Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, a thousand and one.

movie reviews a thousand and one

Now streaming on:

A.V. Rockwell’s “A Thousand and One” was the somewhat surprising winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance a couple of months ago, a trophy taken home by major movies like “ CODA ” and “ Whiplash ” in past years. While other films were considered frontrunners, it feels like Rockwell’s heartfelt drama took the prize largely because of the sheer force of its central performance, a true breakout for Teyana Taylor . It’s easily one of the best performances so far this year, one of those turns in which you have to remind yourself that you’re watching an actress—that’s how completely she fades into the character, a woman who makes some tough decisions to protect her son. Taylor has a remarkable ability to be present in a scene, responding as if she’s interacting in the moment, not reciting rehearsed lines or blocked movement. She's organic in a way that elevates a script that has some significant structural problems and battles credulity in the final act. She's so good that, by that time, you won’t care. You’ll be too invested in her story to question where it ends.

Taylor’s Inez is a New York resident returning from Rikers Island when the film opens. Only 22 years old, she carries herself with the determination of someone who has already lived so much life and knows what she needs to get through this tough world. What she needs more than ever is her son Terry (played by Aaron Kingsley Adetola , Aven Courtney , and Josiah Cross at 6, 13, and 17, respectively), but he’s been in the foster system while Inez was behind bars. When six-year-old Terry has an accident that lands him in the hospital, Inez makes the impulsive but understandable decision to take him home. Who could possibly raise him better? And what’s one more kid out of a broken foster system, one that damaged Inez too?

Inez forces Terry to change his name and not tell anyone about his background. And yet “A Thousand and One” is less of a thriller than that synopsis might suggest. Inez and Terry share a secret that defines their relationship, something that bonds them as their NY neighborhood shifts and changes around them over the ‘90s. Rockwell regularly uses sound bites and news items to convey the energy of NYC in this era and comments on the gentrifying world around Inez. It gives her arc the tenor of a survival story by making her the rock-solid center of a world that spins around her. She’s not on a set. She’s in the real world that’s zipping by her as she holds so tightly to her child.

Inez eventually marries a man named Lucky, played by  William Catlett . But the film centers on the Inez/Terry dynamic, giving the traditional mother/son drama a new structure by emphasizing how quickly it could be taken away. Without turning it into a genre piece, the decision that Inez makes and the secret that Terry has to hide creates a symbolic urgency to their relationship. Every mother worries their son could be taken away by violence or tragedy, but Inez has to raise her boy in a world where that threat is more immediate. We have seen dozens of stories about single mothers who overcome adversity, but the narrative here makes it feel new again as we feel Inez’s tough decisions and how they shape Terry’s worldview.

Much of that veracity collapses in a final act I’m not sure the film needs. Without spoiling, there’s another secret in Inez and Terry’s life that completely recasts everything that came before in a different light, and the narrative decision pushed me out of a story that had felt so intimate for so long. The movie doesn’t need a twist. It’s done so much to make Inez, Terry, and the world they inhabit feel real; it's a splash of cold water to be reminded this is a melodrama, and maybe always was. The final scenes are manipulative in a fashion that the movie otherwise defies for most of its runtime.

However, Teyana Taylor holds her head high through it all. Even as the film falters narratively, she’s a force of nature embodying a person more than just playing a role. She captures the soul of a woman who knows her son needs her to navigate this dangerous world. And that she needs him too.

In theaters now.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

Now playing

movie reviews a thousand and one

Cristina Escobar

movie reviews a thousand and one

Simon Abrams

movie reviews a thousand and one

Asleep in My Palm

Tomris laffly.

movie reviews a thousand and one

Willie and Me

Matt zoller seitz.

movie reviews a thousand and one

Pictures of Ghosts

Glenn kenny, film credits.

A Thousand and One movie poster

A Thousand and One (2023)

Rated R for language.

116 minutes

Teyana Taylor as Inez

William Catlett as Lucky

Josiah Cross as Terry

Aven Courtney as Terry (Age 13)

Aaron Kingsley Adetola as Terry (Age 6)

Terri Abney as Kim Jones

Delissa Reynolds as Mrs. Jones

Amelia Workman as Anita Tucker

Adriane Lenox as Miss Annie

Gavin Schlosser as Pea (Age 6)

Jolly Swag as Pea (Age 13)

Azza El as Simone (Age 14)

Alicia Pilgrim as Simone

Jennean Farmer as Ms. Janie (Foster Mom)

Kal-El White as Shawn (Foster Brother)

Jamier Williams as Michael H. (Foster Brother)

  • A.V. Rockwell

Cinematographer

  • Sabine Hoffman
  • Kristan Sprague

Latest blog posts

movie reviews a thousand and one

Vote for Neuro(diversity): On the 20th Anniversary of Napoleon Dynamite

movie reviews a thousand and one

How Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Adapts the Un-Adaptable

movie reviews a thousand and one

Why Closer Still Matters Two Decades After Its Release

movie reviews a thousand and one

Introduction to Women Writers Week 2024

Advertisement

Supported by

Critic’s Pick

‘A Thousand and One’ Review: A New York Love Story

A mesmerizing Teyana Taylor stars in A.V. Rockwell’s feature directing debut, about motherhood and survival in a fast-changing city.

  • Share full article

Teyana Taylor, with a slick ponytail and hoop earrings, is next to a red car on the street.

By Manohla Dargis

The first time you truly see Inez De La Paz, the galvanic center of “A Thousand and One,” she is framed against a wall that’s as red as a fire alarm. Inez is on the move, as she often is in this heart-clencher, the low-angle camera worshipfully pointed up at her. And no wonder: Inez is a dynamo, a force. She’s tough and beautiful, mouthy and unwaveringly loyal, but if she moves fast it’s often because she has no other choice. All she has is forward momentum, her unbending will and the small, somber boy at her side.

Played by a mesmerizing Teyana Taylor , Inez holds you rapt throughout this sweeping New York story of love and survival, motherhood and gentrification. It opens in 1994 and then jumps first to 2001 and later to 2005, a time frame that takes it from the beginning of the zero-tolerance years of the Giuliani mayoralty to the start of the Bloomberg boom times. Along the way, buildings fall and rise, and Inez raises that small boy, Terry (she usually calls him just T), an unsmiling, guarded child who grows into an anxious teenager and then, under Inez’s hawkish watch, continues to grow and thrive, eventually becoming some kind of miracle.

“A Thousand and One” is the feature debut of A.V. Rockwell, and it too can feel like a wonder. It’s a small movie only in the most pedestrian sense: It’s intimate, humanly scaled and concerns ordinary people with ordinary struggles. It doesn’t have stars, just a few familiar faces and names, including Taylor, a musician, as well as the actor Will Catlett, who plays Lucky, Inez’s gruff love interest. But these faces have character, personality, history, as does this vision of New York and its crowded byways and sagging buildings, with their faded grandeur, smeary windows, fragile pipes and impastos of paint lacquering the halls.

What interests Rockwell are the lives in the apartments and how these lives joyfully and chaotically flow back and forth into the streets, pumping energy into the city, enlivening and sustaining it. Rockwell, who also wrote the movie, was born and raised in Queens. (Her parents are from Jamaica.) She knows New York, and she wants you to know (and feel) it, too. She has a documentarian’s sense of place, and while she shows the grime and the mess, she also finds the beauty — and the poignant history — in how the city’s jagged, kaleidoscopic parts restlessly fit together to make a vibrant whole.

The movie opens on a brief, darkly lit scene of Inez styling another’s inmate’s hair in a cell at Rikers Island that is soon followed by shots of her, now liberated, navigating a sun-drenched Brooklyn. Rockwell has a raft of earlier short movies and music videos on her résumé , work that showcases her talent for economically turning faces into stories, moods and feelings into images. In “A Thousand and One,” she packs a great deal into her filmmaking, which bristles with looks, gestures, bodies in breakneck motion and expressionistic jolts of color that — like Gary Gunn’s gorgeous score — complicate and deepen the outwardly simple story.

That story clicks in after Inez is released from Rikers and spots Terry (Aaron Kingsley Adetola), who’s six and in foster care, hanging out with some friends. It’s an uneasy reunion, and while the details of their past life and separation are sketchy (the characters talk like people, not narrative delivery systems), Inez has soon charmed her way back into Terry’s affections. She buys him a toy (a Power Ranger) and coaxes reluctant smiles from him, but when she learns that he has been injured at the foster home, she abruptly makes the decision that will shape the rest of their lives: Inez snatches Terry, ushering them into a new reality.

After some missteps, they settle into an apartment in Harlem, where she grew up and which becomes an instructive, mirror-like backdrop. Inez secures fake documents for Terry and gives him a new name, allowing them to remain under the radar. She wants do hair; she settles for the steady paycheck of a cleaning job. The work wears her down, but she keeps going. Lucky moves in, they marry and the story shifts to 2001, the year Terry (now played by Aven Courtney) turns 13; after a while, the movie takes another leap and Terry, now 17 (Josiah Cross takes over), is thriving at school and the neighborhood is newly humming.

As time passes, Rockwell plays with genre — the social-issue drama, the maternal melodrama — as well as with color, light and texture, variations that complement, and comment on, the changes happening outside Inez and Terry’s apartment. Rockwell also repeatedly folds in panoramas of the city, using long shots and aerial views to anchor New York (and you) in specific times and places. When she lingers on an image centered by the glowing red sign of the Apollo Theater, she is offering up a glimpse of beauty. She’s also tethering the story and its people to a history, one that’s soon imperiled by new neighbors and jackhammers.

Rockwell is too cleareyed is to be nostalgic for the old, grittier, grimier New York; she’s also too much of a dialectician. There’s no angry chest-thumping about the ravages of capitalism in “A Thousand and One.” Yet in telling the story of Inez and Terry — who make a home with each other and who have both been repeatedly failed by institutional forces — Rockwell is simultaneously chronicling the intersecting life stories of a neighborhood, a city and a world. It takes a village to raise a child, or so the saying goes. Yet what happens when power descends, razing that village to the ground and remaking it in its own pitiless image?

A Thousand and One Rated R for language. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. In theaters.

Manohla Dargis is the chief film critic of The Times, which she joined in 2004. She has an M.A. in cinema studies from New York University, and her work has been anthologized in several books. More about Manohla Dargis

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

What is Mubi? Here’s what to know about one of the lesser-known places to discover great movies that has become a streaming alternative to Netflix, Hulu and others .

The Criterion Collection’s catalog has become so synonymous with cinematic achievement that it has come to function as a kind of film Hall of Fame. Here is how it gained that status .

Onscreen, assisted reproductive technologies have become familiar narrative devices. Their meaning is double-edged , representing women’s empowerment, or their exploitation.

Not everyone needs a scary movie that goes to the darkest extremes. Here’s why milder horror films like “Imaginary” and “Lisa Frankenstein”  can still pack a punch.

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings   on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime  and Hulu  to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter  to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

‘A Thousand and One’: A film worth not just seeing — but celebrating

Gritty drama is a dazzling showcase for teyana taylor, who delivers a fierce, career-defining performance as a mother struggling to raise her son in new york city.

movie reviews a thousand and one

Writer-director A.V. Rockwell makes a triumphant debut with “A Thousand and One,” an award winner at this year’s Sundance Film Festival that takes hold and never lets go.

Inez (Teyana Taylor) has just been released from Rikers when she searches the Brooklyn streets for the little boy she left behind, a quiet, watchful 7-year-old named Terry. He’s been put in foster care but has ended up in the hospital with a head injury. After a tortured moment of indecision, Inez gathers him up and takes him up to Harlem, eluding city authorities and trying to build the family she never had.

A scrapper, fighter, hustler and striver, Inez — portrayed by Taylor in a fierce, career-defining turn — will not back down when it comes to the son she insists on fighting for. “A Thousand and One” is pointedly set in 1990s New York, at the dawn of the stop-and-frisk policies and gentrification efforts that would change the city forever. As Terry grows into a wary but clearly intelligent teenager, his and Inez’s existence grows ever more precarious, even with the arrival of Lucky (William Catlett), the ex-con who will become Inez’s husband and Terry’s ambivalent but committed father. As Harlem changes around them, their modest apartment begins literally to fall apart, a physical manifestation of the apprehension Inez can’t shake when it comes to the people she loves most.

Working with cinematographer Eric K. Yue, Rockwell creates a vibrantly precise portrait of New York in the 1990s, when boomboxes, beepers, pay phones and street life gave the city a vital, dangerous pulse. Gary Gunn’s alternately delicate and lush musical score lends lyricism to scenes that often burst with barely contained anger and violence. With an attuned sense of tonal balance and atmosphere, Rockwell doesn’t tell the story of an unconventional family so much as plunge viewers into the daily realities of building a life, one mistake and fragile victory at a time.

For the most part, though, she creates a canvas and safe space for some of the most riveting and uncompromising performances of the year. Three actors — Aaron Kingsley Adetola, Aven Courtney and Josiah Cross — play Terry at different ages, each one of them with extraordinary self-possession and sensitivity. Catlett plays Lucky with menace at first — a misdirect that is just as much about the audience’s assumptions as it is his own character’s evolution. Terri Abney, Adriane Lenox and Alicia Pilgrim all deliver impressive supporting roles as women who come into Inez and Terry’s life, Pilgrim as Terry’s smart, no-nonsense teenage crush.

As accomplished as the ensemble cast is, “A Thousand and One” is a dazzling showcase for Taylor, who embodies Inez’s hustle and bristling energy with ferocity and compulsively watchable charisma. Through the course of the film, she undergoes a breathtaking physical transformation, her sacrifice and devotion to Terry visible in a face that grows increasingly drained. (Inserting real-life speeches from mayors Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg, Rockwell points out how, even though Inez personifies the principles they pretended to espouse, she and her peers were the victims of their most draconian policies.)

