1. Anora

Pretty Woman but make it indie. A sex worker gets swept off her feet by the happy-go-lucky son of a Russian oligarch. Briefly, we allow ourselves to get carried away by their silly and sexy romance. Then the parents intervene, a group of (only semi-competent) Russian gangsters enter the scene, the Russian Prince Charming turns out to be a bit of a dud, and we find out just how feisty our heroine really is. Directed by Sean Baker, the Shakespeare of sex workers, reprobates, and loveable losers, and featuring a star-making turn by Mikey Madison in the title role.

2. Conclave

Director Edward Berger brings us the most audaciously entertaining film of the year. The pope dies and the cardinals are placed in seclusion—a conclave—to select their new leader. Egos run amok, battle lines are drawn, and everyone’s ambition rises to the surface. Ralph Fiennes is impeccable, as usual, as the cardinal in charge of the whole thing—trying to separate the righteous from the power-hungry. The twist at the end is satisfying, if a bit ridiculous. Pay close attention to the nuns.

3. Thelma

When 93-year-old Thelma (June Squibb, perfection) gets tricked by scammers, she takes matters into her own hands, inspired by her restless spirit and her love of Mission Impossible films. Her reluctant partner in crime is Ben (the late Richard Roundtree, wonderful), who tags along and tries to quell her more dangerous impulses. Meanwhile, her frantic family—including her slightly dim and doting grandson, Daniel (Fred Hechinger)—chases after her. But she doesn’t want to be rescued, she’s having the time of her life. And so are we.

4. A Real Pain

Ostensibly a film about a pair of cousins (Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin) traveling to Poland to see the hometown of their grandmother who survived the Holocaust, Eisenberg’s film is actually about how we manage to live in a world full of suffering. Most of us compartmentalize, adapt, deny. But what if someone feels everything a little too deeply? That’s Culkin’s Benji. His outsized emotions manage to be the perfect foil to Eisenberg’s well-tempered repression. We watch the cousins fumble toward a mutual understanding and see Benji interact with the world—in turns annoying, delighting, and unsettling everyone he encounters.

5. A Different Man

Edward (Sebastian Stan) has Proteus syndrome, aka Elephant Man’s disease, and lives a quiet life of desperation. His beautiful new neighbor (Renate Reinsve) shows him kindness and he briefly misunderstands her intentions. Her rejection sends him spiraling—eventually to a doctor who claims to have a cure. He emerges a new man, a handsome one, who actually begins a tentative romance with the neighbor. But his world—and worldview—are disrupted when another man (Adam Pearson) with the exact same affliction arrives on the scene. This man has a joie de vivre—he charms the world with his friendliness and openness; he’s a lesson about embracing life in the form of a doppelganger. This quirky, smart, and slightly off-kilter film from Aaron Schmiberg is reminiscent of the early collaborations between Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman.

6. Emilia Pérez

Like nothing you’ve ever seen. A Mexican drug lord (enthralling Karla Sofia Gascon, in a dual role) recruits an overworked and underpaid lawyer (Zoe Saldana, never better) to arrange for him to get a sex change and start a new life. Once she has the surgery, she becomes a formidable but nurturing philanthropist who helps people find loved ones who died in the drug wars. But she pines for her two children so arranges to have them come live with her, along with her “widowed” wife (Selena Gomez), under the pretense that she’s the drug kingpin’s long lost sister. How long can she keep this charade up? Did I mention that Jacques Audiard’s film is a rock opera? I loved every cockamamie second of it.

7. The Beast

A sci-fi love story, of sorts, with three distinct chapters. In the framing device, set in the future, a woman named Gabrielle (Lea Seydoux, mesmerizing as ever) fears undergoing a process that “purifies” her DNA by conjuring and then eradicating memory of her past lives. She meets and is instantly drawn to a man named Louis (George MacKay) who shares her reservations about the process.

In a flashback to the turn of the 20th century, she’s a pianist and dollmaker who meets Louis at a party, where she confides in him that she has a dark cloud of dread hanging over her. In the middle memory, set in contemporary times, Louis is, shockingly, a deadly incel, modeled after Elliot Rodger. (Here, director Bertrand Bonello seems to be making a statement about the isolation and difficulty of real intimacy in modern society.) In the final chapter, we wait to see if she and Louis will undergo the treatment, thus losing their past-life connection. What does it all mean Honestly, I’m not sure, but I was absolutely riveted.

7. Will & Harper

Sure, it was jokey and gimmicky, not the kind of serious documentary that will win awards, but no film this year moved me more than this one, in which Will Ferrell takes a cross country trip to get reacquainted with his old best friend who has transitioned and become a woman. The film is generous, open-hearted, curious, and incredibly funny, much like Ferrell himself. It felt like the exact right film at the exact right time.

