Andrew Crump

Ozon’s film grafts aesthetic pleasures with danger, and gets closer to the core of teenage romance as a payoff.

Comprising hardcore and doom metal, à la Isis, Electric Wizard, and Doomriders, Bliss is more metal than most of the metal records released in the last five years. The substance beneath the slaughter is a happy bonus, and a reminder that even the ugliest horror movies can have more going on under the hood than one might think.

Similar to how the characters are there to serve Anthony, Colman, Gatiss, Sewell and Poots are there to serve Hopkins. The stage belongs to him. What he does with it is something special, an unmissable performance from an actor with a filmography loaded with them.

The strength of ensemble’s performances can’t be overstated, especially that of Woodard and Hodge—she one of the greatest actors of her generation, he on the path to becoming one of the greats of his own.

Yuasa doesn’t care much for substance, so beyond the film’s surface charms there’s not much to hang onto. But those surface charms are substance enough. Colorful, madcap, and surprisingly sweet, The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl is the best nocturnal romp you never had, and a dizzying reignition of rom-com formula.

The sensation of the film, on the other hand, is suspicion, the relentless and sickening notion that nobody can be trusted. Whether the thrumming electronic soundtrack or Rodríguez’s photography, composed to the point of feeling suffocating, Chile ’76 drives that anxiety like a knife in the heart.

Wheaton is the film’s first exceptional element. The second is Stevenson’s restraint.

Their Finest is a joy to watch, if not for Scherfig’s direction than for Arterton’s leading performance, a mixture of affronted gumption, feminine stoicism and vulnerability that adds up to towering portraiture.

Army of the Doomstar prioritizes well-earned sentimentality over grisly comedy, and balances the film’s heart with the best animation of the series to date.

It’s the most awkward family TV show you’ve ever seen, offset by a never-ending barrage of gags squeezed off with such a consistent rate of fire that keeping up is impossible. But there’s a silver lining: Each is hilarious.

Simó “gets” Buñuel’s drives, and his animation lends the story a layer of romanticism while emphasizing that talent isn’t a hall pass. Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles treats genius as a knottier idea. Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan is a masterpiece, sure, but “masterpiece” takes on layers of new meaning once we see how the sausage is made.

Run gives its dual leads a slim window for making first impressions and finding bases for their roles, which makes their performances and Chaganty’s direction doubly impressive.

Healy’s good; Schilling’s superb. Together, they make a hell of a team, he the wide-eyed schlemiel, she the hysterical but thoroughly capable victim who would naturally rather not be a victim in the first place.

Maya Forbes has crafted a zippy comedy about a charismatic charlatan and the disastrous impact his fakery has on the rubes gullible enough to fall for his schtick.

Gardner’s a timeless actress, and it’s through her that Pandora and the Flying Dutchman gains its own timelessness. She’s so cool and controlled that any time the film starts tipping over the edge from fantasy to absurdity, her mere presence grounds it.

Don’t mistake Come to Daddy as anything less than unbridled, of course, but for such a staunchly bonkers movie, composure rules Timpson’s aesthetic. He maintains an impressive control over a narrative that, at face value, appears to be constantly spiraling out of control, but that’s part of his design.

If you, like critics, consider Coogan selfish or asinine, the film will validate that view, but for a purpose, and through the sharpest of organic comedy.

Think of the film as an extended cousin of Too Many Cooks, where parody gives way to weirdness, which gives way to surrealism, which gives way to genuine horror by the end. Bonkers as the combination sounds, and it is unimpeachably bonkers, the effect of their marriage is hypnotic.

It’s a calculated and logical film about an altogether illogical subject.

Saint Frances gets specific, stays lighthearted, but hits like a ton of emotional bricks.

It’s an honest to goodness real movie with a mind of its own; practical FX work and creature design help, too, as essential to what distinguishes The Wretched from its influences as the Pierce brothers’ writing.

If Elfman’s destination is grim, the journey she takes to get there is palliative.

It’s a lean, efficient, no-frills film, and that’s as it should be. Begos rejects pretense. He’s making his version of a psycho Santa flick, no more, no less. But the logline’s comic absurdity and the execution of his premise is so straightforward that Christmas Bloody Christmas feels fresh among the season’s horror canon. It’s a Christmas miracle.

The writer/director demonstrates a rare storytelling economy in his feature debut, leaving no trace of fat on Homebound’s bones and letting only the most essential elements shine.

It’s an exquisitely challenging production, one that calls for repeat viewings over years, all the better to persuade the film to surrender its meaning.

All My Friends Hate Me digs out a special niche between cringe comedy and horror, as if Stourton, Palmer and director Andrew Gaynord welded an EC Comics plot to an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Don’t let the film’s attitude or excess fool you: it takes a dim view of the culture in the neck of the U.S. where it’s set, but nonetheless cares deeply for the people trapped there who deserve to live better lives in better places.

Trump plays no part in Rachel Dretzin’s Far from the Tree, a documentary distilled from Andrew Solomon’s nonfiction novel of the same name, but the film rebukes his cruelty regardless by doing what cinema does so well: highlighting humanity.