Nope (2022)

Jordan Peele’s most recent film makes horror grand. It blows the typically intimate genre into a sweeping flick all about spectacles and the virtues we forsake in our pursuit of them. Like Signs, one of its inspirations, Nope conveys much of its horror through sound and brief glimpses, even suggestions, of the capabilities of its main threat, an alien that OJ and Em (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer, respectively) dub Jean Jacket, before a rousing showdown near the film’s end.

Nope is as heady as Peele’s socially conscious brand of horror has ever been, and it’s also just as inventive. Jean Jacket is a horror film villain (if you can even call it that) like I’ve never seen, and the most refreshing take on an alien in my lifetime at least. Its forms and motivations defy our preconceived notions of the alien, all while maintaining the very real danger of a confrontation with the unknown. In the words of OJ, it’s a “bad miracle,” and god am I glad that Nope came out of that. — Moises Taveras