Alt Film Guide

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Sep 28, 2026 3.0 Tom Cruise, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s big, clever, and very funny apocalyptic satire is our Dr. Strangelove. Similarities to the 1964 Stanley Kubrick–Peter Sellers classic can be found just about everywhere; And the joke is still on us. Go to Full Review Digger (2026) 53% - -

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Aug 27, 2026 2.5 Veteran filmmaker Agnieszka Holland and screenwriter Marek Epstein have created an appropriately Kafkaesque Kafka biopic. Idan Weiss stars as the philosopher and author of The Metamorphosis and The Trial. And - he looks just like him. Really, he does. Go to Full Review Franz (2025) 74% - -

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Aug 25, 2026 3 Clearly inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, with an added dose of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, screenwriter-director Alexander Ullom’s horror road movie will have viewers alternately puzzled, unsettled, and wondering about their own destination, if any. Go to Full Review It Ends (2025) 93% - -

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Aug 7, 2026 3/5 Matt Johnson’s dramedy about one summer in the life of the adolescent Anthony Bourdain offers a compelling portrait of an ‘ordinary’ life and a boy called Tony. Go to Full Review Tony (2026) 93% - -

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Jul 25, 2026 3.5 Screenwriter Chad St. John and director Potsy Ponciroli’s very good revenge flick tells its story through the acting of its excellent cast – Shailene Woodley, Ben Foster, and Pablo Schneider – its extensive soundtrack (score), and a few words. Go to Full Review Motor City (2025) 63% - -

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Jul 15, 2026 Christopher Nolan’s latest cinematic event is perfectly "good." And yet, its one truly remarkable achievement is not the drama, the direction, the acting, the cinematography, or the visual effects – but the sound design. Go to Full Review The Odyssey (2026) 94% - -

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Jul 14, 2026 3.5 In this witty, thoughtful comedy about the intricacies of human relationships and of the workings of the human mind, Olivia Wilde proves herself adroit as an actress and director again. Go to Full Review The Invite (2026) 96% - -

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Jun 17, 2026 3.5 Inspired by events in her own childhood, Chie Hayakawa’s surrealistic coming-of-age drama is both esoteric and memorable. Yui Suzuki stars as its deceptively easygoing central character. Go to Full Review Renoir (2025) 88% - -

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Jun 7, 2026 3.5 This is the key point of The Propagandist: The power of self-delusion is strong and lasting, and it takes a well-grounded document to expose it. This document does that well. Go to Full Review The Propagandist (2025) - - - -

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide May 18, 2026 3 Aleshea Harris’ direction is straightforward and unadorned. She lets her prose and her first-rate cast do the storytelling. Go to Full Review Is God Is (2026) 97% - -

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Sep 13, 2022 3/4 "It's wicked good and smart and in the current milieu of multi-meta-verse fever feels ever so slightly - possible." Go to Full Review The Alternate (2021) 86% 56%

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Jun 10, 2022 In all, Sylvie of the Sunshine State is a wonderful film – a meditation conveyed through a child’s unique perspective. Go to Full Review Sylvie of the Sunshine State (2022) - - - -

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Nov 6, 2020 3.5/4.0 Screenwriter, director, co-producer, and star, Radha Blank has come up with an "astute" feature film debut reminiscent of the works of Woody Allen, Noah Baumbach, and Paul Mazursky. Only Blacker, and more girly. Go to Full Review The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020) 99% 72%

Mark Keizer Alt Film Guide May 24, 2018 2.5/5 One senses that completing production was the primary accomplishment to the exclusion of those virtues that made Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back so transporting. Go to Full Review Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) 69% 63%

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Oct 21, 2017 3.0/4 A crunchy, witty, and often just plain funny mash-up of classic noir tropes ... in addition to dialogue worthy of Dashiell Hammett and, occasionally, Mel Brooks... Go to Full Review Trouble Is My Business (2017) 100% 95%

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Aug 7, 2017 ** For Black Americans, the events of Detroit '67 are not the events of a 'dramatic thriller.' They are the events of a tragedy and still-living history we know very well. Go to Full Review Detroit (2017) 82% 79%

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Mar 8, 2017 4 Writer/director Jordan Peele's Get Out has a deep lineage that includes films like Night of the Living Dead, The Spook Who Sat by the Door and Bamboozled - it's that good. And... funnier. Go to Full Review Get Out (2017) 98% 86%

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Mar 8, 2017 3.0 Kong: Skull Island is pretty good popcorn cinema, but it's more of a business plan - than a movie - which involves a lot of movies of which this is only one. As for what it's about - the big pissed off monkey - is what it's about. Go to Full Review Kong: Skull Island (2017) 75% 69%

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Mar 8, 2017 3.0 ...thinking about Barry, the 1981-set film about a young Barack Obama as he arrived in New York City to attend Columbia University, I found myself thinking about a young Me in 1981, as I arrived in New York City to attend Columbia University... Go to Full Review Barry (2016) 80% 51%

Tim Cogshell Alt Film Guide Aug 26, 2016 3 Horror filmmaker Fede Alvarez avoids the fate of the sophomore curse with his second feature film, Don't Breathe, which establishes the director as the real deal when it comes to horror and thrills... and horror. Go to Full Review Don't Breathe (2016) 88% 75%