Alissa Wilkinson

The film is a beautifully empathetic work of art.

“Fanatical” is both a truly appalling story and a peek into something darker and more sinister about the way social groups form and evolve — and devolve, too — when the internet mediates it all.

The movie is a pure delight — a funny, fast-paced, heartfelt story of a friendship and a weird dream. Impressively, it will satisfy fans of The Room while remaining completely accessible to those who’ve never seen it.

Kurzel favors stylized images and the occasional anachronistic metal track to provoke a mood more than faithfully recreate history. And his approach works well in this film, bolstered by a strong cast, which features MacKay, Russell Crowe, Nicholas Hoult, Charlie Hunnam, Thomasin McKenzie, and Essie Davis.

The Wedding Banquet is so charming, and then so unexpectedly moving, that its strengths eventually outweigh the bits of mess.

The movie works best, above all, as a melodrama about the limits and possibilities of love, and how love can make us into the best and worst versions of ourselves in the very same moment.

In addition to the absurd stunts and convoluted plot machinations, what makes the Mission: Impossible movies work in general, and Fallout in particular, is that they let their characters be characters, driven by a number of complex factors, even when they’re chasing an enemy or trying to get out of a scrape.

Most interestingly, we listen in on young Beninese as they discuss the wider repercussions in an open forum. . . It’s a rich conversation that rapidly lays out the controversies and bigger issues at stake.

The result is a realist tale about labor, class, and cruelty, while also being a moral fable with a fantastical core.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a tall tale about death, a murder ballad about us, trapped in a universe that is mostly unreasonable and nonsensical. And at the end of the journey we’re left laughing through the lump in our throat.

If Hollywood is going to make “now more than ever” movies, this is the way to do it: with a marvelous cast, pitch-perfect design, and a story that feels like the work of latter-day Frank Capra. The Post is an act of goodwill and faith in American institutions, but it’s also aware of how fragile those institutions are, how dependent on their participants they are for their survival, and how much is at stake when press freedom is threatened.

Goodman’s career is fascinating on its own merits, and the film is full of footage of her doggedly chasing down politicians and sources who clearly would prefer to control their own story. But more important, the movie gradually explores the fundamentals of journalism that she believes in and passes on to colleagues.

The truth is that Shackleton isn’t settling for one mode; he’s working in a bunch of them at once, mixing affection and critique. Just like any true fan would.

It takes its time at first, but once it really gets going, Lurker is snaky and disconcerting and smart.

Copa 71 is engrossing, but it struck me that like another documentary about a forgotten moment in history — the Oscar-winning “Summer of Soul” (2021) — this movie reveals the power of recording history for future generations.

“Martha” feels like a far more comprehensible key to Stewart — who has been the subject of speculation, fascination, jokes that turn cruel and plenty of schadenfreude — than half a century of media attention has managed to find.

It’s a very good movie, tight and layered and complex. And though it could feel chilly — and I understand that reaction — I found it quite moving.

Private Life is an accessible and complex portrait of two people whose ardent shared desire for a child leads them in some unconventional directions, and it’s a joy to watch whether or not you’ve shared their experience.

In The Tale, Fox takes an experience that’s far, far too common — and newly visible in American culture — and mines it for its emotional heft, turning it into an interrogation of how those who’ve experienced assault and abuse go on to navigate their lives. It is a story of a woman taking her life back, nested in a film serving the same purpose.

When you’re a teenager, you project your feelings onto the world, sure that you’re in the right and everyone is out to get you. But in reality, your biggest enemy is usually yourself. Booksmart taps into that truth and makes it memorably relatable in a way that goes far beyond the cap, gown, and college acceptance letters.

Sorkin is still a better writer than director, but the fun of watching this film comes mostly from witnessing him at the top of his game.

This isn’t just about fringe cults on ranches anymore: It’s about social groups, theories about the world, the bubble you float around in on the internet, the candidate you believe in an election.

Of course, you could argue that any documentary tells its story as much with what it omits as with what it includes. But by letting the news footage, speech clips and documents “speak,” the transformation of the rhetoric is undeniable, as are some of the causes. The tale is not flattering, but it is illuminating.

There is, indeed, an explanation — but I kind of wish there wasn’t. For most of Old, the sheer weirdness of the setup is what’s so compelling.

"The Cathedral” embodies everything that’s lovely about [Grashow's] work — its impishness, its openheartedness and its darkness, too — and Jimmy & the Demons captures all of that with a spirit that matches its subject.

It’s a fan’s dream, to be sure. But in getting so close to a man who has so often been turned into a caricature, “EPiC” goes beyond just the concert: We enjoy both the performance and the man who loved nothing more than to perform.

Life gets in the way of art all the time, and art can be made out of life. What matters, the movie suggests, is hanging onto one another for dear life.

It’s still fascinating to imagine a time, not all that long ago, in which painting, sculpture, jazz, literature and more were considered keys to the exporting of American influence around the world.