In Across the Spider-Verse we follow in almost equal measure Miles Morales (Spider-Man) and Gwen Stacy (Spider-Woman) as they try to navigate being teenagers, superheroes, and interdimensional travelers. Their relationship is the thread that binds this narrative together, despite the wild and disparate places it goes. It’s a lot. And it’s a blast.

Writer/director James Gunn understands what makes these kinds of comic book stories compelling and what gives them stakes: a group of misfits comes together to form a kind of family, where each member is stronger together, and their concern for each other is their strength. They’re kind of losers, and that’s great!

The story of Air is about the real-life ragtag group of executives in Nike’s, at the time, nearly non-existent basketball shoe line, who come together to try and land Michael Jordan as a spokesperson for their basketball shoes against all odds. In the hands of Ben Affleck’s directing and an all-star cast of incredible performances, the film is elevated and you feel like you’re watching something a little more substantial. 

Knock at the Cabin is a tense thriller about—maybe?—the end of the world, where four strangers invade the vacation rental of a gay couple and their daughter. What follows is a muddled, pseudo-philosophical exploration on the nature of belief and what one would do—or wouldn’t do—to stop the world from ending. 

My predictions for Best Picture? It’s a tough call. While Everything Everywhere All at Once leads the pack in the number of nominations (11 in total), this is, historically, an uneven indicator as to whether it will win, and in the last few years, results have actually gone the other direction. So we can’t count out Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans, Triangle of Sadness, or even Tár for that matter–though.

At its best, M3gan embodies the unhinged gleefulness of 80’s horror movies like Child’s Play, while keeping it fresh by inverting old tropes and subtly infusing the movie with a critique of our dependence on technology for our emotional needs. And while, for me, there could have been a little more gore, to its credit the movie actually manages to still create thrills while maintaining a PG-13 rating.

It proves a film does not need to do away with jaw-dropping action sequences and classic movie structures to make a film that is not only extremely entertaining but emotional and thought-provoking. The epic film centers on an all-female group of warriors, the Agojie, in 19th century Africa, as they defend their homeland from rival kingdoms funded by slave traders.

Top Gun: Maverick is a little silly on the surface, but at its heart it is about jaw-dropping aerial maneuvers, which left me feeling like a little kid excited to go home and pretend to be a death-defying pilot myself.

I have watched darn near every Marvel movie that has come out in the last 11 years, and I have to be honest, I’m quite sick of them. However, I’m happy to report that Doctor Strangle and the Multiverse of Madness was (mostly) a happy departure from the norms of the Marvel Comic Universe and that I genuinely enjoyed watching it.

It’s beautiful and sad and fun and amazing to behold up on the big screen. What else can you ask for from a movie? This is the superhero movie I have been waiting for—but it’s also not just a superhero movie. Daniels (director duo Dan Kwan and Daniel Schienert) have truly created a marvel, but thankfully not for Marvel. The action in Everything Everywhere All at Once was some of the best I’ve seen in years.