French Writer/Director Alain Guiraduie’s Misericordia is a black comedy of errors that makes us uncomfortable in the best of ways:  characters with unsavory intentions, squirm-inducing humor, genuine suspense.

A profoundly endearing road movie, Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain is a tragicomedy about two Jewish cousins who confront intergenerational trauma by exploring long-lost Polish roots. Starring Eisenberg and scene-stealing Kieran Culkin, this film is survivor’s guilt personified:  the cousins reopen wounds that they can’t quite grasp or resolve—and yet despite the pain, their rapport is deeply satisfying, rich with surprising laughs and even more surprising emotional payoffs.

A heartfelt ode to high school friendship, Neo Sora’s Happyend explores how bonds evolve—and dissolve—as adulthood looms.  Set in authoritarian, near-future Tokyo, this coming-of-age drama is also bracingly funny and ideologically intense.  Even better, despite its familiar set-up, the film bursts with personality:  surprisingly authentic, easy-to-fall-for characters whose personal and political awakening make us laugh, grin, and ultimately choke up. 

A towering achievement of both animation and imagination, The Boy and the Heron was expected to be Miyazaki’s swan song, a fitting send-off for the auteur whom many see as the world’s greatest living animator. His choice of the somewhat ambiguous question “How Do You Live?” is especially poignant given the circumstances.

Michelangelo Frammartino’s Il Buco (“The Hole”) is a meditative journey into the center of the earth, replete with some of the year’s most gorgeous visuals and transportive sound design.

O Brother Wherefore Art Thou: Joel Cohen’s Stunning Solo Shakespeare