A fascinating and unlikely reinvention story, The Royal Road simultaneously explores cinematic spiritual channeling, the conquest and colonization of Mexico and the American Southwest, fading historical Californian urban landscapes, and the passions found in butch identity to achieve an achingly beautiful and poetic defense of remembering. Probing roads from El Camino Real, to the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, to the road right outside the front door, Olson crafts a deeply intelligent and transcending observation of the human condition that reaches for redemption in the embrace of history, nostalgia, mindfulness, and sheer beauty. If you give yourself over to it, it will crack you wide open.

Heart of a Dog
2015
6.5/10

Iverson
2014
7.0/10

Love, Marilyn
2013
6.6/10

To Be Takei
2014
7.2/10

Love, Gilda
2018
7.2/10

In the Realms of the Unreal
2004
7.2/10

The Crash Reel
2013
7.3/10

Beyoncé: Life Is But a Dream
2013
7.8/10

As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
2000
7.7/10

Sherman's March
1985
6.7/10

Thought Crimes
2015
6.2/10

Cameraperson
2016
6.7/10

Rich Hill
2014
6.9/10

Frida
2024
6.7/10

I Am Heath Ledger
2017
7.4/10

Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin
2003
6.9/10

Take Your Pills
2018
6.5/10

Making 'The Shining'
1980
7.1/10

Finders Keepers
2015
6.5/10

Gilbert
2017
6.7/10
Cycling the Frame
1988
6.8/10