Film festival season begins this weekend with the Seattle treasure Local Sightings, and there are plenty of wide-release and indie features to check out. Our critics have chosen the best of the crop, from Art House Theater Day featuring a Belarussian dashcam documentary to the oddly touching Brad's Status to a Wes Anderson-like comedy about immigration, The Tiger Hunter. Follow the links below for showtimes and trailers. Still searching? Find plenty of options in our movie times and our film events calendar.

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THURSDAY ONLY

1. Annabelle: Creation
The setting: A mid-century Andrew Wyeth landscape with an Edward Hopper house. A busload of orphans and a kindly nun move into a mansion run by the saturnine Mr. Mullins and his recluse wife. We know why the Mullinses are so gloomy: Years earlier, their daughter Annabelle was killed in a car crash, and her old room remains stuffed with creepy vintage toys. Orphan Janice, crippled by polio and neglected by the other girls, is quickly lured into the room, where she finds an unpleasant-looking doll and winds up terrorized by a demonic force in the form of the dead daughter. Only her big-eyed, dorky friend Linda guesses what’s happening, and no adult believes her until people start getting ripped apart. This capable, if conventional, haunted house movie assumes a grave sweetness while it concentrates on the intense friendship between its two young protagonists, who deserve more screen time before the standard phantasmagoria of the Conjuring franchise crowds in—scary antiques, bone-snapping demons, malicious tea party dollies. JOULE ZELMAN
Meridian 16

2. Beach Rats
Art house films in which the camera caresses young male bodies are usually directed by men, like Gus Van Sant or Larry Clark, so Eliza Hittman’s Beach Rats feels like an outlier. If anything, her follow-up to 2013’s It Felt Like Love is as much about a 19-year-old exploring his sexuality as it’s a chance for Pina cinematographer HĂ©lĂšne Louvart to linger on the panes of his face, the curvature of his lips, the contours of his torso. At home, Frankie hooks up with men he meets through a gay webcam forum, but with his friends—Brooklyn bros in tank tops and backward hats—he hangs out on the boardwalk, smoking blunts and digging the heteronormative scene. When a pretty brunette flirts with him one night, he flirts back, but the minute his friends abandon him, he looks frightened. When their first sexual encounter is a bust, he convinces her to give him another chance. His father is dying, and he’s eager for the kind of human connection his friends are unable to provide, and so he splits his life down the middle—gay in private and straight in public, a bifurcation bound to fail. KATHY FENNESSY
SIFF Cinema Uptown

3. Good Time
Good Time has the keen eye for anthropology you find in a lot of Sundance movies—the casting feels both unconventional and authentic, and there’s an interest in subcultures that you don’t normally see on screen—but the beauty is that it packs this sensibility into a taut genre thriller. Robert Pattinson, previously of the Twilight series and clearly thrilled to be in a role that doesn’t require him to brood, smolder, or sparkle, plays Connie Nikas, a twitchy grifter who cadges money from his obnoxious, possibly mentally challenged girlfriend (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and gets his definitely mentally challenged brother, Nick (Benny Safdie, who also co-directed the film with his brother), caught up in a lamebrained heist. The crime goes bad and Nick gets pinched—sending Connie on a night-long odyssey through the wilds of Queens to try to make the money for Nick’s bail. VINCE MANCINI
Meridian 16

4. Patti Cake$
It’s a bleak setting many Americans will recognize: wide, treeless roads; trash-strewn strip mall parking lots; an inescapable sense of resigned hopelessness. But Patti perseveres, filling her notebooks with rap verses that she shares with her best friend Jheri (Siddharth Dhananjay). When she can’t rap with Jheri, Patti escapes into elaborate fantasies, floating through green clouds of Wizard of Oz–style haze and dreaming of winning the favor of her rap idols with her rhymes. Patti Cake$ could easily be labeled a feminist 8 Mile, and at first glance, it looks just about identical: the fights with mom, the working poverty, the white rapper seeking to break into a traditionally African American art form. Patti Cake$ only escapes the 8 Mile cliché—the idea that it’s somehow heroic for a white person to succeed in a marginalized person’s world—on the strength of its actors, the versatility of its director (Jasper also penned Patti’s lyrics), and the fact that its script packs so much heart. While 8 Mile struggled under the weight of trying to remain true to Eminem’s account of his life, Patti Cake$—a work of pure fiction—feels much more real. SUZETTE SMITH
Various locations