The reference point for “A Thousand and One’s” title hides in plain sight through most of the movie, as does an astonishing third-act twist that leaves viewers and fictional characters alike in a state of numbed shock. As much as Rockwell astutely limns how lives are shaped by forces out of their control, she’s no fatalist: She gives Inez and Terry their happy ending, as hard-won and ambiguous as it is. This is a tough, beautiful, honest and bracingly hopeful movie about mutual care and unconditional love, with a transformative and indelible performance at its core. “A Thousand and One” isn’t just worth seeing — it’s worth celebrating.

R. At area theaters. Contains strong language. 117 minutes.

movie reviews a thousand and one

an image, when javascript is unavailable

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

‘a thousand and one’ review: teyana taylor powerfully embodies a woman’s fight to keep home and family together.

Writer-director A.V. Rockwell’s feature debut is a volatile account of a mother-son relationship set against the vivid backdrop of rapidly gentrifying 1990s New York.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

  • Share this article on Facebook
  • Share this article on Twitter
  • Share this article on Flipboard
  • Share this article on Email
  • Show additional share options
  • Share this article on Linkedin
  • Share this article on Pinit
  • Share this article on Reddit
  • Share this article on Tumblr
  • Share this article on Whatsapp
  • Share this article on Print
  • Share this article on Comment

Teyana Taylor and Aaron Kingsley appear in A Thousand and One.

Related Stories

'soundtrack to a coup d'etat' review: kinetic doc connects jazz, decolonization and the birth of the united nations, 'drive-away dolls' review: margaret qualley, geraldine viswanathan and beanie feldstein in ethan coen's strained lesbian crime caper, a thousand and one.

When Inez first re-encounters her 6-year-old son Terry (Aaron Kingsley Adetola), he’s reluctant to talk to her, still distrustful after she abandoned him on the street. But the boy lands in hospital after an accident in his foster home and she starts visiting, getting past his petulance with a Power Ranger toy. Inez tells him she’s due to be moved to a new shelter but gives him her beeper number and vows to find him. “Why do you keep leaving me?” he asks, triggering her impulsive decision to whisk him away to Harlem.

Rockwell tracks their lives together over 15 years, with Terry played at 13 by Aven Courtney and at 17 by Josiah Cross, the seamless transitions between the three actors recalling the similar progression in Moonlight .

Rockwell’s empathetic gaze keeps us rooting for both Inez and Terry as his teenage growing pains create friction between them. She resumes a rocky romance with Lucky (Will Catlett) following his release from prison. He provides a father figure for Terry but also makes him blame Inez unfairly when fights cause him to disappear for weeks at a time.

All three of the actors playing Terry capture the hurt of a kid who grew accustomed to disappointment at a young age and remains constantly on the alert for signs that he’ll be set adrift again. Inez seems painfully aware of that tension in her son. Both of them are damaged people, as is Lucky, which threads a vein of melancholy even through scenes in which the fragile family unit finds moments of harmony.

Taylor is especially good at showing how the strain of holding them together — giving more than she gets back from either Lucky or Terry — eats away at her. A scene where she’s simultaneously laughing and sobbing while eating a cup of instant noodles and watching inane reality TV pierces the heart.

There’s a meandering quality to A Thousand and One that at times makes it feel slightly underpowered and overlong. But the drama is fully inhabited and its relationships drawn with love and compassion for the characters’ failings as much as their hopes, qualities enhanced by Gary Gunn’s mellow score.

That process — with callous new landlords taking over maintenance responsibilities and forcing tenants out by making homes basically unlivable — is shown in all its pitiless indifference. It dumps one more major crisis onto Inez’s shoulders while she’s dealing with a saddening loss and facing the dilemma of what to do about Terry’s future. Rockwell then radically alters the perspective with a closing-act reveal that shows Inez’s sacrifices in a new light.

Shot by DP Eric K. Yue with a sharp eye for the evolution of the city and its toll on marginalized communities, the film benefits enormously from the authenticity of its locations and the director’s sensitivity to the casualties of societal change. It’s a quiet drama despite its characters’ many volatile arguments. Most of all, it’s a moving character portrait of a complicated woman who makes good and bad decisions but is motivated solely by the desire to create a better life for herself and the people she loves.

Full credits

Thr newsletters.

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

More from The Hollywood Reporter

‘teenage mutant ninja turtles: mutant mayhem’ director jeff rowe signs first-look deal with paramount animation, dakota johnson on ‘madame web’ blowback: “i’ll never do anything like it again”, cameron diaz in talks to join keanu reeves in jonah hill’s ‘outcome’ comedy, box office: ‘dune: part two’ makes major gains with younger adults, dc parody ‘the people’s joker’ expands its theatrical plans, launches new trailer (exclusive), a24’s ‘civil war’ movie provokes timing debate amid some fearing actual civil war.

Quantcast

  • International edition
  • Australia edition
  • Europe edition

‘Incendiary’: Teyana Taylor as Inez.

A Thousand and One review – Sundance hit cuts deep

The poignant story of an ex-con mother struggling to raise her son amid a changing Harlem is powerfully poignant

T he deserving winner of the grand jury prize at Sundance this year, the directorial debut from AV Rockwell is rather special. Set in Harlem, New York, and spanning from 1994 to 2005, it’s a dual coming-of-age story, simultaneously following a mother – firecracker Inez (an incendiary Teyana Taylor), at the start of the film an impulsive ex-con recently released from Rikers Island prison – and a son, Terry (played by Aaron Kingsley Adetola as a six-year-old, Aven Courtney at 13, Josiah Cross at 17). When Inez reconnects by chance with Terry, he’s a broken little child, already half chewed up by the foster care system. Something in the subdued way that he assumes that abandonment is inevitable cuts deep, triggering Inez’s own memories of a childhood in the care system. She makes a fateful decision and snatches Terry, with little plan other than to be there for him, to make a home for him.

And against the odds, she succeeds, forging a rocky domestic unit with Lucky (William Catlett). But Inez and Terry are not the only ones changing: the city around them, and in particular Harlem, is being reshaped into a space that no longer feels like home. This is captured visually through Eric Yue’s deft, empathic camerawork, but also through the soundscape around the frame, which evolves from the rowdy bustle of a community into the harder, less welcoming clatter of construction work. Tying it together is a phenomenal score by Gary Gunn. Lush strings pay tribute to the film compositions of Quincy Jones , but even the swell and sweep of the orchestra fails to prepare us for the emotive impact of the final act.

In cinemas now

  • Drama films
  • The Observer

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

A Thousand and One: how to watch, reviews, awards and everything we know about the movie

What to know about Sundance award-winner A Thousand and One.

Teyana Taylor and Aaron Kingsley Adetola in A Thousand and One

The 2023 Sundance Film Festival put a number of titles on movie lovers' radars that for this 2023, including Past Lives . But one of the most well-received movies at Sundance 2023 was the US Drama Grand Jury Prize-winner, A Thousand and One .

The feature debut for its writer/director A.V. Rockwell, A Thousand and One has been described as "an admiring portrait of survivorship, determination and resourcefulness" with a "powerhouse performance" at its center.

Here is everything that you need to know about A Thousand and One .

How to watch A Thousand and One

A Thousand and One is streaming right now on Prime Video , so anyone with an Amazon subscription can watch it at no extra cost. Otherwise, viewers can rent the movie via digital on-demand.

A Thousand and One plot

This drama spans multiple years as it deals with the dynamics and importance of the relationship between a mother and her son. Here is the official synopsis:

" A Thousand and One follows unapologetic and free-spirited Inez, who kidnaps her 6-year-old son Terry from the foster care system. Holding onto their secret and each other, mother and son set out to reclaim their sense of home, identity and stability, in a rapidly changing New York City."

A Thousand and One cast

Playing Inez is Teyana Taylor. Taylor is a singer/actress who made her big screen debut in Stomp the Yard 2: Homecoming and has other credits that include Madea's Big Happy Family , Star , Coming 2 America , Miracles Across 125th Street and Entergalatic . Her performance has earned rave reviews, with some calling it "Oscar-worthy." Taylor was also crowned winner of The Masked Singer US season 7. 

There are going to be three actors that portray the character of Terry across different stages of his life. They are Aaron Kingsley Adetola ( Rise ) as Terry at age 6, Aven Courtney ( The Last O.G. ) as Terry at age 13 and Josiah Cross ( King Richard ) as Terry at age 17.

Also starring in the movie is Will Catlett as Lucky. Catlett has previously starred in The Devil You Know , The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey and Black Lightning .

A Thousand and One trailer

Watch the trailer for A Thousand and One directly below, which certainly previews the powerful emotions that people have been talking about. 

A Thousand and One reviews — what the critics are saying

A Thousand and One has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 97% and is "Certified Fresh." In particular Taylor's performance and Rockwell's handling of the subject matter are praised.

A Thousand and One awards

Here are the awards that A Thousand and One has either been nominated for or one to date:

Film Independent Spirit Awards

  • Best First Feature — AV Rockwell (nominee)
  • Best Lead Performance — Teyana Taylor (nominee)

Gotham Awards

  • Best Feature (nominee)
  • Best Breakthrough Director — AV Rockwell ( winner )
  • Outstanding Lead Performance — Teyana Taylor (nominee) 

National Board of Review

  • Breakthrough Performance — Teyana Taylor ( winner )
  • Top 10 Independent Films of the Year

Sundance Film Festival

  • Grand Jury Prize ( winner )

A Thousand and One director

A Thousand and One marks A.V. Rockwell's feature movie debut as a writer and director. Her experience prior to this movie was with short films, including a 2018 short, Feathers , that screened at Sundance and the Toronto International Film Festival. 

Get the What to Watch Newsletter

The latest updates, reviews and unmissable series to watch and more!

Michael Balderston

Michael Balderston is a DC-based entertainment and assistant managing editor for What to Watch, who has previously written about the TV and movies with TV Technology, Awards Circuit and regional publications. Spending most of his time watching new movies at the theater or classics on TCM, some of Michael's favorite movies include Casablanca , Moulin Rouge! , Silence of the Lambs , Children of Men , One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Star Wars . On the TV side he enjoys Only Murders in the Building, Yellowstone, The Boys, Game of Thrones and is always up for a Seinfeld rerun. Follow on Letterboxd .

The Garfield Movie: release date, trailer, cast and everything we know about the animated movie

Is Father Stu based on a true story? Fact vs Fiction for the Mark Wahlberg movie

Emmerdale fans amused by Tracy's SHOCKING new look

Most Popular

By Nicholas Cannon March 02, 2024

By Sarabeth Pollock March 02, 2024

By Michael Balderston March 01, 2024

By Martin Shore March 01, 2024

By Lucy Buglass March 01, 2024

By Sean Marland March 01, 2024

By Nicholas Cannon March 01, 2024

  • 2 EastEnders viewers threaten to 'RIOT' over Whitney's exit storyline!
  • 3 Casualty spoilers: Charlie Fairhead is STABBED! Will he die?
  • 4 Emmerdale spoilers: ROMANCE for Liam Cavanagh and Ella!
  • 5 Emmerdale spoilers: Chas Dingle has life-saving surgery

an image, when javascript is unavailable

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy . We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

‘A Thousand and One’ Review: Teyana Taylor Towers Over A.V. Rockwell’s Vivid New York Story

Ryan lattanzio, deputy editor, film.

  • Share on Facebook
  • Share to Flipboard
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Show more sharing options
  • Submit to Reddit
  • Post to Tumblr
  • Print This Page
  • Share on WhatsApp

Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Focus Features releases the film in theaters on Friday, March 31.

There are two bruising lines that bookend first-time feature director A.V. Rockwell’s “ A Thousand and One ,” a vivid portrait of Harlem life from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s.

“There’s more to life than fucked-up beginnings,” Inez, a woman living life in New York on her own terms and brilliantly played by R&B super-artist/actress Teyana Taylor, tells her young son Terry (Aaron Kingsley Adetola). She has kidnapped him out of the foster care system, which has kept them separated after her stint in Rikers Island beginning in 1993, and now hopes to give him a better life. But at the end of the movie, after a decades-spanning, bittersweet bond forms and fizzles between them and shattering revelations are had, she tells the older Terry (Josiah Cross), “I fucked up. Life goes on. So what?”

Rockwell’s direction is sophisticated and visually imaginative even as the movie could benefit from a tighter edit around its New York cast of characters and the rapidly changing city in the hands of mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg.

Inez, out of jail and a job, learns that Terry is in hospital after falling out a window trying to escape his foster parents. “Would it make you feel better if you came to stay with me?” she asks the small boy. “I’ll go to war for you, against anybody, against this whole fucked-up city.” And so it’s Inez and Terry against the city, even as Inez tries to bring a paternal figure into the child’s life by marrying Lucky (William Catlett), her on-and-off-again romantic partner. As Terry gets older, he bonds with Lucky over a shared love of music, and Lucky becomes as much of a father to Terry as he possibly could. But in the background, Lucky and Inez’s relationship has its own complications. And meanwhile, reports of Terry’s abduction loom around their lives.

Terry, in his teen years, shows a preternatural giftedness in school that catches the notice of his teachers, including a kindly one played by Amelia Workman (restrained but emotionally potent here). An abandonment complex seems to prevent Terry from wanting to succeed, though Inez, in another showcase of a moment for Taylor, pushes him to apply to a better school.

Curiously, “A Thousand and One” mostly elides the particulars of September 11, even though its shadow looms over the movie’s last act. Inez and Terry continue to live in a crummy apartment that’s been taken over by a white landlord, who promises largesse before he turns out to be another purveyor of gentrification’s soul-crushing machine.