9. Challengers

Why aren’t there more films about tennis? Not only is the sport itself cinematic—all that thwacking and sweating and skidding across the court—it’s a showdown between two people, the ultimate war of wills. Ingeniously, Luca Guadagnino made his tennis film about two best friends (Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor) turned rivals who are both in love with the same woman, Tashi Donaldson (Zendaya). A threesome of sorts plays out off the court—it’s possible the young men are a little in love with each other, too. But on the court, they’re playing for nothing less than Tashi’s heart.

10. The Apprentice

Films are empathy machines, as Roger Ebert famously said. Which is why I was afraid to watch Ali Abbasi’s film about Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) and his Svengali-like mentorship of Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan). It’s true, young Trump seems a little sheepish here, a little too eager to get out from under his father’s shadow, and almost something resembling sweet. But as Cohn teaches him the three rules of business combat: attack, attack, attack; admit nothing and deny everything; and claim victory no matter the outcome—he creates a monster in his own image.

Trump’s star surpasses his own and suddenly, the rapacious narcissist we all know emerges, treating the man who invented him like a mere rung on the ladder to success. Both performances are excellent—we watch Stan slowly become Trump, mannerisms and all, and Strong actually makes us pity one of the worst humans who ever lived.

Runners up (in alphabetical order): Ex Husbands, Good One, Hit Man, Janet Planet, Love Lies Bleeding, Messy, My Old Ass

*As of writing this, I had not yet seen a few highly praised films, including The Brutalist, Nickel Boys, and Hard Truths.

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One day, the comedian/actor Will Ferrell gets an email from his old friend, a former head writer for SNL and one of the first people to truly recognize Will’s talent. She explains that she’s transitioning and now goes by the name Harper Steele.

This is a bit of a shock to Will. For one, in her old life, Harper was something of a guy’s guy—a drinker of cheap beer, a fan of the open road, a curmudgeon. Also, she’s 61, which seems late in life to make such a big change. Will never saw this coming. But that’s because Harper hid her true self so well.

It’s Will’s idea that the two old friends should take a cross-country road trip to get reacquainted with each other. It’s important for Harper that Will meets the real her, a new person—still flawed, still scared but a better, more honest version of her old self. Nothing is off limits. Any questions can be asked. Yes, you can ask why it took so long. Yes, you can ask about her boobs. (Of course, Will will make a Nordstrom “Rack” joke.)

So the two friends climb into a Grand Wagoneer—the actual perfect car for a road trip—and set off.

This trip is meaningful for Harper in many ways. Back before she transitioned, she used to love road trips. Partly this was because she simply loved Americana—road stops, honkytonks, Wal-Marts. But also, we learn, because she would allow herself to wear a dress on the road—always with a pair of trousers in the back seat in case she was stopped by a cop or the like. And later, in one of the film’s more touching sequences, we discover that she bought herself an absolute shithole of a house—a stained mattress, graffiti on the walls, creaky floorboards—in the middle of nowhere. A place to hide. But also, what she thought she deserved.

So the road trip is allowing Harper to test the open road as her true self. Will is there as a buffer. Harper worries she won’t be accepted in her new gender, especially in places like Texas and Iowa, but Will is accepted everywhere.

At one point, they stop at a dive bar on the road and Harper asks Will to stay in the car. She’ll call him if she needs him. She wants to do this on her own—she needs to do this on her own. She walks into the bar—there’s a Confederate flag on the wall—and introduces herself to some locals. They start chatting. She calls Will: Come in and meet my new friends.

Will is such a goofy guy, and the two friends have such an easy rapport, cracking jokes and giving each other good-natured crap, that much of the trip has a loose, almost giddy feel. But while many are accepting of Harper, not all goes smoothly. They meet the governor of Indiana at a Pacers game, only to discover after the fact that he had signed an anti-trans bill into law. They go to an all-you-can-eat restaurant in Texas and are met with derisive stares (followed, inevitably, by cruel and transphobic tweets—thanks, Elon).

In both case, Will castigates himself. He should’ve taken better care of his friend. Harper assures him that what he’s doing for her is a gift.

I found Will’s openness to Harper almost unbearably moving. He compliments her—tells her she looks pretty. He is comfortable hugging her and crying in front of her. This is real masculinity, in my eyes. Men, take notes.

A few former and current SNL cast members show up: There’s a dinner in New York with Tina Fey, Seth Meyers, Tim Meadows, and others. Harper talks about how she no longer feels safe walking alone in an alley.

“Welcome,” says Fey.

“Does it ever feel safe to walk alone in an alley?” Meadows cracks.

They go for a hot air balloon ride with Will Forte, who says he’s honored to be part of their journey, and there’s a funny bit with an anticlimactic champagne popping.

They call Kristen Wiig and ask her to write a theme song for their trip. It needs to be jazzy, upbeat, with elements of country, and it should also make you cry. She has two days.

The film, of course, ends with Wiig’s creation, “Will and Harper Go West,” which is as funny and delightful a ditty as you might hope. (And yes, it made me cry.)

Oh, how I wish the transphobes of this world could watch this film and see how wonderful empathy is. It costs nothing. It broadens one’s understanding of the world and the humans who populate it. And it makes everyone feel good.

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