5. Step
Recall Hoop Dreams, the 1994 documentary about two black American teenagers who dream of becoming pro-ballers and making millions. Step is not like that. Though having the same urban and class setting as Hoop Dreams (this time Baltimore and not Chicago), these black American teenagers are not dreaming of fame or riches. There are no such illusions for them. Their goals are more realistic: graduate from high school, get into college, obtain a degree, and secure stable employment. As for step dancing (which is not really at the center of the documentary), it provides pleasure, discipline, and a way to discharge a lot of inner-city pressure. Life for these young women is not easy at home or in the classroom. Sometimes there’s no food in the fridge; other times, homelessness is one unpaid bill away. The documentary is straightforward and powerful. CHARLES MUDEDE
Varsity Theatre

6. The Teacher
A monstrous teacher in socialist Bratislava, wielding USSR connections and Communist credentials, harasses and blackmails an entire town in this quiet drama about corruption and authority. What will it take for the adults and children to rebel? A microcosm of totalitarianism for our bullying age.
Grand Illusion

7. Wonder Woman
In Wonder Woman, innocence is Diana’s foil. She’s read at great length about the world, but has never lived in it. And as Diana deals with her naĂŻvetĂ© and her foes, Wonder Woman is exciting and fun—even though it devolves into typical blockbuster spectacle near its end, I’d recommend it to anyone who loves action films, and there’s also just enough subtext to feed a philosophical mind. How much harm does Wonder Woman do when she strides boldly into war? Is this what power looks like? Is it cool just because she’s a woman? Hopefully these questions will be answered in future films. For now, Wonder Woman is a thrilling start. SUZETTE SMITH
Meridian 16

THURSDAY-FRIDAY

8. Baby Driver
Once its tires grip pavement, Baby Driver becomes a full-throttle ballet of motion, color, and sound. The tunes are great, the getaway chases will leave you breathless, and the motley team of robbers—which includes Kevin Spacey, Eiza González, and an excellent Jamie Foxx—comes from the kind of screenplay you wish Tarantino still wrote. And a superbly villainous Jon Hamm shows there’s more to his post-Mad Men career than H&R Block ads. NED LANNAMANN
Pacific Place & AMC Seattle 10

FRIDAY-SUNDAY

9. Boris Without BĂ©atrice
QuĂ©bĂ©cois filmmaker Denis CĂŽtĂ©â€˜s Boris Without BĂ©atrice is the mash-up of Dickens and Bergman you didn’t know you needed. Russian-Canadian industrialist Boris Malinovsky (James Hyndman) is tall, bald, and intimidating. his neighbors hate him. And why shouldn’t they? He’s a dick. Things take a turn for the weird when he meets a mystery man (the incomparable Denis Lavant) who provides the solution to BĂ©atrice’s problem. What follows is a seemingly simplistic take on depression, i.e. Boris needs to check his privilege in order for BĂ©atrice to get better, except her condition seems more symbolic of their marriage. If it doesn’t cohere as neatly as Curling and Vic + Flo Saw a Bear, CĂŽtĂ©â€˜s eye for an inventive composition remains finely tuned, and Hyndman, who recalls Mark Strong by way of Tom Noonan, is a compelling presence. When he sighs, “I don’t want to be alone against the fucking world,” you know that BĂ©atrice just might have a fighting chance. KATHY FENNESSY

10. Lane 1974
This excellent debut feature from Seattle-based filmmaker SJ Chiro tells the story of 13-year-old Lane and her siblings, who are being raised by their counterculture mother in 1970s Northern California. The mother, Hallelujah (The L Word’s Katherine Moennig), is the opposite of the helicopter parent: Putting her own drama and needs first, she lugs her three kids from one ill-advised situation to the next. She rejects the mores of established society, leaving the children desperately yearning for regular stuff: cheese, sugar, fashionable clothes, a nice house. The feeling of the era is well reflected in the clothes, music, and bucolic locations. And young star Sophia Mitri Schloss has an appealing, serious presence—and as Lane, she shows the helplessness of watching her mother spiral their life out of control, unable to do anything to ground them. GILLIAN ANDERSON
SIFF Film Center

11. Local Sightings
For the past 20 years, Local Sightings has boosted filmmakers "from Alaska to Oregon" and has worked dedicatedly to curate what Charles Mudede called "best films that our region has to offer." In addition to screenings, the Northwest Film Forum will host parties, conversations, and an award ceremony.
Northwest Film Forum

12. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
In the grand tradition of ordinary beings transformed into supranormal heroes by radioactive slime, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pits good anthropomorphic turtles and their rat sensei against a cheesegrater-clad nemesis.
Central Cinema