Cinematographer Eric K. Yue, working with the Arri Alexa Mini, lenses New York across two decades with a mix of vintage and contemporary lenses. As Inez and Terry’s world becomes darker and their relationship more strained and distant, so do their visual surroundings. Yue and Rockwell seem indebted to both the iconic 1970s cinema of New York streets and the Black American cinema revolution of the early 1990s. There hasn’t been a New York movie this vividly articulated since Kenneth Lonergan’s “Margaret,” though overheard shots of the cityscape, while witnessing its mutations and evolutions, tend to feel meandering.

Terry and Inez’s story is only one of many, but it serves as a microcosm for the specific economic struggles of any Black lower-middle-class Americans trying to keep up with gentrification’s engine and NYPD indifference to Black people. “A Thousand and One” culminates in a gutting conclusion that turns the entire movie on its head — it’s one best left entirely unspoiled — and serves as a sobering reminder of how fucked-up beginnings can hopefully bring about better endings. Cross is effective in a key scene surrounding this revelation, but it’s Taylor who anchors Rockwell’s direction and screenplay with her powerhouse performance. Taylor has worked with the likes of Tyler Perry in comedies, but it’s her seeming kinship with Rockwell (and Taylor’s own story as a New Yorker) and a performance as fiercely committed to the project as Inez is to Terry that signal a major acting talent.

“A Thousand and One” premiered in the 2023 Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Competition. Focus Features will release the film in theaters March 31, 2023.

Most Popular

You may also like.

Matthew Dysart Joins Entertainment Law Firm Greenberg Glusker as Partner

  • Children's/Family
  • Documentary/Reality
  • Amazon Prime Video

Fun

More From Decider

Whoopi Goldberg Shocks 'The View' By Saying The Supreme Court Gave Trump "A Rubber" In Colorado Ballot Ruling: "Yes, You Heard Me"

Whoopi Goldberg Shocks 'The View' By Saying The Supreme Court Gave Trump...

Robin Wright Tells Drew Barrymore How Tom Hanks Made Her Pee Her Pants While Filming 'Forrest Gump'

Robin Wright Tells Drew Barrymore How Tom Hanks Made Her Pee Her Pants...

Netflix’s ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Stripped Away Everything That Made Katara Great

Netflix’s ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Stripped Away Everything That...

'Real Housewives Of Potomac' Star Candiace Dillard Bassett Drags Gizelle Bryant On 'WWHL': "Gizelle Is Trash"

'Real Housewives Of Potomac' Star Candiace Dillard Bassett Drags Gizelle...

Shane Gillis Lands Scripted Netflix Series 'Tires' Days After Return To 'SNL'

Shane Gillis Lands Scripted Netflix Series 'Tires' Days After Return To...

'SNL's Bowen Yang Noticeably Keeps His Distance From Dave Chappelle During This Weekend's Cast Goodbyes

'SNL's Bowen Yang Noticeably Keeps His Distance From Dave Chappelle During...

Kurt Russell Was Sitting "In The Driveway" Of O.J. Simpson's House During His Infamous Car Chase: He Went "Just To See What Happened"

Kurt Russell Was Sitting "In The Driveway" Of O.J. Simpson's House During...

Robert Downey Jr. Recalls Driving Around NYC With Whoopi Goldberg And Anthony Michael Hall In The 1990s On 'The View': "I'm Not Going To Say Whether There Was A Tiny Bit Of Ganja Involved"

Robert Downey Jr. Recalls Driving Around NYC With Whoopi Goldberg And...

Share this:.

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to copy URL

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘A Thousand and One’ on Amazon Prime Video, a Superb Urban Drama Anchored by an Inspired Teyana Taylor

Where to stream:.

  • A Thousand and One
  • teyana taylor

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘White Men Can’t Jump’ on Hulu, in Which Jack Harlow and Sinqua Walls Try to Box Out Woody and Wesley

Lance reddick’s emotional ‘white men can’t jump’ scene will break your heart, what time will ‘white men can’t jump’ be on hulu how to watch the jack harlow and sinqua walls movie, new movies on streaming: ‘ant-man and the wasp: quantumania’ + more.

A Thousand and One ( now streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Peacock ) marks the emergence of A.V. Rockwell as a fresh directorial voice, and Teyana Taylor as a real deal dramatic lead. The film is Rockwell’s debut, and won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Taylor, a hip-hop vocalist and dancer who branched out into acting, graduates from supporting roles in Coming 2 America and the White Men Can’t Jump reboot to being the anchor in this absorbing drama about a mother and son scraping by in 1990s/2000s Harlem. 

A THOUSAND AND ONE : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It’s 1994. Inez (Taylor) is fresh out of Rikers Prison and essentially homeless. She spots young Terry (Aaron Kingsley Adetola) on the street and tries to talk to him. He maybe listens a little, but won’t meet her eye. She moves on, hustling on the street – she’s a hairdresser who makes her own flyers. Later, she learns Terry’s in the hospital. She stops to see him. He has a fresh bandage on his temple from trying to run away from foster care. “You left me on a street corner?” he asks, and she says not to believe what other people say about her. It’s a familiar scene to Inez. She was in foster care too, and we don’t know specifics, but it seems clear that the system has something to do with her lifetime of trouble. She takes Terry from the hospital to the home of a friend she can trust; she stops at a newsstand and, in the background, we hear a news report about a little boy who went missing from a local hospital.

Inez lucks out and finds a room to rent, then a job, then their own apartment. Terry asks about his dad. “He’s gone,” she says, and she sounds like she’s struggling to temper her harsh tone. The boy stays home alone while she works all day, and it’s an untenable situation. He’s only six. She acquires a fake birth certificate and social security number for him so he can go to school. He’ll be Daryl outside of home, but to his mom, he’s always Terry. He comes home one day and Inez introduces him to Lucky (William Catlett), who’s out of jail and has a wandering eye, but is a good man. He bonds with the boy. Inez curls up in bed with Lucky and he asks, “What do two crooks know about raising a family?” Next thing you know, they’re celebrating their wedding with a modest street party.

Subtitle: 2001. We hear Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s voice; it’s the stop-and-frisk era of New York City. Terry’s 13 now (played by Aven Courtney); he’s a quiet, sensitive kid, and a good student, good enough to be nudged into a more challenging, college-track high school. We see him and a friend stopped and hassled by cops without provocation, which rightfully distresses Inez. One arrest, justifiable or not, and the truth of Terry’s identity is no longer a secret. It’s a tenuous situation. Same goes for her marriage; she and Lucky appear to be on again and off again, and Terry’s upset about it. Now it’s four years later, and we hear Mayor Mike Bloomberg being sworn in, and see images of New York City’s great gentrification – the backdrop to 17-year-old Terry’s (Josiah Cross) impending adulthood. He’s close to a finishing line, and a starting line as well, but there’s a space between them that’s tough to navigate. Coming of age is never easy, but Terry’s is more difficult than most.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: A Thousand and One has a couple key things in common with 2022’s Sundance Grand Jury winner, Nanny – they’re from incredibly talented first-time Black female directors, telling stories about Black female New Yorkers. 

Performance Worth Watching: There’s a scene in which Inez says she’d “go to war” for her son, and we never doubt her. Such is Taylor’s conviction, which pays off late in the film when she and Cross share an unavoidably powerful moment.

Memorable Dialogue: A moment of truth for Terry when he quietly beseeches Inez, “I need to know what was real.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: A Thousand and One is a tonally consistent, dramatically potent, superbly acted and visually inspired film. Rockwell maintains simmering tension beneath a rock-solid character-driven story – tension rooted in the fragility of the secret being kept as Terry so very slowly approaches his 18th birthday, and the encroachment of political and capitalist forces upon everything Inez has built. She fights tooth and nail to maintain the stability, the family and home, she never had. She sees it as a moral imperative to raise her son in a healthy environment, and is willing to bury a secret, and work hard, and compromise, and sacrifice her own mental health to do it. You can see weariness quietly encroaching upon Taylor’s face as time goes by, as Inez keeps one leg on either side of a widening fissure. This is a most righteous story of motherly devotion.

Rockwell shows a deft hand with actors, especially the three who play Terry, and we never question the character despite the rotating personnel. The characters and relationships could use a little more fleshing out, and one senses the director doing her damnedest for the film to not overstay its welcome (frankly, it’s so absorbing, more scenes would be welcome, and you’ll never feel the weight of its nearly two-hour run time). But she and the cast make the most of pretty much every moment, bolstered by gritty visual textures – natural lighting, subtly claustrophobic set pieces – and a thematically sturdy screenplay. One question that lingers is the plausibility of the premise: How can Inez and Terry fly under the radar, and why does no authority ever knock on the door? Ironically, they benefit from the fact that the foster-care system seemingly doesn’t care about them enough to prompt anyone to ponder whether she kidnapped him or saved him. You will care, though, no question about it. 

Our Call: One more point of praise: A Thousand and One also has a perfectly modulated, perfectly bittersweet final scene. STREAM IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

  • Prime Video
  • Stream It Or Skip It

Whoopi Goldberg Shocks 'The View' By Saying The Supreme Court Gave Trump "A Rubber" In Colorado Ballot Ruling: "Yes, You Heard Me"

Whoopi Goldberg Shocks 'The View' By Saying The Supreme Court Gave Trump "A Rubber" In Colorado Ballot Ruling: "Yes, You Heard Me"

'The View': Whoopi Goldberg Claims Joe Biden "Could Throw Every Republican In Jail" If He Had Presidential Immunity

'The View': Whoopi Goldberg Claims Joe Biden "Could Throw Every Republican In Jail" If He Had Presidential Immunity

'Good Times' Star John Amos Denies Being A Victim Of Neglect After Daughter Opens Investigation: "The Real Truth Will Come Out Soon"

'Good Times' Star John Amos Denies Being A Victim Of Neglect After Daughter Opens Investigation: "The Real Truth Will Come Out Soon"

Drew Barrymore Says Her Late Father Was "Nobody's Poster Child Of How To Live A Life" On 'The Drew Barrymore Show'

Drew Barrymore Says Her Late Father Was "Nobody's Poster Child Of How To Live A Life" On 'The Drew Barrymore Show'

Ana Navarro Cheekily Calls Out Melania Trump's CNN Habit On 'The View': "Thank You For The Viewership"

Ana Navarro Cheekily Calls Out Melania Trump's CNN Habit On 'The View': "Thank You For The Viewership"

Sydney Sweeney's New 'SNL' Promo Is Getting Heat For Capitalizing On Her Looks: "'SNL' Writers Are Going To Hell"

Sydney Sweeney's New 'SNL' Promo Is Getting Heat For Capitalizing On Her Looks: "'SNL' Writers Are Going To Hell"

movie reviews a thousand and one

‘A Thousand and One’ Review: Teyana Taylor Shines in Tumultuous Family Drama

A portrait of a family and the often cruel city in which they live, it reveals how "progress" can come at the expense of those most vulnerable.

This review was originally part of our coverage of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival .

Over the course of writer-director A.V. Rockwell ’s feature debut A Thousand and One , time can feel like it is slipping through our fingers. Much like life, the choices we make and the paths we take can only be understood upon looking back when it is too late to do anything different. When seen via film, this can have a devastating impact. When done well, it becomes something like experiencing life in short snapshots with all its many moments of heartbreak and happiness. In this story of a mother doing all she thinks is best for her son, the strongest moments are when we get a chance to sit with the characters and let them reflect on these parts of their lives. From the opening scene, where the sounds of mid-90s New York City draw us into the world of the characters all the way to the end when they get swallowed up by it, there is a rich tapestry of ideas and themes that are brought to life in stunning detail. It ensures that, even when the story itself can often feel like it is losing sight of its characters, there is a poetic beating heart that still finds an emotional resonance as the years slip away.

Initially, the driving force of all this is a riveting Teyana Taylor as Inez, who is trying to get back on her feet in Harlem after a year in Rikers Prison. This is not so easy as the world remains a harsh one that is compounded by the fact that she does not have a place to stay. Taylor, who most recently did voice work for the animated film Entergalactic , captures the fortitude that Inez carries with her to survive which is also crossed with a growing desire to build a life for herself and her son Terry, who she ends up kidnapping out of desperation. Played at a young age by Aaron Kingsley Adetola , he understands much about what is going on around him.

In one scene where Inez is getting into a confrontation as her frustration boils over, Rockwell makes sure to subtly draw our attention to Terry nearby on the stairs. This is done with a light touch, but it already begins laying the foundation for how he will grow into a teenager that has to contend with as much, if not more, as his parents before him. It is almost like a novel in how expansive it is, providing a sense of scope that can frequently leave this story feeling scattered. As the city is in a constant state of change, the lives of the characters are similarly in flux as their already pressing problems only become more and more dire.

A Thousand and One Teyana Taylor

RELATED: ‘Fancy Dance’ Review: Lily Gladstone Is Magnificent as a Hustler With a Heart of Gold | Sundance 2023

Rockwell makes this explicit as we hear multiple interjections from a figure who was once hailed, at least by certain segments of the country, as a hero though has now been exposed as a hateful fraud from the very jump. Rudy Giuliani , the former mayor of New York City, and his endorsement of the debunked “broken windows” theory in a response to crime not only didn’t work but led to the use of discriminatory "stop and frisk" policing. This is conveyed via the voice of the man himself that echoes throughout the streets where Inez and Terry live.

It takes on a nightmarish quality as we know that this will only have a negative impact on them as well as other Black residents of the city. Rather than addressing the root causes of the city’s problems like poverty, which is baked into the fabric of this family’s daily life, the leaders seek to punish those most struggling to survive. Rockwell shows that alongside this is the increasing erosion of businesses and culture through gentrification. Both of these elements are intertwined to serve as a historical backdrop for Terry on the cusp of adulthood where we see the world more through his growing perspective and understanding of it.

