Here’s to Megalopolis, which flashes with the declarative directness, self-importance, and stylistic overabundance of a whizz kid. Yet it was made by Francis Ford Coppola, an octogenarian wunderkind, who knows as much about the art of directing pictures as anyone who has ever lived. The movie is a curated ultraviolet trip to a place of wonder and awesome views, futuristic but with a downtown wash. Stunning shots and sensational scenes gift us an uplift of discovery. It’s a work of scope and dimension rarely achieved in personal filmmaking.

Below the fantastical surface, the film’s straightforward storyline is a mashup of urban noir beats—desire and deceit, grand schemes and ties that bind, double crosses and empty promises—a mindful melodrama that immerses the viewer in the expressionist milieu of the moment, syncopated sidetracks included. Then there are fabulist takes on stopping the clock—effectively imposing freeze frames—a spin off the metaphor that tech moguls and movie directors capture “pieces of time” in creating a gazillion gigabytes of data and dozens of feature films, respectively.

Coppola may have drawn the seeds of the fable that became Megalopolis from his idea grab bag forty years ago, but it has emerged fully formed at a perfect time. Some now feel the U.S., a modern-day Rome on the world stage, should transition to a plutocracy, leaving pluralism and common cause behind. Salting his film with terse references to the Catilinarian conspiracy, an early threat to the Roman Republic, Coppola obliquely posits a renewal of our own republic via reaffirmed aspiration and inspired visionary thrust.

Adam Driver plays a big picture guy for whom the Chrysler Building is a stepping-stone. His unstinting realization of character thrills from beginning to end. He’s a multi-hyphenate in talent and technique looking to redesign the city state of New Rome—an inchoate inertia drifting to dystopia—to better serve the needs of its people. In a movie whose overdrive supercharges realism, Driver grounds the proceedings by fully inhabiting his transformational hero, forging an expressive connection that promotes gains out of the shade of personal loss. He’s on a mission to infuse science, art, and higher consciousness into life, prompting people to progress, perceptions enhanced and promise fulfilled. With a story touching on chaos, the center holds because of Driver’s strong portrayal.

In contrast to reports of improvisation off the cuff, the movie displays the fruits of improv nurtured within a coherent scheme. Coppola was sufficiently confident—having held iterations of the story in his head for decades—and the cast brave enough, to test varied approaches to scenes, unafraid of going too far out. Aubrey Plaza, delving into freeform creativity, pushes the bounds with emotionally wrenching moments in a film that is no holds barred. Coppola ends her key scenes with close-ups, allowing Plaza’s eyes and expression to speak volumes in the wordless aftermath of feelings exposed and risks taken. Nathalie Emmanuel displays performative choices of another sort. Her character is deftly contained, managing to choose figurative battles wisely, applying gestures and movement elegant but measured, in support of comebacks that are either rhetorical zingers, engaging entreaties, or words from the heart. Shia LaBeouf, full on, transforms himself into a disturbed, spineless, out of his crystal skull, populist pol, full of sound and fury, even as he suffers slings, et cetera.

Giancarlo Esposito, as mayor, resounds with declamatory authority on political prerogatives and power, yet later lets glimpse the eternal flame of parental love in a sotto voce pleading for his daughter. Laurence Fishburne in narration and performance profoundly joins the symbiosis of a Boswell with the dedicated concern of an Alfred Pennyworth. Jon Voight, always adept at layers, masks multitudes of intention on the way to pointed resolution. Those three are joined by other Coppola alumni James Remar, Talia Shire, and D.B. Sweeney, and new collaborators Dustin Hoffman and Kathryn Hunter, in strutting their distinct stuff to bring essence to hellzapoppin’ happenings.

There is a reason why The Godfather movies are regularly broadcast at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day, despite their overload of murder and mayhem. Coppola orchestrated indelible family gatherings and interactions steeped in love, understanding, and hope, deeply felt and nuanced scenes that have earned a place in our collective consciousness, underscoring holiday themes of gratitude, enlightenment, and the possibilities of someday. But unlike the losses and abyss rendered in that triptych, corroding yet not ceding the strength of family, in Megalopolis he paints a picture of regeneration. Conflicts are mitigated. Advances are made despite pitfall horrors and hits along the way. Familial ties are reasserted and multiplied, reflective of Coppola’s own extended clan and a bedrock of community.

Driver’s phantasmic phenom lets the word go forth in fervently selling his blueprints for fulfilling the future, just as Coppola delivers the essential goods through the imagery of his storytelling. He applies composition, framing, astute angles, camera movement, lighting, and editing in an unrelenting flow of imagination to put over the narrative—the work of a visual artist extraordinaire. That is his legacy.

He completes his film with a formal stroke of picture-making panache, emulating others who have sublimely capped off masterworks. Think of the horizon adjustment that closes Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, or the young foal entering the frame after “The End” appears & fades out in Ford’s Wagon Master. Likewise, Coppola has crafted an unforgettable finale in a movie from a member of the cinema pantheon that is not to be missed. If you truly engage Megalopolis, the moment resonates beyond belief.

Agree with most on the list except for A Real Pain. That movie should be replaced with Kneecap on this list