SUNDAY ONLY

13. Art House Theater Day
Our arthouse cinemas are precious; this day of the year is an occasion to pay attention to the role they play in our cultural lives. Head to Grand Illusion for The Road Movie, a documentary composed entirely of Russian dashcam videos and boasting "the craziest sh*t you’ve ever seen," or SIFF Cinema Uptown for a special screening of Dirty Dancing.
Various locations

ALL WEEKEND

14. Atomic Blonde
Atomic Blonde isn’t subtle. On about the 89th shot of Charlize Theron walking coolly down a Berlin street wearing sunglasses to an 1980s new wave hit, I wondered if it wasn’t a little excessive. Yes, of course—it’s absolutely excessive. But also: great! Excess is great! Sunglasses and Charlize Theron and 1980s jams are all great. Theron plays a British spy (OR IS SHE?) trying to out-spy some other spies (OR ARE THEY?) who murdered this one other spy (HRRMMM??) and there’s also a mega-list of spies to track down (SPY SPY SPY!). Look, no one can explain the plot of a spy movie without sounding dumb or crazy or both, and the hallmark of a good one is giving up and saying, “Whatever, it’s fun!” (This is what I am doing here.) ELINOR JONES
Meridian 16

15. The Big Sick
This film comes with a few red flags attached (rom-com set in the world of stand-up, etc.), but haters be damned. The true story of Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley, Portlandia) and his real-life wife Emily Gordon’s tumultuous courtship is hilarious, warm, and genuinely affecting—a best-case scenario in every department. The cross-cultural differences at the center of the story are written and played with empathy and truth, and the performances (especially from Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, and Adeel Akhtar) are deep, surprising, and bursting with multidimensional humanity. SEAN NELSON
Meridian 16 & AMC Seattle 10

16. Brad's Status
The latest from Mike White (director of Year of the Dog), Brad’s Status perfectly captures the way anxious people avoid addressing big underlying fears by coming up with peripheral worries to quietly freak out about. Brad (Ben Stiller) is one of these people: When a tour of New England colleges with his son sparks terror about his kid leaving home, and also death, he does what any good neurotic does and obsesses over something else. Namely, the fact his life may not measure up to those of his fancy bros from Tufts, who seem like a bunch of terrible people. Thankfully, you don’t need to relate to Brad to appreciate his development. Brad’s is a slow arc of delayed maturation as he’s gradually reminded that, even though he isn’t young anymore, life is still worth living. Though I found it laughable that a person who owns a home, has a happy family life, and does work that aligns with his values would act like he’s really struck out in life, I also get it? Life is complicated and hard, no matter who you are. MEGAN BURBANK
Meridian 16 & AMC Seattle 10

17. Columbus
Allow writer and director Kogonada to take you on a bizarrely fascinating, visually stunning, and subtly sensual tour of Columbus, Indiana’s modernist architecture. Besides churches by Eero and Eliel Saarinen, libraries by I.M. Pei, and Will Miller’s enviable living room interior by Alexander Girard, the film centers on intersecting stories of familial responsibility. Jin (played with authority by John Cho) is a middle-aged man who should care that his father is dying in a hospital, but he doesn’t. Casey (played by Haley Lu Richardson, who turns in a phenomenally good, sophisticated performance) is a recent high-school grad who needs to cut the cord, but that’s complicated. The two shouldn’t like each other in any sort of romantic way, but that’s also complicated. Kogonada includes all the troubles Indianans face—meth problems, having to work two manual-labor jobs to pay rent, racial tension—but he smartly builds it into the characters’ motivations and backstory. Elisha Christian’s cinematography and Kogonada’s story reveal the deep relationship between architecture and people that many might miss. RICH SMITH
Varsity Theatre

18. Dunkirk
From May 26 to June 4, 1940, the evacuation of Allied troops from the French port of Dunkirk and its surrounding beaches, known as Operation Dynamo, was a hugely important event in the history of World War II. After the war was over, the survivors of Dunkirk would almost all liken it to Hell. It was Hell on earth, a living Hell. The question is this: How do you present Hell on earth, Hell in the air, and Hell at sea on celluloid? For Christopher Nolan, much of the answer is do it in ultra-high-definition 70 mm IMAX film and show it in IMAX cinemas. Dunkirk is meant to be a nonstop 114 minutes of unalleviated spectacle, a massive collage of beautifully composed pictures, each one lasting for only a few seconds, of gunfire, flames, drowned corpses, exploding bombs, aerial dogfights with numerous plane crashes, and more, much more. Dunkirk shows a world full of terror, but Nolan goes to great lengths to ensure that his audience is never terrified. We sit in our seats munching popcorn and watch other people undergoing terrifying experiences. JONATHAN RABAN
Various locations