This refocusing, while not entirely misguided, means that we lose much of what Inez is going through after all these years. It is done to make clear that there is a growing schism between the two, which connects to a revelation that this piece won’t give away, but it holds her a little too far out of frame. Taylor still gives a multifaceted performance, with one closing monologue hitting home unlike anything else in the film, but the story still feels a bit empty without her. In many ways, it lessens the impact of what happens when the past comes knocking and upends the already precarious life that she had been building for so long. Eschewing any catharsis which would be experienced in a conventional film, it creates a more crushing conclusion that reveals how the trajectory of the era always meant that Inez was living on borrowed time. It serves as a tragic time capsule where the characters don’t know what joys they were able to have together will be taken away in the blink of an eye.

There is something rather pointed about how, of the few other characters we get to meet, all believe they are looking out for Terry even as they set in motion events that will cause more harm for him and those he cares about. Even those that speak compassionately are, at the very least, complicit in crushing the small life he was able to live for a little while with his mother. In this closing series of cascading catastrophes, Rockwell reveals that the political belief of needing to punish has painfully personal implications for those caught in the system’s crosshairs. Though it can feel like the characters are lost in this, much of this is the point as they're stripped of their humanity and merely identified as a problem to be fixed.

There is no attempt to find true restorative justice as, like the outstanding recent film Saint Omer , we see that far too much has gone wrong over the course of several years to be fixed so easily. This film is not as sharp as that, but it remains clear-eyed in the moments when it counts. It provides a snapshot of the life of one family that, for better and worse, could be any other that gets swept aside in the pursuit of a "safer" world that comes at their expense.

A Thousand and One is now in theaters.

an image, when javascript is unavailable

‘A Thousand And One’ Review: Teyana Taylor Electrifies a Tough, Graceful Tale of Us-Against-the-World Motherhood

Director A.V. Rockwell's feature debut is a deeply felt, decades-spanning portrait of a woman raising her boy on the margins of legality in rapidly gentrifying New York City.

By Jessica Kiang

Jessica Kiang

  • ‘All the Long Nights’ Review: Two Chipped Souls Fall in Like with Each Other in a Tender Story of Redemptive Connection 2 days ago
  • ‘Through the Graves the Wind is Blowing’ Review: Travis Wilkerson’s Playful, Political Essay Set in Split, Croatia 1 week ago
  • ‘All Shall Be Well’ Review: A Found Family is Lost in a Tender But Tentative, Queer-Themed Grief Drama 1 week ago

A Thousand and One - Variety Critic's Pick

One of the many things that sets “ A Thousand and One ” apart from other, similarly tough-minded stories of urban struggle, poverty and marginalization can be felt practically from the start, as director A.V. Rockwell introduces Inez (R’n’B performer and choreographer Teyana Taylor ) walking the pavement along a painted brick wall in early-’90s Harlem. The way composer Gary Gunn’s symphonic music swells and swirls on the soundtrack, and the way the camera gazes up at her from below as it tracks her purposeful stride, give this ordinary woman, whom we already know has only recently been released from Rikers Island, a heroic kind of dignity.

On the street, Inez spots Terry (Aaron Kingsley Adetola), the little boy she’d left behind — not for the first time, it seems — and who was then placed in foster care when she went to prison. She is desperate to talk to him, but Terry hides behind his schoolmates and will not engage. Some time later, a friend lets her know the kid has fallen from a window trying to escape his foster family, and is in hospital. This time, when Inez visits him, he thaws. The toys she’s brought him may be “corny” (he’s more into Power Rangers at the moment), but he gradually warms up, until it’s time for Inez to go and a heartbreakingly hollow look of abandonment crosses his face.

On an impulse, but with Terry’s eager complicity, Inez simply walks him out of the hospital. She’s determined to be a mother to him even if it means she’s guilty of kidnapping a ward of the state, even if she has no job, nowhere to stay and few friends she hasn’t already alienated somehow.

Eventually she scrapes enough together from casual jobs to afford a small rental walkup. She buys Terry forged papers, calls him by a different name and enrolls him in school, where he quietly flourishes. Her on-off lover Lucky (Will Catlett) is released from jail and for a while they’re a family of three, until Lucky once again leaves. Terry accuses Inez of driving him away. So it goes: The absent parent can be idolized; the one who sticks it out gets the blame.

Inez is a gift of a role for a performer of Taylor’s commitment, and she tears into it, giving what deserves to be her breakthrough performance (she made her film acting debut in 2021’s “Coming 2 America”). Onscreen almost every moment, she’s the energetic, extroverted personality whose abrasive, combative flaws are difficult to tell from her abrasive, combative virtues. “I’ll go to war for you,” she vows to Terry, “fight this whole fucked-up town for you.” Hers is a streetwise, experience-hardened love. Tenderness manifests as anger, protectiveness is expressed through scolding. The ferocity of her maternal affection is both wonderful and terrifying, but she knows it’s what is needed to keep her little family together, in a callous world that will never fully believe her intentions are pure.

Deeply felt though it is, the Inez/Terry story is really only half the achievement of “A Thousand and One.” The other, parallel strand is an impressively drawn portrait of a changing New York City, tracked via offscreen TV news reports of Giuliani’s jaywalking crackdown, his notorious stop-and-frisk policy and eventually Mayor Bloomberg’s election. Inez’s early-’90s kiss curls and chunky golden hoop earrings fade out of fashion, white neighbors move in, old locals move out. Even the tenor of Erick K. Yue’s rich, dynamic cinematography changes, with the gritty vibrancy of the earlier sections giving way to a cooler palette, and a more restrained, less mobile aesthetic.

Soon Inez herself is met with the smiling face of gentrification, in her apparently affable new landlord Jerry (Mark Gessner), who comes to make unnecessary upgrades that “accidentally” render the apartment all but unlivable. “Be from Harlem, but not of Harlem,” her friend Kim (Terri Abney) had advised her many years before. But in so many ways, Inez is Harlem, and the story of her trying to keep the system at bay in protection of her son becomes, in Rockwell’s sensitive handling, also the story of an embattled neighborhood fighting a valiant but losing battle against erasure in the name of progress.

Reviewed at Universal Screening Room, New York. In Sundance Film Festival (U.S. Dramatic Competition). Jan. 17, 2023. Running time: 117 MIN.

  • Production: A Focus Features presentation of a Sight Unseen, Hillman Grad, Makeready production. Producers: Eddie Vaisman, Julia Lebedev, Lena Waithe, Rishi Rajani, Brad Weston. Executive producers: A.V. Rockwell, Jamin O'Brien. 
  • Crew: Director, writer: A.V. Rockwell. Camera: Erick K. Yue. Editors: Sabine Hoffman, Kristan Sprague. Music: Gary Gunn.
  • With: Teyana Taylor, Josiah Cross, Will Catlett, Aaron Kingsley Adetole, Aven Courtney, Terri Victoria, Abney Delissa Reynolds, Amelia Workman, Adriane Lenox.

More From Our Brands

From fire starters to first aid kits, these are the best emergency supplies to have at the ready, j. robert oppenheimer signed this manhattan project report. now it’s up for auction., world series ball used for rangers’ final out valued at up to $350,000, the best mattress protectors, according to sleep experts, ratings: sytycd returns to barely a million viewers after 19-month hiatus, verify it's you, please log in.

Quantcast

Cinephile Corner

Movie Reviews, Rankings, Film News and More

A Thousand and One Movie Review: Teyana Taylor Shines in a Deeply Empathetic Portrait of Holding a Family Together in 1990s Harlem

A thousand and one is directed by a.v. rockwell and stars teyana taylor, josiah cross and william catlett.

Review: Sundance 2023’s Grand Jury Prize winner A Thousand and One has a gravitational pull at the center – Teyana Taylor, giving a stunning performance that competes with some of the year’s bests. A riveting drama that puts Director A.V. Rockwell on the map for years to come.

Teyana Taylor in A Thousand and One movie at Sundance film festival winning Grand Jury Prize.

The Sundance Film Festival, which I’ve referenced in enough reviews at this point that it feels like self-parody each time I bring it up, serves as the first launch pad for indie movies looking for a home with distribution companies – either on streaming platforms or in front of audiences on the big screen. In many years, especially these last few, it also stands as a chance to champion a few possible sleeper Oscars contenders and awards season hopefuls looking to catch steam before the big hitters arrive later in the year. Movies like Whiplash and CODA are constantly regurgitated as a symbol for the sort of hope and ambition that the cream of the crop can hold onto throughout their respective years.

And like many of the other festivals that fill the calendar into the summer and fall seasons, Sundance offers a Grand Jury Prize. Many of these awards seem like obvious choices by the time the festival closes up shop – like the two aforementioned movies that went on to live in our culture for at least the next twelve months – but others occasionally feel like they garnered more muted responses. A.V. Rockwell’s A Thousand and One feels generally like it’s living in the latter. Perhaps it’s due to the film’s short release window as it quickly hit VOD services and is now available to stream on Peacock with a subscription, but I’d venture to guess that it may be due to the equally hush tone many of its competitors have also reveled in – this year may have just been a bit of a down year for the festival in general.

But that’s not to say that the uninspired marketing of Sundance’s movies thus far is a direct response to a porous set of films. In fact, its Grand Jury Prize winner A Thousand and One , which I was finally able to lay my eyes on, is really quite good – the type of movie that delivers the same emotionally jarring moments and performances that rivals past winners and indie darlings.

A Thousand and One’s narrower word-of-mouth could also be the indirect result of a grandiose performance by Teyana Taylor that swallows the movie whole. Taylor hasn’t been credited in many features before, mostly filling her IMDb and Letterboxd page with voice work and cameos that don’t offer a wide scope of the talents that she possesses. Perhaps the best way to familiarize yourself with her work is with her gorgeously performed musical projects (my favorite personally being the Kanye-backed K.T.S.E. album from 2018).

I didn’t think much about my relationship to Teyana Taylor as a performer before I went into A Thousand and One , but by the halfway point it wasn’t too difficult to see why Rockwell had sought her out to serve as the lead character in her debut film. Taylor is a powerhouse in this movie, and throughout the emotional turbulence and rotating cast of characters (because A Thousand and One takes place over a decade span in Harlem), the movie always recenters around her. The Grand Jury Prize is meant to be a reflection of the best film offered at Sundance each year, but it’s easy to let your mind wonder and ask if whether the award was overwhelmingly a response to Taylor’s ability to capture a family’s volatility at a moment’s notice.

The movie weaves in and out of the lives of Taylor’s Inez and her son Terry (played by a trio of actors – Aaron Kingsley Adetola, Aven Courtney, and Josiah Cross as the character ages from an early age through teenage adolescence) as they encounter forces pulling apart their relationship and the infrastructure in which they live – Inez struggling to find reliable employment, Terry learning to grow up as an African American in the dampened and grotesque world of NYC in the 90s, etc. I was worried at times that A Thousand and One was going to fall into general movie trappings of displaying similar cultural struggles that have been portrayed better in the past, but it constantly feels more genuine and sincere at each turn.

Reviews for Movies like A Thousand and One (2023)

Fingernails movie poster

At about the point that A Thousand and One takes its first jump forward in time, Inez begins seeing a man named Lucky ( William Catlett ). At first, the movie takes caution with his character and puts us in the head of Terry as he struggles accepting another person into the home they’ve spent years nurturing and concealing. Many contemporary movies have chosen to display this narrative before – one character acts out, commits violence, and the trajectory of the movie changes altogether. A Thousand and One easily could’ve gone in that direction, but because of the savvy and nuanced story A.V. Rockwell pulls together here, the movie builds heavily upon the racially strenuous world that these characters live in.

A Thousand and One isn’t without its flaws – perhaps being emotionally obvious and at times, Terry’s character not being consistent enough between time jumps to get a full understanding of, a third act that putters out rather than sticking the landing with emphasis – but there’s plenty to stew over as the movie beautifully maneuvers around the deeply intense state of that densely populated area during that time in history. The technical work matches the melancholic tone of their household; deep blues and dark greys line the walls of their apartment, and the score leaves you feeling muddied and beaten by the time the credits role.

But still, A Thousand and One begins and ends with Teyana Taylor, a performance of the year contender early on and one of the true breakout screen presences so far in 2023. It’s a sobering experience given the visual and sonic work being done, but you leave feeling like you’ve watched a star being born.

Genre: Drama

A Thousand and One is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video and VOD

Join our newsletter here

A Thousand and One Film Cast and Credits

A Thousand and One Cast and Crew, including director A.V. Rockwell and actor Teyana Taylor

Teyana Taylor as Inez

William Catlett as Lucky

Aaron Kingsley Adetola as Terry (Age 6)

Aven Courtney as Terry (Age 13)

Josiah Cross as Terry

Director: A.V. Rockwell

Writer: A.V. Rockwell

Cinematography: Eric Yue

Editors: Sabine Hoffman , Kristan Sprague

Composer: Gary Gunn

Movie Reviews

New Movies Classics Best New Movies

Cinephile Corner Newsletter

Lists and rankings.

