The Fabelmans (2022)

Growing up in post-World War II era Arizona, young Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle) falls in love with movies after his parents take him to see Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth. Armed with an 8mm camera, Sammy starts to make his own films at home, much to the delight of his supportive mother Mitzi (Michelle Williams). But his constant recording — and his preternatural sensitivity to human emotion on film — leads to his discovery of a secret that threatens to shatter his family, and only a fearless exploration of the power of movies to tell the truth will fulfill his aspiration to be a filmmaker.

A semi-autobiographical portrait of 20th-century American childhood, director Steven Spielberg held back on making The Fabelmans for 20 years out of concern that it would hurt his family. His partnership with co-writer Tony Kushner during the making of West Side Story rekindled the idea, and the response from fans and critics alike seems to have justified its revival. This is not just a movie about somebody who’s already good at something and gets even better at it. It’s about the difficulty of marriage, parenting, and being somebody’s child. And it’s about the cruel miracle of genius, an idea that’s examined not just through the central trio of Sammy, Mitzi, and his talented engineer dad Burt (Paul Dano), but through Burt’s best friend Bennie (Seth Rogen) and the hard wisdom of Uncle Boris (Judd Hirsch). It’s a “magic of the movies” movie that’s unafraid to surface the Faustian bargain of that magic too. And it’s already being showered with awards, so don’t miss your chance to see it on the big screen before Academy Awards season!