Alex Abad-Santos

Throughout Beyoncé’s career, it’s been made to appear that this woman is something closer to deity than one of us. She is the closest thing to perfection, a once-in-a-lifetime talent. But what’s made her so spectacular to us is, privately, exhausting. Renaissance is the merging of the two, showing us the sheer amount of determination and work it takes to produce a show like Renaissance, and the toll it takes on the very human woman behind it all.

Tom Holland masterfully channels Peter’s teenage angst, which could easily come off as melodramatic or superficial, and infuses it with respect. Watts’s artful work makes you realize how often we don’t take teenagers’ anxieties, joys, and fears seriously. Peter’s life in Homecoming is a frustrating, jagged journey toward figuring out what kind of person he is.

The most shocking thing about Avengers: Endgame is that there are several moments within this colossal movie that feel like a Marvel miracle. These are the pockets of time when what you watch on screen sends a shock of joy jumping through your skin, making your eyes go wide and watery at the spectacle.

Booster and Ahn understand that the world their characters live in isn’t always generous or kind. Their wistful film also shows that despite gay life’s cruelties, it doesn’t ever mean it’s lacking in love.

When I say that Guardians Vol. 3 is the best Marvel film since Endgame, however, I mean it as a genuine compliment: The movie is great and not just the best house on a bad block.

The film’s use of neon candy pinks, its star’s striking choice of nail polish, the soundtrack, the casting, the drama imbued in every shot, no matter whether it’s an extreme close-up of just-smacked bubblegum or a wide shot of a bleak overpass, or our electrifying heroine (played by Carey Mulligan) — it all works in unison to deliver a mesmerizing film wrapped around Fennell’s savage idea.

Yibo’s performance seals Hidden Blade’s status as an unexpected pleasure. Once finally assembled, its cinematic intricacies yield infinite rewards.

Coogler and his talented cast and team tell a story that dazzles, one that dares its audience to dream of a world unrestrained by our own stifling reality, without ignoring how the pain of the real world informs those joyful dreams.

Shazam’s tale of orphans and wizardry is not perfect — Sivana is a stylish but ultimately forgettable menace — but it’s pretty close.

Gorgeous, absolutely charming.

Reeves has created the best iteration of Batman in years, in a film that examines the humanity behind the character. And it’s one that I would like to see again and again.

A superhero movie so tightly made and brilliantly entertaining that even Deadpool himself would have trouble finding fault with it.

It challenges ideas about great power and responsibility, stories about the worlds we live in and the things we’re searching for, and our concepts of heroism and morality. And it does so with a gorgeous, imaginative animated style that makes each world seem limitless.

With its risky visual storytelling and tender script, Into the Spider-Verse earns the greatest honor that one can bestow on a Spider-Man movie: It somehow makes you want to see more Spider-Man movies. Including at least a few more for Miles Morales alone.

For the most part, though, Deep Water has abandoned thought and logic for horny, unhinged vibes. It’s so much beautiful fun.

Though the movie isn’t perfect, particularly in how it underuses some characters and gifted actors, those complaints are easily overridden by distinct moments where charm, oddity, and spectacle collide to create the kind of soul-soaring magic that Marvel at its best is capable of.

Even if Black Widow is years late and can feel retroactive in parts, Nat’s own (very good) movie asserts the character’s legacy in the MCU and what she meant to the franchise as a whole.

Remarkably, Songbirds & Snakes has found a way to make the Hunger Games feel new and sharp.

Whereas Crowley left no one off the hook in his scathing play, creating a purposely painful experience, this remake seems to lack the same purpose of frightening accountability. The flourishes that made the original work so risky and raw feel more like polished, glimmering performance in the adaptation.

The film isn’t without its pleasures; it’s fun to see Aquaman and Wonder Woman beat people up and smirk afterward. I didn’t realize that watching Superman blow on stuff and freeze it with this super breath was something that would bring me immense happiness. And I’ve sunk an afternoon or more into video games in the past. But it would’ve been nice to see Snyder knock this out of the park and supplement his eye for visuals and his unique style with a story that had a bit more soul, especially with his very rare $70 million second chance.

Ocean’s 8, at its most endearing, is a slick, glamorous romp that makes you yearn for three more hours with its impossibly charismatic crew.

On its face, Venom 2 is a no-frills, rock-and-roll superhero flick that unashamedly swings for the fences when it comes to camp and cheese. Yet beneath those elements, it’s strangely about finding love and the intimacy of relationships, building on the rom-com core of the first movie.

The violence and fights in Wonder Woman are intriguing not just because they’re stunning but also because of how emotional they are.

M3gan takes the idea of a kid knowing too much about the world and grafts it to an extreme premise, stretching it to the point of absurdity. But the kernel of fear that it begins with isn’t as alien as it seems.

It’s not a perfect movie, but it certainly is good enough. Perhaps the most surprising thing about The Marvels is that it shows that the Marvel movie formula, an often-critiqued aspect of the studio, isn’t broken. In fact when it works, that formula is still capable of making magic.

Infinity War boasts the most breathtaking, audacious moment in superhero movie history, one that rocketed through my brain and tore apart everything I thought I knew about the past 10 years of Marvel moviemaking. For the first time in a while, I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Lightyear itself is a sweet musing on the value of friendship, an origin story that gives the titular character a sense of purpose, and a zippy ride through an often-gorgeous cosmic world.

Large adult sad boys who want to take over the world and launch it into an apocalypse is something we’ve seen before (see: Loki in Avengers, Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Luther and Doomsday in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Steppenwolf in Justice League). This formulaic story is something fit for the other guys. The more time spent on it, the less time WW1984 spends being wondrous.