Director Rankings Best of 2023 All Lists

Movie Genres

Action Adventure Animation Comedy Crime Documentary Drama Family History Holiday Horror Musical Mystery Romance Sci-Fi Sports Superhero Thriller War Western

Copyright © 2024 Cinephile Corner

Design by ThemesDNA.com

  • For Parents
  • For Educators
  • Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

  • Movie Reviews
  • Best Movie Lists
  • Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

movie reviews a thousand and one

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

movie reviews a thousand and one

  • Best TV Lists
  • Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
  • Common Sense Selections for TV
  • Video Reviews of TV Shows

movie reviews a thousand and one

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

movie reviews a thousand and one

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

  • Book Reviews
  • Best Book Lists
  • Common Sense Selections for Books

movie reviews a thousand and one

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

movie reviews a thousand and one

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

  • Game Reviews
  • Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

  • Video Reviews of Games

movie reviews a thousand and one

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

movie reviews a thousand and one

  • Podcast Reviews
  • Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

movie reviews a thousand and one

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

movie reviews a thousand and one

  • App Reviews
  • Best App Lists

movie reviews a thousand and one

Social Networking for Teens

movie reviews a thousand and one

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

movie reviews a thousand and one

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

  • YouTube Channel Reviews
  • YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

movie reviews a thousand and one

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

movie reviews a thousand and one

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

  • Preschoolers (2-4)
  • Little Kids (5-7)
  • Big Kids (8-9)
  • Pre-Teens (10-12)
  • Teens (13+)
  • Screen Time
  • Social Media
  • Online Safety
  • Identity and Community

movie reviews a thousand and one

Explaining the News to Our Kids

  • Family Tech Planners
  • Digital Skills
  • All Articles
  • Latino Culture
  • Black Voices
  • Asian Stories
  • Native Narratives
  • LGBTQ+ Pride
  • Best of Diverse Representation List

movie reviews a thousand and one

Celebrating Black History Month

movie reviews a thousand and one

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

movie reviews a thousand and one

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

A thousand and one, common sense media reviewers.

movie reviews a thousand and one

Gripping, heartfelt, mature story of motherhood and family.

A Thousand and One Movie Poster: Teyana Taylor stands in front of Aaron Kingsley Adetola

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Themes of compassion and empathy, particularly whe

Inez embarks on a journey of personal growth as sh

Cast is primarily Black (as is writer-director A.V

Scenes with pushing (Inez pushing Lucky into a sto

Inez makes a comment about her youthful sexual pro

Swear words ("damn," "hell," "goddamn," "f--k," "f

Brands seen/used include Kit Kat, Air Jordans, Sea

Parents need to know that A Thousand and One is a powerful drama about a mother (Teyana Taylor) who kidnaps her child from the foster care system in 1994 and raises him in a changing New York City landscape. Showcasing perseverance against adversity as well as love and loyalty among family members, the film…

Positive Messages

Themes of compassion and empathy, particularly when it comes to understanding family and family members' triggers or sticking points. Messages of perseverance and courage regarding doing what it takes to care for a young child and someone you love. Despite parents' mistakes and failures, what they want most is for their child to be happy, healthy, successful, and loved.

Positive Role Models

Inez embarks on a journey of personal growth as she takes care of Terry; she shows perseverance as she strives to make sure he has a better life than she did. Even though Inez commits a crime by kidnapping Terry, she still shows courage in her motherhood journey. Inez and Lucky both demonstrate compassion and empathy regarding Terry. Lucky gives Terry a father figure despite being unstable as a parent.

Diverse Representations

Cast is primarily Black (as is writer-director A.V. Rockwell). Story offers a specific perspective on Black life, capturing the experience of living in a city that's quickly gentrifying and marginalizing Black and Brown people to make way for White occupants. Setting A Thousand and One in Rudy Giuliani/Mike Bloomberg-era New York City calls attention to serious issues faced by minority New Yorkers, such as police brutality and shootings, stop-and-frisk policies, rising living costs. Individual characters represent thornier aspects of life for Black people: A minor character in particular bases attractiveness on colorism, calling a darker-skinned woman "midnight" and using other colorist statements and sexual slurs. Another Black character demonstrates classism against Inez, while White characters display both overt and unconscious biases -- e.g., assuming that Inez raising her voice isn't acting like an adult, or calling out 13-year-old Terry for being more "articulate" than other minority students in his class. Lucky also displays sexism against Inez by telling her to be quieter, insinuating that her being quiet would keep him from leaving so much.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Scenes with pushing (Inez pushing Lucky into a stove, breaking it) and police brutality (a scene with Terry and his friend being victims of stop-and-frisk and a brief description of Amadou Diallo's death). Inez and Terry's first landlady warns Inez that if she or other tenants "try anything, I keep a .44 ready." Terry sustains a head injury as a small child; he wears a bandage in several scenes. Inez removes Terry from the foster care system without permission.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Inez makes a comment about her youthful sexual promiscuity ("my body was a playground"). Partial nudity (male torso and buttocks). A scene implies that Inez and Lucky have had sex.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Swear words ("damn," "hell," "goddamn," "f--k," "f---ing," "s--t," "deada--"), LGBTQ+ slur ("d-ke"). One character makes fun of a darker-skinned woman's complexion and hair ("midnight," "nappy"). Use of potentially ableist words ("dumb"), and the "N" word is used in a colloquial context between Black characters.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Brands seen/used include Kit Kat, Air Jordans, Sean John, TV One, Old Navy, Chuck-E-Cheese, Party City.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that A Thousand and One is a powerful drama about a mother ( Teyana Taylor ) who kidnaps her child from the foster care system in 1994 and raises him in a changing New York City landscape. Showcasing perseverance against adversity as well as love and loyalty among family members, the film offers a very positive example of diverse representation, with an all-Black main cast, a Black female writer-director, and themes pertinent to Black American life. It also has plenty of mature content. Language includes swearing ("f--k," "s--t"), slurs ("d-ke"), and the "N" word. Characters smoke, sex is implied, there's partial male nudity (torso, buttocks). There are references to and instances of violence, including police brutality. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

A Thousand and One Trailer

Community Reviews

  • Parents say

There aren't any parent reviews yet. Be the first to review this title.

What's the Story?

A THOUSAND AND ONE follows Inez ( Teyana Taylor ), a woman recently released from jail in 1994 New York City. Inez removes her son, Terry (played by Aaron Kingsley Adetola at 6 years old, Aven Courtney at 13 years old, and Josiah Cross at 17 years old), from the foster system without permission -- in other words, she kidnaps him -- and raises him in an attempt to rebuild her family. Over the years, she acquires a husband, Lucky (William Catlett), and establishes herself and Terry in hopes that her son can live a better life than she or Lucky did. But a powerful secret threatens to destroy the bond between Terry and Inez.

Is It Any Good?

It's easy to see why this drama was both a crowd and critical favorite at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. A Thousand and One depicts a heartfelt truth about parenthood -- which is that, despite parents' inevitable mistakes and failures, what they want most is for their child to be happy, healthy, successful, and loved. The film also shows the way that deeply rooted racial and societal challenges, especially in a rapidly changing environment like mid-1990s New York City, can make that mission even tougher than it already is.

While the film authentically captures the feeling of the '90s through the early 2000s, its other notable success is the actors' exceptional performances. They give their characters the realism they need to ground the story. Taylor knocks it out of the park as Inez, and while all three actors portray Terry well, Adetola and Cross stand out for how they let the character's shy sensitivity shine through the slight veneer of toughness that Terry had to acquire to get through his early life. Catlett is also stellar as Lucky, a man who tries his best to be a good father despite his own mistakes. Overall, A Thousand and One portrays Black humanity in a story that, if told by a different person, might well have flattened or stereotyped the characters as casualties of the system.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the themes of A Thousand and One . What is it saying about New York City in the 1990s? How have things changed since then? How are they the same?

How does Inez and Terry's relationship progress throughout the film? In what ways is Inez a good mother? What are some of her mistakes?

How do the film's characters demonstrate perseverance , empathy , and compassion ? Why are those important character strengths?

How is Terry impacted by his environment, his family, and his friends?

How is New York portrayed as a character here? Why is it important to show how the city changed over time?

Movie Details

  • In theaters : May 23, 2023
  • On DVD or streaming : May 23, 2023
  • Cast : Teyana Taylor , William Catlett , Aaron Kingsley Adetola , Aven Courtney , Josiah Cross
  • Director : A.V. Rockwell
  • Inclusion Information : Female directors, Black directors, Female actors, Black actors
  • Studio : Focus Features
  • Genre : Drama
  • Character Strengths : Compassion , Empathy , Perseverance
  • Run time : 117 minutes
  • MPAA rating : R
  • MPAA explanation : language
  • Last updated : March 2, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

Moonlight Poster Image

If Beale Street Could Talk

Dope Poster Image

Great Movies with Black Characters

Movies with inspiring black girls and women, related topics.

  • Perseverance

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Screen Rant

A thousand and one review: taylor is a powerhouse in poignant debut [sundance].

It doesn’t nail everything it set out to accomplish, but A Thousand and One is a breathtaking character study of perseverance in Black motherhood.

Sundance alum A.V. Rockwell brought her stunning debut feature film to the 2023 Sundance Film Festival . A Thousand and One , also written by the talented filmmaker, stars triple threat Teyana Taylor as an unapologetic and determined mother ready to risk it all for her son. A beautiful examination of life in New York City spanning several decades, Rockwell brings her skill as a visual storyteller to magnify motherhood under destitute circumstances. It doesn’t nail everything it set out to accomplish, but A Thousand and One is a breathtaking character study of perseverance in Black motherhood.

Struggling to make ends meet after her release from prison, Inez (Taylor) moves from shelter to shelter in mid-1990s New York City. Inez is determined to provide a good life for her six-year-old son, Terry (Aaron Kingsley Adetola), who spends his nights trying to escape his foster parents. Inez kidnaps and runs away with him so that they can build their life together. As the years progress, Inez and a now older Terry (Josiah Cross) rely on each other even as their family grows. Terry becomes a smart, yet quiet teenager, while Inez finds love from a past relationship with Lucky (William Catlett). However, a family secret threatens to destroy their livelihood, and the two must decide their future as a result.

Related: Shortcomings Review: Park's Debut Aptly Mines Racial Politics For Humor [Sundance]

Rockwell’s poignant feature directorial debut examines the life of an African American family in a city that rarely works in their favor. A thought-provoking tale of poverty and gentrification, the director expressively reveals the ugly truth of survival and perseverance through the lens of a Black mother. Specifically, her examination of these concepts over decades works well to emphasize the hardships that Inez endures. And as described by Inez, “ there’s more to life than fucked-up beginnings, ” a sentiment Rockwell so courageously explores vividly and with the utmost compassion.

A big turning point in A Thousand and One arises that enables viewers to finally experience a sense of serenity within the story. Yet, situations like Inez and Terry’s rarely end that way, and that’s just the reality of single parenthood. Rockwell does well with capturing these types of uncertainties, playing her cards right with both subtlety and exaggeration (and with good reason). But through this method, her exposition exposes a heartbreaking reality in which many viewers will be able to identify. Yet, her storytelling approach may also justifiably anger others unfamiliar with the truth of a gentrified New York.

Within the seamless transitions of the different time periods in Inez and Terry’s lives, Rockwell works her magic in partnership with cinematographer Eric K. Yue to capture the spirit of 1990-2000s Harlem. The film possesses a vintage and contemporary appeal, which both celebrate the style and criticizes the renovations at the expense of Black livelihood. Together, with Gary Gunn’s classical score against the rambunctious sounds of the city, these components heighten the senses in real time, providing an immersive experience that is impressive.

Throughout the film, the script introduces various side characters in the story. These are moments when A Thousand and One doesn’t maintain the focus it needs. As a result, the second act of the film tends to drag, losing its grip on the most compelling features of this remarkable story. However, thanks to a powerful performance from Teyana Taylor, these stodgy moments are short-lived. Her dedication towards exposing various sides to Inez — enthusiastic, abrasive, and compassionate — is sensational, and there’s no doubt that her performance will be talked about throughout the year.

A delicate exploration of Black motherhood during an uncertain time in a changing New York, A.V. Rockwell’s sophisticated and gut-wrenching story is a standout from the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. The film was awarded the grand jury prize in the U.S. Dramatic category and with good reason. It’s a beautiful film about the power of perseverance and the resulting desire for a better life. Thanks to a powerhouse performance from Taylor, who serves as the film’s character study, Rockwell’s debut is sure to leave a lasting impression on its viewers. Indeed, A Thousand and One serves as an essential reminder that “life goes on” despite past and current mistakes, and the tribulations one experiences in between.

More: Theater Camp Review: Heart & Humor Collide In Sunny Showbiz Parody [Sundance]

A Thousand and One premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival on January 22. The film is 117 minutes long and is not yet rated.

A Thousand And One Review

A Thousand And One

Before you see a single frame in  A Thousand And One , you hear the sounds of the New York City neighbourhood the film takes place in. It’s a smartly deployed recurring gambit that helps establish a sense of time and place in A.V. Rockwell’s layered and affecting feature debut, and it proves to be an effective backdrop for a rich story of Black motherhood, sacrifice, and community.

movie reviews a thousand and one

The inciting kidnapping might have you thinking this is a duo-on-the-lam story, but Rockwell’s smarter, more unconventional approach yields impressive results. Patient storytelling allows her to take in the rapidly gentrifying Harlem neighbourhood that the bulk of the film takes place in, and how it impacts people of colour in the community. The socio-political context is at first deftly woven in – audio of former NYC Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg’s controversial policies is heard at one point – and then explicitly slammed in our faces in a standout scene with Inez’s landlord trying to force them out of their apartment. Both approaches are effective, all aided by Gary Gunn’s ethereal, '90s R&B influenced score, and Eric Yue's lush cinematography.

At almost every turn, Teyona Taylor unveils new capabilities.

It’s a perfect foundation for a  Moonlight -esque triptych of impressive performances from Aaron Kingsley Adetola, Aven Courtney, and Josiah Cross, as Terry goes from kidulthood to adulthood. Each actor is so emotionally in sync with the character that the time jumps are never jarring. Although the backbone of the film is on his perfectly imperfect dynamic with Inez and father figure Lucky (Will Catlett, in a nicely nuanced turn), each version of Terry is allowed ample time to showcase his complexities. A teenage Terry’s courtship of a young girl and the misogynoir Inez calls him on is especially playful and enlightening, if not fully mined.

