure

A planet of women is the eye-popping setting for this psychedelic movie, in which a mother and her daughter try to find an escaped criminal named Kate Bush.

By Elisabeth Vincentelli

Gkids

'Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko' Review: Lovely Food, Bad Taste

A mother and adolescent daughter cook together, laugh together and face the usual generational struggles in a film with an unkind point of view.

By Calum Marsh

Rob Baker Ashton/Gravitas Ventures

'The Score' Review: Songs in the Key of Heist

The singer-songwriter Johnny Flynn stars alongside Will Poulter and Naomi Ackie in an understated musical about two small-time crooks and a budding romance.

By Amy Nicholson

18½/Adventure Entertainment

'18½' Review: Watergate, Through a Fog

This political thriller creates a fictional account of a lost Watergate tape by a White House typist.

By Teo Bugbee

Film Movement

'Miracle' Review: A Spiritual Investigation

In this drama set in Romania, when an incident occurs with a novice from a rural convent, a detective seeks answers.

By Ben Kenigsberg

Well Go USA

'Maika: The Girl From Another Galaxy' Review: Boy Meets Alien

This children's adventure movie from Vietnam is like "E.T."—but sloppier and more eccentric.

By Beatrice Loayza

Disney+

'Hollywood Stargirl' Review: Starting Anew in La La Land

Julia Hart's bubbly sequel picks up the story in summertime and reframes around Stargirl, a character who in the first movie was auxiliary by design.

By Natalia Winkelman

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NEWS & FEATURES

Robbie Lawrence for The New York Times

Mark Rylance on 'Jerusalem' and the Golf Comedy 'Phantom of the Open'

The acclaimed British actor explains the links between his tour de force stage turn and a recent string of subdued screen roles.

By Dave Itzkoff

Pool photo by Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse

Critic's Notebook

The Actual Malice of the Johnny Depp Trial

In this post-#MeToo moment, misogyny and celebrity go hand in hand.

By A.O. Scott

Festival de Cannes

'Triangle of Sadness' wins Palme d'Or at Cannes.

The film festival's top prize went to a brutal sendup of class politics directed by Ruben Ostlund, who also won in 2017 for his satire "The Square."

By Manohla Dargis

Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York Times

Ted Sarandos Talks About That Stock Drop, Backing Dave Chappelle, and Hollywood Schadenfreude

The Netflix executive says he — and the company he helped build — will survive a bout of bad earnings numbers.

By Maureen Dowd

STREAMING RECOMMENDATIONS

Yaazhi Films

Five International Movies to Stream Now

This month's picks include a Kafkaesque Tamil head trip, an Argentine queer drama, a Rwandan girls-school thriller and more.

By Devika Girish

Warner Bros. Entertainment, via Associated Press

Stream These 11 Titles Before They Leave Netflix This Month

A lot of great movies and TV shows are expiring for subscribers in the United States in June. Here are the ones worth finding time for.

By Jason Bailey

Magnolia Pictures

The Best Movies on Amazon Prime Video Right Now

New films, and classics, just keep coming, but you don't have to drill down to find the finest selections to stream. We'll do the heavy lifting. You press play.

By Jason Bailey