John Powers

Few things haunt a critic more than loving something and not being able to share it. Every year, I wind up being plagued by the ghosts of the things I wasn't able to review — dog-eared books, dust-covered DVDs, TV shows and songs that rattle the windows of my playlists. Each December, I try to placate them with this ghost list before time runs out.

Writer-director Céline Sciamma's gorgeous new costume drama centers on the relationship between a young female artist and the woman she's been commissioned to secretly paint.

The new season of the Netflix's wonderfully entertaining historical soap opera carries Queen Elizabeth II's story into the mid-1960s and '70s, when Britain's post-war afterglow has faded.