No multiple castings were necessary for Inez, in large part because Taylor – an R&B artist in her first leading role – is never less than authentically honest in capturing her character’s outward appearance and determinedness as well as her loving tenderness. At almost every turn she unveils new capabilities, playing all of Inez’s varied notes without sanding off her raw edges. It’s an eye-opening performance that should have us all excited about her future onscreen work.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Rotten Tomatoes Newsletter

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

  • Upcoming Movies and TV shows
  • Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
  • Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

  • What's the Tomatometer®?
  • Login/signup

movie reviews a thousand and one

Movies in theaters

  • Opening this week
  • Top box office
  • Coming soon to theaters
  • Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

  • Netflix streaming
  • Amazon prime
  • Most popular streaming movies
  • What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

  • Dune: Part Two Link to Dune: Part Two
  • Stopmotion Link to Stopmotion
  • Orion and the Dark Link to Orion and the Dark

New TV Tonight

  • The Regime: Season 1
  • The Gentlemen: Season 1
  • The Reluctant Traveler With Eugene Levy: Season 2
  • Queens: Season 1
  • Blown Away: Season 4
  • Animal Control: Season 2
  • The Cleaning Lady: Season 3
  • Alert: Missing Persons Unit: Season 2
  • Hot Wheels: Let's Race: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

  • Shōgun: Season 1
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender: Season 1
  • The Tourist: Season 2
  • One Day: Season 1
  • American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders: Season 1
  • House of Ninjas: Season 1
  • Constellation: Season 1
  • The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live: Season 1
  • The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin: Season 1
  • Best TV Shows
  • Most Popular TV
  • TV & Streaming News
  • Prime Video

Certified fresh pick

  • Elsbeth: Season 1 Link to Elsbeth: Season 1
  • All-Time Lists
  • Binge Guide
  • Comics on TV
  • Five Favorite Films
  • Video Interviews
  • Weekend Box Office
  • Weekly Ketchup
  • What to Watch

Best Horror Movies of 2024 Ranked – New Scary Movies to Watch

52 Best Stop-Motion Animated Movies of All Time

Women’s History

Awards Tour

New Movies & TV Shows Streaming in March 2024: What To Watch on Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, and More

TV Premiere Dates 2024

  • Trending on RT
  • Play Movie Trivia
  • Dune: Part Two

A Thousand and One: Movie Clip - How We Met

Where to watch a thousand and one.

Watch A Thousand and One with a subscription on Amazon Prime Video, rent on Vudu, Apple TV, or buy on Vudu, Apple TV.

All A Thousand and One   Videos

  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews

A Thousand and One

A Thousand and One (2023)

After unapologetic and fiercely loyal Inez kidnaps her son Terry from the foster care system, mother and son set out to reclaim their sense of home, identity, and stability, in a rapidly cha... Read all After unapologetic and fiercely loyal Inez kidnaps her son Terry from the foster care system, mother and son set out to reclaim their sense of home, identity, and stability, in a rapidly changing New York City. After unapologetic and fiercely loyal Inez kidnaps her son Terry from the foster care system, mother and son set out to reclaim their sense of home, identity, and stability, in a rapidly changing New York City.

  • A.V. Rockwell
  • Teyana Taylor
  • Aaron Kingsley Adetola
  • Aven Courtney
  • 41 User reviews
  • 81 Critic reviews
  • 81 Metascore
  • 9 wins & 51 nominations

Official Trailer

  • Inez de la Paz

Aaron Kingsley Adetola

  • Terry 6 Years Old

Aven Courtney

  • Terry 13 Years Old

Josiah Cross

  • Terry 17 Years Old

William Catlett

  • Anita Tucker

Adriane Lenox

  • Pea 6 Years Old

Jolly Swag

  • Pea 13 Years Old
  • Simone 14 Years Old

Alicia Pilgrim

  • Simone 17 Years Old

Jennean Farmer

  • Ms. Janie (Foster Mom)
  • Shawn (Foster Brother)
  • Michael H. (Foster Brother)
  • Foster Sister

Mychelle Dangerfield

  • Shelter Resident
  • All cast & crew
  • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

Earth Mama

Did you know

  • Trivia A.V. Rockwell 's feature film directorial debut.
  • Goofs In 1994, young Terry is seen playing a video game with a Nintendo GameCube controller, but the Nintendo GameCube would not be commercially released until the year 2001.
  • Connections Features Ricki Lake (1992)

Technical specs

  • Runtime 1 hour 57 minutes

Related news

Contribute to this page.

A Thousand and One (2023)

  • See more gaps
  • Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Production art

Recently viewed

Dune: Part 2 Ending Explained - How It Sets Up a Third Movie

Is this actually a happy ending for paul atreides.

Jesse Schedeen Avatar

Warning: This article contains full spoilers for Dune: Part 2! And if you're just here to find out whether there's a post-credits scene at the end, there isn't one. Denis Villeneuve's latest movie has no scenes after the credits start rolling.

Dune is one of those epic sci-fi novels that’s just too big to capture in one movie properly. With Dune: Part 2 hitting theaters, we’ve finally gotten the complete story of Paul Atreides and his rise to power as the Lisan al Gaib. Or have we? House Atreides may have gotten its revenge by the end of the movie, but it’s clear there’s a lot more story to tell where Paul and his family are concerned.

With that in mind, let’s break down the ending to Dune: Part 2 and where it leaves characters like Timothée Chalamet’s Paul, Zendaya’s Chani, and Florence Pugh’s Princess Irulan. Where does the story go from here, and why does it appear that these movies are diverging from the books? Here’s everything you need to know about the possible future of the franchise.

Dune: Part 2 Character Posters

movie reviews a thousand and one

Dune: Part 2 Ending Explained

If the first Dune movie showed us the downfall of House Atreides on Arrakis, the sequel is about how Paul turns the tables on his betrayers. In Dune: Part 2, we see Paul win the hearts and minds of the Fremen. These desert nomads have been conditioned by years of carefully planted Bene Gesserit prophecies to expect the coming of a messiah called the Lisan al Gaib. Paul, with his unparalleled combat skills and his rapidly growing ability to see the future, seems to be the savior they’ve been waiting for.

Paul finally cements his hold over the Fremen when he undergoes two critical tests. First, he successfully rides a Sandworm and passes the rite of adulthood every Fremen must undergo.

Second, he follows in his mother’s footsteps by drinking the Water of Life and transmuting it, fully awakening his prescient abilities in the process. It’s there that Paul begins communing with his unborn sister Alia (Anya Taylor-Joy) and realizes that Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) is actually their grandfather.

By the climax of Dune: Part 2, Paul and his mother, Rebecca Ferguson’s Lady Jessica, have managed to whip the Fremen of the north and south of Arrakis into a religious fervor. Paul fears the holy war he knows his people will unleash upon the galaxy, but he ultimately chooses to embrace his messianic role rather than avoid his destiny. However, he refuses to challenge Javier Bardem’s Stilgar to ritual combat, not wanting to waste such a valuable warrior and ally.

After reuniting with his old teacher, Josh Brolin’s Gurney Halleck, Paul reclaims the Atreides family’s stash of atomic weapons and uses them to launch an all-out assault on the city of Arakeen. With the Padishah Emperor (Christopher Walken) and the Baron both in the city, it’s the perfect time for the heir to House Atreides to settle all scores.

Paul swiftly kills the Baron and gives the Emperor an ultimatum. Either Shaddam IV abdicates the throne or the Fremen will destroy all the spice on Arrakis, forever dooming an Imperium that’s become so heavily dependent on this rare substance.

It’s here that Paul duels Austin Butler’s Feyd-Rautha with the fate of the universe hanging in the balance. Feyd, despite his tricks, loses the duel, and the Emperor is left with no choice but to surrender.

Paul’s ultimate goal is to marry Princess Irulan and cement his claim to the throne. This angers Chani and seems to bring a swift end to their whirlwind romance. As Chani summons a sandworm and returns to the desert, Paul and his Fremen unleash their fury on the Houses that refuse to recognize their new emperor. Jessica and Alia reflect that Paul Muad’Dib’s holy war has truly begun, and the universe will never be the same.

Does Dune: Part 2 Have a Post-Credits Scene?

The first Dune movie didn’t have a post-credits scene of any kind, and the same holds true for the sequel. There’s no mid or post-credits scene to be found in Dune: Part 2.

This is a bit surprising considering that there’s clearly more story left to be told. Dune: Part 2 may wrap up director Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of the original Dune novel, but author Frank Herbert penned a further five sequels. That’s not even counting the many prequels, sequels, and spinoffs created by Herbert’s son Brian and author Kevin J. Anderson.

Despite that wealth of material, Dune: Part 2 gives no hint as to what’s coming next. But fear not, we’re about to break down everything you need to know about where the third movie is heading.

Dune: Part 2’s Missing Characters

Before we get into Dune: Part 3, it’s worth taking a step back to explore the important characters who don’t appear in Part 2. This sequel changes up the source material by leaving several major characters on the cutting room floor.

One of those is Stephen McKinley Henderson’s Thufir Hawat. Thufir plays a small but critical role in the second half of the book. Captured by the Harkonnens, Thufir is put to work as the Baron’s new Mentat. The Baron believes Thufir can be controlled through his desire for vengeance, all based on the lie that Lady Jessica betrayed her Duke. But Thufir continues to quietly scheme against the Harkonnens and maneuver Feyd-Rautha against his uncle. In the end, Thufir chooses to die rather than betray Paul.

Henderson did reportedly film scenes for Dune: Part 2, but those scenes were cut from the final product. The same goes for actor Tim Blake Nelson, who was cast in an undisclosed role and doesn’t appear in the final film.

Count Fenring is mysteriously absent in the movie version. (Image Credit: Abrams Books)

It’s speculated that Nelson was meant to play Count Fenring, the husband of Léa Seydoux’s Lady Margot and one of the greatest swordsmen in the Imperium. Fenring himself is part of the Bene Gesserit’s long scheme to produce the Kwisatz Haderach, but he proved to be a dead end because of his infertility. That’s why Lady Margot seduces Feyd-Rautha, in order to secure his genetic material for the Bene Gesserit’s ongoing breeding program. It may be that Villeneuve felt it was simpler to leave Fenring out of the picture.

The movie also eliminates Paul and Chani’s son, Leto II. Named in tribute to his late grandfather, Leto only appears briefly in the book before being killed in an attack by the Emperor’s soldiers. In the book, his death is a sign that Paul, for all his power, isn’t all-seeing and all-knowing. Not yet, anyway.

Finally, there’s Alia. In one of the more notable changes from the book, Lady Jessica’s daughter never actually appears in the flesh. She’s still yet to be born by the end and appears only as an adult through Paul’s prescient visions. By comparison, in the book Paul and Lady Jessica stay with the Fremen for years before the holy war begins, enough time for Alia to be born and grow to age 2.

This two-year-old Alia is a tricky character to handle because she’s a young child who speaks with the mind and personality of a fully grown adult. How do you find a child actor who can convincingly pull off such a role? Do you dub over her lines and hope for the best, as in David Lynch’s Dune? Villenueve clearly opted for the path of least resistance, accelerating the timetable and ending the movie before Alia is actually born. Assuming Dune: Part 3 happens, we’ll reconnect with Alia as a fully grown adult.

How Dune: Part 2 Sets Up More Sequels

Dune: Part 2 definitely wraps up on an open-ended note, just as the novel does. As the credits roll, we’ve just seen the opening salvo in a holy war that promises to reshape the galaxy. Paul has gotten his revenge, but at what cost? Is this even a happy ending?

Not really. Herbert famously said that the Dune series is a cautionary tale about the need to be wary of charismatic leaders. Whether or not his intentions are noble, Paul has just ushered in a war that threatens to claim billions of lives. The fallout of that war carries into the second book in the series, Dune Messiah.

Image Credit: Ace Books

Messiah picks up more than a decade after the events of Dune. In this era, Paul rules the galaxy from his throne on Arrakis, but not all is well in the Imperium. More than 60 billion people have been killed in the holy war. Paul has yet to father any children, and Princess Irulan is conspiring against her husband with the Bene Gesserit, the Spacing Guild and the technological experts known as the Tleilaxu. Even some of the Fremen are beginning to doubt their leader and lament the loss of their old way of life. All the while, Alia becomes a religious figure in her own right, with many Fremen worshipers hailing her as “St. Alia of the Knife.”

Even more than in the first novel, Paul struggles with the weight of his prescient visions in Dune Messiah. When the past, present and future are open to you, how do you decide to do anything? How do you move through the world when every step is laid out before you? When you can sense every tragedy that lies ahead, do you allow fate to play out or seek to rewrite the future? Paul is determined to guide humanity along the best possible path, but in the end, the sacrifices necessary might be too much for him to bear.

Villenueve has voiced his desire to film a third Dune novel based on Messiah, and it appears that the screenplay is nearly complete . However, the ending to Dune: Part 2 suggests that Part 3 won’t be a 1:1 adaptation of Messiah.

The biggest change in this sequel involves the fate of Chani. In the book, Chani is aware of Paul’s plan to marry into the throne and accepts it as a necessary burden. She serves as Paul’s concubine in Dune Messiah, living in a tense coexistence with Irulan and hoping to bear Paul’s children. Chani is unaware that Irulan is poisoning her food with contraceptives, purposely denying the Emperor an heir.

In the movie, Chani is as shocked as anyone to learn of Paul’s plan for Irulan. She leaves Paul and returns to the desert rather than live the life of a concubine. It’s the culmination of a clear effort to give Chani more agency and a more proactive role in the movies compared to the book. Irulan, for her part, comes across as more sympathetic to Paul in the movie, suggesting the two might actually make for a good match.

In short, Chani is being set up to have a vastly different role in Dune: Part 3. She won’t be by Paul’s side, and that could fundamentally change both of their character arcs in the next movie. Chani may even become the figurehead of that faction of Fremen who reject the Lisan al Gaib and his holy war. Is their love affair doomed for good, or will Paul and Chani return to each other’s side in the third movie? Will Chani’s story ultimately play out the same as in the book, or will this one change ripple out and continue to affect the series in surprising ways? We’ll have to wait a few years until the next Dune movie hopefully becomes a reality.

