2025 in Review: Best Narrative Films of the Year
2025 is finally over, so it’s time to reveal my Best Narrative Films of the Year list. As always, I was able to squeeze in a couple dozen additional films […]
Steve Prokopy is chief film critic for the Chicago-based arts outlet Third Coast Review. For nearly 20 years, he was the Chicago editor for Ain’t It Cool News, where he contributed film reviews and filmmaker/actor interviews under the name “Capone.” Currently, he’s a frequent contributor at /Film (SlashFilm.com) and Backstory Magazine. He is also the public relations director for Chicago's independently owned Music Box Theatre, and holds the position of Vice President for the Chicago Film Critics Association. In addition, he is a programmer for the Chicago Critics Film Festival, which has been one of the city's most anticipated festivals since 2013.
2025 in Review: Best Documentary Films of the Year
As I do every year, I separate documentaries into their own Best of the Year list, not because I feel they should be judged any differently than narrative films, but […]
Review: Kate Winslet Makes Her Directorial Debut with Goodbye June, a Heartfelt if Sometimes Clunky Family Holiday Drama
With a cast like this, how can you resist taking a peak at this Christmastime film that’s also a dying-elderly-mother piece? Featuring four of the most reliable actors of their […]
Review: Cover-Up Is a Compelling New Documentary About History-Making Investigative Journalism
According to the legend established in this film, director Laura Poitras (an Oscar winner for Citizenfour and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed) asked Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh […]
Review: Paul Rudd and Jack Black Are Two Friends Who Decide to Remake a Cult Favorite in a New Take on Anaconda
It’s hard not to watch this new take on Anaconda and not think of Tropic Thunder, since both are about a group of filmmakers (one sanctioned by a studio, the […]
Review: Timothée Chalamet Delivers a Career Best Performance in Josh Safdie’s Frenetic, Captivating Marty Supreme
As Americans, most of us are suckers for stories about underdogs or comebacks or rising up from great adversity to triumph in the end, and certainly, the debut solo film […]
Interview: Filmmaker Craig Brewer Chats Neil Diamond, Tribute Bands and Midwestern Vibes in Song Sung Blue
When I first met Craig Brewer, it was after a very early screening of his third feature film, 2006’s Black Snake Moan (maybe three months before its official release date). […]
Review: Paul Feig Directs The Housemaid, a Twisting Tale of Two Women and Their Very Different Experiences in the Same House
Based on the best-selling 2022 book by Freida McFadden and adapted by Rebecca Sonnenshine, The Housemaid is something of a wild-ride thriller about Millie (Sydney Sweeney), a young woman with […]
Review: James Cameron Returns with Avatar: Fire and Ash, but Revisiting the Na’vi Feels More Like Well-Worn Sci-Fi Territory
For reasons that are beyond my comprehension, James Cameron’s Avatar films continue to land with mass, global audiences in an unexpected way. To be clear, I’m not someone who dislikes […]
Review: Social Media-Centric Thriller Influencers Returns to Familiar Characters for More Timely (and Bloody) Online Drama
Returning for round two in the troubling adventures of CW (Cassandra Naud), writer/director Kurtis David Harder brings us Influencers, the sequel to the surprisingly effective story set in the world […]
Review: Bryan Fuller’s Dust Bunny Spins a Twisted Fairy Tale of Monsters, Murder, and Mikkelsen
After years of boundary-pushing success in television, writer/director Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies, multiple Star Trek series) finally gets a crack at his first feature film with the darkly inventive […]
Review: Ella McCay, the Latest from Accomplished Writer/Director James L. Brooks, Is a Letdown of a Modern Political Comedy
In such indisputable modern classics as Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, and As Good As it Gets, writer/director James L. Brooks profiled the lives of deeply flawed characters with good […]