19. It
Our critics didn't agree on It. For Erik Henriksen, it was just a run-of-the-mill horror: "Here, even the jump scares underwhelm—maybe because this time, creepy clown Pennywise (Bill SkarsgĂ„rd) is more childlike than threatening, with the script only rarely balancing out his playful menace with actual danger. Meanwhile, Derry—which, for all intents and purposes, is one of It’s major characters—feels more like Anytown, USA than a time-worn, cold-hearted place where fear and loss suffuse each home, each block, each day." Sean Nelson took exception to this description: "If you’re even remotely susceptible to the charms of horror films, and have even the dimmest memory of life in the suburbs of the Reagan era, you should absolutely scrap your weekend plans and go see It, which is brilliantly designed, perfectly cast, surprisingly funny, interestingly observed, and rich in cinematic invention (i.e. not just a bunch of CGI spiders or whatever)." We at Stranger Things To Do think you might love it if Stranger Things appealed to you: It's all about dorky kids pitted against the apathy and cruelty of adults—and the terrifying, fantastical personification of hate.
Various locations

20. Kingsman: The Golden Circle
The first Kingsman movie shouldn’t have worked half as well as it did. Essentially James Bond cosplay, Kingsman: The Secret Service was based on a comic by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. It succeeded thanks to its complicated but deep affection for old Bond movies and its charmingly immature compulsion to inject R-rated depravity and computer-generated wow into 007’s musty old tropes. Unsurprisingly, Kingsman: The Golden Circle suffers from sequel-itis. It’s bloated and overlong, with some fun retreads of ideas from the first Kingsman, a few new tricks done incredibly well, and more than a few stretches that pale in comparison to the original. In other words, The Golden Circle what we should’ve expected from a Kingsman sequel—worse than the original, but still more fun than it has any right to be. NED LANNAMANN
Various locations

21. Logan Lucky
Logan Lucky is a caper movie that combines the style and sensibility of Soderbergh's biggest crowd pleasers (Ocean's Eleven, Out of Sight) with the dusty Southern outlaw vibe of 1970s films like White Lightning or Moonrunners. The result is an odd hybrid of masterful filmmaking and a kind of culture-jamming impulse that walks a tightrope between savviness and condescension. The red state drag show that Soderbergh has convened here feels not merely unconvincing, but a tiny bit uncomfortable, too. That is to say: a bunch of fantastically talented and beautiful movie stars (Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Riley Keough, Daniel Craig) working really hard to seem at home in NASCAR America, where the American flag battles camo for fashion primacy, where people play toilet seat horseshoes, and an interminably melismatic rendition of "America the Beautiful" by LeAnn Rimes as Blue Angels roar overhead brings grown men to tears. SEAN NELSON
Various locations

22. The Midwife
The midwife of the title is Claire (Catherine Frot), a skilled baby-catcher who lives a quiet, dignified life in the suburbs of Paris with a tidy apartment and an adult son. Her structured existence must of course be disrupted, so here comes BĂ©atrice (Deneuve, doing her very best Real Housewives of the Seventh Arrondissement). The Eurotrash former mistress of Claire’s long-dead father, BĂ©atrice, shows up, Royal Tenenbaum-like, to announce she has brain cancer and needs help, but also that she has no intention of giving up either red meat or gambling. (That Catherine Frot and Catherine Deneuve are like the Meryl Streeps of French cinema makes their opposition all the more enjoyable.) What follows is a smart, mordant portrait of aging and loss. That sounds sad, but it’s actually delightful to watch two veteran actresses take on these complicated roles. Not much happens—but under the surface, everything does, and Frot and Deneuve make it impossible to miss. MEGAN BURBANK
SIFF Cinema Uptown

23. mother!
A two-hour nightmare, nearly every frame of Mother! is designed to be deeply unpleasant. Since that's the goal, and since it accomplishes that goal so well, Mother! kind of has to get an A+, four stars, two thumbs up, right? I'm not sure I can tell you what the fuck Mother! is, but I am pretty sure it's exactly what writer/director Darren Aronofsky meant to make. Good for him! Whether that's good for anyone else is TBD. Mother! starts with a whole lot of Rosemary’s Baby: From the moment she wakes up, a subtle dread follows an unnamed woman (Jennifer Lawrence) who’s living her best Martha Stewart impression, fixing up her half-decrepit, half-beautiful mansion in the middle of nowhere. As Lawrence’s blank, bland woman restores and polishes and paints and bakes, her unnamed poet husband (Javier Bardem) fights a case of writer’s block. When a creepy unnamed man and a cruel unnamed woman show up at the front door, thingsens get weirder. Even before it’s halfway over, this slow-motion anxiety attack feels like a lot, but as Mother! veers from surreal to silly and back again—throwing in some jump scares, a few excellent stretches of purely visual storytelling, and not a single joke. ERIK HENRIKSEN
Various locations