What did you think of Dune: Part 2? What are your theories about the next movie in the series? Let us know in the comments.

For more on this epic sci-fi adaptation, check out IGN's Dune: Part 2 review , learn how practical effects help make Arrakis real , find out why the film shows that we need a feel-bad sci-fi movie series , dig in on why Dune 2 is a perfect adaptation , and brush up on the all-important Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen .

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter .

IGN Recommends

Dakota Johnson Isn't Surprised Madame Web Has Struggled: 'I Probably Will Never Do Anything Like It Again'

Critics call 'Dune: Part Two' a 'sci-fi masterpiece' and one of the 'greatest sequels ever'

  • Critics are in love with "Dune: Part Two."
  • One of the few knocks they mention is that it's hard to keep up with all the new characters.
  • But one critic hailed it as "the best sci-fi epic of the century."

Insider Today

It's time to return to Arrakis for the much-anticipated sequel to Denis Villeneuve's 2021 epic "Dune."

For "Dune: Part Two," in theaters Friday, Villeneuve continues telling the story of Paul Atreides, played by Timothée Chalamet. Atreides is looking to avenge the death of his father from the first movie while fulfilling the ancient prophecy that an off-world prophet will bring prosperity to the planet of Arrakis.

In the sequel, we get much more Zendaya, plus new characters played by Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Léa Seydoux, and Christopher Walken.

Critics are lauding the movie for its epic scope and powerful performances by its leads, Chalamet and Zendaya. Some are even calling it one of the greatest sequels ever made.

Here's a roundup of their reactions to the movie.

The movie feels epic

The sets, costumes, and "Lawrence of Arabia"-like shots of desert vistas have left critics blown away by the movie's look.

"The second Dune film is superb at showing us an entire created world, a distinct and now unmistakable universe, which will probably be much imitated," Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian wrote.

"Villeneuve treats each shot as if it were a painting," Variety's Peter Debruge wrote. "Every design choice seems handed down through millennia of alternative human history, from arcane hieroglyphics to a slew of creative masks."

But all the new characters eat up a lot of screen time

New characters seem to appear in almost every other scene, and critics noticed.

"With the expansion of the world comes more characters," Therese Lacson of Collider wrote. "If you're familiar with the 'Dune' book series, you'll know that these characters are quite important and need to have their time on screen. But if you're not familiar with the books, you might be wondering why there's a new character popping up on screen every few minutes."

"The Emperor of the Known Universe decides to pay Arrakis a visit and settle the war between the houses once and for all. He's played by a badly miscast Christopher Walken, whose natural affectations distract from a movie that's in desperate need of a more grounded presence," IndieWire's David Ehrlich wrote. "Florence Pugh, by contrast, strikes the perfect balance between strength and survivalism in her brief role as the Emperor's daughter, but her character is ultimately just a series of bejeweled headpieces in search of a narrative purpose. Like so much in this film, Princess Irulan is so amazing to look at that Villeneuve can only think to pose her."

A big highlight is the love story between Paul (Timothée Chalamet) and Chani (Zendaya)

Another highlight is the pairing of Chalamet and Zendaya, who finally get some meaty screentime together.

"Fremen society and Paul's relationship with Chani are among the threads that get more robust consideration in Villeneuve's highly anticipated sequel," Lovia Gyarkye from The Hollywood Reporter wrote.

"This 'Dune' is never better than when it frames its messianic spectacle as the backdrop for a star-crossed love story about a woman falling in love with the same man she doesn't trust to free her people," IndieWire's Ehrlich wrote.

Prepare for a cliff-hanger ending

Like in the first movie, you're not going to get many answers by the end.

"Don't expect a definitive ending," The Daily Beast's Nick Schager wrote. "It's clear that 'Dune: Part Two' is merely a prelude for a true finale."

"You feel as if the storytelling wave is just beginning to crest," David Fear of Rolling Stone wrote. "We leave as we came in, knowing more is on the way, yet punch-drunk from the love triangles and the battles that will lead to even bigger fracas among fractured, warring houses. It's not a spoiler to say that the stage is set for a third movie."

'The best sci-fi epic of the century'

Critics really like the movie.

Joshua Rothkopf at The Los Angeles Times, who called it a "sci-fi masterpiece" in the headline of his review, said: "Villeneuve has made good on one of the great Hollywood gambles in recent memory, delivering a two-part epic of literary nuance, timely significance and maybe even the promise of another film or two. Like that talking baby in the womb, it speaks to what's coming more than we may know."

Inverse's Hoai-Tran Bui dubbed it "the best sci-fi epic of the century" in her headline. "It's a towering feat of sci-fi cinema that will put 'Dune: Part Two' in contention for the pantheon of greatest sequels ever."

movie reviews a thousand and one

Watch: We just got our first look at 'Blade Runner 2049' and it looks amazing

movie reviews a thousand and one

  • Main content

Column: In Lady Jessica, ‘Dune’ created an all-time movie mom. Then ‘Part Two’ ruined her

A group of women in the desert, in long draped ropes and head coverings

  • Show more sharing options
  • Copy Link URL Copied!

Warning: Spoilers ahead. Absolutely do not read this if you have not seen “Dune Part Two.” I mean it.

I knew I was going to have problems with “Dune: Part Two” when it opened with the image of a fetus.

If female autonomy was not currently under attack from so many sides, my stomach might not have clenched quite so dramatically as those undeveloped eyes and barely formed limbs marked reentrance into the sprawling tale of Paul (last-of-his-house) Atreides, his pregnant mother and those around them.

But a lot has happened since the first part of Denis Villeneuve ’s magnificent adaptation of Frank Herbert’s dystopian epic premiered in 2021. The overturning of Roe vs. Wade in 2022 had led to an increasing emphasis on “fetal rights,” including the recent determination by the Alabama Supreme Court that frozen fertilized eggs are, legally, children .

Which “Dune: Part Two” only emphasizes by the appearance of this fetus, which soon will become sentient and begin speaking through her mother, the Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson).

Once a kick-ass member of a mysteriously powerful order of priestesses, Lady Jessica dramatically saves her son’s life early in the film only to slowly turn into a glorified baby monitor.

She does other things as well — namely, push Paul (Timothée Chalamet) to accept his “destiny” as the much-prophesied “messiah” (and away from the loving arms of the nonroyal warrior Chani, played by Zendaya) with the ferocious single-mindedness of Angela Lansbury in “The Manchurian Candidate.”

But as the movie progresses, Lady Jessica increasingly serves only to deliver communiqués to Paul from his unborn sister, who seems way more concerned with his reluctance to start an interstellar holy war than, say, the development of her own limbs.

For the record, I thoroughly enjoyed “Dune: Part Two,” which I saw on Saturday morning because I could not find another showing that was not completely sold out . And I get it. It’s science fiction and, like many sci-fi and fantasy writers, Herbert created a complex and fully realized world based on a melange of ancient intercultural mythology and futuristic imaginings that highlight the problems of history and the modern world.

All of which Villeneuve has brought to vivid, sand-in-your-teeth, hydration-hoarding life.

Chalamet and Butler face off in a climactic scene from "Dune: Part Two"

Review: ‘Dune: Part Two’ stirs its sands darkly, deepening a sci-fi masterpiece in our midst

Stirring and sublimely epic, the conclusion to Denis Villeneuve’s atmospheric first half climaxes with a showdown between Timothée Chalamet and Austin Butler.

Feb. 21, 2024

The “Dune” series, and Villeneuve’s two-part film adaptation of its first book, is a true epic, with many alarmingly resonant themes. In the far distant future, an interplanetary emperor pits noble houses of many planets against one another as they jockey for power, particularly over the harvesting of spice, a near-magical waste product of the giant sandworms that live on Arrakis. This barren world also is inhabited by the beleaguered Fremen, whose eyes have gone blue from long contact with spice and who are considered subhuman by the other planets and their armies.

For many Fremen, the only hope is the coming of a messiah that has long been promised.

So feudalism, check; environmental exploitation, check; colonialism, racism and the power of religion, check, check and check.

Behind it all, however, is the Bene Gesserit, a group of priestesses who possess, among other things, the ability to bend the will of others through use of “the voice,” to determine the gender of their children and to survive poisoning. They also have a big-picture scheme that they are implementing through years of prophecy and eugenics: producing a male messiah, over whom they have control, to free the world. Or whatever. (The Bene Gesserit don’t seem particularly big on freedom as most folks define it.)

I am 100% behind any story that includes an all-powerful band of far-seeing priestesses, even if they are super-mean and manipulative, and the regular side-snark about men not being up to the physical and mental challenge of ruling did not go unappreciated. Also, the group’s leader is played by Charlotte Rampling, which is as it should be since she is the only actor living who can project both world-weary wisdom and utter ruthlessness while wearing an absurdly high hat and a nearly impenetrable black veil.

In the first film, her relationship with acolyte Lady Jessica plays a bit like a perpetually skeptical head of the CIA dealing with an exasperating but productive rogue agent. And Lady Jessica lives up to the role. Yes, Paul is “Dune’s” main character, haunted by visions of an apocalypse that will follow his acceptance of his destiny, but in the first movie he is bonded to his mother in a way rarely seen in film.

As in respectfully, lovingly and nontoxically.

After Paul’s father is forced by the emperor into taking over spice production on Arrakis and then slaughtered, along with the rest of House Atreides, Paul and Lady Jessica flee into the desert. Their adventure is one of equals. When they meet up with the initially hostile Fremen, it isn’t just Paul who proves himself a superior warrior; Lady Jessica may be pregnant, but that doesn’t affect her fighting skills.

Which is why I went into the second film with such high girl-power hopes, only to be confronted with a giant fetus.

PARIS - FEBRUARY 12, 2024: Director Denis Villeneuve and actor Austin Butler at Le Bristol Hotel in Paris on Monday, February 12, 2024. (Antoine Doyen / For The Times)

From king to dark prince: Austin Butler and Denis Villeneuve on their new ‘Dune’ villain

Elvis has left the galaxy: Austin Butler and director Denis Villeneuve discuss bringing Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, the vicious villain of ‘Dune: Part Two,’ to life.

Feb. 22, 2024

Things change for the mother-son pair, and quickly. First Paul falls in love with Chani, a Fremen warrior who sees the messiah prophecy as overlord propaganda, which naturally threatens to back-burner his mom. Indeed, in Herbert’s version, the pair live with the Fremen for years, during which time Lady Jessica gives birth to her daughter Alia and fades into the background.

Villeneuve, smartly wanting to keep the magnetic Lady Jessica center stage, condenses the original chronology; the second film picks up shortly after the events of the first. As in the book, Lady Jessica is forced to become the Fremen’s Reverend Mother by drinking “the water of life” — a poisonous liquid taken from sandworms that downloads the memory of all her ancestors. Only a Bene Gesserit can neutralize the poison, which, we are told repeatedly, would kill any man. Unfortunately, she does this while pregnant, granting her fetus the same power.

In the book, this results in a wickedly smart and perilous toddler-priestess. Hoping, perhaps, to avoid the creepy woman/child of the final “Twilight” movies, Villeneuve gives us instead a prenatal version of Alia — “Look Who’s Talking Dune: A Womb With a View.” Unfortunately, this means the wildly independent Lady Jessica we knew and loved is gone. Heavily pregnant, she is given little more to say than a messiah’s mom’s version of “Sing out, Louise” and whatever her still nonviable fetus tells her to.

Also, she taught Paul how to use “the voice,” which I think will turn out to be a Big Mistake.

All of which only highlights the contradiction at the heart of the tale: For all their superpowers, the Bene Gesserit’s main purpose appears to be reproduction. Self-controlled reproduction, to be sure, down to the baby’s gender, but with the purpose of producing a male leader whom they hope to “control” from the shadows.

In other words, the kind of boy-mom power adjacency most women have had to be content with for centuries. Considering the medieval nature of “Dune’s” power structure — warring royal houses, sacred seal rings, steadfast (and treasonous) knights — that makes a certain amount of narrative sense. Throughout history, even royal women were tied to the production, and fates, of their sons.

Still, given the enormous promise of superpowered priestesses — honestly, if they can control people with their voices, how are they not completely in charge? — including a mother who can defy her very scary boss, keep her cool in a helicopter crash and hold her own in a knife fight, it was a bit of a letdown to realize that the women of “Dune’s” universe are still defined mostly by their ability to give birth.

Even Florence Pugh’s Princess Irulan, daughter of the Emperor, was used mostly as marriage bait. (Though she too is a Bene Gesserit and her name begins “i-rul,” so here’s hoping.)

Only Chani manages to escape the trap of prophesy and bloodlines, of arranged marriage, designer babies and the dream of world domination. And since the final image is of her, a full-grown, nonpregnant woman literally turning her back on the whole mess and preparing to ride a sandworm into the sunset, maybe there is hope for us all.

More to Read

Zendaya's gloved hand caresses Timothée Chalamet's face in a scene from "Dune."

‘Dune 2’ spices up the box office after a months-long dry spell

March 3, 2024

Director Denis Villeneuve in black suit at Le Bristol Hotel in Paris

‘Dune’ director Denis Villeneuve drew up storyboards for the film as a teenager

Feb. 29, 2024

Hilary Swank en una escena de la cinta de estreno "Ordinary Angels", basada en un caso real.