24. Spider-Man: Homecoming
Spider-Man: Homecoming isn't just the best Spider-Man film ever made—it might just be the current reigning champion in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. Instead of being crammed with typical action set pieces and clunky character development, Homecoming is actually a good-natured teen comedy in the vein of John Hughes's best work, rather than the action-packed blockbuster behemoths we've grown accustomed to. It's the closest a Spider-Man film has come to capturing the insecurity and bubbly effervescence displayed in the Marvel comics of the 1960s, and Tom Holland's earnest, engaging style has a lot to do with it. WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY
Meridian 16 & Pacific Place

25. Stronger
The Boston Marathon bombing happened only four years ago, and despite the fact that we’ve had several lifetimes of sadness between then and now, it feels like it just occurred. Are we ready for a movie about it? Thankfully, Stronger is a close study of a guy and a family who went through some shit. The guy, Jeff Bauman, became the face of the Boston Marathon bombing after a picture of his rescue from the scene landed on the front pages of newspapers across the world. What makes Stronger different from other schmaltzy, rah-rah Americana movies is that while it’s about the marathon bombing, it’s not really about the marathon bombing. The moment of the blast isn’t hyped up for drama. It happens off to the side, and it’s people’s reactions to the tragedy that are in focus. Stronger only drifts into self-congratulatory territory a couple of times. The rest of the time—when it’s just the story of a guy and his family—it’s great. Even if it does feel soon. ELINOR JONES
Various locations

26. The Tiger Hunter
The Tiger Hunter is the fictional story of an Indian immigrant, Sami, who’s played by Community’s Danny Pudi and who does not, in fact, hunt tigers. Sami grows up in a small Indian town where his father—the actual tiger hunter—is a hero. Sami wants to be just like him, but somehow gets it into his head that Chicago is the place to make this happen. Oh, and all of this takes place in the 1970s, and Sami is also trying to prove to his childhood sweetheart that he’s a successful microwave engineer. The Tiger Hunter is like if a Bollywood romance and a Wes Anderson movie had a baby, then that baby grew up and had its own baby with My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It’s neither totally Indian, nor totally American. OR WAIT—maybe that’s exactly what it’s supposed to be? Like an immigrant, it’s both things, but neither—never wholly Indian nor American. The more I write about this, the more I realize this was pretty effectively done. Good job, movie! ELINOR JONES
Meridian 16

27. The Trip to Spain
Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's latest rambling comedy tour, The Trip to Spain, like the previous films in the series, offers the right mixture of melancholia and laughter by poking fun at the grandiose, sometimes destructive tendencies of the central characters. The franchise, directed by Michael Winterbottom, is based on a semi-improvised BBC2 TV program in which Coogan and Brydon (both British comedians, both great at impressions, one much cheerier than the other) go on gorgeous, literary-inspired food tours. Each of the three movies in the series is edited down from a six-episode television season. If you're truly interested in the details of regional cuisine, this series will be disappointing. But it works as a very funny take on the way comedians entertain themselves, an exploration of midlife crises, a meditation on history and meaning, a collection of strange but well-executed voices and impressions, and a decidedly un-sappy celebration of friendship. It's smart but light. If The Trip's high-strung chatter grated on you, give Coogan and Brydon another shot with The Trip to Spain—their formula is changing, and for the better. JULIA RABAN
SIFF Cinema Uptown

28. Wind River
Beginning with a scarily enigmatic midnight chase, the plot follows a Wyoming wildlife officer (Jeremy Renner) tasked with hunting predatory animals through the frozen high lonesomes. (Viewers with a fondness for wolves should be prepared to avert their eyes early on.) After discovering the corpse of a young Native American woman in the mountains, he teams with an inexperienced FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) to track down the killer—and as their path leads them to the local reservation, he must deal with his own ties to the deceased. As his previous screenplays have indicated, screenwriter/director Taylor Sheridan has a real gift for the tired wiseassery of lawmen, and his streak continues here, with the byplay between jaded professionals giving spark even to routine procedural scenes. (Graham Greene, as the reservation’s deadpanning sheriff, not only steals every scene he’s in, but possibly those of whatever is playing next door in the multiplex, too.) If Sheridan proves to be a little more indulgent toward moments of tough guys waxing poetic than the directors of his previous work, at least the extra words earn their keep. ANDREW WRIGHT
Various locations

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