Box office doldrums continue, but ‘Dune: Part Two’ looms on the horizon

Feb. 25, 2024

Only good movies

Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

movie reviews a thousand and one

Mary McNamara is a culture columnist and critic for the Los Angeles Times. Previously she was assistant managing editor for arts and entertainment following a 12-year stint as television critic and senior culture editor. A Pulitzer Prize winner in 2015 and finalist for criticism in 2013 and 2014, she has won various awards for criticism and feature writing. She is the author of the Hollywood mysteries “Oscar Season” and “The Starlet.” She lives in La Crescenta with her husband, three children and two dogs.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Bruce Willis in a dark suit jacket and blue suit shirt smiling next to a woman with dark brown hair in a maroon dress

Entertainment & Arts

Bruce Willis’ wife counters ‘clickbait’ with details of ‘beauty and soulfulness’ in actor’s life

March 4, 2024

John Travolta holds Idina Menzel's face as they present onstage at the 2015 Oscars

Idina Menzel wishes ‘wickedly talented’ Adele Dazeem a happy 10th birthday

Los Angeles, California- Richard Taylor, right, and Peter King won for Achievement in Make-up for "Lord of the Rings" at the 76th Annual Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, Calif., Sunday, February 29, 2004. LOS ANGELES TIMES PHOTO BY FRANCINE ORR

Oscars rewind -- 2004: Why the hair and makeup winners apologized to their cast

A man with gray hair, a beard and glasses striking a peace-sign pose

Mark Dodson, ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Gremlins’ voice actor, dies at 64

  • Skip to main content
  • Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Movie Reviews

Staggering action sequences can't help 'dune: part two' sustain a sense of awe.

Justin Chang

movie reviews a thousand and one

Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya are Paul Atreides and Chani in Dune: Part Two. Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros. Pictures hide caption

Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya are Paul Atreides and Chani in Dune: Part Two.

Dune: Part Two picks up right where Dune: Part One left off. It's still the year 10191, and we're back on Arrakis, a remote desert planet with vast reserves of spice, the most coveted substance in the universe.

The villains of House Harkonnen have regained control of Arrakis after defeating the benevolent leaders of House Atreides. But hope survives in the form of the young hero Paul Atreides, who has fled into the desert. Paul is played again by Timothée Chalamet, whose performance has matured alongside the character: Paul still has his boyish vulnerability, but now he may be tasked with leading a revolution.

Paul has taken refuge among the Bedouin-like nomads known as the Fremen, many of whom believe he is a messiah-like figure who, according to prophecy, will help them defeat their Harkonnen oppressors. To be accepted by the Fremen, Paul must learn their ways and pass the ultimate test by riding one of the deadly giant sandworms that continually roam the desert.

Storyboarding 'Dune' since he was 13, Denis Villeneuve is 'still pinching' himself

Movie Interviews

Storyboarding 'dune' since he was 13, denis villeneuve is 'still pinching' himself.

Paul successfully rides the worm, and it's the movie's single most thrilling sequence — one of those rare moments when you can feel the director Denis Villeneuve flexing every blockbuster muscle in his body.

With its heightened life-or-death stakes and sometimes staggering large-scale action sequences, Dune: Part Two is certainly a more exciting and eventful journey than Dune: Part One. But even here, the high points are over too soon, and the movie quickly moves on. Villeneuve is an impressive builder of sci-fi worlds, but his storytelling is too mechanical to sustain a real sense of awe.

Admittedly, there is a ton of plot to get through in Frank Herbert's original 1965 novel, a dense saga of feudal warfare and environmental decay. Paul leads a mighty Fremen insurgency against the Harkonnens, destroying their troops and disrupting their spice-mining operations.

Paul also occasionally clashes with his noble mother, Lady Jessica, who ushers in some of the movie's more mind-bending sequences: trippy hallucinations, spooky religious rituals, and a subplot involving a telepathic fetus that reminded me of the Star Child from 2001 .

Sci-Fi epic 'Dune' is an immersive but incomplete experience

Sci-Fi epic 'Dune' is an immersive but incomplete experience

Lady Jessica is played by the formidable Rebecca Ferguson, who keeps you guessing about her character's motives as she urges Paul to embrace his divine calling. But she gets fierce pushback from a Fremen warrior, Chani, with whom Paul has fallen in love. Chani, played by a terrific Zendaya, rejects the prophecy entirely and urges Paul not to buy into it.

Eventually Paul comes to the cynical realization that it doesn't matter if he's a messiah or not, so long as his followers believe he is. Villeneuve, who co-wrote the script with Jon Spaihts, shrewdly calls Paul's heroism into question, and in doing so, pushes back against the common accusation that Dune is just another white-savior fantasy.

That said, the movie isn't as adept at handling the various influences that Herbert wove into the novel, which draws heavily on Arab culture and Muslim beliefs. As such, it's hard to watch the movie and not think about current conflicts in the Middle East — and wonder if it will have anything trenchant or meaningful to say about them. That's a lot to ask of even the smartest, gutsiest blockbuster, but Dune: Part Two doesn't rise to the occasion: It ultimately treats politics as superficially as it treats everything else.

For all Villeneuve's astounding craftsmanship, there's a blankness to his filmmaking that I can't get past, even when he's introducing a frightening Harkonnen villain played by Austin Butler, who's utterly unrecognizable here as the star of Elvis .

What this Dune needed was a director with not just a massive budget and an exacting design sense, but a touch of madness in his spirit — someone like David Lynch, who famously directed a much-maligned adaptation of Dune back in 1984. That movie was a flop, but as always, box office only tells part of the story. For sheer grotesque poetry and visionary grandeur, Lynch's film still worms its way into my imagination in a way that this one never will.

'Dune: Part Two' nails the dismount in the conclusion(?) of the sweeping sci-fi saga

'Dune: Part Two' nails the dismount in the conclusion(?) of the sweeping sci-fi saga

IMAGES

  1. A Thousand and One Nights (1945)

    movie reviews a thousand and one

  2. A Thousand and One Nights (1945)

    movie reviews a thousand and one

  3. 'A Thousand And One' Review: Teyana Taylor In A.V. Rockwell's

    movie reviews a thousand and one

  4. One Thousand and One Nights (2012)

    movie reviews a thousand and one

  5. A Thousand and One

    movie reviews a thousand and one

  6. Main trailer & poster for movie “One In A Hundred Thousand”

    movie reviews a thousand and one

COMMENTS

  1. A Thousand and One movie review (2023)

    A.V. Rockwell's "A Thousand and One" was the somewhat surprising winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance a couple of months ago, a trophy taken home by major movies like "CODA" and "Whiplash" in past years. While other films were considered frontrunners, it feels like Rockwell's heartfelt drama took the prize largely because of the sheer force of its central performance, a ...

  2. 'A Thousand and One' Review: A New York Love Story

    Played by a mesmerizing Teyana Taylor, Inez holds you rapt throughout a sweeping New York story of love and survival, motherhood and gentrification. Aaron Ricketts/Focus Features. By Manohla ...

  3. Review

    March 29, 2023 at 9:39 a.m. EDT. Teyana Taylor in "A Thousand and One." (Aaron Ricketts/Focus Features) 4 min. ( 4 stars) Writer-director A.V. Rockwell makes a triumphant debut with "A ...

  4. A Thousand and One

    A THOUSAND AND ONE follows unapologetic and free-spirited Inez (Teyana Taylor), who kidnaps six-year-old Terry from the foster care system. Holding onto their secret and each other, mother and son ...

  5. 'A Thousand and One' review: Teyana Taylor stars in this ...

    A Thousand and One begins in 1994, shortly before a 22-year-old woman named Inez is released from Rikers Island. We don't know much about her, but Teyana Taylor, the electrifying actor who plays ...

  6. A Thousand and One review

    A Thousand and One is ultimately most successful as a portrait of ever-shifting, ever-warring New York. Yue's camerawork and Rockwell's eye for marginalized communities' vitality and ...

  7. 'A Thousand and One' Review: Teyana Taylor Shines in Stirring Drama

    'A Thousand and One' Review: Teyana Taylor Powerfully Embodies a Woman's Fight to Keep Home and Family Together. Writer-director A.V. Rockwell's feature debut is a volatile account of a ...

  8. A Thousand and One

    Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 5, 2024. Ana Yorke PopMatters. Several knife-turning twists will rattle you whole before the end, but there's no gimmick. The pain is real. A Thousand ...

  9. 'A Thousand and One' review: Teyana Taylor's primal instincts

    Review: 'A Thousand and One' offers a gritty New York story of survival. Teyana Taylor in the movie "A Thousand and One.". Mothers are often the keepers of secrets, borne from a primal ...

  10. A Thousand and One review

    Something in the subdued way that he assumes that abandonment is inevitable cuts deep, triggering Inez's own memories of a childhood in the care system. She makes a fateful decision and snatches ...

  11. A Thousand and One: how to watch, reviews, awards and more

    Here is the official synopsis: " A Thousand and One follows unapologetic and free-spirited Inez, who kidnaps her 6-year-old son Terry from the foster care system. Holding onto their secret and each other, mother and son set out to reclaim their sense of home, identity and stability, in a rapidly changing New York City."

  12. A Thousand and One Review: Teyana Taylor Is a Powerhouse

    Curiously, "A Thousand and One" mostly elides the particulars of September 11, even though its shadow looms over the movie's last act. Inez and Terry continue to live in a crummy apartment ...

  13. A THOUSAND AND ONE : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

    A Thousand and One (now streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Peacock) marks the emergence of A.V. Rockwell as a fresh directorial voice, and Teyana Taylor as a real deal dramatic lead.The film is ...

  14. A Thousand and One Review: Teyana Taylor Shines in Family Drama

    This review was originally part of our coverage of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Over the course of writer-director A.V. Rockwell 's feature debut A Thousand and One , time can feel like it ...

  15. 'A Thousand And One' Review: Gritty '90s-set Motherhood Drama

    Critics Pick 'A Thousand And One' Review: Teyana Taylor Electrifies a Tough, Graceful Tale of Us-Against-the-World Motherhood Director A.V. Rockwell's feature debut is a deeply felt, decades ...

  16. A Thousand and One Movie Review: Teyana Taylor Shines in a Deeply

    A Thousand and One is Directed by A.V. Rockwell and Stars Teyana Taylor, Josiah Cross and William Catlett. Review: Sundance 2023's Grand Jury Prize winner A Thousand and One has a gravitational pull at the center - Teyana Taylor, giving a stunning performance that competes with some of the year's bests. A riveting drama that puts Director A.V. Rockwell on the map for years to come.

  17. A Thousand and One Movie Review

    Parents Need to Know. Parents need to know that A Thousand and One is a powerful drama about a mother (Teyana Taylor) who kidnaps her child from the foster care system in 1994 and raises him in a changing New York City landscape. Showcasing perseverance against adversity as well as love and loyalty among family members, the film….

  18. A Thousand And One Review: Taylor Is A Powerhouse In Poignant Debut

    Sundance alum A.V. Rockwell brought her stunning debut feature film to the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. A Thousand and One, also written by the talented filmmaker, stars triple threat Teyana Taylor as an unapologetic and determined mother ready to risk it all for her son.A beautiful examination of life in New York City spanning several decades, Rockwell brings her skill as a visual storyteller ...

  19. A Thousand and One

    Sep 14, 2023. "A Thousand and One" is the feature debut for Writer/Director A.V. Rockwell. It's a powerful story **** opening scene reveals Inez (actor Teyana Taylor, perhaps better known as a singer, dancer and choreographer) at Rikers Island. After her release, she reunites with her son Terry. It's 1994.

  20. A Thousand and One (2023)

    Filter by Rating: 8/10. Captivating. fanboycantina 28 January 2023. Premiering at Sundance, A Thousand and One tells the story of a mother and son, navigating against hardship, the weight of New York City policies, gentrification, and a secret. There's a feeling of tension throughout the film, waiting for what may happen to Inez and Terry ...

  21. A Thousand and One

    A Thousand and One is a 2023 American drama film written and directed by A. V. Rockwell in her feature directorial debut. The film stars Teyana Taylor, Will Catlett, Josiah Cross, Aven Courtney, and Aaron Kingsley Adetola.Set between the 1990s and 2000s, it focuses on a single mother who decides to kidnap her son out of the foster care system to raise him herself, as the two struggle with life ...

  22. A Thousand And One

    A Thousand And One Review. Inez (Teyona Taylor) is a just-out-of-prison 22-year-old who kidnaps her 6-year-old son Terry from the foster care system in 1994. Over the next decade, they battle to ...

  23. A Thousand and One: Movie Clip

    All A Thousand and One Videos. A Thousand and One: Movie Clip - How We Met 1:39 Added: March 28, 2023. A Thousand and One: Exclusive Movie Clip - Little Boy 0:29 Added: March 27, 2023.

  24. A Thousand and One (2023)

    A Thousand and One: Directed by A.V. Rockwell. With Teyana Taylor, Aaron Kingsley Adetola, Aven Courtney, Josiah Cross. After unapologetic and fiercely loyal Inez kidnaps her son Terry from the foster care system, mother and son set out to reclaim their sense of home, identity, and stability, in a rapidly changing New York City.

  25. Dune: Part 2 Ending Explained

    Dune is one of those epic sci-fi novels that's just too big to capture in one movie properly. With Dune: Part 2 hitting theaters, we've finally gotten the complete story of Paul Atreides and ...

  26. 'Dune: Part Two': What Critics Are Saying About the Movie in Reviews

    Joshua Rothkopf at The Los Angeles Times, who called it a "sci-fi masterpiece" in the headline of his review, said: "Villeneuve has made good on one of the great Hollywood gambles in recent memory ...

  27. Column: In Lady Jessica, 'Dune' created an all-time movie mom. Then

    'Dune: Part Two' is a vivid, sand-in-your-mouth vision of Frank Herbert's classic. Unfortunately, it turns 'Part One's' most indelible character into a human baby monitor.

  28. 'Dune: Part Two' review: Action sequences can't help sustain a sense of

    Dune: Part Two is a more exciting and eventful journey than Dune: Part One. But even here, the high points are over too soon, and the movie quickly moves on.